by Kiki Thorpe
Fawn threw the berry as hard as she could, hitting the cat squarely between the eyes. The cat jerked back, startled. He tried to shake the berry off his head. Then he lifted his chin and stalked away, as if he had important business elsewhere.
Fawn grinned as the cat broke into a run. Her plan was working!
But a second later, her smile faded. The cat wasn’t running away from Fawn—he was running toward something.
Just beyond the edge of the woods, a mouse cart was passing through the meadow. The cart driver, a sparrow man named Dooley, was whistling to himself. He didn’t see the cat creeping up behind him.
“Dooley!” Fawn shrieked. “Look out!”
Too late! The cat landed on the cart, and its load of walnuts spilled across the trail. The cart mice squealed and bolted, throwing Dooley from his seat.
Dooley tried to fly, but the cat caught him between his front paws. He batted him back and forth, toying with him as if he were a ball of yarn.
“Leave him alone, you ratty tabby!” Summoning her courage, Fawn flew right up to the cat’s nose and gave his whiskers a yank.
The cat yowled in pain and leaped back. Fawn took the moment to grab Dooley’s hand. She pulled him to safety in a nearby mole hole.
“Are you all right?” Fawn asked. The stunned sparrow man’s glow flickered like a firefly. But he didn’t have any scratches as far as Fawn could tell.
“Wh-wh—” Dooley stuttered. “Wh-where did that monster come from?”
Before Fawn could reply, they heard squeals. Fawn peeked out the hole. The driverless mouse cart was careening in circles as the terrified mice ran this way and that.
“He’s going to get the mice!” Fawn cried.
But to her surprise, the cat bounded right past the mouse cart. Something else had caught his eye.
Ahead was the Home Tree, sparkling with the hundreds of fairies who wove in and out of its branches, going about their business.
Fawn gasped. What had she done? In trying to drive the cat away, she’d sent him straight to the heart of the fairies’ world!
“Stay here. I’ll send someone to help you with the mice,” Fawn told Dooley. Then she raced off toward the Home Tree to warn the other fairies.
In the pebbled courtyard in front of the Home Tree’s knothole door, a group of fairies sat enjoying a picnic. The cat headed straight toward them, his tail twitching with pleasure.
“Fly!” Fawn screamed. “Fly away!” But she was too far off to be heard.
Wham! The cat pounced, landing in the middle of the picnic. Seashell plates and acorn teacups crashed to the ground. Cries of horror filled the courtyard. The cat danced on his hind legs, swiping happily at the fairies as they darted out of the way.
In an instant, the Home Tree was in chaos. The singing-talent fairies’ songs turned to screams. A laundry-talent fairy dropped a whole line of washing, which sailed away on a breeze. Fairies and sparrow men crashed into each other as they tried to escape.
Fawn grabbed a blueberry from an overturned barrel and threw it at the cat. But the cat was too dazzled by the fairies to even notice. He slinked around the trunk, looking for one to catch.
Between the roots at the back of the Home Tree was the entrance to the kitchen. The doorway was just wide enough to fit a small melon—or a large cat. As Fawn reached the back of the tree, she saw the tip of the cat’s fluffy tail disappear inside.
“Oh no!” Fawn gasped. The kitchen fairies would be trapped!
But a second later, the cat came streaking back out. Right behind him came a band of red-faced kitchen fairies. Some hollered and banged on pots and pans. Others pelted the cat with peppercorns.
The cat fled.
“Good thing we were making pepper soup today,” the baking-talent fairy Dulcie said when she caught Fawn’s eye.
When the cat was a good distance away, he stopped running. He paced back and forth, casting sulky glances at the Home Tree.
“But it looks to me like we haven’t seen the last of that cat,” Dulcie added.
Lainey awoke to the sound of fairy laughter. It’s Prilla coming to wake us up! she thought.
She opened her eyes, expecting to see sunlight dappling the branches of the willow-tree room. Instead, she found herself staring at a painted white ceiling.
Lainey sat up. She was in her own bed in her own room. There was no willow tree and no fairy coming to wake her. Only thin sunlight coming through blue curtains and the smell of her parents’ coffee brewing—the same things she’d woken to her whole life.
