9781442440579

TERM	PRICE	DUE
SEMESTER	$10.00	Aug 02
QUARTER	$10.00	Jul 19
SHORT TERM	$10.00	Jun 07

In this “delightful mash-up of Little House on the Prairie and The Spiderwick Chronicles” (SLJ), experience life on the prairie—with one fantastical twist!

Louisa Brody’s life on the Colorado prairie is not at all what she expected. Her dear Pa, accused of thievery, is locked thirty miles away in jail. She’s living with the awful Smirches, her closest neighbors and the very family that accused her Pa of the horrendous crime. And now she’s discovered one very cantankerous—and magical—secret beneath the hazel grove. With her life flipped upside-down, it’s up to Louisa, her sassy friend Jessamine, and that cranky secret to save Pa from a guilty verdict.

Ten bold illustrations from Erwin Madrid accompany seasoned storyteller Melissa Wiley’s vibrant and enchanting tale of life on the prairie—with one magical twist.

Melissa Wiley is the author of the Inch and Roly series and other books for children, including The Prairie Thief and two series of novels about the ancestors of Laura Ingalls Wilder. She lives in San Diego with her comic-book-writing husband, a half dozen kids, and about 3,000 books. She blogs about her family’s reading life at Here in the Bonny Glen: MelissaWiley.com/blog.

Erwin Madrid is a children’s book illustrator based in San Francisco, where he earned his BFA at the Academy of Art College. He has worked for PDI/Dreamworks Animation on films like Shrek 2 and the Madagascar sequels. He has also done concept art for the gaming industry for titles like Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. In his spare time, Erwin travels and goes plein air painting.

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CHAPTERONE

It Ain’t Right

THESMIRCHES TOOKLOUISA IN WHEN HER PA WENTto jail, but they weren’t happy about it.

“Another mouth to feed,” griped Mrs. Smirch. Her cold eyes looked Louisa up and down. “And she’s too puny to be any help around this place. I can’t fathom what got into your head, Malcolm.”

Mr. Smirch shrugged. His lips were pressed into a thin line. He had the same grim look on his face Louisa’s pa always had when it was time to kill a pig—the look of someone who can’t get out of doing a thing he hates to do.

“Don’t see as we had much choice in the matter, Matilda,” he said. “Sheriff only had the one horse.”

Louisa blinked hard, trying to stop picturing Pa riding away on that horse, hatless, his red hair blowing back, sitting in front of the sheriff with his hands tied, looking over his shoulder at her until the sheriff cuffed him on the arm and made him face front. Before he turned away, Pa had winked at her; that was the worst part. She had almost cried then. But Mr. Smirch had been standing beside her, and she would sooner have died than shed a tear in front of the man who had called the law upon her father.

Now here she was in that man’s own house, being scowled at by his wife, a wispy-haired woman with sharp eyes and a greasy apron. The little Smirch boys, Winthrop and Charlie, stood behind their mother, making faces at Louisa when their pa wasn’t looking. Near the table, a young girl with long straggly braids stood working butter in a churn that was almost as big as she was. She was staring at Louisa, smiling a little as she thumped the wooden dash up and down, up and down. Louisa remembered Mr. Smirch telling her pa—was it really only the day before yesterday?—that his nine-year-old niece had arrived on the train from Topeka a week or two earlier. That had been right before Winthrop came charging down the hill from the old dugout, jabbering about Mrs. Smirch’s missing clock and Mr. Smirch’s lost hatchet. Louisa could still picture the way the friendly look on Mr. Smirch’s face had gone sharp and wary, his eyes narrowing at Pa.

“I never heard of such nonsense,” muttered Mrs. Smirch, hands on her hips. “Man robs us blind, and the sheriff expects us to look after his young’un? Trained to thieve herself, I shouldn’t wonder. You best not try any tricks here, girl, you hear me? There’s room in that there jail cell for you too, and don’t you forget it.”

Louisa breathed hard, too angry to speak.My pa’s no thief,she wanted to holler, but she couldn’t say one word. All she could do was stand there stone-faced, looking at Mrs. Smirch.

“Don’t you glare at me, child. You ought to be grateful we was willin’ to take you in.” Mrs. Smirch whipped around to stir something in a pot on the iron stove, clattering her tin ladle angrily against the sides. Winthrop Smirch, the six-year-old, snickered and stuck out his tongue at Louisa.And to think I gave you fresh biscuits the other day,Louisa thought furiously. She remembered how that visit had ended and had to swallow hard again. If Winthrop and Charlie Smirch hadn’t poked their noses where they didn’t belong, she might not be standing in this miserable kitchen right now.

Mrs. Smirch resumed berating her husband. “Sheriff ought to come back for the child himself, if you ask me. It ain’t right, our havin’ to keep her.”