The Enchanted Egg Page 2

  Clover nibbled at her sandwich and reread the postcard a few times. What could she write back?

  She certainly couldn’t say anything more about her job. She had to keep the Agency secret; she had promised Mr. Jams. She probably shouldn’t have even mentioned it to Emma in the first place, when she’d written earlier. She had just been so excited.

  Her parents knew only slightly more—that she had a job at an animal adoption agency—but that was it. She was grateful that they were so busy with their own work at the mayor’s office they didn’t pester her for details.

  But Emma was obviously more curious. Clover couldn’t tell Emma anything else, as much as she might want to. Not about Mr. Jams, the egg, even Dipity. Mr. Jams said that most non-magic folk didn’t know how to deal with the magical world and might cause trouble. And that was the last thing Clover wanted.

  Of course, she could tell Emma that she wasn’t unlucky anymore, that she had realized people make their own luck. But she couldn’t tell her how she had discovered that either, since it had all happened at the Agency.

  Clover tucked the postcard away. She would write to Emma later.

  Instead, she picked up something else she had wanted to read: Basilisks: Kings of the Serpents. It was covered in sticky fingerprints. Mr. Jams had obviously read it a lot.

  Snakes didn’t scare her, but basilisks did. Luckily, the book said that baby basilisks spent the first few days sleeping in their open eggshells with their eyes shut. And their glance wasn’t deadly until they reached six months. But they were born with their full fangs.

  “I’m glad you don’t have poisonous fangs, Dipity,” she said, pulling the cat onto her lap and giving him a pat. “Hey! What’s this?” There were sticky bits of strawberry jam in Dipity’s fur. She sighed. Mr. Jams really did get jam everywhere!

  Dipity looked up at her with innocent green eyes. “Nice try. But you know I have to give you a bath.” Clover set aside the book.

  She had yet to bathe any of the animals, but had brushed down the fairy horses with a toothbrush in the washing room. Tansy had a particularly tangled mane, and Clover had spent extra time with a toothpick getting it perfect. She headed to the washing room now, scooping Dipity up under her arm.

  The washing room was beside the kitchen. It was a special room full of tubs of different sizes that hung from the ceiling like strange decorations. An assortment of scrubbers was strung up along the wall. Some were square, others round. One was as big as Clover’s head. The soaps were lined up by the sink, each labeled. There was a thin scaly bar of soap that looked like a slice of tomato for dragons, a sparkly snowflake-shaped bar to clean the unicorns’ horns, bubble-shaped soap for hippogriffs, and a speck of soap almost impossible to see—for “Mimimice,” said the label on its container. Clover didn’t know what mimimice were, but she imagined they were the sort of creatures Dipity would like to chase.

  Dipity was not in a chasing mood now. He was in a mewing mood—doing so at Clover reproachfully, as though he knew what was coming.

  “It won’t take long,” said Clover, filling the sink with a few inches of warm water, then a dollop of Paw-Perfect shampoo. It took her a few tries to scoop Dipity up again, but finally she did, and lowered him into the sink. She half expected the water to turn green like his fur, but it didn’t. Dipity just mewed miserably and struggled to jump out.

  “Oh, come on, silly cat, it’s for your own good,” she said.

  She was trying to scrub behind his ears to get at that jam when she heard something.

  It was whinnying. Not just one whinny, but a chorus! Her grip loosened and Dipity squirmed free at once. He leapt out of the water and bounded out the door. Clover leapt up too, and hurried out of the washing room, ran down the hall, and burst into the stables. The unicorns were tossing their horns, eyes wide.

  “Shhh, shhh,” Clover hushed, trying to calm them, though her own heart was pounding. Something had spooked them. And then she saw the feathers, drifting down like snow.

  The egg!

  She raced toward the pen. Feathers were everywhere, no longer piled up in a mountain in the center. And the egg itself was gone!

  But a second later she saw it—in a far corner, against the wall, half covered in fluff. It must have wiggled and jiggled out of the nest and tumbled all the way over there.

