Wild Water 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 © 2014 by Lynne Jonell

  Jacket art and interior illustrations copyright © 2014 by Brandon Dorman

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks and A Stepping Stone Book and the colophon are trademarks of Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web!

  SteppingStonesBooks.com

  randomhouse.com/kids

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Jonell, Lynne.

  Wild water magic / by Lynne Jonell; illustrated by Brandon Dorman.

  p. cm. — (Magical mix-ups; 4)

  “A Stepping Stone Book.”

  Summary: “After Tate falls into a magic well in her backyard, she can read a book in minutes. But she’s strangely attracted to water of all sorts and can’t always control her magic.” —Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-0-375-87085-9 (trade) — ISBN 978-0-375-97085-6 (lib. bdg.) —

  ISBN 978-0-307-97470-9 (ebook)

  [1. Water—Fiction. 2. Learning—Fiction. 3. Magic—Fiction. 4. Brothers and sisters—Fiction.] I. Dorman, Brandon, illustrator. II. Title.

  PZ7.J675Wi 2014 [Fic]—dc23 2013036590

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

  v3.1

  To Marlene Glaus, my wonderful third grade teacher! —L.J.

  For our Molly–Bug —B.D.

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 That’s So Unfair!

  Chapter 2 A Scary Discovery

  Chapter 3 It Might Be Magic

  Chapter 4 Safety Last

  Chapter 5 Water in the Night

  Chapter 6 Danger!

  Chapter 7 Soggy Magic

  About the Author

  Most people liked Tate Willow. They thought she was nice. They thought she was pretty. They thought she was smart.

  Tate didn’t think she was smart at all. School was harder for her than it was for other kids.

  Sometimes letters and words got mixed up in her brain. Sometimes she forgot to do things in the right order. It took Tate twice as long as anyone else to finish her homework—but she tried to keep that a secret.

  Last year, at her old school, she’d gotten some extra help with reading. And by the time school let out in June, she had improved. She was still not a fast reader, but her reading teacher said Tate remembered what she read better than anyone.

  Finally! There was something she was good at!

  So Tate had decided that when school started again in the fall, she would try out for the Book Quiz Team.

  She liked the idea of sitting at a table with a buzzer in front of her and pressing it when she knew the answer. She liked the idea of making points for her team. She liked the idea of seeing her family in the audience. They’d be proud of her and clap for her. They’d say, “Tate’s our reader!”

  Tate had copied the list of books she would have to read during the summer. And by the first day at her new school, she had read every one.

  Only now she wished she hadn’t. What was the use? She would never make the Quiz Team. The handout she had gotten today made that very clear.

  Tate stepped off the big yellow school bus. Her shoulders slumped. Her backpack dragged in the dust of the country road.

  Abner, Derek, and Celia Willow leaped off the bus behind their sister and raced to the stone arch bridge. Every day after school, the four Willow children liked to drop sticks in the river below. Then they rushed to the other side of the bridge to see which stick came out first.

  “Ready—set—” Abner began. Then he said, “Tate! Come on. We’re waiting!”

  “Go ahead without me,” Tate called. She walked slowly to the bridge and sat on its stone ledge. She didn’t feel like playing. She just watched the river.

  The river was usually a quiet, slow stream that curled around Hollowstone Hill like a sleepy blue snake. But now, after two weeks of rain, it was a muddy brown snake, wide awake and moving fast.

  The sticks swirled and tumbled as they came out from under the bridge. One hit a rock with a sharp crack. Derek and Celia could not agree which stick had come out first, so they picked up new sticks and started over.

  Abner sat down beside Tate. “What are you going to join at school this year?” he asked. “I’m going to be in the Science Club. We’re building robots!”

  Tate shoved her backpack a little with her toe. Of course Abner would be in the Science Club. He had brains. He did his homework three times as fast as she did, and he was only one year older.

