by Temre Beltz
Oliver looked up, down, and around. He zeroed in on something swaying gently from up above. It was a clump of swinging vines—the very same vines the Swinging Swamp was named for. They hovered all over the swamp. Most times they merely got tangled around the magicians’ hats or dripped swamp slime onto their fancy clothes, but Oliver had never been happier to see them.
Oliver took a deep breath. He’d never actually tried to swing from the swamp’s vines, though he’d seen a few of the more daring students cross over the school’s moat while the crocodile gang launched themselves out of the water, snapping wildly at their capes. He could do this. He actually had to do this. Well, either that or make his home inside Delilah’s belly, and that really wasn’t what he’d meant when he said he wanted to stay in the Swinging Swamp.
Oliver bent his knees. He sprang up from the squishy mud and wrapped his arms and legs around the thickest of the vines. He shimmied up and began to swing back and forth for momentum. Delilah was beside herself. Her tongue flicked in and out furiously as her meal dangled enticingly in front of her. Finally, Oliver leaped away from the vine. His heart caught in his throat, but as he sailed clear over Delilah’s head, he knew it was enough.
“Yes!” Oliver cried out triumphantly as he plopped into the mud. He scrambled onto his hands and knees and half ran, half crawled toward Syd. Syd was at the ready. As soon as Oliver tumbled inside, they zoomed out of the Carousel, leaving behind one very disappointed anaconda.
When Syd finally slowed down, Oliver bent over the boat’s side. “Thanks for saving my life, buddy,” he whispered. And though it pained him to say it because he didn’t have anything near to a plan B, he added, “And don’t worry. Worm root or no worm root, we’re never going back inside that Carousel again.”
But Syd appeared to be only half listening. He veered suddenly to the left, and then to the right, and then back again to the left. Oliver squinted. There, fluttering a few feet ahead, was the largest monarch butterfly Oliver had ever seen, or rather the only one he’d ever seen. Monarch butterflies weren’t really a native species of the swamp.
“Are you . . . chasing that butterfly, Syd?” Oliver asked.
As he spoke, a sudden gust of wind sent the butterfly swirling closer. But that was very odd. Indeed, the Swinging Swamp was so utterly devoid of any sort of breeze that the magicians often daydreamed about constructing great big fans to cool the entire place down.
Of course, in the kingdom of Wanderly, anytime one considered the wind, one could not help but think of the Winds of Wanderly. The magicians claimed to be wholly unimpressed by the Winds, but sometimes late at night, and perhaps especially when he was feeling his loneliest, Oliver couldn’t keep from wondering.
The monarch butterfly fluttered down and alighted on Oliver’s finger. It pumped its wings once, twice, and then, without any warning at all, exploded into a cloud of sparkling gold dust. Oliver’s jaw dropped. He watched as the wind rolled near and swirled the dust into a sheet of paper, which came to rest on the toe of Oliver’s muddy boot.
Oliver blinked, because certainly it had to be the Winds of Wanderly; certainly only the Winds of Wanderly could do that.
Oliver quickly swept the paper up. It appeared to be . . . a letter. Oliver couldn’t imagine who would want to send him a letter, but he drew it near and read aloud:
Dear Fairy Godmother,
My name is Pippa. I am eleven years old. I am sorry I didn’t use the standard channels for wish delivery, but this is not a standard wish. I’m not in need of an invitation to some fancy ball, a shopping spree at Pigglesticks, or even my very own pony (though any of those would be excellent). In fact, I’m not asking for anything new at all, but rather a return to how things used to be.
Fairy Godmother, I’ll get straight to the point: you have to help me get home. There are nine people waiting there for me, and I simply can’t live without them.
If you’re wondering how I ended up away from home, I didn’t do anything ridiculous like try to run away or wander off in the wrong direction because I got distracted eating berries. No, my problem is much more complicated than that. I was sent away by magic, which means the only way I can return is by magic.