  She opened the gate and waded through the feathers till she reached it. It wasn’t the entire egg, though. It was only part of the shell. And the spots had changed. They weren’t yellow and white anymore. They weren’t there at all! Everything had happened as Mr. Jams said it would, but much faster. Except for the spots—they weren’t supposed to disappear!

  Clover picked up a smaller piece of the shell. It was gooey on the inside, coated with a slime that looked like drool. The egg had hatched. But where was the animal? If only Mr. Jams hadn’t left!

  At least it can’t be a basilisk, she told herself. It would still be sleeping in its shell. With that calming thought, she walked carefully toward the nest to check it—and stepped on something buried under the feathers, something that quickly moved out of the way. At least she thought she did. And she thought she heard a scratching too. But when she searched through the feathers, she found nothing except her blanket and more pieces of the shell.

  Clover swallowed hard. What had been in the egg? And what had happened to it? Maybe it crept out the open gate while she was examining the eggshell? Surely it couldn’t have gone far.

  Her heart still racing, she hurried out and began to check every pen, every stall. “Here, little one,” she called out in what she hoped was her gentlest voice. “I won’t hurt you.” But the creature wasn’t hiding in any of the empty pens or with any of the unicorns. She checked the whole Agency, from top to bottom, over and under everything. Even inside closed cupboards, which most creatures could never get into. But who knew what kind of animal this was, and what it could or couldn’t do? The only loose animal she found was Dipity, lying on top of the fire salamanders’ heated tank, drying off. “Did you see anything?” she asked him, but Dipity ignored her and licked a paw, still clearly annoyed about the bath.

  Clover had just secured all the windows in the Agency so the creature couldn’t escape, finishing with the ones in the kitchen, when the floor started to tremble.

  BOOM! An earthquake shook the Agency. Clover gasped and braced herself against a wall.

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  No—it wasn’t an earthquake.

  It was knocking. Something was knocking on the roof. Something giant.

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  The knocking shook the Agency again, and then a voice echoed, “Do you think it’s closed?”

  “No, no, my honey tub, there is a sign. It says…If I can only adjust my glasses. Yes, ‘Enter,’ so it must be open.”

  “Knock again, then, louder!”

  Clover hurried to the front room. She didn’t want the Agency to be knocked right over, or the hatchling scared half to death.

  She opened the door a crack and peered out at the largest, most perfectly manicured toenails she had ever seen.

  She gulped and then stared up, up, up…

  At giants! Two of the funniest-looking giants she could ever imagine.

  Storybook giants were smelly and hairy, with yellow teeth and cracked nails. They wore dirty clothes and yelled “Fe fie fo fum!” Storybook giants were frightening.

  These giants, on the other hand, looked about as terrifying as two tropical trees.

  Maybe it was because of their clothes.

  The lady giant was wearing an enormous flowery sundress, the straps stretched tight across her mountainous shoulders. A straw hat as big as a beach umbrella flopped on her head. She was in the middle of straightening it. The man giant was wearing a humongous Hawaiian shirt, shorts, sandals, and sunglasses, and a fanny pack the size of a small bathtub. If it weren’t for their height, Clover would have thought they were people from her town who’d gotten lost in the Woods. But the g
iants were twenty feet tall—just taller than the peak of the Agency’s roof. Clover didn’t quite come up to their knees.

  “We should have brought the sunscreen, Humphrey,” said the lady giant to her companion. Her voice echoed down to Clover. “The sun is burning my shoulders.”

  “Don’t fret, Prudence, my peach tree,” replied the giant—Humphrey—beside her. “We won’t be long, I promise. Now, where is that Mr. Jams?”

  Clover took a deep breath, slipped outside, and closed the door cautiously behind her. “Mr. Jams isn’t here,” she shouted up to them. “But I am.”

  “Oh,” Humphrey said, taking off his sunglasses, putting them in his pocket, and peering down at her. “And who are you?”

  “My name is Clover. I work here at the Agency.”

  Prudence sniffed. She leaned over to Humphrey and whispered, “She is very tiny and I don’t think she is from here. She’s certainly not a witch or a princess. I think she’s just an ordinary child. Why would Mr. Jams hire her? His cousin did a fine job of looking after the Agency before—full of spells to keep animals in line—and at least he’s local.”

