Staring at the leather card case in her hand, Lily mumbled, "I won." And then louder, "I WON! I got the card case back!"
She waved the case triumphantly over her head as she drifted back down to the ground. The others rushed towards her, elated at her victory.
"I believe this belongs to you," Lily said, grinning as she handed the case back over to Eddie.
Eddie took back the case, holding it like one would hold a delicate egg.
"Thank you," he said. "Thank you so much. I really owe you one."
"Don't mention it," Lily said. "I'm just glad we got it back. Not only that, everyone's things back."
She was very pleased with herself. So pleased, in fact, that she nearly forgot about the giant parrot until it went, "Ahem!"
Lily and the others turned around.
The giant parrot stood in front of them, glaring, and said, "I am not impressed."
"Hey, hey, hey," went Oliver. "Calling foul now? A bit too late for that, don't you think? You're not going to try and go back on your word, are you?"
"The magic contract is absolute," said the parrot. "Victory is yours, fair and square. You may take back the things stolen from the Bluestone students. But that does not change the fact that you are weak. Too weak."
Dismayed, Lily cried out, "Weak? Sure I needed help, but I didn't do too shabby against you."
"Hmph!"
With a stiff sniff, the giant parrot spread its wings, and a strong wind current pushed everyone down and sent them rolling away.
"Eek!"
"Yikes!"
"Whoa!"
The next thing Lily knew, she was suddenly lying on some some bushes and had the parrot's face right up to hers.
"Make no mistake, child," it said, "I was going easy on you. If I had taken you seriously, I would have won with or without all that interference."
Lily blinked, and in that moment, the parrot was no longer in front of her, but back up the tree's higher hollow several feet away as if to prove its point.
Looking down on the children, the parrot continued.
"The way you are now, you are no threat to my master," it said.
"And just who is your master?" Lily asked. "Does he have something to do with what that ghost lady said?"
The parrot tilted its head sideways. "The ghost lady? Do you mean the Lady of Sapphire?"
"The Lady of Sapphire? Is that who the ghost lady is?"
"If she spoke to you through that bracelet of yours, then the ghost lady is indeed the Lady of Sapphire," the parrot said, "my master's enemy."
"Who is your master?" Lily asked again. "What is he after? Why did he make you steal all those things?"
"My master didn't make me do anything," said the parrot. "I did all this by my own will. And as for my master's goal, that should be clear: the spread of chaos and trouble!"
"But for what?" Lily asked. "Why does he want to make trouble?"
"Because he wants to," the parrot replied. "There is no other reason."
"That's it? Just because he wants to?" Lily was both shocked and outraged by the parrot's answer.
"So he has told me, yes," said the parrot. "If that is all you have to ask, then begone from my domain!"
The parrot flapped its wings again, creating a whirlwind of leaves that circled all over round and round, covering everything else in sight.
"No, wait!" Lily cried out over the howling gusts. "You still haven't told me who your master is!"
"He has gone by many names," said the parrot. "Villain, Traitor, Wicked Wizard. But you may call him . . . the Schemer."
The wind became too much for Lily and she had to turn away. She turned back when the wind finally died down and the leaves had all fallen to the ground, but both the parrot and the huge tree it called home were already gone. It was just Lily and the gang sitting in a much smaller clearing with a pile of stuff stolen from some school kids.
All was dark and quiet, except for the light shining from Oliver's phone.
"The Schemer, huh?" he muttered. "So that's who the enemy is."
"You heard all that?" Lily asked.
Oliver nodded. "As clear as day. Honestly, though, there's something iffy about some of the things it said. Still, it sounds like our troubles are far from over. In fact, I'd say we're just getting started."
"Let's worry about that later," said Viv. "I don't know about you all, but I'm beat.
"Are you guys okay?" Lily asked the twins.
"We're fine," said Eddie. "What about you?"
"Me too," Lily answered. "Well, actually I got a problem."
"What is it?" asked Viv.
"I can't move." Lily was unable to get up, leaving her stuck sitting on the ground.
"No surprise there," Oliver said. "You were really pushing yourself in that fight."
"All to help me," Eddie said with a guilty look.
"Hey, don't worry about it," Lily said. "That picture of your mom's important to you, after all."
"Yeah, it is," Eddie said.
He gave his sister a look and Viv responded with a hand sign that meant, "Go ahead."
