“We’re not even in Spookety Forest anymore!” Marigold groaned.
“We’re in a park,” Lenny said. “You know—baseball . . . soccer?”
They had parks in Bramblycrumbly but for games like tiddlytag and wumble-dob—games that Marigold never played because they involved flying.
She stood and turned slowly in a circle, but nothing looked familiar to her. “We have to get back to Spookety Forest, Lenny! What time is it now?”
“Five after ten.” He ducked under the branches of the fir tree. “Quick—hide!”
Sure enough, a short distance away in a picnic area, Marigold could just make out the form of someone sitting under a table. She squinted. “I wonder what they’re doing there all by themselves in the dark.”
“Shhhh,” Lenny hissed. “It might be your archenemy . . . or an evil entity!”
“I already told you, I don’t have an archenemy,” Marigold said. “Come on, let’s go see who it is.”
Lenny crouched even lower. “You go—I’ve got your back.”
Marigold started off. It was a short walk, and she called as soon as she was near. These were not the greatest circumstances for making friends, and the call might have startled anyone who somehow found themselves under a picnic table, alone in the dark. When she was close enough, Marigold introduced herself in her usual friendly manner, which always put others at ease. She extended her hand. “Hi, I’m Marigold Star.”
A girl with a large orange cat on her lap took Marigold’s hand and replied, “I’m Priscilla.” She looked to be about Marigold’s age. She had straight, black, chin-length hair with bangs, and she was wearing a silver puffy jacket. The cat meowed mournfully, and Priscilla introduced him. “This is Boing-Boing.”
Marigold patted the cat’s head.
The girl sniffed. Her eyes and nose were red, and a large tear rolled down her cheek.
Marigold had a soft heart and could never stand to see anyone unhappy—not even the occasional ant that managed to become separated from his family (she’d always take great pains to reunite him with his colony). She immediately felt sorry for Priscilla and offered her a piece of candy. Priscilla asked Marigold if she wanted to come under the table and sit with her for a while, and she scooted over to make room. While it was true that Marigold was in a terrible hurry—what with it being five after ten and there only being an hour and fifty-five minutes left to find her wand and Winnie and complete the spell to auto-reverse the obvious Seepage that had taken place—she just had to keep this lonely girl company, if only for a short while.
Priscilla dried her tears. “I like your star.”
“Everyone says it’s a sure sign I’m marked for greatness, but I’m not great at anything,” Marigold replied. “In fact, lately, I’ve made a perfect mess of things.”
“Well, I’m sure glad you’re here.” Priscilla blew her nose. “My best friend moved away last year. That’s when I got Boing-Boing.” There was a slight catch in her voice that was plain to hear the girl tried to control.
Marigold patted Priscilla’s shoulder and offered her another piece of candy. “So, what are you doing here?”
Priscilla hiccupped. “I-It’s just not the s-same at home anymore.”
“Baby sister, right?” Marigold said knowingly.
“Brother.” Priscilla’s cat meowed. “And the worst part is that he’s allergic, and my parents said we have to get rid of him.”
“Your brother?” Marigold asked.
“I wish,” Priscilla said. “No, my cat.” Priscilla shook her head and began with fresh tears.
“That’s awful!” Marigold covered her face with her hands and felt like crying too, because she couldn’t imagine having to give up Lightning.
Priscilla bent her head to look the cat straight in the eyes. “We’re going to live here for the time being, right, Boing-Boing?” The cat answered with a plaintive meow.
Marigold pressed her lips together. “I don’t blame you one bit. In fact, I have a baby sister, and I was thinking no one would even miss me if I went off and lived in the forest with my pet!”
“Dog?” Priscilla asked.
“No, dragon,” Marigold replied.
“Better yet.” Priscilla kissed the top of her cat’s head, and he purred.
Marigold marveled at how much alike she and Priscilla were. She pushed an old paper cup out of the way and leaned to one side to move the top from a ketchup bottle that she’d been sitting on. “I think I can find you a better place than this—maybe a shack under a bridge or a nice little cottage in the woods.”
