Isadora Moon Goes to School
Isadora Moon Goes Camping
Isadora Moon Goes to the Ballet
Isadora Moon Has a Birthday
For vampires, fairies, and humans everywhere! And for Nicola, who loves the ballet.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Harriet Muncaster
Cover art copyright © 2016 by Harriet Muncaster
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Originally published in paperback by Oxford University Press, Oxford, in 2016.
Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks and A Stepping Stone Book and the colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 9780399558290 (hc) — ISBN 9780399558306 (lib. bdg.)
ISBN 9780399558313 (pbk.) — ebook ISBN 9780399558320
This book has been officially leveled by using the F&P Text Level Gradient™ Leveling System.
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Contents
Cover
Other Titles
Title Page
Dedication
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Excerpt from Isadora Moon Has a Birthday
About the Author
Isadora Moon, that’s me! And this is Pink Rabbit. He is my best friend. We do everything together. Some of our favorite things include flying near the stars in the night sky, having glitter tea parties with my bat-patterned tea set, and practicing our ballet.
We have been practicing our ballet a lot recently and putting on shows for Mom and Dad. I have discovered that Dad’s vampire cape makes a great stage curtain! It looks especially nice with silver-star sequins glued onto it…though I am not sure Dad agrees. He seemed a little…annoyed last time he saw his best cape being used as a stage curtain.
“It’s covered in stars!” he complained. “I’m not a wizard—I’m a vampire! Vampires don’t have starry capes.”
I felt bad then, but it was okay because Mom waved her wand, and the stars all disappeared. She can do things like that because she’s a fairy. She was the one who brought Pink Rabbit to life for me.
“Good as new!” she said, sitting down on one of the chairs Pink Rabbit and I had put out for the audience. Dad sat down too, with my baby sister, Honeyblossom, on his lap, and they all waited for our show to begin.
“Right,” I whispered to Pink Rabbit once we were behind the non-starry curtain. “Can you remember your moves?”
Pink Rabbit nodded and did a perfect leap. He’s been getting very good at ballet lately. I gave him a thumbs-up.
“Let’s go!” I whispered.
Together we leapt out from behind the curtain in a magnificent jump. Mom and Dad clapped and cheered. Pink Rabbit began to twirl on his tippy-toes. I swirled and twirled in my glittering black tutu.
“Excellent!” called Dad.
“Enchanting!” said Mom, waving her wand so that we were showered with pink flower petals.
At the end of the show, I gave a deep curtsy and Pink Rabbit bowed, and Mom and Dad cheered some more. Even Honeyblossom clapped her chubby little hands.
“That was really wonderful!” said Mom. “And so professional!”
Pink Rabbit looked proud and puffed out his chest in his striped waistcoat.
“One day you’ll both be prima ballerinas!” said Dad.
“I hope so!” I said as we both tiptoed gracefully across the floor. We followed Mom and Dad down the stairs and into the kitchen for breakfast. It was seven o’clock at night, but we always have two breakfasts in our house. One in the morning and one in the evening. That is because Dad sleeps during the day. He has his breakfast in the evening, before going out for his nightly fly.
“I want to be just like Tatiana Tutu!” I said as I began to spread peanut butter on a piece of toast. Tatiana Tutu is my favorite ballerina of all time.
I have never seen her in real life, but I always watch when she’s on TV, and I have a special scrapbook filled with pictures of her. I cut the pictures out of magazines and decorate them with starry sequins and silver glitter.
I also have a big poster of Tatiana Tutu on my bedroom wall. She is wearing a sparkling black tutu and her famous star diamond tiara. Her black tutu looks exactly like the kind a vampire-fairy might wear….It looks just like mine!
“If you keep practicing and work hard at your ballet, I’m sure you’ll be as good as Tatiana Tutu one day,” said Dad as he poured himself a glass of his red juice. Dad only ever drinks red juice. It’s a vampire thing.
“Yes,” said Mom. “Keep practicing and one day maybe we’ll come to watch you and Pink Rabbit perform in a real theater!”
Pink Rabbit bounced up and down.
The next day at school, I told my friends all about the ballet show Pink Rabbit and I put on for Mom and Dad.
“That sounds like so much fun!” said Zoe. “Can I come to your house and we can do it again? I could wear my pink tutu and be the Sugar Plum Fairy!”
“And I could wear my white tutu and be a dancing snowflake,” said Samantha dreamily.
“I’ll be the hero of the show,” said Oliver, jumping in. “I’ll wear a mask and my black cape!”
“There could be an intermission with refreshments,” suggested Bruno. “We could hand out cookies to the audience.”
