Lawn Mower Magic Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2012 by Lynne Jonell

  Jacket art and interior illustrations copyright © 2012 by Brandon Dorman

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks and

  A Stepping Stone Book and the colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Visit us on the Web!

  SteppingStonesBooks.com

  www.randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools,

  visit us at www.randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Jonell, Lynne.

  Lawn mower magic / by Lynne Jonell; illustrated by Brandon Dorman. — 1st ed.

  p. cm. — (Magical mix-ups; #2)

  “A Stepping Stone book.”

  Summary: When Derek Willow is invited to visit a friend in the old neighborhood, he and his siblings Abner, Tate, and Celia try to earn money for his train ticket using an enchanted, and very hungry, lawn mower.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89673-6

  [1. Lawn mowers—Fiction. 2. Magic—Fiction. 3. Brothers and sisters—Fiction.

  4. Moving, Household—Fiction.] I. Dorman, Brandon, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.J675Law 2012 [E]—dc22 2010041058

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  For Chris, who mowed his share of lawns—L.J.

  For my grandfather, who was so patient with me

  as his twelve-year-old lawn mower—B.D.

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 Lawn Mower Trouble

  Chapter 2 Grass Guzzler

  Chapter 3 Mowey

  Chapter 4 Hang On!

  Chapter 5 A Mind of Its Own

  Chapter 6 One for the Team

  Chapter 7 So Long, Farewell

  About the Author

  No one would play football with Derek. No one would play kickball. No one would play soccer, even if he let them start two goals ahead. It was making him crazy.

  “How about baseball, then?” Derek tipped back his head to call up into the climbing tree. High above, he spotted his brother’s feet through the leaves. “Come on, Abner!”

  “I’m busy.” Abner eyed a branch above him. He was trying to see how high he could go. As the oldest of the four Willow children, it was his duty to make sure the branches would hold everyone’s weight. Besides, if a branch cracked just a little, it might be exciting.

  Derek tipped his head so far back that his baseball cap fell off. He caught it neatly before it hit the ground. “But baseball is fun!”

  “Not on this hill, it isn’t,” said Tate, his older sister. She looked up from her book and calmly turned a page. “The ball keeps rolling down to the river.”

  “It’s more fun than climbing trees, or reading, or—” Derek glanced at his little sister, Celia. She seemed to be mashing a bottle cap on her stuffed rabbit’s nose. “What are you doing, anyway?”

  “Giving Mr. Bunny some milk, of course.” Celia wrinkled her forehead at Derek. “I’m not playing baseball with you, either. You always make me stand in the outfield. And then I have to run after every single ball.”

  Derek squatted down and adopted a soothing tone. “Listen, Celia. It’s just that you’re so good at running after the ball, see?”

  “It’s not fair. And Mr. Bunny thinks so, too.” Celia smoothed the blue satin ribbon that was tied around her stuffed animal’s neck. She was glad Mother had finally unpacked the box that had held Mr. Bunny. The moving men had stuffed him in with the gardening tools by mistake.

  Derek picked up the rabbit by the ears. “Face it, Mr. Bunny. What else is she going to do? She can’t bat. And she sure can’t catch.”

  “I can too catch,” said Celia, leaping for her rabbit.

  Derek tossed the rabbit over his head. It hit a branch and came down, legs flopping, into his ready hands. That gave Derek an idea. “Hey! Let’s play bunny-ball!” he said.

  “Give him back!” Celia cried.

  Tate looked up from her book. “Stop being mean, Derek.”

  Abner called down from the tree, “Pick on somebody your own size. Go get the mail if you want something to do.”

  Derek, half-ashamed, tossed the stuffed rabbit to his little sister. He wasn’t really trying to be mean. He just wanted to play something fast and exciting. Bunny-ball might have been fun. And there wasn’t anybody his own size—that was the problem.

  Derek scuffed down the long, winding driveway to the mailbox. Maybe his plastic army men had come in the mail. Two weeks ago he had sent off some cereal box tops. Every day since, he had waited for a package. It was a dusty trip to the mailbox and a hard climb back up the hill, but at least it was something to do.

  He missed his friends. Back in his old neighborhood, if he wanted a game, all he ever had to do was step out the door. There was always something fun going on—street hockey, tetherball, basketball, even mudball, if it had just rained.

  Mrs. Willow did not like mudball. She said she could never get Derek’s clothes clean. But mudball was the best. You got extra points if the ball landed in a mud puddle, and you could play it with almost any sport.

  Derek loved getting dirty, and he loved playing hard. But ever since they had moved to this lonely house on a hill, there was no one to play with. Except Abner, Tate, and Celia, of course. It just wasn’t the same.

  The branch above Abner’s head creaked, and he hastily let it go. He watched through the leaves as his brother trudged over the stone arch bridge, threw a stick into the river, and ran to the big silver mailbox on the main road.

  He supposed he really should play catch with Derek. But just throwing a ball back and forth was boring. He would rather be up in this tree. No one could see him, but he could see everything that was going on. It was like he was a secret spy.

