Chapter Five: A Magical Pearl

Margaret looked at the little pearl for what seemed like ages. How did it get there? How could there be a magical fairy talking to her? Margaret, carefully holding the hand with the pearl in it steady, used her other hand to pinch her leg.

"Ouch!" She yelped.

"Why did you do that, darling child?" Cassielane was trying to hold back a laugh. "Do you think you're dreaming?"

"I thought I did but my daddy said if you pinch yourself and nothing changes then you're awake, so I'm awake."

"Indeed you are, my dear. I am as real as you are, and so is that pearl!"

Margaret looked at her hand again and felt once again surprised that a pearl had appeared out of nowhere and landed right in the center of her palm.

"What is it?" Margaret asked at last.

"Ah, it's a very, very special thing indeed," Cassielane said. "It's magical, and it can only be used by very special people."

"Oh, I'm not special at all," Margaret whimpered. Her lips were trembling and her eyes were filling up with tears again.

"Now why would you say such a thing, darling child? You are talking to me, you have a great and magical gift in your hand. Isn't that proof that you are special?"

Margaret thought about this. It did seem like all of these events were a bit unusual. She had never heard of anyone having anything like this happen to them. But maybe they just didn't want to talk about it. Margaret was wondering how she would explain this to her mom and dad. They thought she was crazy when she first saw Cassielane just flying around. What would they say now?

Margaret must have had a very sad look on her face, because suddenly Cassielane landed on Margaret's hand, right beside the pearl, and she had a sad look on her face, too.

"Margaret, you are very special, and you are not crazy. If you don't want to tell your mom and dad about this that's okay, but if you do tell them, they will not call you crazy. I promise. Okay?"

Margaret nodded her head. She was doubtful, but it seemed like trusting Cassielane was a pretty good idea.

"So what does this do, Cassielane?" Margaret asked. She put her index finger on the pearl and rolled it around a bit in the palm of her hand. It felt so fragile and tiny, it was hard to believe it had any magical powers in there.

"Ah, now that is a great question that I am pleased to answer, my dear. Why don't we put the pearl in a safe place, you lie down, and then I will tell you about the pearl as you fall asleep?"

Margaret just nodded again. She realized suddenly that she was very very tired. It wasn't very late because she had gone to bed early, but it was definitely past her bedtime. Cassielane took the pearl and found a little empty box on Margaret's desk.

"I'm going to put it in your little box that is decorated with ponies. Will you remember?"

Margaret smiled. "That's my favorite box. Of course I'll remember!"

Margaret snuggled with Lamby and almost fell asleep right away, but then she remembered she had to hear about the pearl. She faced the night table so that Cassielane could sit down there.

"So, you want to hear a little about this gift you have been given, I see?" Cassielane smiled in her special way. "I thought you were going to go right to sleep for a second there."

Margaret smiled back. "I almost did, but I really want to hear about the pearl!"

"Alright, my dear. Well, what to tell you. The pearl is a very powerful, very magical gift. When you whisper a wish to it, it will make that wish come true. And you can wish anything that you want, whether mean or nice. But there are some rules. You can't wish that anyone will get hurt or sick. You can't wish anything really awful like that or the pearl will leave you."

Margaret didn't think she would ever wish for someone to get hurt. She thought about Jessica to test this theory. No, she didn't want Jessica to get hurt or sick. She just wanted Jessica to feel the way she had felt that morning.

"Can you follow that rule, Margaret?" Cassie thought Margaret might have fallen asleep because there was no sound, but Margaret was listening very carefully.

"Oh yes, I don't think I could ever wish something really bad to happen to somebody. Not even Jessica. I will never break that rule."

"Good, good. I thought you would say that." Cassielane tapped her fingers on her leg as if she was forgetting something. "Now there are a couple of other rules, too. Are you ready?"

Margaret nodded sleepily.

"Every night, before you go to sleep, you have to tell me about the wishes that you made. And you can only have 3 wishes each day. If you try to have a fourth wish, you will lose the pearl. Do you understand?"

