The Warble (25 page)

Kristina held her hands
out, and Clover and Looper each landed on one. “I’ll never forget you two,” she
said.

“And we’ll never forget
you, either,” Looper said.

“How could we? You’re
famous in Bernovem,” Clover added.

Kristina smiled humbly.
Then Clover and Looper lifted up off her hands. Just before flying away, they
encircled her head, leaving what seemed to be a crown of sparkling dust to fall
all around her. She watched as Retzel, with Raymond on his shoulder, and his
wife and child disappeared into the tall green grass, followed by the fairies.

Werrien helped Kristina
back up on the rock. “That was very kind of you,” he said.

“What was?”

“Letting your best
friend go.”

“I think it’s the
hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

Werrien smiled down at
her.

Kristina felt goose
bumps on her arms.

The crystal suddenly
warmed up again, and this time there were no swirling colors or even a light
pink color. No, this time the crystal had reached its final color, a deep,
dark, rich red.

“Werrien, you’re my
best friend,” Kristina whispered as she embraced him, but just as her arms
encircled him, he disappeared into thin air.

~~~

Jingle, jangle went the
familiar and annoying sound of the alarm clock. Kristina reached her hand out
of bed and gave it a good whack. Then she stuffed her head under her pillow and
dozed off again. A few minutes later, her squeaky old door opened, and her mom,
poked her nose into Kristina’s bedroom.

“Hey sleepy-head; you
need to get up. Your grandma Ursie will be here in less than two hours, and I
really want the place tidy when she arrives.”

Kristina pulled the
pillow off her head and sat up abruptly. Holding her covers up to her neck, she
stared at her mom with a wild gaze in her eyes.

“Must have been some
dream?” her mom said.

Kristina swallowed
nervously and shifted her eyes quickly to Raymond’s cage and then back to her
mom. Raymond’s cage door was wide open, but luckily her mom didn’t notice.

“You look a little pale.
Maybe you’re coming down with something,” her mom said.

“Actually I don’t feel
very good. My stomach’s upset and my throat hurts.”

“Alright. Why don’t you
just sleep a little longer. I’ll have to get your father to do the vacuuming.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Kristina
lay back down and pulled the covers over her head.

Her mom shut the door
to her room, and Kristina waited for the sound of her footsteps to disappear.
Then she felt her neck. There was nothing hanging around it, and she was not
wearing the elegant fuchsia and moss-green gown she had on in Bernovem. No, it
was just her old sweater and the same old pants she had worn on the last day of
school. She threw off her covers to find just what she had
suspected—miss-matched socks. She looked at the floor beside her bed and saw
her old sneakers.
Was it all a dream?
She looked over at Raymond’s cage
with its wire door wide open, and her stomach churned. Her heart pounded faster
as she got out of bed and went over to it. “Raymond, are you in there?”

Raymond always came out
when she called his name, but this time he didn’t. She looked inside his wooden
house, but it was empty. Did Raymond stay on in Bernovem, or did he only escape
from his cage? She was so confused.

Next she looked for the
hatbox that Miss Hensley had given her. At first she couldn’t see it anywhere,
but then she spotted it on the floor next to her dresser. She quickly opened
it. Inside, there was the little leather sack. She untied its tassels and
looked inside, but it was empty. Then she noticed something she hadn’t noticed
before. In the corner of the hatbox was a small, tarnished silver ball, the
same size as the ball she had found before. But unlike the other one, this one
had a seam, and there was a clasp on the seam to open it. She lifted the clasp,
and as the tarnished ball slowly opened, a tune began to play. Inside the ball
were two tiny figures—a blond-haired boy and a blond-haired girl—standing on
top of a rock, turning in time to the tune. The boy was dressed in the same
clothes that Werrien had worn to the party, and the girl was dressed in a
fuchsia and moss-green gown. The crystal necklace around the girl’s neck
shimmered brightly.

Get a sneak peak at the
sequel!

www.victoriasimcox.blogspot.com

The
summer horse-camp experience was not turning out the way Kristina had hoped it
would have. The fact that she went along with Davina Pavey, the
seventeen-year-old girl with the maturity level of a twelve-year-old should
have been a big enough red flag warning her not to go, but it wasn’t. In this
case, the flag could have been the size of a barn door, and it still wouldn’t
have mattered, because Kristina’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Kingsly, were the ones
who made Kristina go in the first place. They were tickled pink, to say the
least, when their daughter was invited by Davina’s parents to go with Davina to
the Tranquil Trails Horse Ranch, to participate in a weeklong stay at a
teen-girl riding camp. Unfortunately, the Kingslys just happened to overlook
one minor detail; Davina and Kristina could hardly stand each other.

After checking in at
the camp’s front office, Kristina was unpleasantly surprised to meet up with
one of the most annoying girls from her last year’s ninth-grade class, Hester
Crumeful. Hester’s family owned the Tranquil Trails Horse Ranch and so Hester
spent her summers there. Davina knew Hester from school as well, and they were
quite happy to see each other. Kristina, on the other hand was hoping that they
would have remembered each other from Bernovem but there wasn’t the slightest
hint that Davina or Hester recalled the magical land. Even so, Davina was
