ALSO BY KALLIE GEORGE
The Magical Animal Adoption Agency, Book 1: Clover’s Luck
Text copyright © 2015 by Kallie George
Illustrations copyright © 2015 by Alexandra Boiger
Cover design by Sara Gillingham Studio
Cover illustration © 2015 by Alexandra Boiger
All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion, 125 West End Avenue, New York, New York 10023.
ISBN 978-1-4847-0121-8
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Contents
Title Page
Also by Kallie George
Copyright
Dedication
1: The Egg
2: Mr. Jams’s Journey
3: A Colorful Cracking
4: A Giant Request
5: Coco’s Cold
6: Dipity and the Disasters
7: Tansy’s Tantrum
8: Clover’s Magic
9: Sense, Not Spells
10: The Perfect Picnic
Acknowledgments
About the Author and Illustrator
Dedicated to my dad, who taught me how to make cinnamon toast
—K.G.
To Charmian, with love
—A.B.
An egg is full of possibilities. Especially an enchanted one. The tiniest egg can hold the most fearsome dragon. The biggest egg, the shiest sea serpent.
What was inside the giant spotted egg at the Agency was a total mystery. Clover knew it couldn’t be a dragon. Mr. Jams, who ran the Agency, had said so. And he knew lots about dragon eggs. It couldn’t be a sea serpent either. Sea serpents make sloshing noises inside their shells. The egg was too large to be a fire salamander’s and too golden for a griffin’s. And phoenixes don’t even hatch from eggs. They rise from their ashes.
Really, it didn’t matter what the egg contained. Clover loved it already.
It was another hot summer morning as Clover skipped up Dragon’s Tail Lane, toward the Agency. From the outside, the low wooden building didn’t look special at all, with its crooked chimney, vine-covered walls, and thatched roof. But inside was another thing altogether. From its sign reading NO ANIMAL IS TOO UNUSUAL TO ADOPT, to the big gilt Wish Book, to the animals themselves—fire salamanders, fairy horses, unicorns, and other magical creatures—the Agency was a remarkable place.
You never knew what might happen in a day. Clover had only been volunteering there since the beginning of summer vacation, three weeks ago, and already she had adopted out a unicorn and a dragon and rescued a little kitten from a nasty witch. New homes found, friends made, and hearts healed—that was the Agency. And now there was the egg, which wasn’t up for adoption yet, of course, but the animal that hatched from it would be, as soon as it was old enough.
Clover hurried through the gate. “Morning,” she said to the garden gnome who stood beside it. Although he looked like a lawn ornament, he was actually alive. He guarded the Agency at night and slept through the day. In fact, Clover realized he was asleep now, so she was careful not to bang the gate shut behind her.
Mr. Jams had the lights on in the front room, but the Agency didn’t open for another hour. Clover headed around the building. The egg was kept in one of the pens in the back, in the stables. Usually these pens were reserved for the bigger animals, like dragons or griffins, but the Agency didn’t have any big magical animals at the moment, so the pen was nice and quiet, perfect for an egg.
The back door of the Agency was hidden by dark green vines. The vines gave the door a secret feel, which Clover liked.
She pushed them aside to find the keyhole and stuck in the tiny key made from a tooth. She used to wear the key on a string around her wrist, but now it hung around her neck, tucked under her clothes, safely out of sight. Mr. Jams had given it to her when he’d left her in charge and gone to rescue the egg. When she’d offered to give the key back, he told her it was hers. “You’ve earned it,” he’d said.
The door creaked open and Clover squeezed through between two pens, into the sweet smell of hay, the sound of the unicorns’ soft whinnies, and the sight of thousands of fluffy feathers.
The egg’s pen was in the center of the stables beside the hay room, and was filled, knee-high, with different types of feathers. Mr. Jams had determined that this was the best way of keeping the egg warm and safe. It looked like hundreds of pillows had burst and no one had cleaned up the mess. From the center of the feathers poked a yellow-and-white-spotted lump. The egg was really big—bigger than a watermelon—but you would never know because of all the feathers that hid it.
On the edge of the pen stood the little green kitten Clover had saved from the witch, staring longingly at the feathers with his emerald eyes.
“Oh, Dipity, you silly thing.” Clover rubbed behind his ears. She was grateful that Mr. Jams let her keep him at the Agency as her pet. She couldn’t bear it if he was adopted by someone else.
She set her bag on the ground and pulled out her baby blanket. It was a soft fleece and she wanted to add it to the nest.
Yesterday she had brought a book and read to the egg for a whole hour because she had heard that reading to babies before they were born helped them develop. Now that Mr. Jams had returned from his mission to rescue the abandoned egg, she had more time to do fun things like that with the animals—things like taking the fire salamanders out for sunbathing and riding the unicorns for exercise. She even got to meet the delivery-man who brought them supplies. And he wasn’t a man at all—he was a centaur!
“Stay, Dipity,” she ordered her kitten as she opened the pen door. Dipity liked pouncing on the feathers, but he wasn’t allowed to, in case he harmed the egg.