I wish I had my own magic; I wish I didn’t have to bother you (to be clear, I’m not actually submitting these wishes, just the one about going home). Honestly, after seeing the mounds of letters villagers in my town send your way and not one of them answered, I’m a little bit skeptical about you. But I don’t think now is the time to be doubtful. I think now, more than ever, I’ve got to find something to believe in. For better or worse, I’m picking you.
So please help me, Fairy Godmother. Your response can’t come soon enough. I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced something like sadness (fairy godmothers are always so cheery in storybooks), but it feels like my heart’s been replaced with a rock, and that’s a whole lot to carry around.
Very truly yours,
Pippa North
PS: Being new to all this, I’m not sure how wishes in Wanderly normally work. Are they free? Is there an IOU system? Do I need to fill out a satisfaction survey and submit it to the Council? Please advise.
PPS: Don’t forget to send your reply via the Winds of Wanderly—that probably seems risky to you, but if the Winds aren’t on our side, I doubt we’ll pull this off anyways.
Oliver blinked. If the Winds of Wanderly really had delivered the letter, maybe they weren’t as mighty as everyone believed. The Merry Meadow, where the fairy godmothers lived, was an entire riverbank away and then some. Ha! If the Winds of Wanderly had dropped this Pippa’s letter even a hint to the east, it would have wound up in the hands of a wicked witch, perhaps the only fate worse than finding its way to Oliver.
Not only was Oliver not a fairy godmother, he was a boy magician without a hat. On a magical scale of one to ten, Oliver rang in at a big, fat zero. And the girl sounded so desperate. Almost as desperate as Oliver. Why wouldn’t the Winds of Wanderly want to help her?
With a sigh, Oliver glanced back down at the letter. His eyes came to rest on the line about whether wishes were free. Were wishes free? Oliver hadn’t a clue. Absent a Council directive, fairy godmothers were forbidden from helping anyone other than commoners, so Oliver had never bothered to find out more. But certainly, it wouldn’t be unusual to expect some form of payment, would it?
In a sudden rush of exhilaration, Oliver came to a startling conclusion. What if the Winds of Wanderly hadn’t made a mistake after all? What if the girl’s letter had been delivered to Oliver not in order to help her but to help him?
Oliver would have never considered pocketing a total stranger’s money before, but without the worm root, he was going to need something. In all of the Swinging Swamp no one loved money more than Master Von Hollow. Perhaps a pouch full of grubins would be the exact incentive Oliver needed. Perhaps Oliver could still be chosen as an assistant for the magician’s showcase and receive his hat before Headmaster Razzle’s deadline!
Though it hardly seemed fair that Oliver should secure his home at the expense of keeping this girl away from hers, who was he to stand in the way of the Winds of Wanderly? At least that’s what Oliver told himself as he bit his lip and tried very hard not to think about the rest of the girl’s words.
About how she said her heart felt like it had been replaced with a rock.
Oliver had always assumed he was the only one who felt that way. He never imagined there could be someone else out there too. Someone who might understand. And though at one time Oliver would have jumped at the chance for a friend, what he needed now, what his very survival depended on, was a hat.
Decided, Oliver reached beneath the fold of his muddy cape. He fished out a pencil and a piece of paper. He bent his head low and wrote: Dear Pippa, This is your fairy godmother . . .
Five
A Toothless Witch
Life on Triumph Mountain, so far, was nothing like Pippa expected.
Though there were v
ery many reasons why she was desperate to get away from Peabody’s Academy for the Triumphant, the one bright spot was the promise of what fascinating things she might learn during her (hopefully) brief stay.
Triumphants had the best of everything, didn’t they? Surely not a single corner would be cut in providing them with the best education in the entire kingdom. And, at the very least, it had to be far superior to what she’d experienced in Ms. Pinch’s leaky classroom back in Ink Hollow.
Of course, all of that depended on having an instructor. So far, despite the daily A+ grades distributed to the students, Mistress Peabody hadn’t bothered to show up for a single lesson or hand out a single assignment.15 Based on the other Triumphants’ shoulder-shrugging, blasé reactions, Mistress Peabody’s absence must not have been anything new, but in Pippa’s opinion it was very un-Triumphant-like.
