Chapter 12
THE STORM
On some days, you can lick a gator; on other days, the gator gobbles you for dinner.
—RUFUS FLYCATCHER
It looked like a dragon, winging its way toward him, ghostly and purple.
BEN AND THE PET SHOP MICE celebrated their good fortune at Fat Jim’s Pizza. It had been an easy matter for Ben to lead the mice there, only a couple of blocks from the pet shop, and then have Amber wish that the folks inside would deliver a few pizzas and some root beer. Fat Jim brought the food out himself in something of a daze. He bowed and scraped and presented the meal, thanking the mice profusely for their business, seemingly unaware that he was talking to rodents.
The pizzas were steaming hot, fresh from the oven. Ham and pineapple, pepperoni and cheese, one with everything, and one—specially ordered just for Bushmaster—was the Vegetarian’s Ambrosia. The root beer had been delivered in huge glass goblets with plenty of straws and napkins.
The mice sniffed at the pizza, and Ben was satisfied to hear their little stomachs grumbling. Bushmaster gingerly crept up to the edge of his pizza, reached down with a paw, and scooped up a glob of mozzarella cheese. “Hey,” he said with delight after downing a bite, “it’s got mold in it!”
“Yeah,” Ben said. “It’s moldy milk. We humans call it cheese.”
“Wow,” Bushmaster cried. “This is really good!” Then he raced over the hot pizza on tiptoe, crying “Ouch, ooh, aah!” as he stepped, and began scooping up bits of artichoke heart, sun-dried tomato, mushrooms, and other delicacies.
Then the mice began scrambling all over the pizzas, while others were trying to get to the root beer. Amber wished a fork up against one of the goblets. It was great fun to watch Bushmaster climb to the edge, do a double somersault, belly flop into the goblet, and then sink to the bottom and peer out with big eyes like a goldfish before he climbed out. Soon, all of the mice were taking turns.
Ben filled himself up on ham and pineapple pizza. It was like heaven. His own pizza. It looked like it was as large as a flying saucer, and it was half as tall as him.
He was nibbling contentedly, watching the newly freed pet shop mice have the time of their lives, when Amber came over to him.
“Thank you,” she said. “I owe you an apology.”
“For what?” Ben asked.
“For thinking badly of you,” Amber said. “I was afraid that you’d break our bargain, or run away. But more than that, I realize now that I should never have forced you to make a deal like that. It’s not your fault that other humans imprison mice.”
“Thank you,” Ben said. “I’m sorry too, Amber. I shouldn’t have tried to feed you to that lizard, no matter what my dad said.”
Amber whispered, “That was a brave thing that you did, letting me heal Bushmaster.”
“I had to,” Ben said. “He’s my friend.”
“Are you always so good to your friends?” Amber said.
“I don’t know,” Ben said. “I don’t have many. I used to have a friend, Christian. But he moved away.” Ben found that his throat grew tight as he talked about Christian. He had never told anyone what he was about to tell Amber now. “His dad told me that he got a job at a penguin cannery in the Antarctic, and so they had to move. But I know that that’s not true. Some kids at school said that they heard that Christian got sick and went into the hospital. He had cancer. I think that he died there, because if he was still alive, he would have sent me an e-mail, or called on the phone to talk, or—or—something.”
Amber leaned forward, stroked Ben’s fur with her paws. It was kind of nice, but Ben suddenly realized that he was being petted by a girl.
“What are you doing?” he asked, backing away.
“Preening you,” Amber said.
“What for?”
“It keeps the cooties off.”
“Oh,” Ben said. Then he let her preen him for a moment. He felt overwhelmed with sadness. He missed Christian.
Overhead, the heavens grumbled, and hail started to fall from the sky. It rained down, and the shiny pebbles, like boulders, bounced all over the pavement. The mice peered at the spectacle in awe as lightning flashed from hill to hill.
But the protective umbrellas at Fat Jim’s Pizza just shook in the high wind and let the hail bounce off. The mice were well protected. Only a few drops of hail bounced around on the table.
“Are you ready,” Amber asked, “to be human again?”
Ben nodded but added, “Amber, when you turn me back into a human, I don’t think I’ll be able to understand mouse talk anymore. But I want you to know that you’re welcome in my house anytime. In fact, I was thinking that maybe you and the other pet shop mice could come live in my backyard. That way, I could bring you food and stuff.”
Amber smiled gratefully, stopped her preening, and gave him a hug. “I’d like that,” she said. She seemed to think for a moment, and then she asked, “Ben, do you still think I’m ugly? Like a what-do-you-call-it, a parasitic worm?”
“No,” Ben said. “I think that you’re the prettiest mouse I’ve ever seen.”
Then, with her eyes full of tears, she said, “Ben Ravenspell, I wish that you were human again.”
