Isadora Moon Has a Birthday

by Harriet Muncaster

  “Everyone in a circle, please!” he said.

  My friends and I shuffled ourselves into a circle on the floor, and Dad gave the package to one of my friends.

  “There you are,” he said. “Pass it around.”

  We all started to pass the present around the circle. But something was missing.

  “Music!” I whispered to Dad. “We need music!”

  “Music!” shouted Dad to Mom.

  Mom opened her mouth and started to sing a tinkly fairy song. I felt my face go red with embarrassment. Some of my friends started to giggle.

  “That’s right! It’s a hot potato!” called Dad. “Pass it around. Around and around it goes!”

  The “hot potato” present went around and around the circle. And then it went around and around again! I started to wonder when Mom was going to stop singing. I was about to whisper to Dad again when suddenly there was a great big BANG.

  “SURPRISE!” shouted Dad as the package exploded in Oliver’s hands. Fireworks shot out of it and up into the air.

  Glittery pink sparks and sparkling, fizzing stars swirled and whirled around the room.

  “Oh no!” I said to Pink Rabbit.

  But my friends didn’t seem to mind. In fact, they liked it. They all stood up and started dancing to Mom’s song under the falling sparks.

  “They’re so pretty!” breathed Zoe as she tried to catch a shooting star.

  “It’s magical!” yelled Sashi.

  Everyone danced until the sparks stopped falling and Mom stopped singing.

  “Time for the magician,” announced Dad, opening the door for Wilbur. He swept in, swishing his starry robe.

  “It’s Wilbur the Great, actually,” corrected Wilbur. “Sit down, everyone,” he said bossily. “Today I am going to show you a wonderful trick. Who wants to be turned into a box of frogs?”

  I groaned. A boy from my class named Bruno put his hand in the air, and Wilbur gestured for Bruno to come and stand next to him.

  Wilbur rolled up his sleeves, closed his eyes, and puffed out his chest importantly. Then he pointed his finger at Bruno.

  “ALLIKAZAMBANANA!” he said.

  There was a loud BANG and a puff of pink smoke.

  Bruno disappeared, and in his place stood a large cardboard box. Loud croaking sounds were coming from inside.

  “WOW!” said my friends. “AMAZING!”

  “It’s like real magic!” said Oliver.

  We all watched as frogs started to jump out of the box. Wilbur looked very pleased with himself.

  “Look at them all!” squealed Zoe as the frogs started to hop away across the room.

  “Eww,” said Samantha. “I hate frogs.”

  “What next?” asked Wilbur. “Who wants to see me pull a rabbit from my hat?”

  Everyone cheered except Pink Rabbit, who looked very worried.

  Wilbur put on some thick gloves. “Just in case it bites,” he said, winking, and everyone laughed.

  “Wilbur,” I called out worriedly. “What about Bruno?”

  “What about him?” said Wilbur, starting to put his gloved hand into his hat.

  “Shouldn’t you turn him back now?” I asked.

  Wilbur looked surprised.

  “Oh,” he said. “Well, yes. I guess I should.”

  He took his hand out of his hat. He was holding a fluffy white rat.

  “That’s not a rabbit!” shouted Oliver, laughing. “That’s a rat!” All my friends were laughing now. They thought Wilbur was hilarious.

  “Oh,” said Wilbur, disappointed. “So it is.”

  “WILBUR!” I shouted. “You need to turn Bruno back into a boy!”

  “All right,” said Wilbur, looking annoyed. “You’ll have to catch the frogs, though. If you forget one, then Bruno might come back missing an ear or something.”

  My friends and I went off in search of the frogs.

  “We can’t send Bruno home with only one ear!” I wailed.

  “Let me help!” said Mom, holding her wand up in the air. But Wilbur did not want any help.

  “No, no,” he said. “I can do it!”

  At last all the frogs were collected and back in the box. We stared expectantly at Wilbur. He seemed a little nervous.

  “Don’t stare at me,” he ordered. “It breaks my concentration.”

  Wilbur turned around so that he had his back to everyone and waved his arms in the air. We all waited. There were a few loud bangs and a lot of smoke, but eventually Bruno appeared.

  “Ribbit,” he said.

  “Oops! Hang on,” said Wilbur. He waved his hands again and said some more magic words.

  Bruno blinked and looked confused, but this time when he opened his mouth, words came out instead of croaks.

  “That was awesome!” he said.

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Thank goodness for that!” said Dad, swooping in. “I think it’s time for the next activity.”

  “But I haven’t finished my show, Uncle Bartholomew,” said Wilbur crossly.

  “I think you have,” said Dad firmly. “I think we will move on to the bouncy castle now.”

  I smiled. A bouncy castle! Nothing could go wrong with that. There was still time for my party to be like a real human one.

  We all followed Mom and Dad into the back garden. Then Mom pointed her wand at the sky. A silvery thread shot out of the end and lassoed itself around one of the fat, fluffy clouds in the sky. Mom pulled the cloud down to the ground gently and stuck it into the grass.