Eddie took a deep breath and then spoke up. "Actually, a few years ago, our mom disappeared. No one knows what happened to her. She just vanished without a trace. We had police looking for her, detectives looking for her, even psychics looking for her. They were all dead ends. In the end, everyone gave up, including our dad."
"So that's why you wanted a crystal ball for fortune telling," Lily realized as she turned to face Viv. "You wanted to see if you could find your mom with magic!"
Viv said nothing, but nodded.
"You can do that, Lily?" Eddie asked excitedly.
But that excitement died when his sister said, "Don't get your hopes up, Ed. We tried, but it was no good. Fortune telling's a no-no with that bracelet, among other things."
"For a tool that's key to saving the world, sounds like it's got lots of limits," quipped Oliver.
"By the way," said Lily, "what are we going to do about all this stuff?"
She pointed at the pile of stolen goods they won back.
"I think that's a bit too much to carry back, even with the magic carpet."
"More importantly, how are we going to explain this?" asked Viv. "I know what we just did should count as a good deed, but I can't imagine the teachers are going to be happy with us when they find out we snuck out of school to explore a forest at night."
"Oh, you can just leave that to me," said Oliver. With a grin, he added, "I have a plan."
**********
Morning had come and it was almost time for classes. Despite that, Lily, Viv and Eddie all had a hard time getting out of bed because of the exciting, and tiring, night they had. It took a lot of willpower just to brush their teeth. And even though they managed to get ready, get dressed and get out the door, they ended up falling asleep on top of their breakfast at the dining hall. If not for a passing cleaner waking them up, they would have been late to homeroom. They barely made it to their seats before the bell rang.
By the way, when they reached the classroom, Lily found her Uncle Viceroy sitting on the teacher's desk clipping his toenails. As soon as the bell rang, the history teacher quickly brushed all the nail clippings off the tabletop, put on his black socks and slipped his feet into his dress shoes while sliding off the desk himself.
After making his necktie straight, he cleared his throat and started the class with an unsurprising news announcement with a bit of a surprise twist.
"Ahem! Ahem! Good morning, everyone. Got some news to share today. Earlier today, everything stolen by that blue parrot was found at the north forest. If any of those things are yours, head over to the Admin Office."
The whole classroom was abuzz with the news.
Although still tired, Lily and the Waller twins exchanged knowing glances and proud smiles.
And then one girl with red hair raised her hand and asked, "Mr. Lin, how did the stuff get found? I thought the school searched everywhere, forest included, but couldn't find anything."
"Good question," said Uncle Viceroy. "An anonymous tip was sent to the office in the form of a letter, telling us where to find the stolen stuff."
"A letter?"
Uncle Viceroy nodded. "Yeah. I got a copy of it right here. Let me read it out to you, word for word."
Here comes the twist.
"I have driven away the flying menace and reclaimed all that was stolen. Signed, Lady Sapphire."
Lily was so surprised, she could not help but snort.
Silently, she wondered, Lady Sapphire? Is that supposed to be me? Seriously? And why "Lady Sapphire"? Why a name like that?
"Now, I don't know who this Lady Sapphire is," said Uncle Viceroy, "but if you're listening, on behalf of Bluestone Academy, thank you. And personally, I hope you don't get expelled if you get caught for sneaking out of school at night.
"Anyway, moving on, there have been reports that someone has been flying a drone around the school after curfew . . ."
**********
In a certain room of the school's main building, nicknamed the castle for its castle-like look, a white-haired man was doing paperwork while a blue parrot sat on his shoulder, eyes on a certain letter that was typed from a computer in cursive-style font. The only light in the room came from the sun through the picture-frame window behind them.
"Lady Sapphire, huh?" The parrot broke silence with an amused snort. "Sounds like the name of a shadowy anti-hero from a steampunk novel."
"The letter must be Oliver's doing, then," the white-haired man said. His pen did not stop scribbling on the sheet of paper in front of him. "He's always been fond of stories with Victorian England-like settings."
"I'm impressed," said the parrot. "You're very dedicated to the teacher role, to know the likes of a random student you've rarely spoken to before."
"I just happened to see him reading a stack of such books at the library while I was passing through," the white-haired man said. "But I think he might have also been inspired by the Lady of Sapphire."
"What will you do now?" asked the parrot.
"Proceed with the plan, of course," said the white-haired man. "Your loss hardly changes anything. We will continue to spread chaos and trouble to this school. And we will not stop until at last, we reach the grand finale. So I swear, as the Schemer."
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