The magical world of the Realm has a terrible problem -- a plague of mischievous, troublemaking Peskies. A wild west wind has brought the tiny creatures down from the hills in the thousands. They're making life in the Realm impossible, and eating up all the magic! It's been hundreds of years since the last Peskie plague, and even Queen Helena doesn't know what to do. Then Jessie comes up with an answer: an old, forgotten spell that will lead her and her friends on a fascinating journey -- and straight into trouble. Praise for Fairy Realm #1: The Charm Bracelet “A sure choice for budding fantasy fans.” - Publishers Weekly “Will have kids sitting on the edge of their seats. Exciting fantasy.” - ALA Booklist “Readers will appreciate Jessie’s take-charge attitude and revel in her success.” - School Library Journal The magical world of the Realm has a terrible problem -- a plague of mischievous, troublemaking Peskies. A wild west wind has brought the tiny creatures down from the hills in the thousands. They're making life in the Realm impossible, and eating up all the magic! It's been hundreds of years since the last Peskie plague, and even Queen Helena doesn't know what to do. Then Jessie comes up with an answer: an old, forgotten spell that will lead her and her friends on a fascinating journey -- and straight into trouble. Emily Rodda has written many books for children, including Finders Keepers, which School Library journal dubbed "a lively adventure," and several novels about the likable hero Rowan. The first of these novels, Rowan of Rin, won the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year for Younger Readers Award when it was first published. In fact, Emily Rodda has won the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award an unprecedented five times. A former editor, Ms. Rodda is also the best-selling author of adult mysteries under the name Jennifer Rowe. She lives in Australia. Fairy Realm #9: The Peskie Spell By Emily Rodda HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Copyright © 2006 Emily Rodda All right reserved. ISBN: 0060777648 Chapter One Pesky Weather It was a fine, sunny Sunday, but a wild wind blew around the old house called Blue Moon, rattling the windows and tossing the branches of the trees. Red and yellow leaves swirled in the air like flocks of small, bright birds. Inside the house, Jessie glanced up at the leaves flying past the high windows of her grandfather's studio. She felt jumpy and uneasy. She was supposed to be dusting a pile of sketchbooks she'd taken from a glass-fronted cabinet, but she just couldn't concentrate. "This is what Granny calls 'pesky weather,'" she said to her mother, who was sweeping the studio floor. "Remember that song she always sings when it's sunny and windy both at the same time?" Rosemary smiled and began to sing, moving her broom in time to the music: "Pesky weather, nothing goes right! Pesky weather, lock the Doors tight! Make a magic brew With seven drops of dew, A drop of thistle milk, And a strand of spider silk . . ." She broke off, laughing. "Well, things have gone right for us today, Jess, in spite of the pesky weather," she said. "The studio's looking pretty good, now. It'll just need a quick dust before the photographer comes on Thursday." "Will Granny be home by then?" Jessie asked. Her grandmother was away seeing some people at the National Gallery who were organizing a big exhibition of her late husband's famous fairy paintings. The exhibition was to be held in a few months' time, and a photograph of the Blue Moon studio was going to be part of it. "Oh, yes," Rosemary said. "She'll be back on Tuesday night. How are you going with those sketchbooks, Jess?" "Nearly finished," said Jessie hastily. She knew she'd been spending more time looking at the books than cleaning them. The one she was holding now was filled with sketches of trees, leaves, and flowers, and she'd found some real flowers pressed between the pages, too: forget-me-nots, violets, and many other flowers she didn't know. "Can I borrow this one, Mum?" she asked, holding up the book. "Sure," her mother said. "Just be careful with it. And don't take it outside." Jessie put the sketchbook on top of the glass-fronted cabinet and went on dusting the other books and stacking them away. It was her grandfather's fairy paintings that had made him famous, but he'd painted landscapes, trees, flowers, birds, and animals, too. People who saw his sketchbooks were always fascinated. "What an imagination Robert Belairs had," they'd say. "It's just as if fantasy creatures like griffins and mermaids were just as real to him as lizards and cockatoos!" Little did they know that there was a very good reason for this -- the best reason in the world. Jessie's grandfather had seen griffins and mermaids and other strange beings with his own eyes. He'd seen them in the magical world of the Realm, after he discovered an invisible Door at the bottom of the Blue Moo