Earthquake in the Early Morning
Page 3
Jack opened his eyes and sighed.
They were back in Frog Creek. He could breathe again. His eyes didn’t sting anymore. He was wearing his own clothes, even his sneakers.
“I wonder what happened to everyone?” Annie asked anxiously. “Andrew, Peter, and their aunt, and Betty and Fred, and all the other people.”
Jack pulled out their research book. He turned to the last chapter. He read aloud:
After the earthquake fires were put out, people from all over the world sent help to San Francisco. The brave citizens of the city never gave up hope. Many even wore badges that said, “Let’s rebuild at once.” In less than ten years, San Francisco was once again one of the loveliest cities in the United States.
“Oh, good,” breathed Annie. “Hey, do you have our sign?”
Jack reached again into his pack. He pulled out the sign from Peter and Andrew.
He placed it on the floor, next to the list from the Civil War, the letter from the Revolutionary War, and the slate from the pioneer schoolhouse.
“We have all four writings now,” he said.
“So what happens next?” said Annie.
Suddenly, there was a roar. A bright light flashed through the tree house.
Jack covered his face. When he peeked over the tops of his fingers, he saw Morgan le Fay.
“Morgan!” Jack and Annie cried joyfully.
They both hugged her.
Morgan hugged them back.
“We found the four special writings for your library!” said Jack.
Annie picked up the list and the letter. Jack picked up the slate and the sign.
“Here they are!” he said.
They started to give everything to Morgan. But she held up her hand.
“Do not give them to me,” she said. “Someone else needs them more.”
Suddenly, a blinding light flashed through the tree house again. There came a great roar, then silence.
When Jack and Annie opened their eyes, they were no longer in the magic tree house.
They were standing in a huge, shadowy room. The room smelled wonderful—like leather, books, and a wood-burning fire.
Flames crackled in a huge stone hearth. Along the walls were rows and rows of tall bookcases filled with books.
“Welcome to my library,” Morgan said softly.
“Wow,” whispered Jack.
“Someone here is waiting to meet you,” said Morgan. “I told him that two special messengers would soon arrive.”
“Where is he?” asked Annie.
Morgan pointed to a man dressed in dark blue in a corner of the library. He sat in a chair. His head was bowed. His hair was black streaked with silver.
“He looks tired,” Annie whispered.
“Yes, he and his knights have been defeated,” Morgan said quietly. “He has given up all hope for his kingdom.”
“How can we help him?” asked Annie.
Morgan looked down at the special writings that Jack and Annie held.
“Would it help if we showed him these?” Jack asked.
Morgan smiled.
“Come on, let’s show him!” said Annie.
They crossed the room and knelt before the tired-looking man.
“Excuse me,” Annie said.
The man looked up. He had sad gray eyes.
“We’re Morgan’s messengers. We’ve come to help,” said Jack.
The man shook his head.
“I don’t understand,” he said in a deep, tired voice. “You are children. How can you help?”
“Sometimes children can help a lot,” said Annie. “Jack and I have helped a general, and we helped wounded soldiers.”
“We helped people caught in an earthquake and a twister,” Jack added.
The man straightened up a little. “That is brave,” he said.
“We want to share how we did it,” said Annie. She held up the list from the Civil War.
“This tells you how to help wounded people,” she said. She held up the letter from the Revolutionary War.
“And this tells you that even when things look their worst, you shouldn’t give up,” she said.
Jack held up the slate from the pioneer schoolhouse.
“This says, ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,’” he said. Then Jack held up the piece of wood from the San Francisco earthquake.
“And this says that when you’ve lost everything, you can still have hope,” he said.
The man studied the four special writings. Then he looked at Jack and Annie with piercing gray eyes.
“You were both very kind to find all these things and bring them to me,” he said. “Are you magic?”
“Oh no,” said Annie. “Morgan is magic. We’re just ordinary kids.”
