The next week passed by very slowly. Vanessa was anxious to get back to Partequineus and see if her idea to save the ponies would work. She felt afraid, too. If she failed, she would never see her mother again, or her friends at school. She’d become a painted pony, just like the rest of them, and spend forever as a prisoner of Guaryntis in that beautiful but lonely land.
She couldn’t let that happen. Vanessa had plans. She was going to finish school, and go to university, and do something useful with her life. She wasn’t yet sure just what that would be, but she knew that it was important for her to try to do her best, because every person on earth has the power to make the world into a better place.
And that’s why she had to free the others, Christina and Alexander and Steven and Alyssa, and every one of the painted ponies, so they could come back and do whatever it was that they were meant to do.
Every day after school she hurried home and finished her schoolwork right away. She was careful to eat a good meal each evening, a good breakfast every morning, and no junk food at lunch time, so that she would be strong when next Friday came around. She went to bed by nine every night. That way she would be well rested and wide awake when the purple mist came back to carry her away.
Even though she was apprehensive, she was happy. Her new friends needed her, and she was sure she knew how to help them.
When Friday arrived at last, Vanessa was all ready, dressed in her vibrant blue tunic and feeling strong and alert and more alive than ever before. She watched the big hand of the clock creep slowly around the dial, keen to feel the first faint stirring of the purple mist as it entered the chimney flue and seeped into her room. When at last it came, she stood up bravely and took a deep breath.
“Here we go,” she said, and strode forward - one, two, three - into the land of the blood-red sun, the triple moons, and the painted ponies of Partequineus.