In a Blink (Disney

by Kiki Thorpe

  The publisher would like to thank Caroline Egan for her artistic vision.

  Copyright © 2013 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in conjunction with Disney Enterprises, Inc. Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks, and A STEPPING STONE BOOK and the colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Thorpe, Kiki.

  In a blink/by Kiki Thorpe; illustrated by Jana Christy.

  p. cm.—(Disney fairies) (Never girls; 1)

  “A Stepping Stone book.”

  Summary: When four friends are whisked out of their ordinary

  lives to Never Land, home to fairies and mermaids, Queen Clarion

  and Tinker Bell have to figure out a way for them to get home.

  ISBN 978-0-7364-2794-4 (trade) — ISBN 978-0-7364-8137-3 (lib. bdg.)

  [1. Fairies—Fiction. 2. Magic—Fiction. 3. Characters in literature—Fiction.]

  I. Christy, Jana, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.T3974In 2013

  [Fic]—dc23 2012014199

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-385-75428-6

  randomhouse.com/kids/disney

  v3.1

  For Roxie and Freddie —K.T.

  To Sophia Elizabeth from Flanty —J.C.

  Far away from the world we know, on the distant seas of dreams, lies an island called Never Land. It is a place full of magic, where mermaids sing, fairies play, and children never grow up. Adventures happen every day, and anything is possible.

  There are two ways to reach Never Land. One is to find the island yourself. The other is for it to find you. Finding Never Land on your own takes a lot of luck and a pinch of fairy dust. Even then, you will only find the island if it wants to be found.

  Every once in a while, Never Land drifts close to our world … so close a fairy’s laugh slips through. And every once in an even longer while, Never Land opens its doors to a special few. Believing in magic and fairies from the bottom of your heart can make the extraordinary happen. If you suddenly hear tiny bells or feel a sea breeze where there is no sea, pay careful attention. Never Land may be close by. You could find yourself there in the blink of an eye.

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Never Land

  Map of Never Land

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  There it was. That sound again.

  Kate McCrady froze. The soccer ball rolled past her, but she didn’t even notice. She cocked her head to one side, listening.

  Yes, it was the same sound she’d been hearing all afternoon. High and silvery, like little bells ringing. Kate looked around the backyard. What could it be?

  “I got it!” yelled Lainey Winters. She chased the ball into the corner of the yard. Lainey’s big glasses slid down her nose as she scooped up the ball. “I got it!” she cried again. “Kate’s the monkey in the middle now!”

  Across the lawn, Kate’s best friend, Mia Vasquez, put her hands on her hips. “What’s the matter, Kate?” she asked. It wasn’t like Kate to miss such an easy pass.

  “Do you hear that sound?” Kate asked her.

  “What sound?” Mia replied.

  “What’s going on?” called Lainey, feeling left out. “Aren’t we playing?”

  Kate listened again. She couldn’t hear the bells anymore. She felt excited, although she didn’t know why. “It was nothing, I guess,” she said, turning back to the game.

  “You’re in the middle now,” Mia reminded her.

  Kate shrugged. She was good at soccer. She was good at most things that involved running, jumping, kicking, or catching. She was never in the middle for very long.

  “Okay, Lainey. You come take my spot,” she called. “Lainey! Lainey?”

  Lainey didn’t hear her. She was staring up at the sky. A flock of flamingos was passing overhead.

  Flamingos? thought Lainey. That can’t be right. Lainey’s third-grade science book had a picture of a flamingo in it. Flamingos lived in warm, sunny places. They lived near oceans and lakes. They didn’t live in cities like Lainey’s.

  Maybe her glasses were playing tricks on her. Lainey took them off and rubbed them on her shirt. When she put them back on, the flamingos were gone. Where they’d been, Lainey saw only feathery clouds.

  “Lainey!” Mia yelled.

  Lainey looked over, startled. “Did you see the flamingos?” she asked.

