Pip in Jewel Forest

by Poppy Collins

  It’s so quiet you could hear a dandelion seed drop, thought Pip as everyone waited to hear about the final event.

  “It is called ‘Reach High’,” the mayor announced. “A very special prize is nestling in one of the branches of the cherry-chestnut tree,” he explained, pointing to the tree at the other side of the clearing. “The aim is to reach the prize, but no wings are allowed – and no magic either! Please get into teams of no more than six.”

  Pip’s heart sank as she waited to be picked last again, but suddenly she was surrounded by her five best friends. She frowned at Catkin, Blossom, Willa, Primrose and Nutmeg. “Don’t choose me! I’ll only let you down!”

  Willa put an arm around Pip and gave her a squeeze. “Of course we want you on our team, Pip. You’re our friend!”

  Pip gave them a small smile. “Thank you,” she said softly.

  “Each team will have only ten puffs of a dandelion clock to try and reach the prize,” the mayor explained. “If more than one team manages it, we’ll have a tiebreak.”

  Pip looked up at the tree, trying to see the prize – yes, she spotted something shiny and sparkly in the branches. But it was much too high to reach – even if Willa jumped her very highest!

  The first team took their places beneath the tree and the mayor waved his palm-leaf flag, signalling them to begin. But even though there were some really tall fairies who tried jumping to reach the branch, they couldn’t get close. The ten puffs of the dandelion clock were soon over, and the team fluttered away, disappointed looks on their faces.

  Another team flew to the tree and waited for the mayor to bring down his flag. This team tried a different tactic – they all pushed against the trunk of the tree. They’re trying to topple the prize out of the branch! Pip realized. She glanced up at the branch, yet it hardly moved, and the prize stayed firmly stuck there. How will anyone get it? Pip wondered.

  The next team had a clever idea. They collected leaves from the ground to throw at the branch, hoping to dislodge the prize that way. But the leaves were hard to throw and too light to reach very high, and they kept floating back down without the prize.

  Pip turned to Blossom. “How in fairyland is this possible?”

  Blossom raised her blonde eyebrows. “I really don’t know if it is!”

  But it was their turn next! The team took their places below the branch – Catkin, Blossom, Primrose, Nutmeg, Willa and Pip. At least we’re doing this together, thought Pip. Then, as she looked at her friends, Pip had an idea.

  Pip beckoned her team to join her in a huddle, and she whispered her plan to them. They all nodded and smiled.

  “I think that could work!” said Catkin.

  “Yes, let’s give it a try!” agreed Primrose.

  “Ready … steady … GO!” called the mayor.

  They didn’t have any time to waste. “Primrose, Blossom, Willa – can you line up at the bottom?” asked Pip.

  The three fairies linked arms in a line underneath the branch.

  “Now, Catkin and Nutmeg – can you climb up on to their shoulders?” Pip asked.

  The two smaller fairies carefully clambered up, using their friends’ linked arms as footholds. Catkin and Nutmeg straightened up with their feet on their friends’ shoulders.

  “OK, hold steady,” said Pip. She copied what Nutmeg and Catkin had done, climbing up using her friends’ linked arms and their shoulders. For once, being small was a good thing! She wouldn’t be too heavy for the fairies below her.

  Pip put one foot on Nutmeg’s left shoulder, and one foot on Catkin’s right, then slowly, carefully, straightened up. The audience cheered when they saw what Pip’s team had done – they’d made a fairy pyramid!

  Pip looked up – the branch was just above her head. Phew! She reached up and grabbed the prize from its hiding place, and the audience clapped and squealed even louder.

  “Well done!” croaked the mayor from the stage. “I think you’re the smallest fairy here today, Pip, but you’ve shown that being tiny has its benefits!”

  Pip climbed down slowly, then Nutmeg and Catkin followed. The audience kept on cheering, and before she knew what was happening, Willa had swept Pip up on to her shoulders and paraded her around. “Pi–ip!” screamed the Jewel Forest crowd. “Pi–ip!” Pip shook now and her cheeks flushed again – not in fear or embarrassment, but in surprise and delight. Her face ached from grinning so much as the friends celebrated together.

