by RH Disney
Copyright © 2016 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019, and in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto, in conjunction with Disney Enterprises, Inc. Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks and A Stepping Stone Book and the colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
Trade ISBN 9780736435567 — Ebook ISBN 9780736435574 (ebook)
randomhousekids.com
v4.1
a
For editors Christy and Chris.
Thanks for everything. —K.T.
For my sister Angela, who is a superstar. —J.C.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Never Land
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Far away from the world we know, on the distant seas of dreams, lies an island called Never Land. It is a place full of magic, where mermaids sing, fairies play, and children never grow up. Adventures happen every day, and anything is possible.
There are two ways to reach Never Land. One is to find the island yourself. The other is for it to find you. Finding Never Land on your own takes a lot of luck and a pinch of fairy dust. Even then, you will only find the island if it wants to be found.
Every once in a while, Never Land drifts close to our world…so close a fairy’s laugh slips through. And every once in an even longer while, Never Land opens its doors to a special few. Believing in magic and fairies from the bottom of your heart can make the extraordinary happen. If you suddenly hear tiny bells or feel a sea breeze where there is no sea, pay careful attention. Never Land may be close by. You could find yourself there in the blink of an eye.
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Kate McCrady stared out her living room window, her arms folded across her chest. A moving van was parked in front of the house across the street. She watched as movers unloaded furniture from the house and carried it into the truck.
“I can’t believe it. The Johnsons are moving?” asked Kate’s best friend Mia Vasquez.
Kate nodded glumly. The Johnsons had lived across the street for as long as she could remember.
Her other best friend, Lainey Winters, pushed her glasses up her nose and peered at the moving van. “Where are they going?”
“To Florida.”
“Florida?” said Lainey. “That’s so far away!”
“I know,” Kate said unhappily. “They told my mom that they’d always wanted to move there. But they didn’t plan to go so soon. Some people offered them a lot of money for their house. That’s why they’re leaving now.”
“That stinks,” Lainey said sympathetically.
“Well, maybe the people who move in will be nice,” Mia suggested.
“There’s no way they’ll be as nice as the Johnsons,” Kate grumbled with a scowl.
Kate loved the Johnsons as if they were her grandparents. The older couple was always doing nice things, like bringing Kate cookies on her birthday, which they always remembered. And they had always been there to help. When Kate fell off her bike, Mrs. Johnson had cleaned up her scraped knees and given her a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream. And the time Kate locked herself out of the house, Mr. Johnson had let her read his old comic-book collection until her parents got home.
Now they’ll be baking cookies for some kids in Florida, Kate thought.
Just then, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson came out of the house. Mr. Johnson was carrying a suitcase. Mrs. Johnson had a large bag over her shoulder. They stopped to talk to one of the movers.
“Do you want to go say good-bye?” Mia asked Kate.
Kate shook her head. She had said good-bye to her neighbors the day before. She was afraid if she talked to them now, she would cry. “I have a better idea,” she said, turning away from the window. “Let’s go to Never Land.”
“What about Gabby?” Lainey asked.
They all knew they had to wait for Mia’s little sister. When the friends had discovered a magical portal to Never Land in Mia’s backyard, Gabby had been with them. The four had made a pact to always go together.
Mia checked the clock on the wall. “She should be home from dance class by now.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Kate started for the door with her two friends close behind. Her heart felt lighter with each step. Everything will be better in Never Land, Kate thought. Nothing ever changed on the magical island. No one ever grew up or grew older or moved away.
And that was just how Kate liked it.
A short time later, Kate, Mia, Lainey, and Gabby wiggled through the loose board in Mia and Gabby’s backyard fence, where the portal to Never Land was hidden. Even as she crouched at the hole, Kate could smell the sweet scent of orange blossoms and the salty sea air. A warm breeze fluttered the ends of her hair. She stepped through into bright sunlight and smiled.
Pixie Hollow was buzzing with activity. A trio of harvest-talent fairies, each carrying a freshly picked plum, darted through the trees. Garden-talent fairies fussed over flowers, coaxing them to stand taller on their stems. A flurry of leaf-boats carrying water fairies passed on Havendish Stream.
Something is happening, Kate thought. She could sense excitement in the air. “I wonder— Whoa!” Kate ducked as a pair of swallows zipped past, narrowly missing her head.
Beck and Fawn, the two fairies riding the birds, looked back over their shoulders.
“Oops! We’d fly backward!” Beck called out. That was how fairies apologize.
“Busy day today!” Fawn added as they swooped away.
“What’s going on?” Lainey wondered.
Downstream, Kate spotted a sparrow man emerging from the double doors of the mill. “There’s Terence,” she said. “Let’s ask him!”
The girls hurried along the banks until they reached the little building made of peach pits. Next to it, a wooden water wheel turned briskly in the stream.
Kate raised her voice to be heard over the splashing. “Fly with you, Terence! What’s happening? Why is everyone so busy?”
