Fairy Door Diaries: Eliza and the Hobgoblins

Chapter One: In Which There Comes a Tap-Tap-Tapping
Eliza raced out of the cottage. The bell on the screen door jingle-jangled behind her. Saturdays on Cape Cod were for treasure hunting on the beach. She was hoping to find a mermaid’s purse for her collection.
But before she had even touched a toe to sand, Mom called her back.
“You know the rules, Eliza,” said Mom. “Clean your room first. Then you can play at the beach.”
“Your room looks like monsters had a beach party,” Bee told Eliza. Her little sister was not helping.
Eliza’s room was a blizzard of books and dress-up stuff, a cyclone of seashells and snow globes and stuffed-animal friends. Her room had a lot of imagination.
But Mom did not see imagination. Mom saw mess.
On her way upstairs, Eliza ate a piece of burnt toast with honey. Crumbs fell into her pockets and onto the floor. When she was done, she wiggled her loose tooth while she studied her room.
Felted elves, fairy wings, and books of fairy tales were scattered across the floor.
When she was done, she wiggled her loose tooth while she studied her room.
Felted elves, fairy wings, and books of fairy tales were scattered across the floor.
Eliza picked up pale pink and milky green pebbles and lined them up on her shelf. She gazed out the window, wishing she could be playing down at the beach. Next, she put shiny slippers and a unicorn headband back in her bottom drawer.
Eliza stopped picking up wizard hats and magic wands. She found herself standing in front of the curved door next to her dresser that led to a secret space under the stairs.
Touching her hand to her shirt, she made sure she was wearing her dragonfly pin. She opened the curved door and ducked inside to the Land of UnderStair.
Her favorite book, the big purple one, was just where she’d left it. Soon she was lost in The Daisy Chain Book of Fairies. Lost in a world filled with hobgoblins, or hobs, who spoke in rhyme and played pranks all the time. The funny little hobs tied cows’ tails in knots and hid hens’ eggs from the farmer. Eliza giggled at their midnight mischief and mayhem, forgetting all about her chores.
She studied the pictures in “The Moon of the Hobgoblins.” She didn’t look up until she heard a sound. A tap-tap-tapping at the tiny window in UnderStair. 

Chapter Two: In Which Magic Is Only a Door Away
Zit-zit-zit. It sounded like a bird. Eliza crept over to the window to take a peek.
Cheepa-cheepa-cheepa!
A most unusual bird peered back at her through its black eye mask. It had a pale buff-colored belly, dusty gray wings, and a bright blue perky tail. The bird looked like it was wearing a purple cap on its head.
Eliza knew how to identify sandpipers and laughing gulls. She knew the sound of the warbler and the call of the catbird. Mr. McQuestion, the old artist who lived in Cottage Number Five, had shown her a whole book of birds on Cape Cod.
But never had she seen a fairy wren, except for the ones Mr. McQuestion had pointed out in Birds of the World.
A purple-crowned fairy wren!
Cheepa-cheepa-cheepa!
Birds, she knew, could be harbingers of spring. But a fairy wren on Cape Cod? It had to be enchanted. Maybe it was a sign. A sign of something secret, something magic.
Could this be a sign that she might go back to the Land of the Fairies? She’d been there once before. Her adventure had magically filled pages of her diary.
Eliza heard singing, chanting. But it didn’t sound like birdsong. She turned from the window. It was coming from behind the teeny-tiny fairy door, made of sticks and star moss, at the baseboard.
She pressed an ear to the door.
Time . . . climb . . . sunshine. The singing was in rhyme!
Eliza nestled in closer, stirring up a smattering of fairy dust on the floor. It swirled around her, like snow in a snow globe.
Shwoosh! The fairy door whooshed open!
Faster than a fleeting memory, Eliza was whisked through the tiny door, along with her faithful familiar, Haiku. The dragonfly pin had come to life.
Eliza rubbed her eyes, taking in the red rock mounds and sculptures before her. Predawn pinked the sky, and a children’s moon hung above her. Eliza did not see fields of flowers, like the last time she’d been in the Land of the Fairies.
She spotted a cluster of houses. They had round stone bases and looked like they were wearing funny hats!
Haiku hovered over some words that seemed to be carved into the rock mesa. Eliza read the strange letters.
goblin valley.
A shiver made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.