Cassidy the Costume Fairy

  The fairies are planning a magical ball,

  With guests of honor and fun for all.

  They’re expecting a night full of laughter and cheer,

  But they’ll get a shock when my goblins appear!

  Adventures and treats will be things of the past,

  And I’ll beat those troublesome fairies at last.

  My iciest magic will blast through the room

  And the world will be plunged into grimness and gloom!

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map

  Poem

  Cool Jewels

  A Dress-Up Mess-Up

  An Unusual Princess

  Sir Beaumont to the Rescue!

  Jest in Time!

  A Perfect Pageant

  Teaser

  Also Available

  Copyright

  Kirsty and Rachel walked along the stone hallway with a group of kids. They were all chatting excitedly. It was the second day of their stay at the Golden Palace, a beautiful mansion in the countryside. They were having a wonderful time! The Golden Palace was amazing — it had been built from gleaming white stone hundreds of years ago, and had high towers topped with golden turrets. The owners of the palace were having a special kids’ Royal Sleepover Camp during spring break. It included lots of different fun activities. Kirsty and Rachel were staying all week. They loved the fact that they were sleeping in a bedroom with two four-poster beds where real princes and princesses had slept once upon a time!

  But that wasn’t the only amazing thing about their stay there. Yesterday, the girls had found themselves on a brand-new fairy adventure! This time, they were helping the Princess Fairies look for their magical tiaras. The Princess Fairies were cousins of the king and queen of Fairyland. They had been their special guests at a Fairyland Palace ball, but Jack Frost and his mischievous goblins had snuck into the ball — and had stolen the seven Princess Fairies’ tiaras. The tiaras were full of powerful fairy magic. Without them, no human or fairy could have a happy or magical time!

  “Follow me, everyone. Come and see the palace’s Jewel Chamber,” said Louis, one of the palace directors who was running the camp. “Through here.”

  Kirsty and Rachel followed the group into a small wood-paneled room that had glass display cases along the walls.

  “Wow,” Kirsty breathed, as she stared into the first case. “Princess Charlotte’s christening bracelet from when she was a baby — a gift from the Spanish royal family, over two hundred years ago!”

  “And here’s a silver helmet that a knight would have worn,” Rachel said, gazing into the next case. “This sign says it belonged to a knight named Sir Beaumont, who stayed here in the eighteenth century.” She grinned. “It’s so exciting to think about lords and ladies and knights being right here in this palace, isn’t it?”

  “Okay, everyone,” came Louis’s voice just as Kirsty was about to reply. “Let’s go to the Throne Room next.”

  The group followed him as he left the Jewel Chamber. Just then, Kirsty and Rachel saw Caroline, another one of the palace directors, carefully locking the door once everyone was out of the room. She put the keys in her pocket and hurried to catch up with the others.

  The Throne Room was farther down the hallway. It was a huge room with a high vaulted ceiling, gold-framed oil paintings on the walls, and an enormous red and gold patterned tapestry hanging at one end. In front of the tapestry sat two golden thrones studded with shiny jewels. The thrones’ wooden frames were carved with fancy designs.

  “Oooh!” gasped some of the kids, and Kirsty and Rachel grinned at each other in delight. Both girls were thinking the same thing — the thrones reminded them of King Oberon’s and Queen Titania’s thrones in Fairyland!

  “Oh, I hope we meet another Princess Fairy today,” Rachel whispered to Kirsty, who nodded, feeling tingly at the thought. Their fairy adventures were always so wonderful!

  Louis invited the kids to go up in pairs to try out the golden thrones. Rachel was surprised by how small she felt, sitting on the large throne. Kirsty had to wait for a boy wearing big sneakers and a baseball hat pulled low over his face to get off the throne. “Come on, let Kirsty have a turn now,” Louis called over, noticing Kirsty waiting patiently. Louis smiled. “I think someone is enjoying being on a throne a little too much!”

  The boy shuffled off reluctantly, and Kirsty got to sit on the throne next to Rachel. It was very cold and hard.

