Willa Bean's Cloud Dreams Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2011 by Cecilia Galante

  Cover art and interior copyright © 2011 by Kristi Valiant

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks and A Stepping Stone Book and the colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Galante, Cecilia.

  Willa Bean’s cloud dreams / by Cecilia Galante; illustrated by Kristi Valiant.

  p. cm. — (Little wings; #1)

  “A Stepping Stone book.”

  Summary: Willa Bean, who wants to master flying before starting school at Cupid Academy, celebrates her unconventional looks and unique personality, but struggles to accept that cupids learn how to fly at different times.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-98352-8

  [1. Individuality—Fiction. 2. Flight—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction.

  4. Cupid (Roman deity)—Fiction.] I. Valiant, Kristi, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.G12965Wi 2011 [Fic]—dc22 2011007360

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  For Sophia, my little love —C.G.

  For my Ciana, may you soar

  on wings. (Isaiah 40:31) —K.V.

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Willa Bean’s World

  1. The Big Secret

  2. Flying Lessons

  3. Even Owls Have Advice

  4. Think Positive!

  5. The Lovely Miss Twizzle

  6. Treasure-Plus!

  7. Flying Class

  8. Treasure Spells Trouble

  9. HOLY SHAMOLEY!

  10. The Trouble with Parents

  11. Fly High, Willa Bean!

  Willa Bean Skylight is a cupid. Cupids live in a faraway place called Nimbus, which sits just alongside the North Star, in a tiny pocket of the Milky Way. Nimbus is made up of three white stars and nine clouds, all connected by feather bridges. It has a Cupid Academy, where cupids go to school, a garden cloud, where they grow and store their food, and lots and lots of playgrounds.

  Willa Bean lives on Cloud Four with her mother and father, her big sister, Ariel, and her baby brother, Louie. Cloud Four is soft and green. The air around it smells like rain and pineapples. Best of all, Willa Bean’s best friend, Harper, also lives on Cloud Four, just a few cloudbumps away.

  When cupids are ready, they are given special Earth tasks. That means they have to fly down to Earth to help someone who is having a hard time. Big cupids, like Willa Bean’s parents, help Earth grown-ups with things like falling in love. Little cupids, like Willa Bean, help Earth kids if they feel mad, sad, or just plain stuck. Working with Earth people is the most important job a cupid has. It can be hard work, too, but there’s nothing that Willa Bean would rather do.

  Are you ready for a peek into Willa Bean’s world? It’s just a few cloudbumps away, so let’s go!

  Willa Bean sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. The sun peeked around the edge of her window. It was morning! Finally!

  She hopped out from under the covers and got dressed. There was no time to waste. Tomorrow was Willa Bean’s first day at the Cupid Academy. Her best friend, Harper, would be there. So would her sister, Ariel, who was in an older cupid class.

  Willa Bean picked up her silver mirror. She turned to the right. Then she turned to the left. Yesterday Ariel had told Willa Bean that she was going to stick out like a sore wing at school. This made Willa Bean a little nervous. She knew she was a very unusual-looking cupid. Other cupids had soft, straight hair, pink cheeks, and silky white wings.

  Willa Bean had:

  1. A crazy, curly mess of brown hair.

  2. A million-bajillion freckles.

  3. Bright purple wings—with silver tips!

  There was not much she could do about these things. Her hair had just decided right from the beginning to grow sideways instead of straight down. Then it grew up, up, up, and out. Sometimes, when the wind blew just right, it looked like a gigantic, curly cotton ball!

  Willa Bean’s hair was so big and wide that she could actually hide things inside it. Sometimes, she tucked a piece of cloud treasure in the little space behind her ear. Other times, she shoved a sparklemallow or a Snoogy Bar in the very back, where the curls were the curliest. Later, when she got hungry, she pulled one of the snacks out and ate it. No one ever suspected a thing.

