Going Places

by Ellen Potter

  “But how does the worm make the silk? Worms don’t have hands,” I said.

  “They spit it out,” Mrs. Biggie said.

  “Your dress is made of worm spit?”

  “More or less,” Mrs. Biggie said.

  Then we all wanted to touch her worm-spit dress, so she let us.

  “Can we see the worm?” asked Nicole.

  “Nope. It’s tucked safely inside its cocoon.”

  “I know how we can see it!” Camilla said. “We can use Piper’s X-ray glasses!”

  “No we can’t,” I said. “I sat on them. Look.”

  I turned my suitcase upside down and spilled everything out on the table.

  I stared down at all the broken pieces.

  Then I frowned.

  Because there was something in there that I definitely didn’t pack!

  GOING PLACES

  “How did these get in there?” I said.

  Two little white feathers had fallen out of my suitcase.

  I picked them up and looked at them. They didn’t belong to Yikes, our class parakeet. Yikes has lime-green and yellow feathers.

  “May I see them, Piper?” Mrs. Biggie asked.

  I gave her the feathers, and she held them up. Then she smiled.

  “Those feathers were in your X-ray glasses. My brother used to have a pair of those when he was a kid. Feathers are put between each lens, and it makes it look as if you’re seeing bones.”

  “Do you mean I wasn’t really seeing bones?” I asked.

  “No. It’s an optical illusion. That means it tricked your eyes into seeing something.”

  I sighed. “Mrs. Biggie, this has not been a good day for me.”

  “Not a good day?!” cried Mrs. Biggie. “Piper, don’t you know what finding a feather means?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, when I was a little girl, back in China, I found a feather on my way home from school. A little white feather, just like this one. I showed it to my grandmother, and she said, ‘Lucky you! When you find a feather, it means that you will fly off on a big trip very soon.’ And she was right, because a few months later, my family took our first trip to America.”

  I thought about that. “What does two feathers mean?” I asked.

  “Two feathers?” Mrs. Biggie smiled a big smile. “Two feathers mean that Piper Green is going places!”

  CAT AND MOUSE

  It turned out that the delicious smell was Chinese food called pot stickers, which Mrs. Biggie had made for us. They looked like fat little ears, and they were filled with chicken and vegetables. Mrs. Biggie showed us how to pick up the pot stickers with chopsticks and dip them in sauce. Ruby was the only one who could do it. The rest of us kept dropping the pot stickers on the floor. Then Garth shoved the chopsticks up his nose, which I knew he was going to do. Ms. Arabella’s face started turning pink, and when it turns that color, you had better watch out.

  “I think we should all just use our fingers to eat instead,” said Ms. Arabella in her stern voice.

  That worked out better.

  After we ate, Mrs. Biggie showed us a very fun game that Chinese kids play called Cat and Mouse. Everyone held hands and made a circle. I was the cat, so I was outside the circle. Jacob was the mouse, so he was inside. The kids who were holding hands went round and round, to make the circle spin. When they stopped, I tried to catch Jacob by running in and out under everyone’s hands. They were all screeching, “Run, Mouse, run! Run, Mouse, run!” But I caught Jacob on the second try.

  “Got you!” I said, grabbing him around his waist.

  Except it was really a hug, which is just my own secret.

  When I got back home, I dropped off my backpack in the house and went straight outside to the Fairy Tree. I climbed up to the crook in the trunk and sat down.

  “Hi, guys,” I said to the hole in the tree. “I brought you a present. You don’t have to leave me a present back either. This one is a freebie.”

  I took the white feathers out of my back pocket and carefully put one of them in the fairy hole.

  “I thought you might need this since you probably get bored just living in a tree hole all the time. The feather means that you will go on a big trip someday. And see”—I held up the other feather—“I’m keeping one of the feathers too. So now all of us are going places. And after we go places, I think we should just come straight back to Peek-a-Boo Island, okay? That’s the best plan because that’s where everyone we know is.”

  I put my feather back in my pocket.

  “Okay, you guys. Now I’m going to chew some gum into the shape of a pizza because guess where we are going tomorrow? Bunny-ear-fingers Italy!”

  THE END

  POOF!

  “Apple pie, pecan pie, butterscotch swirl,

  Pumpkin pie, lumpkin pie,

  I’m the pie GIRL!”

  I made up that song this morning. I sang it as I walked to the Little Store with my younger brother, Leo. Every time I got to the part that went “GIRL,” I did a hop.

  “There’s no such thing as lumpkin pie,” said Leo.

  Actually, I knew that. Except “lumpkin” was the only word that sounded good with “pumpkin.”