And yet … she could still hear a tiny bell-like sound.
Lainey leaned over the side of her bed. There was the old shoe box she’d put on the floor the night before. Holding her breath, Lainey lifted the lid—
The little mouse stood up on his hind legs to greet her, the bell around his neck jingling faintly. Lainey smiled. So it wasn’t a dream after all, she thought.
“Good morning, fella,” she said softly. She held out her finger to the mouse, who sniffed it with interest. He seemed less afraid than he had been the day before.
Now, for the first time, Lainey noticed a notch in his ear. She remembered that one of the dairy mice had a funny ear.
“Milkweed?” she said. “Is that you?”
The mouse didn’t seem to hear her. He sniffed around the shoe box, as if looking for a crumb. Lainey was glad to see that he’d eaten the pizza crust she’d left for him the night before.
“I’ll bet you’re hungry for breakfast,” she said. “Coming right up.”
Lainey carefully placed the lid back on the box. She pushed it under the bed so her mother wouldn’t find it, then went downstairs to get something to eat.
In the kitchen, she found a note from her mother saying she’d gone to pick up a few things at the store and her dad had gone into work. Lainey placed a frozen waffle in the toaster. She had just poured herself a glass of orange juice when the phone rang.
Lainey picked up the phone. It was Mia.
“Mia!” Lainey cried. “Guess what I found—”
“It’s awful, Lainey!” Mia interrupted, her voice cracking. “I can’t find him anywhere!”
“Can’t find who?” asked Lainey, confused.
“Bingo! He’s missing!” Tearfully, Mia explained that the cat hadn’t been seen since the day before. “He didn’t come when I called him. I even put out a bowl of tuna fish, but he didn’t turn up. He never misses tuna fish.”
“Maybe he’s out exploring,” Lainey said.
“He doesn’t leave the backyard.” Mia sniffled. “I’m worried something bad happened. Will you help me look for him?”
“I’ll be right there,” Lainey said.
When she’d hung up, Lainey took the waffle out of the toaster. She wrote a quick note to her parents, then hurried upstairs. She fed pieces of waffle to the mouse as she got dressed.
After she was done, Lainey took the mouse out of the shoe box and gently placed him in her sweatshirt pocket. “Don’t worry, little fella,” she whispered. “I’ll take care of you. I promise.”
When Lainey got to Mia’s house, Mia and Gabby were sitting on the front steps. Mia’s eyes were rimmed with red, as if she’d been crying. Kate was there, too, looking as if she hadn’t slept very well.
“I was up all night, looking for the Second Star to the Right,” Kate told Lainey. “But I couldn’t find it. The queen never told us what it was to the right of. Not that it matters anyway,” she added, “since we lost the fairy dust.”
“Guys,” said Lainey, “something really weird happened last night. You aren’t going to believe it.” Reaching into her sweatshirt pocket, she pulled out the little mouse.
Mia jumped back in surprise. “Why are you carrying a mouse around?” she asked Lainey.
“It’s not just any mouse,” Lainey replied. “It’s Milkweed.”
“Milkwhat?” asked Kate.
“His name is Milkweed,” Lainey explained. “He’s one of the fairies’
mice.”
Gabby stepped forward to pet the mouse. “Hullo, Milkweed,” she said, stroking his head with the tip of her finger.
“What’s so important about him?” asked Kate.
“Well, that’s the thing,” said Lainey. “Don’t you wonder how he got here?”
“You brought him in your pocket,” Kate pointed out.
“But I found him in our kitchen last night,” Lainey said. “Don’t you think it’s strange that a Never Land mouse turned up in my home?”
“Can we talk about this later?” Mia said impatiently. “Right now, we really need to find Bingo!”
The girls decided to split up to look for the cat. Mia and Gabby took one side of the street, while Lainey and Kate took the other. They walked up and down the neighborhood, calling Bingo’s name. But they didn’t spot so much as a single paw print.
