Willa Bean to the Rescue!

by Cecilia Galante

  “And you,” said Willa Bean, leaning over to give her favorite flying friend an eyelash kiss, “make it incredibly easy to love you. All the time.”

  “Hello, Snooze!” Daddy said as he put on his dark blue flight goggles. The strap went all the way around his head. They made his eyes look very big. “I didn’t know you were coming with us today. How wonderful!”

  “Merci,” said Snooze. Merci meant thank you in French. “I’m looking forward to seeing you at work, Mr. Skylight.”

  Daddy handed Willa Bean a pair of goggles. They were much smaller than his and were bright yellow. “Put these on,” he said. “They’re Ariel’s old ones, but they should fit.”

  “Why do I have to wear these?” Willa Bean asked as she stretched the goggles over her head.

  “We’ll be flying very quickly,” Daddy said. “And moving through several different atmospheres until we get to Earth. It’s important for your eyes to be protected from all the different kinds of light.” He shifted the bag with his bow and arrows along his shoulder and tightened the buckle in front.

  “Ooooh!” Willa Bean said, watching him. “That reminds me! Can I bring my arrows, Daddy?”

  “There’s no need for your arrows this time,” Daddy said. “This trip is just for fun, Willa Bean. So you can watch what I do. And maybe even help out if I need it.”

  “Oh please​please​please​please?” begged Willa Bean.

  “Here we go again,” Snooze said.

  “Please, Daddy,” Willa Bean pressed. “Just so I can pretend? It’ll be so much fun!”

  Daddy’s forehead furrowed into two deep lines. He glanced out the window to see where the sun was in the sky. “Okay, Willa Bean,” he said. “But you have exactly five seconds to go get your arrows. One … two …”

  Willa Bean flew off like a shot. She grabbed her quiver off her bedpost and started to fly out of the room. But as she did, all her arrows fell out. She gave a little yelp and went to pick them up. She could hear Daddy’s voice downstairs. “Four …” She was running out of time! Quickly, she stuffed the closest one into her quiver and left the rest. Then she flew down the steps.

  “Five!” Daddy stopped counting. “All set?” he asked.

  “All set!” Willa Bean said.

  Snooze flew over and settled on her shoulder. “Where are the rest of your arrows, ma chérie? There’s only one in here.”

  “I dropped them,” Willa Bean said. “ ’Cause I was moving so fast. But it’s okay. I can still pretend with one. And look!” She pulled out the pink arrow. “It’s my Confidence arrow! So I can pretend a lot!”

  “Indeed.” Snooze nodded. “As long as you remember just to pretend. This is your father’s trip, Willa Bean. He’s working.”

  “Oh, I know.” Willa Bean put the arrow back inside her quiver. “You don’t have to worry about me, Snooze.”

  Mama and Baby Louie came outside to see them off. Mama waved as they jumped off Cloud Four and began to fly. “Good-bye!” she called. “Have a wonderful day! Listen to your father, Willa Bean! And have fun!”

  “Good-bye, Mama!” Willa Bean waved behind her. “good-bye, Baby Louie!”

  Baby Louie was chewing on his red rubber star-bubble ball. He looked up when he heard his name called. “Dewey!” he said. “Dewey!”

  Willa Bean turned back around. She could see everything through her yellow goggles. Daddy was on her right, and Snooze was on her left. What an adventure this was going to be! Her moody Moonday had completely turned itself around. Now it was a mighty Moonday!

  But it was a long trip. Much, much longer than Willa Bean thought it would be. She had never in her life flown so hard—or so far.

  She had to get used to the clouds, too. Back in Nimbus, Willa Bean flew around their nine special clouds. Down here, a few miles from Earth, there were so many clouds that she had to fly through them!

  It was fun flying through the clouds, especially since each one had a different smell inside. The first cloud smelled like dill pickles. Another one smelled like fresh orange peels. Willa Bean’s favorite was one that smelled like butterscotch and hot chocolate. She wanted to turn somersaults inside that cloud, just to keep on smelling it. But Daddy kept going. And so she had to keep going, too.

  Suddenly, Daddy yelled from up ahead. “Look down, Willa Bean! Look down!”

