Windy Night With Wild Horses

This installment of the Magic Tree House series follows siblings Jack and Annie, who discover a magic tree house in the woods near their home in Frog Creek, Pennsylvania. The tree house belongs to Morgan le Fay, a magical librarian from the legendary realm of Camelot, and lets them travel anywhere by pointing to a picture in a book. On recent missions, they helped protect endangered rhinos in South Africa and rescue giant tortoises on a Pacific island. Morgan now sends them on a new adventure to save another endangered species.

One summer day, a golden eagle lands on a tree stump in Jack and Annie's backyard. Annie prompts Jack to guess why it has appeared, and he concludes that the magic tree house has returned. They bike to the woods and climb into the tree house, where they find a rhyme from Morgan instructing them to journey to Mongolia, a country between China and Russia, and become Eco-Volunteers helping rangers collect data on animals and plants. The rhyme also contains mysterious instructions involving wind, spinning wheels, singing, and wild things. Jack points to the word "Mongolia" in the rhyme, makes a wish, and the tree house spins them away.

They arrive in a city park in Ulan Bator, Mongolia's capital, surrounded by skyscrapers and traffic. They spot a minibus labeled "Mongolian Tours: Eco-Volunteers" and join the line of adult volunteers boarding it. Tuya, a Mongolian girl of about eleven or twelve serving as a junior volunteer, does not find their names on her list and tells them children must be accompanied by an adult. Jack and Annie win her over by listing their past adventures, and Tuya lets them board. The driver, Khan, tells the volunteers they have come on a perfect day to witness a miracle, but Jack and Annie cannot piece together what he means.

As the minibus crosses the countryside, Jack and Annie observe marmots (small animals similar to groundhogs), red deer, and nomad horseback riders with herds of livestock. The minibus reaches a camp of round white yurts, traditional portable huts, near a nature reserve. Khan assigns the adult volunteers to host families but discovers Jack and Annie are unaccompanied and insists they must return to the city. Tuya persuades Khan to let them stay one night with her family, though Khan warns that any problems will cost both Tuya and himself their positions.

Tuya leads them to her family's yurt, where her mother, Batu, welcomes them. Over lunch, Tuya describes her family's nomadic life: They have camped here for the summer and will move when the weather changes. Her family owns about seventy horses, and Mongolia has as many horses as people.

Soon Tuya's little brother, Gan, announces it is time to head to the reserve. A crowd gathers around a fenced corral where rangers, including Tuya's father, stand beside tall wooden crates. Thumping sounds come from inside. Tuya identifies the animals as "the Takhi," the last truly wild horses on earth. The rangers open the crate doors, and more than a dozen pale brown horses step onto the grass. Tuya is overcome with emotion, Batu cries, and Gan shakes. The Takhi bolt into a gallop, and the crowd erupts in cheers. During the excitement, Jack's binoculars slip over the fence. After the crowd disperses, Jack runs back alone, opens the gate to retrieve them, and hurries away unsure whether he closed or latched the gate.

While Jack is gone, Tuya explains the Takhi's significance to Annie, and when he returns, she shares the full story with him. The Takhi, whose name means "spirit," are a breed that cannot be tamed. They roamed the Mongolian plains for nearly two hundred thousand years before being wiped out by harsh winters, hunting, disease, and drought. A small number survived in zoos worldwide, and efforts have begun to return them to their native land. The horses must stay in the corral for months to learn to survive before being released into the full reserve. Jack finally understands why this day is a miracle for Mongolia.

That evening, as the camp celebrates inside Tuya's yurt, Khan arrives with alarming news: He found the corral gate open and believes several Takhi have escaped. Tuya's father confirms the danger, explaining that wolves in the hills may pick up the horses' scent on the strong wind. Tuya begs to go search, but her father refuses, warning that human presence would frighten the horses deeper into the wild. Trembling, Jack pulls Annie outside and confesses that he may have left the gate open.

Annie reads Morgan's rhyme and interprets "the wind on the plain spins wheels along" as a reference to the mountain bikes parked at the reserve station. They grab two bikes and ride out across the moonlit plain. The wind pushes them forward so powerfully that their brakes cannot stop them. They spot three Takhi grazing at the base of a hill but also see five wolves on the hillside, howling and descending toward the horses.

Following Morgan's instruction to "spin air into song," Annie improvises lyrics to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus," and Jack joins in. The wind captures their voices, blending them with whistling and rumblings that shake the earth. A swirling column of air forms, and out of it leaps a magnificent white stallion. The stallion leads the Takhi back across the plain. Jack's and Annie's bikes follow, pushed by the wind, while the wolves fall behind. Near the corral, the wind dies to a whisper. Jack unties the gate, lets the three Takhi inside, and ties it firmly closed. The white stallion vanishes as mysteriously as he appeared.

In the morning, Batu tells them Khan arrived at dawn, found all the Takhi safe, and concluded he had miscounted. She also reveals that Khan discovered the latch was broken, which is why the gate came open, and tied it shut until he can buy a new one. Jack feels immense relief, realizing the broken latch, not his carelessness, was the true cause.

Khan drives Jack, Annie, and Tuya back to Ulan Bator. On the ride, they tell Tuya the true story. Tuya identifies the stallion as "the wind horse," a sacred animal from Mongolian tradition that possesses the strength of a horse and the speed of the wind. She confirms the Takhi will thrive in their homeland. Jack asks whether it is truly better for the Takhi to leave the safety of zoos. Tuya shares her father's wisdom: The price of a natural life can be danger, but freedom is more important than total safety. She adds that wolves, though a threat, help keep everything in balance, a concept Jack and Annie recognize as ecology.

Tuya says a tearful goodbye at the park. Jack and Annie climb back into the tree house and wish themselves home. The tree house returns them to Frog Creek at noon on the same day they left. Annie points out that Jack took responsibility and fixed the problem, with help from Morgan, the bikes, and the wind horse. They ride home to meet their mother for the family bike ride, their wheels spinning just as they did on the Mongolian plain.