  “Clouds make wonderful alternatives to bouncy castles,” she told everyone. “So much softer and bouncier.”

  I frowned. I should have known a human bouncy castle was too much to ask for.

  But my friends didn’t seem to mind. They all looked astonished and excited. Their eyes were round like saucers.

  “You can all hop on,” said Mom. “Bounce away! We are going to go inside to put the candles on the birthday cake.”

  Zoe was the first to take off her shoes and jump onto the cloud.

  “It’s so soft!” she exclaimed as she bounced up and down. “I’m so high!”

  Soon all my friends were on the cloud, bouncing around and laughing. It didn’t look like anything could go wrong this time, so I decided to join in. I climbed onto the cloud and started jumping.

  “Whee!” I cried.

  Suddenly, I felt very happy. Everyone was having a good time. Even Samantha! It was just as much fun as a regular human party!

  “It’s like flying!” yelled Oliver.

  As we soared higher and laughed and screamed, I noticed Wilbur come out of the house and into the garden. He walked over to the cloud and stared up at us.

  “Do you want me to make it even bouncier?” he asked. “Seeing as I didn’t get to finish my show, I could do some more magic for you now.”

  “Oh yes!” cried my friends. “Please do more magic!”

  I stopped bouncing and jumped right off the cloud and onto the grass.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Wilbur,” I began.

  “Why not?” said Wilbur. “It will be much more fun if it’s bouncier. Here, let me do some more magic.”

  He rolled up his starry sleeves and waved his arms in the air.

  “KABOOOOOOMMMSKA!” he said, and a shower of sparks shot out of his fingers.

  The cloud gave a little wobble, and my friends began to fly up higher and higher into the air.

  “Wow!” Bruno cried. “This is amazing! It IS bouncier! Look at me!”

  “See?” said Wilbur. “Much more fun!” He crossed his arms and looked down at me. “You should just relax, Isadora,” he said.

  But I couldn’t relax. Something didn�
�t seem right. The cloud was rocking and shaking. It couldn’t handle the added amount of bounce. The cloud began to loosen from its pegs.

  “Everyone, get off!” I shouted in a panic. But no one listened to me. They were all having too much fun. I tugged on Wilbur’s sleeve.

  “Look!” I said. “It’s about to fly away!”

  “It’s not going to fly away!” said Wilbur, rolling his eyes.

  “It is!” I insisted, pointing at the pegs stuck into the grass. One by one the strings that were tied to the pegs snapped, and slowly the cloud began to rise up into the air—with all of my friends on it!

  “Oh,” said Wilbur, staring in horror. “Whoops.”

  “I told you!” I said crossly.

  We watched as the cloud floated higher and higher.

  “Do something!” I said to Wilbur.

  “I can’t bring a cloud down from the sky!” he said. “I won’t learn how to do that until next term at wizard school.”

  “I’ll get Mom. You stay here and don’t move!” I shouted.

  I ran to the kitchen, where Dad was putting the last few candles into an enormous cake.

  “Whoa, Isadora, you’re not supposed to see the cake yet!” he said.

  “It’s an emergency!” I told him. “Where’s Mom?”

  “She had to run upstairs for a minute,” said Dad. “Honeyblossom was crying and needed some pink milk.”

  “Oh no, oh no!” I wailed.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Dad.

  I was going to explain, when I saw the very thing I needed sitting on the kitchen table: Mom’s wand. I grabbed it and flew back outside.

  Wilbur was still standing where I had left him, staring at the sky.

  “There it is,” he said to me, pointing at a speck in the distance. It looked so small and so far away. There was no time to lose. I flapped my wings and rose up into the air.

  I flew as fast as I could—faster than ever before—but it still took a long time to catch up with the cloud. At last I was near enough to hear my friends’ voices. They had all stopped bouncing now. They were sitting very still and looked very scared. Some of them were lying on their stomachs with their faces peering over the edge. Their eyes were big and round as they stared down at the ground miles and miles below. Pink Rabbit had his paws over his eyes.

  “Isadora!” called Zoe as I landed gently on the cloud and sat down to get my breath back. “We thought you were never coming!”

  “We thought we were lost in the sky forever!” said Oliver.

  Pink Rabbit just bounced over to me and put his paws around my legs.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “It was my cousin Wilbur. He should never have put more magic on the cloud.”

  “But we’re safe now that you’re here, aren’t we?” asked Samantha.

  I wasn’t so sure—I am only half-fairy, and wand magic isn’t my strong point—but I made myself smile as though it was completely normal to be stuck on top of a cloud in the middle of the sky.

  “Oh yes,” I said. “Don’t worry. I’ll find a way to get us down. I’ve got my mom’s wand.” I held it up in the air, and the pink star glittered in the sunlight.

  “Great!” said Oliver. “We’re saved!”

  I felt nervous as I closed my eyes. I wasn’t sure if I could get the cloud and all my friends back down to the ground, but I had to try.

  In my mind, I pictured the cloud floating gently back down to earth. Then I waved the wand and opened my eyes.

  Nothing had happened.