Finally, they returned to Mia and Gabby’s house. When Mrs. Vasquez saw how disappointed they looked, she poured them glasses of lemonade. The girls took their drinks into the backyard. A dark cloud had settled over the group.
“We’re never going to find Bingo,” Mia said despairingly.
“We’re never going to get back to Never Land,” added Kate.
Something in the corner of the yard caught Lainey’s eye. “Mia,” she said, “when did you get that?”
“Get what?” asked Mia.
“That plastic flamingo,” Lainey said, pointing to the tall pink bird in the flower bed. At that moment, the flamingo turned its head. It fixed them with a bright yellow eye. “Awnk!” it honked.
The girls screamed and jumped to their feet. Lemonade spilled everywhere.
“Mia?” Mrs. Vasquez called from inside the house. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing, Mami!” Mia yelled. She looked back at the flamingo. It was perched on one foot in the middle of Mrs. Vasquez’s rosebushes. “What is a flamingo doing here?” she whispered.
“Maybe it escaped from the zoo?” Kate guessed.
“Maybe,” said Lainey, her heart filling with hope, “it came from Never Land!”
The other girls turned to her. But before anyone could reply, they heard footsteps coming from inside the house. “Quick!” Mia whispered. “Hide it!”
“Hide it?” said Kate. “How? It’s as tall as we are!”
“I have an idea!” said Lainey. “Kate, kneel down. You too, Mia. Hurry!”
When Mrs. Vasquez stepped outside a moment later, Gabby was sitting on Mia’s shoulders. Lainey was sitting on Kate’s shoulders. They crowded together in the corner of the yard, blocking the flamingo from her view.
“What on earth are you all doing?” Mrs. Vasquez asked.
“We’re having chicken races!” Lainey said brightly as Kate staggered beneath her, trying to keep her balance.
“Awnk!” honked the flamingo behind them.
“Bok!” shouted Lainey. “It’s part of the game. You have to say, ‘Bok, bok!’”
“Bok! Bok! Bok!” The girls all began to yell to cover up the noises the flamingo was making.
Mrs. Vasquez frowned. “It looks dangerous. Can’t you girls play something where you all keep your feet on the ground?” She started into the house, then paused and turned back. “And, girls, please don’t play too close to the flower bed. Those are my prize roses!” She slid open the screen door and went inside.
“Oof!” Kate grunted as she fell to the grass, tipping Lainey off her shoulders. “You’re a lot heavier than you look. Now, what were you saying?”
Lainey’s heart was beating fast. “What if the flamingo is from Never Land?” she whispered to her friends.
“What would it be doing here?” asked Mia.
For the first time since they’d lost the fairy dust, Kate’s face lit up. “The fairies must have sent him! I’ll bet he’s here to show us the way back to Never Land!”
At once the girls turned toward the bird. It looked back at them warily.
“Come on, Mr. Bird. Tell us how to get back to Never Land,” Kate coaxed.
“Look!” cried Gabby. “He’s trying to get away!” The flamingo was spreading his wings, as if he was about to take to the air.
“Not so fast!” cried Kate. She lunged at the flamingo, which hopped just out of her reach. Kate began to chase him through the flower bed. Petals flew from the roses.
“Kate!” Mia wailed. “Watch out for Mami’s flowers!”
Kate ignored her and dove into the middle of the petunias. She managed to grab the flamingo by the leg.
“I got him— Ow!” Kate cried as the flamingo beat her about the head with his wings, trying to escape. “Quick! Someone find something to hold him!”
“I know how to catch him!” Gabby hurried to the back door and grabbed a butterfly net that was leaning up against the house. She ran toward Kate and the flamingo, waving it.
“Don’t!” cried Lainey. “He’s scared.” The flamingo was flapping his wings, straining to get away. At last the bird managed to pull his foot from Kate’s grip. He rose into the air, sailed a short distance, and landed on the roof of Mia and Gabby’s house.
The girls stared up at him. “Well,” said Mia, “now what do we do?”
“Awnk!” said the flamingo.
