Rescue Princesses #3: The Moonlight Mystery (4 page)

“Can you still see the tracks under all that grass?” asked Clarabel.

Lulu waded in. “It’s a little bit harder, but I can still see them.”

“One moment, Your Majesties,” said Ally, crouching down in the hollow. “See these tracks? They’re really close together.” She walked along the trail. “And here the paw prints get farther and farther apart.”

“What does that mean?” said Emily.

Ally stood up, shading her eyes with her hand. “When the tracks get farther apart, it means the animals started to run.”

“Maybe they ran because something scared them,” suggested Clarabel.

Lulu called to them from the long grass. “Look at this! The tracks go up to here and then they just stop. There’s nothing else.”

The others rushed over to look.

“You’re right, they do just stop,” said Jaminta. “I wonder why.”

They all stared at the last set of paw prints, half-hidden by the grass. Even Ally shook her head.

“Poor cubs! At least there’s no sign they were hurt,” said Clarabel.

“But how did they just vanish?” cried Emily. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Lulu scanned the horizon, tears pricking her eyes. Giraffes were nibbling leaves from the treetops. An elephant stood by the water hole. But there were no lion cubs.

“I hope we can find them,” said Clarabel.

“We
will
find them!” said Lulu fiercely. “Rescue Princesses never, ever give up.”

Climbing back into the truck, Ally and the princesses used a map of the grasslands to plan out where to search. Then, hot, tired, and covered in red dust, they drove back to the palace. Lulu was having her first lesson with her new etiquette teacher after lunch, and Ally insisted she shouldn’t be late.

Lulu frowned as she changed out of her comfortable dress and put on the one she was supposed to wear for the lesson. It was a wide-skirted ball gown that hung down to her ankles. She stared at its frilly edges in the mirror. She liked shorter dresses better. This one would be totally useless for somersaulting.

The lesson began downstairs in a room next to the palace courtyard. Madame Rez was a skinny, gray-haired lady who looked Lulu up and down through little round glasses. Then she made Lulu practice standing up and sitting down over and over, telling her each time what she was doing wrong.

“To be really ladylike, you must have good manners. Hold your skirt like this,” said Madame Rez, lifting one corner of her long gown. “Then place one leg behind the other as you carefully lower yourself to a seated position.”

Lulu sighed, grabbed her dress, and plonked herself down on the chair.

“No, no, no!” Madame Rez clutched her face in horror. “Those are not the manners of a princess! Keep your back straight and lift the skirt delicately, like this.”

Lulu grimaced and pulled her tiara down over her forehead. She knew she should try harder, but it seemed like such a waste of time. She longed to get back outside and continue the search for the lions. She sat down on the chair, swinging her legs and looking out the window.

“Next we will practice how to sit still on a chair,” declared Madame Rez.

Lulu groaned.

By the end of an hour, she still hadn’t managed to sit down and stay still in a way that made Madame Rez happy. She felt frustrated and hot and just about ready to leap out of the window.

“Let us try standing straight by balancing a book on the head,” said Madame Rez. “There is so much I must teach you to make you ladylike!”

Lulu’s mouth dropped open. She’d already lasted an hour. Surely it was time to stop! She had to find a way to make Madame Rez let her go.

Just then, there was a faint scratching at the window that looked out over the courtyard.

“What was that?” asked Madame Rez sharply. “We cannot have any interruptions.”

The scratching grew louder, and a deep purring made the window pane rattle.

Lulu turned around to catch a glimpse of big brown eyes and silky whiskers pressed up against the glass. Then the creature’s mouth opened to reveal two rows of large, pointed teeth.

“A wild beast!” shrieked Madame Rez. “There’s a wild beast outside!” She scurried out of the door in a surprisingly unladylike manner.

Lulu giggled. She ran over to the window and opened it to look for Tufty. She spotted Clarabel, who was holding the wriggling cub in her arms.

“It’s all right, she’s gone now!” hissed Lulu. “You can come out.”

Emily and Jaminta, who had been hiding around the corner, came over to join Clarabel.

“Sorry, Lulu!” said Jaminta. “Tufty slipped out of the bedroom when we opened the door.”

“We had to chase him around the palace,” added Clarabel. “Luckily no one saw us.”

“Sorry to ruin your lesson!” Emily grinned.

Lulu rolled her eyes. “It was terrible! I felt about as ladylike as a giraffe! Now let’s get out of here before someone spots Tufty.”

Lulu slipped out of the door and beckoned them to follow her. Just as they were about to hurry away, they heard footsteps coming toward them.

“Where should we put Tufty?” whispered Clarabel.

Lulu looked around, but there was nothing in the hallway that would hide a wiggly lion cub. Then an idea struck her.

“Pass him to me,” she said, taking Tufty from Clarabel’s arms. Quick as a flash, she put him down on the floor and swung her skirts over him so that he was hidden underneath. Luckily, her long, frilly dress reached right down to the ground. She dropped her skirts just as Lady Malika swept around the corner.