  “The kings and queens must have needed cushions if they had to sit on these for very long.” She giggled.

  “Has everyone had a turn on the thrones? Wonderful,” Louis said. “Our next stop is the Costume Gallery — where there’s a surprise waiting for you. This way!”

  Louis and Caroline led the kids to another room that had mannequins dressed as kings, queens, knights, servants, and musicians. There was even a court jester mannequin, complete with a red and yellow hat that had bells on the ends.

  In the middle of the room stood a model of the Golden Palace with tiny figurines positioned in the windows, dressed similarly to the mannequins.

  Louis called everyone over to see the model, and pointed out the tiny figures taking part in a royal pageant on the palace grounds. “A pageant, if you didn’t know, is a display where people dress up to portray scenes from history,” he explained.

  “And that’s what our surprise is,” Caroline added. “Today, we’re putting on our very own pageant right here at the Golden Palace. The pageant will be open to the public. And the stars of the show are going to be . . . all of you!”

  Louis opened a closet door and pulled out a rack full of costumes. “Ta-da!” he said.

  Rachel and Kirsty smiled at each other excitedly. This sounded like fun!

  Other kids were already begging for the costumes they wanted. “Can I be a princess?” “Can I be a knight?” “Can I be the king?”

  “Whoa!” Caroline laughed, holding up a hand. “It’s the luck of the draw.” She held up an upside-down jester’s hat and showed them that it was full of slips of paper. “Take one of these and you’ll find out who you’re going to be in the pageant,” she explained.

  One by one, the kids took a slip and read it out loud.

  “I’m a kitchen maid,” one boy cried.

  “I’m a lute player,” read a girl.

  “I’m the king!” said the youngest boy in the group, looking thrilled — especially when his big sister pulled out a slip saying that she was the king’s servant.

  When the hat came to Rachel, she took a slip that said, “You are a brave knight named Sir Beaumont who once helped save this palace from a deadly enemy. He wore a suit of armor and carried a sword.”

  “Great,” she said, passing the hat to Kirsty. “Sir Beaumont — he was the knight whose helmet we saw earlier, wasn’t he? He sounds cool to me.”

  Kirsty plunged her hand into the jester’s hat . . . but it was empty. “Oh,” she said in dismay. “I don’t think there are any slips left.”

  Caroline took the hat from her and looked inside. “You’re absolutely right,” she said. “You must be the last one to pick your costume. Which means” — she turned the hat the right way up and plopped it on Kirsty’s head — “that you’re our court jester! Jesters had the very important job of entertaining the royal family and their guests.”

  Kirsty beamed. “Thank you!” she said, feeling excited.

  Kirsty and Rachel went to find their costumes. In addition to the rack of outfits, there was also a large accessory box full of helmets, shoes, crowns, armor, and all kinds of other things. Unfortunately, it soon became clear that although each of the k
ids could find part of their costumes, there were lots of things missing. There were also items of clothing that didn’t seem to belong there at all — like a witch’s broomstick, an astronaut’s helmet, and a ballerina’s tutu.

  “This doesn’t seem right,” Louis said, looking puzzled as he held up a pair of clown shoes and a robot costume. “I don’t remember us having these before. Where are all our knights’ swords?”

  “I guess we’ll have to make do with what we’ve got,” Caroline decided. “Please do your best to put a costume together, kids. We’ll come around and help you.”

  Rachel had a knight’s helmet, but no armor or sword. “Maybe this robot costume will work,” she said doubtfully. “It’s silver, so I guess it looks kind of like armor.” She rummaged through a box of props. “I’ll use this broomstick as a sword.”

  Kirsty, meanwhile, had her hat, but no jester costume. “Jesters are funny,” she reasoned, “so maybe I should just wear something silly. . . .” She put on a ballet tutu and some enormous clown shoes, then began looking through a smaller box for something she could use as a jester’s stick. She saw something golden shining in one corner of the box and reached farther down to feel around. Was it the golden bell on the end of a jester’s stick?

