Ben followed, seething. Soon they reached a place that he called “the millpond,” where huge logs floated in dark-stained water, and cattail rushes grew all around. Just beyond it was a sawmill where gray smoke issued from a tall smokestack.
The millpond was vast, and traveling around it would have taken hours, so Ben suggested that they use the logs in the pond as a bridge, dashing across. As the mice drew near the water, Amber saw a muskrat swimming silently, gathering grasses from the bank to take to her young. In the deep rushes, a mother mallard duck sat on her nest. She looked at the mice and quacked softly, warning her ducklings, “Be careful, those mice can bite.”
Then the mice reached the nearest log. These were huge Douglas fir trees, cut into long sections and left in the water to cure. Walking across one would be like walking across a bridge.
Ben took a couple of bounds and leaped onto the log. But Amber and Bushmaster had to climb up a prickly blackberry vine and use it as a rope bridge to reach the log.
Once they got a firm footing on the bark, they began scampering along. Amber peered into the dark water. The top of the pond held hundreds of water striders. They danced about, buoyed only by surface tension. Under the water, Amber saw snails clinging to the log and a crayfish and guppies darting about in the shallows. Farther out, the pond seemed to be bottomless. This was the first time that Amber had ever seen deep water.
They reached the end of the log, and Ben easily leaped across to the next one. Bushmaster jumped too and narrowly reached it, but when Amber tried to make the long jump, she hit the water with a splash.
The millpond was cold and deep.
Frantically, she tried running to the log as fast as she could, but her feet couldn’t get any purchase in the water, and she went under for a moment. She arched her back, raising her snout above the water line, and found herself swimming.
Ben shouted, “Just climb up the log.”
Amber tried to grab the wood with her tiny nails, but the water weighed her fur down. So she slogged, treading water, desperately looking for a way up. There was no way that she could climb the sheer end of the log. She turned and saw huge lily pads floating in the shallows.
She tried to stop for a rest and bobbed under.
“Don’t stop,” Bushmaster shouted. “Swim for safety! You can do it.”
But Amber was growing too tired to swim. She was just a pet shop mouse.
So she wished herself to the nearest lily pad and hurtled into the air like a cork popping from a bottle.
No sooner had she plopped onto the lily pad, still gasping and soggy, than an enormous fish exploded from the depths behind her. Its blood-red gills flashed in the sunlight, and crystalline drops of water scattered from it. Its tail churned mightily, lifting it far out of the pond.
“Got ya,” the fish roared as it rose from the depths. Then, as it realized that it had missed, it muttered, “Never mind,” and plopped back into the oily water.
“That’s a bass!” Ben said, eyes wide with fright. “And he looks bigger than a killer whale!”
For a moment, Amber lay on the lily pad, realizing that she’d narrowly escaped death. She looked around. There were lots of lily pads in the shallows, enough so that she could use them like stepping stones. She’d have to follow the others.
Bushmaster looked up at the skies with distrust. Amber followed his gaze. Clouds had begun to gather—puffy and white on top, seething and gray at the bottom, filling the skies. Bushmaster whispered, “There’s a hawk coming toward us. We’ve got to get under cover!”
Bushmaster took the lead, running and jumping between logs. Amber leaped from one lily pad to the next. When she reached the fourth lily pad, another bass sprung at her, crying, “Death from below!” It barely missed her.
“Watch out!” Ben cried. “This place is infested!”
Amber ran over the lily pads, back to the logs.
Bass were everywhere, surging from the water, driving from the depths. Twice more, Amber nearly got gobbled.
When the mice reached the far side of the pond, they hid, panting, among a forest of cattail rushes that rustled like paper in the wind. Overhead, the hawk finally came, but it did not spot them. They laughed in relief—all except for Ben, who had become sullen and thoughtful.
“We’d better be careful,” Ben warned. “Those fish were just waiting for us. They knew that we were coming, and they only tried to eat Amber. It was a trap.”
“What do you mean?” Bushmaster asked. “They couldn’t have known we’d be here.”
