Magic Mountain (9780545536295) Read online

  The front door was shaped like a giant snowflake, too. When Trixi knocked on it with her ring, it trembled and made a tinkly sound that echoed around the empty town.

  The girls listened as the sound died away, hoping that somebody would come to open the door. But nothing seemed to be moving anywhere in Magic Mountain.

  “Where is everyone?” fretted Trixi. She flew back from the snowflake door and pointed her ring at it, chanting:

  “These girls are here to save the day,

  So don’t you try to block their way!”

  With a creak the door swung open, revealing a grand hallway. But the corridor inside was completely dark!

  The three girls took off their skis and nervously followed Trixi as she flew ahead into the hall. There were corridors leading in all directions, and a huge icy chandelier hung from the ceiling. But everything was dim and dark. Worse still, it was almost as cold in here as it had been outside!

  “Hello?” called Ellie. Her voice echoed spookily around the icy walls.

  “King Merry?” Jasmine shouted.

  Then they heard a noise from a passage on the left.

  “That’s where the throne room is!” said Trixi in alarm.

  The girls hurried off in the direction of the sound.

  Summer ran ahead, then stopped and gasped. In front of her was a huge room full of brownies, all huddling together for warmth. Their teeth were chattering and their little faces had turned blue from the cold. In the middle of them all was poor King Merry, shivering hard.

  The king looked even rounder than usual. His curly white hair was covered by an enormous furry hat with long ear warmers, and his crown was perched on top of it.

  As the girls got closer, they could see why he seemed so tubby — it looked like he was wearing all of his clothes at the same time!

  “T-T-Trixi! G-girls! I am so h-happy to s-s-see you,” the king stuttered, hugging himself and jiggling on the spot.

  “You look freezing!” Summer said sympathetically, rubbing King Merry’s arm to warm him up.

  “I can help,” Trixi said, flying high over the shivering brownies. She started casting spells as quickly as she could. Every time she tapped her ring, a hat or a rolled-up blanket or a pair of cozy woolen socks appeared.

  The brownies raised their eyes and watched as colorful woolly hats began drifting down from above. There was one for each of them, printed with the brownie’s name and a different snowflake pattern.

  As they put the warm hats on and snuggled up in the blankets, the brownies started to look happier and their ears turned bright pink.

  “Thank you!” said one brownie, poking his head out from underneath a blanket that had completely covered him. Like his friends, he was about half the girls’ height and had bright pink skin, pointy ears, and short hair. His hat had Blizzard written on it. “Have you come to help us? We’ve been huddling here all night to keep warm. I was afraid I’d turn into ice!”

  “Don’t worry,” said Jasmine, leaning down to talk to him. “We’re here to help. Do you know what’s happened?”

  “It’s the everwarm embers,” he said, looking up at her worriedly. “They’ve all gone out!”

  He pointed toward a big fireplace on the other side of the room. It was heaped high with dusty-looking gray lumps. As the girls watched, one of the lumps fell off the top of the pile and tumbled down to the floor. It landed with a sad little thud and broke into two pieces.

  “Even the embers in our necklaces are cold,” Blizzard said, holding up a long string that was tied around his neck. At the end of it was a dirty, dim gray stone.

  “And if we get too cold, we’ll turn to ice!” another brownie said.

  The snow brownies looked up at the girls sadly.

  “Maybe you could make a fire to heat the embers up?” Ellie suggested to Trixi.

  “I’ll try,” said the little pixie, frowning determinedly. “Stand back!”

  She flew up to the fireplace and aimed her ring at it. A stream of crackling red sparks flew out of it and hit the pile of embers, but they stayed gray and dark.

  “That settles it,” said Trixi, folding her arms and looking cross. “If my magic can’t fix it, then it must be the work of that nasty thunderbolt.”

  “Thunderbolt?” King Merry asked. “Did you find another one?”

  “Yes,” Jasmine said sadly. “Outside, near Ice-Skate Lake.”

  “It sounds like my sister is up to no good again,” he frowned. “We have to find a way to break her spell!”

