Quest for the Crystals chapter 56

A HUGe brutal plot twist \ cliffhanger on this one!!!

Enjoy Iggyfeathers!

Chapter 56  Almost The Ball 

Arundelle had finished sewing their outfits when they all came walking through the door. “Perfect timing!” Arundelle said as they walked in. “I just finished their outfits.” 

“Thank you so much Arundelle, this means a lot to us.” Nia said, thankfully. 

“You're quite welcome anything for you Wingfeathers” she said with a smile. 

“Can we go now??” Kalmar said as he walked over to Nia. 

“Yes Kalmar, we can go now. Thank you so much Arundelle!”, she called as they all left Buttons and Bobbins Seamstress Shop.

 “So about that game of zizby?!” Sara said, raising an eyebrow and putting on her competitive face. 

Janner looked hopefully at his mother for help so that she may tell him to do something so that he could get out of being humiliated by Sara in the game of zizby. But the only thing she did was chuckle to herself, smile and say, “Actually I don't have anything for you to do, you can go play zizby if you'd like” 

“It's on Janner Igiby!!” Sara said, her competitive face seemed to look even more competitive than it had back in Glipwood. 

“I'm doomed!” Janner thought to himself but he put on his competitive face as well and said, “You're on! Sara Cobbler!!” The kids ran off to the Village to try to find things to play zizby with.

While the children were off playing zizby, Nia had been gathering a bunch of Ingredients she found in the village to bake what seemed like a thousand different pastries. 

She lugged all of this stuff back to the castle and plopped it down on one of the little folding tables that they had brought. 

“Well, I found this much. It's been a while since our competitive days but I think we can make it work.” She said to Esben as he looked through the ingredients. 

“Yes, I think this will do fine. It's not the gourmet ingredients that we had at the Aerwiariann World Cup but it'll do,” He said, smiling playfully at  Nia. 

The two brought these ingredients to what was left of the kitchen and poked around to see what still worked. 

“I doubt the oven works but it's worth a try,” Nia said, as she tried to turn the knob on the oven to see if it would start. To her amazement the little light in the oven turned on and the oven started to heat up. 

“How in all of The Shining Isle of Anniera does that thing still work?” Podo asked, bustling into the kitchen. 

“I don't know, I would have expected that it would have stopped working years ago but it's still running.” Nia said happily and honestly relieved because she didn't know what she would have done if it didn't work. 

Podo went over to the little Island that they had dumped all the ingredients on, looked through it and then said, “Are those chocolate globbers? I haven't seen one of those since you two went to that Aerwiarian World Cup.” 

“Oh, Papa, don't be eating my chocolate globbers. I need those for the cookies, muffins, cakes, pies and cupcakes." She said, because of the fact that Podo was practically drooling over the chocolate globbers. 

“But Nia, they're chocolate globbers!” He pleaded. 

“Don't forget barry buns and blueberry gooey balls.” Esben said as he found some pots and pans that were scattered across the floor. 

“Still you can't have any of my chocolate globbers!” She said as she moved the bag of chocolate globbers over to where she was sitting. 

“Fine, I guess I'll just have to settle for a blueberry dart instead then.” 

“No papa, no eating my ingredients!” She said, trying to hide the fact that she was smiling. 

“Fine, I'll leave," He said, but not before taking one more plump blueberry dart out of the bag.

“I still can't believe you won.” Janner said. 

“What can I say, I've never lost as captain” Sara said back. 

“You've only been captain twice” 

“Still I’ve never lost as captain! and if I'm remembering correctly you agreed to not only eat boggle worms but also gloppity gloop.” 

“One, Boggle worms don't live here, and two do I have to?”

 “Yes you have to, that was the agreement, whoever the loser was would eat gloppity gloop.” Sara said 

“Wait, does that mean I have to as well?” Kalmar asked 

“Yes it was a boys against girls zizby match. The both of you have to eat gloppity gloop.” Sara said happily as they entered the Castle.

 “What's that smell?” Leeli asked. There was a sweet yummy smell drifting through the air. Kalmar sniffed the air a few times and then said as he stuck his tongue out for dramatic effect, “Barry buns! and cake!” he gasped and said, “I think blueberry gooey balls as well! And is that pie?” he said, smelling the air. Janner shook his head as they all raced towards the kitchen smelling the delicious sweet smell. 

When they reached the kitchen, Kalmar was practically drooling over what he saw on every table that they had in the kitchen including the island that was with trays and trays and plates and plates full of sweets and pastries. Kalmar made a delighted sound as his eyes went big and sort of sparkled at the delicious world of sweets that laid in front of him. They all licked their lips at the delicious mound of sweets. 

Kalmar was about to walk over to one of the treats when two adults covered head to toe in flour batter and pretty much every other ingredient you could think of, came walking in front of him saying, “No taste testers, these are for the Ball remember?” 

It surprised him so much that he jumped. “What's wrong?”, the woman asked. 

“Mama?” Leeli asked, she couldn't quite tell who the adults were because of how much ingredients they had on them. 

The two adults looked at each other and then burst into laughter as they saw that they were covered head to toe in flour. 