thrilled to find out that Hester was the ranch owner’s daughter, and from the
first moment they greeted each other, Davina and Hester bonded together like lint
on sticky glue. The fact that both of them really didn’t like Kristina only
brought them closer together.

The first evening,
there was a “get to know each other” marshmallow roast. It was scheduled for
two hours, but about forty-five minutes into it, Davina and Hester disappeared
from the campfire, leaving Kristina, who had not yet made friends with any of
the other campers, standing alone by the fire. Having had her fill of
marshmallows and not really feeling like introducing herself to the other girls,
Kristina decided to call it a night.
I’m kind of tired anyway.
She
headed up the dirt road that led back to her cabin.
Besides, I want to be
well rested for tomorrow morning’s first horse-riding lesson.

She arrived at the
cabin and noticed that the light was on and the cabin door was ajar. Davina and
Hester were sitting on the floor, thumbing through a book. They seemed
captivated by it.
Must be very interesting.
She watched from the doorway
as Hester threw her head back, giggling—and that’s when Kristina caught a
glimpse of the book.
No way!
She cringed.
Not my private diary!
She flung the door wide open, and Hester and Davina looked up at her like two
thieves caught red-handed in an expensive jewelry shop. Hester quickly shoved
the diary in front of Davina.

“Hey! Why are you
shoving it in front of me?” Davina snapped.

“This was all your
idea!” Hester retaliated.

Kristina marched in
between them and snatched up the diary. “What the heck do you two think you’re
doing, going through my private belongings?” she shouted.

Hester and Davina stood
up.

“You left it out in the
open, so we just figured that you wouldn’t mind if we looked at it,” Davina
said with a smirk. “We’re all friends, right?”

Kristina’s eyes
narrowed and she shook her head.
We’re not friends!
“It was on my bunk,
in between my pillow and my backpack. I hardly call that being left out in the
open.”

“I think the real issue
here is that you may need some serious help,” Hester said. “That stuff you
wrote in your diary ...” She laughed and snorted. “Like I said, you need help.”

Peeved off, Kristina
glared at Davina and Hester.

Davina twirled her
finger by her temple, gesturing to Hester that Kristina was crazy.

“What was the name of
her fantasy world? Bernysville or something bizarre like that?” Hester mocked.

“What about the part
where she meets a prince?” Davina goaded. “What was his name?”

“Prince Wiener or
something like that,” Hester said giggling.

“Figures it was her who
meets the prince,” Davina said.

“His name is Werrien.
And he didn’t befriend either of you because you’re both such bone-heads!”
Kristina said.

Hester sneered at
Kristina. “What about the part where that smelly rat she used to have—Raymond
or whatever his name was—he goes there as well, and can talk like a human.”

“Very immature.” Davina
chuckled.

Davina and Hester
continued to ridicule Kristina, but their voices began to grow distant, and
memories of Bernovem began to fill Kristina’s mind. It had been two years and
five months since she’d been to the magical land, and she still hadn’t figured
out whether it was a real place or just a peculiar dream. There were times when
even she began to think of herself as crazy.

“Oh yeah, and the worst
thing about what she wrote,” Hester laughed, “was that you and I were there!”

“Who gave you the right
to put in your diary that we were in your psychotic world?” Davina crossed her
arms. “Actually, since she wrote lies about us, I should take her diary and
throw it in the campfire.”

Hester’s eyes squinted.
“Or better yet, I’ll take it and make copies of it and give them to everyone in
her classes next fall.”

Behind her thick
glasses, Davina’s eyes lit up, and she leered down at the diary.

“Wait!” Kristina
clutched her diary tightly to her chest. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll forget you
guys ever snooped through my diary and let all of this go if you promise me
that you’ll tell no one about this.”

Davina grinned at
Hester. “What do you think, Hes?”

Kristina’s stomach
cramped up as the other two girls stood there, taking their sweet time thinking
about what she’d said.

“Hmm…” Hester looked
Kristina up and down. “All right, I guess we have a deal.”

Hester and Davina gave
each other a high-five, which Kristina found annoying, and then, as if the
kerfuffle that had just taken place was no big deal, they raced out of the
cabin, leaving Kristina alone again.

Kristina angrily shoved
her diary into her backpack as tears began to well up in her pale-blue eyes.
She was so sick of Hester and Davina and decided there were no meaner people on
Earth than the two of them.

She changed into her
pajamas and brushed her teeth. Then, as she was putting her toothbrush back in
her pack, her hand felt a little leather pouch. She took it out and untied the
gold tassel that held it shut. Inside it was a small, tarnished silver ball—the
gift that her teacher, Miss Hensley, had given her two Christmases ago. At
home, every night, Kristina would click open its small latch, and then place
the open, silver ball—which was also a music box—on her night table beside her
bed. Then she would get into bed and watch as inside the ball, the figures of a
girl and boy (who looked just like Werrien and her, standing on a rock) turned
to an unknown tune.

She placed the silver
ball on the night table beside her bunk and got into bed. As she lay on her
hard mattress, staring at the boy and girl turning in circles to the tune, her
thoughts drifted to Werrien, the teenage boy she had met in Bernovem—actually