“I met a spider this morning,” Ben confessed, looking away, “and he warned me that we are heading into danger. Most of the spiders have bet that we never even make it out of the pet shop alive.”
Bushmaster asked, “What do the spiders know that we don’t?”
“Amber has enemies,” Ben said.
“No, I don’t!” Amber objected. “Except for those snotty spotted mice at the pet shop, I don’t have an enemy in the world.”
“You’re a wizardess,” Ben said. “And other sorcerers want you dead.” He looked as if he would say more, but he fell silent.
Amber trembled in fear. Old Barley Beard had warned her that whenever a person gained a little power, others would always try to pull her down. But who were her enemies? Who could marshal hawks and fish against her? And what dangers lay ahead?
Bushmaster said, “From now on, we’d better be extra careful.”
“What else did the spider tell you?” Amber asked Ben. She needed to know more.
“Nothing,” Ben said, looking away.
Amber was only ten weeks old, and she didn’t know much, but she knew that Ben was lying. He’d learned something important, but he didn’t want to tell her.
He doesn’t love me, Amber realized. That part of my dream wasn’t true. And I guess he has a right to hate me, with the way I’ve been treating him.
Amber felt bad. She could force the truth out of Ben, she knew, like she had done last night. He’d make more sickening gagging sounds as she tore the words from him.
But she didn’t want to put him through that again.
“All right,” she said. “You can keep your little secret if you want to. I just hope you know, Ben, that I’m not your enemy.”
“I know,” Ben said with hurt in his voice. “And I don’t want to be your enemy either.”
Amber let out a sigh of relief. Maybe there was some truth in her dream. She almost hoped that they could become friends.
So they forged through the tall grass as a storm gathered overhead. Hop, stop, and look, six eyes peering warily. With every step, Amber tried to be as quiet as a rock.
Chapter 10
THE BATTLE AT NOAH’S ARK
It isn’t about how big the mouse is who is in the fight,
it’s about how big the fight is in the mouse.
—DOONBARRA THE SUGAR GLIDER
Amber whirled about, slurping them down like dust bunnies, firing them across the room like spit wads.
AT DUSK, Ben led Amber and Bushmaster to the outskirts of town. Never before had the town seemed so strange and ominous, with its smelly cars growling like bears as they hunted along the bleak asphalt streets and houses looming above him like storybook giants.
Clouds now blackened the sky, a storm threatening. Ben’s fears had been growing all day. Now, every nerve seemed electrified. His fur stood on end.
Ahead, Ben could see Noah’s Ark in the shadows. Its outside was painted with kittens and puppies, which didn’t look as innocent now as they had a couple of days ago.
Ben gripped his spear tightly. “Let’s get this over with,” he said as he led Amber and Bushmaster forward.
* * *
Inside the pet shop, the monster in the back room lurched to its feet. It climbed up on its back legs, peering around, all three eyes peering in different directions.
The monster had keen sight, keen ears, and a cunning mind. Now it went to work.
It grabbed th
e bars of its cage with its tentacles, squeezed its stomach hard, and slowly vomited out the contents.
What came out was no cute kitten. It was a large creature with blood-red hair covered in mucus, enormous ears, bits of wing as limp as rubber, and clawed feet.
Nightwing tumbled to the bottom of the cage, then struggled to his feet, gasping, and began to fan himself with his wings, trying to dry the mucus. He hissed to the monster, “Excellent, my friend. Now I know how Jonah felt inside the whale.”
The monster was much thinner now, almost weasely.
“I not friend,” the monster groaned, a sound like boulders rumbling together. “Freeee meeee.”
“All in good time,” Nightwing assured him. “First, you must kill the young wizardess. Bring me her corpse, and then I will free you.”
The monster blinked all three eyes at once, a sign that it understood.
“But remember. Do not harm her familiar, the jumping mouse, Ben. He will be of more value to me alive.”
The monster grunted in understanding. With that, it vaulted to the top of its cage, a jump of three feet straight up. Worming its tentacles between the bars, it grabbed several at once. With a vicious jerk, it pulled the bars wide, making a hole wide enough for a cannonball to fly through.
