The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In a Ship of Her Own Making Read Online Free Page A
Author: Catherynne M. Valente
Tags: Fiction, Juvenile Fiction
long way to go for desert. Anyway I don’t have to explain myself. On your way, then!”
Betsy Basilstalk gave the girl a hard shove into the soft, leafy wall of the closet. With a wriggle, a squeeze, and a pop, September slid, backward, through to the other side.
#
Local Thunder
Chapter III: Hello, Goodbye, and Manythanks
In which September Nearly Drowns, Meets Three Witches (One a Wairwulf), And Is Entrusted with the Quest for a Certain Spoon.
Salt water hit September like a wall. It roared foamily in her eyes, snatched at her hair, dragged at her feet with cold, purple-green hands. She gasped for air and got two lungs-ful of freezing, thick sea.
Now, September could swim quite well. She had even won second medal at a tournament in Lincoln. She had a trophy with a winged lady on it, though she had always wondered what use a flying girl would have for swimming. The lady should have had webbed feet, September was sure. But in all her after-school practices her coaches had never impressed upon her the importance of practicing her butterfly stroke while being dropped from a great height without any ceremony at all into an ocean. With Fairy ooze in one’s eyes. Really , September thought, how could they leave something like that out?
She floundered and dipped beneath the giant waves, only to bob up again, spluttering, gulping air. She kicked hard, struggling to get her legs properly under her and orient towards the shore--if there was a shore--so that the waves would carry her towards land--if land there was--and not away from it. Riding the crest of a horrid wave sickeningly upward, she turned her head as fast as she could, and glimpsed through the last, stubborn streaks of ointment, a fuzzy, orangeish strand off to the west. Against the will of the water she hauled her body until she was more or less pointed at it and stroked as fast as she could on the swell of the next wave, letting it push her and punch at her and drag her, whatever it liked, as long as it was closer and closer to land. September’s arms and legs burned and her lungs were seriously considering giving the whole thing up, but on she went, and on and on--until, quite unexpectedly, her knees knocked on sand and she fell face first as the last waves slid up past her onto a rose-colored shore.
September coughed and shook. On her hands and knees, she threw up a fair bit of the Perverse and Perilous Sea onto the beach. She squeezed her eyes shut and shivered until her heart stopped beating quite so fast. When she opened her eyes, she was steadier, but elbow deep in the beach and sinking fast. Thick red rose petals, twigs, thorny leaves, yellowish chestnut husks, pine cones and rusty tin bells littered the shoreline as far as she could see. September scrambled and tripped and waded through the strange, sweet-smelling rubbish, trying to find some solid ground beneath the blackberry brambles and robins’ eggshells and wizened, dried toadstools. The land was not very much more solid than the sea, but at least she could breathe--in sharp, jerky gulps, as the brambles pricked at her and the twigs pulled at her hair.
I have not been in Fairyland nearly long enough to start crying , September thought, and bit her tongue savagely. That was better, she could think, and the flotsam of the beach did seem to get shallower as she pushed through the wreckage. Finally, the wreckage was only knee deep, and she could trudge through it like so much heavy snow. At the far edge of the shore were tall silvery cliffs, spotted with brave, stubborn little trees that had found purchase on the rocks, and grew straight out sideways from the cliffside. At their tops, great birds wheeled and cried, their long necks glowing bright blue in the afternoon light. She was alone on the beach, breathing heavily. She rubbed her eyes to get the last of the gnome-ointment out, where it had hardened like sleep-dust. When September’s eyes were clean of salt and
Betsy Basilstalk gave the girl a hard shove into the soft, leafy wall of the closet. With a wriggle, a squeeze, and a pop, September slid, backward, through to the other side.
#
Local Thunder
Chapter III: Hello, Goodbye, and Manythanks
In which September Nearly Drowns, Meets Three Witches (One a Wairwulf), And Is Entrusted with the Quest for a Certain Spoon.
Salt water hit September like a wall. It roared foamily in her eyes, snatched at her hair, dragged at her feet with cold, purple-green hands. She gasped for air and got two lungs-ful of freezing, thick sea.
Now, September could swim quite well. She had even won second medal at a tournament in Lincoln. She had a trophy with a winged lady on it, though she had always wondered what use a flying girl would have for swimming. The lady should have had webbed feet, September was sure. But in all her after-school practices her coaches had never impressed upon her the importance of practicing her butterfly stroke while being dropped from a great height without any ceremony at all into an ocean. With Fairy ooze in one’s eyes. Really , September thought, how could they leave something like that out?
She floundered and dipped beneath the giant waves, only to bob up again, spluttering, gulping air. She kicked hard, struggling to get her legs properly under her and orient towards the shore--if there was a shore--so that the waves would carry her towards land--if land there was--and not away from it. Riding the crest of a horrid wave sickeningly upward, she turned her head as fast as she could, and glimpsed through the last, stubborn streaks of ointment, a fuzzy, orangeish strand off to the west. Against the will of the water she hauled her body until she was more or less pointed at it and stroked as fast as she could on the swell of the next wave, letting it push her and punch at her and drag her, whatever it liked, as long as it was closer and closer to land. September’s arms and legs burned and her lungs were seriously considering giving the whole thing up, but on she went, and on and on--until, quite unexpectedly, her knees knocked on sand and she fell face first as the last waves slid up past her onto a rose-colored shore.
September coughed and shook. On her hands and knees, she threw up a fair bit of the Perverse and Perilous Sea onto the beach. She squeezed her eyes shut and shivered until her heart stopped beating quite so fast. When she opened her eyes, she was steadier, but elbow deep in the beach and sinking fast. Thick red rose petals, twigs, thorny leaves, yellowish chestnut husks, pine cones and rusty tin bells littered the shoreline as far as she could see. September scrambled and tripped and waded through the strange, sweet-smelling rubbish, trying to find some solid ground beneath the blackberry brambles and robins’ eggshells and wizened, dried toadstools. The land was not very much more solid than the sea, but at least she could breathe--in sharp, jerky gulps, as the brambles pricked at her and the twigs pulled at her hair.
I have not been in Fairyland nearly long enough to start crying , September thought, and bit her tongue savagely. That was better, she could think, and the flotsam of the beach did seem to get shallower as she pushed through the wreckage. Finally, the wreckage was only knee deep, and she could trudge through it like so much heavy snow. At the far edge of the shore were tall silvery cliffs, spotted with brave, stubborn little trees that had found purchase on the rocks, and grew straight out sideways from the cliffside. At their tops, great birds wheeled and cried, their long necks glowing bright blue in the afternoon light. She was alone on the beach, breathing heavily. She rubbed her eyes to get the last of the gnome-ointment out, where it had hardened like sleep-dust. When September’s eyes were clean of salt and
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