There was a large crew of goblins playing wintery games. The goblins were wearing hats, and gloves, and scarves, but not boots or long pants, even in the bitter cold. Michelle and the girls scanned the group. They did not see Michelle’s magic hat, but they knew it must be close by.
Jack Frost’s helpers all seemed to be having a blast. They were throwing snowballs, making snow angels, and even building a snow fort!
The hat had to be on one of their green heads. There were hats of all styles and colors. Some were striped. Some had super-size pom-poms on top. One was extremely furry.
Just then, several goblins crawled out of the snow fort. One of them was wearing the cutest hat Kirsty had ever seen. “There it is!” she declared.
“I’m all roasty toasty!” the goblin wearing Michelle’s hat declared. “This is the best hat ever!” Then the goblin began to dance a silly jig. He kicked up his feet, slinging clumps of snow through the air.
“Can I have the hat next?” one of the other goblins asked.
“Sure thing,” the dancing goblin replied. He took off Michelle’s hat and handed it to the other goblin. “Just don’t go far. We need to stay close together, so we can all stay warm.”
“Did I mention that my hat allows everyone to enjoy the wonders of winter?” Michelle said with a little sigh. “I feel bad, but we have to take that hat back from him.”
“But there are so many goblins around,” Kirsty pointed out. “How will we get it back without being seen?”
“They’re getting along so well,” Rachel noted. “They aren’t bickering like they usually do. Maybe we could reason with them.”
Michelle shrugged her shoulders, her wings fluttering behind her. “We could give it a try.” With that, she flew out into the clearing, and the girls followed close behind.
“Hello, fellow fans of winter,” Michelle called out, her voice full of cheer. “Could we speak with you for a moment?”
At once, the goblins’ expressions changed from smiles to frowns. “It’s a silly fairy!” a goblin with fuzzy mittens cried. “She’s come to steal the hat!”
“I’m not silly,” Michelle said with a smile. Her eyes sparkled with kindness.
“Don’t listen to her! She’ll put a spell on you!” warned a goblin with a long purple scarf.
“No,” Michelle said. “Really, I won’t.”
“She’ll steal our special hat!” yelled the goblin who was wearing the magic hat. “We won’t be able to play outside!”
Michelle was usually a very patient fairy, but she had heard enough. “I am not going to steal your hat,” she insisted, putting her hands on her hips. “I am going to get my hat back. Help me, girls!”
“They’re after us!” yelled another goblin as he headed for the ski slopes. “Run! Get on the chairlift. Now!”
Before Kirsty or Rachel could do anything to help Michelle, the goblins scampered away.
The goblins ran down the path toward the ski slopes. Michelle and the girls watched as they piled their knobby green bodies onto the chairlift. Five goblins crammed themselves into just one seat!
Rachel and Kirsty climbed into the next available chair and pulled down the safety bar. “I can’t watch,” Kirsty said, looking down.
“Are you afraid of heights?” Michelle asked.
“No, but I’m afraid a goblin is going to fall,” Kirsty admitted. “They aren’t following any of the ski lift rules.”
“Don’t worry,” Michelle said. “I can catch them with my wand, but it might use all my magic if I do.”
The chairlift carried them up the steep hillside. At the top, the goblins scrambled out and tumbled into one another. They turned into a huddle of sharp elbows and tight fists. “You fool!” one yelled. “They’re right behind us!”
The girls leaped off the chairlift. Soon, they were hot on the trail of the goblins. “The one with your hat is at the front!” Rachel called to Michelle.
They saw a big red shed on the other side of the hilltop. Next to the shed was a line of inner tubes. Just below the tubes, there was a long, icy slope. Within the blink of an eye, goblins threw themselves on the tubes. They started to zoom down the hill, arms and legs poking out in every direction! They were all yelling.
“Yikes!”
“Ouch!”
“Noooooo!”
“Get off me!”
The girls ran up to the one inner tube that was still at the top of the hill.
“That looks steep!” Kirsty said as she looked down.
