Summer of the Sea Serpent: A Merlin Mission

anyone else finding it first!
    Jack and Annie walked quickly through the woods, following the two sets of footprints.

    “Stop!” said Annie. She pulled Jack behind a tree. “Over there!”

    Through the falling snow, Jack saw two people in long, dark cloaks. They were hurrying toward a tall oak—and high in the oak was the magic tree house!
    “Oh, no!” said Jack.
    The tree house
was
back! And someone else had found it!
    “Hey!” Jack yelled. “Stop!” The tree house had come for him and Annie—no one else!
    Jack started running. Annie followed. Jack slipped and fell in the snow, but he scrambled up and kept going. By the time he and Annie got to the tree house, the two people had climbed up the rope ladder and disappeared inside.
    “Come out!” Jack yelled.
    “This is
our
tree house!” shouted Annie.
    Two kids poked their heads out of the tree house window. They both looked like they were about thirteen years old. The boy had tousled red hair and freckles. The girl had sea-blue eyesand long, curly black hair. Their cheeks were rosy from the cold. They laughed when they saw Jack and Annie.
    “Excellent!” said the boy. “We came to find you, but you have found us instead.”
    “Teddy!” cried Annie. “Kathleen! Hi!”
    Teddy was the young sorcerer who worked with Morgan in her library in Camelot. Kathleen was the enchanted selkie girl who’d helped Jack and Annie on the summer solstice by magically turning them all into seals.
    Jack was stunned. He had never imagined that their two friends from Camelot might someday visit Frog Creek! “What are you guys doing here?” he shouted.
    “Climb up and we will tell you!” said Teddy.
    Jack and Annie hurried up the rope ladder. When they climbed inside the tree house, Annie threw her arms around Teddy and Kathleen. “I can’t believe you came to visit us!” she said.
    “It pleases me to see you, Annie,” said Kathleen. “And you also, Jack.” Her large blue eyes sparkled.
    “It pleases me, too,” Jack said shyly. He still thought Kathleen was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Even when she’d been a seal, she’d been lovely.
    “We went looking for you!” said Teddy. “We climbed down and walked through the woods to a road.”
    “But the road was full of monsters!” said Kathleen. “A big red creature nearly ran over us! It made a honking sound!”
    “Then before we knew it, a giant black monster charged at us! It had a ferocious growl!” said Teddy. “We came back here to gather our wits.”
    “Those weren’t monsters!” said Annie, laughing. “They were just cars!”
    “Cars?” said Teddy.
    “Yeah, they have motors and people drive them,” said Jack.
    “Motors?” said Teddy.
    “It’s hard to explain,” said Annie. “Just remember—in our world, you have to watch out for cars every time you cross a road.”
    “Indeed we will,” said Teddy.
    “Why have you come here?” asked Jack.
    “We found a message for you in Merlin’s chambers,” said Teddy, “and decided to deliver it ourselves.”
    “So we climbed into the tree house outside Morgan’s library,” said Kathleen. “Teddy pointed to the words
Frog Creek
in the message and made a wish to come here. The next thing we knew, we were here in these woods.”
    Teddy pulled a small gray stone from his cloak. “And
this
is the message we brought you,” he said.
    Jack took the stone from Teddy.
    The message was written in tiny handwriting. Jack read it aloud:

    “Oh, wow,” said Annie. “That sounds serious.”
    “Yeah,” said Jack. “But why didn’t Merlin send us the message himself?”
    “We do not know,” said Teddy. “Neither Merlin nor Morgan has been seen for days.”
    “Where did they go?” asked Annie.
    “’Tis a mystery,” said Teddy. “Last week I journeyed to the selkie cove to bring Kathleento Camelot. She is going to be a helper in Morgan’s library. But when we returned, we could not find Merlin or Morgan.”
    “We only found this message for you,” said Kathleen.
    “Aye, and I thought that when Merlin
does
return,” said Teddy, “he will be greatly pleased to have his staff back. Much of his power comes from its ancient and mysterious magic.”
    “Wow,” said Annie.
    “In his message, he tells us to go to the Land-Behind-the-Clouds,” said Jack. “Where’s that?”
    “’Tis a land far north of my cove,” said Kathleen. “I have never journeyed there.”
    “Nor I,” said Teddy. “But I have read about