“OK, we thought we’d act out some prince and princess stories,” Caroline said, trying to sound cheerful. “We’ll start with ‘Cinderella’! That’ll be fun, won’t it?”
No one said anything.
“And we even have some pretend glass slippers, too!” Louis pulled a pair of high-heeled shoes out of a nearby cabinet and held them up on a cushion.
Caroline gave the kids different parts to play, even though none of them were very enthusiastic. Rachel and Kirsty were guests at the prince’s ball, and they watched as the girl playing Cinderella ran off at the stroke of midnight, leaving her glass slipper behind. But when the boy playing the prince asked everyone to try on the glass slipper, it didn’t fit anyone — not even Cinderella!
“I don’t understand,” complained Cinderella, trying to force her foot into the shoe. “It fit just a little while ago!”
“Everything’s going wrong,” the prince said sadly. “This isn’t the right ending to the story.”
“Yes, and we know why!” Kirsty whispered in Rachel’s ear.
“OK, maybe we should try something else,” Louis suggested, glancing anxiously at Caroline. “Why don’t you get into pairs and write your own stories?”
“It’s a nice sunny day, so go and explore the gardens for inspiration,” Caroline said as she and Louis handed out velvet-covered notebooks and gold pens. “We’ll all meet up later to share our stories.”
Rachel and Kirsty left the library and headed toward the gardens along with everyone else. But as they passed the grand staircase, Kirsty grabbed Rachel’s arm.
“Rachel, look at the portrait of Princess Charlotte,” Kirsty said in a low voice. “There’s a golden light shining from behind it!”
As everyone else went outside, the girls stayed back, gazing up at the bright light. Then a fairy fluttered out from behind the painting and danced through the air toward them!
“It’s me, girls!” called Princess Hope the Happiness Fairy, “I’m here to search for my magical tiara. Will you help me?”
“Of course we will!” Rachel and Kirsty cried.
“Thank you, girls,” Hope said gratefully. She now wore a beautiful red shift dress with a large bow on the front, and gold sandals. “Where do you think we should start looking?”
“We’re supposed to be going out to the gardens,” Kirsty told her, “so maybe we should start there.”
Hope nodded. She flew down and slipped under the collar of Rachel’s jacket, so she was out of sight. Then the girls followed the others outside.
The gardens looked even more beautiful in the spring sunshine than when the girls had seen them from the bus the day before. Daffodils and tulips nodded their heads in the warm breeze, and the marble fountains sent sparkling sprays of water into the air. But Rachel and Kirsty still didn’t feel like smiling. Neither did any of the other kids, who were wandering around the lush green lawns looking grumpy.
“See that peacock?” said Kirsty, pointing out the bird to Rachel. The peacock walked down one of the gravel paths, its tail feathers firmly closed and drooping on the ground. “He looks exactly how I feel!”
“Oh, dear,” Hope murmured, sounding distressed. “Everyone should be having a wonderful time here at the Golden Palace. We must find my tiara, girls!”
Keeping a sharp eye out for the missing tiara, Rachel and Kirsty went over to join some of the other kids. They were staring at the figures that the gardeners had clipped out of the thick leafy hedges.
“Look, there’s a prince and a princess,” Rachel said, pointing at two green figures with crowns on their heads. The prince and the princess appeared to be dancing. “And there’s a teddy bear, too!”
“This one is a witch,” Kirsty added, admiring a very complicated figure in a pointed hat sitting on her broomstick. “Rachel, maybe these characters would be good for our story?”
Rachel nodded. “Let’s see what others there are,” she suggested. “Look, there are some gardeners working on new figures on the other side of that hedge.”
The group of gardeners was clipping away at the branches of the hedge, concentrating on the shape they were making. Rachel and Kirsty went to look. Along the way, they peered under all the hedges to see if they could spot the tell-tale magical sparkle of Hope’s missing tiara. But there was nothing.
The gardeners had on sun hats with large brims that covered their faces. Rachel also noticed that they had very big feet. She began to look at them suspiciously.
Then one of the gardeners pulled off his gardening glove, tilted back the brim of his hat, and scratched his long green nose with his finger.
“These gardeners have green thumbs and green fingers!” Kirsty exclaimed. “They’re goblins in disguise!”
“And look,” Hope whispered. “They’re trimming the hedge into the shape of Jack Frost holding his ice wand!”
As Hope and the girls watched, the goblins finished sculpting Jack Frost’s head and stood back proudly to admire their work. Quickly, Rachel and Kirsty ducked behind the hedge on the other side.
