Never Girls #13 Read online

  Copyright © 2016 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019, and in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto, in conjunction with Disney Enterprises, Inc. Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks and A Stepping Stone Book and the colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 9780736435291 (trade) — ISBN 9780736482073 (lib. bdg.) — Ebook ISBN 9780736435307

  randomhousekids.​com/​disney

  This book has been officially leveled by using the F&P Text Level Gradient™ Leveling System.

  v4.1

  a

  For Frankie and Henry

  —K.T.

  For Sophia, my favorite mermaid

  —J.C.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map of Never Land

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Far away from the world we know, on the distant seas of dreams, lies an island called Never Land. It is a place full of magic, where mermaids sing, fairies play, and children never grow up. Adventures happen every day, and anything is possible.

  There are two ways to reach Never Land. One is to find the island yourself. The other is for it to find you. Finding Never Land on your own takes a lot of luck and a pinch of fairy dust. Even then, you will only find the island if it wants to be found.

  Every once in a while, Never Land drifts close to our world…so close a fairy’s laugh slips through. And every once in an even longer while, Never Land opens its doors to a special few. Believing in magic and fairies from the bottom of your heart can make the extraordinary happen. If you suddenly hear tiny bells or feel a sea breeze where there is no sea, pay careful attention. Never Land may be close by. You could find yourself there in the blink of an eye.

  Detail: left

  Detail: right

  Gabby Vasquez soared through the sky over Never Land. The wind blew her hair off her forehead. It whipped the cloth wings on her back, making them flutter like real fairy wings.

  Gabby spread her arms wide. She loved flying! Up here she could be anything. She was a giant, with clouds as her ceiling and the forest as her floor. She was the queen of the world! She was—

  “Gabby!” Her sister’s voice cut through her thoughts.

  Gabby looked back. Mia was flying behind her, along with their friends Kate McCrady and Lainey Winters. The fairy Tinker Bell was with them.

  “Slow down,” Mia called. “You’ll miss the turn!”

  “No, I won’t!” Gabby yelled back. But she slowed down. Together the girls and Tink banked right. As they came up over a crest, a beautiful blue-green lagoon came into view. Looking down, Gabby’s heart skipped a beat. They were there!

  Mermaids!

  They sat together, fanning their tails and combing their beautiful long hair. Gabby waved to them. The mermaids shaded their eyes and looked up as she passed. But none of them waved back.

  The girls and Tink started their descent toward the beach. As Gabby landed, she stumbled in the sand and almost fell. She glanced up quickly to see if the mermaids had noticed. But they were already sliding into the water. Gabby saw the tips of their tails as they slipped beneath the surface.

  “They’re doing it again!” she cried.

  “Who’s doing what?” asked Tinker Bell.

  “The mermaids! Why do they dive whenever we come? Are they afraid of us?” Gabby asked.

  Tink looked at the lagoon. It was empty now. Not so much as a ripple showed that mermaids had ever been there. “No, they’re not afraid,” Tink said.

  “Then why?”

  “They’re not interested in us,” Tink said with a shrug.

  “Why not?” asked Gabby. “I’m interested in them.”

  “Trust me, it’s better this way,” said Tink. “They’re not the nicest creatures in Never Land.”

  Gabby had heard other fairies say this about mermaids, but she never understood why. After all, mermaids were beautiful and magical, like fairies. To Gabby, it made sense that they should all be friends.

  “There must be some nice mermaids,” she said. But Tink had already turned away.

  “We’re not here to see mermaids, anyway,” Mia said. She was helping Lainey pull a deflated raft out of the bushes. “We’re here to see Sunny.”

  Sunny was Lainey’s pet goldfish—at least, he had been Lainey’s pet before she’d accidentally set him free in Never Land and he’d grown—and grown and grown. Now her goldfish was as big as a golden retriever! Lainey couldn’t keep him anymore, so he lived in the Mermaid Lagoon. The girls visited him when they could, using a raft they’d brought from Mia and Gabby’s house.

