Pip Bartlett's Guide to Magical Creatures Read online

“Is that you, Emma?” a deep voice called out from the front of the stable. A man in a suit was walking up behind Tomas. He looked like the house: crisp and clean and straight-lined.

  “Good evening, Bill!” Aunt Emma said brightly. “I thought you’d still be overseas! When did you get back?”

  “Earlier today,” the man said. He eyed Tomas and me, possibly thinking about the greasy fingerprints we might leave.

  “My niece Pip and her friend Tomas,” Aunt Emma explained, motioning to each of us in turn. “They’re helping me out. Pip and Tomas, this is Mr. Henshaw.”

  “I see!” Mr. Henshaw said. “You’re giving him his monthly Pixieworm pill, right? How’s it coming?”

  “He hasn’t gored them yet,” Tomas said from the stable door. He clutched a pack of tissues in one hand and a bottle of nose spray in the other. For all his talk of allergies and the world wanting to kill him, I hadn’t seen any evidence of a reaction in the two days we’d spent together. I was relieved. Now that I’d gotten used to talking with him, I really liked Tomas.

  “He wasn’t going to gore us,” I said quickly. “But I didn’t expect him to be so … shy.”

  “Yes, well …” Mr. Henshaw rubbed his temples. “Regent Maximus is supposed to be a show Unicorn, you know. His full name is Multicolored Lies the Head That Wears the Crown. He was terribly expensive.”

  “I suppose not everyone’s cut out for show business,” Aunt Emma said, rummaging in her bag. She retrieved a bottle with a single pill in the bottom. Regent Maximus, who had pulled his head out of the hay, watched her warily from the back of the stall. His rainbow-colored mane was tangled with bedding and stuck up all over. He looked nothing at all like the Barreras’ Unicorns.

  Aunt Emma went on. “Do you have an apple? Or even better, a piece of honeycomb? Something I can lure him forward with? We could force him to take this, but I think it will be better in the long run if we can show him it’s not such a hard process.”

  “I’m not certain what he’ll like—shall we go take a look?” Mr. Henshaw motioned toward his house.

  “Sure!” said Aunt Emma. “Pip, Tomas, why don’t you wait here and try to get him used to people being in the stable.”

  “Is that really a good idea?” I asked.

  “Just no Unicorn rides,” she said, winking at me. So she hadn’t forgotten! She just trusted me, which felt pretty excellent. I nodded, and she disappeared with Mr. Henshaw.

  “Woe! Woe, woe, woe! They’re going to hurt me!” Regent Maximus muttered from his stall. “Oh! Wait! They’ve left! I’m saved!”

  I folded my arms. I was not talking to this Unicorn.

  “Oh, no! The small ones are left! They’re probably the most dangerous.” The top of Regent Maximus’s head poked up over the top of the stall. His watery eyes regarded me, wide and fearful. “I bet that one’s going to eat me.”

  “I am not going to eat you!” I said before I thought better of it.

  Now Regent Maximus’s eyes went really wide. “You can understand me and talk to me!”

  I sighed. “I can, but I’m trying not to.”

  “Because you’re going to eat me, and you don’t want to get friendly!”

  “I’m not going to eat you!”

  Tomas leaned into the stable. “Pip, are you talking to that Unicorn?”

  I started, “I am—”

  “You are going to eat me!” Regent Maximus wailed.

  “Wait, no, I was talking to Tomas!” I said, but it was no use—Regent Maximus was now desperately pawing at the outside door of his stall, trying to escape. The wood began to splinter.

  He was just as dramatic as the other Unicorns. But as mad as I was about Unicorns in general, I had to admit, I felt pretty bad for Regent Maximus. It’s never fun to be scared.

  “Is he charging?” Tomas yelled. “I’ll never survive if he charges! My blood clots slowly!”

  “Now the shiny boy is yelling at me! It’s a battle cry! Save me!” Regent Maximus cried out the stall’s tiny window. “Can anyone hear me? They’re here to eat me—”

  “Both of you, stop!” I finally shouted, loud enough that a wild Nectarbird in the rafters flapped off, muttering angrily. Tomas and Regent Maximus fell silent. I took a deep breath. “Regent Maximus, neither of us is going to eat you—do you really think we could eat a full-grown Unicorn? And, Tomas, Regent Maximus is not charging. Everyone got it?”