“Haven’t you heard?” Terence replied. He darted around, checking the levels of fairy dust in the great pumpkin canisters where it was stored. When he flew down into one, his voice echoed from inside. “A fairy is arriving!”
“Arriving from where?” Mia asked.
Terence popped his head up. His hat sparkled with fairy dust. “You know. Arriving.”
The girls looked at him blankly. Terence’s eyes widened. “Don’t tell me you don’t know where fairies come from?”
“I guess I never thought about it,” Kate admitted.
“You mean, a new fairy is going to be born?” Gabby asked.
Terence laughed. “In a manner of speaking, yes. And lucky you, you’ll be there to meet her.”
“Oh!” Gabby’s face lit up with delight.
“Afraid I can’t talk right now, though,” Terence told them. “Lots to do. Lots to do. A new fairy is arriving, and it just might be a dust talent….” His voice
grew muffled as he disappeared into another canister.
As they walked away from the mill, Gabby couldn’t contain her excitement. “A new fairy! I wonder what kind it will be? And where do they come from? Are they babies when they arrive? How come we haven’t seen baby fairies before? Do you think they’ll let me hold it?”
“I don’t know, Gabby,” Mia said, laughing. “Let’s find someone else to ask.”
The girls started toward the Home Tree, the giant maple that was the heart of the fairies’ world. As they got closer, Kate saw that it looked especially grand today. Firefly lanterns hung from every twig. The windows had all been washed until they sparkled, and sweeping-talent fairies were busy cleaning the steps that wound around the base of the trunk.
In the courtyard, tiny tables held a fairy feast of roasted chestnuts, acorn bread, sliced berries, candied violet petals, and other delights. The girls spied a freckled fairy in a rose-petal dress hovering among them.
“Prilla!” Kate and her friends called in unison. Prilla was the first fairy they’d ever met. She was also the one who’d first brought them to Pixie Hollow.
Gabby rushed over to her, asking, “Will they let me hold the baby?”
“Baby?” Prilla asked.
“She means the new fairy,” Mia explained.
Prilla grinned. “So you’ve heard the news! The laugh should be here any moment. The scouts have been watching it ever since it got to Never Land.”
Now Kate was really confused. “What do you mean, the laugh?”
“The laugh that will become the fairy, of course,” Prilla explained. “When a human baby laughs for the very first time, the laugh flies out into the world and turns into a fairy.”
“Oh!” Kate felt a nervous fluttering in her stomach. She had the sense that she was about to witness something especially magical.
“I’m really glad we came today,” Mia said, as if reading Kate’s mind.
“It’s not every day you get to see an arrival,” Prilla agreed. “A new fairy is cause for rejoicing. That’s why everyone is working so hard. We don’t yet know what talent the new fairy will have. All the talent groups want to honor a new member with their very best work.”
Gabby, who had been examining a table full of penny-sized cakes, looked up at Prilla. “But how does a laugh turn into a fairy?”
“You’re about to find out,” Prilla said, darting into the air. “Look!”
“I don’t see anything,” said Kate. But then she did. There was a wrinkle in the bright blue of the sky, as if the air there was concentrated. It was moving rapidly toward them.
“Is that it?” Lainey whispered.
“Yes!” Prilla replied.
All around them, the sound of soft fluttering filled the air. Hundreds of fairies were emerging from the nearby woods, meadows, and stream. The fairies landed all around the courtyard, murmuring in anticipation.
Just then, the great knothole door in the Home Tree opened. Queen Clarion floated down the steps and took her place near the front of the crowd.
The laugh had reached the Home Tree. The crowd seemed to hold its breath as the laugh drifted downward. As it came closer, it began to spin, picking up speed. It flashed and sparkled.
Down, down, down it came. The laugh lightly touched the ground—and the grass around it suddenly burst into flames!
The water fairy Silvermist was watching from the edge of the crowd, when she saw the grass catch fire. She jumped back, startled. Where did that come from?
The other fairies seemed stunned, too. They stared as the fire quickly spread across the grass, heading toward the roots of the Home Tree. Silvermist’s friend Tinker Bell bumped her shoulder. “Silvermist! The water!”
“Oh!” Silvermist looked down at the full bucket in her hands, a welcoming gift in case the new fairy was a water talent. She darted over to a patch of burning grass and tossed the water onto the flames. They went out with a sizzle. Only a pile of smoldering ashes and a thin trail of gray smoke remained.
“Over here!” Kate hollered. She was stomping on a row of burning buttercups.
“Rani! Marina!” Silvermist called to two more water fairies. They snatched dewdrops from a nearby mulberry bush and pelted the fire with them. At the edge of the courtyard, two cooking-talent fairies tipped a cauldron of soup onto the last of the flames.
With the fire safely out, Silvermist looked around at the damage. Patches of burned grass and flowers dotted the area, but at least no one was hurt. Silvermist grimaced at the smell of smoke lingering in the air. As a water fairy, there was nothing she hated more than fire.