  “First we need to get the raft fixed. There’s a hole somewhere,” Lainey said, showing the sagging raft to Tinker Bell. Tink was good at fixing things.

  Tink flew around the raft, stopping now and then to press one pointed ear against it, until she found the leak. While Tink patched the hole, Gabby walked around the beach, collecting seashells. There were more—and more interesting—shells here than on any other beach she’d visited. Gabby found several pink scalloped shells, a purple shell shaped like a pincushion, and a long, twisty shell that looked like a unicorn’s horn. She put them all in the pocket of her sweatshirt.

  A little farther down the beach, she found a bright orange starfish. Turning it over in her hands, Gabby felt a thrill of excitement. She’d seen mermaids wearing starfish in their hair. Maybe this one belonged to a mermaid, too! She imagined the mermaid searching everywhere for her missing hairpiece. How happy she would be if Gabby gave it back! “It’s lucky I found it,” Gabby imagined herself saying. “I knew you would miss it.” And then the mermaid would say—

  “Come on, Gabby!”

  “What?” Gabby blinked out of her daydream. Mia, Kate, and Lainey were looking at her.

  “The raft is fixed. We’re ready to go,” Mia said.

  “I want to stay here,” Gabby said. The truth was, she didn’t really like visiting Sunny. He’d been cute when he was a little goldfish. But now that he was almost as big as she was, Gabby found him kind of scary.

  Mia’s brow furrowed. “But we can’t leave you alone.”

  Why did Mia always have to baby her? Gabby opened her mouth to argue, but Kate spoke up first. “Let her stay. We won’t be gone long. She’ll be fine on the beach.”

  “Well, okay,” Mia agreed reluctantly. “But don’t wander off. And don’t go in the water.”

  “I won’t!” Gabby was so happy to be staying that she didn’t even mind Mia’s bossy tone.

  “It’s getting late,” Tink told the older girls. “I’d go soon if I were you. You shouldn’t be in the lagoon after dark.”

  “Why not?” Gabby asked.

  “Full of questions today, aren’t you?” Tink said, tugging her bangs the way she did when she was frustrated. “Just be sure to get back soon.” With the raft fixed, she said good-bye and started back to Pixie Hollow. Mia, Lainey, and Kate climbed into the raft and paddled out.

  Gabby walked along the water’s edge, making footprints in the damp sand. When she got tired of walking, she sat facing the lagoon. She removed her barrettes and tried to put the starfish in her hair, the way the mermaids wore them. But she couldn’t get it to stay.

  Gabby s
ighed. She wished she had her bucket and shovel. But she soon noticed that half a coconut shell worked almost as nicely. She scooped up wet sand and piled it in mounds to make a sand castle.

  She’d been working for a while, when a wave suddenly struck her back, soaking her clothes and her wings. Gabby jumped up, startled. She turned to look at the sea. Was the tide coming in? No, if anything the water’s edge seemed farther away.

  Gabby turned back to her building. She decorated her castle with the shells she’d collected. Suddenly, another wave slapped her, drenching her again. It also swallowed up her barrettes, which had been next to her in the sand.

  “Oh no!” Gabby cried. “My barrettes!”

  The wave quickly retreated back to the lagoon. Gabby stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at the water. Sunlight sparkled on its calm surface. Nothing to see here, it seemed to say.

  There was nothing she could do about her barrettes now, so Gabby knelt and began to dig a moat around her castle. But this time she watched the lagoon out of the corner of her eye.

  “Aha!” Gabby exclaimed. A finger of water was sneaking up the beach! She jumped back just as it reached her feet. The wave swallowed her sand castle in one gulp.

  “Stop that!” she yelled, stomping her foot.

  Gabby heard a sound offshore. Or rather, she heard a not-sound, like the muffled cough of someone trying not to laugh. Shielding her eyes against the glare, she looked out at the lagoon.

  Someone was watching her from between two rocks.

