The Mystwick School of Musicraft Read online

  “Is this how they picked up Mom?” I ask.

  Gran nods. “But it was raining that morning,” she adds softly. “I’ll never forget.”

  The street is awfully quiet. All around us, in the dim morning light, the other houses sit silent and still. I start to get anxious, worrying something’s wrong. Maybe the Maestros changed their minds about me. Maybe—

  A tingle of music shivers through the air.

  My chin jerks up. “What’s that sound?”

  Gran sighs. “Sounds like a church organ. Just like it did when it came for your mother.”

  “It’s getting closer!” I shout, just as I realize the noise is coming from the sky.

  I look up to see a storm cloud has gathered out of nowhere. It hangs right above our house, lightning snapping and thunder rolling. And over it all, the sound of organ music splits the sky, rapid, aggressive notes bursting in the air. Whoever is behind the music must be a powerful musician indeed, playing with a skill that leaves me awestruck. The cloud is clearly some sort of spell, but I can’t tell who’s controlling it.

  Gran pulls me close, muttering under her breath, “Honestly, I don’t know why a simple school bus wouldn’t suffice. Always the dramatics with these people.”

  Then all at once, the cloud dissipates, and there in its place hovers a zeppelin.

  “Whoa,” I breathe.

  Hanging in the sky like a great whale, the airship is shiny and purple, with a swirling strip of piano keys down the side under the words Mystwick School of Musicraft. Propellers whir on its tail and fins. The gondola underneath bristles with pipes, and they’re belching golden clouds of magic with the swell of organ music.

  “Teleportation spell,” Gran says, to my surprise. She glances at me. “They always smell of cinnamon. Your mother told me that.”

  I take a sniff and find she’s right. Teleportation spells are very rare and very dangerous. I’ve never even seen one, much less attempted one. Only Maestros are allowed to play them.

  A hatch under the gondola suddenly drops open, and a metal ladder slides down toward us, with a man clinging to the bottom rungs. As the ladder lowers, his black tie flutters free from his crisp white collar. The cuffs of his sleeves are circled with gold bands and the front of his dark coat gleams with shiny buttons. He looks like an airplane pilot, except instead of wings pinned to his hat, there’s a little silver zeppelin.

  When the ladder stops a foot off the ground, he leaps down and lands neatly in front of us. “Ticket, miss?”

  Still stunned by the zeppelin’s sudden appearance, I hand over the ticket that came with my acceptance letter. The man trades me back a piece of grape gum.

  “For the motion sickness,” he says, winking. “Are you Amelia, then?”

  I nod, still speechless.

  “Excellent. You can call me Jenkins.” He turns to Gran. “And this lovely lady is . . . ?”

  Gran snorts. “This lovely lady is the one who’ll drag you by your ear into court if you let anything happen to my granddaughter.”

  Jenkins bows to her, sweeping off his hat and pressing it to his heart. “I assure you, no child comes to harm whilst in my care, madam. This is the safest ship in the world, you have my oath.”

  Then he straightens and whistles, and a tiny shape drops from the gondola’s hatch. It speeds toward us before pulling up in a sweep of feathers. It’s a gray parrot with a red tail, and it’s got a little gold band around each claw.

  “This is Captain,” Jenkins says. “He’ll see to your bags.”

  The parrot lands on his shoulder and blinks at me.

  Jenkins sighs. “I said, he’ll see to your bags. Captain, don’t be rude. Can’t you see this is a very important passenger?”

  I could swear the bird rolls his eyes.

  He takes off with a squawk, then begins to whistle. Threads of magic curl from his beak and surround my luggage like a lasso. The bags lift into the air, and Captain flies around them, guiding them up to the zeppelin. I gape at him. I’ve heard that parrots and certain other musical animals can work magic, but I’ve never seen it happen before.

  “All right,” says Gran, though she still sounds doubtful. “I suppose this is it.”

  I’m bouncing with excitement and impatience, but before I can go, she pulls me into a massive hug. “You be careful, sweetheart. Brush your teeth. And remember, you can change your mind at any moment and come right back home.”

  “Gran.”

  “And write to me every week.”

  “I’ll email, Gran. Remember, I set the computer up for you?”

