Spring's Sparkle Sleepover

by Elise Allen

  Spring forced a smile. Saying she liked Bluster was hard, even in a joke, but she thought Bluster would appreciate it.

  “Clever,” he said. “And true, no doubt. No one can resist me. And I happen to like you too, Spring. I find you both amusing and clever. In fact, right now I’d say you’re a particular favorite of mine.”

  Spring heard the three Venus flytraps cry out, “She can’t be your favorite, Daddy! We are!”

  The flytraps snapped at her jealously. Spring tried not to recoil. “Now it’s your turn,” she said to Bluster. “You tell a joke. It’s a game. You like games, don’t you?”

  Bluster leaned in close to Spring. His breath smelled like garlic and old pond water. “I. Love. Games. I accept your challenge.”

  “Challenge?” Spring asked. “I—”

  “Knock! Knock!” Bluster rapped his walking stick so loudly on the flytraps’ table that the plants’ pot bounced up into the air and the flytraps screamed in fright.

  “Um … who’s there?” Spring inched her way toward a table filled with potted hemlock, trying to put it between her and Bluster.

  “Spider,” said Bluster.

  “But I just did that one.”

  “Spider!” Bluster demanded.

  “Spider who?”

  “You tried to hide her, but I spied her!” exclaimed Bluster. “Just like I spied you and your sisters the second you came into my fortress.”

  “Are my sisters okay?” Spring asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

  “They’re fine, of course. I find it far more enjoyable to keep this between you and me. We are friends, after all.”

  “If I’m your friend,” Spring asked, “then why would you stop my season from coming? Without spring, nothing in the Outworld will grow again.”

  “Not true.” Bluster laughed. “The snowfall will grow and grow and grow!”

  The plants in Bluster’s greenhouse guffawed along with their father.

  “But plants won’t grow.” Spring raised her voice so all the greenery could hear. “Outworld plants just like you will die if there’s never any spring.”

  All the flowers, leaves, and pods quivered. Then they started complaining. Loudly. Bluster’s dark eyes stormed over and he shouted out like thunder, “Quiet!”

  Not one plant peeped.

  Bluster placed his hand dramatically on his heart. “Spring,” he said, “it’s in my dashing nature to destroy.” He aimed his walking stick at a pot of purple flowers. A jet of black smog singed them into ash. The flowers next to the destroyed blooms shrieked horribly. Spring wanted to cover her ears, but instead she stood tall.

  “How could you do that to innocent plants under your care?” Spring asked.

  “Innocent?” Bluster echoed. “Those flowers were belladonna, a potent poison. Terribly dangerous.”

  “And what about Mother Nature?” Spring countered. “Is she dangerous?”

  Bluster smirked and coiled his mustache around his finger. “Not in the same way, no.”

  “But you betrayed her too,” Spring accused. “You left her under a sleeping spell and stole her scepter! And she was your friend!”

  “She is my friend, Spring,” said Bluster Tempest. “A very dear friend.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she said. “You deceived her. And it’s not good to deceive a friend. I should know. I ruined Winter’s Snowflake Slumber Party because I tried to deceive my sisters and make them think I was ready for a sleepover when I wasn’t.”

  Bluster stared hard at Spring, then spun himself around so fast he became a mini tornado. The Bluster-storm whirled around the room, knocking down and thrashing plants along the way. He stopped inches away from Spring. His hair was tousled and his eyes were wild as he sneered down at the Sparkle and spoke through clenched teeth. “Want to know what you are ready for?” he asked.

  “What’s that?” squeaked Spring.

  “Another joke,” he said. “But this time we are upping the stakes in this game.”

  “You’re making us steaks?” Spring asked, confused. “I’m not really hungry.”

  “Stakes. As in the stakes, the risk, the gamble, the reward. A scepter for a scepter.” He took off his top hat, reached inside, and pulled out Mother Nature’s scepter.

  “That doesn’t belong to you!” shouted Spring. “That’s Mother’s!”

  “Obviously,” he drawled. “And if you wager your own scepter, you can win it back for her. Whoever tells the cleverest joke takes both scepters. Are you in?”

