Other books by Natalie Grant
Glimmer Girls series
London Art Chase (Book One)
A Dolphin Wish (Book Two)
ZONDERKIDZ
Miracle in Music City
Copyright © 2016 by Natalie Grant
Illustrations © 2016 by Cathi Mingus
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zonderkidz, 3900 Sparks Drive, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546
ePub Edition © June 2016: ISBN 978-0-310-75262-2
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.Zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.®
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Zonderkidz is a trademark of Zondervan.
Art direction: Cindy Davis
Cover design and interior illustrations: Cathi Mingus
Content contributor: Naomi Kinsman
Interior design: Denise Froehlich
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 /DCI/ 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Dedication
To my Glimmer Girls—Gracie, Bella, and Sadie. You’re my greatest adventure. I love you.
CONTENTS
Dedication
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
Thank you to Naomi Kinsman for bringing your genius creativity and beautiful patience to this process. None of this would be a reality without you.
ONE
Race you to the tree!” Annabeth shouted the minute they were out the door for recess.
It was the first day back at school. To Maddie, it felt like forever since she and her twin sister, Mia, had spent time with their best friends. They charged across the blacktop and up the hill. Maddie would reach the tree last by a long shot for sure, but that didn’t matter. Everything felt just how it had been before they left for Mom’s summer concert tour—and that was saying something. Last night, she’d tossed and turned, waking up five or six times, worried. Annabeth and Emily’s houses were just up the street from the Glimmers’ house, and usually the girls saw each other almost every day. But would things be different now, after Maddie and her family had been gone nearly all summer?
“Come on, Maddie!” Mia shouted over her shoulder.
Maddie put on a burst of speed, gasping in a breath of crisp, cool air. The leaves of the giant oak tree had started to turn fiery red around their edges. Fall in Nashville was Maddie’s favorite time of year.
“Guess what?” Mia said, at the exact moment Annabeth said the same thing.
“You first,” Annabeth said.
Mia motioned for Maddie to tell.
Maddie fell to her knees in the grass beside her friends and said, “When we were in London, we caught an art thief.”
“Actually, Maddie caught him,” Mia added. “She snuck out all on her own—in London. Can you believe it?”
“And then Mia figured out who was letting animals out of their exhibits at Captain Swashbuckler’s Adventure Park in San Diego,” Maddie said.
“Two mysteries solved in one summer!” Mia gave Maddie a high five.
Annabeth and Emily exchanged a look. Maddie didn’t know what the look meant, but her worries from last night rushed back into her mind.
“What did you want to tell us?” she asked.
At this, Annabeth’s face lit up, making Maddie feel much, much better. Maybe the look didn’t mean anything. Maybe her friends were just impatient to share their news.
Annabeth said, “We’ve been working on—”
Emily cut her off. “A dance! We’ve been working on it for most of the summer.”
“Let’s show them!” Annabeth leapt to her feet and shooed Emily away so they both had room to strike their poses.
“Ms. Carpenter even gave us special permission to use Emily’s iPad during recess to play the music,” Annabeth said. “We asked her this morning so we could surprise you!”
Emily tapped on the screen and found the song. As the beat began, Emily turned up the volume, then shoved the iPad into Maddie’s hands. “Here, you can hold this.”
“Perfect,” Annabeth said, nodding to the music.
Maddie felt a pang. Maybe she was supposed to feel included because she was holding the iPad, but mostly, she felt left out. Had the girls left a part in the dance for her and Mia?
“Five, six, seven, eight!”
Maddie and Mia jumped back, narrowly missing getting knocked in the faces by the girls’ swinging arms. Maddie watched the complicated pattern of steps. What struck her, more than the complicated moves her friends had clearly worked on for a long time, was how the dance was made for two. Only two. Their friends obviously hadn’t planned to include Maddie and Mia when they came home.
“What do you think?” Annabeth asked breathlessly, as the song came to an end.
“Can you teach us?” Mia asked.
“Uh, well . . .” Annabeth stalled.
“It’s kind of a dance for two,” Emily said, and then added quickly, “because you guys were gone.”
“Did you like it?” Annabeth asked.
“I’d like it better if there was something for Maddie and me to do, other than hold the music,” Mia said.
“But it’s a good dance,” Maddie said, feeling the tension rise between her sister and their friends.
The trouble was, she agreed with Mia. It felt as though the girls had planned the dance without them on purpose. Annabeth and Emily didn’t say anything, which felt worse than if they had argued.
“Do you want to try it again?” Annabeth asked Emily, as the silence started to feel uncomfortable. “The section with the turns wasn’t quite right.”
“Yeah, okay . . .” Emily looked at Maddie. “Could you play the song again?”
“Seriously?” Mia asked, looking from one of their friends to the other.
