“Ayuh,” Smallbone said. “This here’s my new apprentice. You’ll be seeing him from time to time, running errands and suchlike.” He leaned forward confidentially. “You’ll want to keep a sharp eye on him. He’s crooked as a hairpin.”
Lily turned to Nick. Her eyes were like polished black stones. Nick called up his best smile. If he wanted these folks on his side, he had to pretend to be the kind of kid they’d like — a kid with manners, a kid they could trust. He whipped off his cap and stuck out his hand. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” he said, making firm eye contact. “My name’s N —, um, Jerry.”
“Call him Foxkin,” Smallbone said. “Better yet, don’t call him anything at all. There’s nothing you can say he needs to hear, barring ‘Put that candy bar back where you got it.’ ”
“My name really is Jerry, ma’am,” Nick said. “Jerry Reynaud. And I’m not a thief. My bicycle broke when I was on my way to my cousin’s house, and then it started to snow and I got lost. Mr. Smallbone took me in, which was nice of him, I guess, except now he won’t let me leave.”
Lily quirked her eyebrow. Nick dropped his hand.
“Crackerjack liar, ain’t he?” Smallbone asked cheerfully. “I might almost believe he had a cousin if I didn’t know better.” He gave Lily a graveyard smile. “Come around to Eb’s in half an hour, and we’ll see about that petition.”
Eb’s turned out to be a clam shack, or rather, a Klam Shak. Its tiny-paned windows were draped with old fishing nets hung with glittery red and green glass balls for Christmas. A slate sidewalk board listed the specials: mackerel, fresh and fried; fish pie; salt cod. Nick, who didn’t like fish, hoped they had hot dogs, too.
Inside, a dozen broad-faced men and women with dark eyes and streaky hair like Lily’s sat at Formica-topped tables. They stopped talking when Nick and Smallbone came in. A couple with two kids — all of whom, strangely, had gray hair — slid hastily out of the last booth and moved to an empty table as a tall man in a stained apron bustled up, wiping his hands on a dishcloth. “ ’Morning, Mr. Smallbone, sir.”
Smallbone bared his teeth. “If I could just get everybody’s attention here, Ebenezer, I got something I want to say.”
And then he launched right into his speech about what a big liar and thief Nick was. If anything, he laid it on thicker than he had at Smallbone Cove Mercantile. Nick’s hope of making friends with the locals, already pretty weak, lay down and died.
“That about covers it.” Smallbone turned to the man in the apron. “We’ll have a couple of bowls of clam chowder, Eb, and a Coke for Foxkin here.” And then he sat in the empty booth.
After the speech, Nick figured he couldn’t ask for a hot dog instead. But the clam chowder turned out to be better than he expected. His bowl was just about empty when Lily appeared at Smallbone’s elbow.
Smallbone put down his spoon. “Couldn’t wait for me to finish, could you?”
“It’s been thirty minutes,” Lily said. “Zachariah Smallbone, I petition you to hear me in the name of the Contract between you and your people.”
Smallbone munched his jaws irritably. “All right, all right, I’m coming.” He drained his bowl and dried his beard with his napkin. “I’ll be gone for a spell, Foxkin. You can wait for me here.”
Alone in the booth, Nick scraped up the last drops of chowder and finished his Coke and wondered if there was any chance of pie. The bench wiggled as bodies slid into the booth behind him.
“Evil wizard’s in town, I hear,” a deep voice said.
A woman answered. “Ayuh, Saul, he is that.”
“ ’Bout time,” said a third voice — a man’s, nasal and whiny. “Things’re going to hell in a handcart around here. What about that coyote we saw in the street? Never seen a coyote in town before.”
“Of course you haven’t, Ham,” said the woman. “They can’t cross the Town Limits.”
“Well, this one did,” Saul said glumly. “It’ll be tax collectors next.”
“Hush,” the woman said. “That coyote’s bad enough. Makes my skin crawl, hearing it howl all night. I don’t know why Lily insists on keeping it in her house, especially with her Dinah so sick and all.”
“It ain’t in her house, Jezzy,” said Saul. “It’s out back in the storeroom, with the freezer for Smallbone’s meat.”