  Willa Bean looked down. And for a moment, as she stared at the beautiful green-and-blue planet beneath her, she almost stopped breathing. It was too spectacular for words.

  Emerald-green mountain peaks rose up through the sky. Great bodies of water glittered under the sun, and miles of sunbaked plains stretched out flat as a map.

  “It’s Earth!” Snooze shouted. “Isn’t it marvelous, Willa Bean?”

  Willa Bean nodded. She wanted to say yes. She wanted to say more than yes. She wanted to say yes a million-bajillion times. She wanted to say it was even prettier than in her dreams. But she was speechless. She couldn’t say a single thing.

  “We’re headed down and to the right!” Daddy instructed. “Ten more minutes, and we’ll be in London!”

  “London?” Willa Bean finally found her voice.

  “Ah, oui,” Snooze said, nodding. “London is the capital of England. It’s a very large city. You’re going to love it. Make sure to watch for Big Ben!”

  “Big Ben?” Willa Bean felt a twinge of fear.

  But Snooze had flown up ahead, closer to Daddy. He always flew faster when he got excited.

  “Snooze?” Willa Bean called. “Who’s Big Ben?”

  Daddy and Snooze had already made their way into another enormous cloud. This one smelled like mint and lemons. Willa Bean flapped her purple wings with the silver tips harder, trying to catch up. Her breath was coming in little spurts, and her hands felt sweaty.

  Who or what was Big Ben?

  The name alone was scary enough.

  BIG. BEN.

  It sounded like a very BIG THING.

  Worse than a tiger. Or a bear. Maybe it was a great big tiger-bear!

  She flapped her wings very hard. “Snooze!” she called. “Daddy! Wait for me!”

  In the next instant, she was out of the cloud. A few feet ahead of her, Daddy and Snooze hovered next to each other, waiting. Daddy had a big smile on his face.

  “Look, little love!” he said. “Right over there! It’s Big Ben!”

  Willa Bean raised her goggles and looked around quickly. There didn’t seem to be any orange animals with black stripes. And she could not make out any furry brown things with big, sharp teeth. “Where?” she asked. “I don’t see him!”

  Daddy laughed. “That’s because it’s not a him. Big Ben is an it!” He pointed to a skinny building with a pointy top. Actually, there were two skinny buildings with pointy tops. But one of them had an enormous clock on the front. It was white with big black hands.

  “Big Ben is a clock?” Willa Bean frowned.

  “Well, Big Ben is a bell inside that clock tower,” said Daddy. “It chimes so that the people of London can keep track of their day.” He held a hand above his eyes and looked up at the sun. “And if I’m correct, it’s about ten o’clock now. Which means you’ll get to hear Big Ben for yourself soon.”

  “Wowww!” Willa Bean was so relieved that Big Ben was not a tiger or a bear that her “wow” came out in a whisper.

  “You’ll be impressed when you hear it,” Snooze said. “It’s the biggest chiming clock in the entire world. It makes a—”

  A deep BONG cut off the rest of Snooze’s sentence. It was so loud the air trembled around Willa Bean. It sounded again. And then once more. Ten times the bonging noise shook the clouds. Willa Bean’s feathers quivered and her hair boinged!

  “Holy shamoley!” she shouted after it was all over. “Did you hear that?”

  Daddy laughed. “Look, Willa Bean,” he said. “Can you see that big river down there, just behind Big Ben?”

  Willa Bean looked behind the big clock tower. A very long river wound its way
through the city. It curved one way and then another.

  “That’s the Thames,” Daddy explained. “It’s a very famous river in England.”

  Willa Bean heard what Daddy said. But something across the river had caught her eye. Something round and enormous and so fun-looking that she almost flew on ahead all by herself, just to see what it was. Almost. “What’s that?” she shouted, pointing.

  “That,” said Snooze, “is the London Eye.”

  “It’s an eye?” Willa Bean drew back, horrified. “Like the ones in our head? That we see with?”

  “No, no,” Snooze said. “It’s called an eye because it’s round. It’s a Ferris wheel.”

  “What’s a Ferris wheel?” asked Willa Bean.

  “It’s a ride,” Snooze replied. “Sort of like the ones back home at Waterworld. Except that there’s no water. People sit in the seats, and it takes them up—way, way, way up—into the sky, and then it comes back down again.”

