The Hidden Stairs and the Magic Carpet

Written by Tony Abbott, The Hidden Stairs and the Magic Carpet (1999) is the first book in The Secrets of Droon, a children’s portal fantasy series. This chapter book introduces the world of Droon and follows the 10-year-old protagonist, Eric Hinkle, as he discovers a hidden staircase in his parents’ basement. When he and two friends, Neal and Julie, decide to explore the staircase, they enter another world, where they work together to help a princess and a wizard fight off attacks by Lord Sparr and his evil lizard-riding forces.

The Secrets of Droon is just one of Abbott’s series for younger readers. He is also the author of series such as Danger Guys, The Weird Zone series, and The Copernicus Legacy, among others. His stand-alone books include Firegirl (2006), The Postcard (2009), and The Summer of Owen Todd (2017). In 2007, Firegirl won the Golden Kite Award for Fiction, and in 2009, The Postcard won the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Allan Poe Award.

This guide is based on the 1999 Scholastic paperback edition.

Plot Summary

Ten-year-old Eric Hinkle goes into the basement to clean up some junk for his parents, and his friends, Neal and Julie, decide to help him. Neal accidentally kicks the soccer ball beneath the basement stairs, and when Julie goes to retrieve it, she discovers a small closet and goes inside. Neal and Eric accidentally bump into the closet door, slamming it shut, and Julie calls out for help, claiming that she is falling.

When Eric opens the closet, Julie is there, but the ball has disappeared. She tells them that a staircase appeared when the door was closed. She demonstrates, and they are astonished to see a glowing rainbow-colored staircase leading down into an outdoor space. When the three friends descend, they wonder at the marvelous landscape and the pink, sweet-smelling air. Suddenly, strange red creatures riding flying lizards appear in the pink mist. When an arrow flies past Eric’s ear, they realize that the red creatures are attacking them.

The stairs begin to vanish, and Eric, Neal, and Julie fall to the ground. Eric loses track of his friends and injures his ankle. A girl appears and introduces herself as Princess Keeah. She magically heals Eric’s ankle and explains that the red creatures are Ninns. They are chasing her on their flying lizards—groggles—because their master, the evil sorcerer Lord Sparr, is trying to capture her. Lord Sparr is trying to conquer the land of Droon.

Keeah says that if Eric will carry a message to the wizard Galen Longbeard and tell him to pass it along to her father, King Zello, she will help Eric and his friends return to the Upper World. She takes off running as the Ninns close in on her. He chases after her, hoping to help. Suddenly, Julie and Neal pull him to their hiding spot under a bridge.

The Ninns land on top of the bridge, and Lord Sparr (who looks human aside from two strange purple fins growing from behind his ears) arrives in a long yellow car and scolds the Ninns for losing Keeah. When the Ninns explain that three Upper World children interfered, Sparr orders them to find Keeah and the children, then departs. After the Ninns take off on their groggles, the three friends walk through the woods, searching for Galen’s tower.

Neal accidentally finds the invisible tower by bumping into it. The treelike tower slowly becomes visible, and a huge spider-like creature with a troll’s head, the guardian of the tower, introduces himself as Max. He ushers them inside to meet Galen Longbeard, who explains that he made the rainbow staircase invisible long ago when Lord Sparr created the “Three Powers,” objects that gave Sparr enough strength to take over the Upper World. Galen sealed the portal between the two realms in order to keep the Upper World safe, but now that he is getting older, his powers are weakening, and the rainbow staircase has reappeared.

Eric gives Galen Keeah’s message, which states that Sparr is about to attack Zorfendorf Castle. Galen magically transports himself to see King Zello in Jaffa City. Zello sends troops to defend Zorfendorf, and Galen reappears in the tower. An enchanted mirror flickers to life, showing them that the Ninns have captured Keeah and are pulling her into Plud, Lord Sparr’s fortress. According to Galen, Sparr believes that by capturing Keeah, he can get the Red Eye of Dawn, one of the Three Powers.

The mirror shows that Sparr is attacking Jaffa City. Eric, Neal, and Julie decide to save Keeah themselves because Galen must go to Jaffa to help King Zello. Before leaving, Galen gives them an invisibility cloak and gives them permission to ride his “pilka”—a six-legged camel-like creature.

He warns them that they must not leave anything behind in Droon and that they can take nothing from Droon back to the Upper World. He explains that Droon must be kept a secret; if they accidentally leave anything from their world in Droon, something from Droon will appear in their world.

The pilka, Leep, carries the children and Max to Plud. On the way, they spot a white falcon. Eric realizes that he saw the bird following Keeah in the forest. Outside the gates of Plud, they hear Sparr’s car, and the engine noise frightens Leep, who runs away with Max chasing after her. The children enter the gates as Sparr’s car passes through, reluctantly leaving Max behind.

When the children find out where Keeah is being held, Eric puts on the invisibility cloak and distracts the guards, manipulating them into leaving the area. The children enter the room, and Princess Keeah is delighted by the rescue mission. Unfortunately, as they all hurry back down the hallway, Lord Sparr intercepts them and locks them in a tower room, then paces back and forth in front of a blue curtain. He takes a leather pouch from Keeah and transforms it into its true form—the Red Eye of Dawn. When Sparr pulls the blue curtain aside, the children see that their lost soccer ball is now in Lord Sparr’s possession. Sparr has been studying the ball and has learned valuable information about the Upper World. He now wants to study Eric, Neal, and Julie to learn even more.

Max appears in a window, hurries down the tower wall, and crosses to the Ninn guards. He weaves a web around their feet, trapping them. Neal kicks the soccer ball into a Ninn’s nose, and Julie kicks the ball into another Ninn’s stomach. The Ninns fall into one another and get stuck to the web.

Sparr aims a blast of red lightning at Keeah but misses. The children flee the tower, taking the soccer ball with them. Pursued by Ninns, they duck into a small room and manage to hold the door closed. Keeah spots a magical flying carpet. Max refuses to ride it because he still needs to rescue Leep. He climbs down the side of the tower just as the Ninns and Lord Sparr enter.

Sparr attacks with red lighting, but Keeah and the children escape on the flying carpet. The white falcon swoops down and attacks him, and Lord Sparr threatens to hunt them down, but the children have made good on their escape.

Keeah tells them of her dream that the rainbow stairs are in the north, in the ice hills of Tarabat, so they decide to go there. At the foot of the magical stairs, Eric hands Keeah the invisibility cloak, and she returns his soccer ball. As she sweeps away on the flying carpet, she promises that she will see them again. The three friends run up the stairs to Eric’s basement.

Amazed, they wonder if their experience is real. Julie thinks their parents must be worried, but when the children go upstairs, they realize that they have only been gone for a few minutes. They head back downstairs to clean the basement and find that the soccer ball is floating in the middle of the room, bearing Keeah’s message that their dreams will tell them when to return to Droon.