the true prince of the land. When she’d first met him—boy, had he annoyed her
with his sarcastic remarks. But as time went on, she could see that he had a
kind side as well, and through their adventure and near death experiences, he
actually became the best friend she had ever had. The longer she was away from
him, the more she longed to see him again.
If Bernovem is real, I wonder how
Werrien is doing, and if he is living in a palace now, instead of in hiding
with Leacha.
She smiled.
She was such a kind, old, gnome woman and cared
for Werrien like he was her own son.

Her thoughts drifted to
Taysha and Lisheng—the horses.
I wonder if they’re doing well and if they’re
living with Werrien.

She pictured Raymond in
her mind, the pet rat she used to have. She really wanted to believe that
Raymond had stayed in Bernovem, but because she had found his cage wide open
the morning she had returned home, she was leaning to accepting the saner
option—that he had escaped from his cage and had run away for good.
Oh, how
I miss Raymond.
At times she wondered if getting another rat to replace him
would make her feel better. She never did, though, because she knew in her
heart that no other pet could ever take Raymond’s place.

She thought about the
first day back to school following the holiday break, soon after she had
returned home from Bernovem. She had actually looked forward to going back to
school—a rarity—to tell Miss Hensley about her magical adventure, but when she
ran into the classroom, so very excited to see her teacher, she was instead
greeted by another teacher, Mr. Cracket, the most boring and annoying teacher
in the whole world, whose breath always reeked of garlic and stale coffee. He
was her class’s substitute teacher whenever Miss Hensley was away.

“Is Miss Hensley sick?”
Kristina remembered asking Mr. Cracket.

“Oh, no, something far
better than that.” Mr. Cracket’s permanently red face grinned back at Kristina.
“She’s been transferred to another school.”

“What!” Kristina almost
shouted—an octave higher and she definitely would have been shouting. “Where
to?”

“Uh, uh, uh! Sorry!
That’s totally confidential.” Mr. Cracket wagged his finger back and forth in
front of her face like the pendulum on a metronome. Then he cut loose with his
annoying, fake laugh that he was so famous for. “Now take your seat and get
ready for an exhilarating pre-algebra quiz.”
That was about the worst day of
that year, and this day at horse camp is probably the worst day of this year.

Kristina heard
footsteps coming toward the cabin so she quickly got out of bed, grabbed the
silver ball from the table, put it back in its leather pouch, and shoved the
pouch back into her backpack. Then she got back into her bottom bunk to pretend
to be asleep.

Hester, Davina, and
another camper entered the cabin. Kristina could hear them talking and laughing
about her. They made Kristina so angry that she decided that first thing the
next morning, she would call her mom to come to pick her up and take her home.
Even though she would have loved to ride a horse, she just couldn’t take
another day at camp with Hester and Davina.

~ ~ ~

The birds chirping
outside the cabin woke Kristina. She got up and quietly went to look out the
window. The sun was already shining brightly, and there wasn’t a cloud in the
sky. It was a beautiful day for horseback riding—a perfect sunny day that she
would instead spend driving home with her mom, trying to explain to her how she
just couldn’t get along with Davina and Hester.

The other girls were
still sleeping when Kristina very quietly made her bed and packed up her
belongings. On her way out of the cabin, a floorboard squeaked and woke Davina.
She opened her eyes just as Kristina was disappearing out the door.

About ten minutes into
the twenty minute walk back to the ranch’s main office, the morning sun was
already making Kristina sticky hot. Her backpack felt like it was stuffed with
rocks rather than clothes. She decided to stop momentarily and take it off to
relieve her aching shoulders. After it fell to the ground, she felt as light as
a feather. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and looked around at the dark
green forest surrounding the dirt road. She heard gravel crunching. Then
someone suddenly appeared around the bend in the road. It was a boy, but she
couldn’t see his face very well because he was wearing sunglasses and a
baseball cap. He walked directly up to her, picked up her backpack, and handed
it to her.

“Thanks!” Kristina
said, wondering who he was.

“Just don’t ever say
that I never did anything nice for you.” A familiar and irritating grin filled
the boy’s face.

Right away, Kristina
knew his voice and his grin. A dry lump filled her throat. Ugh! “Graham
Kepler.”

“Kristina Kingsly!”
Graham said in a high, mocking tone.

Kristina felt her
cheeks flush with frustration. “So you’re here at camp as well?”

“Yup, but not in the
same way you are, taking it easy and lazing around. I work here.” He looked
down at her smugly.

“Good riddance!”
Kristina said coldly and began walking away in the direction of the office.

It was bad enough that
in her English class last year, Graham’s desk had been directly across the
aisle from hers, but now, even worse, he was working at the same summer camp
that she was attending. She wasn’t too surprised, though, knowing now that
Hester’s family owned the ranch. Actually, when she thought about it, she
remembered that there were many times on the school bus when she’d heard Hester
blackmailing Graham, telling him that if he didn’t do exactly what she wanted,
he wouldn’t be able to come to her ranch.
So, that must be why she always
got her way with him.