“It’s okay, Mia,” Maddie said. “I don’t mind.”
“Well, I have better things to do than stand here and watch you dance.” Mia took off across the blacktop toward the school—probably to go to the library.
Maddie swallowed hard. Maybe their friends didn’t know how left out they’d made her and Mia feel. But how couldn’t they know? Mia had made her fee
lings pretty clear.
Annabeth stared after Mia and then shrugged. “You guys get to go all over the place on tour. And this is just a dance. You weren’t here to make it with us. That’s all. You understand, right, Maddie?”
“Yeah.” Maddie tapped the screen to start the song over. “Yeah, I understand.”
The girls launched into the dance again, and Maddie plastered a smile on her face. After five more run-throughs, the bell finally rang and they went back inside.
Fifth grade wasn’t very different from fourth. Since they had the same teacher as they’d had last year, their subjects picked up right where they had left off. Today they focused on fractions, Latin, and writing out long passages of Shakespeare in cursive. In cursive, they practiced what Ms. Carpenter called the “lost art of handwriting.” The second half of the day dragged on. All Maddie could hear in her head was Annabeth and Emily’s song. Mia kept shooting her “Are you okay?” looks. The last hour of the day was so long, Maddie started counting how many times she looked up at the clock. Thirty-three by the time they were dismissed.
“See you tomorrow,” Emily called to Maddie.
Maddie nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She stuffed her books into her bag and followed Mia out to the pick-up line to meet Lulu and wait for Miss Julia.
TWO
We got to write stories today in class,” Lulu called to her sisters, bubbling over with excitement. “And I wrote a mystery, kind of like the ones we solved this summer. But different.”
“Hmm . . .” Mia said.
“What’s your mystery about?” Maddie asked, since she could see that Mia was too full of held-back words to ask.
“A fairy and her magic dust. The magic dust gets stolen, and the fairy has to figure out who took it.”
Miss Julia pulled up, and the girls climbed into the car.
The minute the doors shut, Mia’s pent-up words burst out. “I can’t believe them. And I can’t believe you put up with it like that, Maddie.”
“So, the fairy lives in a hole in a tree, like an owl,” Lulu said, seeming not to notice Mia’s outburst. “But she’s tiny, so she can fit a hammock to sleep on in her house, and a little shelf for making food. Plus, she gathers rainwater for her teeny sink. And she collected cotton fluff from wish-flowers to make a soft couch. She keeps her fairy dust in a box she carved out of wood. So, one day after she’s been flying around the forest with her fairy friend, she comes home and her fairy dust is gone!”
“Uh-oh,” Maddie said.
“I know, and that’s when the mystery starts.” Lulu was so excited, she couldn’t sit still. She kicked the seat in front of her. “Oops! Sorry, Miss Julia.”
“Everyone buckled in?” Miss Julia asked.
“Yes,” Maddie said.
“Yes,” Mia grumbled.
“Umm . . .” Lulu said as she clicked her belt into place. “Okay. Yep, me too.”
“They could have waited for us to come home to invent a dance,” Mia said to no one in particular. “Or at least left room in their dance to add us when we got home.”
Lulu kept telling her story, full-steam ahead. “The fairy thinks she sees a footprint, so she looks for more, but there aren’t any. As you know, fairies fly, so they don’t leave footprints. That’s a problem. But since there aren’t any footprints, she’s pretty sure it must be a fairy. But, she’s not sure how to find any more clues.”
Mia continued, “I mean, we all take dance class together. It only makes sense for us to all be in the dance.”
Maddie bounced between her sisters, trying to follow both conversations. The more Mia talked, the more Maddie’s eyes and nose burned. She’d held in her hurt feelings all day long.
Lulu said, “But then, the fairy realizes there might be clues that aren’t footprints. So, she starts to pay attention to anything out of the ordinary.”
“It’s like they meant to leave us out,” Mia said.
Maddie blinked and blinked, but she couldn’t hold the tears back anymore. They rolled down her cheeks. Lulu stopped midsentence, shocked into silence.
“Oh, Maddie, don’t cry,” Mia said.
“I’m just . . . it’s just . . .” Maddie tried to put what she was feeling into words. On the tour this summer, so much had happened. She thought she’d moved beyond tears, but here they were spilling out, whether she wanted them to or not.
“I know what we can do,” Mia said. “We can make up our own dance, you and me.”
“And me!” Lulu added.
Mia’s mouth tilted up in a half smile. “Okay, yes, and you too, Lulu. We can put on a show for Mom and Dad tonight like we sometimes do.”
“And we can charge a quarter!” Lulu said.
“True,” Mia said. “What do you say, Maddie?”
Maddie nodded. “I like that idea.”