  “Why, I’m not sure, my winsome whale,” replied Humphrey.

  Clover, who had heard every word, wasn’t sure either. Wouldn’t someone from the Woods, or the magical lands beyond, have been a better choice? She didn’t have any special abilities to keep the animals in line. Maybe if she could do spells, she could find the hatchling, but she wasn’t magic, just like Prudence said.

  “We will have to go someplace else,” continued Prudence.

  Humphrey whispered back, “But, my triple-layer cake, we’ve come all this way. Surely we should see if they have something here.”

  Clover mustered her courage. “Mr. Jams left me in charge while he’s away,” she shouted up at them. “What animal are you looking for? How can I help?”

  Humphrey cleared his throat. “Our goose lays golden eggs and pesky thieves are always trying to steal them. We are gentle giants and unable to provide protection ourselves. We are in desperate need of a guard animal. But we don’t want anything vicious, mind. We tried out my sister’s pet griffin, but that was a nightmare.” Here he pointed to a bandage the size of a bath towel on Prudence’s arm and another just above his own knee.

  Clover thought of the loose animal and how Mr. Jams had told her that not all pets were nice. She turned back to the Agency, checking to make sure she had firmly closed the door.

  “Ahem,” coughed Prudence.

  Clover turned her attention back to the giants.

  “I have, you see,” continued Prudence, “the disposition of a kitten, soft and sweet. Isn’t that true, Humphrey?”

  “Quite so, my lamby flock,” replied Humphrey.

  “So we certainly don’t want a dragon,” said Prudence. “I’ve heard they can give dreadful burns. My skin is very delicate. And no phoenixes either, for the same reason.”

  “We don’t have any dragons or phoenixes right now anyway,” said Clover.

  “Could we look around?” asked Humphrey.

  “Well…you can’t fit inside the Agency, but I guess I could open the back doors to the stables to let you look.”

  “Yes, that sounds like a fine plan,” said Humphrey. “Doesn’t it, my jumbo muffin?”

  But then Clover thought of the loose animal. “Actually, I can’t, because, well…it’s hard to explain. You said you have a goose that lays golden eggs? Do they hatch golden geese?”

  “Don’t you know?” said Prudence with a sniff. “Everyone in the magic world knows about golden eggs.”

  “Well, I…”

  Prudence sniffed again. “Golden eggs most certainly do not hatch golden geese. They are filled with liquid gold. Why do you want to know?” She stared at Clover suspiciously.

  “I…I…” Clover stammered. “I thought it might help to know what animal to suggest. I could bring a unicorn out front to show you, but—”

  “A fine plan,” said Humphrey again.

  “But…honestly, I don’t think a unicorn would be a good match. They aren’t really meant to guard things.”

  “I knew it! All this way for nothing but a sunburn,” moaned Prudence. “And our poor goose is sitting on a fresh clutch of eggs too. I bet some rascal is climbing up the beanstalk as we speak.”

  “There is something I can do for you,” said Clover quickly. “I could write you down in the Wish Book, so when the right pet comes in, I can phone you.”

  “See, my pie pantry, that’s not nothing,” said Humphrey with a giant grin.

  “The book’s just inside,” Clover said. “One moment.”

  She slipped back into the Agency, clicked the door shut right behind her, and lifted the book from its stand. It was so calm and quiet—no sign of a loose animal. Not even Dipity—he was probably still warming himself on the salamander tank. She hugged the book to her chest and was at the door before she realized she had forgotten a pencil. She hurriedly found one in the desk and went back outside.

  Prudence was tapping her foot impatiently, causing the ground to tremble. It was hard to hold the pencil steady as Humphrey dictated.

  “H-U-M-F-R-E?” asked Clover, who was never good at spelling.

  “No, H-U-M-P-H-R-E-Y.”

  Prudence tapped her foot even harder, and the pencil slipped from Clover’s fingers. She picked it up. “H-U-M-P-R-E-Y?”

  “No, no!” said Prudence, stomping this time, and sending both the book and the pencil flying out of Clover’s hands.