  Willa Bean also had lots of freckles. The last time she counted, there were almost a million-bajillion of them! Mama said most of her freckles were little bits of cloud dust. This was true, since Willa Bean and Harper spent a lot of time digging for cloud treasure. They had a treasure chest buried deep on Cloud Five. It needed lots of filling. And finding treasure was a lot more important than freckles. Or clean cheeks.

  Willa Bean’s wings were also different-looking. But they had always looked like that—right from the start. In fact, Willa Bean could not remember a time when her wings had not been purple with silver tips. It was just how they were.

  Looking different was not what bothered Willa Bean. In fact, she liked it quite a bit. She had decided that it made her a one-in-a-bajillion. And being a one-in-a-bajillion was one of the most marvelous things she could think of.

  There was really only one thing about herself that bothered Willa Bean.

  One teeny-tiny, itty-bitty, eensy-weensy secret thing.

  And that was why in five more minutes, before anyone else woke up, she was going to sneak out and meet Harper at Cloud Eight.

  This time, they were not going to look for buried treasure. They were not going to open their treasure chest and count everything inside. They were not even going to wiggle through the cloud tunnels. Or jump in the cloud puddles until their hair got wet.

  This morning, just as on all the other mornings for the past three months, Harper was going to help Willa Bean in a very special way.

  She was going to try to teach Willa Bean how to get those purple wings with the silver tips of hers to behave.

  Because there was no way, nohow, nope-ity, nope, nope, nope, that Willa Bean was going to start at the Cupid Academy tomorrow without being able to fly.

  Willa Bean skipped over the narrow feather bridge that led to Cloud Eight. Thank goodness for feather bridges. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to go anywhere around Nimbus! She would be stuck on Cloud Four forever!

  Cloud Eight was very large. It was bright pink with fat white polka dots. Lots of cupids came to Cloud Eight to play. It had high parts to it and low parts, too, which made it fun for jumping. And sliding! There were cloud puddles, and cloud tunnels, and even cloud forts on Cloud Eight.

  From the bridge, Willa Bean could see Harper. She was on her hands and knees, looking for moonstones. Her blue polka-dotted glasses were sliding down her nose. The hem of her white dress was already dirty.

  Harper always got to Cloud Eight before Willa Bean. But that was because she could fly there instead of walking over the bridges. Harper was lucky. Her little white wings weren’t stubborn like Willa Bean’s purple ones with the
silver tips. They were polite little wings. Harper’s wings listened when she told them to move back and forth. They paid very close attention when Harper told them to lift her off the ground. And then they did it.

  Sometimes, Willa Bean wondered if her wings’ listening parts needed to be cleaned. Or maybe they needed to be put in time-out.

  Willa Bean tiptoed across the cloud. She was careful not to trip over any of the bumpy parts. It was always fun to sneak up on Harper.

  “Boo!” Willa Bean yelled.

  Harper screamed.

  Willa Bean giggled.

  “I got you again!”

  “Wolla-wolla-wing-wang!” Harper’s face was red. Her glasses were lopsided. “You better watch out, Willa Bean! One of these days, I’m gonna get you back and scare that crazy hair right off your head!”

  “That reminds me.” Willa Bean pulled a small package of sparklemallows out of the back of her hair. “It’s snack time.”

  “Ooooh, goody!” Harper clapped her hands and wiggled her little white wings. Harper was a super-snacker. Especially when it came to sweet snacks. She had lots of sweet tooths in that mouth of hers, along with all her regular teeth.

  Sparklemallows were soft pink candy with shiny blue sparkles on the outside. The inside tasted like sugar stars. Harper and Willa Bean sat down next to each other. They ate their sparklemallows slowly. Their hands got very sticky. They wiped them on the cloud until they were clean again.

  “Did you find any treasure on the way over?” Harper’s words were all squished together. She still had lots of sparklemallow in her mouth.

  “Yuppers!” Willa Bean reached into her left pocket. She took out an orange moonstone, a fragment of a baby star, and a smooth white shell.

