16 BUT WHAT ABOUT

The four of us huddled together and watched in awe. We'd poured about one container full of bips on each of the wilted forest roses we could find, and right before our eyes the droopy, gray rose bushes sparked to life with the quiet bip bip bip sounds of thousands of bips. Buds that had started to shrivel in the last few days plumped up. Then they slowly started to open. "Wooooooooowww," we all breathed. Sassafras couldn't help but purr.

I looked down at Pip with a smile, but noticed that Pip was looking behind us with a frown. "What's wrong?" I asked. "Well, this is super great," he said, "but I'm just wondering, what about all the other dying forest roses?" He pointed down the long dirt path the hophops had taken to get here. "They ate bips off all the roses for miles and miles and miles. We couldn't get to all of them in time for the baby hippogriffs' hatching. It's too far to hike, and your mom can't drive in the forest, so…" He shrugged sadly.

"Well… we could get as many as possible. It's early in the day. I'm a good hiker… I mean, we could at least get to some?" "Yeah." Pip shrugged. "I guess we can just try our best to fix it and it'll help some of the baby hippogriffs. I just wish there was a way to help all of them." "If only we could fly." I sighed. "Ohhhhhhhh!" Mom and I said at the same time while Sassafras let out a big "MEOW!" Pip looked around at all of us. "Huh?" "MARSHMALLOW!" I cheered.

"YES!" Pip gave me a high-five. But then I paused. "Pip? How can we find him? We haven't seen him since he was a baby." "Let me worry about that. He could be anywhere, but forest frogs live all throughout the forest. If I send word out that it's a baby hippogriff emergency, a frog somewhere should be able to find him." Pip had started pacing, but now he stopped and turned to us. "You three head back to the barn and make as many bips as you possibly can. Get ready for an airborne delivery to all the sick forest roses!"

"Should I grab a few more forest roses since we need to make buckets of bips?" I asked Mom. "Definitely. And buckets… that's a good idea. I wonder if we can make dragon-sized saddlebags out of trash cans and rope… hmmm…" Mom headed back to the barn while Sassafras and I took three more forest roses—each from a different forest rose bush. And before leaving for the barn with Sassafras, I took one moment with my eyes closed to breathe in the magical smell of all of those roses at once.