Free Scarlet Discovers True Strength by Ahmet Zappa Page A

Wish Orb, which had firmly settled there as soon as she had held her hand out.
    â€œWhat the stars?”
exclaimed Gemma.
    Tessa was too shocked to respond to her sister with her usual reproach.
    â€œThat’s impossible!” said Leona. “She’s not a Star Darling anymore!”
    â€œAnd yet…” Lady Stella glided toward Scarlet, wearing an expression of not unhappy starprise. “Scarlet, I do not know how you got here, but Ophelia’s Wish Orb has indeed chosen you. And it is you who must go help Ophelia—and hopefully make the wish come true.”

By the time Scarlet’s shooting star delivered her to Wishworld, she had fully transformed from a Starling into as convincing a Wishling as a Starling could be. Her skin was flat and freckled, without a hint of sparkle or a tinge of pink. Her eyes were brown instead of rose-colored. She had even toned down her hair so it was black with a single streak of bright pink.
    Scarlet was pretty sure, too, that the outfit she’d ultimately chosen would convince any Wishling she might encounter that she’d lived there all her life. First she’d picked those pants Wishlings adored—according to Professor Margaret Dumarre, who knew the ways of Wishlings inside and out. Dungarees, she called them, though most Starlings who’d been to Wishworld seemed to refer to them as jeans. Scarlet also wore a deep burgundy hoodie made of a dense, rather stiff Wishling fabric, with a puffy black vest over that. Finally, on her feet were brand-new boots from Lady Stella, which would be her Wish Pendant from then on. One day, on her own mission, the rows of star-shaped energy-absorbing jewel buckles would light up when she met her Wisher and absorb all the wish energy produced when that Wisher’s wish came true. For now, however, Scarlet was careful to pull her jeans down to cover as many of the jewels as she could.
    Scarlet stood where she’d landed, in a Wishworld meadow filled with green grass and yellow flowers, canopied by a bright blue sky. In the distance, she could see a sharp steeple and the starkly angled rooftops of what looked like a small town.
    So strange
…she thought as she looked around.
And so…uncomfortable, as well.
    She sensed it first on her back…then on the top of her head, under her hood: a deep, inescapable feeling unlike any other she’d ever had. It didn’t take away from the excitement of being on Wishworld at last…it just distracted her a bit.
    Scarlet pulled down her hood and that helped a little, especially when a light breeze swept through her hair. But the uncomfortable feeling soon returned, stronger than before. Scarlet slipped off her vest and began to fan herself. That made a big difference, she discovered with relief.
    Curious, she checked her Star-Zap to see what the temperature was.
Solar flare!
she thought as she realized how much warmer it was there than on Starland. Quickly, she reactivated her Wishworld Outfit Selector and dialed up a tank top.
    Ah, much better
, she thought.
    She wasn’t there to worry about her comfort, though, Scarlet reminded herself. She was there to do a job—and, even more important, to prove what she could do! She needed to fix whatever mess Ophelia had made and get a wish granted and wish energy collected as soon as Starlingly possible. Ophelia had already squandered half the time the Wish Orb gave her, so there wasn’t a moogle left to waste.
    Quickly, she folded up her star and slipped it into her pocket. Then she switched her Star-Zap to locator mode.
    â€œTake me to Ophelia!” she told it, and directions appeared instantly.
    To Scarlet’s starprise, the directions led her away from the town and into a vast field. It appeared to be full of some kind of crop, from what Scarlet had learned of Wishling ways of growing food. The plants stood in straight rows and were tall—much taller than she—with long, pointy,