  She makes a face. “As if I’ll recall how to use that thing.”

  “You will, Gran. I love you.”

  “I love you.”

  Pulling away, I climb up the ladder, higher and higher, till I can see over the roof of the house and across the woods. I can even see my treehouse tucked under the canopy. The wind pulls at me and the ladder sways, but I’m too excited to even be afraid. At the top, I pause to look down at Gran, no bigger than my thumb below me.

  “Bye, Gran!” I shout, waving. I’m not even sure she can hear me.

  Then I turn and scramble up through the hatch.

  I find myself in a large open cabin with lots of comfy-looking chairs that swivel, so you can look out the many windows into the sky beyond. The floor is made of gleaming wood planks, and a big, curving desk with lots of controls and a wooden wheel is tucked into the tapered nose of the gondola.

  At the back is an enormous pipe organ. An old woman is hunched over it, banging on the keys like she’s playing whack-a-mole. Jenkins follows me up and sits in the pilot’s seat. Captain lands on a perch beside him and begins grooming his feathers.

  “Welcome aboard the Bumblebee!” Jenkins says cheerfully. “You’re my first pickup. Which means you get any seat you want.”

  “Hurry it up, Jenkins!” yells the old lady over her organ music. “We’re on a schedule!”

  “We’re going, we’re going! Don’t pop your dentures!” Jenkins yells back, then he winks at me and adds in a low voice, “Miss Myra’s the best organist in the world. But don’t tell her I said so.”

  “Are we going straight to Mystwick?” I ask.

  “What? Not yet! We’ve got a full day ahead, kid.” He picks up a stack of papers and waves them at me. “And a tight schedule. Next stop, London!”

  Taking a seat, I strap on my seat belt and then lean to the window, looking down at Gran. I can barely make her out.

  I wave furiously, grinning so she can see that this is fine, totally fine, completely fine, until the old lady in the back plays a crashing glissando, and suddenly Gran blurs along with the whole world below the zeppelin, hidden behind a cloud of gold smoke. The house, the road, the woods—all smear together and then vanish, and suddenly the zeppelin is soaring through a whirling kaleidoscope.

  Startled, I fall back, staring through the window at the stream of colors. It’s like being inside a washing machine with a bunch of open paint cans.

  Soon I feel so dizzy I think I’m going to throw up.

  An explosion of feathers startles me and I yelp. Then I realize it’s just the parrot, landing on the seat beside me.

  “Gum!” it squawks. “Gum for the kiddos! Gum for the sickos!”

  Quickly, I unwrap the stick and shove it in my mouth. The taste of grape bursts on my tongue, and at once the dizziness passes and my stomach settles.

  The parrot bobs like he’s pleased, then flies back to Jenkins.

  I feel like I’m in a spaceship warping through the universe. Ahead, through the wide windshield, all I can see is a long, infinite tunnel of blurring colors. I’m falling down an endless rabbit hole into a strange new world.

  This is happening.

  This is really happening.

  I’m going to Mystwick.

  My mother’s school, the place that has been so much in my dreams that it feels like a dream itself.

  Behind me, Miss Myra attacks the organ keys,
pumping out the teleportation spell that’s bending the fabric of space all around us. I hope desperately that she doesn’t miss a note. Who knows what would happen if she did? I imagine myself being spread out, a million pieces across a million miles, or the zeppelin suddenly appearing in the middle of a mountain or a stormy sea.

  Despite the fact we’re moving at probably a gajillion miles an hour, the airship feels like it’s standing still. So I unbuckle and walk to the front, where Jenkins is feeding barbecue potato chips to his parrot. His feet are crossed on the dashboard.

  “Well, what do you think of my magic zeppelin?” he asks.

  “Why doesn’t everyone travel by teleportation spell, all the time?” I ask. “Seems much cooler than boring old cars.”

  He points a thumb toward Miss Myra in the back. “Only sixteen people in the world are licensed to teleport anything bigger than a refrigerator. And soon, there’ll only be fifteen.” He shouts around a mouthful of chips, “How old are you, Miss Myra? Like, one hundred and three? Why haven’t you retired yet?”