Silence had settled across Pixie Hollow. In the gardens, the spider-thread hammocks hung empty. On Havendish Stream, the fairies’ leaf-boats bobbed forlornly on their anchors. Not a whisper of wings could be heard across the meadow. The only sound was the splash of the waterwheel as it turned in the stream for an empty mill.
Inside the Home Tree, fairies peeked from the windows. They were watching for the furry beast that had driven them all behind doors. Many fairies had gathered in the grand dining hall. The serving talents were passing out acorn caps full of blackberry tea to soothe everyone’s jangled nerves.
As Fawn wandered through the dining hall, she heard snippets of talk among the fairies.
“I’ve never seen a monster like that in Pixie Hollow before.…”
“Did you see it knock down the bridge?”
“We can’t stay inside forever! We’ll starve, you know.…”
In a corner of the dining room, a small group of fairies hovered around Dooley. His glow had returned, but he still wore a tragic look on his face. He clutched a teacup and a plate of poppy-seed cake as he told his story. “I swear on my wings, I was inches from being eaten! My whole life flashed before my eyes. Mmm. This is very tasty cake. You know, I think another slice might help me get my strength back.…”
Fawn felt terrible. She knew that this was all her fault. If she hadn’t flown into the Clumsy garden, the cat never would have chased her into Pixie Hollow.
And yet, Fawn still didn’t understand what had happened. How had she gotten to the Clumsy garden to begin with?
Fawn spotted Queen Clarion standing before one of the tall dining hall windows. The queen held a cup of tea in her hand, but she never raised it to her lips. She gazed outside with a puzzled expression. Fawn made her way over to her.
Queen Clarion turned her head. “Oh, Fawn. I was just thinking how strange this all is. Usually Never creatures are respectful of the fairy realm—even the hawks and snakes.”
Fawn cleared her throat. “The thing is,” she began, “the cat isn’t from Never Land.”
The queen raised her eyebrows. “Then where did it come from?”
“I, ah, I don’t really know,” Fawn admitted. Taking a deep breath, she explained how she’d gone looking for Milkweed and instead stumbled upon a Clumsy’s house inside an old fig tree.
“What Clumsy?” asked Queen Clarion. “Was it a pirate? Or one of Peter Pan’s boys?”
Fawn shook her head. “I don’t know. I never saw any Clumsies there. But it wasn’t just a house. The grass was different and the flowers were different. It even had a different sky. It was a whole Clumsy world.”
“But that’s impossible,” said the queen. “To get to the world of Clumsies, you’d have to fly across an ocean!”<
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“I don’t understand it, either,” said Fawn. “But that’s where I saw the cat. He started to chase me. When I tried to escape, I found myself right back in Pixie Hollow—and the cat was with me!”
The queen furrowed her brow. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Tinker Bell had been sitting nearby, tinkering with a thimble bucket. Suddenly, she spoke up. “Maybe there’s a hole.”
The queen and Fawn both turned to her. “What do you mean?” asked Queen Clarion.
“Like a shortcut between Never Land and the mainland,” said Tink. “Usually, they’re far apart. They exist in separate realms. But if there was a hole …” Tink took the cup of tea from Queen Clarion’s hand and poured it into the bucket. Tea dribbled out the bottom. “Things could fall through.”
“If there was a hole, wouldn’t we know about it?” asked Queen Clarion.
“It could be a pinprick hole,” Tink said. “They’re the sneakiest kind. You don’t know about them until you spring a leak.”
“A hole between Never Land and the mainland,” the queen murmured, her frown deepening. “If it’s true, all kinds of dangers could reach Pixie Hollow.”
Tink nodded. “The cat might be the least of our troubles.”
Fawn chewed her lip. She’d just thought of something. “If there’s a hole, that means things can go both ways.”
“What are you saying?” asked Tink.
“If the cat followed me here, that means he can follow me back.” Fawn lifted her chin bravely. “I’ll lead the cat back to the Clumsy house. I’ll use myself as bait.”
The queen looked shocked. “I forbid it,” she said. “It’s too dangerous.”
“It’s the only way,” Fawn said. “If I don’t, we may be stuck inside the Home Tree forever.”
Tink stood up. “You can’t do it alone. I’ll help you.”