  Oh no, I thought anxiously. I closed my eyes to try again. I concentrated on the cloud harder this time. I imagined it sinking down, down, down….I waved the wand as hard as I could.

  But when I opened my eyes again, nothing had happened.

  “Oh no,” I said aloud.

  “What is it?” asked Samantha in a small, scared voice.

  “I don’t know if I can do it,” I said truthfully. “This is big magic. I can only really do small kinds of wand magic. And…and I don’t always get my spells right.”

  I remembered the time at fairy school when I had tried to make a carrot cake appear. All I had managed was a carrot with bat wings that flew around the room and caused chaos.

  “How will we get down?” said Samantha, sounding frightened.

  “We have to think of another way,” said Zoe. “There must be another way.”

  Samantha screwed up her eyes as though she was thinking very hard. Then she opened them again and looked a little less panicked.

  “You know what my mom always tells me,” she said. “She says that sometimes it’s the little things that make a difference. So maybe it will only take a little bit of magic to get us out of this big mess. We have to think of a spell you CAN do!”

  She pointed at the wings of her fairy costume. “Could you make these come alive?” she asked.

  I looked at the wings. They were very small compared to the cloud.

  “I can try,” I said.

  Samantha looked around at all our friends sitting on the cloud in their costumes. She pointed at Bruno in his dragon suit.

  “Do you think you could use magic to make Bruno’s dragon wings really work too?” she asked.

  I looked at the two fabric wings sewn on the back of Bruno’s costume.

  “Maybe!” I said, feeling excited. “Yes, I think I could do that!”

  “Well then, I have an idea,” said Samantha. “Look how many of us have wings on our costumes. Bruno has dragon wings, I have fairy wings, Sashi has butterfly wings, Oliver has a cape, and, of course, you have real wings! If you could bring all the wings to life, then half of us would be able to fly.”

  “We could all help each other to fly back to my yard!” I said. “Samantha, you’re a genius!” I gave her a big hug, and her face went as pink as Mom’s hair.

  “Let’s try it,” I said.

  We started with Bruno. I pointed Mom’s wand at his dragon wings and imagined them flapping to life. At first it didn’t work. The wings just changed color and then were covered in polka dots, but after a few tries they gave a little twitch and flapped to life. Bruno immediately rose up into the air.

  “Wow!” he yelled. “Look at me!”

  I tried Samantha’s fairy wings next. It took only two tries before they started to flap.

  “Eeek!” squealed Samantha as she rose into the air.

  “It’s working!” shouted Zoe excitedly, though I could tell she was a little jealous that she had not chosen a costume with wings.

  I had got the hang of the wand now, and the last two spells were easy. Oliver and Sashi rose up into the air, shrieking with delight.

  “Okay, everyone,” I said. “We all have to help each other now. The ones who can fly should hold hands with the ones who can’t.”

  I took Zoe’s hand with one of mine and held on to Pink Rabbit’s paw with the other. Soon all of us were floating.

  “We must stick together,” I said to everyone.

  “I’m scared!” said Samantha, looking fearfully down at the ground. It seemed very far away. The houses and trees looked tiny, like little models.

  “Don’t be frightened, Samantha,” I reassured her. “Flying is fun!”

  “It is fun!” agreed Bruno. “I wish I could fly all the time!”

  “I LOVE flying!” cried Oliver.

  Together, we all flapped slowly away from the cloud. There was nothing beneath us now. Just air. Of course I am used to that, but my friends were not.

  “EEEK!” squeaked Samantha.

  “Whoa!” said Oliver.

  I pointed at a pink-and-black speck in the distance.

  “Look,” I said. “That’s my house! That’s where we need to go. Follow me!”

  I flew to the head
of the group with Zoe and Pink Rabbit. Flap, flap, flap went my little bat wings.

  “I can see our school,” said Zoe. “And there’s the park! It all looks different from up here.”

  “Everything is so small!” said Sashi.

  We were getting closer to my house now. I could just make out my bedroom window. In the yard there were three dots moving back and forth. Mom, Dad, and Wilbur. They were waving their arms. Suddenly, two of them shot up into the air and flew toward us.

  “Oh my goodness,” said Mom when she reached us. “We were so worried!”

  “SO worried,” added Dad. “We didn’t know where the cloud had gone. By the time we came out into the yard, it had disappeared!”

  “Disappeared completely!” said Mom. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re safe.”

  We all flew over the garden fence and landed gently back on the grass.

  “Wilbur explained what happened,” said Dad, giving Wilbur a stern look. “It was very brave of you to go and rescue your friends, Isadora.”

  “It wasn’t just me,” I said. “It was Samantha. If it hadn’t been for her brilliant idea, we would still be stuck on the cloud. Samantha really saved the day.”

  “Well then,” said Mom. “Thank you, Samantha! Let’s all give her three cheers!”

  Everyone cheered for Samantha, and her face turned bright pink again. But I could tell she was proud and pleased.

  “It maybe wasn’t the best idea to use a cloud instead of a bouncy castle,” said Mom. “I just got carried away. I’m sorry. I should have ordered a regular bouncy castle. Next time I will.”