  “I see you!” Gabby yelled.

  The someone didn’t move. After a few moments, Gabby started to wonder if there was really anyone there at all. Maybe it was only a shadow.

  “Are you okay?” Kate’s voice rang out, calling to Gabby across the water. The raft was coming back. Gabby waited as the older girls paddled in and pulled the raft onto the beach.

  “We heard you shouting. What’s the matter?” Mia asked as she climbed out. She took a closer look at her sister and frowned. “You’re all wet! I told you not to go in the water.”

  “I didn’t. Somebody splashed me. They wrecked my sand castle, too, and even stole my barrettes!” Gabby said.

  Kate looked around the empty beach. “Who?”

  “I saw someone. Right over there.” Gabby pointed to the rocks in the water. But the shadow was gone.

  “I still don’t understand how you got so wet,” Mia said as she opened the back door to their house. The girls had returned through the hole in the backyard fence that led from Never Land to their world. Kate and Lainey had already said their good-byes and gone home.

  “I told you,” Gabby said, following her sister inside. “A wave kept sneaking up on me. It got me wet on purpose.”

  “Waves don’t sneak. They’re just waves,” Mia said. “You were probably too close to the water.”

  “I wasn’t close!” Gabby told her.

  Mia sighed. “If you say so, Gabby. But you’d better change into dry clothes before Mami sees you.”

  Gabby hurried up the stairs to her room, still thinking. What Mia said made sense. And yet the wave had so clearly seemed to be teasing her. And what about the strange shadow by the rock? Had that been only her imagination, too?

  As she slipped into dry pants and a clean shirt, Gabby promised herself she would find out for sure just as soon as they returned to Never Land.

  But days passed before the girls found a chance to return. When they finally did make it back to Pixie Hollow, there was fairy gossip to catch up on, and a new cricket symphony to hear, and, most exciting of all, a brand-new litter of fox kits to see. Gabby was so busy she forgot all about the mystery of the Mermaid Lagoon. She didn’t think about it again until many days later, on another trip.

  Gabby had gone alone to the Cauldron, a cave not far from Pixie Hollow. Normally, Mia wouldn’t have let her go so far by herself. But that morning Mia was busy learning a new recipe from the baking fairy Dulcie. When Gabby told her where she was going, Mia nodded, only half-listening. Gabby hurried off before her sister could give it any thought.

  The Cauldron got its name from its unusual shape. The mouth of the cave was open to the sea, and the roof was open to the sky. During storms, waves poured in, and the water inside roiled and frothed, just like a witch’s brew.

  That day, though, the sea was calm, and Gabby entered from the beach. The Cauldron was the best place to find sea glass. Gabby collected the smooth pieces of sea-polished glass and traded it to fairies, who used it for all sorts of things. Big pieces became frosted-glass windows. Smaller bits made colorful paving stones or interesting doorknobs. In exchange, the fairies gave Gabby miniature treasures—acorn bowls and tiny frosted cakes and embroidered dolls no bigger than her fingernail.

  That afternoon she was in luck—lots of glass had washed into the cave. Gabby found green, amber, and clear pieces. She even found a rare blue piece and a coin with a hole in it that looked very old.

  It was peaceful inside the cave. The surf murmured. Sunlight poured in from the hole above. Soon Gabby’s pockets were full of glass, but she didn’t stop looking—there was always another piece to find.

  She was having so much fun that she didn’t notice the tide coming in. When she finally thought to look up, the beach and the cave entrance were gone.

  A cold finger of fear crept up Gabby’s spine. The fairies had warned her never to go into the Cauldron without fairy dust. If the tide came in, the only way out was to fly. But Gabby had forgotten her fairy dust that day.

  She climbed up on a rock, hoping the water would go down soon. But it crept higher and higher. When it almost covered the rock, Gabby started yelling. She yelled for Mia, Kate, and Lainey. She yelled for every fairy she could think of. She yelled until she was hoarse, but no one came.

