Flip's Fair, page 4
“Want to try our potion?” one of the frogs croaked.
“It will turn you purple for five seconds,” another frog croaked.
Clara and Flip nodded and laughed. Clara dipped her hand into the cauldron, where a violet liquid bubbled. She sprinkled the potion on her head and on Flip’s head. After a split second, both Clara and Flip were purple. Clara looked at her purple hands and fingernails. She grabbed a strand of her hair, and was delighted to see that even it looked purple. And then, all of a sudden, the purple was gone.
“That was fun,” Flip said to the frogs. “Thanks so much.”
“Our pleasure,” the frogs croaked back.
“Now let’s try the foxes’ potion,” Flip suggested.
“Sounds great,” Clara said, skipping alongside Flip over to the foxes’ tree stump.
A bright orange fox standing next to a yellow cauldron grinned invitingly. “The potion we invented will make you able to stand upside down for ten seconds,” explained the fox.
“I’ve never done that before,” Flip said.
“Me either,” Clara said. “Let’s try it.” She dipped her hand into the cauldron and sprinkled orange potion on Flip’s head and on her head. Clara looked at Flip and raised her eyebrows. “Here I go!” she sang out. She put her hands on the grassy ground. She pulled her legs upward as though she were about to do a cartwheel—but then she found she could easily keep her legs up in the air. She was doing a handstand! Clara took several steps forward on her hands, giggling with delight. She looked over to see that Flip was walking on her front hooves with her back hooves up in the air. “This is amazing,” Flip said, doing a dance on her front hooves.
“It’s so much fun,” Clara said.
The potion wore off, and Clara’s legs gently returned to the ground. Flip stood next to her on all four hooves.
Flip and Clara walked the rest of the way around the fair. They tried a dragon potion that let them breathe lukewarm blue fire for twenty seconds. They tried a merfairy potion that gave them amazing singing voices for three minutes. They tried a phoenix potion that made their hands and hooves into talons for fifteen seconds. They tried a fairy potion that made them shrink to the size of acorns for thirty seconds. And they tried a squirrel potion that gave them giant, bushy tails for a minute.
Clara loved trying all the potions, but she was beginning to miss Miranda. Plus, she felt ready to help her sister finish making their potion by the creek.
“I hate to say this,” Clara said to Flip, “but I’m ready to go home to the Human World.”
“I completely understand,” Flip said. “Thank you so much for joining us and for saving the Potion Fair!”
“Yes, thank you for coming,” Star said, galloping over.
Stitch and Snow, both purple, trotted over to Clara. “Come again soon,” they said at the same time, just as the purple wore off and they went back to being green and white.
Dash walked upside down on her front legs over to Clara. “We’ve loved having you join us today,” she said.
“It really was wonderful to see you again,” Aqua and Rosie said as blue flames came out of their mouths and nostrils.
Clara looked down as Lucinda, who was the size of an acorn, wove between Clara’s ankles. “Goodbye, Clara,” Lucinda purred. “Do you promise to play another guessing game with me again soon?”
“Absolutely,” Clara said, giving the cat a final scratch behind her silver ears.
Clara pulled the magic silver feather from the pocket of her peach skirt. “I want to fly one last time,” she said, smiling. She imagined flying up into the air, and she giggled as her body lifted upward. Hovering right above the pegasus princesses, she did a somersault and flew in a final circle. Then, she carefully gripped the feather in both hands and said, “Take me home please.”
The feather lifted Clara up into the air. She felt herself spinning, faster and faster. Everything went pitch black. And then she was sitting under a pine tree in the forest surrounding her house. Clara smiled. She stood up. Something heavy was in her skirt pocket. She pushed her hand in and pulled out two purple mixing spoons, just like the ones in Feather Laboratory. Clara grinned. She couldn’t wait to share them with her sister. She leaped with joy. And then she jogged back toward the creek where Miranda was waiting.
Don’t miss our next high-flying adventure!
Turn the page for a sneak peek . . .
Clara sucked in her breath as she admired the front hall of Feather Palace. Painted portraits of the eight pegasus princesses and their pet cat, Lucinda, hung on the magenta walls. Chandeliers cast sparkling light on the black tile floors. Pegasus fountains spouted rainbow water. Pegasus sculptures reared up, wings outstretched, from pedestals. In the center of the room, arranged in a half-circle, were the pegasus princesses’ eight thrones. Lucinda’s sofa—silver with a back shaped like a cat head—was pushed up against Star’s throne. And on it Lucinda lay curled in a tight ball, fast asleep.