  From the way Kate and Mia stared at her, Lainey could tell she’d said something wrong. She felt her face turn red.

  “We’re ready to play,” said Kate. “But you have the ball.”

  Lainey looked down at the ball in her arms. “Oh, right.” Lainey set the ball down on the grass. She glanced up at the sky one last time. Not a flamingo in sight.

  But as the clouds drifted toward the horizon, Lainey could have sworn she heard the sound of flapping wings.

  Across the lawn, Mia was growing impatient. Why were her friends acting so funny today? All Mia wanted to do was finish their game!

  At last, to Mia’s relief, Lainey kicked the ball. Good, Mia thought. No more interruptions.

  But just then the back door of Mia’s house slammed open. A small girl in a pink tutu burst outside. She went streaking across the lawn, making a noise like a bumblebee.

  “Gabby!” Mia shouted at her little sister. She was headed right for Kate, who was chasing the ball. “Watch out!”

  Too late! Gabby slammed into Kate. Both girls tumbled to the ground.

  “Gabby!” Mia hollered again, annoyed. “Quit getting in the way.”

  Gabby sat up. She straightened the costume fairy wings she was wearing. “I wasn’t getting in the way,” she said. “Kate got in my way. I was flying.”

  “You were not flying,” Mia said. “You were being a pest.”

  “It’s okay,” said Kate, getting up from the grass. “Gabby, do you want to play with us?”

  “Yes!” said Gabby at the same moment that Mia said, “No!”

  The two sisters glared at each other. “Gabby, you’re too little,” Mia said in her best big-sister voice. “Go play somewhere else.”

  Gabby stuck her tongue out at Mia. Then she stomped off toward the flower bed. Gabby liked to play among the flowers, even though she wasn’t supposed to.

  “Gabby, you leave Mami’s flowers alone,” Mia said.

  Gabby ignored her. She crouched down and examined something in the tulips. “Ooh!” she exclaimed. “A fairy!”

  Mia rolled her eyes. Her little sister had a big imagination. But at least she wasn’t bugging them anymore. Mia turned back to the game.

  At that moment, the wind picked up. Mia caught the smell of seawater. That’s odd, she thought. She looked around. Something about the way the breeze was blowing made the scrawny trees in her yard sound like rustling palms. Mia had the funny feeling that if she peeked through the fence, she would see the ocean right next door.

  Of course, she knew that was crazy. The ocean was hundreds of miles away.

  The wind sent the soccer ball sailing into a corner of the yard. It bent the flowers on their stems and whipped the girls’ hair. Above it, Mia could hear a noise like waves crashing on a beach.

  The other girls heard it, too. Something strange was happening. They stepped closer together and reached for each other’s hands.


  “Gabby?” Mia cried, suddenly afraid. “Gabby, come here!”

  When the fairy appeared in the garden, Gabby was not surprised. She often pretended to talk to fairies. Sometimes she pretended she was a fairy. Fairies were so much a part of Gabby’s world that it seemed perfectly natural to see one sitting among her mother’s tulips.

  “Hello, fairy,” Gabby said.

  “I’m Prilla,” said the fairy. “Clap if you believe in fairies!”

  No one believed more than Gabby. She clapped her hands hard. Prilla the fairy turned a happy cartwheel in the air.

  “I have to go home now,” said Prilla.

  “Don’t go yet!” Gabby cried, just as the wind started to pick up.

  The wind was blowing hard. Gabby heard her sister calling, “Gabby? Gabby, come here!”

  Because she was afraid Prilla might blow away, Gabby put her hands around her. She held the fairy lightly, cupped in her palms, the way you would hold a butterfly.

  And then Mia grabbed her.

  The moment Mia touched Gabby, the world blinked. All the girls felt it. It was like the slow click of a camera lens.

  The next instant, the backyard was gone.

  The girls were standing on an empty beach. Where the fence had been a moment before, waves now curled against a sandy shore. Instead of a house, behind them rose a wall of dense green forest.

