The Red Queen drew her sword and stepped forward.

“People of the Floor!” she cried. “Thanks to the Wise Man, we now know the whole truth—King Luke is no traitor!”

“That’s right!” said Ivy. “He’s just a bit of an idiot!”

Luke beamed. It was probably the biggest compliment Ivy had ever given him.

“Now to find a way out of this bag and protect our world, at any cost!” the Red Queen cried. “But first, let’s finish what we started. Execute the Bin King and his fly riders!”

The crowd cheered. The Red Queen turned to the Bin King, her sword outstretched—

“No!” Luke leapt forward, blocking her. “We can’t hurt anyone!”

He grabbed the Red Queen’s sword and cut the Bin King down.

“We’ve got bigger things to think about now—if we want to get out of this bag alive, we have to let the Bin King go!”

The Bin King stared at Luke in shock. “You’re…you’re not going to kill me, after everything I’ve done?”

Luke shook his head. “No. You’re going to help us get out of here!”

He helped the Bin King to his feet.

“Get on your warflies and search every corner of this bag. Find a way for us to escape. Go!”

The Bin King nodded and scurried off with his fly riders. The Red Queen turned to Luke, her eyes blazing with fury.

“How dare you!”

“Sorry for taking your sword,” said Luke nervously, handing it back, “but we don’t have much time. Demon’s making plans to destroy us as we speak. We need to organize an escape, and you’re the only ruler left who people still trust. Can you take charge, Your Majesty?”

Some of the fire left the Red Queen’s eyes. She sheathed her sword.

“Mmm. You’re lucky to have friends like the Wise Man and Ivy. If it wasn’t for them, I’d have left you to starve in that whale!”

She turned away and started giving orders to the crowd. Ivy dropped down beside him. Luke scuffed his feet on the ground.

“Thanks,” he said.

Ivy smiled. “What—for saving your life, even though you’re a wiener?”

Luke blushed. “Yeah, fine. I was a total wiener.”

Ivy patted him on the back. “Luke, you’re the best wiener I know.”

Mr. Darrow marched between them.

“Right! That’s quite enough of that—we’ve got a transmitter and a microphone to find!” He pointed to the warfly that Ivy had just been sitting on. “Know how to fly that?”

Ivy’s eyes lit up. “Do I!”

“She doesn’t,” said Luke nervously.

“That’s good enough for me.” Mr. Darrow started climbing up the bristles on the warfly’s leg. “Fly low and slow. The transmitter’s got a little flashing light on it. That’s our only hope of finding it!”

Ivy leapt onto the warfly with a whoop of delight, grabbed the bristles on its head, and slowly lifted it from the ground. The warfly made a wobbling turn in the air and buzzed into the darkness. Soon the vast crowd of Floor people were far behind them, and Luke, Ivy and Mr. Darrow were alone.

“Wow,” said Luke. “You’re pretty good at this, Ivy.”

“Don’t be so surprised,” Ivy muttered. “I’d be even better if I could see where I’m going, though! We need one of those green torches the fly riders were using earlier.”

There was a sudden spark behind them, and the warfly lit up with a warm green glow. Mr. Darrow had found the torch and was holding it up, studying it.

“Mmm. Not bad work, you know. Must be done using a chemical reaction from that old bottle of bleach I put in the bin.” He smiled. “Amazing what people can do when you leave them to it, isn’t it?”

The warfly swerved, narrowly missing a huge building that loomed out of the dark.

“What was that?” said Luke.

Mr. Darrow grinned. “The Great Pyramid of Giza! Took me eight months to build, that one. Had to carve the interior chambers with a toothpick.”

Luke was amazed. “You made that?”

Mr. Darrow nodded. “Course! I made them all—everything you can see. There’s a whole lifetime of work in this trash bag.”

Luke gazed around the darkness. All around them were vast intricate structures toppling over each other: boats and planes and palaces and monuments and dinosaurs and skyscrapers….

“Wow…you’re a genius!” said Luke.

Mr. Darrow looked at him. “You think so?”

Luke nodded. Even in the dim glow of the green torch, Mr. Darrow couldn’t possibly hide how pleased he looked.

“Well,” he muttered. “About time.”

“Luke?” said Ivy. “Could you come here for a moment, please?”

Luke sat beside her. Her face was worried.

“What’s the matter?”

“This trash bag,” she whispered. “It’s huge. There’s a whole Floor’s worth of stuff in here. The transmitter could be buried under an inch of sand, or trapped beneath one of these enormous buildings…and even if we do manage to find it, it might not work.”

Ivy glanced at Mr. Darrow, who was searching the darkness behind her with a single torch.

“I don’t think he realizes how impossible this is. We’re never going to find it in time. We have to think of some other way to—”

“Down there!”

Mr. Darrow was pointing below them. There, blinking in the sea of darkness, was a single pinprick of light.

“The transmitter! Quick—bring her down!”

Ivy nose-dived between the Statue of Liberty and the Colosseum, coming to a bumpy stop on the ground. They jumped onto the sand, and there, just ahead of them, was a blinking white light.

“We did it! You brilliant, brilliant children!” Mr. Darrow said, laughing. “I don’t know how it’s possible, but we—”

He stopped. The light wasn’t just blinking, it was coming toward them.

Luke held up the torch.

“Miss Binkles?”

The flea limped out of the darkness, filthy and bruised. She nuzzled Luke with a squeak and dropped something at his feet. It was the transmitter and microphone—beaten and bashed, but still working.

“I—I don’t believe it,” said Luke. “She found it! Miss Binkles, you’re a hero!”

“You know this flea?” asked Mr. Darrow.

Luke hugged the flea tight, and Miss Binkles purred happily.

“She’s my friend,” said Luke. “And she’s the best flea in the whole wide world.”

So it was that one tiny boy, and the flea he had raised from a pupa, were able to save their world. They didn’t know it at the time, but they were mere inches from death: held over the grinding wheels of a machine that was ready to destroy everything they knew. They were from two different species, and they had never spoken the same language, but they were friends. And sometimes, that’s all you need to achieve the impossible.

No one saw it happen, of course. They were no bigger than ants. They were hidden in the darkness of a trash bag in a school basement.

The world is filled with millions of miracles that no one sees.