  Clover’s bottom lip quivered.

  “There, there.” Whether Humphrey was saying this to comfort Clover or Prudence was impossible to tell. “I brought a special pen just for situations like this.” He fiddled with the zipper of his fanny pack and produced a pair of very thick spectacles that looked like two mammoth magnifying glasses glued side by side. He put them on. Then he took out an extremely long and thin pen and picked up the book, pinching it between two fingers. To him, it was the size of a postage stamp. Using the special pen, he began to write.

  When he was done, he handed the book back to Clover. The letters were shaky, but legible, and glittered gold.

  Humphrey and Prudence Butterbean / Castle Cliffs, #54 Beanstalk Way, 999-999-Eggs / Seeking a guard animal, gentle as a giant.

  “Thank you,” said Clover. “I never thought giants could write so small.”

  Humphrey smiled. “It’s my invention, that ballpoint pen, actually, made with golden yolk ink.”

  “Humphrey, we must be on our way,” interrupted Prudence. “We’ve already left our beanstalk unattended for far too long. With no guard animal, we will simply have to resort to Plan B.”

  “What’s Plan B?” asked Clover.

  “Setting traps for the thieves. Human traps, of course.”

  “I think you mean humane traps, my honey hive,” Humphrey corrected.

  “Of course,” said Prudence.

  “Oh,” said Clover. “Well, I promise I’ll call if a suitable animal comes in.”

  Seeming satisfied with that, the two giants shook her hand with their thumbs and forefingers, and headed off, stepping over the gate—and the gnome—in one stride as if they weren’t even there. Clover could hear the giants’ booming voices, though, even as they disappeared into the Woods.

  “Such a tiny, unmagical thing to be looking after this place. If you ask me, if anyone needs looking after, it is her.”

  “Yes, my jelly-bean jar. But remember what your aunt Mildred says…”

  What Aunt Mildred said, Clover never found out. Their voices had faded at last. But they had left Clover with an idea.

  Maybe she could make a humane trap too, to catch the baby animal. It was a good idea, she thought—a giant one, after all.

  Good ideas can take a long time to carry out. First, of course, Clover had to feed the animals supper. Then, after searching once more (just in case) for the missing hatchling, she got to work on the trap.

  She started by mixing up a
bowl of the Nutrient Formula. It was tricky to get all the powder to dissolve. She had to squish lumps of it on the side of the bowl with the back of a spoon. Dipity hopped up on the counter and looked over her shoulder, but didn’t try to taste any. Mr. Jams was right. It must taste pretty awful if Dipity won’t eat it. I hope the baby animal isn’t as picky.

  Clover carried the bowl of formula carefully to the egg pen. The animal was bound to go back to its nest sooner or later. Clearing a space free from feathers, she propped an old star-salmon crate up on a stick and put the bowl of formula underneath.

  Once the trap was done, she shut Dipity in the room for small animals. He mewed unhappily, but she told him, “You never know, the hatchling might be small, but the egg was big, so it probably is too. You’re safer here, Dipity.”

  Then she made a final round of the Agency, turning some lights on for the hatchling, so it wouldn’t be scared. Even so, after she locked the door, she lingered on the top step, unwilling to leave, until at last she heard a humph from the gnome’s direction.

  She made her way down the path, stopping when she reached him.

  “The egg hatched,” she whispered, “and the animal is loose.”

  The gnome’s mustache twitched.

  “It’s still in the Agency. At least, I think it is. I’ve closed all the windows and locked the front and back doors, so it shouldn’t be able to get out. I’m not sure what kind it is, but if you see an animal leaving that you’ve never seen come in, that would be it. Just keep a lookout, okay?”

  The gnome’s mustache twitched again, which Clover took for a yes.

  She smiled. “Thanks.”

  By the time Clover got home, it was really late.

  Luckily, her parents were still at work, but they had left Clover’s favorite, macaroni and cheese, in the fridge. She ate three helpings, then flopped onto her bed and fell asleep in all her clothes, dreaming of eggs bobbing in the sky, wibbling and wobbling, about to hatch.