That morning the sky above the garden looked like a big pajama: a stripe of cream cloud, a stripe of sun, a stripe of cream cloud, a stripe of sun. Ziggy, Lily, Skye and Dash were sitting on the grass with four bowls full of colorful bottle caps. They were having a jumping caps race: each one put a finger on the edge of a cap, pressed it down quickly, and the cap zoomed away.

"Mine reached the cat!" laughed Dash, rolling on the grass.

"Mine got lost in the bush," said Lily, with her hands on her hips.

"I shot three all at once!" announced Ziggy, waving his arms.

Skye smiled sweetly and placed a cap on her knee. "Mine is sleeping."

They were about to start another race when, from behind the hedge, a familiar sound arrived.

"CHUFFFF CHUFFFF! CHUFFFF CHUFFFF!"

Toby the Magic Train popped out among the flowers, shiny as a candy, with smoke curling into little ringlets. He stopped in front of the children with a whistle. Then he opened his wagon and sang:

"CHUFFFF CHUFFFF, hop aboard the train with me,
to a castle of one-two-three towers we'll see!
A mystery of colored lights dances in the sky,
and the words inside the books have all flown by!"

The children clapped their hands and jumped inside.

"A leaning castle!" said Dash. "Does it lean like the Tower of Pisa?"

"Maybe even more!" laughed Ziggy.

The little train set off. The wheels went CLACK-CLACK-CLOCK and the meadow flew past the windows like a green carpet. After a while, before their eyes, the towers appeared: one hundred towers, each leaning in a different direction. One this way, one that way, one a bit down, one a bit up. They looked like they wanted to play freeze tag.

Above them, the sky was full of green and purple ribbons dancing: the colorful aurora, beautiful.

"Look up there!" whispered Lily. "They look like scarves of the wind."

The little train left them in front of a big gate. The gate opened and out came a tiny, tiny lady, with huge glasses that covered half her face.

"Welcome, welcome…" she whispered. "I am Lady Whisper. Please, help me!"

Then she got excited and shouted in a whisper: "THE BOOOOKS! THE BOOOOKS HAVE BLANK PAGES!"

That is, she shouted very loudly… but with only a thread of voice, because she always whispered, even when she shouted. The children looked at each other and laughed, covering their mouths.

"The words flew away," whispered Lady Whisper. "They went up among the ribbons of the aurora. To bring them back we need the word-catcher telescope, up at the top of the Great Crooked Tower. But it is broken: it is missing three crystals."

"And how do we find them?" asked Skye.

"With the Tournament of the Three Leaning Trials," whispered the librarian. "Whoever wins the three trials receives the three crystals."

At that moment, from behind a curtain, something red popped out doing somersaults.

"Hee hee hee! Hee hee hee!"

It was a red pencil, with a star-shaped cap, who was laughing and smelled like new rubber.

"This is Mati the Red Pencil," whispered Lady Whisper. "She draws real things. But she always laughs, and her drawings come out crooked."

"Hee hee hee! I'll draw you something! Hee hee hee!" said Mati the Red Pencil, rolling in circles.

Dash stepped forward. He was the fastest of the team. "I'll do the tournament!"

But then he saw his opponents, and his legs started to tremble. At the back of the hall, three towering knight statues opened their stone eyes. "CREEEAK, CROAAAK," went their armor. They were very tall, very serious, with marble mustaches.

"But… they are giants!" whispered Dash. "They are too big!"

Mati the Red Pencil jumped onto his head. "Hee hee hee! I'll draw you a crown of courage!"

She drew a crown. But she was laughing so much that the crown came out crooked and slipped down over his eyes.

"Now I can't see!" whined Dash, laughing.

"You can do it," Skye said to him, with a sweet voice.

"Really?" asked Dash.

"Really," said Ziggy.

"Even if you fall," added Lily.

Dash pushed the crooked crown off his eyes and whispered to himself: "I can do it."

The first trial was the flour-sack race. Lady Whisper brought four big white sacks into the huge hall. The floor was shiny like a mirror and a little bit slanted. Mati the Red Pencil rolled close to Dash's feet. "Hee hee hee! I'll draw you fast running shoes!" But one came out shaped like a banana and the other shaped like a piece of cheese. Dash burst out laughing and climbed into his sack anyway. A knight statue climbed into its sack too: it was so tall that the sack only reached below its marble mustache.

"GOOOO!" whispered Lady Whisper. I mean she shouted. I mean she whispered. Well, she shouted by whispering.

Dash set off with little hops. One hop, two hops, three hops, and… KAPLUNK! He fell on his belly. A cloud of white flour rose into the air.