  Both of them gazed at me suspiciously.

  In a very, very low voice, Regent Maximus whispered out of the side of his mouth, “If that boy doesn’t want to eat me, then why is he lurking in the shadows?”

  This wasn’t exactly true—Tomas stood in full sunlight, and technically, the Unicorn was the one lurking in shadows—but I could see why it might make him nervous. I asked, “Tomas, would you come say hi to him? He thinks you don’t like him.”

  “I like him. I just don’t want to die,” Tomas said, but he walked forward anyway. He had barely taken a step when he began to sneeze.

  “Wow, you really are especially allergic to Unicorns,” I said.

  “That’s just the lavender,” Tomas said, only now his nose was all stuffy, so it sounded like “Has hus he lavender.” Because Regent Maximus wouldn’t understand Tomas if he actually said hello, Tomas waved a bit.

  “See, Regent Maximus? We’re not scary,” I said. I picked up the pill bottle and shook out the single pill, which was bright blue. “So, look: All Aunt Emma wants is for you to take this pill.”

  “It’s blue,” the Unicorn whimpered.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Isn’t that pretty? It will keep you from getting Pixieworms. Trust me, you don’t want to get Pixieworms … they burrow in your … well, never mind. They’re just not something you want.”

  Regent Maximus flicked his ears back and forth anxiously. “Are you going to stuff it down my throat?”

  “I really don’t want to,” I answered. “If you just swallow it, it’ll be over in a second.”

  The Unicorn considered. He stamped his foot. For a moment, I thought nothing would happen. But then he stretched his neck out long, so he didn’t have to actually move any closer. His nose made it over the side of the stall, toward me.

  “Careful, Pip,” Tomas said softly, with a nervous look at Regent Maximus’s horn. It was shinier and longer than Fortnight’s had been, which made me feel rather smug on Regent Maximus’s behalf. The Unicorn dipped his head, pressed his muzzle into my hand, and ate the pill in one loud crunch.

  “There!” I exclaimed. “See? Was that so bad?”

  “Yes,” Tomas said, in a sort of strangled voice. He gave a loud, strange hiccup. And as he hiccuped, a bright green bubble came out of his mouth.

  “Whoa!” I said. “How’d you do that?”

  “I (hic—purple bubble) told you (hic—fuchsia bubble) I was especially (hic—blue bubble) allergic to Unicorns. This is what happens!”

  Like I said before, magical creature allergies are pretty rare. I’d never known anyone who had them before. So even though I knew the reactions were supposed to be very unusual, I was amazed by just how very unusual this reaction was.

  “Will you be okay?” I asked.

  Tomas looked cross. “If you call this okay!”

  He hiccuped a bunch of times in a row, so that the whole stable was full of multicolored bubbles. They bounced around, eventually popping when they knocked against the ceiling.

  Even Regent Maximus laughed. Nervously, but still. It was something.

  “They will stop, right?” I asked.

  Tomas hiccuped a sunshine-yellow bubble. “Eventual—” The last syllable of the word was lost as a pink bubble erupted.

  I suddenly grinned at him. “Isn’t this great? I mean, aside from the bubbles? We helped a Unicorn!”

  I saw Tomas’s answering smile through a large yellow bubble.

  “Hey—what’s that smell?” Tomas asked in between hiccups (an orange bubble and another yellow one). I sniffed the air. Something did smell
strange. I frowned, and scanned the stable. All three of us saw it at once.

  Smoke.

  Coming from the last stall in the stable, a thick plume of black smoke curled toward the ceiling.

  “Fire!” Regent Maximus and Tomas yelled at nearly the same moment.

  This time, it was too much to handle with a bottle of eye drops.

  “Quick!” I shouted at Tomas. “Help me with this!” He hurried to help me grab the handle of Regent Maximus’s water bucket. We staggered toward the smoke.

  Flames already filled the unoccupied stall, climbing hungrily toward the ceiling. When we hurled the contents of the bucket at the fire, it just hissed. Steam rolled out at us, pushing multicolored bubbles up to the ceiling. It’d take way more than a little water to put this out. The smoke burned my eyes.

  “Tomas, go get Aunt Emma!” I had to yell to be heard over the crackly sound of fire eating up wood. As Tomas bolted out of the stable, I grabbed a silver Unicorn halter from the hook beside Regent Maximus’s stall. “Regent Maximus, are you listening to me? Let’s get you out of here.”

