Winston Chu vs. the Whimsies by Stacey Lee

Author:Stacey Lee [Lee, Stacey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Disney Book Group
Published: 2022-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

So Mr. Pang was a magpie. The Egg of Truth had revealed his true form. That would explain the man’s talon-like fingernails. But was he the same magpie I’d attempted to rescue? Mr. Pang had gone into his office to take a phone call. He could have changed into a bird then and flown out to fake an injury.

The bird darted up over the aisle into the next one.

“There!” I cried.

“Follow him!” Mav yelled, setting off.

The magpie perched atop a fringed lampshade. When he spotted us, he flew to the last aisle.

Mav bent over his knees to catch his breath. “Team, can’t win this one without a plan.”

“Or a net,” said Cassa.

“A net’s no good if we can’t reach it!” Bijal threw his hands at the ceiling. “We need a tranquilizer gun.”

Cassa snorted. “Yeah, like we’re going to find one here.”

“Well, he has everything else!” Bijal crossed his arms. “Okay, Babe Ruth, what’s your suggestion?”

She scowled.

A needle of panic jabbed at me. We could be here all night. There was a reason birds were one of the few animals to survive mass extinction. “Why doesn’t he fly away? We’ve seen him outside before.”

Bijal glanced toward the exit. “Maybe he can’t open the door by himself.”

“There’s a hole in the ceiling above the popcorn machine,” I said. “Maybe that’s how he gets in—he flies through the window of the acupuncture shop and then down that chute. But why doesn’t he escape that way now?”

Mav tapped a finger to his chin. “Maybe he can only fly downward. A bird flew down our chimney once, and it couldn’t make it back up. The ascent was too steep.”

“So Mr. Pang can only exit his shop as a human, and he won’t be human for the next twenty hours,” said Cassa.

“There’s gotta be a way to catch it.” I glanced around me. “We’re in a room full of magic things. Maybe we could try this?” I reached for the first thing I saw—a top hat, as shiny black as sealskin. As soon as I closed my hand around the rim, my feet started moving. Not just moving, but tap-dancing, except that since I was wearing sneakers, there was no tapping, just a lot of squeaking. I was dragged down the aisle, shuffle-kicking, stamping, and stomping. My hands automatically clutched both sides of the hat and raised it up and down over my head, like I was in a chorus line.

Mav ducked out of my way while I pranced over to Bijal.

“Bijal, catch!” Mav had pulled Bijal’s umbrella from his backpack.

Bijal snagged it and fired. The canopy opened as fast as ink from a jettisoning squid and knocked the hat from my hands. I stopped dancing so abruptly I nearly fell over, my feet humming and my breathing labored. The hat rolled in a circle before coming to a stop.

After retracting his umbrella, Bijal used it to pick up the hat. Only then did I see the danger-red label dangling from the brim. I really needed to think before grabbing stuff in here.

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