  “You better not be eating food on my zeppelin, Jenkins, you moose!”

  “Your zeppelin, Miss Myra?” Jenkins bellows. “Your zeppelin!? I ought to drop you off on a desert island.”

  “You cheeky baboon! I’ve been teleporting this leaky balloon all over the globe since before you were born.”

  “Leaky?” I echo, feeling a spike of alarm.

  “Don’t panic, kid, this thing is reinforced with more safety spells than you could play in a lifetime.” Jenkins laughs and grabs the wheel of the zeppelin. “Still, you better sit down and buckle up.”

  I hurry back to my seat and strap in just as the zeppelin begins to slow, so hard and so fast that I’m thrown against the seat belt. In the back, Miss Myra holds a long, final note, then releases the keys with a cackle. Outside, a storm cloud surrounds the airship, obscuring any view of the outside. Lightning streaks in front of me, and I pull back, gasping as the propellers on the fins suck away the clouds.

  When the storm fully clears, I press my face to the window and stare. Behind me, Jenkins opens the hatch and descends once more on the retractable ladder.

  The Bumblebee is hovering over a busy street. Taxis and cars and red double-deckers blur below, while the sidewalks are packed with people. In the distance, I see a huge clock tower and a cathedral. Westminster Abbey, I think, where some of the greatest spells in the world are performed.

  I’m in London. In a whole other country.

  My old life is an entire ocean away.

  For a moment, I’m sure I’m dreaming. I press my hands to the window and look out across the great city. There’s a river snaking beneath gorgeous old bridges, and a great big Ferris wheel that I decide I have to ride on one day. Ancient-looking buildings mix with modern skyscrapers, and I wonder which one the queen lives in. This is also the home of one of the greatest Symphonies in the world, the London Philharmonic, the great heroes of World War II who staved off an enemy attack by playing Baroque warding spells for three days straight.

  Looking down, I see Jenkins take a purple ticket from another student. Grinning, I find a latch on the window and open it up, then lean out.

  “Helloooo down there!”

  The boy on the sidewalk looks up. “Hey! It’s Amelia Jones!”

  “Hello, Jai!”

  He waves wildly. His dad is there too, and he only gives Jai a stiff handshake in farewell.

  But Jai looks far from sad as he leaps aboard, his eyes wide. Looking all around, he finally settles his gaze on me.

  “Amelia Matilda Jones!” he shouts again, throwing his arms wide.

  I giggle. “That’s not my middle name.”

  He shrugs, unbothered. “It was a guess. No—don’t tell me! I’ll figure it out. But look at you! You got in!”

  “I got in!”

  “Me too!”

  “Yeah,” I laugh. “I can see that.”

  “And we’re on a teleporting purple zeppelin!”

  “I can see that too!”

  He whoops and does a cartwheel across the open floor. When he reaches Miss Myra, he plants himself on the bench beside her and throws an arm around her shoulders. She looks startled.

  “Hello, little old lady!” Jai cries. “Look at this! An organ! On a zeppelin!”

  He reaches out like he’s going to press the keys. Miss Myra slaps his hand.

  Laughing, Jai jumps up and runs back to me. “Isn’t this great? Isn’t this the best day of your life?”

  “Take your seats!” calls Jenkins, sliding back into the pilot’s chair. “Next stop, Taiwan!”

  * * *

  We do fourteen more pickups that day, and sometimes one student boards, while other times there’s a whole group of them, all waiting with families at their designated pickup locations. In some places, it’s the middle of the night. Each time the zeppelin comes to a stop, I gape at the surroundings: a quiet street outside Kyoto where we pick up Hana, a percussionist. I stare at the wooden houses with their curving roofs and the moon shining on a slow river winding through rice paddies behind her house.

  Next is a townhouse in Philadelphia, where we add a pair of twins: Jamal and Amari, both violinists. Their whole family has come to send them off, thirty or forty people crowding the street. We stay there the longest, because each of them has to hug each twin. When Jamal and Amari finally make it aboard, they both look a bit dizzy.

