by Temre Beltz
Pippa didn’t bother to hide her disappointment. Her shoulders slumped. Ms. Bravo seemed to be watching her very, very carefully. “Is this the way Castle Cressida has always looked?” Pippa finally asked.
But before anyone could answer, the large double doors of the building burst open. A middle-aged woman with shimmering silver hair sashayed down the steps with her arms held gingerly at her sides. She was dressed head to toe in light, frothy layers of pink chiffon, and her feet were clad in sparkling, high-heeled dancing shoes. Pippa gulped. It was one thing to hear stories about Mistress Griselda Peabody, Wanderly’s finest waltzer and headmistress of Peabody’s Academy for the Triumphant, but it was another thing to be confronted by such a powerhouse of grace and elegance in person.12
Just behind Mistress Peabody, the Triumphant students filed dutifully out the door and into a perfectly symmetrical formation. They were clad in very formal royal blue and gold uniforms complete with a striped gold and blue tie and a smart royal blue cape. The students positioned on the outermost edges carried the Triumphant flag, which displayed a sword for courage, a heart for devotion to the kingdom, and the flaming silhouette of a fire horse for . . . well—
Pippa frowned. She couldn’t exactly remember what the fire horse was supposed to symbolize. All she knew was that as long as there had been Triumphants, there had been fire horses. Indeed, fire horses were the original loyal companions, though there was nothing tame about them. They roamed wild and free, but when danger presented itself they fought alongside the Triumphants, setting their manes and tails ablaze.
But those days, unfortunately, were over. At least that’s what everybody said. Fire horses had even slipped off the pages of the kingdom’s most recent storybooks, and Pippa feared it was only a matter of time before they were forgotten completely. Seeing their image emblazoned on the Triumphant flag, however, made Pippa’s heart quicken, and she snuck a glance toward the dense forest as if maybe she might catch a glimpse of one.
As if maybe such a thing were possible.
Mistress Peabody clapped her hands against her chest. She smiled the dazzling sort of smile that seemed to be a hallmark of the Triumphants pictured in the Wanderly Whistle. Pippa ran her tongue across her slightly crooked teeth and wondered if that alone might be reason enough to get sent home.
“Oh, welcome! Welcome to Peabody’s Academy for the Triumphant! We have been awaiting your arrival with great and momentous anticipation,” Mistress Peabody gushed. She gestured at the Triumphant students behind her, but most of them were fiddling with the hems of their capes, staring at their shoes, or gazing off in the distance with glassy-eyed stares. Well, all except for one girl, who looked, curiously, madder than a hornet, and one boy who kept blinking his eyes and sliding his glasses along the bridge of his nose as if he didn’t quite believe what he was seeing. Pippa wondered if it was the galoshes. She bet no one had ever shown up on the glittering gold steps of Castle Cressida wearing galoshes.
Mistress Peabody nodded first at Bernard and then Pippa. “Bernard, Bettina . . . welcome to your new home!”
“That’s not Bettina!” the mad-as-a-hornet girl burst out from the staircase. “That girl’s not even a Bumble!”
The Triumphants on the stairs stopped their fiddling. They peered closely at Pippa and then began looking at one another. A few even began whispering back and forth, and Pippa couldn’t be sure, but a girl of about seven with her hair twisted up into two buns and a spattering of freckles across her nose may have cast a shy smile in Pippa’s direction.
Mistress Peabody, however, was clearly flustered. “Nonsense, Prudence! Certainly you’d recognize your own sister. Of course this is Bettina.” She cast a questioning look in Ms. Bravo’s direction. “Who else could it possibly be?”
As if things couldn’t get any more awkward, Ms. Bravo’s loyal companion, Dynamite, sprang suddenly off her shoulder and began flying in low circles over the formation of Triumphants squawking gleefully, “PIPPA! WELCOME, PIPPA! PIPPA!”
Ms. Bravo drew up alongside Pippa and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Lovely to see you again, Griselda,” Ms. Bravo said, in a way that Pippa couldn’t help but compare to how one might greet a bowl full of broccoli at a dessert buffet. “It is my pleasure to introduce to you Bernard Benedict Bumble the Fifth and . . . Pippa North. These are the two candidates that I selected based on the authority the Chancellor gave to me as the Council member in charge of this year’s examination.”
