The Last Phoenix Page 19
Milly looked from Fenella to Skribble, starting to smile. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll go!”
Skribble smiled while Fenella whooped and turned a loop-the-loop. “You go, my lovely! Go and sing your heart out for me—and for my chicks!”
Milly felt determination flood through her.
“I will,” she declared. “Whatever happens, I really will!”
Just as Milly reached the church hall, she saw the others coming up the road. “Where’ve you been? We’ve got so much to tell you!” said Jason, running up to her.
“Not as much as I’ve got to tell you.” Milly panted. “But first I’ve got my audition!”
“I know,” said Jess, appearing from across the road. “I’ve been waiting for you at the hall. You shouldn’t have left without me, I was worried that weird watching man had got you.”
“He tried to get me and Jase,” said Michael.
Jess stared. “He what?”
“It’s okay, he’s arrested now and we’re fine.” Jason beamed. “Better than fine.”
Better than you can know, thought Milly, biting back a smile. She was about to blurt out what had happened when Jess yanked hold of her hand and started to drag her away. “Come on, Milly. We can all catch up later—you’re going to miss your spot.”
“And we’re gonna miss seeing ourselves,” Michael added, checking his watch. “Come on, Jase.”
“Just don’t go into the workshop!” Milly called to them. She wanted to be there when they saw the chicks for the first time. “Promise me you’ll wait until after my auditions. Promise!”
“Whatever, weirdo,” Michael called back, but Jason nodded kindly.
“Now get your butt into that audition.” Jess gave Milly a kiss on the cheek. “Little Orphan Annie!”
Taking a deep breath, Milly hurried inside.
Jess sat down on the wall and waited anxiously. The minutes dragged by. She wondered how Jason and Michael were doing, meeting themselves from a few days ago and how Milly was getting on inside the church hall. It felt so strange, something so magical and something so ordinary happening around her at the same time.
At long last, the doors opened and people started to come out. Jess saw Milly standing on the top of the steps, tears glistening in her eyes, looking stunned and pale.
“Well, Milly?” Jess called uncertainly.
Milly met her eyes and ran down the steps. “Jess!” She gasped, flinging herself into her stepsister’s arms. “Oh, Jess!”
“Hey!” Jess murmured soothingly, her heart sinking. “Oh, Milly. I’m sorry, but there will be other plays, other parts…”
“No!” Milly said, half sobbing in astonishment and relief. “You don’t understand! I’m only crying because I can’t believe it! I got the part, Jess—I’m Annie!”
“Oh, wow!” Jess hugged her tight. “That’s amazing! Your dream come true!”
Milly pulled away suddenly. Her eyes flicked to the gateway where she’d stood and watched this very scene all those crazy days ago. She thought she saw someone running away up the road toward Mr. Milton’s house. Me, she thought. I saw this but I didn’t know what I’d really seen…Just as none of us knew what we were seeing when Fenella—
“Come on.” Now it was Milly’s turn to haul Jess away. “The boys will have finished by now.”
“They’re going to wait for us in the gardens,” said Jess, frowning. “But I don’t see what the hurry is—”
“You will!”
They ran up the road and down the driveway that led to Mr. Milton’s house. Milly ran even faster as she spotted Jason and Michael making for the workshop.
“There you are!” Michael said as they arrived. “We got fed up waiting. You know, it was so hard not telling the younger me everything that’s happened…” He scanned Milly’s face. “Speaking of hopes going up in smoke, how did it go?”
“I got the part!” cried Milly. “I’m Annie!”
“Brilliant!” exclaimed Jason.
Michael groaned. “So now we have to listen to you singing all day and all night.” Just as she was about to thump him, he grinned. “Nice one, Mil!”
“And you did it without any magic help,” said Jason.
“Probably because you didn’t have any magic help,” Michael suggested.
“Speaking of magic help…” Milly threw open the door to the workshop dramatically. “Look inside!”
Jess, Michael, and Jason stared. The sound of their collective jaws dropping was almost audible.
There was Fenella, perched on the workbench feeding earthworms to the little balls of golden fluff that were her chicks. Skribble was floating a little way off on a cloud looking slightly worried as the phoenix chicks cheeped and opened their beaks wide and Fenella dropped the worms inside. “There we are, yum, yum, yum.” She looked over at Milly and winked. “Aha, here she is, back again already. Congratulations, pet! We knew you’d do it.”