  When the audience had finally quietened down, the mayor spoke again. “So that brings the Fairy Olympics to a close, and it’s time for me to announce the final scores. Dream Mountain won one event – River Rafting. Star Valley won one event – Toadstool Trampolining. Sparkle City also won one event – Fairy Relay. And Jewel Forest won two events – Branch Gymnastics and Reach High – which makes them this year’s winners of the Fairy Olympics! Congratulations…”

  The mayor’s words were drowned out by the cheers in Bluebell Clearing. The Jewel Forest fairies and audience celebrated once more, hugging each other, jumping up and down, and high-fiving. In the middle of it all, Pip suddenly realized she still had the golden envelope in her hand.

  She pulled her friends around her, and held out the envelope.

  “I wonder what the prize will be?” said Nutmeg, jumping from foot to foot with excitement.

  Pip slid a finger under the flap and took out a gold leaf sparkling with fairy-dust. On it were written just two words:

  Pip frowned and turned the leaf over, but the other side was blank. “What does it mean?”

  “If I can explain,” croaked the mayor through the microphone, hushing the crowd. “VIF stands for Very Important Fairy – and that’s what all six of you will be tonight! You’ll have the VIF table at this evening’s Fairy Olympics celebration party – and be our very special guests!”

  “Oh, wow!” said Willa. “I didn’t know there was going to be a party!”

  The fairy friends suddenly looked at Catkin, whose cheeks had flushed red. “I did, but we wanted to keep it a secret!”

  “What a fantastic surprise,” said Primrose. “And the perfect way to end the day!”

  That evening, all the fairy competitors gathered for the party in their very best outfits. It was held in the Great Wood Hall inside the Jewel Forest Tree Palace – the perfect place for a party, with its beautiful carved wood walls, high ceiling and jewel-glass windows. As the moon shone through, the windows cast multicoloured lights into the room.

  Sycamore the tree squirrel led Pip, Blossom, Catkin, Willa, Primrose and Nutmeg to the VIF table, in the very centre of the hall. It was adorned with firefly lights and jewel-flowers, and hummingbirds fluttered around it to cater for the fairies’ every wish.

  “May I have a forest-fruit fizz?” Pip asked one of the birds.

  “Ooh, that sounds lovely – I’d like one too, please,” said Blossom.

  “Me too!” added Nutmeg. Eventually, all six fairies decided they’d like the delicious drink.

  They sat down on silver toadstool chairs and Primrose held out her pink crystal glass. “I’d like to make a toast,” she said. “To Pip, for showing us that being small can be brilliant!”

  All the friends clinked their glasses together. “To Pip!” they cheered.

  “For being small but mighty!” added Catkin.

  Pip grinned. “And to you all, for being the best fairy friends ever!”

  The forest creatures who’d watched the Fairy Olympics had agreed to be waiters and waitresses while the fairies enjoyed themselves. The fairies ate a wonderful six-course meal prepared by the bees – Pip’s favourite part was the honey-drizzled crumpet. It was followed by a break-dancing beetle group and then caterpillar karaoke. Finally, a bunny band scampered on to the stage. They played lots of fun forest tunes, and took special requests from the VIFs!

  “So now you’re the
star of the day, have you changed your mind about sports?” Catkin asked Pip as they danced together to Pip’s favourite song, “Woodland Rock”.

  Pip shook her head and shuddered. “Oh no! I’m so pleased we won the prize, but there’s nothing anyone can do to persuade me to like sports!” She did a twirl and grinned. “Dancing, though – that’s another matter. I could dance all night!”

  And that’s exactly what they did.

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  “Just one week to go until you’re crowned Forest Fairy Princess, Nutmeg,” said Willa, fluttering her pretty pink wings. “You must be so excited!”

  “I know!” said Nutmeg, her fiery orange wings shaking as she giggled. “I can’t believe I’m going to be a real princess, just like Primrose.”

  The two forest fairies were sitting in Nutmeg’s bedroom right at the top of the Tree Palace, which stood in the heart of Jewel Forest. The forest was the biggest in fairyland. It was filled with magical trees of all shapes and sizes, covered in glittering jewels in every colour of the rainbow. The sparkliest of all the trees was the Tree Palace, an ancient pink diamond-nut tree, where Nutmeg and her big sister Princess Primrose lived with the rest of the royal family.

  “What do you think?” said Willa, sliding a sapphire clip into her friend’s hair.

