Mary Pope Osborne - Magic Tree House 46 (9 page)

“And where is home?” asked the monk.

“Oh … it’s down the mountain a ways,” said Annie. “It’s not exactly in the first village you come to, but just outside that village, you know, before you see the church steeple. There you turn left onto a winding path and then go awhile, and then turn right—and then left …” She shrugged. “Well, we know how to find it.”

“I see,” said Father Laurent, though he looked a little bewildered. He stood up. “Let’s carefully pack your flower, so you can carry it to your friends.” The monk took two pieces of thick paper from the flower book and placed the glacial buttercup between them. Then he handed it to Jack.

Jack gently placed the flower at the bottom of his bag. Then Father Laurent led Jack and Annie out of the library.

Barry followed them down the hallway. When they reached the front hall, Annie looked at the big dog. “You have to stay here, Barry,” she said.

Barry’s tail stopped wagging.

“Perhaps he can walk with you part of the way,” said Father Laurent. “Then just send him back to me. I think now that you’ve trained him, he can come back home by himself.”

“Great, thank you!” said Annie.

Father Laurent opened the front door. “Farewell, my friends. Travel safely,” he said. “Come back for dinner, Barry.”

Barry barked as if he understood and then bounded out into the snow. Jack and Annie followed him. The snow had completely stopped, and the sky was clear. The setting sun cast a brilliant light over the mountains.

Jack remembered that the tree house had
landed on a slope above the wide pass. His sense of direction seemed keener than before. “I think we originally came from
that
way,” he said. “Let’s try it.”

Jack led Annie and Barry away from the monastery. His eyes searched the pass for signs of the tree house, until finally he thought he saw it: brown wood nestled on a slope among gray boulders. “That’s it!” he said, pointing. “Over there!”

Jack started to run, and Annie and Barry ran with him. As they raced through the clean, crisp air, Jack remembered what it felt like to be a dog. The cold didn’t bother him at all; he didn’t feel sore or stiff. Nothing hindered his body. And most of all, he felt a wild joy. He felt as if he could run forever.

Finally, laughing and panting, Jack, Annie, and Barry reached the base of the slope below the tree house. The setting sun covered the mountaintops with purple light.

Barry barked. Jack could tell he wanted to climb into the tree house with them. “You have to
go back to Father Laurent now, Barry,” Jack said softly. He tugged on Barry’s velvety ear. “But we think you’re a
great
dog, and so does Napoléon.”

Barry made a snuffling sound. Annie turned her face away from Barry and Jack.

“Annie, aren’t you going to say good-bye to him?” said Jack.

Annie looked at Jack. Her eyes were filled with tears. “How do I do that?” she said. “How do I say good-bye to him?”

“You tell him how you feel about him. Tell him about all the good things waiting for him back at the monastery,” said Jack. “The fire, the food, Father Laurent and Brother Michael, and all the other dogs. You tell him he’s going to save lots of lives.”

Annie knelt down and put her arms around Barry’s giant head. He licked her as she clutched him.

“Tell him, Annie,” Jack urged her.

Annie lifted Barry’s ear and whispered into it for a long time. Jack couldn’t hear all that
she said, but he caught the words
love
and
all my life.

Then Annie stood up and pointed toward the monastery. Smoke was rising from the chimney. “Go home now, Barry,” she said. “It’s where you belong.”

Barry looked from Annie to Jack. He sneezed. Then he climbed down the slope and took off for home.

Annie turned away quickly and wiped her eyes. “Let’s go,” she said, and she scrambled up the slope and climbed through the tree house window.

Jack followed her. Inside the tree house, he picked up the Pennsylvania book and pointed to a picture of the Frog Creek woods. “I wish we could go home, where
we
belong,” he said.

Booming dog barks came from the distance. Echoes of the barks filled the air. Barking echoed from all directions––the sky, the clouds, the rocky slopes, and the purple mountain peaks of the Great St. Bernard Pass.

Then the wind began to blow.

The tree house started to spin.

It spun faster and faster.

Then everything was still.

Absolutely still.