  Finally, Gabby put her head on her knees and started to cry.

  Through her sobs, she noticed a faint clink-clink sound. She lifted her head and saw a glass bottle bumping against the rock, gently pushed by the waves. She picked it up and noticed something inside. Gabby tipped the contents into her hand. Out fell two pink barrettes. They were faded and salt-crusted, but Gabby was sure they were hers, the same ones she’d lost in the Mermaid Lagoon. Where had they come from?

  Suddenly, Gabby realized she wasn’t alone. Half the cave now lay in shadow, and she could see something moving through the dark water. Her insides seemed to turn to jelly. She wasn’t just trapped in a cave—she was trapped with a sea monster!

  The water stirred again, right next to her rock this time. Gabby gasped as something rose from the depths.

  But it wasn’t a monster. It was a mermaid!

  The mermaid was smaller than most. Without her tail, she was the same size as Gabby. Her green hair was messy and tangled with kelp. It looked as if it hadn’t been combed in days. Beneath her green eyebrows, her eyes were bright and curious.

  She stared at Gabby. Gabby stared back.

  “Why are yoooou crying?” the mermaid asked.

  “What?” The mermaid had a funny accent. It took Gabby a minute to understand her. “Oh. I’m stuck,” Gabby told her. “The water came into the cave, and now I can’t get out.”

  “Why don’t yoooou fly out?” She was looking at Gabby’s fairy wings.

  Gabby blushed. She didn’t want to admit the wings weren’t real. “My wings aren’t…they aren’t working today.”

  “But yoooou are a fairy, yes?”

  “No, I’m just a—” Gabby hesitated. Tink had said mermaids didn’t like people. If she told the mermaid she was just a girl, maybe she wouldn’t like her. “Just a fairy’s friend,” she finished.

  The mermaid nodded. With a sudden, graceful movement she pulled herself up on the rock so she was sitting right next to Gabby.

  Gabby couldn’t stop herself from staring. The mermaid’s tail was silver with a rainbow sheen. Because the mermaids were always diving or swimming away, Gabby had never seen a mermaid’s tail up close before. There were tiny fins o
n the side that twitched a little when the mermaid moved. It’s not at all how it looks in the movies, Gabby thought. It looks so real.

  It was a moment before she realized the mermaid was gaping at her toes. Gabby wiggled them, and the mermaid jumped. They both laughed.

  “I’m Gabby,” Gabby said.

  The mermaid sang something Gabby couldn’t catch. It sounded like Yooooooooo­ooooooniiiiiiii­iiiiiiiiiiiiii.

  “Yooni?” Gabby tried.

  The mermaid shrugged, as if to say good enough. “I can help yoooou,” she told Gabby.

  “How?” Gabby asked.

  Yooni made a motion with her hands. She looked as if she was smoothing an invisible blanket. As she did, the water around them started to go down. In seconds, the beach was visible again.

  “Did you do that?” Gabby whispered in awe.

  Yooni nodded.

  “I don’t even think the water fairies can do that. But how will you get back home now?” Gabby asked. The ground around them was dry.

  Yooni made another motion, as if she were pulling something toward her. Water rushed back into the cave. Soon waves were lapping their rock.

  Gabby laughed and clapped her hands. “Do it again!”

  Gabby and Yooni found out they had many things in common. They were both six years old. They both liked the color pink. Gabby had a pet cat, and Yooni had a pet sea horse. And they both had older sisters, though Gabby had only one. Yooni had six.

  “Six sisters!” Gabby exclaimed.

  “Yes,” Yooni said. “They’re always telling me what to doooo.”

  “I know what you mean,” Gabby said. She couldn’t imagine having six sisters bossing her around.

  They played games together. Gabby taught Yooni tic-tac-toe, and Yooni taught her a game called Golly Golly that involved hiding a shell. Yooni showed Gabby how she leaped out of the water, arcing like a dolphin. She was impressed by Gabby’s cartwheel.