Mistress Peabody’s eye began to twitch. “And why did he do that again?”
Ms. Bravo’s eyes flickered briefly toward the surrounding students. “Suffice it to say,” she said, “that it is in direct response to the little . . . shall we say . . . rendezvous at Beastly Valley.”
“Oh, that little thing?” Mistress Peabody said with a wave of her hand. “But that’s clear on the other coast of Wanderly. There’s nothing of note over there.”
“As Triumphants we have sworn an oath to protect Wanderly. All of it,” Ms. Bravo said firmly.
“Oh, fiddlesticks. You needn’t be so serious, Yolanda. Anyhow, who is this P-P-P-P—”
“Pippa?” Ms. Bravo said with a sigh.
“Yes, that’s right.” Mistress Peabody turned to face Pippa. She tried in vain to recover her radiant smile. “And where does your family reside?”
“In the village of Ink Hollow, ma’am.”
“Oh!” Mistress Peabody exclaimed as if someone had dumped a very cold bucket of water on her head. “How very, very . . . quaint! I’m quite certain no one of significance has ever come out of that village.”
Pippa felt her own eyebrow twitch. Though she was standing on top of the most famous mountain in all of Wanderly in the presence of not one but two Triumphants, she simply could not overlook the offense of terrible manners. “I suppose that depends on your definition of ‘significance,’ ma’am.”
Beside Pippa, Ms. Bravo guffawed. The boy whose glasses kept slipping down his nose noticeably straightened up. But Mistress Peabody’s eyes narrowed, if only for a moment.
“I can tell already that Pippa is going to be a much-needed addition to this academy,” Ms. Bravo said as Dynamite landed on her shoulder. “I shall leave you now so that you all may get better acquainted, but please do expect to see me again soon. With this being my first year in charge of the examinations, I would like to drop in and gauge Pippa’s and Bernard’s progress from time to time.”
Mistress Peabody’s head snapped up. “Oh, no need for that, Yolanda. I would be more than happy to send you regular updates.”
Ms. Bravo, however, let her gaze wander pointedly toward the sagging exterior of Castle Cressida. Pippa couldn’t help but notice two flaming circles burn on Mistress Peabody’s cheeks.
“Thank you, Griselda, but some things I would prefer to see for myself.” With that, Ms. Bravo swirled her purple Council cloak through the air and disappeared in a puff of smoke. Pippa felt suddenly, terribly alone. Though Ms. Bravo was arguably the one to blame for her astonishing predicament, her presence had made Pippa feel . . . safe, in a way that Mistress Peabody’s did not.
“Well then,” Mistress Peabody said, “regardless of the little mix-up, we really are very glad to see you, Bettina, oh! Um, er—”
“Pippa,” the boy with glasses called out from the stairs with a little nod in Pippa’s direction. Despite the trauma of the day, she nodded back and wondered if maybe not all Triumphants were as bad as the Bumbles.
“Yes, that’s right! Pippa is what I meant to say, unless”—Mistress Peabody looked at Pippa with wide, questioning eyes—“it’s just as easy to call you Bettina? Bettina is a nice name, don’t you think, and it would certainly make things easier with the Chancellor, hmm?” Upon seeing Pippa’s bewildered expression, Mistress Peabody laughed a hair too loudly. “Oh, come on now; it was just a joke. You didn’t think I was serious, did you?” But Pippa had the strangest feeling that if she had agreed, Mistress Peabody would have gladly made the
switch, however superficial it was.
“Anyhow,” Mistress Peabody continued, “we ought to make our way inside now. A reporter from the Wanderly Whistle is dying to interview you both, and we wouldn’t want to keep your families waiting, now, would we?”
Pippa’s stomach flip-flopped. Suddenly Castle Cressida seemed like the grandest place in the world, suffocating green ivy and all. “Our families are waiting for us? Inside there?” she asked, dashing nearly halfway up the steps.
But Mistress Peabody frowned. “Certainly not, but they are waiting to talk to you via magic mirror. I daresay you are probably the first Triumphant in your family and congratulations are in order, isn’t that right, Pippa?”
Pippa’s heart sank down to the bottom of her mother’s galoshes. “I’m afraid my family doesn’t have a magic mirror,” she said quietly.
Right away, Bernard piped up, “Oh pity. We only have four in our mansion.”
