“Ooh! Candy!” Ziggy exclaimed as he peered into his bag.
“I wouldn’t eat that—” Mei began.
But it was too late. Ziggy had already popped a piece into his mouth. Just as quickly, though, his mouth twisted into a grimace. “Yuck,” he said, turning around to spit out the candy. “It’s stale. These have definitely been sitting around for a long time.”
Elvis’s bag rustled as he dug around inside it. “Look what mine has,” he said, holding up a tin whistle that looked awfully familiar.
Amirah’s eyes lit up. She recognized it at once.
Elvis recognized the whistle too. “You want to do the honors?” he asked.
“It would be my pleasure,” Amirah replied. She held the whistle to her mouth, pursed her lips, and blew.
But the whistle didn’t make a sound.
“That’s a pity,” Lacey said. “It must be broken.”
Amirah smiled mysteriously. “Just wait,” she replied. Then she blew into the silent whistle again.
The silence stretched on for seconds, then minutes. Amirah was about to blow the whistle once more when she heard it—no, she felt it first. The ground beneath them started trembling to a familiar rhythm. Then all the B-Buds could hear it: the rhythmic clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop that could only be one thing.
Hoofbeats!
“Are those hoofbeats?” Lacey asked. “Are there horses in the Magical Land of Birthdays?”
“Carousel horses, yes,” Amirah replied. “But unless I’m very wrong, that’s—Cara!”
Amirah couldn’t even finish her sentence. She was too overjoyed to see her dear friend, Cara the Unicorn, at last. The golden unicorn gleamed as brightly as the sun as she galloped toward the B-Buds.
“Cara!” Amirah cried again. She took off running toward the unicorn at full speed. As soon as she was close enough, she threw her arms around Cara’s neck, burying her face in Cara’s shimmering rainbow mane. The gorgeous roses that encircled Cara’s gleaming horn perfumed the air.
“I’ve missed you so much,” Amirah whispered near Cara’s ear. Amirah felt so much better already. Cara would help them find Sparkle City. Cara would help them solve the mystery of why so many birthdays had gone so wrong. Cara would show them the way.
Just then, Cara trembled, as if a shiver had shaken her whole body. She pawed at the ground anxiously and looked around for—what?
Amirah didn’t know. But even without words, she could tell that Cara was worried about something.
Very worried.
“I’m here now,” Amirah whispered to Cara. “I want to help. I’ll do anything to help.”
Cara’s big, dark eyes gleamed with gratitude.
“We’re trying to get to Sparkle City,” Amirah continued. “Can you take us there?”
Cara nodded, a quick jerk of her head that sent shimmers down her mane.
“B-Buds!” Amirah called to her friends. “Good news! Cara can take us to Sparkle City! She knows how to get there!”
“Hooray!” The B-Buds cheered. The hope was contagious.
With Cara galloping in the lead and the B-Buds running close behind her, they set off in search of Sparkle City. Amirah’s eagerness to find the magical place pushed her onward, even when the path grew steep and rocky. She was only a little out of breath when, at last, they reached the ridge overlooking the city.
And what a city it was!
Even from a distance, Amirah could see how it had earned the name “Sparkle City.” The buildings glittered like jewels, with faceted sides that reflected the light and, like a prism, split it into the spectrum of the rainbow. Rainbow beams spangled every surface, from the roads to the buildings. The sparkles! The colors! The joy!
“Amazing,” Mei breathed.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Elvis declared. “And that kind of feels like the understatement of the year.”
“It’s so beautiful,” Olivia said. “This must be what it’s like to pass through a rainbow.”
Amirah noticed, however, that Lacey and Ziggy were strangely quiet. “What do you think, B-Buds?” she asked them. “Is it the same as you remembered?”
There was a long pause before they answered.
“I . . . It’s hard to say,” Lacey began. “It just seems so . . . so quiet.”
“Yeah,” Ziggy agreed with a curt nod. “I don’t hear music or laughter or—or anything, really.”
With a sinking feeling, Amirah realized how right they were.
Sparkle City was utterly deserted.
“That can’t be normal,” she said. “It’s a city! Where are all the kids? Where are all the parties?”
“There have to be plenty of birthdays today,” Olivia said.
And every single one of the B-Buds knew she was right.
A day without a single birthday party . . . a day when nobody celebrated . . . the thought made Amirah feel sick. Not just sick, though. It made her even more determined to find out what was going on.
She placed her hand on Cara’s back and felt, along with the warmth, a sense of strength.
“Come on,” she told the B-Buds. “We won’t solve this mystery standing up here, staring at Sparkle City from far away. We’ve got to get down there and investigate.”
The other B-Buds were quiet as they set off for the last stage of their journey to Sparkle City. It was an easy walk. When they reached Sparkle City, the bejeweled buildings sat silently, almost as if they were waiting for something . . . or someone.
Amirah wondered if the city really was as deserted as it appeared. “Hello?” she called, as loudly as she dared.
Hello-hello-hello-hello-hello
The sound of her own voice, echoing off each facet of the jewel-cut buildings, gave Amirah chills. The silence, the emptiness, the wrongness of it all.
Suddenly, Amirah wished she could go home and forget all about the trouble in the Magical Land of Birthdays. But she already knew that wasn’t possible. Besides, the trouble had already followed them home anyway, ruining the birthdays of their friends and relatives.
I believe in birthday magic, Amirah reminded herself. It was a thought she knew she needed to hold on to—no matter what happened next.
Just ahead, the road split into three directions, and Amirah turned to Cara for advice. “Which way should we go?” she asked.
The unicorn didn’t hesitate. She set off on the right-hand fork at such a fast clip that the B-Buds had to