  “The other thunderbolts have always shattered when we’ve stopped Queen Malice from ruining things,” Summer said. “Maybe if we can find a way to relight the everwarm embers, that will break Queen Malice’s spell!”

  “It’s daytime now and it’s getting warmer,” said Ellie. “Couldn’t we just pile the embers up in the sunshine?”

  “I’m afraid it wouldn’t get hot enough to light them, even when it’s sunny,” said another brownie, whose hat had Flurry sewn on it.

  All of a sudden, Ellie heard a horrible, cackling laugh outside. The girls rushed over to peer out through one of the snowflake-shaped windows. On the other side of the square they saw a huge sleigh, pulled by two wolves with shining red eyes and very big teeth.

  A tall, shadowy figure was standing in the sleigh, staring at the palace. She had a pointy crown on her head, which was perched on top of a mess of frizzy hair. Her black dress billowed around her in the cold wind as she raised her spiky staff to urge the wolves on.

  “It’s Queen Malice!” whispered Ellie. “And she’s heading this way!” She felt Blizzard’s hand creep into hers, and she held it tight.

  Queen Malice peered in through the snowflake-shaped windows as the sleigh slid by.

  “Quick, duck!” Jasmine whispered, bending down so that the queen wouldn’t see her when she passed by.

  Everyone dropped to the floor, their hearts beating fast.

  “King Merry!” Trixi whispered, pointing at his head. “Your crown is still too high up. Queen Malice will be able to see it through the window!”

  King Merry snatched his crown off, but it was too late.

  Suddenly there was a screech of laughter from outside. “It’s no use trying to hide, dear brother,” Queen Malice called. “I can see your silly little crown!

  “There’s nothing you or those annoying human girls can do,” she continued. “The everwarm embers have all gone out, and soon your precious little snow brownies will turn into ice pops. Then there will be no one to look after Magic Mountain, and no one in the Secret Kingdom will be able to have any fun in the snow!”

  She laughed again, and the wolves joined in with long, moaning howls that made everyone shudder.

  “We’re not scared of you!” Jasmine shouted, standing up.

  “We’ll find a way to keep the brownies warm enough!” Ellie added, popping up next to her.

  “Oh, no, you won’t!” Queen Malice sneered through the window. “Not when it gets even colder!” She turned and pointed her spiky staff at the peak of the mountain, and shot a bolt of lightning into the sky.

  The lightning struck a fat gray cloud, pushing it in front of the sun. The sunlight instantly disappeared and the sky turned dim and gray.

  Blizzard shivered. “Without the embers and the warm sunshine, we’ll turn to ice for sure!” he sobbed.

  Summer gave him a hug and then stood up to glare at Queen Malice.

  The wicked queen turned and flashed Jasmine, Ellie, and Summer a cruel smile, then stamped her staff on the bottom of the sled.

  The wolves leapt forward and Queen Malice cackled as she was carried away through the empty streets of Magic Mountain.

  “If we don’t find a way to relight the everwarm embers soon,” Jasmine said with a shiver, “Magic Mountain will be ruined forever!”

  “We have to save the brownies!” Trixi said, shivering so hard her leaf shook.

  “But how?” asked Ellie, pulling her green-and-purple coat tightly
around her. “It’s so cold I can hardly think!”

  “Oh dear,” said Trixi. “There must be something I can do to warm you girls up … I know!”

  She tapped her ring and mugs of hot chocolate appeared on the floor in front of everyone. They picked up the mugs gratefully, but as soon as Jasmine took a sip she almost dropped hers to the floor.

  “Oh no!” she said. “It’s not hot chocolate, it’s cold chocolate!”

  “Sorry, girls,” said Trixi sadly. “I’m so chilly that it’s messing up my magic. I can’t seem to make anything warm!”

  “If only we had the crystal that the people on Cloud Island gave us,” said Ellie thoughtfully. “Then we could control the weather and get rid of that snow cloud.” She took a step forward — and tripped over something.

  “Oops, clumsy clogs!” laughed Jasmine, catching her friend.