“Just in case anyone cares,” Miss Julia said from the front seat, “I like the idea too. And I’ll definitely pay a quarter to see your dance.”
“I don’t know why I’m crying,” Maddie said.
“I do,” Mia said. “Annabeth and Emily are acting like everything is different, just because we were gone for a few months.”
“I don’t want them to have moved on without us,” Maddie said.
“Everything was different in my classroom too,” Lulu said. “But different good. Last year, we only got to write sentences. Now we get to write a whole story.”
Maddie wiped her cheeks, and then wiped her hands on her leggings. “Maybe we can show them our dance tomorrow.”
“And we won’t let them be in ours, either,” Mia said.
“Well, maybe we should . . .” Maddie said.
Mia raised an eyebrow.
“We can decide later,” Maddie said quickly, and turned to Lulu. “So, does she solve the mystery?”
Lulu frowned. “Who?”
“Your fairy.”
“Oh!” Lulu said. “Yes! She sees toad footprints outside her house, and figures her fairy dust was kidnapped—”
“You can’t kidnap dust,” Mia pointed out.
“Well, it’s stolen, then.” Lulu said. “Stolen by the toad. But fairy dust doesn’t work on toads. It makes him sick to his stomach when he tries to eat it. So, the fairy finds the toad by the pond, looking greener than usual. He has all her dust in his backpack.”
“And he gives it back to her?” Maddie asked.
“Doesn’t that seem too easy?” Mia asked.
“Sometimes things work out easier than you think,” Lulu said.
Mia elbowed Maddie. “About that, she’s right. This dance thing will be okay too.”
“Our dance will be more than okay,” Maddie said, realizing she believed this just as she said it.
“It will be fantabulous!” Lulu said as they pulled into their driveway. “Glimmer girls sparkle and shine . . .”
“But most of all, they are kind,” said her sisters, and even Miss Julia chimed in.
THREE
Like this, Mia,” Lulu insisted, repeating the complicated jump-twirl move, nearly toppling over onto Mia’s bedroom floor.
Mia flopped onto her bed. “I’m not doing that, Lulu.”
“But we want the dance to be fantabulous!” Lulu said. “Come on, please, Mia?”
Maddie perched on the edge of Mia’s bed, hoping a plan would spring to mind. She knew it wouldn’t help to point out that no one could do the jump-twirl Lulu had suggested the same way twice . . . not even Lulu. Lulu would argue, and Mia would insist she could do the move, she just didn’t want to.
“How about this?” Maddie suggested, jumping up to demonstrate. She spun once and then landed on one knee, arms raised.
Lulu’s bottom lip jutted out as she faced off with Mia.
“Or this?” Maddie tried another spin, this time ending with jazz hands.
“You’re doing the same thing over and over,” Lulu said. “Just with different hands.”
“This isn’t working,” Mia said.
“Din
ner in ten minutes!” Mom called from downstairs.
Lulu jumped to her feet, eyes wild. “Dinner in ten minutes! We need an end, we need an end!”
“What if we do the dance exactly as we’ve planned it—together—and on that last beat, we can each do a move we like best,” Maddie said.
Mia tilted her head, thinking. “That’s actually a good idea. Nice one, Maddie.”
“Start the music!” Lulu shouted, posing in the middle of the room.
Maddie leapt up and started the music before anyone could say anything else. As the beat began, they danced through the routine they’d created. Just as Maddie had known would happen, frowns turned to smiles. The rhythm of the music made Maddie’s heart race as they stepped and turned and twirled. She challenged herself to extend her arms fully and keep every step right in time with the beat. Right and left and right again, and then the wave starting with Mia, followed by Lulu and finishing up with Maddie. As the music ended, they each added their own flair-filled last move and struck final poses.
“And then, applause!” Lulu dipped into a low curtsy.
Maddie and Mia curtsied too, and the girls gave each other high fives.
“We did it!” Mia said.
“And I get to do the twirl-kick!” Lulu did her signature move one more time.
Mia shook her head, but this time she was smiling.
“Girls, come on down for dinner,” Mom called again.
Maddie followed her sisters downstairs, starved after all the dancing. They each took their seats around the dining table and bowed their heads to pray.
“God, bless this food to our bodies, and help us to bless others in all we say and do,” Dad prayed.
“Amen,” they all chimed in.
Dinner was tomato soup with crusty bread and a salad. Lulu resisted the salad, but in the end, she decided the dressing made the lettuce taste all right. Maddie agreed. She liked the tangy dressing with the hint of salt from the crunchy almonds scattered on top.
“May we be dismissed?” Mia asked, the minute her plate was clear.
Mom checked their plates. “You may. Miss Julia said she’d be back for the show at seven. Do you think you’ll be ready about then?”
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