by Temre Beltz
If the magicians had to wait a whole year for their new role, Headmaster Razzle might keep Oliver around simply for purposes of swampy labor. That would mean three hundred and sixty-five more chances to get his hat! And maybe, for the sake of Wanderly, a year would even give the magicians time to reconsider what Oliver suspected was a nefarious plan.
Yes, Oliver couldn’t think of a single reason why sabotaging Master Von Hollow’s showcase wasn’t a good idea.
Suddenly, the heavy front door of Razzle’s School for Meddlesome Boys crashed open. A flow of excited chatter tumbled down the hallway and slipped beneath the door of Headmaster Razzle’s office.
Oliver froze. The auditions must have been over. Everyone had returned to school. Trying not to panic, Oliver told himself he would simply wait until the boys had moved past Headmaster Razzle’s office, and then he would discreetly slip out. Oliver was good at being quiet; Headmaster Razzle himself said no one ever noticed Oliver; the hallways were dark and shadowy . . . for once, all that might work in his favor.
Of course, that was before Oliver heard Headmaster Razzle’s footsteps. He was headed right for his office and singing jovially at the top of his lungs, “LA-DEE-DOO-DA-DA-DEE!”
Oliver could only imagine how quickly Headmaster Razzle’s tune would change when he saw Oliver rummaging through his desk drawer. Oliver looked wildly for a place to hide, but Headmaster Razzle’s office was so empty. There wasn’t a single coat on the coatrack he could wrap himself in, no sofa full of pillow cushions he could pile on top of himself, and no furniture other than the desk that he could crouch behind. Oliver wished he could jump into that painting of the Sapphire Sea, but that was impossible. The only option he really had was to shimmy through the little window above Headmaster Razzle’s desk and make a run for it.
“LA-DEE-DOOBY-DOOBY-DOO!” Headmaster Razzle’s voice tumbled closer.
Oliver hopped on top of Headmaster Razzle’s desk. He popped the window open and braced himself against the gust of smelly, humid swamp air that poured in. He sprang up from the desk and tried to grab onto the windowsill, but he kept falling short. He bent his knees deeper and this time, when he jumped up, he caught enough air to hook his elbows on the sill. With a grunt, he pulled himself up and thrust his head and shoulders through the opening. Unfortunately, the first thing Oliver glimpsed below was an enormous pair of wide-open jaws. A member of the ancient crocodile gang was sleeping right outside the window!
Headmaster Razzle’s footsteps halted. He was just outside the office door. Any minute now he would turn the handle only to discover Oliver’s backside hanging from the windowsill and still sporting a curly pig tail that spilled over the waistband of his pants! But if Oliver pushed himself all the way out, he’d land right in the jaws of a crocodile.
“Pssst! Pssst!” he whispered as loudly as he dared.
The crocodile, however, didn’t shift an inch. With his feet helplessly dangling and his hands gripped tight on the sill, Oliver realized he had only one option left. He thought of every good and decadent thing he’d ever eaten, and when he was sure his mouth had never been so full of saliva, he arched back his head and spat right in the crocodile’s one open eye.26
Bull’s-eye! Or rather, croc’s eye!
The crocodile jerked awake. It clacked its jaws shut. It swung its head from left to right, but never did look up. The bewildered crocodile scurried off through the green sludge, and Oliver shoved himself finally through the window. Oliver didn’t stop to catch his breath but sprinted for the safety of the thick tangle of swinging vines before Headmaster Razzle could stop to wonder why his office window was open, and perhaps even get curious enough to peek out of it. Unfortunately, what Oliver didn’t realize was that the bottoms of his shoes were covered in dungeon muck. Dungeon muck that Oliver had inadvertently smeared all over Headmaster Razzle’s desk and was bound to raise questions.
As Oliver sloshed through the Swinging Swamp, he could hardly believe he was headed toward Master Von Hollow’s mansion by choice. But as he reviewed all the jumbled-up bits and pieces of information he hadn’t fully realized he was collecting over the past two weeks—the grown-up magicians’ mysterious moving boxes, Headmaster Razzle’s “super-size” illusion assignments for Nicholas and Duncan, Master Von Hollow’s hoarding of Helga’s Black Wreath potion—Oliver kept coming back to Master Von Hollow’s secret herd of horses.