Pippa might not have found the dismal state of their classroom affairs so devastating had she received a letter back from her fairy godmother, but despite lingering by every open window in case the Winds of Wanderly should drop by, she’d received nothing. Not a single word.
With the castle’s magic mirror stowed behind a hopelessly locked door, Pippa had never felt so terribly alone, and in the quietest of moments, she was beginning to wonder if she would ever see her family again.
And so, quite peculiarly, as she made her way to the dining hall, Pippa’s hope rested on a most astonishing banner the castle staff hung the night prior, the one that read: “Welcome, Witch Bonecrusher.”
At first Pippa thought it was a joke. What did witches have to do with Triumphants? And if the general public wasn’t invited for tours of Castle Cressida, why would anyone allow a witch to go traipsing about? But the seven-year-old girl with the two buns on the sides of her head, the one who smiled shyly at Pippa on the day of her arrival and whose name was Anastasia, had informed her that every year at least one villain visited the Triumphants’ classroom as an essential part of the students’ training.
Pippa knew this should have terrified her, that her glimpse of a witch at the examination should have been enough to last her the next fifty years at least, but it had been a very awful few days. And if the arrival of a witch meant the return of their school lessons—assuming the witch was coming as a guest and not a substitute teacher—Pippa was willing to risk it. Not to mention, this was the first real sign that the academy was committed to turning out heroes as real as the kingdom’s villains.
Pippa turned the corner and sucked up a breath when she saw a broken curtain rod languishing on the floor and awash in a sea of burgundy velvet. She hurried near and gently gathered the fabric in her arms, tucking it discreetly against the wall. Pippa wasn’t nearly so put off by Castle Cressida’s broken-down appearance as when she had first arrived. Partly because the castle seemed so apologetic about it all, as if it weren’t trying to crumble to bits but that it was merely a symptom of a larger problem.
When Pippa entered the dining hall, she was surprised to find that it was empty. Apparently the other Triumphants did not believe in eating a breakfast of champions or they didn’t think a witch was all that noteworthy of a visitor. Pippa shivered. She couldn’t imagine ever underestimating a witch. As she moved toward the buffet table, her eyes roved across the room and up to the ceiling. A row of tapestries lined the perimeter of the dining hall, but they were rolled up tight like secrets.
Pippa couldn’t help wondering what was on them—and what other secrets Castle Cressida might be keeping—but her step quickened when she spied a heaping platter of cinnamon rolls. As far as Pippa was concerned, the castle’s sweet treats were the first thing that lived up to the Triumphant name and then some. But as delicious as the goodies tasted, what was most fascinating were the unusual ways they made Pippa feel. Last night’s chocolate chip cookies had almost made her feel . . . brave. Maybe even a little bit Triumphant, if you will. Pippa had never met another chocolate chip cookie that could do that.
Cinnamon roll in hand, Pippa plopped into one of the two dozen golden thrones arranged at the large table. She plunged her fork into the soft dough and—
“Oh!” A small gasp rang out in the quiet.
Pippa looked up in time to see someone dive beneath the tablecloth. Pippa carefully lifted a corner of the fine silk fabric and peered beneath. There, crouched on all fours, was a girl who looked to be no more than a year or two older than Pippa. She had the most voluminous hair Pippa had ever seen and was wearing an apron. The girl scrunched her eyes shut as if that might make her invisible.
“Um, hello there,” Pippa said.
The girl’s eyes popped open. She looked from left to right and whispered, “The staff and the students aren’t supposed to talk to each other. Mistress Peabody’s orders, but”—the girl tilted her head curiously to the side—“since you started it, I’ve gotta ask, are you her? Are you Pippa North? Pardon my saying so, but are you the one who saved us from another Bumble?”
“I, well, I . . . perhaps,” Pippa said, feeling suddenly self-conscious. “What’s your name?”
The girl finally crawled out from beneath the table and onto her feet. She executed a short curtsy, but when her eyes fell down across the fabric of her apron covered in bits of sugar, frosting, jam, and a heap of other things, she cringed.