Jack and Annie were wearing their jeans and sweatshirts again. Jack’s bag was a backpack. No time at all had passed in Frog Creek. Dawn was still breaking. Dogs were barking in the distance, and the woods were filled with birdsong.

“You okay?” Jack asked Annie.

She nodded.

“Barry’s going to save lots of lives,” said Jack. “I know it.”

Annie smiled. “He was so funny,” she said wistfully.

“Yeah, and he was happy,” said Jack. He reached into his backpack and carefully lifted out the papers with the glacial buttercup. He handed the dried flower to Annie, then pulled out their rhyme and reread it:

The second thing to break the spell
is a white and yellow flower.
Live its meaning for yourself,
if only for an hour.

“I guess we did live its meaning for an hour,” said Jack.

“That joyful spirit that Father Laurent talked about?” said Annie.

Jack nodded. “For exactly an hour, while I was a dog, I was perfectly happy,” he said.

“Only for an hour, perfectly happy?” said Annie.

Jack shrugged. “The rest of the time, I was pretty worried.”

“About what?” said Annie.

“Well, in the beginning, of course, I worried about the avalanche and losing you,” said Jack. “Then I worried that Teddy and Kathleen had sent us to the wrong place. I worried about finding the flower. I worried about wasting time training Barry. Then I worried about finding him.”

“You worry a lot, Jack,” said Annie.

“I know,” said Jack. “I needed a dog to teach me how to have a child’s joyful spirit.”

“And Barry needed
you
to learn how to be responsible,” said Annie. “You taught him how to
listen to others and how to find avalanche victims. You helped bring out Barry’s instincts to be a rescue dog, Jack. You did a great job.”

“Oh …” Jack felt his face getting red. “Well, you did a great job, too. You really did.”

“Whatever,” Annie said modestly. “At least we found the second thing to help save Penny.” She carefully placed the glacial buttercup in the corner of the tree house.

Jack reached into his bag, took out the emerald rose, and placed it beside the flower.

“We have two things so far,” said Annie.

“And two more to go,” said Jack.

“But right now, we have to hurry home and sneak back into our rooms and put on our pajamas and get into our beds, so Mom and Dad can wake us up and tell us to get ready for school,” said Annie.

Jack laughed. “We live a weird life,” he said.

“Yep,” said Annie, “but I like it all.”

“Me too,” said Jack. And they started down the rope ladder, headed for home.

For me, the joy of writing the Magic Tree House books is discovering different facts and then putting them together with my imagination to create a story. When I was doing research on the Saint Bernard Monastery in the Swiss Alps, I discovered three things:

• Laurent Murith (known as Father Laurent) was the head of the monastery in 1800. He was also a great botanist and naturalist. The library of the monastery held many of his specimens, including the linen book with the pressed flowers.

• With help from Father Laurent and from the dogs and monks of the monastery, First Consul Napoléon Bonaparte crossed the Alps in 1800 with sixty thousand soldiers. Remarkably, not one man died on the grueling trek.

• In 1800, a young Saint Bernard dog named Barry lived at the monastery. Barry saved more than forty lives between 1800 and 1812. He was considered the most heroic dog of all time in the Alps. After his death, the monks always named one of their dogs Barry.

Another great joy for me in writing these books is learning a lot more about subjects I love. And I don’t think there is any subject I love more in this world than dogs—especially dog heroes. To learn more about the incredible dogs of the Saint Bernard Monastery and other heroic dogs, you can read
Dog Heroes
(the companion nonfiction book to
Dogs in the Dead of Night
), which I have cowritten with my sister, Natalie Pope Boyce.

In the past, the nonfiction Magic Tree House books were called Research Guides. Now we’ve changed the name to Fact Trackers. Why? Because my sister and I always feel like we’re “tracking the facts” as we write about a new topic. The Magic Tree House Fact Trackers are for kids like you (and me!) who want to know more facts than I can fit into a story. If you haven’t fact-tracked with Jack and Annie yet, you are in for a new kind of adventure!

Coming December 2011

Don’t miss Magic Tree House
^®
#47
(A Merlin Mission)

Abe Lincoln at Last!