  “I’m doing peewee football,” Derek said. He stood on his hands in the middle of the bridge. “Maybe I’ll do Scouts, too.” He had found an old scouting handbook of his father’s and had been trying to learn the different knots.

  Tate’s leg swung back and forth. Bump–hump–hump went her foot against her backpack. She could hardly do a cartwheel, and she had failed her last swimming test. But Derek was a star at every sport he tried. She supposed he would be good at tying knots, too. Why did things come so easily for everyone else?

  Celia gave up on her stick and leaned against Abner’s knee. “Miss Beeful put my picture of a dog up on the bulletin board. She says I should enter the art contest for my grade this year.” Celia sighed happily. “Miss Beeful says I take after my mother, because we’re both talented artists.”

  Tate dangled her backpack by its strap and kicked it up in the air a little. Then she caught it, thinking about what Celia had said. Her little sister was good at drawing, for her age—much better than Tate had been. Now there would be two artists in the Willow family. Tate tried to feel happy about this. She failed.

  Abner nudged Tate. “So, what are you going to join this year?” he asked again.

  There was a hot, prickly feeling behind Tate’s eyes. “Nothing,” she said. “I’m not good at anything.” She tossed up her backpack again. Thwup!

  She hadn’t meant to kick it so hard. The bright green backpack sailed past her hands. It hit a corner of the ledge and hung there, teetering. Then, as Tate reached for it, the backpack tipped. Splash!

  The four Willows ran alongside the river after the bobbing, twirling backpack.

  “Catch it! Catch it!” cried Celia.

  “There goes your homework!” Derek shouted.

  Abner was the oldest, and he ran the fastest. He caught up with the backpack, but couldn’t think how to get it out of the river.

  Tate looked ahead. She had an idea. “The big log!” she called, pointing. “You can catch it there!”

  The big log was a tree that had fallen long ago. It slanted down into the river, large and partly hollow. On days when the river had been calmer, the Willows had used it for a lookout, a pirate ship, and a desert island.

  Abner saw at once what Tate meant. He put on a last burst of speed and climbed out on the big log. He snagged the backpack by its strap as it went past. The tree rocked under his weight. “Whoa,” he said, catching hold of the trunk.

  Tate arrived at the big log, breathing hard. She could see that the fallen tree was not as steady as it once was. The rising river, pushing hard against the tree, had loosened it from the bank. On the opposite side, water swirled
and sucked in a froth of dirty foam.

  She looked around. There was a long, thin branch on the ground. “Here!” She picked up the branch and held it out. “Use it for balance, and come on!”

  Abner grabbed the branch and skipped off the log in a hurry. He landed on the riverbank with a solid thump. Then he handed the dripping backpack to Tate. “What do you mean, you’re not good at anything?” he demanded.

  Derek and Celia came running up. They looked at Tate curiously. They wanted to hear the answer, too.

  Tate dug in her backpack to see what had gotten wet. Her long brown ponytail swung past her chin.

  Abner shook her lightly by the arm. “You’re the one who knows how to explain things to grown-ups so we don’t get into trouble, remember?”

  “And you’re nice,” Celia said. “Abby Downey’s big sister is mean, and so is Joey Sisco’s. I’m glad you’re not like them.”

  “Thanks,” Tate said, sighing. What was she supposed to do—join the Nice Club? The Talking to Grown-ups Club? She pulled out the papers in her backpack. They were damp around the edges.

  Derek peeled some of the papers apart and flapped them in the air to dry. “You’re good at staying calm when things start happening.”

  Tate tried to dry the backpack with the hem of her shirt. “Calm and nice,” she said. “I sound like the world’s most boring person.”

  Derek flopped on the grass beside Tate. “I mean when weird things start happening,” he said. “You know.”

  “Like magic,” Celia said.

  “Oh,” said Tate.

