A wizard waved his wand and whispered gibberish. Joann ’s mother carried her, running up the stairs. She hid her baby under her bed, but it was too late. Their blood froze in their veins. Their lungs whitened and their brains melted. The wizard separated mother and daughter into different dimensions! Joann lived on earth and her mother lived in the magic world.
“I’m sick of people telling me that I’m not old enough to find my mother,” Joann said. “We’re 14 years old! I want to find her!”
“I’m not sure about this because I have a feeling we might get lost,” Emily said.
“I’m going by myself then!”
“Ok then I’ll come with!”
Emily and Joann ran into their closet and jumped through a shiny, black hole. It whirled like water down a drain. They slid into the portal, jumped out and ran to toward the castle in front of them.
“Remember when we were here to tutor Chika?” Emily said.
“Can we go to my mother’s house?” Joann said “She lives around here somewhere.”
Emily wandered to the castle wall. On the brick hung a poster that said, “This wizard is banned from this castle for doing his evilness.”
“I want to find my mom now,” Joann said. “I really miss her.” She handed Emily a jar of powder. Emily dusted it on herself. It sunk into her body, fading her skin and bone and muscle. Achooo!
They whistled. A swan swooped down from the air. They jumped on its back, and it flew gracefully and landed right next to the castle walls. Brownies bounced in the parapets. Their crimson eyes stared at the girls.
“Stop right there!” the brownies said, frying the doorway with their laser eyes.
The girls punched and kicked the brownies. Emily’s hair darkened, her curls tangling in the cold air. “Ahh my hair,” Emily said, brushing her split ends. A fat brownie lay on the ground in front of her, she pinched off a piece and gobbled it down.
The girls tiptoed to the back of the castle and put on the jetpacks they ordered from the Scholastic Book catalogue. Rings of smoke blasted from the packs. They flew into a yellow room where golden furniture shined. A glass desk walked to a corner and shattered.
“Wow!” Emily said. “This place is awesome. Whose room is this?” She opened a file folder on the floor. A picture of a man in blue-striped glasses topped a stack of papers. The caption said Room 13J.
“He was on the poster,” Joann said. “That’s why he looks familiar. Let’s go to room 13J.”
Crack! Crack! Trails of blood led the girls to room 13J. They skipped to the door, stepping on gooey blood and glass.
“Oh no!” said Emily. “My shoes are getting dirty.”
“Who cares?” said Joann. “We’ll clean them later.”
“But the blood will ruin my shoes and it won’t come off!”
Red stained the metal door in front of them. Creak!
“What was that?” asked Emily
“I don’t know, maybe it’s another ghost!”
They pushed through the door. Blood was splattered on a messy bed. Pieces of paper flew across the floor. The girls connected two of the scraps and read the words on them. “Great Dragon’s Cave in Danger.”
Joann said, “I know where it is!”
“We’ve got to get there before he does!” said Emily.
The girls flew by jetpack to the cave. When they arrived, the rubies on the floor were disappearing.
They returned to the castle and found a note that said, “Meet you in my room!” They ran to Room 13J. Piles of rubies stood around the wizard. “Ha, ha, ha! You will never stop me!”
“Oh yeah?” Joann flew into the air, snatched the wand from him and banged it on her knee. Red smoke drifted into the rubies. The wizard crumbled into ashes.
The girls left the castle and walked through the dirt outside. A woman in an apron stood in front of a fence. Joann walked up to her and said, “Can you tell me where Miss Mash is?”
“I am Miss Mash, Haruko Mash,” the woman said. “Why are you in my boss’s yard?”
Gummy worms squished across the coco dirt. Haruko scooped up a handful and threw them over the fence then planted some candy cane bushes around a gurgling chocolate fountain. A galaxy of candy hung by skyscraping stems.
Joann, amazed, said, “You’re my mom! Come with me!”
“No,” Haruko said. “I want to stay here where I can see candy grow!”
“Come with me!”
“I’ll think about it.”
About the Authors
Hi! My name is Liyi. I am ten years old. I live in San Francisco with my mom. I’m good at hoola-hooping and math. I want to be good at art someday. I want to be a nurse when I grow up. I’m not shy anymore but I still hold on to that shy identity. If I were weather I would be snow because it is my favorite color. My favorite books are Popularity Papers. If I could have a super power I would pick mind-reading because I then would know what my friends are thinking. I speak Chinese at home. This is my third published book. I also wrote The Beautiful Lady and When I Was Little.
Hello! My name is Jessie and I’m ten years old. I live with my parents and I like to daydream and sit and watch others. I’m good swimming and math. I want to be good at science and drawing humans. I want to be a pharmacist someday. I’m different from other people because I chatter a lot but I finish my work. My favorite book is Camille Mcphee Fell Under the Bus. If I could have any power I would go back in time so I could fix my past mistakes. I speak Chinese and English at home. I have also published A Dangerous Day in King Tao’s Palace and Hair Help. Of course, this is my third published book.
Watch Room 2 actors perform a Readers' Theater adaptation of this story here:
No comments:
Post a Comment