Lucy and the Magic Loom Read online

  Now that Lucy was more comfortable with the process, the trance took over quickly. Her hands flew back and forth over the loom with the glass hook as she made the longest and biggest friendship bracelet this world (or any other) had ever seen. It fell effortlessly off the end of the gold loom and began rolling itself into a ball. Lucy kept at her work. The birds watched, mystified, as the ball grew—it was as big as the bush, then two bushes, then three! Soon it was as large as ten bushes all rolled into one.

  Lucy shook her head back and forth to clear her mind, then stood, eager to put her plan into action. The magic loom hummed.

  Lucy admired the giant magic loom ball—it was breathtaking. Quickly she positioned herself behind the ball and began to push. It took sixty long seconds, but the ball began to move.

  The giant kitten noticed almost at once. Her tail shot straight up and her front paws began to tremble as she readied herself for the game. Lucy stepped back with her fingers crossed behind her back, hoping everything would work as she intended.

  The ball picked up speed as it began to roll downhill and onto the path. The kitten half squealed and half purred with delight. Her whole body trembled and her fur bristled with expectation. The kitten concentrated and crouched. She twitched three times and then, finally, she jumped. Lucy fell backward as the earth shook with the giant kitten’s weight, but when she looked up again, she was thrilled! Just as she hoped, the giant kitten was running downhill after the mother of all balls of string (or elastic). The kitten followed a bend in the path—and was gone.

  Mission accomplished! The magic loom hummed in pride and the animals cheered as they emerged from hiding. Lucy picked herself up and took a deep theatrical bow. Then they were off. There wasn’t a moment to waste.

  Chapter Five

  Lucy felt uneasy as soon as they arrived at the edge of the forest. And when the glittering path turned mossy and damp, Lucy’s stomach did a somersault. She hated dark corners, spooky stories, and cobwebs. Spiders and snakes were completely off-limits. Once, Alyssa had shared with Lucy that she wanted to be a zoologist when she grew up—Lucy was horrified. If that meant Alyssa would be working with bats, slithery things, and creepy-crawlers, Lucy wondered out loud if they could stay friends. Alyssa explained she wanted to work with primates—gorillas and monkeys and the like—not snakes! Lucy remembered how relieved she had been at hearing the news.

  Alyssa had come to mind just now because Lucy was nervous. Lucy always felt fearless when her best friend was with her—she really believed that together they could get through anything! But Alyssa wasn’t here. And her new animal friends weren’t behaving like heroes at the moment. The bunnies, deer, and chipmunks were all huddled together in a haphazard cluster, whimpering fearfully and loudly. If she entered the dark forest, Lucy suspected she would be traveling alone. Well, not entirely alone. The magic loom would come with her, obviously. Together, the two of them were proving to be quite the A-team! For a moment Lucy felt better.

  Just then, the herd of rainbow-colored zebra-like animals Lucy spotted earlier in the afternoon came stampeding out of the dark forest, knocking Lucy over and sending the ebony box flying.

  “Please be careful,” Lucy shouted, newly frazzled. “Watch where you’re going.” Lucy scrambled along on her hands and knees until she found the ebony box.

  “Oh, my. Oh, no. Oh, dear. What have we done?” asked the leader of the herd, a grandmotherly nervous creature whose rainbow-colored coat was tinged with silver and gray. “Did you scrape your knee?”

  It had been so long since Lucy had heard a real live voice, her eyes welled up with tears.

  “Oh, my. Oh, no. Please do not cry! I won’t be able to stand it—and then we’ll all start crying and cause a very serious flood. Don’t laugh. It’s happened before. As a species we’re both sensitive and skittish. It’s exhausting.”

  The creature handed Lucy a striped hanky. Lucy blew her nose.

  “Hello. My name is Lucy Stillwater-Smith. I am very pleased to meet you,” said Lucy, remembering her manners.

  The zebra tilted her head to one side and looked Lucy up and down.

  “Are you a little girl?” she asked.

  “I’m not that little,” Lucy replied.

  “Are you a little girl?” she asked again.

  “Who wants to know?” Lucy replied, suddenly suspicious.