  A rustling overhead made them look up. A flock of pink flamingos was crossing the sky.

  “I did see flamingos,” Lainey murmured.

  “Are we dreaming?” asked Mia.

  Kate didn’t think it was a dream. She’d never had a dream so sharp and so clear. But just to be sure, she reached out and pinched Mia.

  “Ow!” Mia rubbed her arm. “Kate!”

  Kate grinned. “I guess we’re not dreaming.”

  “Mia,” Gabby complained, “you’re squeezing too hard.”

  Mia let go of Gabby’s arm, which she’d been gripping tightly. Then she noticed Gabby’s cupped palms. “What have you got in your hands?” Mia asked.

  “A fairy,” said Gabby.

  “Gabby,” said Mia, giving her sister a stern look. “What’s the rule about fibbing?”

  “But I do have a fairy. See?” Gabby opened her hands. A real, live fairy flew out.

  The other girls jumped back, startled.

  “Oh my gosh!” Mia gasped.

  The fairy had curly brown hair and a lemon-yellow glow. She looked as surprised to see the girls as they were to see her. She blinked three times. Then, quick as a wink, she darted away.

  “Come back!” Gabby cried.

  But the fairy didn’t stop. They could see her glow zigzagging between the trees.

  Kate turned to her friends. “Well, don’t just stand there!” Her heart was pounding with excitement. “Let’s follow her!”

  Prilla raced toward Pixie Hollow, flying as fast as her wings would carry her. Right then she would have given anything to be a fast-flying-talent fairy.

  Of course, Prilla thought unhappily, if I were a fast-flying-talent fairy, I wouldn’t be in this mess.

  She rounded a clump of wildflowers and Tinker Bell’s workshop came into view. If anyone could help her, it was Tink.

  When Prilla burst through the door of the workshop, Tink looked up with a frown. She didn’t like to be interrupted while she was working on her pots and pans. But she saw the look on Prilla’s face and put down the saucepan she was fixing. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “A problem,” Prilla replied. “A big, big problem!”

  “Well, bring it to me,” said Tink. “Whatever it is, I’m sure I can fix it.”

  “I can’t bring it here.” Prilla wrung her hands. “Can you come with me?”

  “Now?” Tink glanced down at her saucepan. “I was just in the middle of—”

  “It’s an emergency!” Prilla begged.

  Tink sighed. “All right,” she said. “What is the problem, anyway?”

  “I think you need to see this for yourself,” said Prilla. Grabbing Tink’s hand, she pulled her out the door.

  When they reached the beach, Prilla stopped and hovered in the air. “They were here when I left!” she cried.

  “They?” asked Tink.

  From far off, the fairies heard a shout. Tink’s pointed ears pricked up. “That sounds like Clumsies!”

  “That’s what I wanted to show you,” said Prilla. “Come on.”

  Prilla and Tink followed the voices into the forest. And then Tink got her first look at Prilla’s problem.

  Or four problems, to be exact. Four girls were making their way through the trees. The tallest one led the way. She had freckles, a mop of red hair, and a bouncy walk. The girl walking behind her had big glasses that kept sliding down her nose. A girl with long, curly black hair brought up the rear. She held the hand of a little girl who looked as if she might be her sister. The little girl kept pulling her hand away.

  Tink stared. The littlest girl had wings. Tink had never seen a Clumsy with wings before.

  “Kate,” the girl with glasses said hesitantly, “do you think maybe we’re lost?”

  The red-haired girl stopped. She put her hands on her hips and looked around. “How can we be lost when we don’t even know where we are?” she asked.

  “I’ve never seen these Clumsies before,” Tink whispered to Prilla. “Where did they come from?”

  “Um…,” Prilla said, squirming a little. “Well, you see, I brought them.”

  “What?” Tink was so shocked her wings missed a beat. She dropped an inch in the air.

  “I didn’t mean to,” Prilla said quickly. “It was an accident.”

