Maggie and the Moonbird

by Katya Balen

  Which was exactly what they were saying.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Maggie had to help the bird. She had to help it be free and soar the skies again, just like she’d just done. Now she’d flown and tumbled through the clouds, Maggie couldn’t imagine what it must be like to sit in a cage all day, separated from the sky, with wings that might as well be broken.

  Maggie inspected the lock on the door of the enclosure, her feathers dragging behind her. It was a big fat metal padlock with a number combination instead of a keyhole. Maggie twisted it a few times.

  The lock stayed stubbornly shut.

  No click. This could take a while. Now that Maggie was on the ground, the cold was seeping through her pyjamas into her skin. She wrapped her feathery arms around herself and it felt like she was being hugged by a giant duvet.

  With one hand, she tried . The lock didn’t budge. Maggie growled. In the distance, a lion roared back. She tried another ten combinations. Then another. She was starting to sweat with frustration and annoyance, and her fingers were aching from flicking the lock’s numbers round and round.

  “How am I supposed to help you?” whispered Maggie. “There are probably a million billion different numbers; I can’t just guess! And what am I supposed to do about all the other padlocked bird cages?! I’ll be here until I’m ninety.”

  An army of beady bird eyes stared back at her.

  “Well you’re no help,” said Maggie crossly. “Is this your part of the job over? Fly me here and then be absolutely useless?”

  A kestrel scratched its head awkwardly with its talon. A raven refused to meet her eye. A blue tit did something rude on the grass.

  Maggie rattled the lock angrily and the strange silver bird jumped. It flapped its wings and toppled from its perch. It fell right to the floor, its wings useless by its side.

  Maggie’s own wings bristled in understanding. The bird was too weak to fly. Even if she burst the lock open right now, the silver bird would have to stay hopping on the ground. A ground that was full of sneaky predators like foxes and cats and Zeke.

  The birds, who had been so unhelpful just seconds before, suddenly started hooting at Maggie. The raven pointed its wing at her and hopped frantically. Maggie followed its black-eyed gaze and gasped.

  Her wings were turning black at the very edges, like an invisible fire was burning them. Their glow was fading too. Her feathers were turning dull, just like the patches on the strange bird. She flapped in panic and rose off the ground, her toes brushing the path. The birds rose with her, shooting like arrows into the sky.

  Maggie’s mouth went dry. She was shoeless, wearing only her pyjamas, and she was miles and miles from home, and her wings were blackening and fading. If they disappeared altogether, she’d be stuck.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll help you. I promise,” she whispered to the strange bird as her feathers smouldered.

  Maggie had to get back. And she had to get back quickly.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Maggie flapped her wings desperately, but she could feel herself becoming heavier and heavier. Gone was the feeling of being as light as air, of being able to tumble and turn and weave and wind her way through the sky. Now she was sweating; every flap was becoming harder and harder.

  The birds surrounded her, shrieking and calling to each other. Maggie flapped and dipped down. She couldn’t stay at the right height. Every few seconds, she was flying closer and closer to the ground. She could see the lights of familiar streets, but she couldn’t keep going. She was exhausted.

  She was

  f

  a

  l

  l

  i

  n

  g

  and then she was

  g

  n

  i

  s

  i

  r

  Maggie looked round in astonishment. Her wings weren’t flapping and her bones were heavy but she was floating in the sky. She felt softness all around her and thought for a moment she was on a cloud, but then she felt the cloud shift and beat the air.

  The birds were carrying her. They had grouped tightly together and Maggie was lying across their many backs as they flew through the sky, and took her closer and closer to home.

  Maggie saw her back garden precisely four seconds before she was rolled off the birds and into a hedge. Her pyjamas tore on a thorn and leaves caught in her hair like a crown. She crawled out and looked around.

  The moon’s light was fading and so were Maggie’s wings. They were ragged and mostly black now, with a few dull grey spots that once would have shone in the moonlight. As she looked, the feathers fizzed and sparked and crumbled until her wings were ragged and burned. Maggie brushed the ash from her arms and was about to head inside when she heard a noise.

  A shuffle of footsteps.

  And the backdoor opened.

  The birds scattered.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Maggie hurled herself back into the hedge at lightning speed as Dad stepped into the garden. He was wearing his dressing gown, which was covered in lots of little spades and trowels. He was very proud of that dressing gown.

  Maggie was trying very hard not to breathe, but it turned out that was impossible. She tried breathing very quietly, but she was out of breath from all the not-breathing and sounded a bit like an asthmatic donkey.

  But Dad didn’t seem to notice. He was kneeling down in front of one of his flowerbeds and sprinkling something on the soil. He was whispering gently. He was always whispering to his plants. Maggie found it deeply weird, but Dad didn’t care. He said it helped them grow.

  Maggie craned her neck. Why was Dad out here in the middle of the night? He might have forgotten to tuck the plants in or sing them a lullaby. He might have forgotten to tell them all he loved them very much, and to sleep tight and not let the aphids bite. It was a very real possibility.