  Nutmeg inspected herself in the leaf-shaped crystal mirror and frowned. The fairy smiling back at her didn’t look like her. Willa had smoothed her normally messy nut-brown hair into a shiny updo.

  “Hmm, I don’t know,” Nutmeg said, wrinkling her freckled nose. “I look all tidy.”

  “That’s the point,” said Willa smiling at her friend. “You need to look your fairy best for the ceremony.”

  “It definitely needs something. Let me think,” said Nutmeg, leaping up and fluttering over to an untidy stack of magazines next to her lovely but unmade four-poster bed. “I know it’s here somewhere,” she muttered as she examined each magazine and tossed it aside.

  “Ah yes, Sparkle Magazine!” she exclaimed at last, pulling a twinkling packet off a bright pink magazine with a smiling fairy on the front. “I really wanted to try this! I think it’ll look great.”

  “Glimmerberry jewel gel?” said Willa, reading the small packet. “I don’t know, Nutmeg. Don’t you think jewel gel is a bit funky for the ceremony?”

  “Perhaps,” said Nutmeg, her eyes twinkling with fun, “but let’s give it a try anyway.”

  Willa squeezed the sparkly gel into her tiny hands and spread it evenly through Nutmeg’s hair.

  “Let me have a go,” said Nutmeg, pushing her fingers through her hair until it was all standing up straight. “There,” she said when she had finished. “What do you think?”

  Willa laughed. “Nutmeg! That’s brilliant,” she said, touching Nutmeg’s hair, which was now styled into shimmering spikes. “I can’t imagine what everyone would say if you wore it like that for the ceremony.”

  “I know,” said Nutmeg, “it would be very funny, but I wouldn’t dare.”

  “What is it you have to do for the ceremony?” asked Willa, more seriously. “Don’t you have to recite a pledge?”

  “Yes, but that’s not all!” said Nutmeg excitedly. “First I need to look like a princess, which is what you’re helping me with now,” she said, giggling at her hair in the mirror. “I recite the princess pledge after I perform a special dance. Then everyone sings the forest fairy sacred song and Father puts the crown on my head. After that I’ll be a real-life princess.”

  “Wow!” said Willa, “that sounds like an awful lot of work. Do you know the pledge by heart?”

  “Oh yes!” said Nutmeg confidently. “Well, almost. I’ll recite it for you.”

  Nutmeg stood up, gave a tiny cough to clear her throat, then began:

  “All forest fairies and creatures who live

  Among deep roots to branches high

  I swear to … something, something … home

  And sing loudly at the, um, something sky.”

  “Are you sure that’s how it goes?” asked Willa, frowning. “Perhaps it just sounded different when Primrose said it at her crowning ceremony.”

  “Well,” said Nutmeg quickly, “I’ve still got loads of time to learn it properly. Would you like to see my dance?”

  “Oh yes!” said Willa, fluttering on to the bed to give her friend some room. “Primrose’s dance was so beautiful. Will you do the same one?”

  “Er … not exactly the same, no,” said Nutmeg as she fluttered over to her enchanted wooden music box and chose the song she wanted to play.

  Nutmeg took her position in the centre of the room and began to dance. She started well, twirling and fluttering in time to the music, but then she forgot what she was supposed to do next.

  “Do I leap or twirl here?” she asked herself, swaying on the spot for a moment. “Well, I have to do something.” She grinned, then began to scamper across the room just like one of the candy tufted tree squirrels that lived in Jewel Forest.

  Willa burst out laughing.

  Nutmeg stopped and started fluttering and pecking around the room like a little bird.

  “Oh, Nutmeg! Stop!” Willa howled with laughter until her sides ached. “Please! I … hahaha … can’t … breathe.”

  Nutmeg smiled. She loved having fun with her fairy friends.

  And I’ve got plenty of time to get ready for the ceremony, she thought, before slipping on the packet of glimmerberry jewel gel and tumbling to the floor with a crash.

  At that moment, the door to Nutmeg’s room swung open and there stood Princess Primrose who, unlike Willa and Nutmeg, wasn’t smiling or laughing.

  “Nutmeg!” said Primrose. “What are you doing?”

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  First published in the UK by Scholastic Ltd, 2014

  This electronic edition published by Scholastic Ltd 2014

  Text copyright © Scholastic Ltd, 2014

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  Inside illustration copyright © David Shephard, The Bright Agency, 2014

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