“Or candy,” said Sashi. “That’s what you’re supposed to have at intermission.”
“I love candy!” yelled Zoe.
Just then Miss Cherry came into the room. Miss Cherry is our teacher at human school, and she is very nice. She doesn’t mind that I am a vampire-fairy. She treats me just the same as everyone else.
“Good morning,” she said, smiling. “I have some exciting news for you all today.” She started to hand out some letters, giving one to each person.
“We are going on a school trip,” she said. “To see a ballet!”
“A ballet!” said Zoe. “We were just talking about putting on a pretend ballet!”
“Well, here’s your chance to see a real one,” said Miss Cherry. “We are going to see the Alice in Wonderland ballet!”
I felt my heart beat faster. A ballet! We were going to see a real ballet!
“You need to take the letter home and get your parents to sign it,” said Miss Cherry. “We also need some parents to volunteer to help on the trip.”
“Will there be cookies at intermission?” called out Bruno.
“I expect there will be candy,” said Miss Cherry.
“I told you,” whispered Sashi.
“There will be a famous ballerina playing the part of the White Rabbit,” continued Miss Cherry. “You might have heard of her if you are interested in ballet. Her name is Tatiana Tutu.”
“TATIANA TUTU!” I shou
ted, jumping up from my chair. The whole class turned to look at me.
“Yes,” said Miss Cherry. “You obviously know who she is, Isadora.”
“I do,” I said in a smaller voice, suddenly embarrassed. I sat down quickly, feeling my face go pink.
Pink Rabbit didn’t seem embarrassed at all. He did a little hop and wiggled his ears. He was beside himself with excitement that Tatiana Tutu was going to play the part of the rabbit.
As soon as I got home, I showed the letter to Mom.
“You have to sign it!” I said. “Quick! Or I can’t go on the school trip.”
“Hang on a second,” said Mom. “Let me read it, Isadora. It says here that they need parents to volunteer for the trip.”
“They do,” I said, starting to feel worried. “But not you and Dad.”
“Why not?” asked Mom. “We could volunteer! It would be good for us to get more involved with your school activities.”
“It’s in the daytime,” I said. “Dad will be asleep.”
“That’s true,” said Mom. “What a shame!”
I didn’t think it was a shame at all. In fact, I felt relieved. But when Dad came down for breakfast that evening, he seemed very interested in the trip.
“I will volunteer!” he said enthusiastically. “I will make an exception! Hand me the pen!”
I held the pen behind my back.
“There’s really no need for you both to come…,” I began.
But Mom swooped in with her wand and put a magic tick in the “volunteer” box.
“How exciting!” she said.
On the morning of the trip, I woke up early. But not as early as Pink Rabbit. When I opened my eyes, he was already up and bouncing around the bedroom, practicing his pliés and pirouettes.
“Today’s the day we see Tatiana Tutu!” I said excitedly, hopping straight out of bed and starting to get dressed. I put on my best outfit and then picked up Pink Rabbit’s little waistcoat.
“You must wear this,” I told him. “It’s important to look fancy for the ballet.”
Pink Rabbit let me put the waistcoat on him, and then we flew down the stairs to breakfast.
“Good morning,” said Mom, who was already up and busy feeding Honeyblossom her bottle of pink milk. “I’m going to drop Honeyblossom off at the babysitter’s in a minute,” she said. “I’ll meet you and Dad at the school. You can walk there with him.”
“Okay,” I said as I started to eat my breakfast.
I watched Mom fly around the kitchen, packing all the baby things in a bag. Then she went into the hall and put Honeyblossom into her stroller.
“See you soon, Isadora!” she called as they left the house.
I continued to sit at the table and eat my breakfast. It was very quiet without Mom and Honeyblossom.
“I hope Dad comes down soon,” I said to Pink Rabbit. He twitched his nose worriedly.
But Dad was nowhere to be seen. An awful thought struck me.
“I hope he hasn’t overslept,” I said. “It’s almost time to leave!”
Together we jumped down from the table and flew up the stairs. I banged loudly on the door to Mom and Dad’s bedroom. There was no answer. All I could hear was snoring.
“Oh dear,” I whispered.
I pushed open the bedroom door. Dad was lying in bed with all the curtains closed and his eye mask on. He was fast asleep.
“Dad!” I shouted in a panic. “Wake up! We have to leave for the school trip!”
“Wha—” Dad jerked awake and sat bolt upright in bed. He ripped off his eye mask and looked frantically around the room.
“The school trip,” I said. “It’s today!”
“Oh no!” wailed Dad in dismay. “I’ve overslept.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “If you can get ready in five minutes, we will still be on time.”
