The Moonbeams

by Emily Bliss

  The Unicorn Princesses series

  Sunbeam’s Shine

  Flash’s Dash

  Bloom’s Ball

  Prism’s Paint

  Breeze’s Blast

  Moon’s Dance

  Firefly’s Glow

  Feather’s Flight

  The Moonbeams

  The Wing Spell

  For Phoenix and Lynx

  In the top tower of Spiral Palace, Ernest, a wizard-lizard, lay on his stomach, halfway under his bed. “It must be here somewhere,” he muttered. “I know it is.” He shoved aside his rock collection, a pile of crumpled pointy hats, a stack of dirty plates, a bicycle helmet, a full jar of oats, and a pair of white bunny slippers. “Found it!” Ernest cried, as he grabbed an orange book wedged under a unicycle, a typewriter, and a pair of teal galoshes.

  He slid out from under the bed and stood up. His purple pointy hat sat sideways on his head, and dust covered his long nose. He sneezed three times and used his scaly green hands to brush off his face. Then he straightened his hat and laid the book down on his desk. In purple script, across the cover, was the title, The Grainest Show on Earth: Spells for Turning Household Grains into Costumes, Props, and Performance Accessories.

  Ernest flipped to the table of contents and read the entries out loud as he slowly dragged a clawed finger down the page. “ ‘Couscous for Conjuring Tutus and Leotards.’ Sounds like fun, but not today,” Ernest said. “ ‘Bewitching Wheat to Create Stages and Curtains.’ No. ‘Enchanting Rice for Ballet Slippers and Tap Shoes.’ Maybe later. ‘Turning Quinoa into Costumes.’ Nope. ‘Transforming Oats into Tickets.’ Yes! That’s the one. And it’s on page 46.”

  Ernest flipped to page 46. He read over the spell four times, silently mouthing the words. Then, hopping with excitement, he said, “This is perfect! I even have oats—I just saw them!” He dived back under his bed and grabbed the jar of oats. He put it on his desk next to the spell book.

  “Sunbeam and Moon will absolutely love this,” Ernest said, rubbing his hands together. “And I’m sure I’ve got the spell memorized. No need to look again at the book.”

  He reached into his cloak pocket and pulled out his wand. He held it above the jar of oats and chanted, “Iggledy Figgledly Smiggledy Smo! Turn the Notes into Crickets for the Show!”

  Ernest stared at the oats. He waited for light to swirl around the jar, or for the oats to vibrate and dance inside it. But instead, for several seconds, nothing happened. Ernest shrugged and muttered, “Maybe I ought to give it another go.” He lifted his wand and opened his mouth. But before he could even say, “Iggledy,” thunder rumbled and boomed. Ernest looked out his window just as black and yellow bolts of lightning tore through the sky and touched down in a glittering purple canyon in the distance.

  “Oh dear, oh dear!” Ernest groaned. “I must have said the wrong thing. Again.” He rolled his eyes and shook his head. He took a long deep breath. “This time, I’ll read the spell as I cast it.” He pushed his lips into a determined line. With his eyes fixed on page 46, he chanted, “Iggledy Figgledly Smiggledy Smo! Turn the Oats into Tickets for the Show!”

  The oats glowed and flickered yellow and black. They spun and jiggled inside the jar. Then, with a flash of light, the jar of oats disappeared and in its place was a roll of yellow and black tickets.

  “I did it!” Ernest exclaimed. He tore off a ticket and read out loud, “Admit One: The Moonbeams’ First Concert.”

  Cressida Jenkins opened the door of the red station wagon and slid out of the back seat. She grabbed her backpack—a glittery orange one, with rainbow straps, that said “Cressida” in gemstones across the outer compartment. “Thank you for driving me home, Ms. Blackburn,” Cressida said to her friend Gillian’s mother.

  “Any time, Cressida,” Ms. Blackburn said.

  Cressida turned to Gillian. “See you in school tomorrow!” Cressida belted out as she extended her arms and spread her fingers so she had what their chorus teacher, Ms. Archibald, called “jazz hands.”

  Gillian threw back her head and laughed. Then she put jazz hands on either side of her face, fluttered her fingers, and sang, “Have a great afternoon.”