  Tink pulled on her bangs, as she always did when she was annoyed or confused. Right now, she was both. “Maybe you’d better start from the beginning.”

  “I was on a blink,” Prilla explained. Prilla had an unusual talent, even for a fairy. She could visit children anywhere in the world just by blinking. Prilla’s talent was very important. By visiting children, she helped keep their belief in fairies alive. And fairies thrived through children’s belief.

  Tink nodded. “Go on.”

  “It was like any other blink, until I tried to come back,” Prilla said. “When I got to Never Land, the girls were here, too! I must have brought them with me!”

  “Well, then just blink them back to wherever they came from,” said Tink, crossing her arms.

  “I tried!” Prilla said. “It didn’t work. Oh, Tink, what should I do?”

  Tink sighed. This was the trouble with being a fairy who fixed things. Other fairies came to her with all kinds of problems, and not all of them involved pots and pans.

  At that moment, the little girl looked up and spotted them. “My fairy’s back!” she cried.

  “She brought a friend!” the one with glasses said.

  The girls scrambled to get a closer look.

  “Ooh! See her tiny ponytail?”

  “And her little leaf-dress?”

  “Look at the pom-poms on her shoes.”

  “She’s sooo cute!”

  “I’m not cute!” Tink exclaimed.

  Tink had never been very fond of Clumsies (except for Peter Pan, of course), and these girls seemed like a particularly silly bunch. “Prilla, these girls don’t belong in Pixie Hollow. Send them home.”

  “But Tink…,” Prilla began.

  Just then, they heard the whisper of wings. A third fairy appeared in the glen. It was Spring, a messenger. Prilla and Tink flew over to her.

  “Come to the Home Tree at once,” Spring told them.

  “What is it?” Prilla asked, her heart sinking.

  Spring glanced at the four girls. “Bring your Clumsies. The queen wants to have a word with you.”

  As the three fairies flew off, Kate scrambled after them. “Quick!” she cried. “Don’t let them get away this time!”

  The girls chased the fairies through the forest. They ducked under branches. They climbed over fallen logs.
They hadn’t heard Spring’s message and didn’t realize that the fairies wanted them to follow.

  “Where do you think we’re going?” Lainey asked, panting a little. The trees were starting to thin out. They could see blue sky up ahead.

  “I don’t know,” Kate said. “But I—”

  As Kate stepped into the clearing, her words died on her lips. The other girls came up behind her. They, too, fell silent in wonder.

  To understand what the girls felt when they first saw Pixie Hollow, think of your most marvelous dream. Maybe it was filled with soft sunlight or beautiful music or the smell of orange blossoms. Maybe you discovered hidden treasure. Maybe everything felt possible.

  For the girls, Pixie Hollow was all those things and more. They were standing at the edge of a meadow thick with wildflowers. And everywhere they looked, they saw fairies.

  A fairy rode past on the back of a jackrabbit. Another wove through the air chasing a bright blue butterfly. Fairies darted in and out among the flowers. Their wings sparkled in the sunlight.

  Kate started to step forward. Then she drew her foot back with a gasp. A fairy was crossing the ground in front of her. He was riding in a little cart pulled by a mouse. When he saw Kate, he almost fell off his seat in surprise.

  The girls made their way slowly through the meadow, being careful where they stepped. Fairies in flower-petal dresses buzzed around them. Soon the girls had drawn a crowd. The fairies kept repeating the same word—“Clumsy.”

  “Why do they keep saying that?” Mia wondered.

  “Maybe they’re talking about you,” Kate teased.

  “I’m not clumsy!” Mia said, offended. She turned to the nearest fairy, saying, “I’ve had three years of ballet!” The fairy darted away in alarm.

  “Oh!” Kate stopped walking so suddenly that the other girls bumped into her. “Look at that!”

  Ahead stood a maple tree as big as a house. Looking closer, the girls saw that it was a house. Tiny doors and windows lined its branches. Several of the windows flew open. Fairies stuck their heads out to stare at the girls.