The golden snitch buzzed warmly in Alfie's pocket as the swirling portal pulled him and Dad through a kaleidoscope of colours. But instead of splashing into dark underwater depths like they'd expected, they tumbled out onto soft, springy moss that smelled like strawberries and fresh rain.
"Well," Dad said, pulling a twig from his hair, "that's not an ocean."
Alfie sat up and gasped. They were in the most magnificent forest he'd ever seen. Enormous trees stretched up so high their tops disappeared into cotton-candy clouds. Flowers the size of dinner plates glowed in colours that didn't even have names. And right in front of them stood the most incredible tree of all—a tree so wide that ten Dads holding hands couldn't reach around it, with branches that twisted up and up and up until they vanished into a swirling mist.
"The Faraway Tree," Alfie whispered, recognising it from somewhere deep in his imagination.
"SHOES!" squeaked a tiny voice. "More shoes! More MAGNIFICENT shoes!"
A small pixie with a face permanently scrunched into a grumpy expression came zooming down from a knothole in the tree. His hair stuck up in angry spikes, and he wore a waistcoat covered in badges that all said things like "GO AWAY" and "I'M BUSY."
"Oh dear," sighed a beautiful fairy who floated down after him. She had silvery wings and hair like spun moonlight. "I'm so sorry—the Angry Pixie has been collecting everyone's shoes for weeks now."
"MINE!" the pixie shrieked, pointing at Dad's trainers.
"Absolutely not," Dad said, crossing his arms.
A round-faced man with the most enormous smile Alfie had ever seen slid down the tree trunk on a rope made of vines. His face was perfectly round and pale like the moon itself.
"Welcome, welcome!" Moonface beamed. "I'm Moonface—this is Silky the fairy, and the shoe-obsessed fellow is the Angry Pixie. We've got a bit of a mystery, you see."
"Everyone in the Enchanted Forest keeps losing their shoes," Silky explained, her wings drooping sadly. "And their hats. And their favourite spoons. And somehow, the Angry Pixie keeps finding them all."
"I'm a COLLECTOR!" the pixie huffed.
Alfie looked at the pixie carefully. Something didn't seem right. The Angry Pixie's eyes kept darting nervously toward a dark hollow beneath the tree roots.
"Are you taking these things?" Alfie asked gently. "Or is someone else?"
The pixie's grumpy face wobbled. "I... I find them. After they go missing. Everyone thinks I'm stealing, but I'm NOT! I just... I want to give them back, but everyone's so angry at me already..."
A cold laugh echoed from the hollow. Out slithered a woman made entirely of LEGO bricks in harsh blacks and greys. Her face was pinched into a permanent scowl, and she carried a ruler that crackled with nasty magic.
"Madam Snap!" Silky gasped, flying behind Moonface.
"You've figured out my little game," Madam Snap sneered. "I've been stealing treasures and making everyone blame the pixie! Soon the whole forest will be fighting, and I'll take the Faraway Tree for myself!"
Alfie felt his fear trying to bubble up. But he remembered Harry Potter, and Captain Chrono, and all the friends who'd taught him about being brave.
"The Angry Pixie isn't the thief!" Alfie shouted to everyone. "He's been trying to HELP! Madam Snap's been making everyone blame each other so they'd stop being friends!"
Dad stepped forward. "And friends stick together, even when things look confusing!"
Moonface, Silky, and even the Angry Pixie linked hands. Alfie joined them, and Dad completed the circle around Madam Snap. The Infinite Brick in Alfie's pocket blazed with warm golden light.
"No!" Madam Snap shrieked as the friendship magic pushed her back, back, back into her hollow. "I'll return! When you least expect it!"
She vanished with a pop like a soap bubble.
The Angry Pixie sniffled. "You... you believed me?"
Alfie nodded. "Sometimes people blame others when they're confused. But the truth always comes out if you're patient and kind."
Moonface hugged them all with his wonderfully round arms. "You must stay! The Land of Birthdays is at the top of the tree tomorrow!"
But as Alfie looked up toward the spinning clouds at the tree's peak, he noticed something strange. The mist was turning purple and sparking with lightning that definitely wasn't normal.
"Um," Dad said slowly, "is that supposed to happen?"
Silky's face went pale. "Something's wrong with the Land at the top. Something's very, very wrong..."