  Ms. Blackburn smiled. “You two girls are a riot,” she said. “You have more fun than anyone I know. Especially when Eleanor is with you.”

  Cressida smiled. Gillian and Eleanor were her two best friends, and Ms. Blackburn was right—the three of them had enormous amounts of fun together.

  “Thanks again for the ride,” Cressida said, and she gently closed the station wagon door and took a step back. As Gillian and Cressida waved at each other, Ms. Blackburn drove away. When the station wagon had disappeared down a hill, Cressida turned around and skipped up her driveway, along her family’s brick walkway, and through the front door. She danced into her house singing, “I’m home! I’m home! I’m home!” as she twirled and snapped her fingers.

  “Hi sweetheart,” her father called from the kitchen. “How was chorus practice?”

  “Fantastic!” Cressida sang. She loved chorus practice. She loved it so much that she was always in an amazing mood for the rest of the afternoon.

  “Wonderful! Marvelous!” her father sang back. She heard him chopping vegetables to make lasagna for dinner. Her mother was on a business trip, and so her father had taken the afternoon off from work.

  Corey, Cressida’s older brother, lay on his back on the couch with an open book propped against his bent legs. Cressida could see he was studying a two-page spread with pictures of crickets and grasshoppers. “Please go sing and dance somewhere else,” Corey grumbled. But then he smiled and sang, “It’s just that I’m trying to read in here!”

  Cressida laughed. “Okay,” she said, looking at his book. “But first tell me something about crickets.”

  Corey nodded. He loved learning and sharing facts about insects and animals. “Here’s a good one,” he said. He looked down at his book and read, “Crickets mainly chirp at night, and they’re usually silent during the day. Crickets chirp by rubbing their wings together.”

  “Interesting,” Cressida said. Then, with her jazz hands extended, she belted out, “Thanks for the facts!” before she skipped down the hallway to her bedroom. She closed her door, turned on her unicorn lamp, and laid her backpack on her unicorn bedspread. For a moment, Cressida smiled as she remembered everything that had happened at chorus practice that afternoon. Their teacher, Ms. Archibald, had taught them new choreography—that was the word for the ways they moved their arms and hands while they sang—and they had tried on their costumes: glittery red top hats with matching bow ties. One of the chorus room walls was covered in mirrors, and Cressida had loved watching all the chorus members singing and practicing their choreography in their hats and bow ties.

  Cressida knew she needed to start her math homework. She even wanted to do it, because she was looking forward to figuring out the solutions to a new set of word problems. The trouble, though, was that doing her math homework meant sitting down at a desk. And right then, all the exhilaration and excitement of singing still sizzled through her, from the tips of her toes to the ends of her fingers. Sitting, even to do something she liked, felt completely impossible. Cressida bounded over to the center of her room, right in the middle of her unicorn rug. She decided she would jump up and down until she had gotten out enough energy that she could tolerate time at her desk.

  Cressida counted her jumps out loud. And each time she jumped, her silver unicorn sneakers—which had pink, blinking lights—flashed. Just as she finished her twenty-third jump and was crouching down for the next, she heard a high, tinkling noise coming from her bedside table drawer. Cressida grinned from ear to ear. She fluttered her jazz hands. And she made her twenty-fourth jump a leap over to her
bedside table. She opened the drawer and pulled out an old-fashioned key with a crystal ball handle that was glowing bright pink and pulsing.

  The key had been a gift from the unicorn princesses—eight unicorns with unique magic powers who ruled the Rainbow Realm, an enchanted world Cressida could travel to by pushing the key into a tiny hole at the base of an oak tree in the woods behind her house. Whenever the unicorns wanted to invite Cressida to the Rainbow Realm for a special occasion, they made the key glow bright pink and ring with a high tinkling noise.

  A visit to the Rainbow Realm sounded like a perfect plan to Cressida. Not only would she be able to run and jump and play with unicorns instead of sitting at a desk, but time in the human world froze while she was in the Rainbow Realm. That meant she would still have time to do her homework before dinner once she returned.

