by Temre Beltz
Oliver’s voice trembled. “I can’t ride Ferdinand back to Triumph Mountain, and if no one listened to me at Razzle’s School for Meddlesome Boys, I can’t imagine they’d listen to me at Peabody’s Academy for the Triumphant, but . . . I think I can go to the Capital for you. If you want me to, I mean.”
Pippa vehemently shook her head. “I can’t ask you to do that, Oliver. Especially knowing that you’re wanted for a Council detention. If anyone suspects anything, they’ll seize you right there. It’s too risky!”
“Going unnoticed is one of the things I’m best at. It’s actually kind of nice to think that it might come in handy.” Oliver paused. “Ms. Bravo’s not, um, super tall or anything, is she?”
“You mean because of the giants?” Pippa asked. Oliver nodded, and she continued, “Not in the slightest. I’m pretty sure that’s why her loyal companion’s got wings.” Pippa peeked in Oliver’s direction. “You’re, um, really serious about this, aren’t you?”
“Dead,” Oliver said with a nod.
Pippa winced. “Can we maybe not say the word ‘dead’? Also, you have to promise that once you get to the Capital, if anything at all seems too dangerous, you’ll get out of there as quickly as you can.”
Oliver nodded, and Pippa quietly led Ferdinand over to a tree stump. She climbed on top of it, swinging her leg up and over Ferdinand’s back. When she landed a bit sideways, Ferdinand whinnied and danced back and forth on his hooves. Pippa’s eyes grew wide. For a moment, Oliver thought she might leap off, but instead she gritted her teeth and wrapped her fingers more tightly around Ferdinand’s flaming mane.
“Easy boy,” she said while stroking his side. “Nice and easy.” After a moment she looked at Oliver. “You know, when you showed up on Triumph Mountain and said you were my fairy godmother, my confidence in the Winds of Wanderly nearly hit the bottom. But that’s because I was forgetting what makes the Winds of Wanderly so grand. The Winds aren’t like us. They do things we can’t understand, they see things we can’t know, and Oliver, I can’t imagine there was any fairy godmother in all of Wanderly I needed more than you.”
Oliver couldn’t help looking away. “But you didn’t get home to your family,” he said.
“I haven’t given up on that. But maybe what I really needed was to see that the story’s not all about me. With what the magicians might be planning, it’s not just my family at stake, Oliver. It’s everyone’s.”
With that, Pippa dug her heels into Ferdinand’s sides. She rode off into the dark night. And no matter what she said, nothing would convince Oliver that Pippa wasn’t a Triumphant through and through. Now if only he could apply that same confidence to the mission he had just signed up for.
Fifteen
Triumphant Training 101
The very next morning, a mere three days before the Annual Fall Picnic, Pippa, Maisy, and Ernest sat in the dining hall at Peabody’s Academy for the Triumphant all squished into the same giant throne. Even though it was eight thirty and the smells of Maisy’s decadent breakfast buffet were wafting through the halls, all the other students, along with Mistress Peabody, were fast asleep. Ernest said that field trips were so unusual, and effort was so rarely expended atop Triumph Mountain, that students often slept for an entire day after an event like the Triumphant-Dragon Duel.
Pippa was just relieved that when she and Ferdinand galloped up to Castle Cressida’s front lawn late the night before, she had managed to send Ferdinand off to a place where no one would dare to look for him: the Triumphant Training Forest. Never mind that she had spent the remainder of the night worrying over how Oliver was faring at the Capital, she had also come upon a startling, however obvious, realization. Pippa was in a school full of Triumphants in training. Supposedly, Wanderly’s next generation of heroes. Perhaps if they put forth just a little bit of effort, perhaps even if Ms. Bravo didn’t come to their rescue, they could teach themselves the techniques necessary to keep the magicians at bay.
But all of that had seemed much more doable while half-asleep.
And before Pippa took even another breath, there was something that had to come first.
“Maisy,” Pippa began. “Was your granny a . . . fairy godmother too?”
Maisy’s face paled. She looked down at her hands folded carefully in her lap. Finally, with her voice trembling, she answered, “Yes. But if you’re wondering whether she taught me anything—”
“No,” Pippa said, shaking her head. “I don’t care about that, Maisy. I just want to know more about you. I only wish I would have asked sooner.”