Even Mistress Peabody looked slightly annoyed with him. “That’s no matter, Pippa. You’re a Triumphant now. The moment you were chosen, arrangements were already being made. Your family may not have had a magic mirror when you left them, but certainly now they do.” Seeing Pippa’s shocked expression, Mistress Peabody continued, “For champion’s sake, stop gaping. Don’t you know anything about being a Triumphant?”
Pippa was beginning to wonder if she did, but Mistress Peabody was already rushing ahead of the Triumphant students, click-clacking a snappy rhythm along the castle’s marble floor. Though the marble was riddled with a panoply of unsightly cracks, it wasn’t hard to imagine how beautiful it had once been. Most of the children plodded along behind Mistress Peabody, though a few kept looking over their shoulders to peek curiously at Pippa. Bernard made a beeline for fellow Bumble, Prudence, and the boy with glasses lingered behind as if something fascinating had suddenly occurred with his shoelace.
As soon as Pippa drew near, however, he popped up like a jack-in-the-box.
“Hello there,” he said.
“Is everything all right with your shoe?” Pippa asked.
“My shoe? Oh, right, my shoe! Yes. I mean, no. I mean, it’s fine now, thanks for asking.”
“Sure,” Pippa said. And then she continued on, mulling over what exactly she was going to say to her family through the magic mirror. Guess what, everybody. I’m a new Triumphant! Or maybe something more playful like, Wondering who the new Triumphant is? You’re looking at her! Of course, she could always opt for the truth, which would have sounded something more like, Please rescue me and don’t ever make me come back here, but wouldn’t that be terribly ungrateful?
Pippa pressed her eyes shut and thought back to Louisa’s disappointment when Council member Slickabee passed her by. Pippa had never realized Louisa was dreaming of such a fate—why couldn’t this have happened to her?
“Ms. Bravo’s loyal companion, Dynamite, is something else, isn’t he?” the boy continued, darting after her. “Have you ever seen a shade of blue like that? Not me. I mean, it’s not like I’d ever want any companion other than my goat, Leonardo—hey, did you know goats can skip?” he said, interrupting himself. But when the boy saw Pippa’s blank expression, he gulped. “The first day here isn’t always easy, is it? Well, the Bumbles don’t seem to mind, but for everyone else it’s kind of . . . a lot.”
Pippa nodded. And then she said softly, “So how often do kids make it back home?”
Behind his glasses, the boy’s eyes widened. “Um, never. They can’t, actually. Once you’ve been changed by a fairy godmother, only a fairy godmother can change you back. Otherwise you’d be acting outside of your role, and you could get in big trouble for that.”
“Do you think a fairy godmother would ever do such a thing?” Pippa asked quickly. “I mean, change a Triumphant back to what they were before?”
The boy shook his head warily. “I don’t think anyone’s ever tried. And certainly not through normal wishing channels—fairy godmothers aren’t allowed to grant a Triumphant’s wishes because we’ve already got a happy ending. Your letter would get tossed out in the first round of sorting. But anyhow, I think you’re sort of missing the point. Getting chosen for Peabody’s Academy for the Triumphant is supposed to be an honor.”
Pippa sighed. “I know,” she said. And then, “What’s your name, by the way?”
The boy’s eyes lit up. “I’m Ernest. I’m sort of an old-timer. I’ve been here since I was three, which is lucky for me because I was adorable back then.”
“Oh, uh . . . you were?” Pippa said a bit uncertainly.
Ernest nodded vigorously. “I’m not trying to brag; it’s actually common knowledge. Back then, all you had to do was open the latest issue of the Wanderly Whistle, and there I was in an advertisement for toothpaste, winter hats, everything. Wanderly’s most charming toddler ever. Mum said I was a shoo-in for a Triumphant, and she was right. It is sort of weird to reach your peak at age three, though. In fact, I wouldn’t really recommend it. If Triumphant appointments weren’t for life, I bet Mistress Peabody would have kicked me out at age seven. That’s the year I got these charmers,” he said, pointing at his glasses. “I think it all went downhill from there.”
Pippa raised her eyebrow. “You mean that’s the year you were given the gift of perfect eyesight?” she said.
Ernest grinned. “That too, I guess. I never really thought of it that way. Um, Pippa,” Ernest said, shuffling a bit faster in order to keep up with her, “I hope you’ll give us a chance. I mean, I know you’re stuck here, but maybe you’ll find that you actually like it here. Maybe you’re here for a reason.”