  He could see into the third-story windows of their house at the top of the hill. He could see his father walking from the house to the garage. He could see the garden shed and the toolshed. He could even see the small shed where his mother painted the pictures she hoped to sell one day. She called it her studio, but it still looked like a shed to Abner.

  There was a banging noise as Father flung open the big wooden door to the garage. A moment later, he came out again, dragging the lawn mower.

  Abner stopped being a spy at once. He slid down the tree trunk, jumped from the lowest branch, and landed on the ground with a thud. He eyed the battered red mower with longing. “I wish he’d let me mow, for once,” he said out loud. “I’m responsible enough.”

  Mr. Willow yanked at a cord. There was a faint rattle, and then nothing. He bent over the elderly machine and fiddled with a lever, muttering something that Abner could not hear.

  Tate glanced up from her book again. “It never starts on the first try,” she said.

  “Or the second,” said Abner as their father pulled the cord again, harder.

  The machine coughed twice and died.

  “Poor Daddy.” Celia patted her stuffed rabbit’s ears. “Mr. Bunny feels sorry for him, too.”

  Derek came puffing up the hill. His pockets were jammed with envelopes. “No package. No army men,” he said briefly.

  “Any letters for us?” asked Tate. She closed h
er book.

  “I didn’t even look. I mean, when are there ever any letters for us?” Derek pulled the envelopes out of his pockets and handed them over. “Here. It’s probably just bills.” He threw himself down on the long grass.

  “It’s always bills,” said Celia. She had heard her father say this more than once.

  The mower sputtered to life at last and Mr. Willow pushed it forward, sweating in the hot sun.

  “Fifth try,” said Abner. He had been ticking them off on his fingers. “One of these days it’s not going to start at all.”

  “I wish new lawn mowers didn’t cost so much,” Tate said. She flipped through the envelopes one by one. Someday there might be a letter for one of them.

  “I bet Dad wishes he was cutting the grass at our old house,” Derek said. “There wasn’t so much of it. This lawn is way too big.”

  It was true that there was a lot of lawn to mow. There was a narrow strip of short grass where their father had mown. But beyond that, a vast expanse of shaggy green covered the hill.

  “Our old house didn’t have a river, though,” said Tate.

  “Or good climbing trees,” said Abner.

  “Or magic,” added Celia.

  There was a moment of silence. It had been weeks since magic had happened on that very hill.

  “Maybe it will never happen to us again,” said Derek, who was feeling gloomy.

  “Lots of kids never have magic happen to them even once,” Abner pointed out.

  Tate looked down at the envelopes in her hand and turned over the last few. “We should feel lucky,” she said.

  The Willow children tried to feel lucky. They were only partly successful.

  “You can feel lucky for a while,” said Celia, swinging Mr. Bunny by one foot, “but then you stop feeling lucky and you start wanting something else to happen.”

  This was so very true that no one bothered to comment.

  But suddenly something else did happen.

  “You got a letter!” Tate cried. “Look, Derek!” She handed a square envelope to her brother.

  Derek tore it open and stared with unbelieving joy.

  “What? What does it say?” Celia and Abner crowded in close.

  Derek read the scrawled invitation once more and grinned until his cheeks hurt. His friend Ben wanted him to come for a birthday party and stay for a week! A whole week in the old neighborhood, with the guys! He would pack his baseball glove, and his bat, and his hockey stick!

  Tate leaned over Derek’s shoulder and read aloud. “ ‘Let us know which train you’re taking, and my parents will meet you at the station.’ ” She looked up. “You’ll have to buy a round-trip ticket. How much money do you have in your piggy bank?”

  Derek’s grin faded. “Six dollars and thirty-seven cents … I think.”

  “Not enough,” said Abner. “Round-trip tickets cost a lot of money.”

  Derek gripped the letter tightly. He watched his father, who was bent forward, pushing the mower hard uphill. Would his parents pay for the ticket? How much would it be?

  The mower gave a sudden POP and belched a puff of oily smoke. Mr. Willow jumped back as it spit out a clump of grass. Then, with a rattle and a groan, it died. And nothing Father did made it go again.

  The children stood at a respectful distance, as if at a funeral.

  “Fine, then!” Mr. Willow wiped his forehead and glared at the machine. “Die, if you must. But where I’m going to find the money for a new lawn mower, I don’t know.”

  “Sheep eat grass.” Mr. Willow slumped on a stool inside the small shed that his wife had turned into an art studio. “We should get some sheep.”

  The children watched through the open doorway. Derek still clutched his invitation in his hand.

  “But sheep cost money, too,” said Mrs. Willow. She set her paintbrush down in a swirl of red. “And sheep wander off. Maybe the mower can be fixed again.”

  Mr. Willow put his head in his hands. “I remember thinking what a good place this was,” he said. “Woods! A river! Lots of room for the kids to play! But did I look at the acres and acres of grass? Did I, even once, stop to think that it would just keep on growing?”

  “Now, dear,” said Mrs. Willow, patting her husband’s arm.

  “Even while we sleep, it grows!”

  Tate backed away from the worried voices. She liked peace and calm above all things. She did not like it when people were upset.

