Rescuing Royalty: Two Girls Versus The Galaxy, #1

By Matthew J. Peterson

Vicky Brown's life is thrown into turmoil when her favorite storybook heroine, Mira, chooses Vicky as her latest sidekick. Joining Zorp aboard his magical wagon, they are swept off to save the innocent from the ruthless pirates that seek to rule the galaxy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Matthew J. Peterson
• Release date: Sep 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393699811

Matthew J. Peterson

Hello!  If you're checking out my profile than you're interested in what I write, which is awesome. Maybe we're even kindred spirits. Who knows?! I write fantasy fiction for readers young and old. My inspirations are all the works Hayao Miyazaki and classics like Peter Pan and Wind in the Willows, as well as Folktales the world over.  Writing is my happy place and I hope you have fun visiting the worlds that I've created. I'm also a children's music teacher and I live in Seattle with my wife, Jana. Check out my Instagram page "mattypcreations" to learn more about me and to get in touch.  

Book preview

Chapter One

W here I can see you ! Jamie hissed, giving Vicky her expert stink eye. Sometimes Vicky wondered if Jamie had any other look to give.

Vicky shuffled back to her chair in the corner of the room and sat down. When her babysitter wasn’t looking, she tried to sneak back to her bedroom, but every time, due to a creak from the hardwood floor or the movement of her shadow or a sixth sense her babysitter possessed, Vicky got caught. 

Jamie chose the room they were sitting in out of spite. It was the most boring room in the house, filled with Vicky’s mom’s most precious items.  There was absolutely nothing Vicky could play with.  Even examining them with her only liberated body part, her eyes, was mind-numbing.  She let out a sigh as she focused in on a boring-looking book.  Wrapped in a strange brown paper; in the midst of her mom’s old book collection; for a moment Vicky wondered why it was wrapped up.  She had a thought that it was a special book, and that she might like to read it, but she quickly reminded herself it was probably only filled with antiquated scientific theory or obscure romantic verse.  Her mom liked weird things like that.

Yet again, Jamie clamped her cell phone between her cheek and shoulder, turned a page in her magazine, and resumed her grating chirp of a conversation.  Vicky sighed and rested her head on her hand, which was propped on her knee, and stared into empty space. Her imagination was at a stand still. She allowed her mind to contemplate the persons and events that had gotten her into this predicament in the first place.

Her mother had left a week ago on a vacation with her new, dull boyfriend, Rick.  Rick, who looked more at the mirror than at anything else, including her mother.  Rick, who didn’t waver an inch from the tacky style he’d discovered twenty years ago.  Rick, who drove a purple corvette.  Nothing baffled Vicky more than trying to figure out what her mother saw in him.  Her mother, who was so smart, so worldly, so beautiful.  Well, maybe she wasn’t that smart, thought Vicky.  She did think Jamie was the perfect person to look after her daughter while she was away, including making sure she got fed and went to school.  But Jamie was simply terrible at both.  For Vicky’s school lunch, she slapped a floppy piece of bologna between two pieces of Wonder Bread and tossed it along with a chocolate pudding into a paper bag, before shoving Vicky unceremoniously out the door to catch the bus.  For dinner, she cooked up a bag of Ramen noodles and tossed in some chopped bologna for protein. It wasn’t too bad the first night, but every night?  It should be mentioned that Vicky’s mother left Jamie with more than enough money for better food than bologna, and Jamie had a car and was supposed to drive Vicky to school every morning. 

And Vicky’s mom wasn’t coming back for another week. 

As her home became more like a prison, school, which was never a very welcoming environment for Vicky, began to feel more like vacation.  At least there she was left to her own devices, for the most part.  Sometimes she got picked on, but not very often.  Mainly she was looked upon by students and teachers alike as an odd child, and they ignored her.  At recess, she spent her time either sitting alone reading a book, or wandering the edge of the playground seemingly doing nothing.  Actually, she loved running her hands along the smooth leaves of the hedges and allowing her imagination to flow; most likely she was imagining herself in the place of one of her favorite heroines from her books. 

She did have one other similar respite.  At night, after brushing her teeth under Jamie’s ruthless gaze—-who was often still chatting away on her phone—-and before falling asleep, Vicky pulled the covers of her bed over her head, and, with a flashlight, read passages from her most favorite series of books: Mira and The Magical Wagon.  In each book, a little girl named Mira sought out a different little girl from a far off place in the galaxy to join her in a magnificent adventure.  Vicky had to read carefully, without too much movement or gasping or laughing because if Jamie heard any sound, or saw even a hint of light coming under the door (and she snuck by regularly to check), she would burst in, berate Vicky ruthlessly and devise some outrageous punishment, like taking away something Vicky loved.  Just yesterday Jamie had taken her new cell phone.  Vicky’s mother had given her the phone as a consolation for leaving town without her, and now Jamie had it and wasn’t showing any signs of ever giving it back.  So Vicky was very careful while reading. 

Eventually, Jamie said goodbye to her friend and ordered Vicky to the bathroom to wash up.  Arms crossed, she watched Vicky—-like a guard watches a prisoner—-brush her teeth.  Then Jamie shoved Vicky out of the bathroom and slammed the door. 

As she walked down the hallway to her bedroom, Vicky imagined Jamie waking up later to answer a loud, urgent knock at the front door.  Opening it, Jamie would find Mira standing there.  She would shoot Jamie with one of her strange new weapons, devised by her wacky old sidekick Zorp, and come rescue Vicky.  Vicky had to keep herself from laughing out loud at the thought of it.