  “Don’t be like that. I’ve only ever seen one other little girl in my whole life and her fur was a different color than yours. Maybe you are another species altogether. How am I supposed to know?”

  “Little girls don’t have fur,” Lucy replied stiffly.

  “What’s that on your head? It looks like brown fur to me. The other one has fur that is a lovely shade of red.”

  “It’s not fur. It’s hair!”

  “May I touch it?”

  “No, you may not touch my hair. That’s a very rude thing to ask.”

  “Why is that rude? If we’re to be friends, we have to get to know each other. You can ask me anything at all.”

  “I have a lot of questions. What’s the fastest way to the castle? Who lives there? Are they nice? Are you planning to help me or eat me?”

  “Well, for starters, I don’t eat meat. No worries, there. Zebras are one hundred percent vegetarian all the way!”

  Lucy looked around to see all of the other neon-stripped zebras encircling them while they chatted. “Then why did you come running at me?”

  “We were sent to help you safely on your way. We seem to have arrived just in time,” she said. With obvious agitation she looked nervously at the entrance to the dark forest.

  “Who sent you? And why just in time?” Lucy asked excitedly, but worried.

  “I can’t tell you anything more because she wants to explain everything to you. All you need to know is this: you must not step foot in the forest. It’s allergic to little girls. The reaction happened just once before—the forest begins wheezing and sneezing. The trees drip and ooze all over the path until it’s completely clogged in a nasty yellow goo that clogs everything up and lasts forever. Trust me, my luv, it’s a big old mess. You must find another way through the forest.”

  Just then, the birds decided it was time to join the conversation. Whoosh. They fluttered from behind the cloud where they’d been hiding, and swooped down to greet the zebras. The unexpected flurry of activity and the noisy beating of the little bird wings spooked the skittish herd. The zebras froze in blind terror, and then took off together down the path and back toward the bridge.

  “Oh, no! Oh, dear! I am getting much too old for this,” the zebra muttered. “I mustn’t stay a minute longer. I have to run after the others and make sure they’re okay. It was lovely to meet you, Lucy Stillwater-Smith. Remember, you cannot walk through the forest safely.”

  And she was gone.

  The birds twittered sheepishly. Lucy sat down in the tall grass at the edge of the forest, confused and exhausted. What was she supposed to do now? This was truly the longest and most confusing afternoon of her life so far. Lucy was considering the pros of having a comforting cry when the magic loom began to glow under her arm. That’s when it came to her.

  Lucy placed the ebony box in the grass and opened it up. She took out the magic loom and placed it gently in her lap. She flipped through the collection of envelopes looking for the one she remembered seeing earlier in the day. There it was!

  Once again, Lucy crossed her legs and closed her eyes. In her mind’s eye, Lucy drew an intricate and detailed picture of the prettiest little red and blue bird. Soon she had a crystal clear image of what she would create with her magic loom—a pair of glittering wings with a matching harness system. Voilà! How hard could that be?

  Lucy opened the envelope and organized everything she needed, the blue and red elastics and the glass hook. This newest envelope was labeled Flights of Fancy. She was ready.

  For the fourth time this afternoon, Lucy fell into a deep trance. Her nimble, strong fingers wove with
clear determination, precision, and speed. The animals watched in awe as wings slowly revealed themselves and fell fully formed to the ground. And then, just like before, Lucy was suddenly awake and exhausted. She was afraid to look.

  Lucy counted backward from ten and opened her eyes wide. She saw a set of exquisite wings. They had a twenty-five-foot span and were made entirely of blue and red elastics with intricate, billowing elastic feathers. The wings were attached to a series of broad Rainbow Loom ties—ties for her wrists, her elbows, her shoulders, and her waist. Lucy’s heart pounded. Was it possible the plan could work?

  “I don’t think I can do this all by myself,” Lucy said, raising her gaze to the birds circling above her. “You gave me the idea—are you willing to help with the execution?”

  Their response was instantaneous. The birds flew down to the ties, grabbing the ends in their beaks. They circled around Lucy. One after another, in perfect sync, they zipped back and forth, attaching the Rainbow Loom wings to Lucy’s back, hands, and arms, crisscrossing the ties and then pulling them snug.

