Guardians of Little Wonders, Part 10: The Lost Page of Wonders

Guardians of Little Wonders, Part 10: The Lost Page of Wonders

The Story Begins

In the secret corner near the classroom, it was unusually quiet. Sara sat by a low cupboard with the secret notebook of the Guardians of Little Wonders on her knees. It had blue covers, a tiny star in one corner, and between its pages it held the rules the children had written down one by one.

But now, something was wrong with it.

“Look,” Sara whispered.

Between two pages, there was a torn edge. The paper had been pulled out so carefully that it looked as though it had grown wings and flown away by itself.

Emma pressed her hand to her mouth. “A page! Someone took our page!”

Leo leaned closer. His curly hair nearly touched the notebook. “Maybe it just fell out.”

“It didn’t fall out,” Sara said. She ran her fingertip over the empty space. “There was a sentence about the rule for our powers. I remember the beginning, but not all of it.”

Toby adjusted his glasses. “Who had the notebook last?”

For a moment, everyone fell silent.

“I put it in the cupboard,” Sara admitted.

“And I said I would guard it,” Leo added, looking away.

“So nobody really guarded it?” Emma burst out.

“It isn’t only my fault!” Leo snapped more quickly than he meant to.

Toby shrank back a little. It seemed a small, uncomfortable argument was about to settle between them. Just then, Sara closed the notebook and took a quiet breath.

“Mr Shadowmorph would be pleased if we argued,” she said. “First, we find the page. Then we can talk about who forgot what.”

Leo nodded. “Okay. I saw him near the cupboards yesterday. Well… not all of him. Just the purple edge of a coat and a shadow that moved the opposite way from all the others.”

Suddenly, a thin line of light flashed near the cupboard leg. Sara looked at it in surprise. It was not an ordinary glow. It pulsed softly, as if someone were showing the way with a tiny flashlight.

The girl smiled. “Maybe the page is looking for us too.”

The little line of light stretched past the door and disappeared into the hallway.

The school hallway was full of voices during break, but in one far corner there was a strange silence. One shoe stood on a shelf by the window, although flower pots usually sat there. An eraser rolled back and forth across the floor without anyone touching it. On the wall, shadows from the railing turned into arrows.

“This looks like a path,” Emma said, pointing at the biggest arrow.

“Or very bad decoration,” Toby muttered.

Sara reached toward the light on the floor. When she thought about the missing page and how much she wanted to return it to the notebook, the glow grew stronger. Yet it did not shine beside the big arrow. It lit up only a tiny, almost invisible arrow near the stairs.

Leo smiled. “Leave this to me.”

He placed his palms on the wall, closed his eyes, and took three breaths. On the first breath, he saw a dark space behind the wall. On the second, he saw old wooden doors. On the third, he made out a sign: ARCHIVE.

Then he straightened up too quickly. “See? I found it!”

Right away, he grabbed his forehead. “Ow. My head feels a little dizzy.”

“Because you were showing off again,” Emma said without anger. “Do you do that even when you tie your shoelaces?”

Leo wanted to be offended, but then he laughed. “Maybe just a little.”

Meanwhile, a narrow blue ribbon appeared by the stairs. It curled along the floor and nearly tangled itself around the ankles of a first-grade girl with a big orange backpack.

When Things Start to Change

Toby moved before she could trip. He gently caught her by the elbows, steadied her, and pushed the ribbon aside with his foot. At that moment, his hands grew warm and strong for a second. The ribbon broke apart into ordinary strips of paper.

“Thank you,” said the first-grader, and she ran off after her friends.

Emma took a pencil from her pencil case and drew a tiny compass on the back of a worksheet. “So we don’t get lost in Shadowmorph’s silly tricks.”

The compass trembled on the paper, then gave a little chime and became real. It was as small as a cookie, and its needle turned toward the stairs leading down to the basement.

The archive door creaked just a little. Inside, it was cooler than in the hallway, and the air smelled of cardboard, wood, and old books. Tall shelves were full of boxes, maps, and notebooks with faded labels.

A pencil on the table slid a few inches by itself. One notebook opened, closed, and opened again. Dust near the window spun into three tiny question marks.

“Please, let nothing start reciting multiplication tables,” Emma whispered.

“If it does, I’ll quiz it,” Leo replied, though he was already speaking more quietly.

Sara walked past a shelf marked OLD SCHOOL RECORDS. Among the scratches in the wood, she noticed a small symbol: a circle with four tiny sparks inside it. One spark glowed pale blue.

“That’s our sign,” she said. “But older.”

Under the symbol, someone had written a note in pencil. The letters were tiny, but still easy to read:

A gift grows weak when fear or pride leads it.

Toby read the sentence twice. “So that was on the stolen page?”

“Probably the whole rule,” Sara said. “Mr Shadowmorph didn’t want to destroy the notebook. He wanted us to start doubting.”

