Sasha and Puck and the Cordial Cordial (Elixir Fixers, 2, Band 2) - Hardcover

Nayeri, Daniel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807572438 ISBN 13: 9780807572436

Verlag: Albert Whitman & Company, 2019

Inhaltsangabe

Sasha's father sells magic potions, but the potions don’t work. Can Sasha find a way to make the magic happen?

When Basil Gentry asks for a cordial cordial, Sasha thinks he wants it for his spoiled sister Sisal. A boarding school headmistress is coming to meet Sisal, but Sisal would rather throw a party for her horse. Can Sasha and Puck convince Sisal to be friendly for one whole day?

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Daniel Nayeri was born in Iran and spent some years as a refugee before immigrating to Oklahoma at age eight with his family. He is the author of several books for young readers, including Straw House, Wood House, Brick House, Blow: Four Novellas. He lives with his family in New Jersey. Anneliese Mak is an Australian illustrator and animator currently living and working in Canada, with a love for animals, scarves, checking the weather, and bread. She revels in the challenge of telling stories in a single image.

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The Elixir Fixers Sasha and Puck and the Cordial Cordial

Book 2

By Daniel Nayeri

Albert Whitman & Company

Copyright © 2019 Daniel Nayeri
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8075-7243-6

CHAPTER 1

Outside, the autumn leaves were red, and the harvest birds were fed.

Inside, Papa was in bed, while Sasha read, and Puck was nearly dead.

Dead with boredom.

Chewing his own arms just for something to do.

"Stop that," said Sasha.

The sound of his smacking was wet and made her anxious.

"Oh, oddity, what is wrong with you?" said Sasha, putting down her book. It was about the wild horses of the hill country, who sang to each other as they galloped across the hills.

Puck continued to chomp on his own arm as if it were a kebab.

The worst part, to Sasha, was that he was such a dirty little creature that biting any part of him would only taste like dirt.

"I will gag if you keep doing that," she said.

He kept doing it.

Sasha sat behind the giant oaken counter of the Juicy Gizzard, makers of medicines, teas, and alchemies. That was more true when her mama was around. Papa made the medicines and teas. Mama made the alchemies. And they would joke that the best tea was any water Sasha dipped her toes in. This was back when she was very little, obviously. Because then, they would pretend to chomp on her toes. It would be gross now if they did that. She was old enough to carry water from the well and gather flowers from the Willow Wood (but not too far into the Willow Wood). She could even dry the tea leaves — rose hips, chamomile, and hibiscus — by herself.

Puck lay on the floor with his arm in his mouth. He was so much like an animal that Sasha wondered if he'd been raised by wolves. And not particularly smart wolves either.

They had spent the morning tending the shop and listening to the crows cawing at each other about the best fields to pillage. There were no customers. They had fewer and fewer these days. It made Sasha worry. But Papa didn't seem to mind. "More time for reading," he'd say.

But already, he was counting coins and cutting thinner slices of cheese for his flatbread. She knew he had stopped taking sugar with his tea in the mornings. And she knew he stayed up late into the nights, outside with the cauldron, boiling turpentine, oil scum, fish scales, bark from rotted trees, and fox fat to make a liniment for making horses go to sleep. It was a foul- smelling job that turned his fingers yellow. But it was good medicine that he could sell to the caravans traveling down the mountains. Their horses and donkeys would be scared or footsore, and the liniment helped them through the long journeys.

And so Papa slept later in the mornings. And Sasha minded the store and felt a bit more at ease, since he wasn't selling magic potions. And Puck ... well, that left him with very little to do but fight with Otto, their pig, chase chickens, or bite his own toenails.

"I mean it. I'm gagging now," said Sasha. "Stop it. I can hear the clipping of the nails. And — wait. Are you swallowing them?"

Sasha truly gagged this time. She grabbed a salt rock on the counter and threw it at him. It smacked him on the forehead. Puck yowled like a cat with its tail underfoot.

"Shh," said Sasha.

Puck grabbed up the rock, ready to throw it back.

"Don't," said Sasha, drawing herself up. "You'll wake Papa."