  Bluster set Mother’s scepter on a table. Spring gazed at it, then looked at her own. Both scepters’ orbs were all but completely clouded in silvery mist. She needed to get them both to the Ceremony right away, or her season would be lost forever. She laid her scepter down next to Mother’s. “I am.”

  “Good,” Bluster sneered.

  “Wait—how will we know who tells the cleverest joke?” asked Spring.

  “My plants will tell us. You are an impartial audience, aren’t you, my loves?”

  “We love Bluster Tempest!” Spring heard them all sing out.

  “Thank you, pets,” he said. “Spring, you may go first. And may you have as much luck as a snowman in the desert.”

  Spring was in trouble, yet she had no choice but to try. At least she knew plants better than Bluster. Maybe that would help?

  “Thank you, I think,” said Spring, stalling for time as she racked her brain for the perfect joke. “Well, I could tell another knock-knock joke, but I think this time I will tell a story joke.”

  She knelt next to a planter box filled with tiny white flowers that hung like mini bells on green stems. “I could tell a joke about a world with no spring, but these lovely lilies of the valley only blossom in spring, so I know they wouldn’t find that funny at all.”

  “No, we wouldn’t!” agreed the flowers.

  Bluster tapped his foot impatiently. “You’re stalling!” he barked. “If you’re telling a story joke, tell it!”

  “Pitcher plants and poison ivy!” exclaimed Spring. “You don’t have to be louder than an elephant seal’s burp to get my attention!”

  The lilies of the valley tittered, and the poison ivy hanging from above laughed out loud. Spring started to get an idea.

  “I’m hardly that loud,” said Bluster.

  “Well, you are that scary. You’re so scary that your own shadow ran away from you.”

  All the plants in the room gurgled and guffawed. Spring hadn’t tried to tell a joke that time, she just told the truth about Bluster … and the plants thought it was hysterical. They think it’s funny to joke about Bluster, thought Spring. It was hard for her to tease, but if she had to do it to save her season, she would. Maybe this could be her key to the contest.

  “Bluster Tempest, you’re so scary, you make onions cry!” exclaimed Spring.

  More laughter, especially from the beds of garlic, horseradish, and Brussels sprouts.

  “Was that your joke?” asked Bluster testily.

  Spring ignored the question. “You’re also so mean,” she announced to the greenhouse, “that if someone kicked you in the heart, she’d break her toe! You’re so icky, the tide wouldn’t even bring you in; so frightening, you have to sneak up on your own mirror; so terrifying that farmers use a picture of your face on their scarecrows!”

  All the plants were roaring now, rolling back and forth in their pots. One hemlock plant’s screeching wail was so loud it cracked the greenhouse glass. Spring couldn’t even hear herself over the hysterical din. Bluster smiled through the hilarity at first … then grit his teeth … then small black tornadoes of fury whirled off his body. The sight was terrifying, but Spring acted as though she didn’t notice. She waited for the plants’ laughter to die down a bit, then put her hands on her hips.

  “That was my joke,” she said. “What’s yours?”

  Bluster painted on a smile and turned to the crowd of greenery. “Why,” he asked, “is the mushroom always invited to partie
s?” He smiled as if he had the most excellent secret and then answered, “Because he is a fun guy! Like me!”

  Nothing. Not a chuckle, titter, or snicker. Spring looked around the silent greenhouse, amazed that not one of his poisonous and prickly plants had laughed. Hope stirred inside her.

  “Fun guy,” continued Bluster Tempest. “Like fungi. Another word for mushroom.” He tapped his walking stick loudly on the mushroom terrarium. “That is your cue to laugh! Laugh, fungi!”

  One mushroom offered a pathetic chuckle. Otherwise, silence.

  “You are all as humorless as mollusks at a clambake!” Bluster roared.

  “So I win!” Spring dashed to the two scepters, but before she could grab them, Bluster pointed his walking stick at her.

  “Winds!” he shouted.

  A thick, black gust threw Spring across the room, and the poison ivy vines grabbed her in midair. Spring struggled in their grip.

  “That’s not fair!” Spring shouted. “You said I’d get the scepters if I won!”

  “I also told you before … I cheat.”