  The Willow children had discovered that there was magic somewhere deep inside Hollowstone Hill. At times, it seeped up and got into things, and then they never knew what would happen. It had gotten into their hamster, an old lawn mower, and even some grasshoppers. And Tate had to admit that they could have gotten into a lot of trouble each time.

  But she wasn’t talking about magic now. “I meant that I’m not good at anything for school,” Tate said. “I’m not smart.”

  The others were quiet for a moment. Tate was not the world’s best student, it was true. But she worked very hard.

  “You like to read,” Derek pointed out.

  “Hey!” Abner smoothed out the paper he was holding. “Look at this! Why don’t you go out for the Book Quiz Team?”

  “Yeah!” said Derek. “I heard they went to the state tournament last year!”

  Abner read from the paper in his hand. “Tryouts are on Monday. You must have read all the books. There will be a test.”

  “I won’t pass it,” said Tate. She reached for the paper and stuffed it in her backpack. She felt like throwing it in the river, but she didn’t want to litter.

  Celia said, “Yes, you will! You’ve been reading books all summer long!”

  Tate shook her head. “I’ve been reading from the list my old school gave out. But this school is in a new state. I found out today that their book list is totally different.”

  There was a little silence. “Wow,” said Abner.

  Derek jammed his cap low on his head. “Too bad.”

  Celia gave her big sister a squeeze around the middle. “That’s so unfair!”

  Tate shrugged. She tried to smile. Then she looked up the hill to their house. “Hey, isn’t that Mr. Wopter’s truck? What’s wrong now?”

  Mr. Wopter was a farmer who lived down the road. He was a handyman, too. He drove his dusty blue pickup truck to the Willows’ house when things needed fixing.

  The truck’s tailgate was open. Derek and Celia stood on their tiptoes to see.

  “Mr. Wopter sure has a lot of tools,” said Derek.

  Tate followed Abner up the porch steps. She wasn’t interested in Mr. Wopter’s truck. She wanted to tell her mother about the Quiz Team tryouts. She wanted her mother to tell her that it didn’t matter, and that things would look better in the morning.

  “Oh, good, you’re home!” Mrs. Willow picked up a large, flat case. “I’m sorry, kids. I’ve got to run to town. Someone bought one of my paintings and wants to see more!”

  “Wow! Your first sale!” said Abner.

  Tate did not share her bad news. Her mother was in a big hurry.

  Mrs. Willow gave them both a quick hug, her car keys jingling. “I’ll be back,” she said. “Be good and don’t get in Mr. Wopter’s way—he’s fixing the pipes.” She lowered her voice. “I hope he’s done before your father comes home. Your father would try to do it himself.”

  Abner and Tate looked at one another. They knew what their mother meant. They had seen their father fix things before. Usually, he made the problem worse.

  “Your father tries very hard, of course,” said Mrs. Willow quickly.

  The children nodded. Their father did try hard. When he decided to fix things, he grunted. He sweated until his shirt was damp. He got out all the tools in his toolbox, and there was a lot of clanking.

  “And, of course, he’s a very smart man,” said Mrs. Willow. “Just look at his work for the university!”

  The children nodded again. Their father was smart. Everyone knew that. He just wasn’t any good at being a handyman. Most times, their mother had to pay someone else to come and fix what their father had fixed.

  “Nobody’s good at everything,” said Tate.

  Mr. Wopter’s legs stuck out in the middle of the kitchen floor. His head and shoulders were in the cupboard beneath the sink. Now and then, his hand fumbled on the floor for a different tool.

  Abner squatted down. “I could hand you the tools,” he said.

  The front door slammed. Derek and Celia came in from looking at the truck and threw their backpacks on the kitchen table. “What’s Mr. Wopter doing?” Celia asked.

  “Fixing the pipes,” said Abner.

  Derek looked at the faucet. “Can we still get a drink?”

  Tate didn’t want to bother Mr. Wopter. “Maybe we should get a drink from the bathroom faucet,” she said.