  “Wizzle-dizzle-doodad!” Harper said. “You found a lot! Anything in the other pocket?”

  Willa Bean reached into her right pocket. She pulled out a piece of silver chain, three blue feathers, and a length of silk string.

  “Awesome!” Harper fished out half a pencil from her left pocket. It was missing an eraser. “And I found this! Let’s dig up the treasure chest right now so we can put everything in it!”

  Willa Bean stuffed her treasures back in her pockets. “But we have to work on my flying,” she said. “Remember? Otherwise, I’ll be the only one at the Cupid Academy tomorrow who doesn’t know how to fly!”

  Harper jumped to her feet. “Oh, that’s right! Let’s go!”

  The two cupids walked up to the tippy-top of Cloud Eight. Willa Bean felt a little quivery inside as she looked down the sloped side. The bottom was super-soft like a pillow. If she fell, she wouldn’t get hurt. But she still felt scared.

  “Okay, now remember what I told you yesterday,” Harper said. She bent over and put her hands on her knees. “You’re gonna do it today, Willa Bean! I know it!”

  Willa Bean wiggled her behind. She shook her arms and jumped up and down. She looked over her shoulder and said, “Boo!” just in case her purple wings with the silver tips had fallen asleep.

  “Knees bent?” Harper asked.

  Willa Bean bent her knees—just a little bit, the way Harper had shown her yesterday. “Check,” she said.

  “Elbows back?” Harper asked.

  Willa Bean pushed her elbows back. “Check.”

  “Chin up?”

  Willa Bean lifted her chin. “Check.”

  “Okay now.” Harper shoved her glasses up along her nose. “Concentrate, Willa Bean. When you push off, close your eyes and wiggle your wings super-hard. Like, harder than you’ve ever done in your whole entire life. Just wigglewigglewiggle the peewilly-magilly out of them.”

  Willa Bean took a deep breath. “Okay.”

  “One,” Harper said. “Two! Three!”

  Willa Bean rolled up on her tiptoes. She closed her eyes until she could see her little purple wings with the silver tips in her head. They were very cute. And very stubborn. Wigglewigglewiggle. She pushed her elbows back and lifted her chin again.

  And then, with one great leap, she jumped off the very tippy-top of Cloud Eight.

  For a split second, she felt the breeze on her face. The sun was there, too, soft and warm against her arms. She even heard the wind whooshing through her curls (boing! boing!) and Harper’s voice shouting behind her. “Wiggle, Willa Bean! Wiggle with all your might!”

  Willa Bean wiggled those wings. She wiggled and wiggled with all her might. She wiggled in a way that she had never wiggled before. Her cheeks were pink and her fingers turned blue.

  But it was no use. Down … down … down … she dropped again until at last she was lying in a heap at the soft pink bottom of Cloud Eight.

  Harper flew down next to her. “You okay?”

  Willa Bean spit out a piece of pink cloud and stared up at the sky. Overhead and to the right, the moon was a pale white circle. It looked as smooth as an egg. Last week, Harper told Willa Bean that her mom had taken her flying. They had gone halfway around the moon and then circled back again. Harper had even brushed the edge of a baby star with her fingertips.

  When would it be Willa Bean’s turn?

  Willa Bean sat up and rubbed her eyes. Her inside crying feeling was starting to push its way up from the bottom of her stomach. “No, I’m not okay,” she said. “This flying thing is making me bonkers.”

  “You’ll get it.” Harper sat down next to her. She put an arm around Willa Bean’s shoulders. “You will, Willa Bean. It just takes time.”

  Willa Bean squeezed her eyes tight. She had cried in front of Harper once before, after she tripped on the bridge to Cloud Six and hurt her leg. But she didn’t want to cry in front of her now. In less than twenty hours, they were going to the Cupid Academy. It was real school, with big cupids. They were going to learn big-cupid things. Important things. Now was no time to act like a baby.

  Willa Bean swallowed hard until the crying feeling inside her chest went away.