  Something brushed against her skin. It was so light it tickled! Kirsty blinked in surprise, then looked down into the box. With a smile of delight, she realized that the golden sparkle she’d seen was coming from a tiny smiling fairy. The fairy had landed on the palm of her hand!

  Carefully, making sure that nobody else saw, Kirsty lifted the fairy out of the box. She quickly took off her jester hat and placed the fairy inside, so she could stay hidden. Then Kirsty hurried to a quiet corner of the room and motioned for Rachel to come over and see.

  “I found some juggling balls,” Rachel said, swinging them in a bag. “I thought they might be a good prop for you if you can’t find . . . Oh!” Rachel stopped at the sight of the little fairy in Kirsty’s hat. “Hello!” she said, smiling.

  The fairy had long dark hair and was wearing a pink chiffon skirt and a black-and-white striped top. Kirsty and Rachel had met all seven of the Princess Fairies the day before and recognized this one as Princess Cassidy the Costume Fairy.

  “Hello again,” Princess Cassidy said in a high voice. She raised her eyebrows at the girls’ costumes. “Looks like I got here just in time,” she said. “Without my tiara full of costume magic, this pageant — and other events everywhere — will be a disaster!”

  “We’ll help you find your tiara, Cassidy,” Rachel said at once. Then her ears perked up as she heard a loud, pouty voice coming from across the room.

  “Where’s my tiara? I can’t be a princess without a tiara!”

  The three friends looked over to see a boy wearing a pink frilly dress and a long blond wig. He was rummaging through a box, bent over so they couldn’t see his face. Then he straightened up and they heard him mutter, “Well, if there’s not a tiara here, I know somewhere else I can get one. . . .”

  “What enormous feet that boy has,” Cassidy said suspiciously, pointing out the large sneakers that poked out from the bottom of the pink dress.

  “He’s the boy who didn’t want to get off the throne earlier,” Rachel realized. “What’s he doing now?”

  The three friends watched as the boy tiptoed up to Caroline. He waited until Caroline was busy adjusting somebody’s helmet. Then he reached a hand into her pocket.

  Kirsty and Rachel gasped as he pulled out a bunch of keys and snuck away. Just as he was leaving the room, they got a good glimpse of his face for the first time — his skin was green. He wasn’t a boy at all — he was a goblin!

  “Quick, let’s follow him,” Rachel said, and she and Kirsty hurried after the goblin, with Cassidy peeking out from Kirsty’s jester hat.

  The goblin had hitched up his dress and was scurrying down the hallway back toward the Jewel Chamber. They saw him use Caroline’s keys to unlock the door and disappear inside.

  “Oh, no,” Kirsty whispered in horror. “He’s going to steal a real tiara from the jewel collection!”

  “Wait,” Cassidy said as they approached the door of the chamber. “Let me turn you into fairies and we can all fly in there without him seeing us.”

  There was no one else in the hallway, so it was safe. Kirsty and Rachel stood still while Cassidy waved her magic wand and muttered a few magical-sounding words. Sparkles circled around them. In the next moment, the two girls began shrinking smaller and smaller until they were the same size as Cassidy. Now they both had beautiful shimmering wings on their backs, too.

  “Look! Our costumes shrank with us.” Rachel giggled, seeing the now-tiny broomstick in her hand, and the bag of juggling balls that Kirsty had thrown over one shoulder. “Come on, let’s see what he’s up to.”

  The three fairies fluttered silently into the Jewel Chamber, being careful to fly high so that they weren’t in the goblin’s line of sight. Then Cassidy’s mouth dropped open in surprise. She pointed at the main display case. “Look!” she whispered urgently. “It’s my magic tiara!”

  Rachel and Kirsty gazed down at the case. Sure enough, there between a glittering jeweled necklace and a silver bracelet was Cassidy’s silver jeweled tiara, gleaming and sparkling against the black velvet background.