“I didn’t know,” Milly admitted, smiling at her and Skribble. “Oh, thank you for making me go.”
“F-F-Fenella!” stammered Jason. “Is that you?”
Michael’s eyes were goggling. “You’ve gone skinny!”
Fenella flapped over and gave Michael an affectionate nip on the end of his nose. “I’d prefer ‘slender’ or ‘svelte,’ if you don’t mind, pet!”
“But you’re okay,” Jess squealed. “And you’ve got chicks!”
“Four of them!” Fenella plumped up her feathers. “What a to-do! One chick would have been quite enough for me but now I’ve got four to look after.” A happy smile crossed her face as one of the chicks fluttered up into the air, twittering a beautiful song. “I’ll never be lonely again!”
The chick who’d been turning somersaults before did a backward flip and almost fell out of the nest.
With a gasp, Skribble zoomed forward and nudged the chick back in.
“Thank you, Skribble, lovie,” said Fenella unperturbed. She looked fondly around at her brood. “Oh, I can see I’m going to have my claws and beak full with you lot.”
“So what happened, Worm?” demanded Michael, still in shock. “How come the egg hatched in the end after all?”
“Because of all that magic going on,” Milly blurted. “Including magic from us!”
“It’s certainly one for the magic vet manuals.” Fenella chortled.
“Your chicks are so cute!” said Jess admiringly.
Fenella ruffled her feathers. “I’ve even thought of names for them all.” She gave the children a coy look. “Jess, Jason, Milly, and Michael,” she said, nodding to each chick in turn. “So I shall never forget the four of you for as long as I live. And you know how long that is!”
“Cool!” said Jason, looking at the chick named after him. It rose up into the air, zoomed in a circle and turned a loop-the-loop.
Milly stroked the Milly chick, who sang sweetly at her and rubbed her head against Milly’s finger. “Oh, Fenella, that’s so sweet. Thank you!”
“It’s, like, everything I ever wanted,” said Michael wryly, but there was no disguising his broad smile.
“Well, I’m afraid we’re going to have to be on our way soon, lovies,” said Fenella. “There’s places to go and things to see. A phoenix never stays in one place for long.”
“I suppose I should be on my way too,” said Skribble. “Although I’m not sure exactly where I’m going…”
“Well, Skribble.” Fenella looked at him and fluttered her eyelashes. “You could always come with us.”
Skribble hesitated.
“I’d like it very much,” Fenella said softly.
Skribble cleared his throat noisily. “Well…um…perhaps I could accompany you a little while,” he mumbled. “I mean, after all, such an event as this multiple-hatching is unique in the annals of creation. It should be documented by someone wise and objective, someone—”
“—who’s cute as a button! Yippee!” shrieked Fenella. “Oooh, Skribble, we’ll have such fun, you and I. We�
�ll have such adventures! See so many wondrous things. Oooh, you handsome little worm, you!” She popped a kiss on the top of Skribble’s head.
He blushed furiously. “Just be sure to educate your brood that I am not a mere earthworm! I am—”
“Perfect daddy material?” said Michael innocently.
Skribble stared at him, spluttering and speechless.
Milly looked at Jason and giggled.
“Come on, chicks!” said Fenella, throwing the rest of the worms hastily into her chicks’ mouths. “Time to go! Time to have your first proper flight!”
They all chirped eagerly and gulped down the worms before flapping their wings and hopping to the edge of the workbench.
“Now, steady there, children,” said Skribble anxiously as the Milly-chick teetered on the edge. “Just be careful! Careful!”
“Being careful only gets you so far.” Fenella turned to the children. “Just remember, the future’s wide open. Take a chance or two and you can be anything you want to be. Anything at all.”
Milly smiled and nodded. “But do we really have to say good-bye?”
“Perhaps ‘farewell’ would be better.” Fenella looked at each of them in turn, blue eyes sharp and sapphire-bright. “Michael, Jess, Jason, Milly. Whenever I look at my precious chickabiddies’ faces, I’ll think of you.” A worried look crossed her face. “But how will you remember me?”
“Oh, we’ll remember you all right,” said Michael.