  But as Maggie looked, she could see something very odd. The flowers were growing. Right then and there, she could see soft petals opening and stretching, like they were just waking up. What had been tightly closed buds when Maggie landed were now huge flowers the size of a mouse, then her hand, then a football. She could actually hear the whoosh of the petals as they grew.

  But that wasn’t even the strangest thing.

  Maggie didn’t know an awful lot about plants, but she did know that they didn’t usually glow.

  And that glow looked very, very familiar.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Maggie had to stay folded up in the hedge until her dad had finished whatever he was doing to his flowers. By the time he’d watered them and told them he loved them and patted them gently on their glowing heads, she had cramp in one leg and the other had fallen asleep. She only discovered that fact when she tried to stand up and promptly fell over. It was frankly a miracle, she thought, that she’d got through this night without breaking any bones.

  She half-walked, half-crawled over to the flowers. New shadows danced around the garden as the moon disappeared behind the clouds. Despite the fact that Maggie had no interest in flowers, she had to admit these were amazing. They were like huge, glowing, petally orbs. Like moons on stalks. It clicked then. These were the moonflowers.

  But as she gazed at them, they began to shrink before her eyes. Just as quickly as they’d whooshed up to the size of a football, they started to shrivel.

  “No, no! Don’t do that!” Maggie said desperately. “I’ll sing to you too! Erm, baa, baa black sheep have you any wool…”

  Moushka, accompanied by several neighbourhood cats, appeared on the fence and yowled back at her. Maggie didn’t have the world’s best singing voice, it had to be said. She glared at the cat choir and stopped singing.

  “Come on, stupid flower,” Maggie growled, as the petals curled and faded. She reached out her hand as if she could somehow stop the shrinking by poking them. As her finger touched the velvet-soft petals, Maggie felt a strange zip and whizz in her arms. It was like she was m
ade of sherbet again, all fizz and tingle and magic.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The darkness around Maggie shifted. She looked up at the sky. It was as if someone had flicked a light on. The moon was back.

  Maggie plucked a glowing petal from one of the flowers, which was no longer shrinking. It was blooming again, growing and turning towards the moon. Interesting, thought Maggie. I guess that’s why they call it a moonflower.

  Maggie half-expected the plucked petal to go dull and grey in her hand, but it stayed pearly and beautiful. She sniffed it experimentally. It smelled like all good things – chocolate and sugar and sun cream and freshly cut grass and cookies and the garden after the rain. All of those smells shouldn’t have worked together but, somehow, they did. The result was delicious. And before Maggie knew what she was doing, she put the petal in her mouth and chewed.

  “Oh no, urgh, bleurgh, argh!” Maggie choked and spat the petal back into her hand. It was dribbly and wet but it somehow still looked elegant.

  “Okay, so you’re not supposed to eat them I guess,” Maggie muttered, wiping her tongue desperately with her hands. “Urgh, gross, gross, gross, tastes like cat litter.”

  The cats sitting on the fence hissed and turned their backs on her.

  She twirled the petal in her fingers and the blackened feather in her pocket nudged her insistently.

  Maggie took the feather out of her pyjama pocket and held it in her hand with the moonflower petal. Together they seemed to buzz and shimmer and vibrate in her palm. The feather blushed silver and sparkled. She could feel that strange sherbet energy travelling down her arms and through her shoulder blades.

  There was a pop and a crack and a hiss like opening a can of lemonade.

  The bedraggled, ragged feathers of her wings, which moments before had been crumbling and turning to ash, were now sparkling and bright.

  “Wowsers trousers,” Maggie breathed. “Would you look at that?”

  Moushka meowed back at her.

  Maggie’s wings shone once again. She flapped them experimentally, and rose a few feet off the ground. Her toes skimmed the cold grass. Hovering just above the flowerbeds, Maggie swooped down and picked another few petals from the moonflowers. She felt a bit guilty about that, but before she could blink twice the petals had regrown themselves.

  She flapped more and more, until she was touching the clouds. She stretched out and flew back towards the zoo. She had a plan, and now all she could do was hope it worked.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Maggie landed in the bin. Again. She had tried very hard not to, but it turned out that the third time was definitely not the charm when it came to landing after winged flight. She pulled a banana skin out of her pyjama leg and dashed over to the silver bird’s cage.

  “Here,” Maggie whispered through the wire. “I think this might help you.” She held out the petals. Their glow exactly matched the bird’s feathers.

  If this flower was a moonflower, then this bird was a moonbird.

  The moonbird shuffled forward, weakly. It dipped its lovely head into Maggie’s palm and touched its beak to the flowers. It gulped down the petals in one swift movement.

  “Oh, so you can eat them can you…” Maggie started to say, but she stopped when she saw what was happening.

  It was like a spell. A piece of magic. A miracle.

  The moment the moonbird swallowed the petals, the dark featherless spots on its body began to shine and fizz. New feathers burst from them in a rainbow of light. The moonbird’s wings and body began to shine and pulse. Gold and silver sparks shot around the cage like stars. The moonbird flapped its wings and rose up in the cage, whirling and spinning in a ball of light that spread to every corner. Maggie could feel waves of energy whirling around the moonbird. It was like watching a firework.