Horses were not the sort of props magicians typically used in a showcase, which led Oliver to believe that Master Von Hollow was keeping them precisely to wow the Triumphants, their families, and maybe even the Chancellor himself. If Oliver was right, if he managed to set the horses free, that might be just the act of sabotage he was looking for.
Ever since first laying eyes on those horses, Oliver hadn’t been able to forget about them. Something about them seemed so sad, and so lost, somehow. The effect could have come about wholly as a result of living with Master Von Hollow, but Oliver had a feeling there was more to it than that.
Oliver moved so swiftly that he didn’t notice the Winds were blowing until he drew to a halt at the top of the hill leading down to the horse paddock.
Swoosh. The Winds of Wanderly dove deep into the Swinging Swamp and swirled toward Oliver.
Swish. The Winds of Wanderly lifted up the folds of his cape.
And then, tumbling near, a bright, cheery red beetle—a ladybug, if you will—landed square on the tip of Oliver’s nose. Oliver’s jaw dropped.
The Winds of Wanderly had found Oliver for a second time, and surely this was the response to the letter Oliver had been waiting for. The letter from the girl with the stony heart like his. The girl who was supposed to supply the grubins Oliver had planned to use to “enhance” his audition for Master Von Hollow.
Only now, the auditions were over.
Oliver might have felt a bit miffed considering the letter’s untimely delivery, but it wasn’t like Oliver could have auditioned with pig ears and a curly tail anyways.
Oliver touched his fingertip gently to his nose, and the ladybug exploded in a cloud of sparkling golden dust that arranged itself into a letter. Oliver read aloud:
Dear Fairy Dash,
First off, I want to say thank you. It’s hard to describe how I felt when your letter came soaring through the window, and that’s not just because it flew in as a dragonfly, which was surprising (and a bit scary), to say the least! What mattered most of all was knowing I wasn’t in this by myself. That even though I’m far away from home, that doesn’t mean I have to be alone. It also doesn’t hurt that you’re a real live fairy godmother, and even if you fairy godmothers do hardly answer any wishes, maybe that’s just because you’re saving up all your magic for the ones that matter the most. Thank you for putting my wish in this category.
All that being said, I have one small request regarding the payment for my wish. In short, I don’t see how I can possibly come up with that many grubins. I’m not trying to undervalue your magic, and I’m not afraid of a little elbow grease—remember, I come from a family of TEN—but where I’m stuck, there aren’t many working opportunities available. The one thing I did try backfired so badly that I wound up with one hundred hissing cockroaches instead of one hundred grubins! I bet you’re glad I didn’t include any of those with my letter, huh?
Anyhow, is there ANY other way I can pay for my wish? Maybe there’s a monthly payment plan available? Fairy Dash, I can’t imagine I’d be so close to returning home only to let something like grubins stand in my way. Also, I’m not trying to be pushy, but the longer I’m stuck here, the harder and harder it’s going to be to leave. Not to mention I think my stony heart has become contagious and is spreading to other parts of my body. Sadness is the heaviest thing I’ve ever lugged around, and I just don’t think people are designed to carry all this weight.
Very truly yours,
Pippa North
PS: The question of how I arrived here is more complicated than you’d think. What’s not compli
cated, however, is how you and I met. That was purely the Winds of Wanderly. And that’s why I’m not giving up on you, Fairy Dash. How could I?
Oliver’s heart sank. All his life, he’d been the unlucky recipient of an endless barrage of orders and insults; sometimes he engaged in a slightly one-sided conversation with the wooden rowboat Syd, but he’d never really had anyone just plain talk to him. Not like Pippa did, anyways. Pippa seemed . . . nice. And Oliver was doing something horrible to her. Early on it was easy enough to blame the mix-up on the Winds of Wanderly. After all, Pippa herself agreed that the Winds were the ones responsible for delivering the letters in the first place. But the Winds of Wanderly weren’t the ones pretending to be a fairy godmother; the Winds of Wanderly weren’t the ones writing dishonest letters; the Winds of Wanderly weren’t the ones who’d tried to take advantage of someone else’s sadness.
