Blizzard of the Blue Moon Read online

  Here’s what kids have to say to

  Mary Pope Osborne, author of

  the Magic Tree House series:

  WOW! You have an imagination like no other.—Adam W.

  I love your books. If you stop writing books, it will be like losing a best friend.—Ben M.

  I think you are the real Morgan le Fay. There is always magic in your books.—Erica Y.

  One day I was really bored and I didn’t want to read … I looked in your book. I read a sentence, and it was interesting. So I read some more, until the book was done. It was so good I read more and more. Then I had read all of your books, and now I hope you write lots more.—Danai K.

  I always read [your books] over and over … 1 time, 2 times, 3 times, 4 times … —Yuan C.

  You are my best author in the world. I love your books. I read all the time. I read everywhere. My mom is like freaking out.—Ellen C.

  I hope you make these books for all yours and mine’s life.—Riki H.

  Teachers and librarians love

  Magic Tree House® books, too!

  Thank you for opening faraway places and times to my class through your books. They have given me the chance to bring in additional books, materials, and videos to share with the class.—J. Cameron

  It excites me to see how involved [my fourth-grade reading class] is in your books … I would do anything to get my students more involved, and this has done it.—C. Rutz

  I discovered your books last year … WOW! Our students have gone crazy over them. I can’t order enough copies! … Thanks for contributing so much to children’s literature!—C. Kendziora

  I first came across your Magic Tree House series when my son brought one home … I have since introduced this great series to my class. They have absolutely fallen in love with these books! … My students are now asking me for more independent reading time to read them. Your stories have inspired even my most struggling readers.—M. Payne

  I love how I can go beyond the [Magic Tree House] books and use them as springboards for other learning.—R. Gale

  We have enjoyed your books all year long. We check your Web site to find new information. We pull our map down to find the areas where the adventures take place. My class always chimes in at key parts of the story. It feels good to hear my students ask for a book and cheer when a new book comes out.—J. Korinek

  Our students have “Magic Tree House fever.” I can’t keep your books on the library shelf.—J. Rafferty

  Your books truly invite children into the pleasure of reading. Thanks for such terrific work.—S. Smith

  The children in the fourth grade even hide the [Magic Tree House] books in the library so that they will be able to find them when they are ready to check them out.—K. Mortensen

  My Magic Tree House books are never on the bookshelf because they are always being read by my students. Thank you for creating such a wonderful series.—K. Mahoney

  Finally Jack and Annie go to New York City, the place I called home for over twenty-five years. New York City is a larger-than-life place, filled with skyscrapers, taxis, subways, parks, museums, theaters, and busy, bustling streets. The city has all kinds of weather, too, from heat waves to raging snowstorms. I remember one particularly dramatic blizzard in 1996. The city came to a complete standstill as the wind howled and it snowed and snowed and snowed. When the storm finally ended, pale sunlight shone on all the white streets and sidewalks—and everyone went out to play. Kids made giant snowmen and dogs tunneled through the snowdrifts.

  No matter what disasters it suffers, New York City always comes back. I hope you have a great adventure there with Jack and Annie.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2006 by Mary Pope Osborne

  Illustrations copyright © 2006 by Sal Murdocca

  Window cling illustration copyright © 2006 by Sal Murdocca

  Random House and colophon are registered trademarks and A Stepping Stone Book and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc. Magic Tree House is a registered trademark of Mary Pope Osborne; used under license.

  www.randomhouse.com/kids

  www.magictreehouse.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at

  www.randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Osborne, Mary Pope.

  Blizzard of the blue moon / by Mary Pope Osborne; illustrated by Sal Murdocca.

  p. cm. — (Magic tree house; #36)

  “A Merlin mission.”

  “A Stepping Stone book.”

  Summary: The magic tree house carries Jack and Annie to New York City in 1938 on a mission to rescue the last unicorn.

  [1. Time travel—Fiction. 2. Magic—Fiction. 3. Unicorns—Fiction. 4. Depressions—

  1929—Fiction. 5. Tree houses—Fiction. 6. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 7. New York

  (N.Y)—History—1898-1951—Fiction.] I. Murdocca, Sal, ill. II. Title. III. Osborne, Mary

  Pope. Magic tree house series; #36.

  PZ7.O81167Bli 2006 [Fic]—dc22 2006001838

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89458-9

  v3.0

  To Elwood Smith, who long ago

  in New York City inspired me

  to write for children

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dear Reader

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  1. The Last Unicorn

  2. Who Are They?

  3. Lost in Central Park

  4. Hard Times

  5. The Cloisters

  6. The Hunt of the Unicorn

  7. Dianthus

  8. Back to Life

  9. It’s Them!

  10. The Wand of Dianthus

  More Facts for Jack and Annie and You!