Clover waded through the soft fluff, carrying her baby blanket. The feathers tickled her legs. When she reached the egg, she tucked the blanket around its base, in the nest Mr. Jams had made from twigs and twine, so the egg would sit upright.
She pressed her palm against the warm shell. Although it looked hard and smooth, like most eggshells, it wasn’t. This shell felt soft as velvet, like a unicorn’s muzzle. As Clover stroked the strange, velvety egg for the thousandth time, she promised: “I will take care of you.”
The egg, Mr. Jams had told her, was found by a troll family under their drawbridge, hidden in some brambles. It had obviously been abandoned, but a protective enchantment had been placed on it so that no harm would come to the egg. But whatever hatched out of it would be left to fend for itself. That’s why the trolls had contacted the Agency. It had taken Mr. Jams a day and a half to travel to the trolls’ home. Once he’d released the egg from the enchantment and rescued it from the brambles, they’d insisted he stay for a troll family feast before he brought it back to the Agency. Although Mr. Jams had examined the area around the drawbridge thoroughly for clues as to what type of animal had laid the egg, he found nothing. Clover felt sorry that the egg didn’t have its mother to look after it, but she was glad that at least it was now somewhere it would be cared for.
She continued stroking the egg until Dipity mewed hungrily. It was time to get on with the day. She was just opening the pen door when—yes, she was sure of it—out of the corner of her eye, she saw the egg move.
She turned back toward it.
The egg was perfectly still.
She tiptoed over and knelt to place her ear against the shell. All she could hear was the beating of her own heart. She waited a minute, then let out a deep breath and stood up.
Dipity remained at the gate of the pen, his green eyes locked on the egg.
“Did you see that too?” asked Clover.
The little green kitten didn’t look up at her, but his tail twitched into the shape of a question mark.
Clover hurried down the hall and into the front room of the Agency, with Dipity following. The smell of buttery toast let Clover know that Mr. Jams was there. He would know what to do.
“Mr. Jams, the egg moved! I saw it!” she cried, opening the door.
To her surprise, Mr. Jams was packing.
He was sitting on an overstuffed and battered suitcase. His beard was tangled, there was jam on his nose, and his cheeks looked redder than dragon’s fire.
Ooomph! Crash! The suitcase popped out from under him. Its contents spilled across the floor: maps and a book, shirts and socks, and even a jam jar. Mr. Jams landed with a thump beside it.
“Oh fairy-spitting ficklecorns!” he cried. “That’s the third time!” His bushy eyebrows rose as he looked up at Clover. “So the egg moved, eh?”
“Yes. At least, I think so. Just a little, but…”
“Then there’s really no time to delay. I’ll go check on it, if you would be so kind as to try and close this blasted case. Maybe you will have better luck with it.”
Clover gulped and hurried over, while Mr. Jams bumbled out of the room and down the hall.
A piece of toast, gooey with strawberry jam, lay on the desk, untouched. Cinnamon toast was his favorite, but strawberry jam was a close second. Mr. Jams never left toast of any kind uneaten. Something big was going on.
What could it be? she wondered as she neatly repacked his case. The maps were all unidentifiable to her. The book was Volume 15 of The Magical Animal Encyclopedia: Nests and Shells.
With the shirts folded, the book and maps on top, and the jam jar tucked between socks, there was plenty of room. When she closed the case, she noticed a dragon-shaped crest with the initials T.J. on it. Those must be Mr. Jams’s initials, she thought. But what did the dragon mean? Did Mr. Jams belong to some sort of secret magical society? She’d never seen him use magic at the Agency, but there was definitely something special about him.
As she was doing up the clasps, Mr. Jams came back.
“Why, you are a miracle worker!” he exclaimed.
“Just organized,” replied Clover.
“Is that all?” Mr. Jams chuckled. “Well, I’m glad to say that the egg shows no signs of hatching anytime soon. Even though we don’t know what is inside of it, it is undeniably a spotted egg. When magic spotted eggs are ready to hatch, they make noises, wiggle and jiggle constantly, and their spots change color. None of these things has happened yet, thank the griffins. I need more time.”
Mopping his forehead with his handkerchief, he collapsed onto the couch. Clover sat down beside him. Dipity wormed out from under the table and leapt up between them.
“Why?” Clover asked, tentatively. “Where are you going?”
“There’s a magical animal expert who lives not too far from here, but studies in seclusion.”
“An expert? On magical animals? Aren’t you an expert?”
“At making cinnamon toast, perhaps.” He chuckled again, then continued, “This expert is from a well-known wizard family, the Von Hoofs, who have studied magical animals for hundreds and hundreds of years.”
“Oh…” Clover said. She supposed it made sense you had to be from a magical family to be an expert on magical animals.
“His great-grandmother was founder of the Royal Claw and Tooth Society, his brother is curator of rare and fantastical relics at the Magical Animal Museum, and he himself is chief editor of the Journal of Unusual Eggs and wrote three volumes of The Magical Animal Encyclopedia,” Mr. Jams went on.
“Wow,” said Clover. Not only were they magical, they all had impressive titles too.
“This expert’s specialty is eggs. He can only be reached by foot. I must fetch him posthaste. He will be able to determine what is growing inside our egg so that we can be properly prepared.”