Puck made a bitter grunt.

"If you could read," she said, "you wouldn't be so bored all the time."

"Guh," said Puck with a shrug.

"You should take a lesson from me, Puck. I was reading about horses and entertained myself all morning."

Puck rolled his eyes but scrambled up to the counter and pawed at the book.

"Okay, I'll tell you. There are wild horses in a faraway hill country, where they say some of them are so fast that they burn the grass when they gallop. Those are the Cinderhooves. And some are so graceful that they say flowers grow wherever they roam. Those are the Bloomhooves."

Puck made a whistling sound, though he was mostly toothless.

"I know," said Sasha. "Amazing."

Puck said, "Guh."

"Well, not exactly," said Sasha. "It isn't magic."

"Guh!" insisted Puck.

"No, silly. There's no such thing. It's obvious the Cinderhooves are flat-footed, and the friction between their hoof and the grass makes it like a rug burn. And the Bloomhooves must get seeds caught in between their hooves that spread wherever they go."

Puck shook his head vigorously. He did not accept her explanation.

"Trust me, Puck," said Sasha, "if you could read, you'd know." She wiped the mud from the counter where his arms had been. "Besides," she said, "if there are such magical horses, why haven't we seen any?"

At that very moment, they heard the sound of four horses clopping into the yard in front of the shop.

Sasha held her breath.

Puck smiled a wily smile and made a satisfied noise.

"Oh hush," said Sasha. "That's just a coincidence."

When the hooves came to a stop right outside the shop door, she said, "I mean, it has to be, right?"

CHAPTER 2

The horses were neither Cinderhooves nor Bloomhooves. They were just horses with regular hooves, pulling a fancy carriage.

Sasha and Puck had run to the window to make sure.

"Told you," said Sasha. "What are the odds that magic horses would arrive today of all days?"

"Meh," said Puck. He was already finished with that topic and had become interested in the carriage, which seemed to have a compartment in the back stocked with bags of cheese sticks, cinnamon bread, and boxes of Mrs. Kozlow's famous bonbons.

On the door of the carriage was a lacy, gold seal. Sasha knew it very well.

"Don't get any ideas about them sharing those groceries," she said. "That's the Gentry carriage."

Puck huffed out his disappointment. They watched as the door of the carriage opened. Out stepped Basil Gentry, a tall and thin young man with kind and contented eyes. He never seemed to be in a hurry and always seemed to be smiling.

He was the Gentry that Sasha liked most. But he was still a Gentry. "Quick," she said. "Act busy."

She could never let a Gentry see that business was slow, not with Vadim looking to buy the shop. Sasha ran behind the counter and made a show of weighing each salt rock on a brass scale and handing it to Puck for packing.

The door opened to the chime of Mama's glass bell, and Basil entered.

Sasha looked up from her task. "Be right with you," she said. "We're just finishing up."

"Uh, okay," said Basil. "Are you —"

"Very busy," said Sasha. "One moment." She handed Puck the last salt rock. Then she looked over and saw him take it, lick it, and stick it to his forehead — beside all the others. His whole face was pocked with salt rocks. His eyes were wide with innocence. He looked back and forth from Sasha to Basil, as if the trick was working.

"What in the name of fiffle faffle are you doing?" said Sasha. "Gimme those."

Puck still didn't seem to understand. He took a salt rock from his cheek and tried to stick it to Sasha's face instead.

"No. Okay, go sit in the corner."

Puck's dirty, salt-rock-covered forehead made an angry frown. He stomped over to the corner of the shop, slapped the rocks from his face, and kicked them all around before slumping to the ground.

Sasha tried to regain her composure. "We were just checking those rocks for ... um ..."

She couldn't think of anything. "Poison," she said finally.

"You had your gremlin licking...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Albert Whitman & Company
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2019
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0807572438
• ISBN 13: 9780807572436
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Zeichner: Mak Anneliese
• Anzahl der Seiten: 128
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Buchpark GmbH; gpsr@buchpark.de; ; Krügerweg 1; Trebbin; Brandenburg; 14959; Deutschland