Free The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer

got there? What if he never saw her again? His feet began to ache, a horrible pain grew in his side, and his heart felt like it was beating out of his chest, but he continued running. He just prayed he wasn’t too late….

    It hadn’t been more than five minutes since Alex had gotten home when
The Land of Stories
began acting up again. She ran up the stairs to her bedroom and promptly shut the door behind her.
    Alex took
The Land of Stories
out of her school bag and placed it on her bedroom floor. She opened the cover, and her room lit up from its golden glow. She smiled to herself. Alex had always hoped something magical would happen to her, and now something finally was.
    She pulled out a pencil from her school bag and placed it on top of the book and watched it disappear. Alex looked around the room for other disposable things she could drop into the book. She was out of pencils, and the books left in her bookshelves were ones she wanted to keep. She looked down at her school bag; she did have plenty of
school bags.
    She placed her whole bag on top of the book and watched as it, too, slowly sank into the storybook. Where were all these things going? Was it transporting them to another part of the world? Would she find a pile of her school supplies in India or China?
    Or did the book send the items someplace else entirely? Was it possible they were going to another world? Was it the world that Alex secretly hoped for?
    There was only one way to find out.
    It was an idea she had managed to suppress all week. What if she went into the book? No, she couldn’t possibly do such a stupid thing. What if she never came out?
    But what if she stuck her hand into the book? What would happen? Would it hurt? Would her whole arm disappear? Alex’s curiosity overruled her caution. She sat on her knees and bent over the book very carefully.
    Alex started with just her fingertips. So far, so good. There was no pain; she only felt a warm, tingly sensation. Alex reached farther. She was wrist deep now, and still nothing had happened that worried her. She went farther; the book was up to her elbow. If the book hadn’t been there, her hand would surely be sticking through the ceiling downstairs.
    Alex leaned forward even farther, almost shoulder deep into the book. She moved her arm around, seeing if there was anything to grab on to inside it.
    Suddenly, her bedroom door burst open, and Conner ran inside, sweating and out of breath. “Alex! Don’t do it!”
    He completely startled her. Alex lost her balance and fell—headfirst into the book!
    “AAALLLEEEXXX!” Conner cried out to his sister. He jumped to the ground, trying to grab her foot before she disappeared entirely, but it was too late. Alex had fallen into
The Land of Stories
.



FROM THE MOUTH OF A FROG
    A lex was no longer in her bedroom. She was falling into a world of light.
    She fell farther and farther, faster and faster. She was dizzy and scared. She screamed out for help but couldn’t hear her own voice. Would she ever stop falling? Was she going to die? Was she dead? She wondered if she would ever see her family again.
    She could hear birds chirping and trees blowing in the wind. The noise seemed to get closer and closer, but shejust kept falling and falling, not knowing where she was falling to….
    “Ouch!” Alex said, hitting the ground. Her impact was hard enough to hurt but not hard enough to seriously injure her. Had it not been for the rough landing, she would have thought she was dreaming for sure.
    Alex quickly got to her feet. She felt her pulse to make sure her heart was still working; she was still alive, from what she could tell. She was so thankful to have finally stopped falling… but where exactly had she fallen to?
    She was standing on a dirt path in the middle of a thick forest. The trees were tall and dark with bright green moss covering their trunks. The sun’s rays shined through a light mist. Birds squawked from high in the trees and, if she