CHAPTER 2
The End of the Ride
The sky, from the rosy pink of late afternoon, had faded to a depressing grey, and Mandy could not help thinking longingly of the appetizing little supper she had set out for herself before going up to call the goats. Who would eat it now or even know she was flying through the air like a comet? No one, she concluded drearily, for Mandy was an orphan and lived all by herself in a small cottage on Mt. Mern, high above the village of Fistikins. In a day or two, some of her friends in the village might search the cottage and find her gone, but NOW, now there was nothing to do but sit tight and hope for the best.
Mandy's next glance down was more encouraging. Instead of the dangerous looking desert, she was sailing over misty blue hills and valleys dotted with many small towns and villages. High as she was, she could even hear the church bells tolling the hour, and this made Mandy feel more lost and lonely than ever. All these people below were safely at home and about to eat their suppers while she was flying high and far from everything she knew and loved best.
Hungrily the Goat Girl cast her eyes over the rock she was riding, thinking to find a small sprig of mountain berries or even a blade of grass to nibble. At first glance, the rock seemed bare and barren, then sticking up out of a narrow crevice Mandy spied a tiny blue flower. "Poor little posy, it's as far from home as I am," murmured the Goat Girl, and carefully breaking the stem, she lifted the blue flower to her nose. Its faint fragrance was vaguely comforting and Mandy had just begun to count the petals, when the rock gave a sickening lurch and started to pitch down so fast Mandy's braids snapped like jumping ropes and her skirts bellied out like a parachute in a gale.
"NOW for it," gasped the Goat Girl closing her eyes and clenching her teeth. "OH! My poor little shins!" Mandy's shins were both stout and sturdy, but even so we cannot blame Mandy for pitying them. Stouter shins than hers would have splintered at such a fall. Hardly knowing what she was doing, Mandy began to pull the petals from the blue flower, calling in an agonized voice as she pulled each one the names of her goats and friends. She had just come to Speckle, the smallest member of her flock, when the end came.