  Illustrator’s Note

  Special Preview of Magic Tree House #37: Dragon of the Red Dawn

  He stays, the Unicorn, In captivity….

  Yet look again—

  His horn is free,

  Rising above

  Chain, fence, and tree.

  —Anne Morrow Lindbergh,

  “The Unicorn in Captivity”

  One summer day, a mysterious tree house appeared in the woods. A brother and sister named Jack and Annie soon learned that the tree house was magic—it could take them to any time and any place in history. They also learned that the tree house belonged to Morgan le Fay, a magical librarian from the legendary realm of Camelot.

  After Jack and Annie traveled on many adventures for Morgan, Merlin the magician began sending them on “Merlin Missions” in the tree house. With help from two young sorcerers named Teddy and Kathleen, Jack and Annie visited four mythical places and found valuable objects to help save Camelot.

  For their next four Merlin Missions, Jack and Annie were told they must travel to real times and real places in history and prove to Merlin that they could use magic wisely. First they went on a mission to the city of Venice. Next they journeyed to the ancient city of Baghdad. On their most recent trip they visited the city of Paris in 1889. Now they are waiting to hear from Merlin again….

  The November sky was gray with clouds. Jack sat reading in front of the living room fire.

  “Who wants hot chocolate?” his dad called from the kitchen.

  “Me, please!” said Jack.

  The front door burst open, and with a gust of cold wind, Annie rushed inside. “Jack! Guess what!” she whispered. “It’s back!�
�

  “How do you know?” said Jack.

  “I was walking home from the library”— Annie paused to catch her breath—“and I saw a flash in the sky above the woods. The last time that happened—”

  Before she could finish the sentence, Jack jumped up. “Dad, Annie and I are going to go outside for a while!” he shouted. “Can the hot chocolate wait till we get back?”

  “Sure, have fun!” their dad called from the kitchen.

  “I have to get my pack,” Jack said to Annie. “Meet you on the porch.”

  “Don’t forget the rhyme book!” said Annie.

  Annie slipped outside and Jack ran up to his room. He grabbed his backpack. He checked to make sure their book of magic rhymes was inside. Good, there it was.

  Jack charged back downstairs. He pulled on his boots, put on his jacket, tied a scarf around his neck, grabbed his mittens, and headed out the door.

  “Come on!” said Annie.

  Jack could see his breath in the cold air. “Brrr,” he said. “Let’s hurry!”

  Jack and Annie ran down the street and into the Frog Creek woods. They wove between the trees, their boots crunching through the fallen leaves.

  Jack stopped. The magic tree house was back. High in a tall oak tree, it was silhouetted against the gray November sky. “You were right,” he said to Annie. “Good work.”

  “Thanks,” Annie said. She ran to the rope ladder and started up. Jack followed her.

  When they climbed inside the tree house, Jack and Annie saw a book and a scroll of parchment paper lying on the floor. Annie picked up the scroll, unrolled it, and read aloud.

  Dear Jack and Annie of Frog Creek,

  I am sending you on one more mission to

  prove that you can use magic wisely. This

  poem will guide you.

  —M.

  The very last unicorn

  Is now hidden well

  By those who have put him

  Under a spell.

  Four centuries, four decades

  From that afternoon,

  At the end of November,

  Before the blue moon,

  He will wake once more

  And be free to go home

  If you call out his name:

  Divine Flower of Rome.

  You must coax him to stand

  Once his name is spoken.

  His chain will break

  And the spell, too, be broken.

  Then a young girl must love him

  And show him the way,

  Lest he be trapped forever

  On public display.

  If he loses this chance

  To rise and depart,

  All magic will fade

  From his horn and his heart.

  “A unicorn!” breathed Annie. “I love him already. I’ll show him the way!”

  “But this poem is really hard to understand,” said Jack. “What kind of research book did Morgan send us?”

  He picked up the book that had been left for them by Morgan le Fay, the librarian of Camelot. The cover showed a row of skyscrapers. The title was New York City Guide Book, 1938.

  “New York City?” said Annie. “I love New York City! Remember the great time we had there with Aunt Mallory?”

  “Yeah, I love it, too,” said Jack. “But why would there be a unicorn in New York City in 1938? A unicorn is an ancient fantasy creature. New York City’s a real place, and 1938 is not even that long ago.”

  “You’re right,” said Annie. “It sounds like a hard mission. But don’t forget we have Teddy and Kathleen’s magic rhymes to help us.”

  “Yeah,” said Jack. He pulled out the book given to them by their friends Teddy and Kathleen, two young enchanters of Camelot. “The problem is, we can only use each rhyme once, and we’ve already used seven out of the ten.”

  “Which means we still have three left,” said Annie. “What are they?”

