Fantastic Fashion
Fun on the Catwalk
Goblin Grab
Cloaked by Clothes
Goblin in a Spin
Saturday Fashion Fun!
“You look beautiful,” Rachel Walker said, looking at her friend Kirsty Tate.
“So do you,” Kirsty replied. The two girls grinned at each other. Kirsty was staying with Rachel during their school vacation, and they’d been doing all sorts of fun things together. But today, Saturday, was going to be especially exciting. Rachel’s cousin, Caroline, was opening a new clothing store in the Rainbow Shopping Center. Caroline had planned a fashion show featuring some of the store’s cutest clothes. Even better, she had asked Rachel and Kirsty to be two of her models!
“There,” said Anna, the stylist, as she gave Rachel’s French braid a last squirt of hairspray. “You two are ready. You’d better find Caroline and get your first outfits on now. The show starts in fifteen minutes.”
Kirsty and Rachel thanked Anna and jumped down from their swivel seats. They were in the makeup room, which was part of the temporary backstage area behind the stage.
Just then, Caroline appeared in the doorway. “Hi, girls,” she said. “You both look great. Let me quickly show you around before the show begins.”
Kirsty and Rachel followed Caroline, both feeling tingly with excitement. The fashion show was going to take place in the lobby of the mall. There was a backstage area with large screens and partitions that made different rooms, and it seemed like a maze. “First, I’ll show you the stage,” Caroline said. The stage was long and narrow, with lots of bright spotlights — just like a real catwalk!
There were two hidden entrances. As the girls peeked out from behind the curtains backstage, they saw a cameraman setting up his equipment.
“He’s from the local paper,” Caroline told the girls. “Hopefully we’ll get a picture in the Gazette. It would be amazing publicity!”
Kirsty and Rachel could see that some people were already sitting in the rows of seats on either side of the catwalk. Unfortunately, none of them looked excited to be there. In fact, most of them seemed a little bored!
“The mood is kind of flat,” Caroline said, looking around with a puzzled expression. “Hopefully, once the rest of the audience arrives, everyone will be a little more excited.”
Rachel shot Kirsty a look. Both girls knew exactly why the audience looked so down — it was because the Saturday Fun Flag was missing!
Kirsty and Rachel were good friends with the fairies. The girls had been called to Fairyland many times to help out. This time, Jack Frost had stolen the seven Fun Day Flags and taken them back to his ice castle. Without the flags, the Fun Day Fairies couldn’t make the special magic they needed to spread fun around the human world. Now everyone was just plain miserable. But Jack Frost’s goblins had had so much fun with the Fun Day Flags that they had grown mischievous and had started playing pranks — even on Jack Frost himself. Jack Frost eventually lost his temper and cast a spell that sent the flags to the human world. So far, Rachel and Kirsty had helped the Fun Day Fairies find five of their flags, but there were still two left to find — including Saturday’s!
“Now, the wardrobe room is right over here,” Caroline said, striding down the hallway. Caroline led the girls through a doorway into a large room crammed with racks of clothes, hats, shoes, and accessories.
“Wow!” Rachel exclaimed as she gazed around.
“You’ll be wearing three outfits each,” Caroline explained. “They’re all here, with your names on them.” She pulled out three hangers marked “Rachel” and three marked “Kirsty.” Then she gave the girls boxes of shoes to match their outfits. “You can get ready in here,” she said, showing them into a small dressing room nearby. She checked her watch. “You’ve got ten minutes to change into your first outfits before you need to be on stage.”
Kirsty and Rachel hung up their clothes as Caroline rushed off. The first outfits they had to wear were party dresses with fancy strappy shoes.
“This is so cool,” Kirsty said, slipping into her long, silvery dress. “Will you zip me up please, Rachel?”
Rachel helped Kirsty, then put on a floaty pink dress and matching necklace. “This is going to be so much fun, even without the Fun Day Flag,” she said. “But I hope we can find today’s flag before those horrible goblins do!”