Pippa’s eyes lit up. “Are you the one who makes all the amazing goodies?” she asked.
“Gee, how could you tell? I’m a regular mess, aren’t I?”
“My mother always says you can tell a genius by looking at their mess,” Pippa said with a nod.
The girl’s expression brightened. “It must be nice to have a mother like that.”
“Yes,” Pippa said softly, “it is. You still didn’t tell me your name though?”
“I’m Maisy. I’m in charge of all the baking, even if Mistress Peabody refuses to acknowledge it. Mistress Peabody refuses to acknowledge a lot of things though so I—whoops!” Maisy clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, I said too much. I always say too much.”
Before Pippa could respond, the curtains hanging near the windows began to flutter. A breeze blew into the room, soft at first, but then it began to swirl faster. So fast that even the crystal glasses on the table began to bobble wildly.
Pippa and Maisy exchanged glances. The name hung silently on both of their lips, the only name it could possibly be: the Winds of Wanderly.
And there, suddenly, soaring on the Winds’ coattails, came a metallic green dragonfly. It buzzed and whirred and spun about the room. It touched lightly down on Pippa’s head and then Maisy’s, and Maisy dashed after it with open hands.
“Be careful!” Pippa called out. “Do you think it’s safe?”
Maisy looked over her shoulder. “I’m not sure if the Winds of Wanderly are ever safe, but they’re always good.”
Suddenly the dragonfly spun and flew full speed in Pippa’s direction. She threw her hands over her face and braced herself for a bite or a sting or whatever it was that angry dragonflies did, but nothing happened. And when she lowered her hands all she saw on the ground was a pile of slimy, green goo. Her jaw dropped.
“Did I do that?” she said. “Was that my fault?”
Maisy’s eyes were wide. “No, it—it just exploded. It . . .” Her voice trailed off. The Winds began rippling over the goo, spinning it in the air until it transformed into a sheet of paper.
A cry of delight escaped Pippa’s lips, and she snatched the paper out of the air. It had to be a letter from her fairy godmother. Pippa couldn’t believe she had written back! She couldn’t believe that maybe, just maybe, her life was about to get back to normal.
But Maisy took a small, very small, step forward. “Are you, um, sure that’s for you?” she asked.
Pippa’s heart raced. She had almost forgotten she wasn’t alone. She had intended to keep her fairy godmother plan a secret from everybody, but how was she going to do that now?
“Yes, I’ve been . . . waiting for this letter. See it, um, say
s my name right here,” Pippa said, pointing to her name while carefully concealing the rest of the letter’s contents with her other hand.
Maisy’s face fell. “Oh, yes, I do see. And I’m sorry, I—I should have left you to your thoughts a long time ago.”
Maisy turned to leave.
Pippa, however, had been spending more than enough time alone with her thoughts. What Pippa really missed was the constant clatter and bustle of living in a tiny two-bedroom cottage with nine other people and never having enough elbow room. Even with the other students around, everything about Peabody’s Academy for the Triumphant felt so vast and so lonely. In a family of ten, Pippa had never really had a need for a friend, but perhaps that was exactly what she needed now.
Pippa took a deep breath. “Maisy,” she called out. “Are you good at keeping secrets?” Maisy nodded vigorously, and Pippa continued, “This might sound crazy, but this is a letter from my fairy godmother. I asked her—and this is what you can’t say a word about—if she would help me get home.”
Maisy’s eyes went wide. “And what did she say?” she whispered.
Pippa brought the letter near and read aloud:
Dear Pippa,
This is your fairy godmother, Olivanderella Dash. I’m glad you chose to write to me. Even though I’m exactly as cheery as every storybook you’ve ever read (rosy-cheeked too!), if I try hard I can imagine what it might feel like to have a rock heart, and it’s awful. I’m sorry for that.
You’re right that your wish isn’t like any I’ve ever seen, and I’m pretty sure the pony would have been easier. You sure I can’t sway you in that direction? In my experience animals, or even rowboats, tend to be better company than most people, and you mentioned, what was it, NINE people at your house? That’s a lot.