The Last Fallen Star by Graci Kim (the mitten read aloud .TXT) 📗

fast, Hattie will be gone forever.” I pause. “And it will be all my fault.”

A gull squawks in the distance as it flies across the blood moon, and I look up at the sky, terrified.

What in the three realms have we gotten ourselves into?

“WE HAVE TO TELL YOUR PARENTS,” Emmett says, gripping my shoulders tight. “This is officially too big for us to handle by ourselves. We need help.”

“No!”

He raises his eyebrows at my sudden outburst. “But why? Even you have to admit we’re out of our depth here.”

I look down at my hands. He doesn’t know I come from the cursed clan. If the adults found out Hattie had been carted off to another realm after illegally trying to summon Mago Halmi on my behalf, it would just prove everything the council has been saying about me. I have to show them I’m not a rebel. I’m the opposite—I want to fit in. If we can find the last fallen star, not only will we get Hattie back, I will be turned into a real Gom, too.

“We can solve this on our own. My parents have enough on their plates as it is. I got us into this mess, and I will get us out. I can do this. I will do this.”

He frowns, and I can tell there’s a lot more he wants to say.

“Just one more day,” he finally says. “One day, and then we get the adults involved.”

“Five.” My heart is racing.

“Two. And that’s my final offer.”

“Fine,” I say, relenting. “Two days.”

He squirms, but nods. “Then tell me, Sherlock. Where do we start?”

I think of Hattie. What would she do in this situation?

“When Hattie and I do jigsaw puzzles, she always starts with the edge pieces,” I say. “We need to do the same thing now—start with the edges, or what we know, and work our way in.”

Emmett rubs his temples. “Okay, Emmett Harrison, think. Think. You’ve conquered fifty planets on Battle Galactic—you’ve got this. What do you know about stars?”

He closes his eyes for a moment, and then turns to me. “For starters, I know there’s no such thing as a fallen star. There are falling stars, but they’re just streaks of light you can see from the Earth when meteoroids enter our atmosphere and burn up. They’re not really stars at all.”

He closes his eyes again, then bites his lip. “Man, if only we could get into the Griffith Observatory. There are some amazing resources there.” He looks up at the sky, where the sun has only just started to rise. “But it won’t be open yet. It’s too early.”

A small flicker of hope kindles inside me. “Em, I overheard Cosette Chung, one of the girls at Saturday School, say she was going to be at the Griffith Observatory all week. Some type of sleepover summer program for budding astronomers. Maybe she’ll let us in.”

Emmett’s eyes brighten. “Now you’re talking. Can you text her and double-check?”

I reach into my damp pocket to DM Cosette on Instagram, only to realize my mistake. “Darn it!” I say, pulling out my phone. It’s dripping like a tap. “I…I guess I forgot to leave my phone behind when I went into the ocean.”

“Sorry,” says Emmett. “I’d offer you a bag of rice to dry it in, but I’m fresh out.”

I press the phone’s power button, already knowing it won’t turn on. “It’s ruined.” I want to collapse on the sand and cry.

“And mine is out of juice,” Emmett reminds me.

“What are we going to do?” I ask, on the verge of panic.

“We’ll just have to turn up and hope this girl lets us in.”

“But how are we going to get there? Without a phone, we can’t get a ride….”

I look over at the small scooter, still lying in the sand where Hattie left him. “I guess we’ll have to take the dragon-on-wheels.”

Emmett makes a face. “But he’s so creepy. We could walk?”

I pull Hattie’s heart vial from under my sweater and dangle it in Emmett’s face. “Do you think we have time to walk right now? It’ll take us half a day just to get there.”

He swallows. “You’re right. But I’m not touching him. You drive, and I’ll hold on to you.”

“Wimp.”

I carefully unfold Boris and turn the handlebars left and right to get a feel for him. He’s kind of slimy to the touch, and I wonder how we’re both going to stay on. “Sorry in advance for being so heavy,” I say to the scooter. “You probably aren’t used to carrying two people, but we need to get to the Griffith Observatory as fast as we can.”

Boris’s tail wags in response, and with that encouragement, I gingerly step aboard. Emmett quickly gets on after me and wraps his arms around my waist like a baby koala. Boris lets out a groan but stays upright. Then he bounces slightly, as if testing the new weight.

“Here goes nothing.” I go to lower my right foot to push off, only to realize that it’s stuck on the scooter. “What the—?” I look down to see Boris’s blue scales spreading over my feet. They unfurl like a second skin, until the cold sliminess has swallowed me right up to the calves. It feels like I’m encased in wet concrete. But at the same time it seems secure, as if I’ve been strapped on tight to a snowboard.

“Ahh!” Emmett shrieks, hopping from one foot to the other. “He’s eating you alive!”

Boris’s ears and wings start to flap, and I grip the handlebars. “Hold on tight, Em!” I yell. “I don’t think I’m the one driving!”

And sure enough, as soon as the words escape my mouth, we start to move. Fast. So fast I don’t even get a chance to close my mouth. The world blurs past us in dark blues and greens, and I’m glad it’s too early for any saram to see us. I’m pretty sure I swallow at least three flies.

We make excellent