“Ashes and dust! I’m all wet!” someone exclaimed.
Everyone turned. In all the commotion, they’d forgotten about the arrival! The new fairy was standing in the middle of the courtyard, examining her dress, which was soaked.
The new fairy suddenly seemed to notice that everyone was staring at her. She lifted her head. Her eyes were startling. They were black as coal, but at the same time bright, as if a spark shone in them.
Gabby’s loud whisper broke the silence. “She’s not a baby fairy at all. She’s just regular size.”
“Shhh!” Mia hushed her younger sister. “She’s so pretty, though!”
She is striking, Silvermist thought. Her strange, dark eyes were rimmed with long lashes. And her flaming red hair fell almost to her ankles.
The new fairy’s wings unfurled, fluttered once…twice…then extended to their full length. Terence flew forward, reached into his satchel, and carefully measured out a teacup full of dust. He sprinkled it over the new fairy, as was customary. The moment the dust touched her, the fairy began to glow—first lemon yellow, then bright gold, which deepened to reddish amber.
The crowd murmured in surprise. “Have you ever seen a fairy with a red glow?” Tink whispered.
Silvermist shook her head. Everything about this arrival was odd, right down to the fairy’s garment. She looked as if she were wrapped in wisps of smoke.
The new fairy didn’t seem to notice anything strange. She smiled around warmly. “Fly with you,” she greeted the crowd. “I’m Necia.”
A hush fell. Every fairy in Pixie Hollow leaned forward. Here was the moment they’d all been waiting for—the new arrival was about to announce her talent.
But the fairy said nothing.
“And your talent, dear?” Queen Clarion prompted.
Necia looked at her with mild surprise. “Fire,” she said, as if it were obvious.
What? Silvermist leaned over to Tink. “There’s no such thing as a fire talent…is there?”
“Not that I’ve ever heard,” Tink said.
Queen Clarion gave a little shake of her head, as if she hadn’t heard correctly. “Did you say fire?” she asked.
“Yes, fire.” Necia snapped her fingers, and a spark appeared. When she cupped her hands around it, the spark leaped into a flame. The fire danced across Necia’s fingers, growing bigger and bigger, until it seemed to cover her whole hand.
Silvermist gasped. She’ll be burned alive! Thinking quickly, she snatched a pot of tea from a nearby table and threw the contents at Necia. The fire hissed out.
Necia turned on Silvermist. “What did you do that for?” she spluttered, wiping tea from her face. Her dress was stained, and her glow had turned even redder.
“What do you mean?” Silvermist asked. “I saved you! You were on fire!”
“I was holding fire,” Necia corrected her.
“But I thought…I thought…,” Silvermist stammered. What had she done wrong? Hadn’t Necia been in trouble? How could she hold fire without getting burned?
Tinker Bell spoke up. “It’s just that there’s never been a fire-talent fairy in Pixie Hollow before,” she explained to Necia. “Silvermist thought you were in danger.”
“Never been a fire talent…” Surprise replaced the anger on Necia’s face. She turned to Queen Clarion. “You mean, I’m the only one?”
The queen nodded.
“Oh.” Necia gazed again at the awestruck faces, as if she couldn’t quite believe it was true. When her eyes reached Silvermist, Necia paused.
A cold shock ran through Silvermist. The new fairy was glaring at her!
“Well,” Queen Clarion said smoothly. “Let’s show Necia to her room so she can change into fresh clothes. We can come back to the courtyard and celebrate later.”
Slowly, the crowd broke up. A few decorating- and sewing-talent fairies guided Necia to her room in the Home Tree. The rest went back to their work.
Rani, another water-talent fairy, came over to Silvermist. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” Silvermist gave a little laugh, trying to shake off the bad feeling. “Though I don’t think the new fairy likes me very much,” she added.
“I’m sure that’s not true. It was just a misunderstanding,” Rani said.
“Of course,” Silvermist agreed. “A misunderstanding.”
But as she flew off in the direction of Havendish Stream, a feeling of uneasiness came over her again. She couldn’t stop thinking about the look Necia had given her. It had been a look of pure poison.
“That was definitely the coolest thing I’ve ever seen!” Kate exclaimed. She grabbed onto a branch over her head and dangled, monkey-like, swinging her legs. “When the fire just burst out of her hand? So awesome!”
It was a beautiful afternoon. Kate and her friends had decided to go for a walk while they waited for the arrival celebration to start. The woods around Pixie Hollow were covered in wildflowers. Birdsong echoed through the trees. Leaves rustled in the warm breeze.
“I thought that part was kind of scary,” Mia said. “I don’t really blame Silvermist for throwing that tea on her.”
“Prilla told me most arrivals aren’t like that,” Lainey said. “Usually the fairy just appears and announces her talent. Nothing catches on fire.”
“Well, I wasn’t scared,” Gabby said. “I thought it was neat!” She reached up and grabbed a low branch, swinging like Kate.