Rachel and Kirsty knew that they weren’t the only ones looking for the Fun Day Flags. Jack Frost’s goblins had really missed the fun of the flags, so they escaped from Fairyland into the human world to find the flags again.
“Girls, you look fabulous!” came a voice from behind them.
Rachel and Kirsty turned to see Susan, Caroline’s business partner. “Come to the stage with me. You two are the first on,” she said, smiling. “Try and relax! Imagine you’re at a real party when you’re out there,” she advised the girls as she led them toward the catwalk.
Susan guided Rachel to the entrance on the right of the catwalk and showed Kirsty the entrance on the left. “When I give you the cue, I want you to walk out onto the stage and meet in the middle,” she said to them both. “Then you can walk down the main aisle together. When you reach the end, you turn and walk back up and out through your stage entrances. Got that?”
Kirsty and Rachel had just enough time to nod and take their places as the music started.
Susan winked at them. “You’re on,” she said. “Off you go!”
Kirsty walked onto the stage, feeling nervous. The lights were dazzling, but her favorite song was playing. She stepped forward in time with the beat, and soon found herself grinning. This was fun!
But then Kirsty looked down at the audience and nearly stumbled when she saw the gloomy expressions on some of their faces. One person had even fallen asleep!
Kirsty and Rachel walked toward each other and went the rest of the way down the catwalk together as Susan had instructed. “We’ve got to find the Saturday flag!” Rachel hissed out of the corner of her mouth. “Nobody’s having any fun!”
Kirsty nodded. Rachel was right. They needed fairy Fun Day magic to put some sparkle into the show!
The girls had reached the end of the catwalk now, so they spun around and walked back the way they’d come. A tiny pattering of applause followed them. Once offstage, they exchanged worried glances.
“Where could the flag be?” Kirsty wondered as they returned to the changing room.
Rachel shook her head. “I don’t know, but remember what the Fairy Queen always says? We shouldn’t look for the magic, because it will come to us.”
“I know,” Kirsty said, gazing around the changing room. “I just hope it comes to us before the end of the fashion show!”
The next outfits that the girls had to wear were part of the store’s winter collection. They had coats, boots, hats, gloves, and scarves to put on over warm sweaters and wool pants. Quickly, Kirsty pulled on her sweater and pants, and then took her coat off its hanger. As she did, she let out a gasp. “Rachel, look!”
Rachel turned to see, and then she gasped, too. A bright pink scarf hung under Kirsty’s coat, but it wasn’t an ordinary scarf. It was fuchsia, with a sparkly sun pattern in the middle of it. Rachel realized immediately that it was the Saturday Fun Flag.
“The magic did come to us!” Rachel declared with a grin. “Fantastic!”
Kirsty tied the flag carefully around her neck. “I’ll keep it safe until we can find Sienna the Saturday Fairy,” she said.
Rachel nodded. “And then she can take it back t
o Fairyland and recharge her wand,” she agreed happily.
The girls knew that the Fun Day Flags served a very special purpose. Every morning in Fairyland, Francis the frog, the Royal Time Guard, went to the Time Tower to check the Book of Days and find out which day it was. Then he selected the correct Fun Day Flag and ran it up the Time Tower flagpole. All the while, that day’s fairy waited below in the courtyard with her wand held high. When the sun’s rays hit the glittering flag, a stream of magical sparkles reflected off it and beamed straight into the fairy’s wand. The sparkles charged the wand with special Fun Day magic.
“The sooner Sienna recharges her wand, the sooner this audience will cheer up!” Kirsty added.
But then Rachel frowned. “You have gloves, but I don’t seem to have any,” she said to Kirsty. “I wonder if I should have some, too. I’ll go and check with Caroline.”
Kirsty nodded. Rachel left her friend to finish getting dressed as she rushed out of the room.
“Oh yes, you should have gloves,” Caroline said, when Rachel found her. “Where could they have gone?” She started rummaging through the wardrobe room, trying to find them.
