Cinderella: Ninja Warrior (17 page)

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Authors: Maureen McGowan

Tags: #Fairy Tales & Folklore, #Juvenile Fiction, #Adaptations, #Interactive Adventures

BOOK: Cinderella: Ninja Warrior
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She lifted the wand and her fingers tingled. Max was going crazy, doing loops in and out and around her legs, brushing and meowing and jumping.
“Yes, Max, you’re right. I should try it out.”
She pointed the wand at her stool with its wobbly leg, not really sure what she was doing, but thinking that surely her mother’s wand should be powerful enough to mend a stool leg. The stool fell over onto the floor. Well, that had not exactly been her objective, but she’d managed to make something happen. She might as well go for the gusto and try to escape.
She ran toward the garden door, which never opened while the sun was up, and concentrated.
Cinderella focused on the handle, then raised the wand and flicked it, saying, “Open, sesame.”
A spark flew from the wand and struck the door. She was thrown off her feet onto the floor, and a charred streak appeared on the wood of the door. She jumped up, dashed over, and pulled on the handle. It was as sealed as it ever had been.
Max wound his way between her legs again, insistent and annoying. Maybe there were instructions somewhere in that box? She’d only opened the one compartment, so she tried the other and found a velvet pouch with something weighty inside it. She loosened the silk drawstring at the top and slid the pouch’s contents into her hand. Her fingers caressed a beautiful golden necklace.
A heart pendant hung from a chain that was so fine she couldn’t see actual links. She examined the pendant and saw a crack along its edge: a locket. Maybe the wand instructions were inside. She dug her thumbnail into the crack, but it wouldn’t budge.
Max landed on her lap and she jumped. It was as though the cat had been drinking bowls of coffee. He lunged for the wand, trying to grab it in his mouth, so she tucked it into her apron pocket where he couldn’t reach it.
She scratched his back. “Thank you for helping me find the box, Max. I don’t know how you picked that spot to dig.” The box must have emitted some kind of signal only cats could hear.
Max stretched up to place his paws on her shoulders, then retracted his claws and batted her chin with his paw until she looked down.
Cinderella shook her head. Sometimes she saw something in Max’s eyes that resembled intelligence, but today he was being more of a pest. She picked him up and placed him on the floor. The contest was starting so soon and, without the wand, she lacked the power to break her stepmother’s spell and escape the grounds. And if she didn’t get out, she might never see Ty again.
Based on what Agatha had told her, her stepmother had threatened Ty yesterday when he’d tried to stall them upon their arrival home, so he was unlikely to return to the property. For his safety, she hoped Ty took her stepmother’s threats seriously.
She pictured Ty’s sparkling blue eyes, his shaggy blond curls, his strong jaw and lips, and imagined the teasing tone in his voice. Her belly stirred and she felt a stab of longing in her chest. At the same moment, the locket sprang open.
Gasping, she checked inside. It was another heart—solid, forged from metal and painted in deep red enamel. The beautiful object fit perfectly inside the locket. But as nice as it was, her heart sank. She hadn’t found instructions on how to operate the wand. She placed the red heart back inside the locket and strung the chain around her neck.
She felt around the box for a hidden compartment, but found none.
Ah! The wand itself could have the answer. Perhaps she was supposed to use the wand to extract the instructions from the box. At this point, no idea was too silly.
Leaving the box on the bed, she took the wand from her pocket, backed away a few steps, and lifted the wand. Yes, this would work.
Concentrating, she bent her wrist to prepare.
Max jumped onto her arm. She jumped, and the bolt of magic energy hit the corner of the bed instead of the box. The straw sizzled and burst into flames.
“Ah!” She scrambled around her bed to grab a bucket of water. She doused the flames and then turned to pick up the wand, but Max had the wand in his mouth and was spinning around in tight circles.
“Silly cat!” she said. She tried to grab him, but he wouldn’t stop. “Max, give me that. You’re going to ruin it.”
He spun two more times, backed up a few feet, and then, still holding the wand, he jumped into her arms and passed the wand to her.
Cinderella dropped Max to the floor, wiped the cat spittle off the beautiful wood, and then held it up to the light from the window. At least he’d been careful—it didn’t look as if he’d left any tooth marks.
What could she try next?
Max jumped around her again, and she shooed him away. “Get lost, Max. Can’t you see I’m busy?” She brushed her wand hand over the misbehaving cat.
On the third flick of her wand, a flash appeared above Max’s head.
Cinderella froze.
Her cat disappeared under a searing blue-white light that flew from the wand and turned to smoke.
She’d killed her cat. Her heart clenched.
Please
, she thought,
please let him be okay
.
Drawing a deep breath, she fanned the air with her free hand as the smoke continued to build. There was so much smoke, but it was of a kind she’d never seen before. It was somehow lit from within. It glinted and sparkled and didn’t smell the way smoke usually did. It smelled like cloves and vanilla and chocolate. It smelled like . . . magic.
Realizing that casting more accidental spells was not a great idea, she tucked her wand into the pocket of her apron, then waved at the smoke to find Max. It started to clear, but not in the way smoke normally cleared. It didn’t spread and dissipate into the air. Instead, it gathered, became more solid, and took form.
She blinked a few times and tried to wave the smoke away, wondering if her eyes were playing tricks on her. The smoke looked as if it were forming into the shape of a person.