She shut the door to her bedroom and smiled.  She looked around at all of her wonderful stuff, and took in a deep breath through her nose, as if her room were full of some wonderful fragrance.  There was no greater place in the world than her bedroom, with all of the cool maps she had on the wall, posters of her favorite movies, pictures of far off places like Egypt, Tahiti and The Milky Way.  It was like stepping into a book.  If only she never had to leave it.  She was convinced she could spend a long happy life within the confines of those four walls, her meals slipped in at intervals, with occasional visits from her mom.  Because her mom, when she wasn’t caught up with some dumb guy, was really the most fun person Vicky knew.

She plopped down on her bed and it immediately sucked out all of the tension from her body, as if it were a magical creature—which, thanks to Jamie, was no small amount.  She smiled broadly and squirmed blissfully, staring up at the UFO toy that hung above her bed.

Unfortunately, she was interrupted from her joyous abandon by Jamie’s voice from the hallway.

Lights off, Vicky!  Now!

It was still ten minutes until lights out according to the rules her mom had posted on the fridge, but Vicky wasn’t about to fight back.  Jamie was an impregnable fortress against her pleas. 

Unwilling to give up the happiness bestowed on her by her beneficent bedroom, however, Vicky pranced lightly across the room, using a few of the moves she’d learned in the one ballet class she’d taken (she had quit because the teacher was very strict and, plainly speaking, no fun at all).  And, with a flourish, she flicked off the light.  And just like that, the galaxy of glow-in-the-dark stars came to life on her ceiling, and she was walking on the Moon to get back to her bed.  She slid under her warm covers and did a little bit more squirming, and finally, she reached over to her bedside table and retrieved a flashlight and her new favorite book Mira and The Magical Wagon: Adventures in The Outback.

She opened the book to where she’d left off, and began to read.  Mira and her current cohort Yolanda were going head to head against a group of thieves who had stolen a bunch of rare Aboriginal artifacts, and Mira was trying to shoot their leader with a device called a Critter Spitter.  It shot little balls of juice that made whoever they touched think they were some type of little animal, like a mouse or a squirrel, thereby making them vulnerable to capture. 

Mira and Yolanda had succeeded in tying all the bad men up to a giant tree for the authorities to find, when Vicky felt her eyelids begin to droop.  She set the book down on her chest, and was intending to only shut her eyes for a few seconds, when she began to nod off.

Abruptly, Vicky awoke.  She thought she’d heard a sound from outside her window.  But she figured she’d dreamt it, so she closed her eyes again.  A moment later, she was awake again.  She couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like horses were in the street outside, clopping their way past her house.  Vicky lived in the heart of the city, no place for a horse.  She concluded, therefore, that she had definitely dreamt the sound.  But she was more awake now, her heart racing a bit, so she picked up her book again and opening it, began to read. 

She didn’t even make it through a complete sentence before the clop, clop, clop began again.  Now, Vicky couldn’t move for excitement.  The sound was magical, like hearing Santa’s sleigh bells.  She didn’t want to look out the window only to find out that it was something other than horses.  So she sat there a long time letting that sound fill her head, until it was as if horses were walking inside her skull.  She imagined herself as a knight riding one of the horses.  Then the sound stopped and her heart sank.  She sat as still as she could, hoping the sound would come back.  It didn’t.  So she screwed up her courage, moved her hand to the curtains and, delicately, separated them for the smallest peek—-because a bigger look might scare off whatever it was off, if in fact it was still there or ever had been.

She saw horses, alright. Right below her second story window.  Strange horses, too, like drawings, sort of faint and light, moving as if the wind were blowing through them.  And that wasn’t all.  Right behind the horses, in the circle of light from a lamp post, stood the most wonderful wagon she’d ever seen.  Of course, she’d never seen a real wagon before, but she knew that if she had, it wouldn’t have compared to this one. 

It was painted sky blue with orange trim, which was quite faded and peeling in places, but that only added to the beauty of it.  It had windows with curtains and huge wheels, and  finally, and most fantastic of all, a thatched roof, rather unkempt, as if the owners had cut a large square out of someone’s garden and plopped it on top.  There were flowers growing in it, big sticks jutting out of it and huge patches of juicy green moss.  As she stared, a giant frog wriggled out from amongst some tangled grass and hopped across the roof.

Whoever it was had stopped, it seemed, merely to feed their horses, which the little old man driver was doing—-his wide, white beard hanging down to his feet like a waterfall and swinging to and fro as he moved about.  He wore a little blue brimless cap, a grey wool coat, and striped trousers.  Beside him was a girl, about Vicky’s own height and weight, with short dark hair, wearing a red tank top and beat up jeans who was talking to the little old man as she consulted a worn out piece of parchment.  It was a map, no doubt about it, thought Vicky, whose jaw looked like a mailbox that had been left open. She was enthralled.  But no words can capture what she felt when the girl suddenly looked up, and pointed right at her window.  Vicky froze.  When the girl began to wave at her, beckoning her down to the street, her heart began thumping so hard, she thought it would bust clear out of her chest, break through the window and hop down the street forever.

Vicky could not move.  Not even an inch.  She couldn’t even blink.

The girl, however, quickly lost her patience.  Her hands fell to her hips, and she began staring up at the window as if to say, What are you waiting for, dummy?!  But still, Vicky simply stared down at the wagon.  Finally, the little girl turned and walked to the back of the wagon, climbed the little step ladder that hung there and got in.  Vicky, had she been able to, would have screamed, Wait, where are you going?!, but she simply couldn’t change thoughts