“Oh, dear,” Shannon said. “I’m so glad you came to me for help, girls. She does need rescuing—and fast! Let me think….”
Her pretty face scrunched into a frown as she tried to come up with a plan. Rachel and Kirsty thought hard, too. It was difficult to concentrate with the puffin family shuffling around, pecking at the seaweed, and making soft squawking noises to each other.
Then Shannon grinned. “It’s lucky that the puffins are here, actually. They might just be able to help us out.”
“What do you mean?” Rachel asked.
“I mean, let’s set a trap,” Shannon said, still smiling. “We’ll get the ocean creatures to join in. If we all work together, I’m sure we can stop those goblins!”
A few minutes later, Kirsty, Rachel, and Shannon had everything ready to go. “I’ll use my magic to make a pink glow in this tide pool, so the goblins think I’m Spike,” Shannon reminded the girls.
“Then we’ll try to tempt them over,” Kirsty giggled. “Aren’t they in for a nice surprise?”
She and Rachel flew through the darkness to where the goblins were searching for Spike in yet another tide pool. “I think we already looked in this one,” one of them complained. “I’m tired of this! If I have to touch one more slimy piece of seaweed, I’ll—”
“Hi there, having fun?” Rachel asked sweetly as she and Kirsty hovered in midair above their heads.
“You!” the goblin shouted, his eyes gleaming furiously. “What are you doing here? Don’t you know what happens to meddling fairies? We catch them!” He held up the net with Stephanie inside it as a warning.
“Ahh, but we can help you,” Kirsty said. “We know where the magic starfish and the piece of conch shell are. We’ll tell you, if you want.”
“The only thing is,” Rachel added, “we need you to give us our friend in exchange. Do we have a deal?”
The goblins laughed at this. “Yeah, right,” the tallest one said, scowling. “We’re not falling for your fairy tricks. You can have your friend back after we’ve found the shell piece, but not before.”
Just then, his friend elbowed him. “Hey, look!” he said, pointing to the tide pool where Shannon was hiding. A bright pink light was streaming from it. He turned back to the fairies with a triumphant look. “Ha! We don’t need your deals,” he said. “We can find the starfish and the shell all by ourselves!”
With that, the goblins rushed gleefully toward the glowing tide pool.
Kirsty put two fingers between her lips and blew a piercing whistle. That was the signal for the fun to start!
As the goblins ran across the sand, they were suddenly surrounded by the puffin family. The puffins flew at them, squawking and snapping their great beaks. The goblins were terrified!
“Help! It’s a bird monster!” one of them yelped, trying to dodge a puffin who was nipping at his ankle. “Run faster!”
Swerving and stumbling, the goblins finally made it past the puffins. But moments later, they came on a whole horde of crabs who jabbed at the goblins’ legs with their sharp pincers.
“Ow! Ow! Ow! What’s going on?” the goblins cried in terror. “The beach is full of monsters!”
Two of the goblins managed to get away, but a large red crab had a tight hold on the other goblin’s big toe and was pinching it for all he was worth. This goblin had to sit down and try to wrestle the crab off.
“That stopped one of them,” Kirsty said, watching with glee. “The plan is working perfectly!”
Next, the goblins had to climb over some other tide pools to get to where Shannon was. But one of the goblins was rushing, tripped over a large lumpy rock, and fell smack onto some seaweed.
Before he could move, the crowd of puffins rushed up and circled him. They began pecking at him all over again. “Ow!” he cried. “Go away! Shoo!”
“That’s two down …” Rachel said, smiling as the puffins showed no sign of letting the goblin go anywhere. “The goblin who’s left is the one with Stephanie. Let’s hope the last part of the plan works.”
The goblin with the net began climbing around the next tide pool. He still seemed intent on finding Spike and the conch shell piece. But Shannon had asked the ocean snails and sea sponges to make the rocks around this pool extra slippery. The goblin soon found it very tricky to keep his balance.
“Whooooaaa!” he cried, skidding and sliding, his arms waving in the air. “Heeelllppp!”
On his very next step, he skidded right into the tide pool and the net went flying out of his grasp. “Yuck!” he wailed as he splashed into the water. “I’m covered in smelly seaweed!”
Rachel and Kirsty went diving to catch the net, and so did Shannon, flying out of her hiding place in the last tide pool. Between the three of them, they grabbed on to it, and lowered it gently to the ground. Then they untied the top of the net and Stephanie fluttered out, looking pale and tired, but relieved to be free.