“It’s strange they took it in,” Ham said. “Lily said they wanted to save it to show to Smallbone, but they could of done that just fine if it was dead. What’ll they do if it gets loose?”
“Get et, I expect,” Saul said.
There was an uncomfortable silence, and then Jezzy said, in a let’s-change-the-subject kind of way, “Did you know Smallbone’s got a boy with him?”
Nick sat very still. The conversation sounded like it was about to get really interesting.
“Does he?” Saul’s tone suggested he didn’t care what Smallbone did.
“A real bad seed. According to Smallbone, anyway.”
“Stands to reason, doesn’t it?” Ham asked. “I mean, who else would go work for an evil wizard?”
“I heard he had apprentices,” Jezzy went on, “but I never seen one before.”
“My granddad said there used to be lots of ’em, one after another,” said Saul. “None lasted long, though.”
“What do you reckon happened to ’em?”
“Granddad said he thought the old man ate ’em to keep himself young. Or threw ’em to the wolves.”
“That’s nasty, Saul,” said Jezzy.
“So’s Smallbone,” said Saul.
Jezzy said, “I can’t help feeling sorry for them.”
“That’s because you’re soft,” Saul said. “It’s not like they’re from around here.”
At that point, Eb came up to take their orders — two mackerels, one raw, one fried, and a fish pie for Jezzy.
Nick huddled into the corner with his Coke, his mind racing. Obviously, nobody in Smallbone Cove was going to help him. He had to get away, and he had to do it fast. The hard part would be leaving Eb’s without anybody noticing. And then he’d have to start walking again and hope that Smallbone didn’t come after him. Or the townsfolk. And that he didn’t get picked up by the police, who would certainly send him back to Uncle Gabe, who might not eat him but would probably beat the tar out of him and shut him down cellar on stale bread and water until he was eighteen.
He was getting ready to slip off to the men’s room and see if it had a window he could crawl out of, when Smallbone showed up, looking like an evil Santa with a canvas duffel slung over his shoulder and his basket on his arm.
“Still here, Foxkin?” he asked cheerfully. “Good.” He reached into the basket and pulled out a sweater and watch cap knitted in heavy blue wool. “Lily says Merry Christmas, a little late. Hurry up and get ’em on. I want to get home before dark.”
Nick doubted Lily had said any such thing, but he stood up and pulled the thick sweater over his head. It was too big, but it was warm.
In the next booth, Jezzy, Ham, and Saul were staring at their plates like half-eaten fish was the most interesting thing on earth.
A bad seed, was he? Who deserved to be eaten by wolves? Fury rose in Nick like an electrical surge, and he jostled their table. Startled, they looked up. Nick gave them a toothy grin. Their round black Smallbone eyes swiveled back to their plates, but not before he’d seen the fear in them.
Nick couldn’t help swaggering a little as he followed Smallbone out into the snowy street. There might be an upside to this wizard’s-apprentice thing. Too bad he wasn’t likely to live long enough to enjoy it.
In their natural state, coyotes are never confused. If something smells like prey, they hunt it; if it smells like another predator, they run away. If they’re caught in a trap, they struggle to get out. If something threatens them and they can’t run, they challenge, then attack.
There was nothing natural about the situation of the coyote in the storeroom. She was in a trap that was also somehow a den. Every
so often, two humans brought food into the den (or trap). They smelled a little like prey but also like pack, like family. Whenever the door opened, she didn’t know whether to growl and snap or rub against them and whine like a cub.
She slept a lot, as caged animals do, but sleep brought no relief. Sometimes she dreamed of running in the woods, hunting with a big white wolf. Sometimes she dreamed of having eggs and orange juice for breakfast and going to school. In either case, she woke up howling.
The whole thing felt like a thorn in her brain. Except it was an imaginary thorn, and she knew it was imaginary and that coyotes don’t usually imagine things.
The door opened, and the coyote smelled something even more confusing than prey-that-was-family. It was neither prey nor predator nor human, but something horribly other, prickly and unpleasant. It stung her sensitive nose and tickled the soft lining of her mouth. Terrified, she retreated into a corner, ears back, teeth bared, hackles bristling, and snarled.
Her mother was beside her, rubbing her head with her cheek, surrounding her with her scent. The young coyote pressed herself to her mother’s side, whining.