  “Can they be any tighter?” Lucy asked nervously. “Will you show me how to do this? I want to fly over the forest without triggering the allergic reaction. I want to get home tonight—not in two hundred years. Can you help me, friends?”

  One of the birds held on to the magic loom with her beak and dropped it into the ebony box. She twittered for a friend to join, and the two birds skipped together down the path before lifting off into the air, the magic loom cradled between them.

  “That doesn’t look hard,” Lucy said with more confidence than she felt. She took a deep breath and mimicked what the birds had just done, running with all of her power toward the forest. At the edge of the darkness, just as Lucy thought she might crash into the trees, the wind found her Rainbow Loom wings. Lucy was lifted into the sky, surrounded on all sides by the birds chirping encouragement.

  Flying was the most wonderful feeling. Lucy had been expecting it to be scary, but it wasn’t frightening at all. It was more like floating in water than riding a roller coaster. Lucy didn’t have to flap her new wings very hard. She simply tilted them at an angle to the wind and was carried up and over the forest. No wonder birds made a racket at dawn—who wouldn’t want to be up and about if flying was this much fun?

  Lucy wanted to glide all the way to the castle, but unfortunately she made a big mistake—she looked at the ground. Just thinking about gravity deactivated the magic. Slowly, Lucy began to lose altitude. She drifted past the edge of the forest and was soon sitting safely in a meadow of sunflowers. Lucy watched sadly as her beautiful magic loom wings and ties melted away in the sun. Well, that sure was a blast! And she hadn’t caused an allergic reaction in the forest.

  The birds fluttered above Lucy’s head. They dropped the boxed magic loom softly in Lucy’s lap and flew off happily toward the mountain. The castle was closer than it had been all afternoon!

  Chapter Six

  Lucy stared at the wall of mountains in front of her. They were daunting peaks, wild and ragged-looking. They wouldn’t suffer fools gladly, as Abigail would say.

  For the first time all afternoon, Lucy’s stomach growled. She wondered suddenly what was happening at 163 Terrier Square. Lucy missed everyone—her mum, her dad, and Abigail. The feeling was big, messy, and lonely. Because the Stillwater-Smiths were a self-reliant, independent bunch, Lucy wondered if anybody even noticed she was gone. Often on Saturday night the Doctors organized a date night. Leaving Lucy and Abigail at home eating fish and chips takeout, they went to a nice restaurant for curry. If Lucy’s parents went to dinner straight from the hospital this evening, would they even miss her? And what if they forgot to pop their heads in to say goodnight just because they were tired or, worse, they were still mad? And Lucy had almost forgot: it was the first Saturday in November, the day Abigail made her monthly trek to visit her sister Bebe! What if Abigail left Lucy’s tea outside her bedroom door, then made a mad dash to catch the two forty-five train at Russell Square station? Homesickness and worry wormed their way into Lucy’s heart. What if no one missed her? What if couldn’t find her way home? What if she never saw Alyssa again?

  Lucy squeezed her eyes tight together. She counted backward from one hundred. There simply wasn’t enough time to get upset worrying about a bunch of what-ifs. Dr. Smith often said that a good attitude and an optimistic, happy heart solved more problems than a grain of worry ever did. When things got scary or hard, it was important not to let oneself get rattled. The practical solution to a tough challenge was always to march through it with the help of a solid plan and a big dose of hard work. Lucy could hear her mother and father chanting the Stillwater-Smith family mantra: Solving difficult problems is fun—let’s just get on with it and make the world a better place!

  Lucy jumped to her feet. If she was going make it home sooner rather than later, she’d better get a move on. “Onward and upward, Miss Lucy Stillwater-Smith,” she hummed to herself. “You are on an adventure … and everything is going to work out. I know it deep in my bones, just like I knew the package was meant for me.”

  The path on this side of the forest continued to glitter, but it was steep now and getting steeper. Lucy decided to view the incline as positive even if she was huffing and puffing. If she was heading up, that meant the castle was getting closer every minute. She knew she was heading in the right direction because there hadn’t been a fork in the road along the way, not once.

