Clara and Star looked at each other. Clara covered her ears with her hands. Star flattened her ears against her head, bolted across the room, and threw herself out the cat flap door. Clara took a deep breath and ran after her.

  Outside the mooncats’ castle, Star’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh no,” she whimpered. “What are we going to do?”

  Clara took a long deep breath. “I’m not sure,” she admitted.

  “There is no way we can hold Lucinda’s surprise party now,” Star said, shaking her head. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she added, “Now she’ll actually think we didn’t care about her birthday.”

  “Is there any way to get the gromps back into the gromplesnocker?” Clara asked.

  Star shook her head. “Once they’re out, they bounce around and yell things to guess until someone says the right answer. The glass globe at the top does have a lid that opens.” Star furrowed her brow and paused. “But I can’t think of any way we could get them to bounce back inside.”

  Clara heard the sound of wings beating the air. She turned to see Rosie soaring over the jungle toward them. Rosie smiled cheerfully as she landed next to Star and Clara. “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I had trouble getting my spaceship to start. I can’t wait for Lucinda’s surprise party. How can I help get ready? Do you want me to—” Rosie looked at Star’s and Clara’s faces. “Is something wrong?” she asked. “Why are you both standing outside the castle?”

  Star sniffled as she told Rosie the whole story of what had happened with the mooncats, the streamers, and the gromplesnocker. “Oh dear,” Rosie said. She trotted over to the cat flap door and poked her head through it. She quickly backed out with her ears flattened against her head. “What a disaster,” she said. “That’s the noisiest room I’ve ever been in. We will definitely need to cancel Lucinda’s party. Do you want me to take my spaceship back to Feather Palace right now and tell the others not to come?”

  “I guess so,” Star said, looking down at her hooves.

  “Wait,” Clara said. “Let’s take a few minutes to see if we can think of any way to save the party.”

  Star and Rosie nodded. Star furrowed her brow and cocked her head to the side as she thought. Rosie bit her lip and tapped her hooves against the ground. Clara took a long deep breath. And then another. She closed her eyes. She thought about the bouncing, shrieking gromps and the excited mooncats. She thought about the two lakes, the invisilulls, the bristleblonk, and the snogglesnurp. She thought about Star’s magic senses and Rosie’s magical ability to speak and understand any language. And then Clara opened her eyes, hopped from one foot to the other, and said, “I have an idea. I don’t know if it will work. But the only way to find out is to try.”

  “I’ll do absolutely anything to save the party,” Star said.

  “Me too,” Rosie said. “Anything at all.”

  “The first step is we need to go down to Lake Limpogim,” Clara said.

  “The fastest way to get there is to fly,” Rosie said.

  “Let’s go,” Star agreed, kneeling as Clara climbed onto her back. Star and Rosie flapped their wings and lifted into the sky. They soared over the jungle, above Star’s and Rosie’s parked spaceships, and across the silver beach. They swooped down toward Lake Limpogim and landed next to the lake.

  Star kneeled as Clara slid off her back. Clara skipped over to the bubbling lake, and for a few seconds she watched the slow waves of imagiputty roll to the shore. With both hands she reached into the lake and pulled out the biggest glob of imagiputty she could hold. She rolled the imagiputty into a large ball. She closed her eyes. She imagined five pairs of earmuffs like the ones she and other kids at school wore when their classroom got too loud. In her mind, two pairs were tiny, two pairs were pegasus-sized, and the last pair would fit Clara. She imagined that these particular pairs of earmuffs would work so well that they would block out all sound.

  The imagiputty grew warmer and warmer in her hands until it vanished. A split second later, Clara opened her eyes as the five pairs of earmuffs appeared.

  “What are those?” Star and Rosie asked at the same time.

  “They’re called earmuffs,” Clara said. “I’ll show you how they work when we get back to the castle. But right now, what we need is an invisilull.”

  “I can help with that,” Star said. Her tiara sparkled as she turned to her left. Her eyes widened and she jumped backward. “An invisilull is sniffing your sneakers,” she said to Clara.

  Clara giggled as she felt something gently poke her leg. She thought it was probably the invisilull’s antler. Clara looked at Rosie. “Could you please ask the invisilull to come back to the castle and help us?”