  Willa Bean wrinkled her nose. “What’s the point of that?” she asked.

  “Well, humans can’t fly on their own,” Daddy cut in. “But riding on something like the London Eye makes them feel like they’re flying. At least for a little bit. It’s exciting!”

  “Earth people like to see what things look like from up here,” Snooze added. “I think being up high makes them feel bigger.”

  Willa Bean already knew what most things looked like from here. They looked small. And far away. Sometimes they looked so small and far away that it was hard to make out anything at all. Why did humans want to look at things that were so hard to see? And how could looking at them make humans feel any bigger? It didn’t make very much sense.

  “We’re heading down,” Daddy said. “Stay close, Willa Bean. Watch out for telephone wires. And remember to keep your chin up when we land.”

  Willa Bean stayed between Daddy and Snooze as they flew toward the ground. She tried to remember all the things her flying teacher, Mr. Rightflight, had taught them at school about landing. Head up. Arms in close. Eyes open at all times.

  They dropped lower, and lower still, until suddenly, with a skip and a bump, Willa Bean found herself standing on a sidewalk in London.

  She had made it.

  For the very first time in all her cupid years, she was standing on Earth!

  Willa Bean looked around. Tall buildings stretched up on all sides of her. Some were so tall that from down here, they looked as if they were touching the sky. Which was funny, because when Willa Bean had been in the sky, she hadn’t seen any buildings touching it.

  There were strange little buggies, too, in all different colors, rolling up and down the streets. One buggy was not so little at all. It was bright red—and very, very tall. In fact, it almost looked like the cloudbus she rode to the Cupid Academy every day!

  “That’s called a double-decker bus,” Snooze told Willa Bean. “Double-deckers take people for rides all around the city.”

  “Oh, I want to go!” Willa Bean hopped up and down next to Daddy. “Pleaseplease-pleaseplease, Daddy, can we take a double-decker bus and ride around the city?”

  “No, little love.” Daddy flapped his wings. He flew high above the people on the sidewalk. “I must get to my assignment. Come on now. It’s not much farther.”

  As she flew, Willa Bean watched all the Earth people rushing along the sidewalk below her. She did not have to worry about them seeing her. Cupids were invisible on Earth.

  She swooped down low to get an extra-good look. There were girl people and boy people, too. Some of them were big, like Mama and Daddy. And some of them were small, like Baby Louie. There were in-between-sized people, too, like Ariel, and a few might have even been Willa Bean’s size. But none of them had wings. Not even teeny-tiny, itty-bitty ones.

  Willa Bean thought the girl people were lovely. A lot wore pretty scarves around their necks, and shoes that made clicking sounds against the sidewalk. Willa Bean loved that sound. Click, click, click! She wished she had shoes that made noises like that.

  Just then, another noise caught her attention. “I don’t want to go!” a little boy cried. He was hanging on to a woman’s hand. Great big blubbering sounds came out of his mouth. “Please don’t make me go, Mummy! The tiger will be there!”

  Willa Bean stopped short. Her heart fluttered very fast. Had she heard him correctly? Had that little boy just said tiger?

  “Oh, Angus!” the woman said. “Please don’t make another fuss, dear. It will be all right, I promise. Now come on, or we’re going to miss the second bell again!”

  Angus did not seem to be worried about the second bell. He dug his heels into the pavement and tried to yank his hand loose from his mother’s. He had curly orange hair and was dressed in a white shirt and brown pants. His shoes were brown, too, with red stripes along the sides.

  “It won’t be all right!” Angus wailed. “The tiger will be there! You don’t understand anything!”

  Willa Bean had heard enough. Quick as a shooting star, she caught up with Snooze. “Snooze!” she whispered. “Did you hear what that boy just said?”

  “No,” Snooze said. “I’m trying to stay awake and keep up with your father, which is not an easy thing to do. Come on now, Willa Bean. He’s already two whole streets ahead of us. We can’t lose him.”

  “But, Snooze!” Willa Bean yanked on Snooze’s tail a little.

  “Ow!” said Snooze crossly. “That hurt!”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “But that Earth boy just said something about a tiger! I heard him! With my very own ears!”

