The three of us head over to the Book Odyssey. But all I see is a pile of carpets. Nothing else. I guess I didn’t give Spell anything other than the word fantastic! But the Book Odyssey doesn’t seem fantastic at all. Where is Spell?
Luala shrugs and tells us she’s going to find her mom. Trixie and I look at the carpets.
“Let’s go back to the Read-A-Coaster,” she says.
“Wait!” I pull out one of the carpets and lay it in front of us. What if Spell thought that I meant an odyssey, like a real journey?! I say to Trixie, “What if it’s a magic carpet?”
Trixie giggles. But she gets onto the carpet with me.
“How do magic carpets work?” I ask.
“I think you have to say where you want to go,” says Trixie. “Like in the movies.”
“Of course!” My brain starts to swirl with ideas for all the places we could go. Terabithia from the book Bridge to Terabithia, or the Maldives, which Guinness World Records says is the world’s flattest country!
“Can we go to Hollywood?” Trixie asks.
“It has to be a place from a book,” I reply. “I can’t think of a Hollywood book right now!”
“How about London?” Trixie asks.
“I know a book. The London Eye Mystery. It’s super good.”
“To London, my good fellow!” Trixie says in what she thinks is a movie-star British accent.
The carpet wriggles and shakes underneath us. Trixie and I grab hold of each other. The carpet starts to fly down the hallway, passing the S.T.O.R.Y. Utopia posters. We’re going faster and faster. The end of the hallway is getting closer and closer.
And then I see it—a tiny door appears in front of us. It is sooo tiny, a hamster would just fit through. It makes me think of the tiny people in the book The Borrowers. The carpet shudders, then races toward the tiny doorway. Trixie and I scream. We’re going to crash!
But suddenly, the tiny door opens and we shoot through it. Somehow there is plenty of space. Space enough for a giant to go through! Trixie and I balance on the carpet. We soar through the air. We are high, high, high in the sky. But even as the carpet swishes from side to side, we don’t fall off.
We both slowly relax and start to look around.
“Look!” I point below. Through the clouds, I see green fields. In the distance are thousands of buildings. Millions. We speed over the rooftops. A white dome appears. “The Millennium Dome!” I cry. “Did you know that the world’s loudest scream was recorded at the Millennium Dome? I read about it in Guinness World Records!”
Trixie screams, just for fun. It is very loud! Maybe she has just set a new world record!
Like a glittery snake, a river wiggles along below us. The boats look like toys from up here.
“The River Thames! Look at the boats and bridges!” I see a large Ferris wheel. “That’s the London Eye,” I say. “And there are the Houses of Parliament. Did you know that the world’s tallest man and the world’s shortest man had tea on Guinness World Records Day right there!” I point at a grassy bank opposite the Houses of Parliament. “I read about it!”
We veer away from the river and glide over a park. Now below us lies a huge white building surrounded by black fences. Teeny black-fuzzy-hatted guards march around.
“It’s Buckingham Palace,” I call out. “I read about it when I was little—in the book Paddington at the Palace! And in The Royal Rabbits of London! They live in a warren underneath the palace!”
“Tea with the royal family,” Trixie says. She pretends to drink a cup of tea, her pinky raised. “I keep thinking we’ll see Mary Poppins flying past us!”
We swoop around one more corner. I remember reading about fancy English tea parties in the book The Winding Road to London, by Esmeralda Rock.
The carpet whizzes away from the palace gates and crosses the park. We see a long garden filled with roses leading to a huge house. The windows are the tallest I’ve ever seen. Inside are chandeliers, a long table, and tapestries.
I notice a small window on the top floor. I know from my word-a-day calendar that this top floor is called a garret. The carpet floats toward the garret window. Inside, a woman sits at a desk. She is typing on a laptop. Beside her are shelves of books.
Many of the books have the same name on them: Esmeralda Rock. The author!
“I’ve read her books!” I whisper.
Esmeralda glances up. Her eyebrows gather. She squints. She rubs her eyes. Then she comes to the window and waves at us!
The carpet turns. We hurtle through the air. Glimmering in the middle of a cloud is a doorway the size of a box of crayons. Oh, no! Here we go again! Trixie and I scream. The door opens. We whiz through.
We land in our school hallway.
There is a huge roar.
Trixie and I jump off the carpet.
Then there is another roar!