“Thank you, all of you,” she said, hugging them each in turn. “It’s so good to be out of that awful net!”
“We found Spike and the piece of conch shell,” Rachel told her excitedly. “Come and see!”
They led Stephanie over to the pool where the anemones were still hiding Spike and the shell from sight. As soon as he saw his fairy friend, Spike gave a happy wriggle all over.
Stephanie touched Spike lightly with her wand. He shrank down to fairy-size and leaped into her arms.
Then Shannon waved her wand over Kirsty and Rachel, who turned back into regular size girls again. “Thank you so much.” She smiled. “I’m so happy that we have another piece of the conch shell. Stephanie and I will shrink this and take it back to Fairyland.”
“Good-bye, and thanks again,” Stephanie said. “Oh, and enjoy the stars!”
With a last flurry of fairy dust, she, Spike, and Shannon were gone.
“Enjoy the stars?” Rachel echoed as she and Kirsty made their way back to Gran and her friends. “What did she mean by that?”
“She must have known we were here with the astronomy club, I guess,” Kirsty replied. “Look, there’s Gran now. Hello!” she called, as they reached the group of stargazers.
Kirsty’s gran was offering around a tray of cookies and she smiled at the girls. “Just in time for a treat,” she said. “Take a few each, there are plenty.”
The cookies were all different shapes and sizes, and Kirsty smiled as she noticed several that were in the shape of a star. Remembering Stephanie’s words, Kirsty deliberately picked a star-shaped cookie, and so did Rachel. “Just like the shooting star,” Gran chuckled. “I hope your wishes come true, girls.” Kirsty and Rachel smiled at each other as Gran bustled away. “They already did come true,” Rachel said. Kirsty bit into her cookie. “Yum,” she said. “I’m definitely going to enjoy these stars!”
“This is so much fun, Kirsty!” Rachel Walker called to her best friend, Kirsty Tate, as their ship, the Ocean Star, bobbed across the waves. “Look, can you see that school of fish?”
Kirsty peered over the ship’s railing and saw a group of tiny, silvery fish darting through the sparkling turquoise water. Some of the other girls and boys on the boat trip rushed over to look, too.
“Leamouth looks so pretty in the sunshine, doesn’t it?” Kirsty remarked, as they sailed across the bay. She and Rachel stood on the deck of the Ocean Star, enjoying the view of the seaside resort. From here they could see a long stretch of golden beach and whitewashed cottages clustered around the harbor.
“Ahoy there, sailors!” Captain Andy shouted, waving at the girls and boys on the deck below him. He stood behind the wooden ship’s wheel, turning it back and forth to guide the boat through the water. “If you’d visited Leamouth hundreds of years ago, the harbor would have been full of large sailing ships just like the Ocean Star. There was one very famous boat called the Mermaid, but sadly it sank somewhere around this area a very long time ago.”
“Do you know where the wreck is, Captain Andy?” asked Thomas, one of the boys
on the trip.
Captain Andy shook his head. “We don’t know exactly where the ship sank,” he replied. “It had a beautiful carved and painted figure of a mermaid attached to its front. Legend says that the mermaid statue now watches over this area from wherever the wreck lies on the bed of the ocean.”
“What a great story,” Rachel remarked to Kirsty. “It sounds like magic!”
Suddenly Thomas gave a cry. “What’s that?’ he shouted, pointing at the foamy waves ahead of them. “I can see something moving.”
“Wow!” Captain Andy exclaimed. “The Mermaid has certainly brought us good luck today. Look everyone, there are whales!”
“Oh!” Rachel gasped with delight. “Oh, Kirsty, aren’t they beautiful?”
“They’re gorgeous!” Kirsty was breathless with excitement, her eyes glued to her binoculars.
Just then, Kirsty noticed another, smaller whale leap out of the water behind the others. Kirsty caught her breath as she noticed a faint glimmer of silver sparkles around the whale.
“Rachel, look!” Kirsty whispered. “That whale at the back is glowing with fairy magic. I think it’s one of the magic ocean creatures. That must mean a piece of the golden conch shell is nearby!”
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e-ISBN 978-0-545-54865-6
Copyright © 2010 by Rainbow Magic Limited.
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First Scholastic printing, March 2011
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Stephanie the Starfish Fairy Page 2
