Дейзи Медоус - Ellie Featherbill All Alone

“Hegga hegga!” Whiffy chuckled. “Mucking up the river!”

“Boggits make Grizelda happy,” shouted Reek.

Lily and Goldie gasped as Sniff heaved the birthday cake into the water, shouting, “Eat up, fishes! Boggits hope you be sick!”

Jess had seen enough. She stood up, shouting, “Stop! Stop now!”

The Boggits spun around and caught sight of her and the others.

“Girls!” roared Pongo. “Boggits don’t like you!” He grabbed a loaf of cherry bread and flung it at Jess.

She dodged it and yelled, “What have you done with the Featherbills?”

As soon as she spoke, there were loud squawks and flaps as the whole Featherbill family came flying out from another clump of cattails farther downstream.

They landed in a flurry of feathers on the riverbank next to Lily and Jess. Lily counted seven ducklings, besides their mom and dad.

“We were too scared to come out until we saw you,” said Mr. Featherbill as the ducklings huddled around their mother’s legs.

Mrs. Featherbill was close to tears. “What a flapdoodle! Those Boggits have ruined Ellie’s party, and just look what they’re doing to our river.” She wiped her eyes with a wingtip. “If they carry on like this, they’ll pollute it so badly that our fish friends will have nowhere to live. Neither will any of the river creatures.”

The girls and Goldie shared a worried glance. “So that must be Grizelda’s plan,” Jess said. “She wants to ruin the river to drive away the animals!”

Lily kneeled to comfort Mrs. Featherbill. “We’ve come to help,” she said. “We won’t let the Boggits win.”

“One, two, three...” said Mr. Featherbill, counting his ducklings. “No... One, two... Keep still, children. One, two, three, four...”

“Don’t worry,” said Lily. “I counted them as they landed. There are seven.”

“Seven?” cried Mrs. Featherbill. “There should be eight! Who’s missing?” She waddled around the ducklings. “There’s Lulu and Dilly, Stanley and Rodney,” she said. “Keep still, children. There’s Betty, Bobo, and Sunny. Oh, no! Where’s Ellie?”

Lily gasped. “She must still be on the barge!”

“Ellie hates noise,” Mrs. Featherbill said tearfully. “The Boggits must have frightened her so much she was afraid to come out.”

Little Betty said, “She was hiding in the bucket on deck.”

Everyone peered through the cattails.

“There!” said Betty. “See the bucket?”

Lily was puzzled. “Yes, but I can only see pink flowers peeping over the top.”

“That’s her birthday crown,” sobbed Lulu.

Jess stroked the duckling’s soft head. “Don’t cry,” she said gently. “Lily, Goldie, and I will save Ellie. Come on, you two!”

Crouching, the three friends ran to the barge and pressed themselves against the side. But before they could decide what to do, Reek untied the mooring rope and the barge began to move!

Lily, Jess, and Goldie watched in dismay as Pongo steered it away from the bank.

“Boggits find where the river begins.” He grunted.

Reek and Sniff did a stomping dance, making the barge rock wildly again.

Whiffy chuckled. “Hegga hegga. Boggits clever to steal ducks’ boat. Now we can make river bad forever!”

Lily gasped. “Where are they going?”

Goldie put her paws to her mouth. “They must be going to the source of the river. If they pollute the water there, it will all flow downstream.”

“But that means the whole river will be polluted!” cried Jess. “We’ve got to stop them.”

Lily caught a last glimpse of little pink flowers poking out of the bucket.

“Oh, Jess,” she said. “Poor Ellie must be terrified. We have to save her!”

Mr. and Mrs. Featherbill waddled over to the girls and Goldie.

“Oh, no! Ellie will be so frightened,” Mrs. Featherbill worried aloud.

“We’ll go after the barge,” Lily promised, “and bring her back safe and sound.”

“And we’ll stop the Boggits from polluting the river, too,” said Jess.

Goldie smiled at the Featherbills. “These girls are brave and clever,” she told them. “They’ll keep their promises.”

Jess got up. “Let’s go.”

Goldie and Lily followed her upriver. They could still see the barge, but they couldn’t catch up with it because the bank was covered with flowers, reeds, and prickly brambles. Soon, the plants and bushes became so dense that they couldn’t go any farther.

“The barge is completely out of sight now,” said Jess. “What are we going to do?”

Lily spotted something shining in the sun. It was on the river, but tucked into a thick clump of cattails. Then she saw a long curving neck.

“A swan!” she said. “But it can’t be. It’s silver. There’s no such thing as a silver swan.”

“Let’s see,” said Jess, pushing through the rushes. “Hey!” she called back. “It’s a sort of swan—but come and look!”

Lily and Goldie joined her at the river’s edge. Bobbing gently in the shallows was a silver-painted raft. The front was shaped like a swan’s neck and head. Three silver-speckled white ribbons trailed into the water, one from the graceful neck, and the others from the front corners.

“Why don’t we use this to follow the barge?” suggested Jess. “Jump on.”

Lily held back. “There aren’t any oars,” she said. “How can we make it go upstream?”

“You can’t,” said a clear, firm voice. “That raft belongs to me and my sisters.”

They spun around to see three snow-white swans emerging from a group of shady trees. The front one wore a pretty sunhat, but she looked stern and very proud as she stared down her bill at them.

“Careful, girls,” Goldie murmured. “Swans aren’t always friendly.”

“I know,” whispered Lily. “We had one at the wildlife hospital once, and it chased me out of the pen when I tried to feed it, then banged on the gate with its hard beak!”

“I’ll be careful,” whispered Jess. She gave the swans a friendly grin. “Excuse me,” she said. “We need to rescue a duckling, and we have to get upstream. Could you take us on your raft? Please?”

The swan sisters looked at each other. “What do you think, Silvia?” said one of the swans.

“We could, I suppose,” the swan called Silvia replied. “But we would want something in return.”

“Anything,” Lily said.

Silvia explained that she’d lost her favorite necklace. “I came in for a steep landing,” she said, “and my necklace fell off and landed in a tree. My wings are too wide to fly between the branches.”

“Show us where the necklace is, Silvia,” Lily said. “We’ll get it back for you!”

The swan stretched her elegant neck toward a lime tree. Dangling from a high branch was a string of pearls.

Goldie grinned. “Easy!” she said. In seconds she was halfway up the tree, leaping from branch to branch. She stopped and called down, “I can’t see it because of all the leaves.”