  As Cressida was about to run out of her room, she glanced down at her clothes. Her blue T-shirt was covered in stains from lunch: three large drips of chocolate milk, a glob of strawberry jam, a streak of guacamole, and a splatter of hummus. Luckily, her jeans looked just fine, apart from a hole in one knee—she thought of the tear as air conditioning for her legs when she was running on the playground. Cressida took off her dirty T-shirt and threw it in her hamper. She opened her shirt drawer and chose a bright yellow shirt with a black owl on the front. Now she was ready to visit Princess Sunbeam, Princess Flash, Princess Bloom, Princess Prism, Princess Breeze, Princess Moon, Princess Firefly, and Princess Feather.

  Cressida shoved the key into her back pocket and raced down the hallway. In the living room, she sang, “I’m going for a quick walk in the woods.”

  “Just be back for dinner,” her father sang from the kitchen.

  Cressida sprinted out the back door and across her yard, into the woods behind her house. She jogged along the trail that led to the magic oak tree, skipping and twirling with excitement. When she reached the tree, she kneeled down and slid the key into a small hole. Suddenly, the forest began to spin, faster and faster, until everything was a blur of blue sky and green leaves. Then it went pitch black, and Cressida felt the exciting—and just a little bit frightening—sensation of falling through space.

  After a few seconds, Cressida landed on something soft. At first, all she could see was a spinning swirl of pink, purple, and white. Then the room slowed to a stop, and Cressida knew exactly where she was: Spiral Palace, the unicorn princesses’ horn-shaped home.

  In the front hall of Spiral Palace, light from the chandeliers shimmered and danced on the polished marble floors. Pink and purple curtains fluttered in the breeze. Large velvet armchairs and sofas sat near a row of silver troughs. Cressida looked around for Sunbeam, Flash, Bloom, Prism, Breeze, Moon, Firefly, and Feather, but they were nowhere to be seen. Just as Cressida was about to call out, “Hello?” she heard the sounds of singing.

  The singing grew louder and louder, and for a few seconds, Cressida closed her eyes and listened. Two of the voices sounded so beautiful that goose bumps covered Cressida’s arms and shivers shot up her spine. Most of the other voices were a little off-key, sometimes hitting the right notes and sometimes almost hitting them—that was how Cressida supposed she sounded when she sang. And two voices never hit the right notes at all. But every voice sounded full of exactly the same joy Cressida felt when she sang with her chorus.

  Cressida opened her eyes as all eight unicorn princesses marched into the front hall, singing, swishing their tails, flicking their manes, and stomping their hooves. They sang for another minute, and as she watched, Cressida could see that Moon and Sunbeam were the two unicorns with the beautiful voices—Cressida figured that if they were in her school’s chorus, Ms. Archibald would give them both solos. Bloom, Prism, Breeze, and Firefly’s singing—like Cressida’s—was sometimes a little off-key. But Flash and Feather hit so many wrong notes they sounded like they were singing a different song entirely.

  When the unicorn princesses finished, Cressida jumped up and clapped, calling out, “Bravo! Bravo! That was amazing!”

  Yellow Sunbeam, silver Flash, green Bloom, purple Prism, blue Breeze, black Moon, orange Firefly, and pink Feather all grinned. As they bent forward to bow, their gemstone necklaces shimmered in the light of the chandeliers.

  When they stood back up, Sunbeam exclaimed, “My human girl is back! My human girl is back!” as she trotted in circles around Cressida.

  “We’re thrilled you’re here,” Moon said.

  “Welcome!” Flash and Feather said at the same time.

  Bloom and Breeze smiled at Cressida.

  Firefly winked.

  And Prism reared up and whinnied with excitement.

  “I’m so glad to see all of you again,” Cressida said. “And I loved hearing you sing.”

  “Thank you,” Sunbeam said.

  “Yes, thank you,” Moon said. “Though we sound much better when we can read the notes from our sheet music while we sing.”

  “And when the raccoons are accompanying us on their instruments,” Bloom said.

  “And when the owls are hooting and the frogs are croaking,” Firefly said.

  “And when the cacti and the dunes are singing the harmony,” Feather said. “They drown out all my wrong notes.”

  Flash laughed and nodded. “Exactly!” she said.

  Cressida took a moment to imagine so many magical creatures singing together. “It sounds like you have an entire chorus,” she said.

  Moon and Sunbeam grinned proudly.

  “Sunbeam and I started the first Rainbow Realm chorus just last week,” Moon said.

  “We call ourselves the Moonbeams,” Sunbeam said.