  Rosie cocked her head to the side in confusion. But then she smiled. “Clara, if there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you have some of the best creative ideas to solve tricky problems. I’ll ask the invisilull.” The jumble of letters on Rosie’s tiara sparkled. And then she sang, “Lalish la la la lishalull lish lalull?”

  A high, squeaky voice that came from right in front of them sang back: “Lullish lill lush lush.”

  Rosie laughed. “The invisilull says no one has ever invited her to a party. She can’t wait to join us and help.”

  “Perfect,” Clara said. She thought for a moment. “Do you think she could jump up onto your back so we don’t trip over her?”

  “I’ll ask,” Rosie said. Her tiara sparkled and she sang, “Lalisha lish lush lash lalishlash?”

  “Lish!” the squeaky voice sang. “Lish! Lish! Lish!”

  Rosie giggled. After a second, she said, “There is a very happy invisilull doing a dance on my back.”

  “Perfect,” Clara said, glad to help the invisilull feel included and happy. “Now we need a bristleblonk.”

  As soon as the words came out of Clara’s mouth, a bristleblonk glided across the sand in front of Star’s hooves and began to sweep the sand into a small hill. “Should I ask it to come with us to the castle?” Rosie said.

  “Yes, please,” Clara said.

  Rosie’s tiara sparkled. “Blinkablonkabloinka?” she said in a gravelly voice. “Blobbika blinkotta bronk?”

  The bristleblonk stopped sweeping the sand, jumped up, and grunted, “Bloink! Bloink! Bloink! Bloink!”

  Rosie laughed. “That bristleblonk is excited to join us.” Her tiara sparkled and she grunted, “Blonkobloink blink blonketbloink invisilull bloinky.”

  The bristleblonk leaped up onto Rosie’s back. “I told it to hop up, and to be careful of my other passenger, the invisilull,” Rosie said to Star and Clara with a wink.

  “Fantastic,” Clara said. “We’re almost ready to go back to the castle to put my plan to work. We just need a snogglesnurp.”

  Star turned and looked at the stretch of sand between them and Lake Mogglewop. Her tiara sparkled. “The coast is clear of invisilulls,” she said. “Let’s go!”

  Star and Rosie galloped toward Lake Mogglewop while Clara sprinted after them. The three stopped at the lake’s edge and watched as the green marbles swirled and churned. After a few seconds, a stream of marbles sprayed up into the sky. And then a snogglesnurp crawled out onto the surface of the lake. For a moment, it sniffed the air with its long snout and blinked. Then it waddled toward them.

  “I’ll ask it to come back to the castle and help us,” Rosie said. Her tiara sparkled. And then she quacked, “Snorplepockleprond plonklesnorple snorplesnoop?”

  The snogglesnurp’s eyes widened. It made a loud, excited quacking noise.

  “Snooplepondsnorp invisilull bristleblonk sporpsnoop,” Rosie said.

  The snogglesnurp jumped into the air, fluttered its wings, and landed behind the bristleblonk. “Well, that was easy,” Rosie said.

  “Thanks so much,” Clara said. “Are you ready to fly back to the castle?”

  “I can’t wait to see what your plan to save Lucinda’s party is,” Star said, kneeling. Clara climbed onto her back.

  “I’ll fly extra carefully, since I have three passengers,” Rosie said, with a wink.

  Star and Rosie flapped their wings, flew up into the sky, and headed straight back to the castle.

  Clara pushed open the castle’s pink cat flap and peeked into the front hall. The gromps were still bouncing and yelling. The mooncats were still running laps around the room and meowing loudly. Clara backed out with her hands over her ears.

  “Rosie,” Clara said, “could you ask the invisilull to sing a lullaby as soon as we go inside?”

  “Okay,” Rosie said, sounding puzzled by Clara’s request. Her tiara sparkled and she sang, “Lalull lull lalalish lull lullaby?”

  “Lish!” the invisilull sang out. “Lish! Lish! Lish!”

  Clara smiled. “Now we get to try out these earmuffs,” she said. She placed the tiny pairs of earmuffs on the bristleblonk and the snogglesnurp. She put the pegasus-sized earmuffs on Rosie and Star. And finally, she put the fifth pair on herself. Clara made a thumbs-up sign for Star and Rosie. They nodded at her with nervous faces.