  The girls all held their breath as the goblin headed straight for the display case and unlocked the door with another of Caroline’s keys. But before he could grab the tiara, a second goblin burst into the room. He was wearing a uniform cap with GUARD written on it.

  “Halt!” he sputtered. “Hands off! Jack Frost told me to put the tiara here so that it would be safe from those meddling fairies. I’m not allowed to let anyone near it, not even you.”

  The princess goblin stomped his foot. “Well, I’m playing Princess Goblina in the pageant, and I’m telling you, I need a tiara!”

  The guard and princess goblin started arguing. While they were shouting at each other, Kirsty seized the chance to fly into the open display case. This is almost too easy, she thought, smiling. She could take the tiara right from under the goblins’ noses! But unfortunately, as she flew inside the case, the bag of juggling balls on her shoulder knocked the silver bracelet off its hook. The bracelet fell to the bottom of the case with a clunk.

  The goblins stopped arguing at once, and Kirsty froze in fright. The princess goblin’s eyes gleamed when he saw Kirsty in the case. He snatched the tiara before she could even touch it. Then he slammed the door shut and locked it. Kirsty was trapped!

  Rachel and Cassidy gazed helplessly at each other, then at Kirsty, locked behind the glass door. How could they get her out?

  The guard goblin looked startled. He gazed from Kirsty to the tiara and back to Kirsty again, as if he couldn’t quite believe his eyes. “You see?” he shouted at the princess goblin. “I told you to leave well enough alone. What if there are more fairies around here, trying to steal our tiara?”

  Cassidy gritted her teeth. “It’s my tiara,” she said in a tiny, angry whisper.

  “We need to find a better hiding place for it,” the guard goblin said. “Let me think. . . .”

  “How about on my head?” the princess goblin suggested, shoving it on top of his blond locks. “People will think it’s part of my costume. Only we’ll know that it’s a real tiara.”

  The guard goblin looked doubtful. “Well . . . oh, I guess so,” he said after a while. “I can’t think of a better place right now. But you’ve got to be careful with it, all right? Come on, let’s get out of here before anyone spots us.”

  And with that, the two goblins left the room. Cassidy’s tiara glittered under the spotlights where it sat nestled on the goblin’s wig.

  Cassidy and Rachel watched them go, then flew down to Kirsty.

  Rachel tugged on the glass door, hoping that the goblin, in his hurry, had not locked it properly, but it didn’t move. “Are you all right in there?” she called to her friend.

 
; Kirsty nodded bravely. “I’m fine. Why don’t you go after the goblins? We don’t want to lose them.”

  Cassidy shook her head. “And leave you here, all alone? No way!” she said. “A true princess would never do something like that. Now let’s see if some good old-fashioned fairy magic will open that glass door.” She pointed her wand at the lock and chanted a complicated spell under her breath. Nothing happened.

  Cassidy’s shoulders drooped. “Oh, dear,” she said. “Without my tiara, my magic isn’t as strong as usual. How can we get you out, Kirsty?”

  Rachel looked around for inspiration. There had to be a way to set Kirsty free! Then she caught sight of her costume reflected in the glass door. Sir Beaumont wouldn’t ever give up, would he? She had to think of something. . . .

  She remembered the broomstick she was holding. It wasn’t exactly a traditional weapon, but now that it had shrunk, it looked just the right size to fit in the keyhole. “Maybe I could use my broomstick to pick the lock,” she said eagerly. “Let me try. . . .”

  She pushed the end of the tiny broomstick into the lock and jiggled it a few times. To everyone’s delight, the lock clicked — and the door swung open! “Sir Beaumont to the rescue!” Rachel laughed as Kirsty flew out and hugged her.

  “Thank you,” Kirsty said happily. “Now let’s lock up this case again and find those goblins!”

  Cassidy flew down and put the silver bracelet back in place. Then Rachel shut the glass door and used her broomstick to lock it again.

  The three fairies soared out of the Jewel Chamber, closing the door behind them, and flew down the hallway in search of the goblins.