A moment later, a short, stout man appeared; he had silvery-gray hair and bright, flashing green eyes, and was dressed in an elegant suit of gray velvet with scarlet trim. A shiny black belt was wrapped around his ample middle. Bits of his hair shot out like tiny wings over his ears. He licked the back of his hand and rubbed it over his cheek, as if he were cleaning whiskers.
She staggered back, tripped over the toppled stool, caught her balance, and then gathered her courage. “Who are you?” Her voice was too soft, too timid. She pulled herself up, struck a warrior pose and this time demanded, “Who are you? Where did you come from? And what have you done with my cat?
The man looked down at his body in amazement and then up at Cinderella with a huge grin on his round, jolly face. He spun around in a circle, almost as if he expected to see something on his bottom. Then he looked back to Cinderella and smiled.
“You did it!” he said, sounding surprised. “I didn’t know if you were ready to hold a wand, but under the circumstances, well, I thought it was worth the risk.”
Cinderella gave him a stern look. “Where is my cat?” she asked.
“Cinderella,” the man said, “it’s me. Your godfather.”
“I don’t have godfather.”
“Yes, you do. And thanks for digging up my wand.”
“
Your
wand?” She gripped the edge of the table, wondering how long it would take her to reach the kettle hanging over the fire, the only object visible that could serve as a weapon. “That’s my mother’s wand!”
“It
was
your mother’s.” The man bent his legs a few times, as if testing them out, and then put his hands on the floor and stretched his backside up. His actions were remarkably similar to a cat’s.
Something cracked. He winced as he stood and grabbed his back. “Oh, that’s better.” He winked.“After your mother died, the wand became your father’s, but before he remarried, he gave it to me for safekeeping.”
He tipped his head to the side in a slight rolling motion, and pawed his cheek with the back of his right hand. He continued, “That is, until you grew up.”
“So, it’s my wand?” She was so confused.
“Not yet.” The man who called himself her godfather stretched out his fingers, pulsing them a few times, and then drew his nails along the top of the wooden table. Looking as if he’d suddenly remembered something, he cracked his knuckles and smiled. “I’d forgotten how good that feels.”
He turned toward her. “I’m the wand’s official guardian, and it’s up to me to decide when you’re ready. It’s very dangerous for a fledgling wizard to use a wand without training, especially a fledgling wizard with such strong innate powers.” He tipped his head to the side in a weird swooping manner. It was almost as if he were impersonating a cat.
“Still”—he jumped onto her bed, hands first, legs following—“it’s impressive how you managed to control the wand. You helped me alter your stepmother’s spell.”
Cinderella backed away, gripping the wand tightly, wondering if she could use it to keep this strange, catlike man from attacking her. “Who—what are you?”
“Don’t you recognize me?” He stepped off the bed, his arms spread as if he planned to hug her. “I’m your godfather, Fred.”
“Stay away.” She circled the table until it was between her and the man. “Are you a fairy?” She’d heard of such creatures living in the neighboring kingdoms, but had assumed they were just silly stories.
“A fairy godfather?” He laughed. “That’s funny. No, Cinderella. I’m your
real-life
godfather, Fred. I came to visit you not long after your father . . .” he hesitated and bowed his head, then continued, “. . . not long after your father passed away.” He took a step forward. “I could tell instantly that your stepmother was evil. She’d torn the house apart looking for your mother’s wand, not knowing that your father had entrusted it to me before he married.”
Cinderella sucked in a sharp breath. “Where’s my cat?” She knew she was stammering, but under the circumstances, she decided to give herself a break.
“I saw how your stepmother was treating you, and told her I’d ask the king to grant you ownership of this house, even though you were barely five years old. Failing that, I planned to take you away from this place, forever.”
Cinderella had a flash of memory. She
had
seen this man before, but his hair hadn’t been quite so gray then. She’d giggled in his arms. He’d brought her candies and chocolate.
“I remember.” Her breaths were shallow, but her body warmed and she instantly felt safer than she had in a long time. “What happened? Where have you been?”
“I turned into Max,” he said. “Well, I didn’t do it on purpose. Your stepmother tried to get me to tell her where I’d hidden the wand, and when I refused, she turned me into a mouse.”
“But . . .” Cinderella shook her head. She’d been starting to believe him, but he was clearly crazy. She pushed herself along the edge of the table to keep it between them. “Max is a cat, not a mouse, and you still haven’t told me what you did to him.”
He laughed and held his belly. “I’m a wizard, you know. I was very powerful in my time. Not quite like your mother was, but good. I did a little tinkering with your stepmother’s spell.” He leaned onto the table and his fingers kept pulsing, almost as if he were kneading the table.
“Tinkering?” she asked, still suspicious.
“I didn’t have enough experience combating black magic—no one does, it’s been outlawed for decades—so I couldn’t block your stepmother’s spell, but I was able to alter it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your stepmother turned me into a mouse, but the moment she left the room, I twisted her magic to turn myself into a cat.” He swooped his head to the side and then batted at his head in a very Max-like gesture. “Cinderella, I’m Max.” He pushed down on the table and jumped up to land on all fours. “Boy, that’s not as easy as it used to be.”
She looked into his eyes. Crazy as it was, it was true. She whispered, “Max . . .” and then stepped toward him. “Or do I call you Fred?”
He jumped back to the floor, rounded the table, and affectionately squeezed her upper arm. “You can still call me Max. I’m used to it now–and I kind of like it.”
She dove into his warm embrace, his strong arms like a blanket wrapped around her. “Oh, Max. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

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