“I wonder if they have the tiara with them,” Kirsty said in a low voice.
“Let’s listen to their conversation and find out!” Hope suggested. “It’ll be easier to stay out of sight if I turn you both into fairies.”
Rachel and Kirsty nodded. A few swishes of Hope’s wand sent a stream of fairy sparkles whirling around them. The girls instantly shrank down until they were exactly the same size as Hope, with the same glittery wings. Then the three friends fluttered out from behind the hedge. Quietly, Hope led them over to the figure of Jack Frost. The goblins had moved on to a new part of the hedge, and were discussing what shape to make next. Putting her finger to her lips, Hope landed silently on the branch that formed Jack Frost’s icicle beard. Rachel and Kirsty joined her.
“Let’s make this part of the hedge into the shape of Jack Frost’s Ice Castle,” suggested one of the goblins with a grin.
A second goblin nodded. “This is much more fun than that silly maze we got lost in,” he remarked.
“Yes, but it was a good idea to hide that magical tiara in the middle of the maze, wasn’t it?” the first goblin replied. “Those pesky fairies will never find it there! Ha, ha!”
Hope, Rachel, and Kirsty glanced at one another in delight. The tiara was hidden in the maze!
“It was my idea to put it there,” boasted the second goblin.
“No, I was the one who thought of it!” snapped a third goblin.
Leaving the goblins squabbling as they clipped away at the hedge, Hope, Rachel, and Kirsty zoomed off toward the maze. Luckily, it was close to the garden.
“It will be easy to spot the middle of the maze from above,” Hope said as they flew over the twisting and turning rows of thick hedges. “We won’t get lost, girls!”
But as Hope and the girls neared the center of the maze, they heard the sound of gruff voices.
“That sounds like more goblins!” Kirsty whispered, making a face.
“They must have stayed behind to guard the tiara,” said Rachel.
Hope and the girls quickly swooped down toward the middle of the maze and hid in a thick patch of leaves. They peeked out and immediately spotted two goblins. One of them was posing with Hope’s beautiful tiara on his head, while the other was doing his best to sculpt a figure of himself in the hedge, with the tiara on top. Rachel, Kirsty, and Hope tried not to give themselves away by laughing.
As the second goblin finished his figure, the goblin wearing the tiara rushed forward to take a closer look. He was now standing very close to where Rachel was hidden in the hedge.
“You made my nose too big!” the tiara-wearing goblin grumbled.
“No, I didn’t,” the other insisted. “It is big — it’s huge!”
Rachel saw her chance. She flew out of the hedge! Hovering in the air, she reached down to lift the tiara from the goblin’s head. But to Rachel’s dismay, the other goblin spotted her.
“Pesky fairy!”
he snapped, glaring at Rachel. Then he turned to his friend. “Run for it!” he shouted.
As Hope and Kirsty flew out of the hedge to join Rachel, the goblins took off running. One went left and one went right.
“Fly after the one who has the tiara!” Hope told Rachel and Kirsty. But when the goblin saw that they were following him, he took the tiara off.
“Catch!” he roared, and threw it over the hedge to the goblin who was running on the other side.
Hope, Rachel, and Kirsty flew over to him, but the goblin immediately tossed the tiara under the hedge, back to the first one.
“This is impossible!” Rachel panted as the goblins continued to race around the maze, flinging the tiara from one to the other as if it were a ball. “How are we going to get the tiara back?”
Kirsty made a grab for the tiara as one of the goblins tossed it over a hedge, but it sailed right past her. With a smug chuckle, the other goblin grabbed it and ran off.
“Can’t catch me!” he boasted, waving the tiara around.
Kirsty glanced desperately around for inspiration. Her gaze fell on the goblin figure made from the hedge.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “I have an idea!”
Kirsty whispered her plan to Hope and Rachel, who smiled and nodded.
“We’ll have to distract the goblins, Rachel, while Hope works her magic!” Kirsty told her friend.
The girls flew after the goblins, drawing them away from the center of the maze. Kirsty glanced back over her shoulder and saw Hope point her wand at the hedge goblin. A magical mist of fairy dust surrounded it, and right away the goblin made of leaves and twigs turned into a real goblin!
“Everything’s going according to plan,” Kirsty whispered, delighted.
“Hey, you two!” a gruff voice called to the goblins. Kirsty and Rachel exchanged a hopeful glance as the goblins spun around. The girls knew that Hope was using her magic to make her voice sound just like a goblin! “Throw the tiara to me right away — or those pesky fairies will get it!”
“Here, take it!” shouted the goblin with the tiara, hurling it through the air.