“Five minutes!” said Dad. “I can’t get ready in five minutes! It takes me half an hour just to do my hair!”
I sighed. Vampires are very picky about the way they look. They like to always be perfectly groomed.
“Well, we can’t be late and hold everyone else up!” I told him.
Pink Rabbit and I went back down the stairs, and I put on my best cape. We waited by the door for five minutes.
“Dad!” I shouted. “It’s time to go!”
He appeared at the top of the stairs. “All right, all right, I’m coming,” he grumbled. He didn’t look like my dad at all. His hair was sticking up all over the place, and he was wearing a pair of mismatched socks.
“Honestly!” he complained as he made his way down the stairs. “What a time to have to be awake!”
I opened the front door, and the three of us stepped out into the frosty air. Together we walked along the garden path, through the gate, and down the road to school. We couldn’t walk very fast because Dad kept stopping to look in car windows.
“I’ve just got to comb this section of hair,” he explained. “And this part too.”
Then an angry man rolled down his car window and shouted at Dad to stop staring at him. Dad jumped back in fright.
“I think I’ll wait until we get to the school,” he said, putting his comb away.
When we arrived, Mom was there, wearing a bright pink safety vest. Miss Cherry was busy ticking names off a list.
“Wonderful!” she said, beaming at everyone. “We are all here!” She reached into her teacher’s bag and pulled out another bright pink safety vest. She showed it to Dad.
“You need to wear this, Mr. Moon,” she said. “It’s so the children can see where you are at all times. It’s for safety.”
Dad looked horrified.
“I can’t wear that,” he protested. “It doesn’t go with my outfit!”
“Don’t be silly,” said Mom. “Just put it on.”
Dad put the vest on, but he didn’t seem to be very happy about it.
“I look ridiculous,” he sniffed. “Very un-vampirey.”
Miss Cherry put her clipboard away and clapped her hands for silence.
“Is everyone ready?” she asked. “It’s time to go!”
We all started to follow her toward the door, but I noticed that Dad was going in the opposite direction.
“I’ve got to finish doing my hair,” he explained. “You all go on without me. I’ll catch up! I won’t be long!”
Dad rushed off to the bathroom while the rest of us followed Miss Cherry out of the school and toward the train station in the middle of town. Everyone was excited and chatting loudly. I felt especially excited because I had never been on a train before.
“I can’t believe you’ve never been on a train!” said Zoe, who was walking next to me and holding Pink Rabbit’s other paw. “Everyone’s been on a train before!”
“Not me,” I told her. “My family mostly flies everywhere.”
The train station was big and gray and noisy. The trains looked like giant metal caterpillars crawling up and down the tracks. Mom didn’t seem too happy, and her fairy wings started to droop a little bit.
“Where are the flowers?” she asked. “Where are the forests? Where’s all the lovely nature?”
She pointed her wand at a couple of empty gray hanging baskets that were fastened to the station wall. Bright pink flowers immediately sprouted out of them and cascaded over the sides.
“Much better,” said Mom, smiling.
She waved her wand again, and this time grass started to shoot up all over the platform.
“Hey!” shouted a train conductor, starting to walk toward us and waving his ticket machine around. “What are you doing?”
“I’m just…,” began Mom, but her words were drowned out by the sound of a train pulling up next to us.
“Come on, everyone. Quickly!” said Miss Cherry, hurrying our group into the train car. She pressed the button to shut the door before the conductor could reach us.
Zoe pulled me toward a pair of seats, and we sat down as the train started to move away from th
e station.
I felt a fizz of excitement to be inside the huge clanking metal car. Pink Rabbit and I stared out the window. We watched as the houses and trees rushed past at lightning speed.
“It is almost like flying!” I said to Zoe.
As we chatted and looked at the scenery, Miss Cherry walked up and down the car, taking roll again.
“Just checking that everyone is on board,” she said.
Everyone was. Except Dad.
“Oh dear,” I said to Zoe. “I thought Dad would have caught up with us by now. I guess he won’t be coming after all.”
Just then Pink Rabbit began to wiggle around on my lap, pointing out the window with his paw. He had spotted something in the sky.
“What is it, Pink Rabbit?” I asked. “What do you see?”
We peered up into the sky and squinted.
“It’s a bird,” said Jasper. “A big black bird with a bright pink tummy.”
“Hmm,” I said, squinting harder. “I don’t think it is a bird….I think…”
“It’s your dad!” squealed Zoe. “Your dad’s flying toward us!”
We watched as Dad soared closer, his vampire cape flowing out behind him. Vampires can fly very fast, and it wasn’t long before he was alongside the train, smiling in through the window.
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