That was all Oliver.
What had he done?
Oliver looked down at the letter, held loosely in his hands. And then he had an idea. If the Winds of Wanderly could dive into a place like the Swinging Swamp, they should have no problem twirling into the Merry Meadow. Oliver couldn’t grant Pippa’s wish, but there were plenty of other fairy godmothers, real ones, who could. Oliver knew the significance of time, the crushing weight of each passing second. He couldn’t give Pippa back what she had already lost, but at least she wouldn’t have to wait any longer.
Oliver reached beneath his cape and pulled out a sheet of paper and a pencil. He bent his head low and wrote the letter he should have written in the first place. And when he was done, he slid down the hill and marched near to the paddock where Master Von Hollow’s herd of horses shuffled their muddy noses through the swamp moss.
Oliver gasped. Up close the horses looked almost more skeletal than they had before. Oliver initially hoped an act of sabotage might keep him from becoming homeless, along with possibly preventing a mutiny on Triumph Mountain, but if it also meant saving the lives of the horses, it simply had to be the right thing to do.
Oliver rose to his feet. He was surprised to feel the Winds of Wanderly rise along with him. They ruffled their fingers through his scruffy hair, and for once, the reminder of his absent hat didn’t make him cringe but instead pause. Who would have ever imagined he could accomplish so much without one?
As Oliver creaked the paddock gate open and approached the frail horses, the only things that gleamed in the starless night sky were the beady, interested eyes of Master Von Hollow’s murder of crows.
Eleven
A Missing Goat
On that very same night, way up high on the peak of Triumph Mountain, the unthinkable was happening. A record-breaking stretch of perfectly fair weather had been broken, and not by a bit of cloud cover, a sparse patch of fog, or a slight chill to the air. It was raining. Pouring, actually.
I know that we just came from Oliver’s harrowing ordeal by which he found himself still utterly hatless, strapped with a lingering piglet’s tail, and trying to stall a suspected magician’s takeover, but through the years the Triumphants—as you have now seen firsthand—had become very . . . delicate. Indeed, in all of the Chancellor’s arranging, finagling, negotiating, scheming, and strong-arming to remove every single obstacle from the life of a Triumphant, this was the devastating result: the Triumphants of Wanderly had never been weaker. And whether the Chancellor had expected this or not, who could really know?
Alas, the rain was proving a challenge for even Mistress Peabody to pretend away. At dinnertime she had invoked an energetic four-string quartet to drown out the relentless pitter-patter. Every time a deep rumble of thunder rolled across the land, she giggled anxiously and said, “My, I’m hungry tonight,” as if it were nothing more than a stomach growl. When sudden flashes of lightning ripped across the normally perfect sky, fracturing it into pieces, she glanced up at the flickering candlelit chandeliers and said in a high-pitched voice, “The candles certainly are . . . bright tonight.”
The other children, except for Bernard and Prudence Bumble, who looked curiously smug, as if they were sitting on some sort of secret,27 pushed their food around on their plates and took turns sighing anxiously. It was Viola who finally broke the facade.
“Mistwiss Peabody,” she called out in her three-year-old voice while looking anxiously toward the window. “Why’s sky crying?”
All the other Triumphants turned expectantly to face Mistress Peabody, but they shouldn’t have hoped for much. “The sky is not crying!” Mistress Peabody huffed. “Why, it is perfectly pleasant. It—it is the same sky that hangs over Triumph Mountain every night. A perfect sky for a perfect mountain for perfect children!” she screamed at them.
Viola trembled in her throne.
Mistress Peabody did too. And then she swept abruptly up, executed the jerkiest sashay Pippa had seen from her, and called out over her shoulder, “I shall see you all in the morning for another gloriously bright and sunny day!”
The string quartet followed closely on her heels, and the Triumphant children were left with nothing but the steady drum of rain and a basket of umbrellas Maisy had quietly placed beside the door when no one else but Pippa was looking. After dinner, on their way up to bed, every single one of the Triumphants had stooped down to take one of those umbrellas and carried them warily to their dormitories as if wielding swords.
