“Jazzberry! Fidget! I thought I’d never see you again.”
“Come on,” Fidget said, rubbing his left ear with his hind foot. “You don’t think we’d abandon the girl who saved the world, do you?”
“We knew you were busy,” Jazzberry said, “and the council asked us to wait a while before coming to see you again.”
“Everyone’s been hyper lately,” Fidget said. “Pointing cameras everywhere. You’d think they’d never seen a stag moose before.”
“How have you been?” Annie said.
“Busy,” the dragon said. Now he was scratching his other ear. “They changed my punishment to managing the release of new animals. I wanted to let some carnivores out. We’ve got some great ones, but you wouldn’t believe how loudly a dragon can yell ‘No!’”
“I guess I can’t come see you in our meadow anymore,” Annie said.
“No, but we can visit you. And there are other quiet, sunny places we can meet.”
“It’s time to go,” Jazzberry said.
“You’re leaving already? You just got here!”
“You’re coming with us,” the fairy said.
“Huh?”
“It’s a surprise,” Fidget said. “Get dressed.” She changed quickly into jeans and a T-shirt. Fidget flew behind her and wrapped all four legs around her. “Here we go,” he said.
They sailed out of the window, over the dark houses, and right into the window of June’s bedroom.
“Wake up,” Annie whispered.
“Ahh!” June said. “Annie, what are you— Fidget! Jazzberry!”
“Get dressed,” Annie told her.
“We’ve got a surprise for you,” Fidget said.
When June was ready, Jazzberry told them to hold hands and stand close together.
“But you can’t carry two of us,” Annie said.
“I’ve been practicing,” Fidget replied, and all four of them sailed out the window.
This time Annie recognized the landmarks by moonlight: the Mississippi delta, Gulf of Mexico, Panama canal, Yucatán peninsula, Galápagos Islands, Andes mountains, Tierra del Fuego—and Antarctica.
It was dark but then Fidget did his trick to make it look like day. They could see vast fields of ice, and towering cliffs of the stuff plummeting down into the frothy water. A few icebergs floated below them, serene and immovable. Fidget swooped lower, until they could spot cracks and fissures in the snow fields. They whisked around mountains, flew directly over the South Pole, and finally hovered over a wide, white plain that gleamed in the silver light.
There were figures below them, hordes and crowds of waddling, honking, jostling, squealing, fighting, sliding, playing, comical birds.
“It’s like a dream!” Annie yelled. Her laughter rang off the ice below and was echoed by the happy hooting of the penguins.
###
About the Author
Chris Mason is a software engineer who would rather have been a writer. He worked in the corporate world for 18 years, including ten years at Microsoft. After leaving Microsoft for good he founded GrowlyBird Software, which develops free applications for Macintosh users.
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