“That looks fun!” Rachel announced.
“It will be! Hop on!” Michelle directed.
As soon as the girls were safely on the tube, side by side, Rachel pushed off.
Kirsty gulped. Her stomach felt like it was still at the top of the hill, but they were flying down the slope at top speed.
“Wheeeeee!” Rachel yelled. A nervous giggle escaped from Kirsty’s mouth. Up ahead, the goblins’ tubes were bumping into one another as if they were in a giant, snowy pinball machine.
“We’re gaining on them!” Michelle said. They continued to pick up speed on the slippery ice.
“Wait! There’s a fork in the path,” Kirsty pointed out. Up ahead, a cluster of trees grew right in the middle of the trail. “Which way is the goblin with the hat going?”
The group of goblin tubes divided between the two paths. Michelle and the girls strained to catch a glimpse of the magic hat. “Hurry!” Michelle said. “We have to choose a path soon!”
“To the right!” Rachel shouted. “Go to the right!”
Kirsty and Rachel leaned all their weight to one side of the tube, and it slowly began to veer right. “We’re going to hit the trees!” Kirsty warned.
Michelle raised her wand, and a stream of sparkles poured out and surrounded them. The tube whooshed to the right, barely missing a thick tree trunk.
“Thank you!” the girls replied together.
This path was narrow. It zigzagged around tree trunks and under low branches. The girls leaned from one side to the other, trying to guide the tube along the fast track. They could barely catch their breath! “Easy does it,” Michelle advised from her perch on Rachel’s hat. The fairy’s wings whipped behind her with the changing wind.
“I can’t see the goblins anymore,” Rachel said. “Where are they?”
Just then, the friends’ tube zipped out from the trees and into a meadow. Up ahead was a gigantic snowdrift. The mass of goblin tubes was headed straight for it!
“Watch out!” Rachel cried. “We’re going to crash into the goblins!”
As the tubes hit the drift, the goblins slammed into the wall of snow. Boom! Green hands, feet, and heads stuck out of the frozen mound of white.
“Brrrrrrr!” the goblins all groaned. “It’s freezing!”
“Did you hear that?” Michelle asked. “They said they’re cold. That means the goblins don’t have my hat anymore!” She lifted her wand and magically brought the girls’ tube to a stop. Rachel and Kirsty jumped out and began sorting through all the hats, scarves, and gloves that had fallen off when the goblins hit the snowbank.
“I got it!” Kirsty called out, and she tossed the hat toward the fairy, who was hovering in midair.
Michelle twirled her wand, and a cloud of sparkles swirled around the adorable hat. The magic item shrunk to its Fairyland size, and Michelle held it tightly. “Once I take my magic hat back to Fairyland, everyone will be able to enjoy the outdoors again,” Michelle said. Then she looked at the goblins. Some of them were still stuck in the snow. Others were shivering and knocking their knees together in the cold. “At least everyone is properly dressed for the cold weather,” Michelle added with a wink.
Without another word, Michelle vanished. The girls knew they would see her soon. They still had one more magic item to find!
Seeing the chilly goblins, Rachel and Kirsty decided to give them a hand. “I want to go back to Jack Frost’s Ice Castle.” The goblin with the fuzzy hat groaned as Kirsty pull
ed him from the drift.
“I know!” another goblin agreed as he snatched a glove from Rachel. “The Ice Castle is so much warmer! But Jack Frost won’t be happy that we lost the magic hat.” The goblins gathered together and stomped off, pouting.
Almost immediately, birds landed on nearby branches. The girls noticed squirrels trotting across the snow and a deer peeking out from the trees.
“It feels warmer already. The animals are coming out of their burrows again,” Rachel said. “That’s a good sign.”
“I hope my parents venture out of their burrows soon, too,” Kirsty said with a laugh. “That would be the best sign of all!”
It Started with a Spark!
Away We Go
A Frosty Fairyland
Snowballs and Snowbirds
Snow Globe Spell
Kirsty reached for the lamp above her bedside table. “It’s so dark in here. I can’t even find the switch on the lamp,” she mumbled. She and Rachel had just woken up. It was the morning of their last full day on Snowbound Island.