It jumped through, plopped to the floor, and wiggled forward on its tentacles, studying the room as if seeking a place to set an ambush.
Darwin pulled his proboscis from Nightwing’s back and said, “Why do you want Ben alive? Wouldn’t it be easier to kill him? I mean, if you cut the wizardess off from her source of power, she’ll be easy to kill.”
Nightwing grinned evilly. “Never mind. Don’t tax your brain. You’re not used to thinking.”
“I do too think!” Darwin said. “I had an idea just last month.”
“Really?” Nightwing asked. “Tell me about it.”
Darwin stammered, scratched his tiny head with two of his feet, and said, “I was thinking that television is the new obsession of the masses.”
“Interesting,” Nightwing said. “You have a shallow mind, but it does have some deep spots. Sort of like sinkholes.” Nightwing suspected that Darwin was lying, of course. He hadn’t really come up with that idea on his own. He’d probably just eavesdropped on the beetles that lived on the floor of the cave. They often spouted such nonsense.
So Nightwing decided to test him. “Are you sure that television is the new obsession of the masses? Perhaps a decade ago, I’d have agreed. But lately it seems that the masses have begun to splinter—video games, consumerism, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, working out.”
Darwin sat sucking blood with loud squishing sounds.
“So,” Nightwing asked. “The real question is, Why does mankind seek an obsession in the first place? Are sunrises so miserable that they must escape from them? Or is it that they just have some innate longing for something better, for . . . perfection,” Nightwing loved to infuriate the tick, so he added, “perhaps even a spiritual longing.”
“Oh, no,” Darwin growled. “Don’t go there! I won’t have any talk of ‘spiritual longings.’ We’re all animals, not spiritual creatures. We’re nothing more than a few basic elements combined in such a way so that we can amble about and stuff our guts. We’re all just chemical accidents, and every child that is born is only a part of a runaway chain reaction. Someday, when the chain reaction reaches its end, we’ll all just blow up!”
The tick went back to sucking blood in a rather morose fashion, but Nightwing smiled inwardly. At least Darwin had forgotten his original question—why Nightwing wanted Ben alive. The answer was simple. If Nightwing were to gain Ben’s power, the very foundations of the earth would tremble at his command.
If Nightwing could just let Ben see that Amber wasn’t the kind of master that he should be serving, Nightwing could convince Ben to become his familiar.
Then Nightwing would finally be able to dispose himself of Darwin.
Nightwing chuckled as he flew up out of the cage and found a corner to hide in. He could hardly wait for Amber.
* * *
The lights were off at Noah’s Ark Pet Shop, and the parking spaces empty. Ben heard the growl of distant thunder. He whispered to the others, “Let’s get under a roof quickly, in case it starts to rain.”
Ben raced to the front door of the pet shop, looking for a way in. But the crack under the door was too small, even for a mouse. So he led Amber to the back.
Several doors stood in a long row. Ben couldn’t be sure which one led into the pet shop. He made a guess and went to a door that had a tiny hole under it where some mouse had chewed its way through long, long ago.
Ben took one last look outside. It was getting dark fast. He could see streetlights beginning to flick on. He sniffed the air. No sign of danger. But he smelled the rising storm. Ben worried about what might be inside, what trap any sorcerers might have set. The spider’s warning wasn’t something he’d taken lightly. His heart was racing.
But even more worrisome than the spider was the bat’s warning: every time Amber cast a spell, she drained mage dust from Ben. And if she cast too many spells, she’d empty him out and never have enough to turn him back into a human. He had to stop her from using magic.
Taking a deep breath, he crawled under the door and peered in. Everything was dark. Gurgling sounds from the aquariums assured Ben that he was indeed inside the pet shop. Up a dark corridor, Ben could make out weird lights—heat lamps for terrariums and aquariums.
As soon as Amber and Bushmaster crawled in, Ben whispered, “This way!”
He began creeping up the corridor. Strange shapes huddled on both sides of him. He suspected that they were bags of dog food or boxes filled with birdseed, but in fact, he could hardly see a thing and couldn’t be sure.