  Clara took a deep breath. She crawled through the cat flap with Star and Rosie right behind her. To Clara’s relief, the earmuffs worked better than any earmuffs she had ever worn. She couldn’t hear the gromps yelling. She couldn’t hear the cats meowing. And she couldn’t hear the invisilull’s lullaby even though she knew the invisilull had begun to sing. The gromps stopped bouncing. For a few seconds, they rolled around on the floor. And then they lay completely still. The mooncats slowed from sprinting to walking. And then from walking to standing. Their eyelids drooped. They yawned and rocked back and forth. And then all six mooncats curled up in the center of the rug, closed their eyes, and fell fast asleep.

  Clara, Star, and Rosie exchanged hopeful smiles. Clara skipped over to Rosie, picked up the bristleblonk, and put it on the floor. For a few seconds, the bristleblonk’s eyes moved in circles as it looked at all the gromps. Then it hurriedly swept up the gromps with its bristle body and bristle hands. After a few minutes, every single gromp was in one large mound. The bristleblonk hopped up the gromp hill and rolled down it. As it hopped to the top of the hill and rolled down again, Clara skipped over to Rosie. She lifted up the snogglesnurp and gently set it down next to the gromp hill. The snogglesnurp sniffed the gromps with its long snout. Then it grinned, dipped its snout into the gromps, and began to inhale them. The gromp hill grew smaller and smaller as the snogglesnurp’s body swelled larger and larger. When all the gromps were inside the snogglesnurp, it rolled backward and pointed its snout upward. That’s when Clara leaned over, grabbed the snogglesnurp, and raced over to the gromplesnocker.

  Star took one look at Clara and galloped over to the gromplesnocker. She used her mouth to lift the lid on top of the glass globe. Clara turned the snogglesnurp upside down so its snout pointed right into the gromplesnocker. A second later, the snogglesnurp was shooting out the gromps. Clara exhaled with relief as she watched the globe fill with gromps and the snogglesnurp’s body shrivel up. When the snogglesnurp finished, Star closed the lid.

  The plan had worked! Clara hopped up and down with excitement. Star reared up with joy. Rosie flashed a thrilled smile. Then Rosie glanced toward her back and looked at Clara expectantly. Clara paused. And then she realized Rosie wanted her to take the invisilull off her back. Clara skipped over to Rosie and waved her hands slowly in the air above Rosie’s back. When her hands touched soft fur, Clara gently found the invisilull’s body and picked it up. She placed the invisilull on the windowsill right next to the pillow she planned to give Lucinda.

  Clara scratched the invisilull’s head between its ears and antlers for a few seconds. When she turned around, she was surprised to see that Rosie, Star, the bristleblonk, and the snogglesnurp were all working together to clean up the front hall. The bristleblonk was sweeping all the shredded, torn, tangled streamers into a pile. The snogglesnurp was waddling around and sucking up all the purple paint from the tile floor. Rosie was dusting the couches and windowsills with her tail. And Star was using her hooves to make a neat pile of balloons to blow up. Clara skipped over to the balloons. She blew up a red one, an orange one, a yellow one, a green one, a blue one, and then a purple one. Just as she was blowing up the last balloon—a silver one—she noticed that the gromps in the gromplesnocker were rolling around. After a few seconds, they jumped and hopped. And then they began to bounce all over the inside of the globe, just as they’d been doing when Clara first saw the gromplesnocker.

  Clara turned to the mooncats. Leander, Lizbeth, Langston, Loretta, Ludwig, and Letitia yawned and stretched. They opened their eyes and blinked. They swished their tails and purred. Clara bet the invisilull had stopped singing. Clara took off her earmuffs. Sure enough, the lullaby was over. She skipped over to Star and Rosie and pulled off their earmuffs. Then she took the earmuffs off the bristleblonk and the snogglesnurp.

  “Thank you so much, Clara,” Star said, beaming. “Your idea saved Lucinda’s surprise party. She’ll be here any minute now.”

  “It was my pleasure to help,” Clara said.

  Just then, Clara noticed Lizbeth creeping over to the pile of ruined streamers with an excited look in her eyes. “I think I’ll just put those streamers outside for now,” Clara said, rushing over and picking them up.

  “Good idea,” Star said.

  Clara ran across the room, dashed out the cat flap, and hid the streamers behind a tree.