“I’ll open the curtains,” Rachel offered. She got out of bed and felt her way to the window in the dark. She tugged open the curtains, but no light came in. “That’s weird,” she said, staring out. “I wonder what time it is. It feels late in the morning, but it looks like the middle of the night.”
“It’s ten o’clock,” Kirsty said, staring at her light-up watch. “So why is it pitch-black outside?”
At that moment, Rachel and Kirsty both realized what was happening.
“This is all because of Jack Frost,” Rachel said.
“Yes,” Kirsty added. “We still have to find the magical candle, or the nights will just keep getting longer and longer, and we’ll barely see any sun.”
In the two days they had been on Snowbound Island, the girls had encountered all kinds of magic. Most importantly, they had made a new magical friend. Michelle was the Winter Wonderland Fairy, and she was in charge of making sure everyone could enjoy the snowy season. Rachel and Kirsty had already helped her locate two of her missing magical items. Now, they just needed to track down one more, but they might need a flashlight to do it!
“I know that the days are shorter and the nights are longer in the winter,” Kirsty said. “But why?”
“I’m not sure,” Rachel answered. She plopped down on her bed and pulled the blankets around her. “But it’s got to have something to do with the sun, right?”
As soon as Rachel said the word sun, a tiny light appeared. It had a golden glow, but it wasn’t much larger than a speck of dust. The light floated in midair, between the two girls’ beds. It seemed to grow brighter, and it made a humming sound.
“It must be some kind of fairy magic!” Kirsty said. The little spark looped around Kirsty’s head, and then it swooped past Rachel’s. It seemed to skip its way to the door.
“Quick! Put on your clothes!” Rachel insisted. “We need to follow it.”
The girls had never dressed so quickly. “Don’t forget extra layers,” Kirsty advised. “With no sun, it will be extra cold.”
When the girls opened the door, the spark flitted into the hallway. Even though it was daytime, the electric lights were still dim. Everything was quiet.
“It’s like no one is awake,” Rachel whispered. “Everyone must still be sleeping because there isn’t any sun.”
“But it’s our last full day here!” Kirsty exclaimed. “I want my parents to have lots of fun. They can’t just sleep all day! There’s a snow hike and the campfire to celebrate the longest night. ”
The hum of the tiny light grew louder.
“Don’t worry, Kirsty,” Rachel assured her friend. “We’re both awake, and we’re on the right track.”
The girls followed the glowing, humming spark all the way through the lodge’s silent lobby, out the front door, and along a snowy path. Not until they were safely hidden behind a pine tree did the glowing spark come to a stop. In an instant, the spark grew even brighter and bigger, and it became Michelle, the Winter Wonderland Fairy! She was still wearing her cozy winter coat and her darling hat with the tiny ears.
“Thanks for following me, girls,” their new friend said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t appear as myself earlier. My power is very weak. Showing up as a spark takes less energy, so I can save it for real magic. That’s important, because I have a feeling we’re going to need it!”
“It’s almost lunchtime, and it’s still dark out,” Rachel said. “It seems so weird.”
Kirsty and Rachel walked behind Michelle. The fairy flew with her wand high in the air, so it would light their way.
“In some parts of the world,” Michelle explained, “there are only a couple of hours of sunlight in the winter. The places that are close to the poles have the shortest winter days.”
“Why is that?” Kirsty asked.
“Well,” Michelle began, “as Earth orbits the sun, it is tilted. One pole tilts toward the sun and the other pole away from the sun. The one that tilts toward the sun gets more of its energy—its light and heat—so it’s summer there. It’s winter in the one that is tilted away.” The fairy paused to catch her breath. “Then, of course, six months later, the other pole is tilted toward the sun,” Michelle pointed out. “So they switch seasons.”
Both girls nodded their heads.
“But that’s science,” Michelle said. “What’s happening now is magic. We have to fix the magic so that science can do its job. Otherwise, everyone here will have winter and darkness forever!”