"Oh yes, three is plenty. I'll be very careful. I won't waste anything either. It'll be like how I eat my candy bars. I eat them really really slow so they can last longer."

"Well that's a great way to think about this. And about candy! Just keep these things in mind, because once you start making wishes it can be hard to remember the rules. Do you have any questions for me?"

"No, I think I understand. Oh, but what if I have a question during the day. Can I ask you questions before I see you to tell you what I did?"

"No, fairies can't be out and about during the day, my dear. If you have a big question, it will be better to wait. There's always tomorrow."

"Hmm. Okay. Thank you Cassielane. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Alright, darling Margaret. Sleep well. Enjoy your first day with the pearl. I'll see you tomorrow night to hear all about it."

The next morning, Margaret again shocked her parents. She was up and getting dressed before her mom and dad were awake. Margaret was watching cartoons when her dad came down the stairs.

"Aren't you up early for a Sunday?" He said.

Margaret jumped up and gave him a hug. "Yep!" She said.

"Well, somebody seems to be feeling better," he said, smiling. "What happened? Did ya sleep on it?"

Margaret kind of paused. "Sort of. Yeah, it'll be okay. Dad, can we have pancakes for breakfast?

"Pancakes? Hmm. Well, I was planning on making some pancakes anyway. So, yeah, I guess so. Just for you!"

Margaret smiled and went back to her cartoons. She had been thinking already about what her first wish was going to be, and she had a pretty good idea of how it would all happen. She was very excited.

Margaret waited very patiently for pancake time. First, her mom came downstairs with Isaac in tow. Then she heard the sounds of her dad cracking eggs, opening and closing the fridge, and then finally the sound of the pancake pan coming out of the cupboard. Margaret thought that the sound and smell of pancake batter hitting the pan was one of the greatest things life had to offer.

After eating her third pancake, and after using her fork to scoop up as much of the syrup as possible, Margaret for a third time shocked her parents.

"Mom, I'd like to call Jessica now please."

"Um, you mean the Jessica that you kicked out of our house yesterday?"

"I didn't kick her out, Mom. I was mad and I didn't want to see her around. Can I call her now?"

Glenda and Gary were now officially confused. Their daughter asked to go to bed early. On a weekend. She woke up early. And now she was asking, constantly, to call the friend that she had said she hated just a few hours before.

Gary gave a little shrug.

"Why do you want to call Jessica, babe?" Glenda asked.

"Well, I want her to come over. I think we should talk before we go to school tomorrow."

"I'm going to give you a couple of hours on this to see if you change your mind again. If you haven't changed your mind around lunchtime, we'll give Jessica a call. But I have to warn you, after the way things ended yesterday, she might not want to come over or her parents might not want her to come over."

"Hm, well, tell her I want to say sorry, Mom. I want to say sorry."

Glenda raised an eyebrow. "Two hours. Let's see where you are then."

Margaret rolled her eyes. She thought that the word "sorry" would really get her parents on board with her plan. They had always taught her to say sorry. So why were they being so weird about her wanting to say sorry to Jessica? Maybe they knew somehow that Margaret didn't really want to say sorry. But no, they couldn't have any idea about that.

The two hours clicked by very very slowly. Exactly two hours after Margaret rolled her eyes, she went to her mom again. "Mom," she said pleadingly, "I haven't changed my mind."

Glenda let out a big sigh. These kinds of mood changes weren't supposed to happen in kids till they were teenagers, or so she thought. "I definitely didn't have mood swings like this in Kindergarden," she thought to herself. "Or did I?"

The truth is that Glenda felt a bit awkward calling over to Jessica's house. When Jessica's parents had come over to pick her up, Glenda had explained that her daughter was going through a very sensitive phase, and Jessica shouldn't think that she had done anything wrong. And they shouldn't think that Margaret was doing anything wrong either.

"In Margaret's mind," Glenda had said, "Jessica said something very hurtful, even though we all know that Jessica didn't mean it that way."

Glenda had thought that she would be able to kind of avoid the parents after that. It was never easy to tell people that your child was going through a "sensitive" phase. Now she had to talk to them, and just a day later!