But before Pippa could answer, she heard a familiar, warm voice.
“Pippa? Is—is she there? Is this thing working?”
“Mother!” Pippa cried out, and though she hardly meant to, she pushed Ernest out of the way and barreled down the hallway. She swung around a corner and skidded to a halt in front of a very ornate-looking mirror with a smoky facade. Certainly she’d heard about magic mirrors before, and one had even made its way to the general store in Ink Hollow, where everyone oohed and aahed over it for weeks, but she’d never actually used one.
Her mother’s face slowly came into focus along with bits and pieces of the rest of her family members. They were all trying in vain to fit inside the mirror frame, which meant they were a tangled mess of limbs—only Artie’s chin could be seen from where he was positioned on top of Charlie’s shoulders, one half of Jane’s face didn’t quite make the cut, and Miles was blocking her father entirely except for the very tip of his forehead. Even still, Pippa was sure she’d never seen a lovelier image in all her life. Tears sprang immediately to her eyes.
“Oh, how precious. She’s crying tears of joy again!” Mistress Peabody interjected. Pippa heard the sound of scribbling and noticed for the first time the reporter from the Wanderly Whistle perched just behind Mistress Peabody with a pencil gripped firmly in hand. Mistress Peabody continued, “There really is no moment like the one when a new Triumphant is congratulated by their loved ones.”
And that was all it took for Pippa’s family to burst into celebratory praise.
“I always knew you had it in you, little sis,” Pippa’s oldest brother, Charlie, said with a proud flash of his dimples.
“I can’t think of a greater destiny for you than this.” Her father beamed, peeking out from behind Miles.
Jane leaned down and pressed her right eye against the mirror as if trying to get a better look at Pippa’s surroundings. “Is everything beautiful? Is everything absolutely wonderful?” she asked delightedly.
Louisa smiled weakly. “Congratulations, Pippa,” she said, but her voice was swiftly drowned out by the triplets’ energetic and rising chant of, “Dra-gons! Dra-gons! Dra-gons!”
Mistress Peabody clapped her hands together and let out a little squeal. “If it’s dragons they want, perhaps it’s dragons they’ll get! Maybe you’ll be our next Crowne Stadium champion, Pippa. Imagine that!” She b
ent her head near to the still scribbling reporter and whispered, “No, no, dear . . . it’s Crowne Stadium not gymnasium.”
Pippa, meanwhile, felt like she’d swallowed a rock. She hadn’t expected her family to be anything less than supportive, but a part of her just wanted them to cry and wail and beg her to come home.
Was she the only one in all of Wanderly—well, other than the Bumbles, perhaps—who thought her admittance to Peabody’s Academy for the Triumphant was the worst mistake ever?
Through her tears, she was just about to ask her family as much, but Mistress Peabody said beneath her breath, “Don’t be selfish, Pippa. This moment’s as much for them as it is for you. You wouldn’t want to deny them that joy, would you?”
Pippa licked her lips. She looked at her family, blinking anxiously at her, pressed as close to the mirror as they possibly could. And Pippa knew Mistress Peabody was wrong. Regardless of how everyone else in Wanderly revered Triumphants, her family would never want her to stay in a place where she was unhappy. Still, considering what she’d learned from Ernest, she didn’t want to make her family worry unnecessarily. At least not until she could come up with a plan to get home that wouldn’t involve putting them at risk of violating any of the Chancellor’s rules too.
Pippa forced a bright smile onto her face. “Thank you, everybody,” she said. “I—I never imagined such a thing could happen. It really is exciting, isn’t it?”
And though the approving gleam in Mistress Peabody’s eye sent chills down Pippa’s spine, and the scritch-scratch of the Wanderly Whistle reporter’s pencil grated on her ears, Pippa took great comfort in placing her hand in her pocket. Inside was a folded-up sheet of paper that her mother insisted Pippa and all her siblings carry with them in case of an emergency.13 Pippa had never thought she would ever have to put the paper to use, but she was already imagining scrawling out the words: “Dear Fairy Godmother.” Because if Ernest was right, if only a fairy godmother had the power to make her a commoner again, then surely somewhere in Wanderly there had to be at least one who was willing to help her.