  The Unicorn thrashed around his stall, crazy with terror. His horn looked especially scary in the firelight. I couldn’t open the door—I was afraid he’d charge forward without listening, just like the Barreras’ Unicorns. The fire was getting worse. Spare bits of burning lavender floated through the air. There wasn’t much time.

  Leaning over the stall door, I grabbed hold of his horn, then yanked his face down toward me. “Regent Maximus! Stop it! It’s time to be brave! Don’t panic, and stay close!” I used my best Callie voice, since people don’t mess around with Callie, and it worked. Regent Maximus still stamped and shied and whinnied worriedly, but I got the halter on. Holding the lead tight, I opened the stall door, and the two of us ran outside into the fresh air.

  Tomas’s bubbles were still floating up into the clouds above us.

  Regent Maximus reared, and I dangled at the end of the lead. My stomach felt like it was in a washing machine. He whinnied, and it just meant this: “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” I wouldn’t be able to hold on to the halter much longer.

  “Pip! We’re coming!” Tomas shouted. He was running from the house, inhaler in his hand. Aunt Emma was close behind him with a big fire extinguisher, and Mr. Henshaw was just behind her.

  “I’ve got the Unicorn,” Mr. Henshaw said to my aunt as Regent Maximus returned his front feet and my regular feet to the ground. “Get the fire!” Aunt Emma rushed right past me, into the stable. There was a loud hissing sound. The smoke turned white.

  Mr. Henshaw took Regent Maximus’s lead from me. As he led the Unicorn over to a little riding ring and locked him inside, I sat down on the grass and tried to breathe slowly. I felt all wobbly. Tomas sat beside me and offered me his inhaler. When I shook my head, he patted my shoulder awkwardly instead.

  As Mr. Henshaw returned to us, Aunt Emma emerged from the stable. Her face was all sooty, but other than that she looked okay. Her expression was tight, though.

  “Close one,” she coughed. “Everyone fine?”

  “Yes,” I said, and then something occurred to me: Based on my track record of magical-creature-related catastrophes, it was very likely this would all get blamed on me.

  I suddenly felt like I had Pixieworms in my stomach.

  “It started out of nowhere!” I protested. “Ask Tomas! I promise, Aunt Emma, this wasn’t like at the school. Tomas and I were just standing there and suddenly—”

  “Pip, calm down,” Aunt Emma said. She wiped her forehead with the crook of her arm. It mostly just smeared the soot around. “I know it wasn’t you.”

  “What was it?” Tomas asked. “What started the fire?”

  Aunt Emma grimaced before holding out her hand. In her palm was a fat ball of fur that was once gray but was now mostly white, covered with fire extinguisher dust. Suddenly, two giant, watery eyes opened near the center of the fur ball, watching me carefully.

  I had no idea what the creature was.

  Aunt Emma gave the blinking animal a dark look and said, “It was Fuzzles.”

  The first thing I did when I got back home that evening was help Aunt Emma set up Regent Maximus in the large animal stable—he’d be staying with us until Mr. Henshaw got his burned-up one fixed. It took ages, because Regent Maximus was sure he would fall and drown in the water trough, or get bitten by lavender mites, or stab himself with his own horn.

  “Couldn’t you have stabbed yourself just as easily back home, though?” I said to him, whispering so Aunt Emma wouldn’t catch me talking to a Unicorn.

  “You’re right! Oh, oh! I’ve been living so recklessly!” Regent Maximus wailed into the stable rafters.

  The second thing I did when I got back home was gallop upstairs for Jeffrey Higgleston’s Guide to Magical Creatures.

  Fuzzles. Fuzzles. Fuzzles.

  Why couldn’t I remember what the Guide had said about them?

  When I flipped open the Guide to their page, I understood why. It barely said anything at all.

  You’d think an animal that turns into a fireball would deserve more description.

  I charged back downstairs. Callie was sitting on the arm of the sofa, painting her toenails the color of unripe tomatoes and making vowel sounds. She did this in the mornings sometimes too. She’d told me this was to “exercise her voice” for “clarity onstage.”

  In the cluttered kitchen area, Aunt Emma held her phone to her ear and paced. “Only one at the moment,” she told the phone in a serious voice. “Yes, yes, we have it contained.” We all looked to the round kitchen table. A metal box containing the Fuzzle sat in the middle. A small curl of smoke trailed from one of the breathing holes.

