Tara Duncan and the Forbidden Book by HRH Princess Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian

enough, a beautiful red sun shone here, its rays turning the white blossoms pink. The air was sweetly scented, and a single breath of it drove all cares away. Tara sighed with happiness. It was a true fairytale landscape.
    Suddenly, Fabrice let out a groan. Mesmerized by the sight of the fairies, he had stepped into what looked like an enormous cow pie.
    As if in response to his noise, a huge footfall shook the earth, and the creature that had produced it strode directly toward them.
    Tara gaped. This wasn’t an elephant, it was a mammoth ! A gigantic, very hairy blue mammoth with massive tusks that curved high on either side of its large head.
    When it spotted the four teens, the mammoth stopped and stared at them with tiny, red, evil-looking eyes, then trumpeted shrilly.
    â€œRobin, are you sure you want to pluck hairs from this monster’s trunk?” shouted Tara, hands over her ears.
    â€œThis is very strange!” he yelled back. “It was completely calm yesterday! I don’t know what’s going on, but I’d get out of the way, you guys.”
    The enormous pachyderm swept the ground with its trunk, tossing bits of grass and earth here and there. It shifted from foot to foot for a moment, then seemed to make up its mind. Trumpeting loudly, it charged straight at Fabrice and Sparrow.
    Instinctively, Sparrow shape-shifted. In the pretty brunette’s place stood a ten-foot-tall beast armed with razor-sharp fangs and claws. But in the face of such a charging mass, Sparrow didn’t have many options. With superhuman speed she dodged the mammoth’s charge, snatching Fabrice—who was paralyzed by the sight of onrushing death—out of the way.
    The mammoth was surprised at not finding anything to trample and dug in with all four feet. Carried by its momentum, however, it slammed into the invisible garden wall with a boom! so loud it that rattled the entire palace. A little stunned, it turned around and shook its head, panting with rage and pain. Then it spotted Tara and Robin racing toward a tree for safety.
    Sparrow shivered. The tree wasn’t tall enough! The pachyderm would still be able to reach them with its trunk. At top speed, she recited: “By Pocus, I summon the forces at large to stop this mammoth’s frightening charge!” The spell flashed toward the animal—and stopped in mid-air.
    â€œIt’s protected by a counter-spell,” she screamed. “Watch out! It’s been enchanted to attack us!”
    â€œGet higher,” Robin yelled.
    â€œI’m not a squirrel!” answered Tara, who was climbing as fast as she could. To her alarm, the branches were thinning out just as fifty tons of demented mammoth drew closer.
    Fortunately, the mammoth decided not to reach up and grab them. Instead, it wrapped its trunk around the tree and started to shake it.
    â€œD-d-do s-s-something!” Robin managed to say through teeth rattling under the assault.
    Living stone, help! cried Tara mentally.  Let’s tie this animal up before it kills us!
    Power you want? sang the strange stone. Power you take.
    Without bothering to recite a spell, Tara visualized a blue net dropping over the mammoth and trapping it.
    The spell didn’t work at all. When the net touched the mammoth, it made a kind of cracking noise and vanished. Now Tara was really frightened. Sparrow had been right: this animal was well protected.
    While the two young spellbinders were clinging to the branches with despair, the mammoth must have realized that it wasn’t accomplishing anything. Setting its huge head against the tree, it now began to push, planning to knock it down.
    â€œAll right, that does it!” muttered Robin through gritted teeth. From his spellbinder robe he pulled out a little twig with a silvery bud on top. He held this at arm’s length toward the grasses, bushes, and brambles under the mammoth, and chanted: “By the tree that is alive, I want