“At least it isn’t as cold as yesterday,” Kirsty said, trying to look on the bright side.
“Yes, you were both amazing yesterday, and I have no doubt you’ll track down my magical candle, too. It will be easy to find. It’s in the cutest snowflake lantern, and it’s magic, so it is always lit.”
The girls nodded again, and the three set off. They took the path down to where they had seen the goblins the day before, but this time there were no goblins playing in the snow. Next, they went to the barn. When they peeked through the windows, they saw only the horses and the sheep and the chickens. “Shouldn’t the barn be busy with workers? They need to be getting ready for the big festival tonight.”
“I think people are still sleeping,” Michelle said. “Winter is a fun time to stay inside and snuggle, too.” The fairy closed her eyes and smiled at the cozy thought.
“Except it’s a big, important day!” Kirsty insisted. “If people don’t wake up soon, they won’t have any fun!”
Rachel knew what Kirsty was thinking. Kirsty was worried about her parents. She wanted them to enjoy their time on the island! After all, Kirsty’s mom had won the trip. Mrs. Tate’s amazing painting of a winter scene had taken first prize in a contest.
“I’ll bet this is going to be the log for the big campfire tonight,” Rachel said. She pointed to a large tree that the workers had cut in the forest. “But they still need to trim it down and get it in to the fire ring. There’s a lot to do!”
“This reminds me of one of King Oberon’s favorite sayings,” Michelle began. “He always advises the young fairies. He tells us, ‘You can only do what you can do.’ ”
Rachel and Kirsty looked at each other. King Oberon was married to Queen Titania. They were the kind, wise rulers of Fairyland. Sometimes, they spoke with grand words and fancy phrases that sounded like riddles, but both girls were certain they understood what Michelle had said.
“So, you’re reminding us that we shouldn’t worry about what we can’t do,” Rachel said.
“But that we need to do what we can do,” Kirsty finished.
“Exactly,” Michelle said. “And we need to find my beautiful candle in the snowflake lantern. Once we do that, everything will come into place.”
“But it’s so dark,” Kirsty mumbled. “It’s hard to believe there is light anywhere on the island.”
“Kirsty!” Rachel exclaimed. “You’re brilliant! The candle is not on the island at all. I’ll bet the gobli
ns took it back to Fairyland!”
“You’re absolutely right,” Michelle said from her perch on Rachel’s shoulder. “If it’s dark here, it must also be dark in Fairyland. Jack Frost would want to keep the lantern close, so he could have the light in the Ice Castle.”
Rachel and Kirsty thought this was good news, but Michelle did not look happy. Her wings drooped behind her, and she was nervously biting her lip. “Michelle, what’s wrong?” Kirsty asked.
The fairy sighed. “My magic is getting weaker,” she said. “I don’t have enough power to get you to Fairyland, and I’m worried. What if I can’t beat Jack Frost and his goblins on my own?”
“Don’t worry, Michelle,” Rachel said. “You won’t get rid of us that easily. We have magic powder from Queen Titania.”
“We carry it in our lockets, so we can travel to Fairyland anytime,” Kirsty added. “You won’t have to face Jack Frost or the goblins alone.”
Even in the gloomy shadows, the girls could see Michelle’s mood brighten. A smile spread across her face. “That’s wonderful,” the fairy said. “I’m ready whenever you are!”
The girls unzipped their winter coats. They dug under their warm scarves in search of their lockets. They had used the magic powder several times, but it always felt special … and a little scary. Soon, both Rachel and Kirsty had found and opened their lockets. “On the count of three,” Rachel said. “One, two, three!” The girls took a pinch of powder and sprinkled it over their heads. At once, the air filled with twinkling sparkles. Michelle watched as a brisk wind wrapped around the two friends. In only a moment, the girls began to shrink to Fairyland size. The wind grew stronger and lifted them into the sky. Then poof! They were gone.
Michelle the Winter Wonderland Fairy Page 3