  The moonbird flapped again and a sound like a whip cracked the air. The padlock keeping its cage locked burst and the door swung open. The moonbird soared through it and up into the waiting sky. Maggie felt her heart jump a little. This beautiful bird was going to fly away forever, and Maggie had barely been able to see her in all her glory. For the second time that night, she wished she’d brought her binoculars.

  Then the moonbird twirled in the clouds and shot straight back down again, a trail of sparks shooting from behind her. As she raced between the bird cages, more and more padlocks broke. Doors flew open and birds flew out. Soon, the air was churning with bright parrots and triumphant owls. There were so many birds that all Maggie could see was feathers and wings, talons and beaks. Her face was brushed by feathers and nipped gently by beaks. She was in the middle of a bird storm. She flapped her own wings and flew amongst them as they hooted with happiness at their new freedom.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Maggie followed the moonbird. All around her were the zoo birds, and they were soon joined by hundreds of others. The whole night sky was filled with birds. Maggie spotted her lesser spotted woodpecker, and the five other birds left in her book. The gold badge was hers, but she somehow didn’t think the Birdwatchers Association would believe her if she told them where she’d seen them all.

  The moonbird was fully recovered. She span like a Catherine wheel, turning herself into a silvery blur. It had clearly been a long time since she’d been able to stretch her wings. Maggie wondered what the zoo had been feeding her. The moonflower was obviously what she needed and being without it for so long had made her weak and faded. Now she was strong and brilliant. Maggie felt a little flicker of pride as she flew alongside all the magnificent birds.

  The moonbird landed gracefully in Maggie’s garden, next to the moonflower patch. Maggie landed in the compost heap. Her wings were turning black and crumbling again and, even when she touched the petals on the moonflowers, they stayed dark and ashy. She supposed one feather would only let you have wings for so long, even if you recharged it with moonflower magic. She felt odd without her wings. They’d felt just right. The idea that she would never fly again made her tummy twang with sadness. But she’d done the most important thing. She’d saved the moonbird.

  The other birds hopped amongst Maggie’s dad’s flowers, nuzzling their beaks into all the weird and wonderful things that he grew.

  The moonbird bounced over to Maggie as she sat in the compost heap, watching in wonder. Maggie gently stretched out her hand and stroked the side of the moonbird’s head. She was softer than anything Maggie had ever touched, and Maggie’s fingers tingled with something like magic. Tiny sparks shimmered on the moonbird’s feathers where Maggie had stroked her.

  Then, the moonbird sang a song that was just as beautiful and spine-tingling as the one Maggie had heard in the zoo, but that was full of joy and excitement. The rest of the birds sang back, and as one they rose into the night and flew towards the stars.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Can I help you in the garden today, Dad?” Maggie asked after breakfast. It was actually more like lunch, because Maggie had had quite a long lie-in that morning.

  “Well of course, Mags,” said Dad, surprised. “I’d love that! I’m just planting a new variety of snapdragon. It’s really got some bite.”

  “Cool!” said Maggie. “Are there any plants that birds really like? So they’ll visit the garden lots?”

  “Absolutely,” said Dad. He was getting excited. “And sometimes you plant something without realising who will like it or what it can do. Plants and flowers have lots of different uses, some of which we haven’t even discovered yet! I’ve got some fascinating literature on the subject…” he saw the look on Maggie’s face. “…but perhaps we could just talk about it while we plant?” He yawned. “Excuse me! I was up in the night with the lunefleurs. They’re doing just what I wanted – you’ll have to wake up one night and see! You know they bloom in the light of the moon. How amazing is that?”

  Maggie grinned.

  “That definitely sounds like something I’d like to see, and have never seen before,” she said solemnly. Then she put d
own her cornflakes spoon and raced up to her room to find her gardening gloves. As she searched, something caught her eye. Something shining. Something silver.

  On her pillow was a single, moon-bright feather.

  That night, and every night, Maggie soared through the sky with the moonbird by her side.

  READING ZONE!

  QUIZ TIME

  Can you remember the answers to these questions?

  • What is the name of Maggie’s cat?

  • What pattern was on Maggie’s pyjamas?

  • When Maggie flew to the zoo, what did she keep landing in?

  • How did Maggie get home when her wings failed her?

  • What did Maggie do with the petal first?

  READING ZONE!

  GET CREATIVE

  When we first meet the moonbird it is unhealthy and its feathers are fading. Once it has eaten the moonflower it transforms.

  Can you use the descriptions in the story to draw to pictures of the bird, before and after it eats the flower?

  READING ZONE!

  WHAT DO YOU THINK?

  This story has a theme of ‘change’ running though it. Maggie’s arms change to wings and back, and her feelings towards gardening also change.

  The moonbird goes though a transformation too, from being in captivity to being free.

  Can you think of any other stories where characters go through change?

  BLOOMSBURY EDUCATION

  Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  50 Bedford Square, London, WC 1B 3DP, UK