“Do you really know of nice little cottages in the woods?” Priscilla asked, and for the first time a hopeful smile crossed her lips.
“Loads.” Marigold pointed to the fir tree. “My friend Lenny is right over there, and we can both help you look.”
Priscilla brightened.
Lenny wasn’t as excited. He peeked out from under the branches of the fir tree. “Can she see you?”
Indeed, she could! Marigold had completely forgotten, and now she wondered why it was that Winnie and Lenny and Priscilla could see her but Winnie’s mother, Norman, and Lenny’s little sister couldn’t. She thought about the spell—“Make me invisible to all but one”—but Marigold was invisible to all but three! Why?
“She can see me plain as the nose on your face!” Marigold said. “Her parents are making her get rid of her cat.”
“So?” Lenny said.
“So, she needs a new place to live,” Marigold answered.
Lenny crawled out from under the tree. He stood up and folded his arms. He looked angry. “This is not the way it’s supposed to be. You’re supposed to be looking for Winnie and your magic wand. I’m supposed to be helping you discover your magic power and restoring your confidence so that you can fly. I’m your trusty sidekick, remember, hello?”
“You’re not my sidekick, Lenny,” Marigold said gently.
“So now this Priscilla kid is?” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “N-O. NO. A superhero can’t change sidekicks in the middle of the story. It’s the rules!” He walked away. “I’m going home!” he called over his shoulder.
“Lenny! You don’t even know where you are!” Marigold shouted. “Plus, I didn’t say Priscilla was my sidekick!”
Lenny stopped. “She’s not your sidekick?” he asked hopefully.
“No!” Marigold exclaimed.
Lenny considered this for a moment. “Wait a minute.” He smacked his forehead with the heal of his hand. “She’s your helpful servant, right?”
“No,” Marigold replied.
“Of course!” he said excitedly. “She’s an evil entity!”
“Nope,” Marigold answered.
“Mentor?” His shoulders sagged.
Marigold shook her head.
“Guardian at the gate?” His voice rose an octave.
“No. NO. NO!” Marigold stamped her foot.
Lenny’s eyes grew large with fear. “Well, then, w-who is s-she?”
Marigold shrugged. “She’s just a girl.”
“A girl,” Lenny said as if it was the worst of all possibilities. “You. Mean. A. Real. Girl?”
“A real girl,” Marigold replied.
Right on cue they both could see Priscilla walking toward them. Lenny dived back under the fir tree.
Marigold’s mouth dropped open. Lenny had walked straight into a dark, scary, ghost-filled forest all by himself; had climbed onto the back of Big Flying Bird, who had vanished right out from under him; and had almost gotten himself squashed on the ground without showing the least bit of fear. She bent to get a closer look at the expression on his face. It just didn’t make sense that he’d be scared of a mere girl. “You’re not afraid of this girl, are you?”
Lenny bit his lip. “Not this girl specifically. . . .” His voice trailed off. “It’s just that I don’t like to talk to people or sit next to them or eat lunch with them or be with them in general.”
“But you
don’t mind being with me,” Marigold reminded him.
“Because I made you up,” he whispered with impatience. And no matter how Marigold tried to explain that she was not “made up” and that she was as real as Priscilla, he refused to come out from under the fir tree.
“Lenny!” Marigold pleaded. She grabbed his hands and tried to pull him out physically, but Lenny wouldn’t budge. “We can find Spookety Forest and help Priscilla find a nice little cottage in the woods too.”
“And then will she leave?” he called from his hiding place.
“Then I’ll leave,” Priscilla said, for she was standing right next to Marigold by now.
“Good,” Lenny muttered. He finally appeared, but his hood was up and all you could see was his nose.
Marigold, Priscilla, and Boing-Boing made their way across the ball fields, along with Lenny trailing behind. With Marigold’s star to light the way, they found a path at the edge of the park that disappeared into some woods.
Lenny confirmed what Marigold already knew.