“What are you all doing?” she asked, looking at the girls with narrowed eyes.

“Nothing,” said Lulu.

“Really, nothing at all,” added Emily.

Tufty gave a little meow beneath Lulu’s dress, which Jaminta tried to drown out with a loud cough.

“It’s nice to see you in a proper dress for a change, Lulu,” said Lady Malika.

Lulu’s skirts shook as Tufty bounced around underneath, trying to find a way out. “Er … thank you, Aunt,” she said.

Lady Malika frowned for a moment. Then she gave them one of her half smiles and walked away down the corridor.

“That was close!” whispered Emily.

Picking up Tufty, Lulu raced away, with the others following close behind.

After taking the little lion cub back to Lulu’s bedroom, the princesses hurried out in the truck with Ally to search the grasslands again. To their disappointment, there was still no sign of the lioness or the missing cubs.

As the sun began to set, they returned to the palace to eat dinner with the grown-ups and Prince Olaf. Afterward, they gathered in Lulu’s room, wearing pajamas. Their jeweled rings glimmered on their fingers. It was a hot night, and the windows were flung wide open to try to catch any faint breeze.

“If only we’d found some kind of clue.” Lulu sighed, folding up the map of the grasslands.

“Let’s try again tomorrow,” said Clarabel. “We’ll find them somehow.”

There was a knock at the door, and Ally entered carrying a tray of sugared marzipan shaped into little flowers and stars. The girls settled down on Lulu’s bed to eat the candies. After his afternoon of mischief, Tufty had fallen fast asleep.

Ally crossed to the window to close the curtain, but stopped and gasped when the full moon came out from behind a cloud. As shafts of moonlight hit the mountain, its enormous black shape began to shine, until the whole peak transformed into glittering silver.

“What’s wrong, Ally?” Lulu leaned forward. In the moonlight she could see that Ally was very pale.

Ally stared at the mountain. “So that’s why it’s called Shimmer Rock! I’m sorry, Your Majesties,” she smiled weakly. “It made me think of something from long ago.”

“Why does Shimmer Rock sparkle like that, Lulu?” asked Jaminta.

“Well, the stories say that there’s magic in the mountain,” said Lulu. “But if you go right up to it and look closely, you can see millions of tiny crystals inside the stone. The moonlight makes the crystals shine.”

“What is it, Ally? You look so strange!” Emily peered at her.

Ally hesitated. “I’ve heard about this mountain before,” she said slowly. “Although I didn’t know then that it was called Shimmer Rock. It all happened when I was working as an undercover agent searching for the missing Onica Heart Crystals.”

“I remember you telling us about them before,” said Emily. “You said they’re the most famous missing jewels in the world!”

“They were the most prized treasure in my kingdom, a long time ago,” added Jaminta, who came from Onica.

“That’s right. They were very famous and highly prized jewels,” agreed Ally. “I was told that they’d been crafted out of gems that came from a ‘land of lions,’ but it was a secret exactly where that was. Now I think that maybe it was here.”

“Those Heart Crystals must be very beautiful,” said Clarabel.

“Maybe jewels could help us find the missing lions.” said Lulu excitedly. “How about your pearl, Clarabel? Remember how you used it to find the dolphin last time? Maybe you could use it to find the lions.”

Clarabel shook her head. “It’s an ocean gem, so it only works for ocean creatures. Are there any other jewels that we could use, Jaminta?”

The princesses all looked hopefully at Jaminta. She had great skill at shaping gems to give them a special power, something she had learned from a master gem maker at home in the kingdom of Onica.

Jaminta pulled a velvet bag from her pocket, opened it, and poured a handful of glistening jewels onto the bed. “I can’t think of anything that would help us. Here’s the amethyst Clarabel chose from the treasure chest on Ampali Island. All I’ve done is polish it so far.” She picked up the purple jewel and then yawned widely. “But looking at it always seems to make me sleepy.”

The other three girls looked at the sparkling purple jewel and yawned, too.

“How strange that a jewel would make us so sleepy!” Emily said, rubbing her eyes.

Ally took one last look at Shimmer Rock and closed the curtain. “Maybe you’ll have some new ideas in the morning, Your Majesties. For now, I think you should get some sleep.” She went to pick up the tray of marzipan but accidentally knocked it onto the floor with a clatter.

The noise woke Tufty, who jumped up in the air, landed on the floor, and scrambled under Lulu’s frilly ball gown, which was lying in a heap. The dress rippled as he disappeared underneath it.

“Don’t worry, Tufty. Everything’s all right,” said Lulu with a grin.

At the sound of her voice, Tufty stuck his whiskery nose out of an armhole, making the princesses burst out laughing.

Lulu scooped him up and kissed him. “Come on, little one. It’s time for bed.”