Ernest cleared his throat as if maybe there was a slightly better time for this, but he slumped right back into the throne at a pointed look from Pippa.
“All right, then,” Maisy said, trying unsuccessfully to tuck her hair behind her ears. “Well, um, you said it. Gran was—is—a fairy godmother, and also the one who raised me. Like every fairy, she got her start in the Merry Meadow, but when the Chancellor announced that fairy godmothers were forbidden to grant anyone’s wishes but a commoner’s, she fled to Triumph Mountain. She said it was ridiculous to think that a hero didn’t need help from time to time, and when they did, she wanted to be there to provide it. But one day the Quill . . . came for her.”
Maisy paused, her face grim. “She—she made me run out into the forest, and I hid. She made me promise that if she didn’t return in a week that I would knock on the door of Castle Cressida and ask for a job in the kitchen, but all I really wish is that I wouldn’t have left her that day. Granny said I could never tell anyone who I really am, but it’s all I think about. I want to keep doing the work that Granny started. And when I get my magic, I want to free her first of all. . . .” Maisy’s voice trailed off. “I guess now you know why that letter from Oliver got me so excited. I thought it was my call to duty. I thought it was time for me to be a fairy godmother.”
As Maisy ducked her head to dab at her eyes, Pippa laid her hand gently on Maisy’s arm. “Maisy, what makes you so certain that it’s not time? Just think, your granny left the Merry Meadow to help Triumphants, and you’re right here with us, inside Castle Cressida.”
“Yeah, but I’m not doing anything to make a difference!”
“But maybe not all magic works instantly. Maybe some transformations take time,” Pippa said. “Especially the lasting ones.”
Maisy frowned. She dipped her hand into her apron pocket and pulled out her wooden cooking spoon. “Does it sound dumb that, for once, I’d just like to twirl a magic wand in the air and have magic—real magic—fly off it?”
Ernest gasped. “Oh my goodness, I knew something wasn’t normal about those lemon bars!”
Maisy put her hands on her hips. “Ernest, you always said those lemon bars were your favorites.”
“Yes,” Ernest said with a wide-eyed glance at Maisy’s cooking spoon, “but that was before I knew why they tasted so good. Maisy, you’re not just a good baker, you’re a magical baker!”
“Ernest, that’s genius!” Pippa cried. She whirled around to face Maisy. “That’s why your butterscotch candies always make me feel better; that’s why those cockroaches from the Chest of Unnecessaries followed the scent from your spoon. You’ve been wielding a magic wand all this time, and you didn’t even know it! Maisy, what if you already are the fairy godmother you want to be? What if you have been for a long time?”
“But—but that’s impossible . . . isn’t it?” Maisy asked.
“Well, it is Wanderly,” Ernest said. “Impossible things happen here all the time.”
“True,” Maisy said, taking a deep breath. “But even if I am somehow performing magic, I haven’t been officially authorized by the Council.”
Pippa shrugged. “So maybe there are some things you can’t do—but there are plenty of other things you can,” she finished with a grin.
Maisy leaped suddenly out of the throne. She gazed upon her trusty wooden spoon, her eyes shining. “I never imagined. I never would have thought. Magic in
something so ordinary!” Maisy turned to run out of the dining hall, but then whirled back around. “I hope you don’t mind my running off, but I have about one million ideas for new recipes. And all of them have very much to do with defending Triumph Mountain against a group of sneaky magicians.”
Ernest let out a whoop. “Now this is something I can firmly get behind!” he said before a slight shadow fell across his face. “Just, maybe . . . no cakes. It’s still a little too soon for cakes.”
Marveling that Maisy would return to the very same kitchen but with a completely new perspective, Pippa couldn’t have been happier for her friend. But she also had a big task ahead of her.
Turning toward Ernest, Pippa said, “We’ve only got three days until the magicians’ showcase. If the other students sleep all day, that’ll leave us with just two. We’ve got to get them up, Ernest.”
Ernest frowned, but then his eyes lit up. “I think I’ve got an idea! Say, where do you want everybody to meet?”