  “I’m sure this wasn’t here a moment ago,” said Ellie, bending over to look at the thing she had tripped over. “Hey, it’s the Magic Box!” She picked it up and showed it to the others.

  “It must have known we needed the crystal!” exclaimed Summer. “Look, it’s opening!”

  Ellie waited while the lid slowly rose. Then she lifted out the weather crystal and held it in front of her. The magical jewel glowed as Ellie held it tightly and thought about rays of warm sunshine. Suddenly the throne room grew lighter and warmer as a hole formed in the snow cloud, letting the sun shine through.

  “That’s better!” Jasmine said as Ellie gently placed the weather crystal back into its space in the Magic Box. With a flash of light and a twinkle, the box disappeared.

  “Remember, the weather imps told us the crystal’s magic won’t last for long,” Trixi reminded the girls. “We still need to find a way to relight the embers for good!”

  Ellie nudged Jasmine and pointed at Summer, who had wandered over to sit beside the cold embers. Her chin was resting on her hand and she looked thoughtful.

  “I think Summer’s getting an idea,” said Ellie.

  The two girls walked over and sat down beside their friend. Blizzard and Flurry came over to sit with them as well.

  “There was something my stepdad taught me when we went camping last summer,” Summer said. “He showed us a special way to light a fire. It had something to do with sunshine — I wish I could remember what!”

  Suddenly Blizzard and Flurry’s faces lit up with big smiles.

  “We can help with that,” grinned Blizzard. “Just watch!”

  The two little brownies stood on either side of Summer, who was still gazing at the gray embers. They linked their hands over her head and chanted:

  “Brainstorm spell, brainstorm spell,

  Summer’s thinking very well!”

  As they spoke, pink snowflakes seemed to appear out of the air and dance around Summer’s head.

  Summer’s eyes lit up, and she jumped to her feet. “I remember now!” she said. “You can start a campfire with a magnifying glass. You hold it in the sunshine and it focuses the sun’s power on one spot so that it gets really hot — hot enough to start a fire … or relight some embers!”

  Jasmine looked doubtfully at the pile of cold, gray everwarm embers in the fireplace. “But wouldn’t we need an incredibly huge magnifying glass?” she asked.

  “You can use anything that’s really clear,” Summer replied, “like a lens from someone’s glasses —”

  “Or some ice!” Ellie chimed in, catching on to Summer’s idea.

  “We could use the ice from Ice-Skate Lake!” cried Jasmine.

  “Yes, that’s perfect!” said Summer.

  “That might just work!” said Blizzard, grinning at the girls.

  The other brownies cheered.

  “Let’s get moving,” said Jasmine. “We don’t know how long the weather crystal’s sunshine spell will last, and we have lots to do before the sun disappears behind that nasty snow cloud again.”

  The girls explained their plan to Trixi and the king, and they all rushed out of the palace and headed toward the lake.

  “Won’t the ice just melt in the sun?” King Merry asked, looking up at the bright rays glowing down from behind the hole in the snow cloud.

  “I don’t think so,” said Summer. “My stepdad’s magnifying glass didn’t get hot — it just pushed all the heat onto the campfire.”

  “Oh, splendid!” said the king, clutching his robes around himself more tightly as they walked out into the windy street. “Ingenious! So we put the everwarm embers in the lake to ice up!”

  “Um, no,” said Ellie. “I think what Summer said was —”

  The king shook his hands in the air, as if to say that he finally understood.

  “Ah, I see, I see!” he said. “We ice the sun to melt the embers!”

  “Um, not quite,” Jasmine told him.

  The king looked bewildered.

  “Why don’t we stop and rest for a while, Your Majesty?” said Trixi. “I’ll explain it to you.”

  She raised her tiny eyebrows at the girls. “You go on ahead,” she whispered to them. “This could take a while!”

  The three friends giggled and ran ahead with the brownies to put their plan into action. But as they hurried, they heard poor King Merry getting more and more confused behind them.

  “We’re going to melt the sun with ice-skates … no, put the sun in the everwarm embers … no … oh dear. I’ll never sort this out!”