The evil-smelling stranger made noises. They were huge and heavy and stank of ozone. The world came apart and then, suddenly, the noises became words.
“Dinah! Dinah Smallbone!”
That’s me, thought the coyote that wasn’t a coyote anymore. I’m Dinah Smallbone.
She felt very sick. She was sweating and trembling and she ached all over, as if with fever.
She moaned.
“Dinah, honey! Can you hear me?”
It was her mom, sounding frantic with worry. Dinah wanted to tell her she could hear her just fine, but her mouth wasn’t working right.
The voice that had first called her name said, “I’d get that pelt off her before it takes hold again.”
Somebody — her dad — lifted a weight off Dinah she hadn’t realized was there until it was gone. She moaned again and opened her eyes.
She was lying with her head on her mother’s knees, looking up at an old man in a black coat and a tall black hat. Smallbone, Dinah thought. That’s the Evil Wizard Smallbone. His glasses flashed as he stuffed a furry bundle into a canvas duffel.
He looked at her and his beard bobbed. “I got some questions for you, young lady.”
“Not until she’s had a bath and some food and some solid sleep.” Her mom’s voice was fierce as a wolf’s growl. “I’m grateful you brought her back, and I want to know what happened as much as you do, but you can see she’s not herself.”
Dinah whimpered and closed her eyes. She didn’t want to answer questions. She didn’t want to sleep, either, in case she dreamed about being a coyote, or maybe woke up and found out she still was one.
There were whispers and shuffling, then the door creaked shut. Dinah took stock of herself. She was hungry. She was still achy, but she was no longer feverish. More important, she could wiggle her fingers, feel her arms and legs. They were human. She was human. She could remember what being a coyote had been like but wasn’t ready to think about it yet. The experience was still too tender, like a skinned knee. But part of her — the part that liked to know things — was thinking, Huh. I was a coyote. I wonder how that works.
The trip back to Evil Wizard Books was a lot faster than the trip out. Smallbone dug into the water with each stroke as if he wanted to hurt it, muttering under his breath. What with the wind and the seabirds, Nick couldn’t make out what he was saying, but from the look on his face, he was willing to bet it involved cursing.
Nick would have been cursing himself if he’d dared.
He wasn’t scared, of course. If there was one thing about himself Nick was proud of, it was that he wasn’t scared of anything. Being scared made you weak, and the weak got broken. After his mother died, Nick had made up his mind that he was going to be one of the strong ones. Which meant that things that made weak people scared — spiders and evil wizards, for instance — just made him mad.
Right now, he was mad as a wet cat. He was mad at Saul and Ham, who didn’t care what happened to any kid who didn’t come from Smallbone Cove. He was mad at Jezzy, who knew he was evil because he was with Smallbone — as if he’d had a choice. Most of all, he was mad at Smallbone, who kept him tethered to the barnyard like a straying dog and threatened him with transformation every time he did something wrong.
Smallbone might call himself an evil wizard, but really he was just a bully, like Uncle Gabe. With magic, which made it worse.
It was a good, hot, roaring mad. Nick built it up as he helped haul the boat onto the shore and walked back through the woods as the sun moved down the sky. By the time he got to Evil Wizard Books, he was ready to explode.
Smallbone opened the kitchen door, and the dogs erupted into the mudroom, crazy with joy and a day spent indoors. Jeff reared up, put his paws on Nick’s shoulders, and swiped his tongue across his face.
“Get down!” Nick yelled, and gave Jeff a kick that sent him tumbling among the boots. He yipped and cringed, his black velvet forehead pleated with confusion. Nick wanted to throw the basket at him, or maybe throw up.
Smallbone’s glare could have scorched ice. “If I’d known you was the kind of no-good who went around kicking dumb animals, I’d have left you to freeze in the snow!”
Nick glared back. “And now you’re going to turn me into something horrible, right? Go ahead, then!”
Now that the worst was about to happen, Nick wished, as he always did, that he’d kept his mouth shut. Still, it was oddly satisfying to make the inevitable happen instead of just waiting for it. It showed he was stronger than whoever was beating up on him. He could push their buttons until they cracked, then take what they dished out without caving in or begging for mercy.