  Spring was furious. She felt her Sparkle Powers rising like a river fed by a giant waterfall. She was not going to let Bluster Tempest keep Mother Nature’s scepter. Or stop spring from turning. Her own scepter was all the way down on the table, but she was strong enough today that just being in the room with it would be enough. She cried:

  A flurry of violet sparkles flew from Spring’s scepter and raced around the room, showering each plant and flower with its power. All the creepers, shrubs, and weeds quickly grew larger. As a single group they turned, and while they had no faces, it was easy to see they were glaring at Bluster Tempest.

  “Oh, come now,” Bluster clucked, “you’re not going to obey the magic of a little—”

  All at once they pounced. A giant branch of oleander tripped Bluster, then poison ivy vines hoisted him off his feet. They shook him until his walking stick dropped out of his hands.

  “Put me down at once!” demanded Bluster.

  On his command, the vines plopped him into the mouth of an enormous flytrap. “Not here!” Bluster wailed.

  The other poison ivy vines, meanwhile, gently lowered Spring back to the ground and released her. She ran and grabbed her and Mother Nature’s scepters, then kicked Bluster’s walking stick under a table. Her spell was working and the plants were rebelling! Now to find her sisters and get back to Mother!

  “Spring!” Bluster shouted. “You can’t win this way! You might have the scepter, but I’m the only one who can wake her up in time for the season to turn!”

  Spring stopped in her tracks. It was true. She turned back to Bluster. Even though he stood on the mouth of the flytrap, keeping its pod open with his feet, and even though his arms were bound by vines, he smiled smugly. Maybe Bluster had won.

  Spring had run out of clever tricks. All she had left was the truth.

  “Mother always told me you were important,” Spring said, her voice trembling. “Just like droughts, hailstorms, and sinkholes are important.”

  “She said that?” asked Bluster Tempest.

  “She did. She said we needed you and the Weeds to keep the world in balance. Just like sometimes a forest needs a fire to open up the seeds in a pinecone, so new trees can be born.”

  “I do create fabulous forest fires,” he mused.

  “I didn’t want to believe it, but Mother was right,” said Spring. “I need you. But you need me too, if you want the plants to release you. So let’s work together. Let’s change the season to spring.”

  Spring wasn’t sure if it was her words or the toxic liquid from the giant flytrap, but Bluster was definitely misty-eyed. “My dear Spring, your words have moved me like a dish of overripe prunes. We will work together. Have the plants release me and I will do as you say. I will wake Mother Nature so you, your sisters, and she can awaken spring.”

  Spring practically bubbled over with joy, and was about to release Bluster when she remembered his treachery with Mother Nature. If he could turn against his own dearest friend, how could she trust him to do what he said?

  At that moment, Winter, Autumn, and Summer came tumbling down the slide and into Bluster’s greenhouse, screaming Spring’s name. The girls fell into a pile, their legs and arms knotting together like the braid in Dewdrop’s mane. As they scrambled to untangle, they all spoke on top of one another.

  “Are you okay?”

  “We heard shouting!”

  “Don’t even think of touching her, Bluster!”

  The sisters made it to their feet in attack stance, their scepters pointing at Bluster Tempest. Their brows furrowed as they took in the scene: Bluster trapped by his own plants, and Spring standing free. Spring smiled and held up Mother Nature’s scepter. “Tada!” she cheerily exclaimed.

  “Salivations and salutations, Sparkles!” greeted Bluster. “Although not as adorable as young Spring here, you all look as darling as a pack of donkeys just back from a long uphill pack trip. Now if you don’t mind, could you rustle up a rainbow so we can attend to Mother Nature and turn the Outworld’s worrisome winter to sunny spring?”

  Summer lowered her scepter and leaned on it to keep from falling over.

  Winter had only one word: “Honk!”

  “Bluebells and blossoms,” Autumn gasped, and smiled in amazement at Spring.

  Spring wondered if Mother Nature felt this happy when she beat Bluster at cyclone checkers. She knew she wouldn’t have to wait long to find out.