The hedge goblin easily caught the tiara, but as he did, he began to turn back to leaves and twigs again. Kirsty and Rachel flew forward and caught the tiara before it fell to the ground. Then Hope fluttered out to join them. The two goblins groaned loudly as they realized that they’d been tricked.
“What’s Jack Frost going to say?” one of them mumbled angrily as they stomped away.
“And how are we going to find our way out of this maze?” the other goblin wanted to know.
Kirsty and Rachel passed the tiara to Hope. As soon as she touched it, the tiara shrank down to its fairy size, and Hope placed it carefully on her head. Rachel and Kirsty smiled.
“My magic is working already!” Hope laughed. “That’s the first time I’ve seen you smile all day, girls! And now everyone else will be happy, too. Thank you for your help. Now I must rush back to Fairyland and tell my princess sisters the great news! I know they’ll be hoping that you’ll help them find their tiaras, too.”
“We’ll do our best,” Rachel promised as Hope fluttered off to Fairyland in a shower of rainbow-colored fairy magic.
“We’d better go back to the library with everyone else,” said Kirsty as they saw the other kids making their way back into the Golden Palace. As the girls hurried to join them, they saw that everyone was now chatting happily, smiling and laughing and obviously enjoying themselves.
“What a difference!” Rachel whispered to Kirsty.
Caroline and Louis were waiting in the library for them, and everyone settled down to write their stories.
“Let’s write something really magical,” Kirsty suggested. “We could have the princess from the portrait by the grand staircase as our heroine.”
“Good idea,” Rachel agreed, beginning to write.
After a little while, Louis suggested that they share their stories. “Rachel and Kirsty, would you like to go first?”
The girls stood up and, taking turns, they read their story out loud. It was about a princess named Charlotte who was sad because she’d lost her smile. But with the help of a talking peacock and a teddy bear cut from a hedge, she found it hidden in the middle of the maze. Everyone listened in silence, and when Rachel and Kirsty finished, there was a round of applause.
“What a wonderful, magical story,” Caroline said. “Nice work.”
“There’s something about the Golden Palace that almost makes you believe in magic!” said one of the girls, and Rachel and Kirsty grinned at each other.
“So, has everyone had a happy first day at the Golden Palace?” asked Louis.
Everyone shouted “YES!”
“And we have another exciting adventure with the Princess Fairies to look forward to tomorrow!” Kirsty murmured to Rachel.
Rachel and Kirsty have helped Hope find her tiara. Now it’s time for them to help
Cassidy
the Costume Fairy!
Join their next adventure in this special sneak peek. . . .
Kirsty and Rachel walked along the stone hallway with a group of kids. They were all chatting excitedly. It was the second day of their stay at the Golden Palace, a beautiful mansion in the countryside. They were having a wonderful time! The Golden Palace was amazing — it had been built from gleaming white stone hundreds of years ago, and had high towers topped with golden turrets. The owners of the palace were having a special Kids’ Royal Sleepover Camp during spring break. It included lots of different fun activities.
Yesterday, the girls had found themselves on a brand-new fairy adventure! This time, they were helping the Princess Fairies look for their magical tiaras. The Princess Fairies were cousins of the king and queen of Fairyland. They had been their special guests at a Fairyland Palace ball, but naughty Jack Frost and his mischievous goblins had snuck into the ball — and had stolen the seven Princess Fairies’ tiaras. The tiaras were full of powerful fairy magic. Without them, no human or fairy could have a happy or magical time!
“Follow me, everyone. Come and see the palace’s Jewel Chamber,” said Louis, one of the palace directors who was running the camp. “Through here.”
Kirsty and Rachel followed the group into a small wood-paneled room that had glass display cases along the walls. “Wow,” Kirsty breathed, as she stared into the first case. “Princess Charlotte’s christening bracelet from when she was a baby — a gift from the Spanish royal family, over two hundred years ago!”
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Rainbow Magic Limited c/o HIT Entertainment, 830 South Greenville Avenue, Allen, TX 75002-3320
e-ISBN 978-0-545-51277-0
Copyright © 2011 by Rainbow Magic Limited.
Previously published as Honor the Happy Days Fairy by Orchard U.K. in 2011.
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc., 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012, by arrangement with Rainbow Magic Limited.
SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc. RAINBOW MAGIC is a trademark of Rainbow Magic Limited. Reg. U.S. Patent & Trademark Office and other countries. HIT and the HIT logo are trademarks of HIT Entertainment Limited.
First Scholastic printing, August 2012
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Hope the Happiness Fairy Page 2