“No, no. I must give you something to remember me by. Something better than gold…” Fenella smiled suddenly. “Wait a sec, lovies. I know just the thing!”
She plunged her curved beak into the feathers covering her chest and pulled out four feathers each with a shining jewel at its tip. “Glow jewels,” she mumbled with her beak full of feathers. She flew around giving them each one feather with a jewel attached. “From your tears,” she said, pressing the last feather into Milly’s hands.
Milly looked at her in confusion.
“When you thought I was dead in that horrible room, lovie,” said Fenella, “your tears fell on my heart. They helped revive me. And now it is my turn to give this gift to you.” She looked around at them all. “To all of you! Hold them close, and when you do, remember me and our adventures and smile.” Her blue eyes were serious for once. “My chicks wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for you. Thank you all.”
“Yes, thank you,” Skribble added. “You are four fine children.” He regarded Michael and frowned. “Well, three and a half, perhaps.”
“Oi!” Michael protested, and Fenella cast Skribble a sharp glance—but then they both caught the gleam in the magical bookworm’s eye and smiled.
“It’s been so lovely to see you again, Skribble,” Milly added, and Jess and Jason nodded.
“Next time, I hope the circumstances will be a little less frantic,” declared Skribble. “Magic has bound us together, children, and such links can never be broken. Have no doubt of it—we shall meet again.”
Jess smiled. “Maybe by then, I’ll be a famous history expert!”
“And I’ll be a rugby star!” Jason grinned.
“Me a famous actress,” said Milly in a grand diva voice.
Michael nodded. “And I’ll be a multi, bulti-billionaire!”
Skribble glanced at Fenella and smiled. “I dare say we are all of us richer for what’s happened here.”
Fenella rose gracefully into the air. “Now, time to fly, my little ones.” She trilled to her chicks. With excited cheeps the balls of fluff flapped their wings and rose unsteadily into the air. The golden bird tucked Skribble’s lamp under one wing and winked at the children. “Onward to the great unknown!” she cried, and soared out through the door with the chicks following her, cheeping and turning somersaults as they went, with Skribble chivying them on from behind.
“Bye-bye!” shouted Milly. “I love you, Skribble! I love you, Fenella!”
“There they go,” Jason murmured, waving as the figures dwindled into the first golden stirrings of the sunset. “The genie and the phoenix.”
“One of them lives forever, the other one yabbers on forever,” said Michael. He grinned. “Good luck to them.”
“Wherever they fly,” said Milly dreamily.
“Now, we’d better get back home,” said Jess, “and see about real life again.”
Together, chatting busily about all that had happened, Michael, Milly, Jason, and Jess walked away from Mr. Milton’s place for the last time. The whole world around them seemed awake and alive with possibilities.
Michael pointed straight ahead and set off with a swagger in his step. “Come on,” he said. “The future’s this way!”
Acknowledgments
With thanks to Sean O’Meara for being soccer supremo
About the Authors
LINDA CHAPMAN AND STEVE COLE are both bestselling authors in their native England; between them, they have written more than a hundred books for children. BE A GENIE IN SIX EASY STEPS was their first collaboration. Linda’s books include the series My Secret Unicorn, Unicorn School, Stardust, and Not Quite a Mermaid, while Steve has created the Astrosaurs and Cows in Action series as well as THIEVES LIKE US and Z. REX for older readers.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Also by Linda Chapman and Steve Cole
Be a Genie in Six Easy Steps
Credits
Jacket art © 2010 by Tim Jessell
Jacket design by Andrea Vandergrift
Copyright
THE LAST PHOENIX. Copyright © 2010 by Linda Chapman and Stephen Cole. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chapman, Linda.
The last phoenix / by Linda Chapman and Steve Cole.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Four stepsiblings travel through time and space to help a scatterbrained phoenix gather the materials she needs to hatch her egg.
ISBN 978-0-06-125222-8 (trade bdg.)
[1. Phoenix (Mythical bird)—Fiction. 2. Magic—Fiction. 3. Time travel—Fiction. 4. Stepchildren—Fiction. 5. England—Fiction.]
I. Cole, Steve. II. Title.
PZ7.C3717Las 2010 2010012629
[Fic]—dc22 CIP
AC
First U.S. Edition, 2010
EPub Edition © July 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-201108-4
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Linda Chapman, The Last Phoenix