  I ignored him and sang my pie girl song again very loudly. I was in a joyful mood this morning, and I didn’t want anything to ruin it. That’s because today the Sea Star was coming. The Sea Star is a ship that sails around the coast of Maine, helping people who live on the islands. The Sea Star’s crew brings food when the weather is bad and people can’t get across to the mainland, and at Christmas, they give all the kids presents. Plus, once a year, they bring doctors to the islands so that people can have checkups. Today they were coming with a doctor. But that’s not the good part. The good part was afterward, when there would be a potluck supper on board the ship. Everyone on the island brings food to the potluck supper, and whatever dish your family makes, the kids get to serve it.

  This year, Mom was making pecan pie. That made me the Pie Girl.

  The Little Store was very busy this morning. It is Peek-a-Boo Island’s only grocery store, and it sells all kinds of things—bread, milk, cheese, ice cream, rubber gloves for lobstermen, and lots of other stuff too. Mrs. Spratt was behind the checkout counter. Her cash register kept going Ping! Ping! Ping! as people bought ingredients for their dish in the potluck supper.

  I looked at our list:

  2 bags of pecans

  1 bag of brown sugar

  1 bag of flour

  Suddenly, I felt something bonk the back of my head.

  “Hey!” I shouted as I turned around. Allie O’Malley was standing behind me, waving a wand with a silver glittery star on the end of it.

  “What’s the big idea?” I demanded, rubbing my head.

  “I was poofing you,” said Allie. She waved her wand around in the air. “Poof, poof! I’m being a fairy today. See? I’m wearing my brand-new fairy skirt.” She twirled around to show off her skirt, which was made of green and silver cloth strips that were pointy on the bottom. It was very beautiful. Then she bonked Leo on the head with her wand.

  “Poof!” she said.

  “OW!” cried Leo.

  “Fairies don’t go around poofing people on their skulls, you know,” I told her.

  “Says who?” Allie O’Malley asked.

  Right then I really felt like telling her about the Fairy Tree in my yard. Except I didn’t because it’s a secret. The only other person who knows about the Fairy Tree is my next-door neighbor Mrs. Pennypocket. There is a hole inside the Fairy Tree’s trunk, and if you put something in there, the fairies will take it and leave you a special gift in its place.

  I shut my mouth very tightly in case the Fairy Tree secret tried to sneak out of me.

  “My mom is making a deviled eggs appetizer for the potluck,” said Allie O’Malley as she swished her wand around. “So I’m going to be Appetizer Girl this year. Appetizer Girl is kind of like the star of the show because appetizers get served first
.”

  “Well, I’m going to be Pie Girl,” I said proudly.

  Allie O’Malley frowned. “No you’re not,” she said. “You’re Mashed Potato Girl. Your mother always makes mashed potatoes, so you are always Mashed Potato Girl.”

  “Well, guess what? This year, Mom isn’t making mashed potatoes.” I put my hand on my hip and bopped it to one side, very sassy.

  “I liked it better when she made mashed potatoes,” Leo said.

  “That’s because you were Gravy Boy,” I told him.

  Gravy Boy gets to pour the gravy from a little ceramic ship that is shaped like the Titanic. Mashed Potato Girl just plops the mashed potatoes on people’s plates. No one wants to be a potato plopper.

  “This year, our mom is making pecan pie,” I said to Allie, shaking the bag of pecans at her, “so I’m going to be Pie Girl. Pie Girl.”

  I could tell that Allie was not happy about this news. Pie Girl is definitely better than Appetizer Girl because who doesn’t love pie?

  Mr. Aronson walked by with a shopping basket full of stuff. Allie screeched and jumped backward, squinching up her eyes.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Leo.

  “Salt!” Allie shrieked, pointing to the container of salt in Mr. Aronson’s basket.

  “So? What’s wrong with salt?” I asked.

  “Fairies hate salt!”

  “No they don’t,” I told her.

  “Yes they do, Piper. They hate salt and they hate the sound of bells, and they love butterflies that are yellow and they love riding on giant rats.”

  “Says who?” I asked.

  “My big fairy encyclopedia. It knows everything there is to know about fairies.”

  I felt a little sick in my stomach just then.

  “They probably just don’t like too much salt,” I said with a nervous voice.

  “Wrong!” Allie jabbed the wand at me. “Fairies hate any salt at all. My encyclopedia says that if you want to get rid of fairies, just sprinkle salt all around their house and they’ll go away.”

  Uh-oh.

  Because guess what I left for the fairies yesterday?

  A pretzel rod. And that thing was covered with salt.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Although she doesn’t ride a lobster boat to work, Ellen Potter can look out her window and see islands, just like the one Piper lives on. Ellen is the author of many books for children, including the award-winning Olivia Kidney series. She lives in Maine with her family and an assortment of badly behaved creatures. Learn more about Ellen at ellenpotter.com.

  ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

  Qin Leng was born in Shanghai and lived in France and Montreal, where she studied at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. She has received many awards for her animated short films and artwork, and has published numerous picture books. Qin currently lives and works as a designer and illustrator in Toronto.

  What’s next on

  your reading list?

  Discover your next

  great read!

  * * *

  Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author.

  Sign up now.