The Hidden Stairs and the Magic Carpet (5 page)

“Too bad it’s not a
magic
storage room,” Julie said. “The invisible cloak isn’t big enough for all of us. And there’s nothing here but these dumb old rugs.”

“Rugs?” said Keeah. “They might be old, but…maybe they’re not so dumb. Check the label.”

Clonk!
The Ninns banged harder on the door.

Julie read the label. “It says, ‘Rugs by Pasha. Do not remove this tag.’ ”

Keeah’s face lit up. She nearly laughed. “Find a green one with purple spirals in the corners.”

“This is no time to pick out a rug!” Eric said.

“Not just any rug,” Keeah said. “A Pasha original.” She helped Julie tug out one big carpet. They spread it on the floor.

Kkkrrkk!
The door started to splinter.

Eric felt his strength slipping away. “We can’t hold this door much longer!”

“Everyone on!” Keeah said, sitting on the rug.

Julie jumped on. “Now what? We fly?”

Suddenly, the carpet lifted from the floor.

“Yikes!” Julie gasped. “I guess we do!”

Keeah laughed. “The carpet must like your voice. Pasha’s rugs don’t fly for just anybody.”

Julie shrugged. “All I said was…fly.”

Swoosh!
The carpet circled the room!

Blam!
The door shook. One of its hinges blasted off.

Max strained with his thin arms and pried the window open. Cold air swirled in from outside.

“Max! Eric! Neal!” Julie cried. “Get on the rug!”

“No,” said Max. “I must go save Leep. Besides, I don’t ride rugs. I get airsick, you know!”

Waving with three of his arms, Max scrambled out the window and down to the ground below.

Neal jumped onto the rug, holding the soccer ball between his legs. “Whoa! It’s wobbly up here!” He clung to the long fringe and held out a hand to Eric. “Grab on, pal!”

Kkkrunch!
The door burst open, and a dozen Ninns rushed in, with Lord Sparr in the lead.

Eric leaped to the carpet.

“I
will
stop you!” Sparr cried. He thrust his fist at them. “Red Eye of Dawn, give me the power!”

Kla-bbblam!
Bolts of jagged fire exploded in the room just as the carpet slid out the window.

The rug pulled away into the air. But Sparr aimed his fist again.

“He’s going to blast us!” Neal yelled.

Suddenly, the white falcon was there, tearing out of the clouds! It swooped with incredible speed, right at Sparr.

“It’s attacking him!” Keeah cried.

Ka-whoom!
The flame from the red jewel seemed to engulf Sparr’s hand. He stumbled back, his face twisted in pain, as the fiery bolts flew harmlessly into the air.

“Missed by a mile!” yelled Julie. She steered the rug higher and higher into the sky.

“I will hunt you down!” Sparr shouted. But the falcon swooped again, driving him back from the window.

Swoosh!
The carpet lifted up from the fortress.

“Yahoo!” Eric yelled as they soared into the sky.

He was still yelling when they disappeared behind the clouds.

Ten
The World Under the Stairs

Swoosh! Swoosh!

Pink air swirled all around the flying carpet.

“We did it! We’re free!” cried Keeah. She looked over the side until Plud was a tiny dot on the ground. Then she turned to Eric.

“Thank you. You helped me, even though you didn’t know me. Now let me get you home.”

Eric scanned the distance. “The magic stairs faded. I don’t know where they are now.”

“I saw them in a dream once,” Keeah said, narrowing her eyes. “They were in the ice hills of Tarabat. Let’s try there. Julie, head north!”

Julie pulled hard, and the rug swept upward.

As they flew, snow began to swirl in the air. Cold winds howled over them. A few minutes later, they were swerving through narrow mountain passes and over icy peaks.

Suddenly, a rainbow of colors glistened ahead of them.

“There it is!” cried Neal. “We found it!”

Julie tugged a fringe. The carpet dipped toward the hills. It slowed and hovered at the foot of the stairs.