  Snooze rubbed his tail feathers. He still looked cross. “Well, maybe his mother is taking him to the zoo. To see a tiger.”

  “But he’s crying!” Willa Bean said. “He doesn’t want to go!”

  “Willa Bean.” Snooze sighed. “Earth children cry about all sorts of different things. Try not to worry so much. Especially when you don’t know the whole story.”

  Willa Bean looked down. By now, Angus’s face was almost the same color as his hair. His mother was behind him, trying to push him across the street.

  “Poor Angus,” she whispered. “I don’t like tigers, either.”

  “Come on, Willa Bean!” Snooze called.

  “Hang on!” Willa Bean called to Angus. “It will be okay!”

  She knew he couldn’t hear her. Humans couldn’t hear cupids at all. But it made her feel a tiny bit better just to say it. She flapped her wings slowly and looked over her shoulder as she flew away. Pretty soon, Angus was just a little orange dot in the background.

  After a few more minutes, Daddy landed next to a large brick building. Willa Bean and Snooze followed him. “Here we are,” Daddy said.

  In front of the brick building was a big sign. It had a picture of a tree on it. It read:

  THE DAWLINGTON SCHOOL

  8 DAWLINGTON STREET

  MOGG BUTTONCAP, PRINCIPAL

  Willa Bean looked at Snooze. Then she looked at the sign again. Finally, she looked at Daddy.

  “Daddy,” she said. “You must have the wrong place. This is a school. For Earth children. There won’t be any grown-ups here for you to help.”

  Daddy grinned. “Who do you think teaches the Earth children?” He pointed to the last line of the sign. “My assignment is to get Mr. Clive Peabody, a teacher here at the school, to ask Miss Mogg Buttoncap out on a date.”

  Willa Bean looked back at the sign. “That Miss Mogg Buttoncap?”

  “Yes,” Daddy answered. “Mr. Peabody is shy. He’s had a crush on Miss Buttoncap for years, but he’s never been able to work up the courage to tell her.”

  “Well, no wonder,” Willa Bean said. “She’s in charge! I wouldn’t tell her, either!”

  Daddy laughed. “Here’s the best part,” he said. “Miss Buttoncap has a crush on Mr. Peabody as well. And she’s been hoping for him to ask her on a date for years!”

  “Why doesn’t she just ask him?” Willa Bean asked. “She’s the principal! He has to say yes!
”

  Daddy laughed again. “It doesn’t always work like that,” he said. “Come with me. We’ll go inside, and I’ll show you how I do things.”

  Willa Bean felt a wiggling feeling inside her stomach.

  She was about to see Daddy at work. His real work, where he would shoot one of his golden cupid arrows, so that an Earth person could fall in love.

  Holy shamoley! Was there anything better than this in the whole entire universe?

  It was going to be the most exciting day of her life!

  Daddy led them through the front doors of the Dawlington School. Inside was a long, empty hallway. The floor was white and shiny. Big pictures were taped to the walls—flowers and yellow suns and Earth people holding umbrellas under fat drops of rain. Willa Bean looked at all of them, but paused at the end. Her heart beat fast when she saw the last picture on the wall. “Snooze,” she said softly, “come look at this one.”

  Snooze swung around to look at the picture. It had grass, and trees, and a large mountain in the middle. Gray clouds filled the sky. A fork of lightning poked out of the bottom of one cloud.

  “Hmmm,” said Snooze. “It’s a bit different from the others, don’t you think?”

  “Look at the top of the mountain,” said Willa Bean.

  Snooze moved in close. “What is it?” he asked finally. “I can’t quite make it out.”

  “It’s a tiger.” Willa Bean shivered. “See the black stripes? And the sharp teeth?”

  “Ah,” Snooze said. “Yes, now I see it. It’s a very small tiger, isn’t it?”

  Willa Bean shuddered again. Small tigers or big tigers were still tigers. Both of them had sharp teeth and pointy claws and could run fast. Maybe, just maybe there was a tiger in this school. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. It was almost too scary to think about.

  “Let’s go, you two!” Daddy called. “Mr. Peabody’s room is right up here! And, Snooze, remember to stay out of sight. We don’t want anyone chasing after a loose owl in their school.”