  Lucy wondered who lived in the castle. Taking her mother’s example as her inspiration, Lucy chose to feel excited about the afternoon in front of her, not uneasy. As if in encouragement, the magic loom glowed under her arm. It couldn’t be far now. Lucy turned a bend in the path and her heart did an excited triple somersault. There it was!

  Up close, the castle was breathtaking! It was perched on the side of a steep cliff. The castle had six turrets and was surrounded on all sides by a moat filled with water. Earlier, when Lucy first saw the castle, she thought it was green. Now she saw that its walls were actually made of dark stone and covered with thick green vines that appeared centuries old. Lucy saw small yellow climbing flowers blooming here and there on the old walls, mixed in with the vines. The flowers gave off a heady, happy scent similar to the old-fashioned English tea roses Abigail loved so much—spicy and sweet all at the same time. Each wall had six wide windows positioned high above the water. A pretty flower box sat at the base of each window, overflowing with trailing white blooms and sprays of pink foliage. The castle’s front door was twenty feet high, arched at the top, and had green and blue stained glass windowpanes that twinkled in the low light.

  There was a small ledge made of dark gray stone beneath the door with just enough room for one person to stand and knock. Even so, Lucy wondered if she could reach the knocker. The overall effect was magical. The castle looked as if it could be the home of someone friendly and not an evil dragon or an icy witch. Admiring the view, Lucy felt immensely better. But there was one teeny tiny little problem. There wasn’t a bridge over the moat!

  Lucy worried as she opened the ebony box. If she had known about the moat, she wouldn’t have used her one and only magic bridge! She flipped through the envelopes, looking for the right label, something that could help. She found a catapult and a ladder—both reasonable possibilities she supposed. She also found instructions for making a winged horse and an invisibility cloak that she’d missed before or forgotten about. Lucy knew she was beginning to get tired because both ideas sounded too complicated. She found envelopes promising lassoes, tents, a bicycle and even a tree house. Every envelope sparkled with endless possibilities, but Lucy was so intent on finding another bridge she couldn’t see the magic right in front of her.

  Suddenly Lucy knew what she wanted to do. She would weave a trampoline! In a jiffy, Lucy’s good mood returned and so did her energy. Lucy and Alyssa were trampoline champions. Not only was this the solution to the problem at hand, but it had the potential to be awe
some fun. She pulled out the elastics labeled Bounce.

  Lucy closed her eyes. She imagined the back garden at 163 Terrier Square. She saw the stone wall at the end of the garden, covered in pink climbing roses. She conjured up the image of Abigail sitting on the raised stone terrace behind her, watching and drinking the green tea from India that Dr. Stillwater had brought home from one of his trips. Lucy could see the trampoline in front of her, clear as day, with its wide bouncing platform and the black wood ladder her father built so Lucy and Alyssa could climb up more easily. Lucy imagined she was standing in the center of the trampoline holding Alyssa’s two hands in her own. The feeling was so real, she almost opened her eyes to peek, but stopped herself in time. The gold loom hummed with delight.

  This trampoline was going to have a bounce the girls had only ever dreamed of. With no trouble at all, they would have been able to bounce high above the house on Terrier Square and up into the clouds. Lucy could see it all so clearly. Together the girls would perform ten backflips each, bounce twice more as they slowed down, and finally, for the big finish, cartwheel into handstands at the trampoline’s edge before making a perfectly synchronized dismount. Lucy imagined she could hear Abigail applauding in the background and shouting “Ten! Ten! Ten!” as if the girls were Olympic athletes with a world-record-breaking perfect score.

  The magic loom hummed louder and Lucy was brought out of her dreaming. She fell back into the trance as her fingers reached for the loom.

  And then it was over. This time Lucy was afraid to open her eyes. What she wanted to see was her Terrier Square backyard and the dusty old trampoline of her childhood with its lovingly homemade ladder. She didn’t want to stay trapped in this mysterious world of invention and transformation forever. Was she ever going to get home?