After a while, the compass in Emma’s hand clicked. Its needle pointed behind a pile of boxes at the back of the archive. The missing page hung between them. It was not floating in the air, but caught in a dark ring that looked like the shadow left by a cup of cocoa.

A tall, thin shape in a purple coat rose from the shadow. Mr Shadowmorph was not smiling with his whole face, only with one corner of his mouth.

“Looking for paper?” he asked in a sweet voice. “How strange. Paper doesn’t remember the way home.”

“Give it back,” Toby said, though his voice shook a little.

Mr Shadowmorph tilted his head. “I’ll tell you a riddle. What grows when you are afraid of it and shrinks when you trust?”

“A shadow?” Emma guessed.

“Not always,” the shape whispered.

Leo stepped forward. “I’ll see through this trap. We’ll find the weak spot, and that’s that.”

Before anyone could stop him, he placed his hands on one of the boxes and used his power. Behind the cardboard, he saw more boxes, then a narrow path, and finally the page. He wanted to look even farther, just to prove he could manage it alone.

But then his head buzzed, as though an angry bee were flying inside it. The image blurred.

“Leo!” Sara grabbed his shoulder.

The boy stepped back. “I… I almost had it.”

Emma was already holding her pencil over the paper. “I’ll draw a giant hand. It will pull the page out!”

“What if it knocks the boxes over?” Toby asked.

As if to prove his point, the tall stack of boxes swayed above them. Mr Shadowmorph merely snapped his fingers, though his fingers were really only dark ripples.

An Important Moment

Toby stepped in front of his friends. He was not angry. He simply saw that Emma was small and Leo had his eyes shut. He stretched out his arms and held the bottom box until the whole stack stopped wobbling. His palms glowed again with warm golden light.

But the shadow trap did not break.

“Strength isn’t enough,” Sara said. “At least, not like this.”

Mr Shadowmorph spun around, amused. “Perhaps each of you wants to win alone. That can be very entertaining.”

Then his shape melted away between the shelves. Only a quiet laugh remained, like the rustle of paper.

The four friends sat on the floor between the boxes. Leo rubbed his forehead. Emma held her pencil, but she did not draw. Toby still supported one box, even though it was already standing firmly.

Sara opened the notebook to the empty place where the page was missing. “We don’t need to prove who is strongest,” she said. “We only need to bring it back together.”

“I can look for only three breaths,” Leo said. “No farther. Just enough to find the safe way.”

Emma nodded. “I’ll draw a small lamp. Not a hand. A lamp doesn’t push anything. It only shows the way.”

“And I’ll hold the boxes,” Toby added. “So nobody gets scared.”

Sara smiled. “I’ll try to light up only the page. Not the trap. Only what should come back.”

Emma drew a little lamp with a round shade. When her pencil finished the last line, a real tiny lamp appeared in her palm. It gave off a soft yellow light.

Leo took one breath, then a second, then a third. “There’s a gap between the second and third boxes. The shadow isn’t as thick there.”

Toby held the boxes without effort, but he did not look at his strong hands. He watched his friends to make sure they had enough room.

Sara stepped closer to the trap. She did not think about whether she would manage to be a hero. She thought only about the blue notebook, the empty place in it, and the friends standing beside her.

A gentle beam came out of the page. At first, it was as thin as a thread. Then it joined the light from Emma’s lamp. The shadow ring shrank, as if someone were slowly erasing it with an eraser.

The page moved.

“Now!” Leo whispered.

It flew through the air, across the gap between the boxes, and landed softly in Sara’s hands. At that moment, all the dusty question marks crumbled into ordinary specks.

Mr Shadowmorph appeared once more by the back shelf. His coat was the colour of purple evening ink.

“So it is,” he said. “Some answers cannot be stolen. Only hidden for a little while.”

Then he vanished into the shadow beneath the shelf. It was neither a victory nor a defeat. It felt more like a promise that he would surely think up another confusing trick.

Sara put the page back into the notebook. The paper slipped exactly into its place, and the letters on it flashed:

A gift grows weak when it is used out of fear or pride. It grows stronger when it helps with love and trust.

Nobody spoke for a moment. Then Leo shrugged. “So next time I’ll show off only at football. At least my head won’t hurt there.”

Emma giggled. “And I’ll draw hands only when I really know what they are meant to catch.”

Toby looked at his hands, now ordinary again. “I liked that I supported you.”

What Comes Next

As they were getting ready to leave, Sara noticed something behind the back shelf. There was another old symbol with four sparks. This time, one spark pointed to a small drawing of the school bell, and beneath it was written a single word:

Without help.

Sara looked at the symbol for a while. Then she pulled the notebook close and closed it.

Outside the archive door, the school bell rang. Its clear sound carried through the hallway, as if it knew about the secret waiting for them next.