  A ring of slender trees circled the hill, like a tall, spiky crown. They were peaceful, those trees. They were not unhappy about money or broken mowers or round-trip tickets. Tate wanted her family to be as peaceful as the trees. She tried very hard to think of something she could do to make her family happy again.

  “If only it had happened next month,” her father’s voice went on from a distance. “That wouldn’t have been so bad. But this month, we’re short of money. It cost a lot to move. And the university doesn’t pay as well as my old job.”

  “Never mind the money.” Mother’s voice came faintly on the breeze. “This is a good chance for you to do important work, and it’s just for a year. I could get a part-time job in town.”

  “But we agreed this would be your chance to paint!” Father’s shoulders slumped. “I think we’ll have to get out the credit cards after all.”

  Mother shook her head. “No, we promised each other we would only use them for emergencies. Why don’t I drop off some paintings in town? The coffee shop said they would put them up and see if they sold.”

  The children drifted back to stand beside Tate. Behind them, the voices of their parents went on in a low murmur.

  Abner put both hands on his brother’s shoulders and gave him a little shake. “You can’t ask them for train ticket money now.”

  “I know it,” said Derek miserably.

  Celia stuck her thumb in her mouth. With the other hand, she held out Mr. Bunny to her brother.

  This last kindness was too much for Derek. There was a hot feeling behind his eyes, and his face felt stiff. He yanked off his baseball cap, turned away, and pretended to fix the strap.

  Tate thought she had better take charge before people started crying. “Blow your nose, Derek,” she said. “And, Celia, take your thumb out of your mouth. You’re not a baby anymore.”

  “I just forgot,” said Celia with dignity. She dried her thumb on her shirt and looked at it fondly. It would still be there at bedtime if she needed it.

  “I have an idea.” Tate said this very firmly, to cover up the fact that she did not actually have a real idea yet. But she was hopeful that one would come to her soon.

  “What?” everyone asked.

  Tate stared at the lawn mower, still smoking slightly, and the wedge of cut grass behind it. Her gaze traveled over the garage, past the trees, to the toolshed. And then, all at once, she did have an idea.

  “Come on!” Tate took off across the hilltop.

  “Where are you going?” Abner strode after her. Derek wiped his nose, jammed his cap back on, and ran to catch up. Celia followed more slowly. She was picking up handfuls of the cut grass for Mr. Bunny to eat.

  Tate stopped on the cement slab in front of the toolshed door. She crossed her fingers for luck. Then she lifted the latch and pulled at the handle. Rusted hinges creaked as the big door swung open.

  Inside, the shed was dark and dusty and full of junk—tools, yard equipment, tangled ropes. Derek and Abner crowded in after Tate and stood for a moment, letting their eyes adjust to the dim light.

  “Cool!” said Derek. He picked up a long-handled blade that curved like a slice of lemon. “We could cut the grass with this!”

  “Watch it!” Abner ducked. “Don’t swing it around, Derek. You’re going to take someone’s head off.”

  “AHA!” Tate cried. She grasped a wooden handle in the corner and tugged. There was a clatter as two rakes and a pail fell to the floor. “I knew there had to be an old mower in here!”

  The old-fashioned mower was li
ke an overgrown and very dirty push toy. The long handle was connected to a reel of red blades and two dusty rubber wheels.

  Abner squinted at it doubtfully. “That’s a really old mower.”

  “Where’s the gas tank?” asked Derek.

  “It doesn’t need gas,” said Tate, standing up straight. Her cheeks were flushed, and her hair was coming out of its ponytail. “That’s the best thing about it! There’s nothing to break. All you do is hold the handle and push!”

  “Really?” Derek gave the mower a little shove.

  “I bet you’d have to push it hard,” said Abner. He dragged the mower, clanking and thumping, out of the shed and onto the cement slab. “Watch out, Celia.”

  Celia had found a patch of clover for Mr. Bunny at the edge of the slab. She wasn’t interested in the dirty mower.

  It looked even worse in the sunlight. The wooden handle was worn and cracked. The long shaft was covered with cobwebs. And the blades were dull and rusty.

  “Maybe it mows better than it looks,” Tate said without much hope.

  Abner kicked at one of the rubber wheels. “Dad will never want to mow the whole hill with this old thing. It would take forever.”

  Derek bent down to brush the cobwebs away. “I’d mow with it,” he said. “If Dad would let me, I’d mow the whole hill. Then he wouldn’t have to buy a new mower this month. And he’d have enough money for my train ticket.”

  Abner and Tate exchanged a glance.

  “You’d never be able to do it,” said Abner.

  “It would take you forever,” added Tate.

  Derek creased the party invitation between his hands. “I don’t care how long it takes,” he said, and he lifted his chin. But this was a mistake, because now he could see the shaggy lawn. And there was so much of it.

  In his heart, Derek despaired. He would never get it all done. Before he got to the bottom of the hill, the top would have grown long again.

  “Mr. Bunny will help,” said Celia. She ripped up handfuls of grass and clover and threw them to one side, just like a mower. “Rabbits love to chew grass.”

  “Oh, right,” said Derek bitterly. “Mr. Bunny’s going to be a big help.”