The three friends hopped to the bottom step.

Eric turned to Keeah. “Galen was right. We did enter a world in trouble.”

Keeah nodded. “But a world with hope, too. Thanks to all of you, I can keep fighting Lord Sparr.”

Eric handed her Galen’s invisible cloak. “Galen said we can’t take anything with us.”

Keeah smiled. She held the soccer ball in her hands for a moment, then tossed it to Eric. “And don’t leave anything behind!”

Then she tugged on the carpet. Obediently, it pulled away from the steps.

“Will we see you again?” Eric called out.

The icy air began to sing all around Keeah. “If the magic works, you will!”

A moment later, she soared over the hills.

Eric stared into the snowy air until she was gone. “If the magic works?”

“Better hurry,” Julie said, starting up the steps, “or we’ll be stuck in this snowstorm forever.”

The three friends ran up the stairs and entered the small room in Eric’s basement.

Eric turned to take one last look at the strange world of snow beneath them.

“Good-bye, Droon,” he said. He touched the wall next to him.
Click!
The light went on.

The cement floor instantly took shape beneath them. The world under the stairs disappeared.

As if it had never existed.

The three friends just stared at one another for a long time. Finally Eric opened the door and walked out into the basement. It was still cluttered and messy.

“I don’t know,” he said, dropping the soccer ball onto the dusty chair. “It does seem kind of impossible, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah?” Neal said, holding his stomach. “I still feel that rug bouncing under me.”

“And we helped Keeah,” Julie said. “That was real. It was too cool
not
to be real!”

Eric slid a box in front of the door. “Galen told us to keep Droon a secret. And Keeah said we’ll know we’re going back, ‘if the magic works.’ Until then, I guess we just have to wait.”

Julie checked her watch. “We’ve been gone for hours. We’d better tell our parents we’re okay.”

Together they tramped up to the kitchen. Eric took a deep breath and opened the door.

His mother was sitting at the dinner table. She had a shocked look on her face. “Eric?”

“Mom, let me try to explain. We –”

“Eric,” she said, “you’ll never get the job done if you give up so soon.” She pointed to the clock.

It was only ten minutes after two.

“We did all that
in ten minutes
?” Neal said.

Julie’s mouth dropped open. “That means –”

Mrs. Hinkle stood up. “You’ve finished the entire basement?” She started for the door.

“Mom, no!” Eric said, blocking the door. “Actually, we didn’t get far. There’s still a lot to do.”

She glared at him. “Because after the basement is the attic. And the porch. And the garage –”

Wham!
The basement door slammed shut as Eric and his friends rushed back down the stairs.

They stopped at the bottom and stared.

Floating silently in the middle of the messy room was the soccer ball. Across the surface of the ball were the letters written in thin blue ink.

“A message from Keeah!” Eric cried.

Neal studied the words. “It says, ‘Your dreams will tell you to return.’ ”

Suddenly, the patches of black and white swirled around the surface of the soccer ball, forming the ragged shapes of countries.

“It’s a globe,” said Julie. “A globe of Droon!”

The globe floated magically for a few moments, then changed back into a ball again.

It dropped into Eric’s hands.

“Whoa!” he gasped. “Guys, I’m no wizard, but I’m pretty sure the magic is working!”

“Me, too,” said Neal. “I say we go home tonight and do some serious dreaming!”

Julie nodded. “And we keep on dreaming –”

“— until we get back to Droon!” Eric said.

Then the three friends laughed out loud together.

“To Droon!” they cheered.

Tony Abbott is the author of more than two dozen funny novels for young readers, including the popular
Danger Guys
books and
The Weird Zone
series. Since childhood he has been drawn to stories that challenge the imagination, and, like Eric, Julie, and Neal, he often dreamed of finding doors that open to other worlds. Now that he is older – though not quite as old as Galen Longbeard – he believes he may have found some of those doors. They are called books. Tony Abbott was born in Ohio and now lives with his wife and two daughters in Connecticut.