And so, even though Pippa had survived many a day and night of rain back in Ink Hollow, and even though Castle Cressida seemed quite proud that it hadn’t sprung a single leak, given the ominous mood of the castle’s inhabitants, Pippa was hardly surprised at the urgent knocking that erupted in the dead of night when everyone was supposed to be fast asleep.
“Pippa! Pippa, it’s me!” Ernest said in a loud whisper.
Pippa rolled quickly out of bed—or rather as quickly as one can when climbing down a tower of eight mattresses—hastily stuck her arms into her soft, royal blue sleeping robe, and padded toward the door. She opened it the merest crack and poked her head out.
She gasped out loud. Ernest stood with his shoulders slumped and a piece of paper dangling from his right hand. His hair, which was usually quite tidy, was sticking up in every which direction. His face was splotchy, his nose was runny, and the moisture coming from his eyes was making the lenses of his eyeglasses foggy.
“Ernest, what is it?” Pippa asked, stepping fully out of the dormitory and closing the door behind her. “What’s happened? Are you all right?”
But Ernest merely lifted the crinkled paper in Pippa’s direction. She read aloud: You’re a joke, your goat is too. Leonardo’s gone, and now you’re blue. Maybe you’ll find him, maybe you’ll crumble. But this ought to teach you, for messing with BUMBLE. Signed, Prudence and Bernard
Pippa shook her head. “I—I don’t understand. What does this mean? What have they done? A loyal companion can’t just disappear!”
Ernest winced. “It can if you leave the gate wide open. And that’s what Bernard said he and Prudence did. About one hour before it started to . . . rain. And all because Leonardo knocked Prudence into that mud puddle.”
As if on cue, a deep rumble of thunder shook the ground beneath them, and a bright flash of lightning illuminated the dark hallway.
A panicked look flashed across Ernest’s face. “Pippa, no one knows what to do in the rain on Triumph Mountain! I—I—I bet Leonardo doesn’t even know what the stuff is! He’s probably slipped and fallen somewhere; he’s probably lying on a pile of soggy leaves, shivering and cold and alone!”
Pippa resisted the temptation to despair. It certainly did seem cold and wet and scary in that moment, but just because something felt a certain way didn’t mean that it was true, and despairing hardly seemed to be what Ernest needed most.
Pippa glanced behind her at the long row of umbrellas the girls had lined up outside their dormitory before falling, fitfully, to sleep. Pippa still wasn’t entertaining any real thought that she actually was Triumphant material, but you didn’t need
to be a hero to know how to hold an umbrella. She bent down and plucked two of the umbrellas off the floor. She held one out to Ernest and tucked the other beneath her arm.
“Are you ready, Ernest?” she asked.
Ernest eyed the umbrella. “Ready for what?” he asked.
“To go find Leonardo, of course. When something’s lost, you have to go and find it.”
Ernest’s jaw dropped. “Even when it’s raining?” he asked.
Pippa and Ernest both looked toward the window, where the dark world swayed and shook mere feet away. Pippa couldn’t stop the shiver that ran down her spine. “Maybe especially when it’s raining,” she said.
“And Mistress Peabody? If she catches us, surely she’ll—”
“Ernest, according to Mistress Peabody, there is no rainstorm. How can we get in trouble for running about in something that doesn’t exist?”
Ernest almost smiled. Almost. Then he took a step closer to Pippa, held up his umbrella, and asked, “How do these things work anyways?”
After a brief introduction to the wonders of umbrellas, Pippa and Ernest slipped out the doors of Peabody’s Academy for the Triumphant, never once imagining that they weren’t the only ones sneaking about on such a dark and stormy night.
After about twenty minutes of sloshing around an unusually muddy Triumph Mountain, Pippa realized her skills with the umbrella weren’t very handy, after all. Because when rain persists in coming down that hard and at that angle, there’s really no stopping it from soaking everything in its path. In short, Pippa and Ernest were a soggy mess.
To make matters worse, after stopping by the Loyal Companions’ Barn to see if Leonardo had perhaps found his way back home on his own (he hadn’t), Pippa decided it would be a good idea to take Ferdinand along with them. Even if the little solitary flame that sprang up from time to time on Ferdinand’s mane wasn’t enough to scare off any villains, it was just the right amount of light to help Pippa and Ernest find their way.