  We visit Berlin, Dallas, Christchurch, and others that come and go like TV channels being flipped. Each one adds new faces to the zeppelin’s cabin, until nearly every seat is taken and the air is filled with a blur of voices, all different languages and accents. They all speak English, but it’s clear the one language we’re all most fluent in is Musicraft, and everyone is quick to compare instruments and tell exaggerated stories of their auditions. But shy to join in the conversations, I instead glue myself to the window and watch everything like it’s a dream I’m about to wake up from, and I don’t want to forget any of it. I store up images of the world like they’re photographs, trying to decide which ones I want to visit again. I want to stand in those streets and close my eyes and just listen. Is this how my mom felt on her first trip to Mystwick? Did she travel to any of these places and listen to the music of these faraway cities?

  I feel like with each passing hour, I’m getting closer and closer to her, as if she might actually be waiting at Mystwick for me. Like she’s been there all this time.

  We take a brief lunch break on a beach in Acapulco where Jenkins buys us the best tacos I’ve ever eaten in my life. We make a picnic of it right there on the sand, getting salsa all over our clothes, and Miss Myra nearly explodes when she sees the mess we make of ourselves. But Jai gives her his churros and flashes his ear-to-ear smile, and she softens.

  Finally, as we’re drifting through the endless kaleidoscope tunnel, Miss Myra pounding on her organ keys, Jenkins gets on the announcement system and says, “Next stop, the Mystwick School of Musicraft!”

  I’m half-asleep, my head propped on the window, but when I hear that, I join everyone else in a cheer. Jai does another cartwheel, but there’s not enough space now and he crashes awkwardly into the two violinists from Philadelphia, who yell at him to cut it out. I think we’re all on a bit of a sugar high, thanks to Captain continually bringing us as much grape gum as we want. And everyone’s starting to get edgy; a few people put headphones on. You can only listen to the same loud organ spell so many times before you start to go a little loopy.

  Jai plunks down beside me, grinning. “We’re almost there. Are you excited?”

  I laugh. “Of course!”

  “You have to shout it! Like this!” He spins in his chair and beats on his chest. “I am the champion of the woooooorld!”

  As the yell rips from Jai’s throat, Jenkins spins the airship’s wheel, and the Bumblebee comes to a shuddering, clunking halt, Miss Myra’s organ wailing. Jai is thrown forward, smashing his face into the window.

&nbs
p; “I’m okay,” he says, blinking. “I’m o-kay.”

  But no one’s paying him attention. Instead, we’re all stuck to the windows, staring down as the zeppelin descends over forests of white trees with yellow leaves. Aspens, I think. In the distance, the Rocky Mountains jut against the evening sky. Even with a magic airship, it’s taken all day to pick up the kids, and my stomach’s growling for dinner.

  Finally, Jenkins calls out, “Welcome to Mystwick!”

  And there it is.

  The Mystwick School of Musicraft sits high in a vale beneath jagged snow-capped peaks. The main building is enormous, five or six stories tall. It’s like a fairy-tale castle and a log cabin all in one, and the setting sun reflects on the windows, making them seem as if they’re on fire. They overlook a small lake that has fountains sprouting from its center. To the right and left of the main building are more log-cabin-style structures, each several stories high. It reminds me of pictures I’ve seen of luxury ski resorts, only without the chairlifts crooking their way up the mountain. The whole place glitters in the fading light of day, golden walls and diamond lake and dark forest beyond.

  We climb down the ladder, everyone yawning after the long day but still looking excited. Captain perches on the dash, croaking, “Have a nice life, have a nice life!” at each of us as we walk by, until Jenkins reminds him he’s supposed to be transporting luggage. Then Jenkins takes out a fife and plays a transporting spell to lower down Victoria, a guitarist in a wheelchair. She waves at the rest of us as she floats down and reaches the ground first, borne on a cloud of glittering gold light that pours from the fife.

  When my foot touches the ground, a thrill runs through me. My heart pounds like a drum.

  After years of dreaming, I’m finally here.

  Chapter Six

  Nocturne, Nocturne, Who’s There?

  WE GATHER ON THE SLOPED LAWN in front of the main building, surrounded by luggage and instruments. The sun has set, and now shadow begins to creep over the campus. Hearing a distant, low growl of thunder, I look up but see no clouds. Still, I untie my jacket and pull it on.