  When she came back inside, the snogglesnurp waddled up to her and quacked, “Snurpalurp glurp lurpy?”

  Clara turned to Rosie, whose tiara sparkled as she listened. Then Rosie smiled and said, “The snogglesnurp wants to help you finish making the happy birthday banner by spraying out paint while you move it around to form the letters.”

  “What a great idea,” Clara said. She picked up the snogglesnurp, skipped over to the banner, and held the snogglesnurp so its snout pointed toward the banner. The snogglesnurp spurted out purple paint as Clara moved the snogglesnurp to paint a Y. Then she painted the word BIRTHDAY.

  Clara looked at Rosie and said, “How do I say thank you in its language?”

  “Spurplesnop,” Rosie said.

  Clara put down the snogglesnurp, smiled, and said, “Spurplesnop.”

  The snogglesnurp made a delighted quacking sound. Then it waddled over to the window and jumped up onto the sill. The bristleblonk followed right behind it. Star turned to the window, and her tiara sparkled. “The invisilull is sitting on the windowsill next to its two new friends. I think the three of them will have a great time sitting together watching,” Star said. “Lucinda will be here any second now. I think we’re finally ready.”

  “It really wasn’t much work at all getting ready for the party,” Langston said, purring as he admired the banner.

  “We should host surprise parties more often,” Loretta said.

  “It was easy-peasy decorating and cleaning,” Lizbeth agreed. She sauntered over to the pile of balloons and began to bat them with her paw. Ludwig and Letitia rushed over.

  Clara opened her mouth to ask the mooncats not to play with the balloons, when Snow, Mist, Aqua, Flip, Dash, and Stitch rushed in through the cat flap.

  “ We just asked Lucinda to fly back to my spaceship to get a broom,” Snow said. “When she gets here, let’s all yell SURPRISE! and sing Happy Birthday.”

  “Perfect,” Star said.

  “The front hall looks amazing,” Dash said, admiring the balloons and the banner.

  “This is the cleanest and most organized I’ve ever seen the castle,” Aqua declared.

  “But weren’t there supposed to be streamers?” Stitch asked.

  Clara, Rosie, and Star looked at each other and smiled.

  “The streamers are a bit of a long story. We’ll tell you later,” Star said with a wink.

  Before anyone could respond, Lucinda burst through the cat flap carrying a small broom in her mouth.

  Clara, all six mooncats, and all eight pegasus princesses shouted, “Surprise!” Then they sang Happy Birthday.

  Lucinda dropped the broom on the floor with a clatter. She looked at the gromplesnocker, the balloons, and the banner. She looked at her six cousins, the pegasus princesses, the bristleblonk, the snogglesnurp, and Clara. With a delighted purr and a somersault in the air, she said, “My whole life I’ve dreamed of having a gromplesnocker at my birthday party. I thought today was going to be the worst birthday I’ve ever had. And now I think it will be the very best.”

  Clara laughed and scratched Lucinda behind her ears.

  “Can we start the guessing games right now?” Lucinda asked.

  “Of course,” Star said.

  Lucinda, Leander, Letitia, Langston, Lizbeth, Ludwig, and Loretta meowed with excitement and raced over to the gromplesnocker.

  “There is one really, really important rule,” Star said.

  “Yes,” Rosie said, nodding.

  “Only one gromp at a time,” Star and Rosie said together.

  The cats purred and swished their tails. Lucinda lifted up her paw and quickly tapped the button at the gromplesnocker’s base. A single gromp barreled down the chute and shot out into the room. “Guess my favorite fruit! Guess my favorite fruit!” it shouted as it bounced off the floor, the ceiling, and the walls.

  The cats’ eyes widened and they chased the gromp, calling out, “Lorgmock!” “Rausterlope!” “Quacklepong!” “Neeronop!” and “Bronkopopper!” When Lucinda shouted, “Lurdivicto!” the gromp vanished, and one platter, one trough, and one small bowl appeared. Each was full of grape-sized, green-and-pink-striped balls.

  “Let’s keep playing and eat the lurdivicto later!” Lucinda said.

  “Definitely!” Langston and Letitia said.

  Leander tapped the button next, and a gromp shot out yelling, “Guess my favorite party snack! Guess my favorite party snack!”

 

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