The Children's Crusade Read Online Free

past. But he kind of wished he did live in thepast. Oh, not too long ago, not in the days of gas lighting and horse-drawn carriages or anything . But in the time before he stepped into magic and his whole world changed. Could it only have been a few weeks ago?
    Shoving his hands into his pockets, he turned to go home. He had taken only a few steps when something made him stop short on the pavement. The air shimmered in front of him.
    Titania, Queen of Faerie, materialized before him. And she didn’t look happy.

Chapter Two
Brighton, England
    A BOY WITH GRIMY LONG BLOND HAIR stood beside a crowd of kids. The group stared down at a pink chalk hopscotch grid the boy had drawn on the sidewalk. A little girl, about seven, squinted up at him.
    â€œDoes everyone play dress up where you’re from?” she asked.
    The boy, Daniel, glanced down at his tattered overcoat, patched trousers, and the beat-up top hat he held in his hand. The overcoat with tails had seen better days. It had begun to deteriorate even before he had gone to Free Country. No surprise, seeing as he had found them in the rubbish heap. The trousers had once belonged to one of the sons of his master in the factory. Hand-me-down hand-me-downs they were.
    Daniel looked at the neat and tidy children surrounding him and felt a bit disheveled. Usually, he didn’t mind how he looked. Everyone in Free Country looked however they wanted to. Well, truth be told, he always made sure his face was clean and nothing was too dirty if he knew he’d be seeing Marya. He was sweet on her, and he didn’t care who knew it.
    â€œWhere I come from,” he told the little girl, “you can dress up as a fairy princess if you want to. Or a frog, even.”
    The girl giggled. “I wouldn’t want to be a frog.”
    â€œWell, then, don’t, for all I care.” Daniel was growing impatient. A dozen children had already hopped the pattern. This batch had slowed things down by asking questions.
    â€œCome on,” he instructed them. “Hook it. If you can’t hop any faster than this, we’ll catch it for sure!”
    He watched with satisfaction as the children picked up speed—excited, no doubt, by the possibility of being princesses and frogs. After the last child hopped, skipped, and jumped, Daniel started to follow but paused, teetering on one foot.
    â€œSlag me,” he scolded himself. “I forgot! I promised Marya I’d snag her a souvenir.”
    He placed his bare foot back on the groundand glanced into the window of the shop behind him. Daniel couldn’t read, so he wasn’t sure what kind of shop it was. But there was a little statue in the window of a ballerina.
    â€œCoo,” he breathed, admiring the statue. “Ain’t you the cat’s canary.” It was just the thing for Marya. He picked up a stone from the gutter and hurled it at the window. Taking care not to cut himself, he reached in and snatched the statue. He shoved it under his coat and hopped his way back home into Free Country.
    A moment later, Daniel stood on a cobblestone path in Free Country, surrounded on all sides by trees, flowers, and rolling lawns. The sun warmed the stones so they felt cozy under his bare feet. The sky was the same brilliant blue it always was, and a hint of the smell of chocolate cookies was in the breeze. Daniel took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the delicious air. “Free Country,” he murmured, “and about time, too. Another day of that drudge and I’d have been Bedlam bait.”
    How long was I out there on my mission? he wondered. It was probably only about three days, but it had felt like years. That’s how passing time felt to Daniel anyplace but in Free Country. When he was anywhere else he felt all nervous.
    His charges—the children he had justinstructed in the special hopscotch pattern—stood gazing about them. They all look a bit daft when they come through ,