“It's us," Nia said, wiping flour off of her forehead. 

“Why are you guys baking? Don’t we have someone for that?” Janner asked. The two looked at each other, smiled and Nia said “We have something to tell you, in our spare time we would love to bake everything from cakes to galaxy gloop balls. One day your grandfather suggested that we enter a contest to see if we could win. So we thought why not? We entered and we won! Then we thought ‘Hey this is really fun’ so for years we would enter local contests and we even expanded to other places around Aerwiar.” 

“We even had our own dance and song.” Esben added. 

“Oh, don't forget you had your own winning category," Artham said as he entered the kitchen,

“Wait, what, you had your own winning category?” Sara asked.

 “Yes for best performance. The year that you were born, Leeli, we got to go to the Aerwiarian World Cup. It was only a few weeks before your mother had you. We baked a 10 layer birthday cake that had chocolate gobs and blueberry gooey balls and marshmallow mash baked inside of it,” Esben said.

 “And?” all of the kids asked in unison for they wanted so badly to know if their parents had won! 

“We won!” Nia said, remembering all the fun times they had. 

“How have you never told us this before?” Janner asked. 

“Well, when I thought your father died, I didn't particularly want to do it that much anymore, so I decided just to bake for you kids. Also, I had to take care of you all in Glipwood. But now that we're all safe again, maybe we'll get back in the old competition ring.” She said smiling.  

“Now go decorate something, just no peeking until it's done. We have a surprise for you and I don't want it ruined.” 

“Artham, will you please take these mouth-watering kids to go decorate the Ballroom.” Nia said to Artham and Podo. 

They all walked out of the kitchen and went not to the Ballroom but outside to a little fire pit. 

“I can't believe they won the World cup!” Janner said, he honestly couldn't really picture his parents winning a baking competition. But he sort of could when he realized that it was them covered in flour. 

“I bet their food is delicious!” Kalmar said, thinking of all the yummy food that was about to hit his mouth tomorrow. 

“Oh you should have seen them, they were baking like mad people! You know in the World Cup your grandmother and I were there watching over you and your brother, your sister wasn't born yet. But your grandmother and I, actually your uncle made it his little mission to try and be the most embarrassing fans. Your grandmother and I went quite over the top. It was her idea to buy face paint, if anyone asks.” 

Podo regaled all of the memories of Nia and Esben’s competitions and told them how much he embarrassed them. 

{Artham tells them about give the two a team name and Kal turns it into a Janner teasing moment..]

The invitations for the Ball had gone out a week ahead but some of them were only just getting delivered today. The ones in Glipwood were among those being delivered today. The mailman came riding on his brown and white horse with a bag full of mail heaved over the horse. 

He dismounted the horse and searched through the bag of mail  and packages to find the right one to fit the house. There was only one thing for this one house and that was in fact, the invitation. 

The Wingfeathers had sent out the invitations to everyone in all of Aerwiar which seems like a lot. However they've been everywhere in Aerwiar and they knew everyone, so they knew where to send it. 

The mailman walked up the cobblestone path as he looked up from the letter to see that the house wasn't in good shape. The door was off its hinges and looked burnt. The roof was missing some of the shingles, the windows were barred and had wooden panels on them hanging by one nail. The mailman checked the address again to make sure it was right. He walked up to the little broken down mailbox and fought with it to open it and then put the invitation inside, remounted the horse and rode off. 

After she was sure the man was gone an older woman who was about Nia’s age stumbled out of the house. She was wearing a dark blue dress with a faded and ripped apron. Her hair was a dark brown color with little streaks of gray and was extremely curly and was styled into an extremely messy bun, and she had faded green eyes and they were red from crying. But out of all of this, the woman's face was sadder than all. Her face looked broken. It looked like the woman had gone through a lot of hard times and was still going through them 

She managed to stumble to the mailbox, opened it and took out the little invitation. It was a beautiful gold envelope and sealed with the official royal Annierian Dragon Seal. It was addressed to: Molly and Karl Cobbler.  

“Anniera?” The woman, whose name was Molly, murmured as she carefully lifted open the flap on the envelope. She tugged out that little envelope, it read: 

“You are cordially invited by the Wingfeather family formerly known as the Igiby family (for those who live in Glipwood) to the celebration of Anniera’s Restoration. The Ball shall begin at 5:00pm this Saturday, Don't be late! (delicious pastries will be provided). Your humble rulers, 

King Kalmar Wingfeather, Prince Janner Wingfeather, Princess Leeli Wingfeather, Sara Cobbler.” 

Molly had to read the last line again. For she could not believe who the last signer was. “Could it be true?” She said in disbelief and she read the last name over and over again “Sara Cobbler!” she looked to the sky as she said. “Oh, Karl, I found our girl!” She ran towards Main Street, not even turning back to look at her house or to gather things from it, she just ran with everything she had. 

But Molly Cobbler never made it out of Glipwood Township because clomping down her street was the Black Carriage. Driven by a woman in a black cloak that covered her face, the only thing visible was a single bright red wisp of hair. “Hello, Molly, we've been expecting you!” The woman said harshly, with an evil grin.