The man smiled. He seemed less sad and weary now.
“And I am just an ordinary king,” he said softly. “I suppose if two ordinary kids can find courage and hope, then an ordinary king can find it, too.”
The man slowly stood up.
“I will go now and speak to my knights,” he said. “I will share the wisdom you have brought me.”
He wrapped his cape around him. He bowed to Jack and Annie.
“Thank you,” he said. Then he strode bravely out of Morgan’s library.
“Yes, thank you,” said Morgan, walking over to Jack and Annie.
“You’re welcome,” they said.
“These are for your library,” said Jack. He and Annie gave Morgan the four special writings.
Morgan smiled.
“Their wisdom will help many readers who come here,” she said.
“Great,” said Annie.
“It’s time for you to go home now,” said Morgan.
Jack looked around Morgan’s library. He hated to leave. It was the most wonderful room he’d ever seen.
“Don’t worry. You can come back,” said Morgan, reading his mind. “You must come back, for you both have helped save Camelot. Good-bye for now.”
Before Jack or Annie could speak, there was another blinding flash.
Then they were home again, in the tree house, in Frog Creek, in the early morning.
“I can’t believe we took a trip to Morgan’s library,” said Annie.
Jack smiled and nodded.
“It was incredible, wasn’t it?” said Annie.
“Yeah,” said Jack.
A strong breeze gusted through the tree house window. It blew open their research book about San Francisco. Annie reached for the book.
“Jack!” she said. “Look at this!”
She pointed to a photograph in the research book. It showed a boy and a girl covered with dirt. The boy held a sign. It was the poem about hope.
Annie read the caption aloud:
After the earthquake, while fires raged through the city, two brave children tried to give hope to others.
Annie laughed.
“Those brave children are us!” she said. “That’s the picture Fred took of us before we left San Francisco!”
Jack laughed and shook his head with amazement.
Annie closed the book.
“I guess we are two brave kids who try to give hope,” she said. “We just gave some to King Arthur, didn’t we?”
“King Arthur?” said Jack.
“Yeah,” said Annie. She started down the rope ladder. “That was the mystery of Morgan’s library. We had to give four special writings to King Arthur so he could get his hope and courage back and save Camelot.”
“That wasn’t King Arthur,” said Jack. He threw on his pack and followed Annie.
“Sure it was,” said Annie, stepping onto the ground. “Didn’t you hear him say, ‘I’m just an ordinary king’? Get it? King.”
“But King Arthur’s not an ordinary king,” said Jack.
“Well, he thinks so,” said Annie. “I know it was him. I feel it.”
She smiled. Then she started through the Frog Creek woods.
Jack stared after her.
<
br /> King Arthur!
As birdsong filled the early-morning woods, Jack thought about their visit to Morgan’s library. He remembered the sad king and how their writings seemed to give him strength.
Maybe Annie was right. Maybe they really had helped King Arthur save Camelot. And maybe someday they would go back.
“Hurry, Jack!” Annie called. “Before Mom and Dad wake up!”
“Coming!” Jack shouted. And he took off after her, running for home, finally.
FACTS ABOUT EARTHQUAKES
An earthquake is caused by a sudden shifting of the rocky plates that make up the earth’s surface. When the plates pull apart, push together, or slide past one another, the movement causes shock waves. The place where the plates of the earth meet is called a fault. One of these faults, the San Andreas Fault, runs almost all the way through California.
Every year, millions of earthquakes occur around the world where plates come together, but most are too small to be felt.
The study of earthquakes is called seismology. A person who studies earthquakes is called a seismologist. Seismographs are instruments that detect the motion of earthquake waves.
Since the big earthquake in 1906, Californians have become better prepared for earthquakes:
• New buildings are built to strict building codes that make them more earthquake-proof.
• Fire and police departments and emergency services are better able to handle earthquake problems.
• Citizens are better educated about how to protect themselves from earthquake hazards. Many households have prepared earthquake survival kits and keep emergency supplies on hand.