  Aunt Emma hung up, sighed, and ran her hand through her hair. “Callie, I’m sorry, but I can’t take you to the movie tonight.”

  Callie started to leap up before remembering her wet toenails. Instead, she merely pushed herself up on her elbows with as much anger as possible. “What?! I’ve hardly gone out all summer.”

  “That’s not true!” Aunt Emma said, sounding a little offended. “I took you to the fabric store last week to get sequins for that … that mermaid costume thing.”

  “That was three weeks ago, Mom. And it was a siren costume. Mermaids are for, like, kids. Delynn and I are trying to convince the school to do a musical version of The Odyssey. It would be incredible.”

  Aunt Emma made a face that told me she realized Callie was right about the timing.

  “I’ll make it up to you, Callie. Anything you want. But right now I need to look under the crawl space to make sure there aren’t any Fuzzles down there. This house is very old and I don’t trust the smoke detectors.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Callie muttered. “I am persecuted.”

  “We’re all persecuted,” Aunt Emma replied. “I’m hoping this is a one-off incident and we won’t find any more in Cloverton. Come on, you can hold the flashlight for me. Maybe that Doxel still lives down there!”

  Callie’s eyes widened with obvious distaste. Her left eye widened more than the other. Like this: O.o.

  I guess she didn’t care for Doxels.

  “I’ll help!” I said eagerly.

  “She speaks!” Callie snorted.

  “Callie!” Aunt Emma chastised. “Say sorry. Now.”

  “Sorry, now,” Callie said. “I guess I’ll order pizza. Again.” With a meaningful look at her mother, she turned to me. “What would you like on it, Pip?”

  I was so glad to be asked, even if it was just to show Aunt Emma she was being nice to me. I said happily, “Oh, it doesn’t matter. I only eat the crust anyway.”

  “Get me some with pineapple,” grumbled Bubbles. I hadn’t even noticed him lying on top of the living room bookshelf. He had wedged himself in between one of Aunt Emma’s wedding photographs and a trophy in the shape of four horned birds. He did so hate it when Callie sang.

  “I mean, I like pineapple on mine,” I said quickly. I wanted to get o
n Bubbles’s good side. “They have that, right?”

  “Weirdo,” Callie muttered. But she jotted it down on a notepad.

  Ten minutes later, Aunt Emma and I were crouched in the dirty space beneath the house. It was nothing but brick rubble and dirt for the floor and concrete blocks for the too-close walls. Oh, and some spiders (zero Doxels). It was a very not-Callie kind of place. Aunt Emma poked the nozzle of the fire extinguisher in a corner while I played the flashlight beam over the top of it.

  “Aunt Emma?” I asked. “Can I ask you a question?”

  My aunt spun around to face me, eyes wide with concern. “Of course, Pip! Is everything all right?”

  “It’s just that I looked in the Guide for Fuzzles, and it barely says anything at all. Can you believe that? Why wouldn’t there be more about them in there?”

  Aunt Emma smiled at me and spoke with obvious relief in her voice. “Well, the Guide really focuses on animals rather than pests. Fuzzles are more like insects than creatures, really. And they’re not all that common. Thankfully.”

  “Thankfully, because they burn down stables?”

  “Exactly,” Aunt Emma said. “When they get surprised or scared, Fuzzles catch fire. It doesn’t hurt them, but it hurts pretty much everything else.”

  She paused.

  “Also, um, they have litters of three hundred FuzzleKits every three weeks during the summer.”

  I did the math in my head.

  “Oh my gosh,” I said. “That’s why you hope the Fuzzle from the barn is the only one!”

  “Exactly.”

  Now I too was hoping the Fuzzle in the box was the only one. I was also kind of hoping to get a better look at it. Because I didn’t think it mattered if Fuzzles were pests. They still deserved a better entry in the Guide. They were fascinating!

  Overhead, we heard the pizza delivery person come and go. Callie shouted, “MOM! PIZZA! OH, YEAH, PIP TOO! PIZZA!”

  We poked around for a few more minutes before Aunt Emma said, “It looks pretty clear down here. I don’t see any signs of nests or warrens. Fingers crossed it really was just one Fuzzle who lost its way.”

  But it wasn’t.