  Chapter 12

  Spring proudly stood in the very center of Evergrass Circle with her sisters and Mother Nature. The Sparkle Ceremony was almost complete. Spring lifted her scepter into the air and confidently summoned her namesake season:

  The other Sparkles joyfully repeated Spring’s chant, and their collective Sparkle energy bubbled up and exploded from their headband gems into the orbs on their scepters, then streamed across the field and into Mother Nature’s scepter orb.

  As Mother stood there, holding their combined energy within herself, Spring thought she looked like a beautiful tree, with her green gown of tiny soft leaves and her brown branch-like arms lifting her scepter up to the sky. Spring’s excitement fluttered inside her tummy like a butterfly about to burst from a cocoon.

  “Three, two, one …,” she whispered.

  A brilliant multicolored light shot out of the emerald in Mother Nature’s headband and jettisoned into the sky, which exploded with violet and pink fireworks in the shapes of flowers, bees, and leaves. Mother Nature and the Sparkles had done it! Spring had arrived in the Outworld, and nature was balanced once more.

  “Bravo, Mother Nature! Bravo, Sparkles!” cheered Bluster Tempest. He stood on the edge of Evergrass Circle. Bits of vine still hung around his ankles and wrists. Spring had known better than to trust his word, so she had the vines in his greenhouse give her cuttings that would answer only to her. With these she kept Bluster tied up until she and her sisters could get him to Mother Nature. Only when Bluster had awakened Mother with his special extra-smelly smelling salts did Spring release him.

  Spring was sure Mother would be furious with Bluster when she learned what had happened, but she had only smiled. “Treachery is what I expect from you, Bluster,” she’d said. “I’d be disappointed by anything else. Luckily, I can count on my strong, brilliant, caring Sparkles. You especially came through for us today, Spring. I’m very proud of you.”

  Spring had glowed under Mother’s praise, but by then it was nearly sundown. Mother only had just enough time to magically clean and dress the Sparkles before the Ceremony, which she insisted Bluster and his Weeds watch.

  The Weeds were there now, slumped next to Bluster. They wore stained suits and poked and kicked at one another.

  “Boys,” Bluster urged, “aren’t you going to tell Mother and the Sparkles what a lovely job they did?”

  “Uh … good job,” mumbled Thunderbolt.

  “Cool ceremony,” muttered Twister.


  “Yeah, what he said,” groused Sleet.

  “I liked the fireworks!” enthused Quake. He was licking a giant sticky jawbreaker, and Spring was sure it was from his personal field of candy.

  “I’m so glad you boys enjoyed it,” said Mother. “Especially since it so nearly didn’t happen.”

  Bluster bowed his head under Mother’s stern glare. “What can I say? I am who I am. I trust this mishap won’t get in the way of our next Game Night?”

  “Of course it won’t,” Mother said. “Defeating you at cyclone checkers will be the perfect way to exact my revenge.”

  “Defeating me?” Bluster laughed. “Oh, no, no, no. I assure you, that won’t happen.”

  As he and Mother continued talking and the Weeds started to wrestle, Spring gathered her sisters. She had something on her mind.

  “Winter, Autumn, Summer,” she said, “with everything that happened today, I never really got to say how sorry I am that I ruined the Snowflake Slumber Party. I know I should have been honest and told you I wasn’t ready for a sleepover, but I didn’t want you to think less of me. I know I’m the littlest, but I want to be brave like the three of you.”

  “Brave like the three of us?” asked Autumn. “Spring, you’re the bravest!”

  “You faced Bluster Tempest all by yourself … and won!” agreed Summer.

  “Spring … you saved spring!” Winter cried.

  All three of Spring’s sisters wrapped her in a huge hug. Spring could almost feel herself growing taller as she soaked up their love and pride.

  Suddenly Winter gasped. “The baby animals! Is it too late to name all of them?”

  “Not at all!” said Spring. “They’ll be waiting in Goldenseal Grove!”

  “I want to name the first baby bunny India Rose!” said Autumn.

  “I love that!” Summer cooed. “I want to name a baby duckling!”

  Summer, Winter, and Autumn all pulled out their scepters. Spring did not. She was deep in thought.

  “Spring?” Summer asked. “Aren’t you coming?”

  “You know what?” Spring said. “I think now I am ready for a sleepover.”