In a Magic Tree House book, true facts are often worked into the story. Some of the true facts about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake in this book are:
• A banker named Charles Crocker saved his bank’s money by sending wagonloads of money down to the bay.
• A private library called the Sutro Library contained up to 200,000 books. The books were destroyed after they were moved from the Montgomery Building to Mechanics’ Pavilion, which burned down.
• The words on the sign that Peter and Andrew lent to Jack and Annie were written on a sign tacked to a crumbling building on Market Street.
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Stage Fright on a Summer Night
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Excerpt copyright © 2002 by Mary Pope Osborne.
Published by Random House Children’s Books,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
1
Special Magic
Jack and Annie sat on their porch. Lightning bugs blinked in the warm summer twilight.
“Wow, a shooting star!” said Annie, pointing at the sky.
Jack looked up, just in time to see a streak of light flash through the sky. The light hovered above the Frog Creek woods. Then it disappeared into the treetops.
Jack caught his breath. He turned to Annie.
“That was no shooting star,” he said.
“Right,” she said.
They jumped up. Jack grabbed his backpack from inside the front hall.
“Dad, Mom! Can we go out?” he called. “We’ll be back soon!”
“Ten minutes, no more!” their mom said.
“Okay!” said Jack. He closed the door. “Let’s go! Hurry!”
He and Annie ran across their yard. They ran down their street. They ran into the woods. They ran until they came to the tallest oak. They looked up.
“Yep,” said Annie.
Jack just smiled. He was too happy for words.
“That’s our shooting star,” said Annie. “The magic tree house.”
She grabbed the rope ladder and started up. Jack followed.
When they climbed inside the tree house, they both gasped. A beautiful woman with long white hair stood in the shadowy corner.
“Hello, Jack and Annie,” said Morgan le Fay.
“Morgan!” Jack and Annie cried.
They threw their arms around her.
“Why are you here?” said Annie. “What do you want us to do for you?”
“You have already done many good things for me,” said Morgan, “and for King Arthur and Camelot. Now I want you to do something good for yourselves. You are going to learn magic.”
“Oh, wow,” said Annie. “Are we going to become magicians? Will you teach us charms and spells?”
Morgan laughed. “There is magic that does not need charms or spells,” she said. “You’ll find a special magic on each of your next four adventures.”
“How?” asked Jack.
“A secret rhyme will guide you on each journey,” Morgan said. “Here this is the first.” She held up a slip of paper.
Annie took the paper from Morgan and read the rhyme aloud:
To find a special magic,
You must step into the light
And without wand, spell, or charm,
Turn daytime into night.
“Turn daytime into night?” said Jack. “How can we do that?”
Morgan smiled.
“That’s what you have to find out,” she said.
Jack had lots of questions. But before he could ask any of them, a flash lit up the tree house. He closed his eyes against the light. When he opened them, Morgan le Fay was gone. On the floor where she had stood was a book.
“Morgan didn’t tell us enough,” said Jack.
“But she left this research book,” said Annie. She picked up the book. “And it’ll tell us the first place to go.” She held the book up to the gray light at the window.
The cover showed a busy river with boats and a bridge. The title was
Merry Olde England
“What’s o-l-d-e mean?” asked Annie.
“I think that’s the old way of spelling old,” said Jack. “You say it the same.”
“So we’re going to merry olde England to find magic?” said Annie. “That sounds fun. Ready?”
“I guess,” said Jack. He still wished they’d gotten more information from Morgan. But he pointed at the cover of their research book.
“I wish we could go there,” he said.
The wind started to blow.
The tree house started to spin.
The wind blew harder and harder.
Then everything was still.
Absolutely still.
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#34: SEASON OF THE SANDSTORMS
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#38: MONDAY WITH A MAD GENIUS
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#40: EVE OF THE EMPEROR PENGUIN
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