Let’s begin.
Gigi the giraffe and Starlight the unicorn were having a picnic at Reed Bend. Their families had helped them choose a shady tree near the river. Today, Gigi's little brother Pip and Starlight's older sister Aster were coming too.
Gigi brought sweet leaves and a little bundle of fruit. Starlight brought a woven mat. Her older sister Aster brought a basket with cups, and Pip had asked if he could come too. Everyone was ready for a fun afternoon.
There was one problem. The ground beneath the shade tree was damp from morning rain.
“We can move to the sunny grass,” Gigi said.
“The cups will get warm,” Starlight said. “I know a way to move the mat across the wet patch without dragging it through mud.”
“Can you do that?” asked Pip.
“I think so.”
Aster was still collecting the cups from the basket. Gigi and Pip went to find a dry spot on the other side of the tree. Starlight stayed with the mat. She did not want to make a grand show. She wanted everyone to sit down and say, What a lovely place you found.
She spread the mat near the damp ground. Her horn began to glow. She touched one corner with its tip and pictured the whole mat rising just a little.
It rose a little.
“Oh,” Starlight whispered. “That worked.”
Then it rose a lot.
One corner lifted above her head. The other three followed. The mat sailed into the air like a quiet, square bird.
“Come down,” Starlight said.
It did not. The glow had already faded from her horn, but the mat kept floating. A breeze carried it over the shade tree.
Starlight ran around the trunk. The mat drifted toward a branch too high for her to reach.
“What are you chasing?” Pip called.
“A mat.”
“Our mat?”
“Yes.”
Pip looked at the empty patch where it had been. “I thought I left it there.”
“You did,” said Starlight.
Gigi came back with the fruit. “Did the wind take it?”
For one short moment, Starlight wanted to say yes. Wind was moving the mat now. No one had seen her touch it. It would be easy to blame the wind.
But Pip was looking at the place where he had set the basket. He looked as though he might apologize for something he had not done.
“I lifted it,” Starlight said. “My horn touched the corner. I only meant to carry it past the mud, but I made it float away. I should have told you as soon as it happened.”
Pip stopped searching around his feet. “So I didn't lose it?”
“No. You set it down perfectly.”
Gigi looked up. “All right. Now we know what we're chasing.”
Aster had heard them. She did not rush to make a spell of her own. She watched the mat turn in the breeze.
“Can you stop it?” Starlight asked her.
“I don't know what it will do next,” Aster said. “Let's keep it in sight and use the things we can see.”
Starlight felt heat in her cheeks. Aster knew more about magic than she did. Part of her still wanted Aster to wave her horn and make the problem disappear.
“I don't even know how long it will float,” Starlight said.
“Then we won't count on it coming down soon,” Aster replied. “Where does the breeze go after it passes this tree?”
Starlight looked at the grass. On one side, the blades stood still. On the other, they leaned toward a shallow hollow. “That way. If the mat clears the branch, it'll drift over the hollow.”
“Can we stand there?” Pip asked.
“Not safely,” said Gigi. “The roots are too close. We need it before then.”
Now Starlight understood why simply waiting was not a plan. She looked from the moving mat to the low branch and began watching which corner came down first.
The mat dipped toward a low branch, then rose again. Its far corner caught briefly on a twig. Gigi moved beneath it, but a tangle of roots kept her from stepping closer.
“Don't go through there,” Starlight said. “The ground drops behind those roots.”
Gigi backed away. “I can reach the branch from the other side if I have a clear path.”
Starlight knew the tree. She had played beside it since she was small. “Around the hollow trunk,” she said. “There is dry ground beyond the ferns.”
They hurried around together. Pip carried the fruit clear of the mud. Aster stayed where she could see the mat and called out each time it turned.
“Left corner down!”
“Now the right!”
“It's caught on the branch!”
From the dry side, Gigi reached up with her mouth and caught the branch, not the mat. She held it steady so the twig would not snap. Starlight found a fallen stick and used it to nudge the mat's loose corner down. Aster gripped that corner with her teeth. Together they eased the cloth free.
For a moment, the mat hung in the air.
Then the lift faded. It settled over all three of them like a very large hat.
Pip laughed so hard he had to put the fruit down.
Under the mat, Starlight laughed too. “Is everyone all right?”
“I am,” Gigi said. “I can't see, but I'm all right.”
Aster pulled the cloth away. “We're all fine. Though I think there's a leaf on my nose.”
The mat had a few leaves on it. One corner was damp, but the rest was dry. They carried it together to the sunny grass just outside the shade. The cups stayed cool enough. The fruit tasted just as good.
Pip found a pink blossom caught in the weave. He set it in the middle of the mat like a tiny flag.
“For our daring rescue,” he said.
“For our very ordinary rescue,” Gigi corrected.
“It had a flying mat,” Pip said. “That's not ordinary.”
Starlight looked at Aster, then at Gigi. The picnic had gone nothing like she imagined, but everyone was finally sitting together.
Aster passed her a cup. “And now we eat before the fruit flies away too.”
As they ate, Pip pointed toward the tree. “Will the mat fly again?”
“Not today,” Starlight said. “And next time I want to try lifting something, I'll tell everyone first. Then we can choose a safer place to practice.”
“Next time,” said Gigi, “we can also carry it.”
Starlight looked at the patch of mud. “That's a clever kind of magic.”
“No,” Gigi said. “It's the ordinary kind.”
“That's why it's clever.”
They stayed until the light slipped through the leaves in long warm stripes. When they packed up, Starlight took one corner of the mat, Gigi took another, and nobody let it float away.