He neared the first terrarium, saw a huge anaconda large enough to swallow a small pig. The snake flicked its tongue. A loud hiss issued from its cage, echoing through the room. A command. “SSSS. SSSSS. SSSlither hither.”
Ben glanced into the snake’s haunting eyes. He felt compelled to move toward the cage and stumbled a bit, but Bushmaster nuzzled his shoulder, urging him forward and out of the trance.
Ben glanced back at Bushmaster. “Thanks,” he said.
Ben and the others raced past the snake’s cage and past a huge tank of gurgling water. Other terrariums held creatures that remained mostly unseen, hidden in shadows—lizards as big as dinosaurs, tarantulas as large as cars.
Ben raced past them, too afraid to look, and found a door cracked open, leading into the pet shop. Ben looked up. Above him now were the birds. Finches, mourning doves, and brightly colored macaws slept in their cages, eyes closed as they clung to their roosts. The massive birds looked like pterodactyls. He could almost picture the huge flying dinosaurs sitting high up on craggy cliffs as they silently watched for prey.
The only sounds came from the gurgling of water pumps in the fish tanks and the sweet music of crickets at the front of the store.
But the odor of animals was everywhere, the hair of dogs, the droppings of birds and guinea pigs.
Somewhere, a kitten began meowing, and Ben heard a banging noise on the far side of the store, as if a ferret were leaping about in its cage.
Ben hurried down an aisle and twisted to the right, where the aquariums were. The neon lights on the saltwater fish tanks glowed in the darkness, giving the room a strange ambience. Sea horses and eels clung to sea grass, hiding, while colorful reef fish darted about like living gems.
Ben heard a strange noise and looked up. Near the top of one tank, a light-tan octopus with blue rings splotched on its skin was staring at him with knowing eyes.
It sang in a strange voice, like metal warping under pressure far in the distance, “What is your song, child? What is your song?”
It was strangely similar to the question that Vervane had asked. Who are you? What is your song?
Ben felt empty. He had no song for the octopus.
“I’m just a boy,” he answered.
“Are you sure?” the octopus asked. “Or could you be something more?”
Amber and Bushmaster raced up behind him. Ben scrambled around a corner, threading past displays of sunken ships and twisted lumps of coral rock for aquariums.
The mouse cages were around the corner. Ben and his companions crept toward them, and suddenly something came plummeting out of the darkness.
It hit all three of them like a falling rhino.
Ben rolled to his side, trying to get under the lip of one of the display cases for safety. He gasped for breath, the wind knocked out of him, and faded from consciousness for a second. He heard shouts above, the voices of dozens of mice calling, “Watch out! There’s a kitten loose!”
Cries of horror came from the mouse habitats, as if the mice were burning.
Ben peered up and dimly saw a tan-colored Abyssinian kitten with almond-shaped eyes and large ears. It was muscular, lithe, and evil looking all at once as it sat under the garish light of the fish tanks. It held Amber under its paw. She had been knocked senseless.
Bushmaster raced off into the darkness, shouting, “Run! Run!”
The kitten seemed gigantic. Ben had seen a lion once at Wildlife Safari. The big cat had been chest-high to him. But this monster towered above the mice like the statue of the Sphinx in Egypt. Each paw was nearly half as long as a mouse, and the retractable claws that hooked into Amber’s back were the size of scythes.
“Purrrfect, purrrfect little mouse,” the Abyssinian murmured. “Sooo purrrrrrrfect.”
Amber lay trapped beneath the cat’s glistening claws. The pet shop mice screamed and swooned in their cages.
Ben peered about weakly, wondering how a kitten had gotten loose in the pet shop.
The kitten wasn’t trying to eat Amber, just torment her. Ben wanted to run, but he knew that if he left Amber in the kitten’s paws, she’d be killed.
What would happen if she did die? he wondered. Would I grow old and die as a mouse in six months?
He had no choice. Ben grabbed his needle, propped it up as if it were a cane, and hobbled forward.
Of Mice and Magic Page 10