“FYI! This isn’t Spookety Forest!” he shouted from a good ten feet back.
But whenever Marigold and Priscilla stopped for him to catch up, he stopped. It was dark, and Marigold was afraid that he would become separated the way Winnie had. “Come walk with us, Lenny!” Marigold kept calling to the boy. But when she’d turn to see where he was, he’d jump behind a bush.
Priscila was puzzled. “Why won’t he walk with us?”
Marigold had given this some thought. She had known certain members of the Cabbage Family (some of whom were even her best friends) as well as a few of the Potato Family who rarely ventured outside. They spent their time reading and drawing wonderful pictures of places that they would never visit because they were too afraid to go out. Many of the trolls—though not Baddie, who was always very friendly—were this way as well. In fact, Marigold’s mother had made many a house call to one or another of the Potatoes who’d actually taken root to their couch and had to be surgically removed! Still, no amount of cajoling or pleading for them to come out would make any difference. They were just too afraid of everyone except those they’d grown up with and seen every day. “Lenny is shy,” Marigold finally concluded.
Priscilla understood. “Sometimes it’s hard to make friends. Since mine moved away, I don’t have a single one.”
“You have no friends at all?” Marigold asked, surprised because Priscilla seemed so easy to talk to and so nice.
Priscilla hugged her cat. “Only Boing-Boing.”
The words from the Invis-O-friend Spell echoed in Marigold’s head: “invisible to all but the most friendless of friends.” She was visible to Winnie, to Lenny, and now to Priscilla—and none of them had any friends! This had to mean that not only was Winnie her “visible friend,” as the Invis-O-Friend Spell had referred to her, but so were Lenny and Priscilla!
Priscilla was speaking. “Do you really think we’ll find a nice little cottage in these woods?”
“Yes,” Marigold said confidently. In Bramblycrumbly nice little cottages could be found if you looked hard enough. “Where I come from, people leave their cottages in excellent shape for the next person to move into. It’s considered polite and good luck.”
“Where do you come from?” Priscilla asked.
“Bramblycrumbly.” It gave Marigold the worst feeling to think of it crumbling if she failed to make friends with Winnie and get her wand back from the shadow boy. It didn’t matter that Priscilla and Lenny were “visible friends” because according to Granny’s spell book in the Lost or Missing Wands section, under The Good News!, it stated that the only way to auto-reverse Seepage was to retrieve the missing magic wand and complete the Invis-O-Friend Spell with the visible friend from whom the spell had originated—which would be Winnie. Then and only then would things return to their proper worlds and Bramblycrumbly would be safe.
Marigold called back to Lenny, “What time is it?”
“Ten forty-five!” he shouted.
Marigold shook her head sadly and told Priscilla all that had happened up to the point where they met in the park. Priscilla listened with attention to Marigold’s tale and asked just the right questions. Marigold felt more and more like she’d known this girl forever. Priscilla just automatically seemed to understand her—especially when Marigold talked about her star.
“I know exactly how you feel.” Priscilla sympathized. “I’m supposedly ‘gifted.’”
“What’s ‘gifted’?” All Marigold could think of were the gifts of yarn she always brought to Baddie or the blueberry crumble that she always had for Granny.
Priscilla explained, “‘Gifted’ here just means that I did well on a test and that I should be really great at something someday.”
Marigold understood. “Sort of like my star,” she said.
“Exactly.” Priscilla exhaled loudly. “My parents want to know what I’ll be great at. They make me take all kinds of lessons, like piano, karate, chess, gymnastics, Chinese, golf, and ballroom dancing. They keep hoping that I’ll be great at least in one of these, but so far I stink at everything.”
They walked on in silence. Marigold hadn’t heard of any of these lessons, but it sounded tiring to have to take so many. In any case, she couldn’t believe she’d met someone—a human, no less—who finally understood her problem with her star.
“You might not be great at anything yet, Priscilla, but you’re a great friend—and that’s really important.” Just saying these words made Marigold remember that Granny had said the same exact thing to her. She could see now what the old cabbage had meant.