  “And we invited you because our first performance is this afternoon,” Moon said. “Ernest told me he even made tickets to pass out to all the creatures in the Rainbow Realm.”

  “So,” Sunbeam and Moon said at exactly the same time, “would you like to come to our concert?”

  Cressida’s eyes widened. At that moment, a Rainbow Realm chorus concert sounded like the most exciting thing Cressida could imagine. “Absolutely,” Cressida said, hopping from one foot to the other. “And guess what? I’m in a chorus, too! It’s at my school, Pinewood Elementary.”

  “Really?” Sunbeam asked. “You like to sing?”

  “I love to sing,” Cressida said.

  Sunbeam and Moon turned and looked at each other. Sunbeam raised her eyebrows, as if to ask her sister a silent question. Moon widened her eyes and nodded. Sunbeam nodded back. Then, the two unicorns faced Cressida. “The Moonbeams are made up of unicorns and creatures from the Glitter Canyon and the Night Forest,” Sunbeam explained. “But we would be honored if you would be our special guest singer from the human world. Would you like to join us?”

  Cressida’s heart skipped a beat. “Yes,” she said, clapping her hands, “that would be amazing.”

  “Fabulous,” Sunbeam said.

  “Terrific,” Moon said. “We can figure out what part you’ll sing while we’re getting ready for the concert.”

  “Speaking of getting ready,” Sunbeam said, “we’d better do just that.”

  Moon nodded. She turned to Flash, Bloom, Prism, Breeze, Firefly, and Feather. “Good job practicing, Moonbeams,” she said. “We’ll meet you at the Glitter Canyon for our performance in two hours.”

  Flash and Feather nodded.

  Bloom and Prism began to hum while Breeze and Firefly tapped their hooves to the beat.

  “Are you ready to go?” Moon asked Cressida.

  Cressida opened her mouth to say yes, but before she could make a sound, a nasal voice called out, “Wait! Don’t go yet! Just a moment!” Cressida giggled.

  Ernest burst into the room wearing his purple wizard’s cloak, his pointy hat, and a pair of bunny slippers.

  “I love those slippers,” Cressida said.

  “Thank you,” Ernest said, holding one foot out and then the other so Cressida and the unicorns could admire the white furry ears and bright pink noses on Ernes
t’s toes. “I found them under my bed. I’d completely forgotten my cousin Ignatius the Iguana sent them to me from the Reptile Realm.”

  “Do the iguanas wear bunny slippers in the Reptile Realm?” Flash asked, furrowing her brow.

  “Sometimes,” Feather said. “I saw the iguanas wearing them before bed on my last trip to the Reptile Realm.”

  Flash nodded and looked a little wistful, as though she wished she could go on a trip.

  “Guess what?” Ernest said, pulling a roll of yellow and black tickets from his pocket. “I made the tickets. And I did it on my first try. Well, almost on my first try. It was more like my second. But, um, anyway,” Ernest said, clearing his throat. “I’m about to go give out tickets to all the creatures in the Rainbow Realm. And I’m going to do it wearing my bunny slippers.”

  Cressida giggled again.

  “Thank you so much for making the tickets,” Sunbeam said.

  Moon nodded. “Yes, thank you.”

  “My pleasure,” Ernest said. “Before I go, I have a magical surprise for Cressida. I’ve been practicing this spell for most of the morning. I’m sure I can get it on my first try.”

  Cressida smiled and braced herself for a magical mishap.

  Ernest dropped the roll of tickets back into his cloak pocket and pulled out his wand. He pointed it at Cressida, and as he waved it back and forth, he chanted, “Bubbly Snubbly Notily Snome! Make Magical High-Grow Foam!”

  A comet of light zipped around the room in faster and faster circles. Then, with a bright flash, a thick carpet of sea-green foam covered the palace’s marble floors. Right before Cressida’s eyes, it began to grow. Ernest, Cressida, and the unicorns watched as the foam rose higher and higher, soon reaching their ankles and then their knees.

  “Oh dear, oh dear,” Ernest said, shaking his head. “This happened up in my room, too. It grew as high as my nose the first time, before I figured out how to get rid of it. The only good thing about it is it tastes like cherries. I figured that out by accident.” Ernest blushed. Cressida laughed. She looked down and saw the foam was already touching her waist.