  Harper patted her back. “Let’s not worry about the flying right now,” she said. “Let’s go to Cloud Five instead and look for more treasure.”

  And so for the rest of the afternoon, the two little cupids dug and dug on Cloud Five until their fingernails turned bright pink with cloud dust. They found wonderful treasure—a piece of blue sea stone, three gold coins, and an old pair of wire spectacles. They dug up their treasure chest and put everything inside.

  Soon the sky around them turned a light purple. Then the North Star swung its head around the Milky Way and gave them a wink. It was time to go home.

  Willa Bean tucked the sparklemallow package inside her hair again and followed Harper off Cloud Five.

  It had been an almost perfect afternoon.

  Almost.

  At dinner that night, Mama announced that Willa Bean had to take a shower. “And we are going to wash your hair,” Mama added. “It must be nice and clean for your first day of school tomorrow, Willa Bean. No snarls.” Mama raised one eyebrow, which she always did when she meant business.

  Willa Bean hated showers. Especially since Mama always used fresh rainwater for them. She did not like the feel of rainwater on her skin—even if it was warm. Rainwater tingled. And it ran into her eyes. But having to take a shower and wash her hair was the worst. It was even worse than having to eat those icky vegetables that grew on Cloud Seven!

  Hair washing involved lots of moonfoam that stung her eyes, and tons of rainwater for rinsing. Willa Bean knew she would rather eat a whole house full of icky vegetables than wash her hair.

  “And can we please not have a Willa Bean scene this time?” Ariel asked. “The last time you got your hair washed, I almost went deaf listening to you scream and holler. It’s only rainwater, Willa Bean.”

  Ariel was the biggest pain-in-the-wing sister ever! She thought she could treat Willa Bean like a baby just because she was older.

  Willa Bean’s purple wings with the silver tips fluffed up on her back. “You be quiet, Hairy Ariel! You think you’re the boss of this place, but you aren’
t!”

  Ariel tossed her long blond hair. “Don’t call me Hairy Ariel!”

  “Girls,” Daddy said. “Remember the Cupid Rule, please.”

  Willa Bean thought about the Cupid Rule for a moment. It went like this:

  The very best way

  To spend your day

  Is to try to be kind—

  All the time.

  The Cupid Rule sounded easy. But it wasn’t. Especially when it came to big sisters.

  Willa Bean stuck her tongue out at Ariel when Daddy wasn’t looking.

  Ariel crossed her eyes and made a face.

  Baby Louie, who was sitting in his high chair next to Mama, threw a handful of peas across the room. “Da!” he yelled happily. “Da-da!”

  Baby Louie was still little. He didn’t have to worry about things like the Cupid Rule yet. Or pain-in-the-wing older sisters.

  Sometimes, Willa Bean thought, she didn’t know whether it was better to be big or little. Maybe in-between was best.

  Later that night, Willa Bean sat in the middle of her bed as Mama combed out the snarls in her hair. Mama was very gentle. She did not pull or yank. But Willa Bean’s eyes were still red from all the squeezing and rubbing she had done to them in the shower.

  It had been an especially terrible one. Mama had found a piece of (still wrapped) moonbubble, a rusty old key, and the leftover package of sparklemallows inside Willa Bean’s hair. She had not been happy about it. In fact, she had been so unhappy about it that she had washed Willa Bean’s hair not once, not twice, but three times! There had been so much rainwater and moonfoam that Willa Bean thought she was going to scream!

  “I’m sorry it was such a terrible shower,” Mama said softly. “But if you would stop using your hair as a storage unit, we wouldn’t have to wash it over and over again.”

  Willa Bean sniffed. “What’s a storage unit?”

  “It’s like a big closet,” Mama explained. “We have them on Cloud Two for cupids to keep their things when they don’t have room for them anywhere else. You have pockets, Willa Bean. Lots of them. I’ve even sewn extra ones into your play clothes. You don’t need to keep things in your hair.”