Priscilla glanced at Marigold. “I wish I could go to Bramblycrumbly with you.”
“Maybe you can!” Marigold explained Seepage and how she hoped that Spookety Forest was here the way it had been first in Winnie’s neighborhood and then Lenny’s.
“Can I come with you to help find Winnie?” Priscilla asked excitedly.
“I was hoping you’d say that!” Marigold laughed. “But what about your nice little cottage in the woods?”
“I’d much rather help you find Winnie and your magic wand,” Priscilla replied. She was carrying Boing-Boing, who meowed, and Marigold took this as his vote to go find Winnie and the wand too.
11
Ghost Train
Marigold was thrilled to have Priscilla and Boing-Boing along, and they all walked with renewed purpose through the woods. Lenny remained following from behind, making his presence known by shouting every now and then that they still hadn’t found Spookety Forest.
This made Marigold worry. For the first time she wondered why Spookety Forest had appeared in Lenny’s neighborhood, since Winnie could have been hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away from the boy. Marigold’s heart began to flutter in her chest. Just now she had said the Invis-O-Friend Spell again, and she had no idea how far she had traveled from Lenny’s to where they’d landed in the park. Why should she assume Spookety Forest was here in Priscilla’s neighborhood as well? And what if it wasn’t? She’d never find Winnie or her wand. All would be lost, crumbled, and covered in brambles.
Boing-Boing meowed plaintively. The four of them walked on and on in a fine mist, becoming wetter and colder by the minute. A fog settled on the ground, and they could barely see their feet. Marigold’s mind raced trying to think of what to do. She was just about to reach for Granny’s spell book to see if there was a way to get them out of this predicament when Priscilla said, “What’s that?”
A few feet ahead, on the side of the path, was a wrought iron gate. Priscilla ran to it, and when she gave it a shove, it creaked just like the one in Bramblycrumbly. Priscilla peered off into the forest beyond the gate. “It looks like an entrance to something,” she said excitedly.
Marigold heaved a sigh of relief. “It is.”
They hurried under the canopy of trees and through the tunnel of foliage, their footfalls muffled by the soft moss. The path opened up to a glade, where beams of moonlight pok
ed magically through the trees. Marigold halted to listen. There was a rumbling sound like thunder in the distance, then a whistle. WOO! WOO!
The sound got louder.
Priscilla ran to hide behind a tree, and her cat meowed with fear.
Lenny came running toward them. Marigold was happy to see him finally out in plain sight. “It’s the ghost train, Lenny!” she exclaimed. He stood unmoving as the phantom vehicle neared. Marigold put Priscilla at ease. “Don’t be scared. The ghost train is the fastest way to Spookety Cave, and the ghosts are friendly.”
Shrouded in white, the train hovered above the ground, and tendrils of mist spiraled off the wheels. Milky fog swirled around their legs, climbing higher by the second, as if it would swallow them whole. The train stopped with a groaning and screeching of brakes before them, and a door silently slid open.
But no ghosts appeared. There were only voices.
“Help! Marigold Star!” said one.
“We’re invisible!” said another.
“Super Scary Shadow Boy did this to us with his magic wand,” said a third.
“Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo!” they wailed as a group.
Marigold knew the shadow boy had only done this to the ghosts because they wouldn’t be friends with him. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for him to have everyone run in fright whenever he came around.
“Super Scary Shadow Boy won’t hurt you—he just wants to be friends. Don’t you remember the story I told you where he rescued the ghost child from the Human World?”
“We don’t want to be friends. He’s too scary!” The ghosts were all talking at once. “Come with us right away,” ordered one.
“Tell him to turn us back!” called another.
“Does he still have Winnie?” Marigold asked anxiously.
“We already told you—he’ll never let her go!” they cried.
The ghost conductor’s voice could be heard: “All aboard for Winnie’s Neighborhood. Winnie’s Neighborhood, all aboard!”
Marigold Star Page 7