  By the time the girls and the brownies got to the town square, they had a plan in place.

  First, Summer stood in front of everyone and explained her idea to make a giant lens out of ice. Then Jasmine sent teams of brownies off to visit every cafe and igloo in Magic Mountain to gather up all the everwarm embers from the fireplaces and necklaces and bring them back to the town square. Finally, Trixi and the girls led another group of brownies to Ice-Skate Lake to work on making the ice lens.

  “How are we going to cut such a big chunk out of the ice?” Ellie asked as they walked toward the lake. “Can you do it with your magic, Trixi?”

  “That’s a job for the brownies!” replied the pixie. “They can sculpt and shape ice, remember? Just wait and see.”

  When the group reached Ice-Skate Lake, all the nearby brownies except for Blizzard arranged themselves in a circle around the frozen bank.

  Blizzard strapped on a pair of skates and skimmed out across the ice, looking very serious. He skated around in a circle, leaving a deep cut in the surface.

  The brownies at the edge of the lake began a quiet chant that sounded like gently falling snow. Then there was a loud crack, and the disc of ice broke away from the lake and rose up into the air. It spun over and over, slowly changing shape until it was curved on both sides like the lens of a magnifying glass.

  Trixi pointed her ring at the ice lens, and it began to float slowly in the direction of the town square.

  “I wish I could make things out of ice like that!” Ellie told Blizzard admiringly as they all set off toward town.

  “It’s special snow brownie magic,” said Blizzard proudly. “You’re the first humans ever to see us do it!”

  When they got back to the town square, the girls helped the rest of the brownies pile the final embers onto a heap in the middle of a big patch of sunlight streaming through the hole in the cloud.

  “Does the hole look smaller to you?” Jasmine asked as she squinted up at it.

  “Yes,” Summer replied with a worried frown. “The weather crystal’s magic must be wearing off.”

  “The ice lens is here!” Ellie called as she ran up to them.

  Trixi pointed her ring at the floating ice lens and moved it through the air until it hovered between the sun and the pile of embers.

  Summer waved her arms to help direct Trixi. They had to get the lens in exactly the right position, or the plan wouldn’t work. They turned it left and right and tilted it backward and forward, but they just couldn’t seem to get the sunshine to focus on the embers.

  All t
he brownies huddled together anxiously as they looked up at the hole in the snow cloud, which was getting smaller every minute. Any moment now, the weather crystal’s magic would wear off and the snow cloud would cover the sun again!

  “Come on, come on!” chanted Flurry, jumping up and down anxiously, willing the lens to catch the sun.

  “This is too much for me!” moaned King Merry. He sat down in the snow and covered his eyes. His crown fell off and landed upside down in the pink snow beside him.

  Suddenly Ellie saw a flash of light as the lens focused the sun’s rays for a moment. “Back there!” she shouted to Trixi and Summer. “Left a bit!”

  As Trixi tilted the slab of ice to the left, the sunlight finally beamed through its center. Sunshine streamed onto the embers, bathing them in heat.

  “Look, King Merry!” Jasmine gasped. “It’s working!”

  Just as she finished speaking, there was a soft little pop. A bright red glow appeared at the very top of the big pile. The first ember was alight!

  Another followed, then another and another. Now all the embers at the top of the pile were shining warmly. The little cracking sounds continued as more and more embers came back to life. The brownies squealed with excitement and danced around the heap of embers, stretching their little pink fingers out to feel the heat.

  Trixi flew happily around the edge of the pile a few times, holding her hands out in the warm air. Once she had warmed up, she came back to hover beside King Merry and the girls. Then she tapped her ring and conjured everyone up their own enormous two-handled mug full of steaming hot chocolate. Each mug had a sparkly magic marshmallow the size of a cupcake in it!

  “Mmm, just what I wanted!” sighed Ellie. She took a big slurp from her cup and licked off the chocolate mustache it left behind on her lip.

  “Ahhh,” sighed the king happily, gulping his hot chocolate.