The words of the spell fell around Nick like a rock slide. His body grew cold and numb. He just had time to regret what he’d done to Jeff before the kitchen faded from sight and sound and his thoughts stopped.
Nick woke up smelling bacon. At least, his head was full of the scent of something rich and meaty and smoky. A moment later, he remembered that it was bacon, and that the gnawing sensation in his middle meant he was hungry.
A hot, wet, soft thing slopped over his ear, accompanied by panting and high-pitched whines. He opened his eyes to see worried amber eyes peering at him a muzzle length away.
The surface he was lying on was hard — a floor, he thought. But what was that warm weight on his hip? He brushed at it. There was a thump and a resentful yowl, and a lean black cat stalked past his face, her tail quivering like an indignant exclamation point.
“Bacon’s almost done, Foxkin,” a gruff voice said.
Nick got up slowly and removed the bacon to a waiting plate, then cracked eggs into the frying pan until he ran out of room.
“Hungry, eh?”
Nick turned. There was a man sitting at the kitchen table. A name came into Nick’s head: Smallbone, that was who the man was. The Evil Wizard Smallbone.
He looked like a badly made scarecrow.
Nick blinked. “You turned me into something, didn’t you? I don’t remember what it was.”
“Rocks don’t remember much of anything that takes less than a hundred years to happen. Watch it, boy! Them eggs is going to burn.”
Nick dished up the eggs and sat down. The world was sparkly around the edges, as if he’d been in a dark room for a long time.
His thoughts caught up with Smallbone’s words. “A rock?”
“Granite. Handy for drying the kitchen cloths, though I did have to step over you every time I wanted to mend the fire. Hell Cat staked you out as her favorite sleeping spot. Eat up.”
Nick ate. After he’d absorbed three eggs, four pieces of bacon, and two slices of bread, he noticed Tom sitting beside his plate and gave him a bite of bacon. Mutt and Jeff whined at him in stereo. He fed them, too, and rubbed their heads. Their ears were dense and soft in his hands, their bacon-breath warm on his skin.
&
nbsp; After a while, they went away.
Nick looked around. Smallbone had gone and Hell Cat was delicately licking the grease out of the frying pan. Nick wandered into the bookshop.
It was dark in the shop, apart from an island of light around the oil lamp on the book table. One of the books was propped against the others. Nick read its title: Fairy Tales from Many Lands. He went and picked it up. It was heavy and solid in his hands, the kind of book a rich kid’s grandma would buy, with a thick padded cover. A gift from the bookshop, Nick wondered, or just a random book?
There are no random books, he thought, and took it up to his Bow-Wowzer-protected room.
Tom was curled up on his bed. He shoved him aside, settled against the pillows, and started to flip through the pages. A few stories in, he came to a picture of a flock of white birds flying above a sinister bearded guy in a fancy embroidered coat and a fur-trimmed hat. A title in curly letters read, “The Wizard Outwitted.”
Nick turned the page and began to read.
“The Wizard Outwitted” was about a boy whose father apprenticed him to a sinister bearded guy for three years. As anybody who’d ever read a story would have known, the bearded guy was an evil wizard. Like Smallbone, he collected apprentices and made them cook and clean while teaching them zero magic. He also had a habit of turning them into rocks when he was mad. Of course, the boy learned magic anyway. The part of Evil Wizard Books was played by the wizard’s beautiful daughter.
After a year or two divided between being a rock and studying magic, the boy sent an enchanted bird to his father to tell him where he was and how to rescue him. The old man went to the evil wizard’s castle, where he had to pick his son out of a flock of twelve white pigeons, twelve roan stallions, and twelve handsome young men, all alike one another as peas in a pod. Coached by the magic bird, the old man chose right every time, freeing the boy from his evil master.
So the boy and his father went home, but the story wasn’t over. There were eleven other apprentices to rescue, not to mention the beautiful daughter. Using the magic he’d learned, the boy tricked the wizard out of enough money to keep his parents comfortable for life and killed him in a wizard’s duel. Then he married the wizard’s beautiful daughter, who didn’t seem to care that her husband had broken her father’s neck.
The Evil Wizard Smallbone Page 7