You sound like a tourist brochure I said That’s because it is from a brochure She pulled a folded paper from the pocket of her tool belt and handed it to me The glades are the only place in Rockfall Mountain where you can find over three hundred varieties of glowshrooms Fascinating I yawned Spending the week in Principal Weaver’s office was sounding more exciting every second Wake me up when we get there A buzzing came from the front of the bus A blaze fairy the size of an ogre’s tooth flew up the aisle Fizz Marlow the fairy barked Now you’re in trouble Tank muttered and doubled her focus on her phone’s circuit board Miss Blinx Gravelmuck Elementary gym teacher and three-time Slick City weightlifting champion zipped closer Henelle tells me you were late Marlow she sneered I will not have any students go missing or get eaten on this trip That would create far too much paperwork This is your only warning Miss Blinx buzzed back to the front of the bus before I could think up one of my amazing comebacks It was probably for the best For the next few days 6
Miss Blinx was in charge She might be small enough to fit in a troll’s pocket but you did not want to make that fairy mad Near the middle of the bus Mr Mantle hovered above his seat flipping through the pages of a book He is my math teacher and he looks like a floating brain with a mustache and wispy tentacles for arms When your teacher is all brain and loves numbers you know you’re in trouble Mr Mantle and Miss Blinx were our chaperones for this field trip Our whole class had been planning it for months We had held bake sales and raffles to raise enough money and now we were on our way I wasn’t a huge fan of spending a week looking at glowshrooms but anything was better than looking at the walls of a classroom Beside me Tank quietly tinkered with her phone The other kids around us laughed and chatted excitedly excitedly bouncing in their seats with each bump in the road as the bus rolled through the outskirts of Slick City Outside the window my hometown whizzed by as the driver steered us deeper into Rockfall Mountain From mystery-loving goblins like me to fire-breathing dragons Rockfall Mountain was home to a vast underground underground world of scales tails fangs and fur 7
I had never been this far outside of Slick City so you’d think I’d be excited Instead it felt like some thing was missing It had been weeks since Tank and I had solved a mystery And even then it had only been finding Mr Mantle’s missing monocle Excitement overload on that case There wasn’t much chance of finding a new mystery in a field of glowshrooms so there was nothing I could do about it now I guess even scaly detectives need a holiday from crime solving every now and then I closed my eyes and tried to have a nap It had been a busy morning what with me rushing to get to school on time and all I must have drifted off to sleep because when I opened my eyes the bus had stopped Monsters were getting out of their seats and grabbing their things Restroom break Tank said We’re at the Sparkling Falls rest area Mr Mantle says the falls are a sight to behold Whatever that means Let’s see what makes them sparkle I climbed out of my seat and shook the sleep from my tail 8
SPARKLING FALLS Stick together children Try not to fall off the cliff 9