“Any luck?” Kirsty asked, appearing in the doorway a few minutes later. She had her full winter outfit on now. “Susan just gave me a two-minute warning. That’s when she needs us on the catwalk again,” she added.
“Here they are!” Caroline said at last. She pressed a pair of pale blue gloves into Rachel’s hand.
“Thanks,” Rachel said. “See you in a minute, Kirsty. I’ll be as quick as I can!”
Rachel rushed back to the changing room, but she discovered that the rest of her outfit was missing now! She stared around in disbelief. Everything from her hat to her boots had completely disappeared. “Oh no!” she cried. “Where is everything?”
Just as the words left her mouth, a burst of bright pink sparkles streamed from one of the gloves in her hand. A tiny, smiling fairy peeked her head out.
Rachel recognized her immediately. “Sienna!” she exclaimed in relief. “I’m so glad to see you!”
Sienna the Saturday Fairy had long brown hair that was tied in thick pigtails. She wore a fuschia top with a pink pleated skirt. A pink star necklace sparkled at her throat, and dainty red ballet slippers were laced up her ankles. She smiled at Rachel. “Sorry,” she said, “I think it was my fault that your gloves were missing. I cast a spell so that I would appear inside one of them, but I think the magic made the gloves pop up in a different place!”
“I’m just glad you’re here,” Rachel assured her. “Guess what? Kirsty already found your flag!”
Sienna’s eyes shimmered with joy. “I thought it would be around here somewhere. That’s just what the new poem in the Book of Days said this morning,” she declared. Then she recited aloud:
“Hats and scarves and coats and shoes,
The flag you’ll find, but then you’ll lose.
Do not despair, remember this:
The fashion show is where it is!”
“Speaking of the show,” Rachel said anxiously, remembering what she was supposed to be doing. “I should be onstage modeling a winter outfit any minute, but all the clothes are missing!”
“Don’t worry,” Sienna said, twirling her wand between her fingers. “If you tell me what you were supposed to be wearing, I can work some fairy magic for you.”
Rachel smiled thankfully. “It was a thick white coat, with a fur-trimmed hood,” she said, “a pale blue scarf and hat, and big, white, furry boots.”
Sienna waved her wand, and a flurry of pink sparkly fairy dust swirled around Rachel. Moments later, she was fully dressed in all the right clothes.
“Thank you, Sienna. That’s perfect!” Rachel laughed. “Now I’d better go.”
Sienna nodded and hopped into Rachel’s coat pocket as Rachel rushed to the stage.
“OK, girls, you’re on!” Rachel saw Susan say to Kirsty, who was at the right catwalk entrance. But when Rachel looked over to the other entrance, she stopped in her tracks. There was a different model getting ready to step onto the stage — wearing her outfit!
“Why would anyone steal my outfit and pretend to be me?” she whispered to Sienna, feeling confused. She peeked out of the entrance as Kirsty and the other model both set off down the catwalk. She could see that the people in the audience were starting to perk up now, no doubt because the Saturday flag was on stage nearby. Kirsty was smiling at them, not realizing that it wasn’t Rachel who was next to her.
From backstage, Rachel looked closely at the model who had taken her place. She saw that the model had a very long, pointy, green nose. “It’s a goblin!” she yelped in horror.
Sienna stared in disbelief. “A very tall goblin,” she whispered anxiously.
It was true. The goblin was at least twice as tall as he should have been. And now he was reaching a warty green hand toward the scarf around Kirsty’s neck!
“He’s after the flag,” Rachel cried in dismay. “We’ve got to stop him!” She hurried out onto the catwalk, determined to warn Kirsty that there was a goblin on stage.
At the same moment, Kirsty reached the end of the catwalk and did her twirl. As she looked back down the way she had come, she saw that there were two Rachels, dressed exactly the same on stage with her.