Pippa thought for a moment. She glanced down at the two trunks of training supplies she’d cobbled together earlier that morning when she’d first told Maisy and Ernest about her plan. She certainly didn’t have any business teaching Triumphant classes, but for the time being she would have to set all that aside and just go with it.
Pippa’s head snapped up when the curtains in the dining hall began to wriggle in unison. The warm glow of a fire spontaneously ignited in the hearth, and the walls of Castle Cressida began to twitch. Pippa’s eyes were drawn up toward the tightly wound tapestries near the ceiling—the ones Pippa had been certain held secrets. They began to flutter as if being stirred awake, and in one sudden whirling gust, they all flew open.
Pippa and Ernest gasped.
The tapestries were exquisite.
And they all featured the same thing: Triumphants side by side with their loyal companions. Pippa had never seen so many bright, bold, and joyous images. One girl was sailing across a murky river on the back of a grinning crocodile. One boy was nestled in the curve of an enormous elephant’s trunk. Another girl was leaping across a treacherous ravine with a very dapper grasshopper leaping jubilantly alongside her. It was exactly what Pippa needed to see.
“Thank you, Castle Cressida,” she said softly. She turned to Ernest. “We shall be meeting at the Loyal Companions’ Barn.”
Without missing a beat, Ernest threw back his head and shouted, “AWARD CEREMONY AT THE LOYAL COMPANIONS’ BARN IN FIVE MINUTES! AWARD CEREMONY!”
“Wait? An award ceremony? An award ceremony for what?” Pippa asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Ernest said, moving out toward Castle Cressida’s main entry. “Prize winning is a way of life on Triumph Mountain. It’s what we’re best at. Some kids’ drawers are stuffed so full of prizes they can’t even properly shut them.”
Pippa followed along behind him. “But you didn’t even say what it was for. Is it meaningful to win a prize for, say, Best Garden, if you don’t even tend a garden?”
Ernest shrugged. “Sure, why not? Anyways, I’d give it one, two, three—”
Ernest was interrupted by the sound of a door banging open and a fast and furious pounding of footsteps. The Triumphants streamed down the staircase. Some skipped two and three stairs at a time, others were still pulling on their royal-blue-and-gold-striped socks, and at least two or three of the younger ones hadn’t even fully opened their eyes. Prudence Bumble was nearly dragging a very sleepy-looking Bernard down the hallway.
“Come on, Bernard!” she said in a low voice. “These are the sorts of things you can’t be late for!”
It wasn’t long, however, before she gave up on Bernard, relinquishing his hand and pushing several Triumphants out of the way until she was at the very front of the pack. When she spied Pippa and Ernest waiting in the entryway of Castle Cressida, her eyes narrowed.
“Why did you get to make the announcement, Ernest? And why are the both of you already up and dressed? Where’s Mistress Peabody?” Prudence demanded.
Pippa felt her pulse race. She couldn’t imagine she would ever win Prudence over to any plan she’d come up with, but she couldn’t have Prudence disband the whole operation before it even had a chance to begin.
“Ernest and I didn’t go to the Dragon Duel, remember? Yesterday was just another ordinary day for us.” Pippa’s breath caught in her throat, because zipping around on a wicked witch’s broomstick with a fugitive magician was hardly what she’d call “normal.” “And Mistress Peabody’s already at the Loyal Companions’ Barn.”
“Oh yes, you and Ernest were left behind,” Prudence said. “That’s too bad for you because it was the most exciting Dragon Duel yet.”
Ernest perked up. “Really? Was the dragon especially ferocious? Did this one breathe fire? Did you, um, see the duel?”
Prudence leaned forward. She lowered her voice dramatically. “Not a single moment. How could we when the dragon was so wickedly sneaky? The dragon tried to lure Triumphant Victoria Golden in by playing dead!”
“It would have been sort of nice to see it move though. Even just once,” Connor, one of the older boys, said. “I got so bored of eating candied walnuts I think I spent most of the duel counting the number of people in the audience wearing a hat.”
“Five hundred and forty-nine,” Anastasia piped up. “At least in the section we were sitting in. And it’s funny how a dragon starts to look like a craggy mountain when it doesn’t move for such a long time. I almost forgot it was there.”