Glenda went into Gary's office to make the call so that she could close the door. She didn't want Margaret to eavesdrop. Sure enough, when Glenda was done Margaret was sitting on the floor next to the door, and there was no doubt she had tried to hear Glenda's end of the conversation.

"Well?" Margaret asked excitedly.

"Jessica will be here in an hour, and she will stay for an hour. That's it."

"YAY!" Margaret jumped up, clapped her hands, hugged her mom, and ran to her room.

The next hour seemed to be longer than the two hours Margaret had had to wait already, but sure enough, the purply car pulled up. Margaret ran down the stairs as she had on Saturday morning. Jessica was still sitting in the car this time.

"Hi Jessica," Margaret said. She had to tilt her head up a bit to make sure Jessica could hear her through the open window.

Jessica slowly undid her seat belt, opened the door, and climbed out of the car.

"Remember, Jess. One hour. We're going to go inside and talk to Margaret's parents."

Margaret led Jessica back to the same tree where they had been practicing before.

"I wanted to see you before we went to school, Jessica. I wanted to see if we were still friends."

"Well, I don't know." Jessica kicked the grass with her shoe and looked down. She didn't look at Margaret at all. "I mean, I didn't do anything and you made me leave. I cried for a long time yesterday. I don't think good friends make each other cry."

Margaret had thought that if she gave Jessica the chance to talk first, Jessica might beg for forgiveness for the awful thing she had said. Instead, Jessica was saying still that she hadn't done anything wrong and she was actually trying to say that Margaret should apologize.

Margaret walked away from Jessica and turned so that her back was toward her former friend. She reached her hand into her pocket and pulled out her pony box, where the pearl was resting. Margaret took it out, put it near her mouth, and whispered, "Magical pearl, make Jessica look like a munchkin from the Wizard of Oz." She put the pearl carefully back into its box, and the box back into her pocket.

The sight that greeted Margaret's eyes when she turned around was amazing and funny and hard to believe. Jessica's brown hair had been covered by a little bonnet, and it looked like it was bright red and curly. She was quite a bit smaller than Jessica now, and her face looked someone had spread paste all over it, except for her cheeks which were bright and red. Jessica's shirt and jeans had been replaced by light blue dress with a giant collar, and her tennis shoes had been replaced with little blue shoes that looked like they were meant for a doll.

Margaret couldn't believe how well the little pearl had done its job. She walked over to her now shorter friend. "Who looks like a munchkin now, huh?"

Jessica let out a scream that pierced Margaret's ears. All of the parents came running out of the house to see what the matter was, but when they saw Jessica they all stopped in their tracks. Jessica's mother let out a scream very similar to Jessica's.

"What HAPPENED?" Jessica's father cried as he picked up Jessica and threw off her bonnet.

"I don't know," Margaret said. She was finding that she had not planned for this part, the lying part. She had never really lied before. "We were practicing, and I went to look at something, and when I came back Jessica looked like that."

Before you could say "munchkin" Jessica and her parents were in their car and leaving. Glenda and Gary were still standing where they had been when they first saw Jessica. Margaret thought it looked like they were in a trance.

"Are, um, are you okay?" Glenda asked Margaret. "You look...the same. Come here, let me just make sure you're uh, you're okay."

Margaret walked over to Glenda. "I'm fine, Mom. I don't know what happened to Jessica but I'm totally fine. Don't worry!"

Margaret kissed her mom's cheek, then skipped back into the house. She went back to her room and placed her pony box, with the pearl inside, carefully on her desk.

She wouldn't need any more wishes for today, she knew. That had been great enough to last her a long time. She couldn't wait till night time when she could give her full report to Cassielane.

"Won't she be surprised!" Margaret thought.

In the meantime, Margaret turned her attention to tomorrow, which would be her first day at school with her new magical pearl. What would she do? There were so many ideas, but just three wishes a day. She wanted to make sure each day was as great as this one. She had to spread out her best ideas. There was a lot of work to do indeed.