“Can’t we just wait until the egg hatches?”
Mr. Jams shook his head solemnly. “Ah, no. Then it will be too late to prepare. Baby magical animals often develop much more quickly than ordinary animals. They are rarely helpless at birth. Magic quickens growth, balance, and strength. What takes a non-magical creature weeks might take a magical one merely days. Even Dipity, you must have noticed, is growing quicker than a regular kitten, though perhaps not as quick as most magical kittens because of his encounter with the witch.”
“Her potion didn’t hurt him, did it?”
“No, no, but he might not have any magic ability beyond being green,” said Mr. Jams.
“I don’t care,” said Clover stoutly. “He’s magic enough for me.”
Mr. Jams smiled. “Time will tell if he shows any other magic. But we have no time to waste with the egg. What if it contains a rare merturtle that needs to be placed directly into the saltwater of the saltiest sea to survive? Or a nine-headed bird that needs nine times the food?”
“What about the formula the centaur delivered?” Clover asked. “There are lots of bottles of that.”
“Nutrient Formula will do in a pinch, but it is certainly not as delicious as their natural diet. Unfortunately, Cedric couldn’t fulfill my order for phoenix tears. What if the hatchling is some sort of unusual basilisk? A basilisk’s bite is fatal, my dear, and the only antidote is those tears.”
Clover gulped. She hadn’t thought about that. A basilisk was a giant poisonous snake. If it was a basilisk, maybe her feelings toward it would change. Could she love a creature that could kill her?
“The journey shouldn’t take me long,” continued Mr. Jams. “I will be back three days from now at the latest.”
“But, Mr. Jams—” started Clover.
“Now, now, I know last time I was gone longer than I said I would be. But this time I will be as punctual as possible. You are perfectly capable of looking after the Agency. You did it before and you can do it again.”
“But—”
“There are plenty of supplies for the animals. I’ve made sure of that. And the gnome will take care of the place at night, as always.”
“But—”
“And, just in case, I have left Dr. Nurtch’s number on the desk. She is a good friend of mine and an outstanding magical animal veterinarian. But I feel certain nothing will happen.”
Clover wasn’t as sure. Last time so many things had gone wrong. But she had managed to take care of them in the end. She probably could this time too.
Mr. Jams pulled out his pocket watch.
“Oh, cripes and clawsnatch! Is that the time? I must be off. Don’t forget to keep the egg surrounded with feathers and turn it twice a day. If you have a chance, you could do some follow-up calls. We should check to make sure the recent adoptions are going well. I’ll be back in a fairy’s twinkle.” With that, he picked up his suitcase and headed out the door.
“Don’t forget this,” Clover cried, remembering the toast.
Mr. Jams took the piece with a smile. “How did I get by without you? You really are a miracle worker, my dear.”
Clover blushed.
From the open door, she watched Mr. Jams walk down the path until he disappeared into the Woods.
Without thinking, Clover put her hand in her pocket, feeling for a lucky charm, forgetting for a moment that she had given those up. She couldn’t rely on a charm anyway. She had to make her own luck.
Mr. Jams had told Clover not to worry about the egg. And the best cure for worrying, she knew, was to do something. That was a good thing about the Agency. There was always lots to do.
First she checked the egg. It wasn’t wiggling or jiggling. It wasn’t making noises. Its spots were the same. So, even though her stomach felt funny, after turning the egg carefully, she left it alone. After all, she was no expert.
And it was time to feed the animals—something she
did know about. She prepared mush for the unicorns with a bit of cut-up apple, just the way they liked it, and found the spiciest dried peppers for the fire salamanders. After giving a sugar cube to the fairy horses and moon milk to Dipity, she lingered by Snort’s old pen. She missed Snort, although feeding a dragon with fire-breathing problems had been very troublesome. Mr. Jams said to enjoy the calm while it lasted. New animals were bound to be brought in, sooner or later.
But the bell at the front desk announcing new customers did not ring that morning, so after breakfast Clover scrubbed the kitchen and swept the floors. She didn’t like doing chores at home, but this was different. At home she never swept up unicorn hay or sparkles from princesses’ dresses or a magic kitten’s green fur. She made sure she got every one of Mr. Jams’s toast crumbs (and some stray blobs of jam too). Then she organized the filing cabinet and dusted the Wish Book, a giant tome to record information about customers who didn’t find the animal they were looking for.
When she was finished, she stood in the front room and admired her work. Then she pulled out a cheese-and-tomato sandwich and a postcard from her bag and sat down to take a quick break.
The postcard was from her best friend, Emma, who was away at Pony Camp for the summer. Clover hadn’t had a chance to read it yet. There was a picture of a spotted horse on the front, and Emma’s neat writing on the back:
Hi Clover,
Thanks for your postcard! Here is a picture of my horse Gracie—well, it isn’t actually Gracie, but it looks just like her! We are going on trail rides every day. Everyone here loves horses just like me. Wish you were here too. You said that you had a job working with animals? Tell me more!
—XOXO, Emma
The Enchanted Egg Page 1