Kirsty gasped in surprise, and then her eyes narrowed as she realized that one of the Rachels was a goblin. Before she could react, the goblin lunged toward her. He snatched the Saturday Fun Flag from around her neck and raced back down the catwalk.
“Hey!” Rachel cried, seeing the goblin running down the catwalk toward her with the flag. She tried to stop him, but he tripped her. Poor Rachel went sprawling onto her hands and knees! Kirsty ran over to help her friend get up, but by that time the goblin had disappeared off the stage.
Rachel’s cheeks were flushed. “Let’s get off the catwalk so we can find that goblin,” she said to Kirsty in a low voice. Together the friends marched quickly back down the catwalk. The audience members were smiling and clapping — luckily, they seemed to think it was all part of the show!
Susan was waiting for the girls as they came off stage. “Are you all right?” she asked in concern. “I saw that you’d fallen, Rachel, but I didn’t see how it happened. I was getting Emma ready,” she explained. She motioned toward another model who was now heading down the catwalk. “And then I looked around and saw you in a heap. Did you bump into each other?”
“Something like that,” Rachel said. “But I’m fine now, don’t worry.”
“Glad to hear it,” Susan said. “Take a few minutes to sit down and recover. I’ll rearrange the order of the models for final outfits, so that you two are the last on. That way, you can catch your breath.”
“Thanks, Susan,” Kirsty said. But as soon as they were out of sight, Kirsty and Rachel looked at each other.
“There’s no way we can sit down and rest now,” Rachel said seriously.
“Not when we have a Fun Day Flag to get back,” Kirsty agreed. “I can’t believe that goblin just snatched it. How are we going to tell Sienna?”
“Don’t worry, Kirsty,” Sienna said, popping her head out of Rachel’s pocket. “I saw the whole thing, and it wasn’t your fault.”
Kirsty jumped at the sound of Sienna’s voice. “Oh, hello,” she said, smiling sheepishly. “I’m glad you’re here, Sienna, but I’m sorry about your flag.”
Sienna fluttered out of Rachel’s pocket and flew over to Kirsty. “It’s all right,” she said. “I guessed something like this might happen after I read today’s poem.” Then she recited the poem again for Kirsty.
“Do not despair, remember this: The fashion show is where it is,” Kirsty repeated thoughtfully when Sienna had finished. “So the flag’s still here somewhere.”
Sienna nodded.
“Look,” Rachel said, as they walked past a pile of clothes on the floor. “That’s my outfit!”
“And a pair of stilts!” Sienna said, pointing them out to the
girls. “That’s why the goblin looked so tall.” She waved her wand, and the pile of clothes and the stilts magically vanished.
The girls and Sienna hurried back to the wardrobe room, and Rachel pushed the door open. “Let’s start looking in here, okay?” she suggested. “There are lots of places for a sneaky goblin to hide.”
Kirsty and Sienna agreed, and the three friends crept into the room together. There were so many racks of clothes to search through that they all started looking in a different place.
Kirsty skimmed through a rack of long evening gowns — but there wasn’t anybody hiding between them. Sienna waved her wand, and a whole row of hats flew off their pegs and up into the air, but there wasn’t anybody hiding underneath them.
Meanwhile, Rachel was flipping through a long rack of coats when she suddenly spotted a pair of knobby green knees that were poking out from under a toddler’s yellow raincoat. When she looked more closely, she could see a corner of bright pink fabric showing, too. It was the goblin and the Fun Day Flag! Rachel tiptoed toward him.
At that very moment, the goblin peeked out from between the coats and saw Rachel coming toward him. With a cry of alarm, he darted away.
“I found him! He’s somewhere around here!” Rachel shouted to Sienna and Kirsty, and she squeezed through the coats to chase after the goblin.
Kirsty rushed over to help, and Sienna fluttered up into the air.
“I think I saw him in that corner,” Sienna called to the girls, pointing with her wand.
Sienna the Saturday Fairy : A Rainbow Magic Book (9780545308830) Page 1