“Well, it was lucky for us Ms. Golden stuck it out. With a creature that big, imagine what could have gone wrong if she hadn’t?” Prudence said with a shiver.
The still-sleepy Triumphant children managed to chime in with a half-hearted chorus of “Yep” and “Sure thing,” before Pippa interrupted, “Thanks for, um, filling us in, but it’s probably not a good idea to keep Mistress Peabody waiting.”
A reinvigorated Prudence surged through the door while the other Triumphant children followed along behind her. As the group charged across the lawn, Pippa and Ernest—laden with the two large trunks of training supplies—lagged just slightly behind. Pippa’s heart quickened when she saw that Castle Cressida had already managed to toss off yesterday’s predatory vine. Pippa didn’t know when she had become so invested in Castle Cressida’s apparent comeback, except that it seemed important somehow, as if in Castle Cressida making a comeback, other things on Triumph Mountain could make a comeback too.
The Triumphants continued their trek, sliding down the hill and racing across the peaceful valley until they skidded to a breathless halt in front of the barn doors. They looked from left to right. The loyal companions mulling about in the outside paddocks—including Bob, who trilled obnoxiously—looked curiously in their direction.
Prudence marched purposefully toward the barn door. She wrapped her hand around the metal handle and gave it a good tug. It opened with a loud creak, but other than the shuffling and snuffling sound of the animals, all was quiet. She leaned her head all the way in and then whirled around with an accusatory look in Pippa’s direction.
“Mistress Peabody isn’t here!” she said with a toss of her head.
Pippa’s breath rattled in her chest. This was it. This was where she—the most reluctant Triumphant of them all—tried to motivate a group of chronic winners to prepare for the riskiest, and perhaps most important, event of their lives.
“You’re right, Prudence. Mistress Peabody wasn’t actually the one who wanted us to meet here,” she began. “It was me.”
The Triumphants began to whisper among themselves. Prudence crossed her arms hard against her chest, and Viola asked, “Pippa give prizes? Prizes in there?” She pointed to the two big trunks sandwiched between Pippa and Ernest.
“No,” Pippa said regretfully, “I don’t have any prizes to give. But I do have something to share that’s much more important.”
Bernard, who was finally awake by that time, said, “Ha! My father says to always kee
p your eye on the prize. If you’re telling me there aren’t any prizes here, then I’m going back to bed!”
Bernard whirled around on his heel but froze when Pippa said, “How about your role as a hero? How about your family? Do those matter as much as a prize?” Pippa swallowed and continued on, “I know this is going to be hard to believe, but I found out that the magicians of the Swinging Swamp are planning to do something terrible here on the night of the Fall Picnic. Even worse, I found out that the special guests Mistress Peabody’s been keeping a secret are our families!”
Though most of the Triumphants’ faces were awash with confusion, concern, and even a little bit of fear, Prudence Bumble laughed. Loudly.
“The magicians? The magicians of the Swinging Swamp? Are you kidding us, Pippa? Everyone knows they’re a bunch of washed-up wannabes! The magicians of the Swinging Swamp can’t even control their overgrown population of toads. I don’t know where you heard something so ridiculous, but honestly, who cares?”
Pippa shook her head. “Everyone thinks they’re a joke because that’s how the Chancellor treats them. But they’ve got magic, Prudence. Real magic. And they’re not afraid to use it.” Pippa paused and glanced in Ernest’s direction. “The other night Ernest and I snuck out of Castle Cressida in search of Leonardo. We went looking for him in the Triumphant Training Forest”—Pippa paused as a few Triumphants shuddered—“and we bumped into two magicians who were staking the place out—”
“D-did they show you their permit, Pippa? Don’t those with villainous tendencies have to have a permit to be on Triumph Mountain?” Anastasia whispered.
“They didn’t have a permit, and they didn’t care. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. We’ve all grown so dependent on the Chancellor’s rules to keep us safe, but if the citizens of Wanderly stop following the rules, everything could fall apart.”
“But we’re heroes! Nobody can defeat a Triumphant!” nine-year-old Simon proudly exclaimed.
Pippa drew in a sharp breath. She spoke carefully and deliberately. “Are we?” she said. “Are we really?”