Clara looked around the front hall for the pegasus princesses. And then she spotted them next to an open window, huddled around what looked like a purple telescope with eight eyepieces. For a few seconds, Clara watched her friends. And then she called out, “Hello!”
The pegasus princesses jumped in surprise and turned around. As soon as they saw Clara, they reared up, whinnied, and galloped over to her.
“I’m thrilled you’re here,” Star said, hopping from side to side. “You’ve arrived just in time.”
“Welcome back, human friend,” Mist said, trotting in a circle around Clara.
“We’ve been hoping you would come,” Aqua said.
“We have a fun afternoon planned,” Dash whispered.
Rosie nodded.
Flip winked.
Stitch and Snow swished their tails.
“I can’t wait to tell you what we’re doing this afternoon,” Star said in a soft voice. “But I’m going to have to whisper it into your ear so someone—” Star paused and glanced over at Lucinda, who was still asleep, “doesn’t hear. Every once in a while, she pretends to be asleep.”
The other seven pegasus princesses grinned and nodded.
Star leaned up to Clara’s ear and whispered, “Today is Lucinda’s birthday, and I have organized a surprise party for her. Would you like to join us?”
“Yes!” Clara whispered in a voice that was a little too loud. Clara blushed. She had never been good at whispering.
Star laughed. “I had a feeling you’d say yes,” she said. “Are you ready for the best part?”
Clara’s eyes widened. She nodded.
“We are holding the party with Lucinda’s six cousins, the mooncats, on the Catmoon,” Star whispered.
Clara raised her eyebrows. “What is the Catmoon?” she asked.
“It’s the Wing Realm’s very own moon. We were just looking at it through the octogoloctoscope,” Star said, now using her normal voice. “Would you like to see it?”
“Definitely,” Clara said.
“Come right this way,” Star said, and she trotted over to the instrument Clara had thought looked like a telescope. “We used to have a normal monogoloctoscope with just one eyepiece,” Star explained. “But my sisters and I spent so much time arguing over whose turn it was to use it that we decided to get this one. Pick any eyepiece and look through it.”
Clara leaned toward one of the octogoloctoscope’s eyepieces. She closed her left eye and looked through it with her right eye. Clara sucked in her breath with delight. Hanging against a dark lavender backdrop was a silver ball with two mountains that looked like cat ears and two giant green lakes that looked like cat eyes.
“Do you see it?” Star asked.
“Yes,” Clara said. “I had no idea the Wing Realm even had a moon.”
Star leaned toward Clara’s ear and whispered, “We told Lucinda we’re all traveling to the Catmoon this afternoon to help her cousins clean their castle. She’s irritated she has to do chores on her birthday. She’ll be surprised when she discovers we’re throwing a party for her instead.”
“Clara?” a sleepy voice purred. “Is that you?”
Emily Bliss, also the author of the Unicorn Princesses series, lives with her winged cat in a house surrounded by woods. From her living room window, she can see silver feathers and green flying armchairs. Like Clara Griffin, she knows pegasuses are real.
Sydney Hanson was raised in Minnesota alongside numerous pets and brothers. She is the illustrator of the Unicorn Princesses series and the picture books Next to You, Escargot, and A Book for Escargot, among many others. Sydney lives in Los Angeles.
www.sydwiki.tumblr.com
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This electronic edition published in 2022 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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First published in the United States of America in March 2022
by Bloomsbury Children’s Books
Text copyright © 2022 by Emily Bliss
Illustrations copyright © 2022 by Sydney Hanson
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bliss, Emily, author. | Hanson, Sydney, illustrator.
Title: Flip’s fair / by Emily Bliss ; illustrated by Sydney Hanson.
Description: New York : Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2022. | Series: Pegasus princesses ; 3 Audience: Ages 7–10 | Audience: Grades 2–3
Summary: Princess Flip and her sisters have invented the perfect potion to bring to the Wing Realm’s annual potion fair, but when a potion mishap causes a caterpillar catastrophe, the Pegasus princesses will need all of Clara’s creativity to save the day!—provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021042536 (print) | LCCN 2021042537 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0837-9 (PB)
ISBN: 978-1-5476-0839-3 (eBook)
Subjects: CYAC: Winged horses—Fiction. | Princesses—Fiction. | Magic—Fiction. | Imaginary creatures—Fiction. | LCGFT: Novels.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.B633 Fli 2022 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.B633 (e-book) | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021042536
LC e-book record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021042537
Book design by John Candell
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Emily Bliss, Flip's Fair
