15 OUR LAST HOPE

I cradled the forest rose blossom in my hands on our way back to the barn. "You're right, Pip, this does smell a billion times better than the perfume." I took a deep breath. "It's basically the best smell in the world." Sassafras chattered in agreement. I walked around a patch of squishy mud. "So, I was thinking, what if I use whole petals instead of mashing them up and squeezing the oil onto cotton balls? That way, if this doesn't work, we could still feed it to a baby hippogriff."

"It's going to work. It's got to! But that's good thinking," Pip said. I opened the barn door and saw Mom inside. She was setting up a giant container with all the bips we had so far, making sure the sunlight and water level matched what had been successful with my experiments. Mom turned to me and handed me a pair of sunglasses. "Just in case this works as well as we think it might." She put some on herself. Then she gave Pip and Sassafras a pair of Dad's sunglasses, and they squished together behind the glasses. "Come on, forest rose," I said, and I placed it in the center of the container near a small group ofbips. Sounds of bip bip bip bip bip filled the barn! Spurts of light filled the container… and the container filled with bips. "YESSSS!!!!" we all shouted at once. Pip gave me a hug. "Just in time, Zoey! You did it!" "We all did it!" I said and hugged him back. "Let's get these bips to the forest!" Mom said and passed us each some smaller containers. She

even had a tiny waist pack so Sassafras could help carry them. We gently scooped as many bips as we could fit into our containers and headed to the forest.