  Mr. Wopter’s voice sounded hollow from inside the cupboard. “You can’t get a drink from any faucet until I’m done. I shut off the water for the whole house.”

  Abner was curious. “How do you shut off the water?” he asked.

  “Down in the basement, by the meter,” said Mr. Wopter. “Hand me that clamp, will you?”

  Small clanking sounds came from under the sink.

  “I’m thirsty,” said Celia.

  Suddenly they were all thirsty. It had been a long, hot walk up the hill.

  Tate looked in the refrigerator. “There’s milk,” she said.

  “Is there juice?” Celia asked.

  “No. We finished the pitcher this morning,” Tate said. She poured out glasses of milk for everyone.

  Celia drank her glass in a hurry. Milk clung to her upper lip in a white mustache. “I’m still thirsty,” she said.

  Everyone wanted another glass. And then the milk carton was empty. Celia turned it upside down over her mouth to get the last drops, but they splashed on her chin. She wiped off her chin with her hand. Now her hand was sticky, but she couldn’t wash it, because there was no water.

  Mr. Wopter’s hands gripped the edge of the cupboard. He slid himself out and sat up. Then he went to his truck and looked through a box of pipe fittings.

  The Willows followed him. “Can we turn on the water yet?” Celia asked.

  “Nope.” Mr. Wopter dug deeper in the box. There was a sound of clinking metal.

  Derek said, “We could get water from the river, with a bucket.”

  “We’d have to boil the water before we drank it, though,” Tate said.

  Mr. Wopter straightened up, frowning. “You kids had better stay away from that river. Last year, when it was running this high, it swept away Wilmer Olson’s prize pig.”

  “A whole pig?” said Celia.

  “What happened to the pig?” asked Abner. “Did it drown?”

  “No, it swam all right. But once it went over the waterfall in town, there wasn’t much left
but a few pounds of bacon.”

  The children were silent, imagining this.

  Mr. Wopter held up a bit of pipe and squinted at it. “Too bad your folks don’t use the old well. If they did, you could go out and pull up a bucket of water right now.”

  “We have a well?” Abner said. “Where?”

  Mr. Wopter scratched under his cap. “See, I don’t exactly know. I never used it myself. But this property had to have a well sometime in the past. The people who lived here got water from someplace, didn’t they? Back in the day, town water pipes didn’t go out this far.”

  “Why wouldn’t they get water from the river?” asked Derek.

  “Rivers aren’t clean enough. But if you dig a well down past bedrock, you get pure water.” Mr. Wopter pulled out a short length of copper pipe from the box in his truck. “Aha! This is what I need.”

  Celia tugged at his sleeve. “Are you going to be done soon?” The milk had dried on her skin and she felt stickier than ever.

  “I’ll tell you the truth,” said Mr. Wopter. “I’ll be done sooner if you all play somewhere else and let me get on with my work.”

  The Willows watched him go into the house.

  “I guess we were bothering him,” said Celia.

  “Maybe you were,” said Derek.

  “I wasn’t,” said Abner. “I was helping. Right, Tate?”

  Tate sighed. This was the problem with being calm and nice. People expected her to smooth things over all the time.

  “Look,” she said. “You were all trying to help Mr. Wopter. Let’s just drop it and do something else.”

  “Like what?” Derek demanded.

  Tate wondered why she had to think of everything. She felt just as grumpy as the others. And she was still thirsty.

  Still thirsty? Suddenly Tate had an idea. “Let’s find the well!”

  There was a moment of silence as the glory of this plan sank in.

  “I’ll get a bucket!” Abner took off for the shed.

  “I’ll get a rope!” Derek shouted, running after him.

  “Wait for me!” cried Celia. “I want to help!”

  But they couldn’t find it. They looked in the front yard and they looked in the back. They looked behind the garden shed, the toolshed, and the garage, and past the ring of trees at the crown of the hill. They dragged the bucket and rope everywhere they went. But they didn’t see anything that seemed to be an old well.