"HAHAHA!" everyone laughed.

Dash got up. He fell again. KAPLUNK! Another white cloud. He looked like a little snowman.

"I'll never make it!" he sighed.

"You can do it!" his friends shouted from the side of the hall.

And then Dash had an idea. Instead of hopping, he threw himself belly-down on the shiny floor and started sliding like a little sled. ZIIIP! He flew forward, leaving a white trail behind him. The knight statue tried to hop, but its sack was too big and got stuck on its stone feet.

Dash crossed the finish line first, all white with flour, laughing his head off.

"FIRST CRYSTAAAL!" whisper-shouted Lady Whisper, placing a bright green crystal in his hand.

The second trial was the jumps along the walls. They climbed to the top of the castle's highest wall. The battlements, those little stone teeth on top of the wall, looked like the big teeth of a stone dragon. To win, you had to jump from one tooth to the next, all the way to the last one.

Dash looked down. His legs turned to jelly.

"I'm too high up!" he whimpered.

Mati the Red Pencil wrapped around his arm. "Hee hee hee! I'll draw you some wings!"

And she drew wings on his back. But, from laughing so much, one wing ended up in his ear and the other on his bottom. He looked like a crooked chicken.

"HAHAHA!" laughed the children.

"Close your eyes and say it with us!" said Skye.

And so Dash closed his eyes.

"I can do it," whispered Dash.

"You can do it," whispered Skye from below.

"You can do it," whispered Lily.

"You can do it," said Ziggy.

Dash took a leap. He landed on the first tooth. He jumped again. And again. And again. The knight statue behind him was too heavy: every jump made the wall tremble, and it had to stop so it wouldn't fall.

Dash reached the last battlement first and raised his arms to the sky.

"SECOND CRYSTAAAL!" whisper-shouted Lady Whisper, and handed him a sky-blue crystal.

The third trial was the dancing target. In the courtyard there was a cloth target that moved on its own, like a crazy squirrel: this way, that way, up, down. You had to hit it with a cloth ball.

Dash took the ball. He threw it. The target moved. The ball ended up in a bush.

"Oh nuts!" said Dash.

He tried again. The target moved again. The ball landed on a tower.

"I can't do it!" sighed Dash. "It moves too much!"

Then Mati the Red Pencil started drawing super fast. "Hee hee hee! I'll help you! Hee hee hee!"

She drew twenty fake targets, all exactly like the real one, scattered around the courtyard. The knight statues turned around confused, each one toward a different target. They knocked their stone heads together: "TONK! TUNK! TINK!" and they stood still with their eyes popping wide open.

"Now, Dash!" the children shouted.

Dash closed his eyes.

"I can do it," whispered Dash.

"YOU CAN DO IIIT!" they all whispered together, in chorus.

Dash opened his eyes for a moment, spotted the real one (it was the only one really moving), took aim and threw the ball.

PLOP! Perfect bullseye.

"THIRD CRYSTAAAL!" whisper-shouted Lady Whisper, hopping like a little flea.

They ran up the spiral staircase of the Great Crooked Tower. It was so crooked that halfway up you had to walk sideways, like a crab. At the top was the word-catcher telescope, big and golden, with three empty holes.

Dash fitted the three crystals in: the green one, the sky-blue one, the red one.

CLICK! CLACK! CLOCK!

The telescope lit up, aimed at the colorful aurora, and went WHOOOOSH.

And then the magic happened. From the green and purple ribbons of the sky, lots of little colorful words began to fall down, like a soft rain. "Puppy", "jam", "dragon", "hello", "hug"… the words fluttered around and each one ran home, into its own book. The blank pages filled up with words, all happy to be back.

Lady Whisper cried with joy, whisper-shouting: "THAAANK YOOOU!"

Mati the Red Pencil laughed doing somersaults: "Hee hee hee! Hee hee hee!"

The four children hugged in the middle of the courtyard, while the aurora kept dancing above them, but now it was only beautiful, because it didn't have to hide anything anymore.

Then came the CHUFFFF CHUFFFF of Toby. It was time to go home.

The children climbed aboard. Toby whistled once, turned to Dash and said:

"You won three trials with jumps so bold,
your words shone brighter than the sun's gold!
'I can do it' is a tiny magic charm,
say it in your heart, it keeps you from harm!"

The little train set off. The leaning towers became small, then very small, then disappeared behind the garden hedge.

All evening, while they ate dinner, the children kept whispering and laughing: "I can do it, I can do it." And every time they said it, Skye winked, Ziggy clapped his hands, and Lily raised a spoon like it was a sword.

And Dash, meanwhile, felt strong, fast, and all white with flour, but only inside his heart.