  “Pull a Cloud from the Sky,” said Jack.

  “Cool,” said Annie.

  “Yeah, it is,” said Jack. “But I’m not sure it will be much use.” He looked back at the book. “Find a Treasure You Must Never Lose,” he said.

  “Hey, that’s a really good one!” said Annie. “The unicorn’s a treasure. So that rhyme could take care of our whole mission.”

  “But it only partly fits,” said Jack. “You could call the unicorn a treasure. But once we find him, we have to lose him. He has to go back home.”

  “Oh, right…,” said Annie. “What else?”

  “Your favorite,” said Jack. “Turn into Ducks.”

  Annie laughed. “I can’t wait to use that one!” she said.

  “I hope we never use that one,” said Jack. He didn’t want to waddle around and quack like a duck. “These leftover rhymes don’t seem very helpful to me.”

  “Well, let’s just wait and see,” said Annie. “But now…” She held up Morgan’s research book and smiled.

  Jack nodded. “New York City, here we come,” he said. He pointed at the book’s cover. “I wish we could go there!”

  The wind started to blow.

  The tree house started to spin.

  It spun faster and faster.

  Then everything was still.

  Absolutely still.

  The wind started to blow.

  The tree house started to spin.

  It spun faster and faster.

  Then everything was still.

  Absolutely still.

  Snow blew into the tree house.

  Jack and Annie wore wool coats, hats, and mittens. Jack’s canvas backpack had turned into a leather briefcase with buckles and a shoulder strap. Jack and Annie looked out the window.

  Below the tree house was a wide, snow-covered field that ended in a wall of evergreen trees. Beyond the trees was a city skyline.

  “This is definitely New York,” said Annie. “See the Empire State Building? Remember our visit to the top?” She pointed to a faraway building that rose above the others. “This must be Central Park. I remember that big field.”

  “Yeah, I do, too,” said Jack. “But we’ve landed in New York in 1938. It was different back then.” He opened their research book and read from the introduction:

  The city of New York is the largest city in the Western Hemisphere. It covers an area of 322 square miles.

  Jack closed the book. “Whoa. Even in 1938, New York was a huge city,” he said. “This is going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

  “I’ll read our mission poem again,” said Annie. She read the first verse aloud:

  The very last unicorn

  Is now hidden well

  By those who have put him

  Under a spell.

  “Okay, so this unicorn was put under a spell,” said Jack, “and he must be hidden somewhere in New York, or Merlin wouldn’t have sent us here.”

  “Right,” said Annie. She read the next verse:

  Four centuries, four decades

  From that afternoon,

  At the end of November,

  Before the blue moon,

  “What’s a blue moon?” asked Annie, looking up. “I’ve heard that expression before.”

  “It’s when you have two full moons in the same month,” said Jack. “It doesn’t happen very often.”

  “Oh,” said Annie. She read on:

  He will wake once more

  And be free to go home

  If you call out his name:

  Divine Flower of Rome.

  “Wait, does that mean the unicorn’s name is Divine Flower of Rome?” asked Jack.

  “I guess,” said Annie. She read on:

  You must coax him to stand

  Once his name is spoken.

  His chain will breaks

  And the spell, too, be broken.

  Then a young girl must love him

  And show him the way,

  Lest he be trapped forever

  On public display.

  If he loses thi
s chance

  To rise and depart,

  All magic will fade

  From his horn and his heart.

  “So I’m the young girl!” said Annie. “And I have to help him get home, or his magic will fade away forever!”

  “Right,” said Jack. “Okay. Let’s review: There’s a unicorn on public display somewhere in New York City. He’s under a spell. The spell runs out in late November before a blue moon. But he’ll only wake up when someone calls his name, which is Divine Flower of Rome. Then a young girl—you— must love him and show him the way home.”

  “Great,” said Annie. “Let’s get started.”

  “Get started? How?” said Jack.

  “Maybe we should talk to some New Yorkers,” said Annie. “We can ask them if they know anything about a unicorn in New York City.” She looked out the window. “There’re some people in the park right now.”

  Jack looked out. Through the falling snow, he saw girls crossing the field carrying skates. He saw two people standing on top of a small hill. One wore a cape, and the other a long raincoat.

  “If we start asking people about unicorns, they’ll think we’re crazy,” said Jack.

  “Who cares?” said Annie. “Maybe someone will at least know something that can help us. Let’s go down.” She started down the ladder.

  Jack quickly packed up their books. He buckled his bag and followed her. When they stepped onto the ground, Jack and Annie looked around. The skaters were gone. The two people on the hill were gone, too.

  “Where’d everybody go?” said Jack.

  “I don’t know. But we’ll find someone else. Come on,” said Annie.