Ben felt the pain hit him as his bones began to grow under his skin. He suddenly ballooned to the size of a dog, and his tail felt as if it were being sucked up inside him. His nose was pulling in too, and he stared at his paw as it began to transform into a hand.
Then something strange happened. Amber cried in pain and staggered away from Ben, falling to the top of the table.
And Ben began to shrink back down to mouse size. Then he blew up again like a puffer fish, his tail growing back. It was as if his skin were bubbling tar, rising one moment, shrinking the next. One moment his hand was as big as a human’s, but with every tiny hair and detail just like a mouse’s; then the next he was shrinking down.
“What’s wrong?” Ben cried. “Are you out of power?”
But when he looked at Amber, he saw that she was in no condition to answer. She was lying on the ground, apparently having fainted, tossing and turning and crying in pain.
“Amber,” Ben cried, as he tried crawling toward her.
And suddenly he was a mouse, nothing more than a mouse. But Amber was still trembling, unconscious, and twisting in pain.
The heavens rumbled, as if with thunder, and Ben heard a single word. “Behold,” the heavens said. Ben looked up. Lightning flashed across the sky, and far above, Ben saw a huge cloud light up. It looked like a dragon, winging its way toward him, ghostly and purple. “Behold your weakness!”
But as he peered up, he saw that it was no dragon. It was a bat, an enormous bat wide enough to swallow the world.
It roared as it dove toward him, and all of the pet shop mice screamed and leaped off of the table. Only Ben stood over the fallen Amber. He grabbed his spear and held steady.
But the mighty dragon shape began to diminish, growing smaller as it neared until finally the bat Nightwing plopped onto the table and stood over Amber’s fallen body.
“Put that away,” he said, with a wave of his clawlike wing, and Ben’s spear went flying from his hand.
Nightwing stared down at Amber in triumph. The mouse was groaning in pain, twisting. “The fool,” he hissed. “What she doesn’t know about magic will get her killed.”
He whirled and looked at Ben. Ben saw the fat tick, Darwin, clinging to the bat’s neck.
“What’s wrong with her?” Ben asked. “Did she run out of magic?”
“No,” the bat said. “She tried to cast a spell that was a lie. And that can never be done.” He looked Ben in the eye and said, “For you see, a magic spell must be born from your innermost desires. It is a wish, given power and force. And when you try to cast a spell that is a lie, one that conflicts with your innermost desires—” the bat aimed a wing at the dazed and wounded mouse, “that is what happens. The magic force turns against you.”
Ben worr
ied for Amber, but then he began to understand. “Are you telling me that Amber can’t turn me back into a human?”
The ugly bat nodded, shook a bit of water and hail off of his wings. “Never. She has grown to like you too much. And so she will want to keep you.”
Ben suddenly felt sick with shock. Amber cried out, as if in pain, and Ben saw something odd. There was a light around her, like a pale red fog, that seemed to be leaking from her body. Indeed, as he looked down, he could see tiny bits of fiery light seeming to seep from every pore.
“What? What’s happening?” Ben asked.
“It’s her shayde,” Nightwing said. “The magic will leach it out of her and tear her apart, just as her conflicting desires are tearing her apart.”
“Isn’t there anything we can do to save her?”
“Save her?” Nightwing said. “Why would you want to? If you save her, she will hold you captive.”
“But, I don’t want her to die,” Ben said.
Amber shrieked in torment, and Ben could see the mist bleeding from her, rising up, turning into a strangely ghostlike mouse shape that looked up toward the sky as if seeking refuge in a distant meadow.
“Her spirit longs for release,” Nightwing said. “Let her go.”
“You can do something,” Ben suggested. “You said that you know some magic.”
“Perhaps,” Nightwing said. “I could save her—for a price.” He hesitated, as if thinking what he might want. “How about this? You will serve me. You will become my familiar for a month, and at the end of that time, if your service has pleased me well, I will turn you back into a human.”
“Hey,” Darwin said, pulling his proboscis from the bat’s shoulder. “I thought I was your familiar.”
Ben thought about the offer. What did Nightwing mean, If your service has pleased me well? What were the responsibilities of a familiar? Didn’t he just have to sit there and let the bat drain the magic from him? What could Ben possibly do that would displease the bat? Ben was afraid to make such a deal, but he didn’t really see any other choice. And he had to do it now, before Amber died.
“Quickly, now,” Nightwing urged Ben. “She’s nearly dead already.”
“Okay,” Ben said. “I’ll do it.”
“Wait a minute,” Darwin told the bat. “You can’t be serious about taking this kid on. He doesn’t know the first thing about being a familiar. Besides, you can only have one familiar at a time. Where does that leave me?”
Nightwing looked down at the tick and gave him an evil smile that showed his rapacious teeth.
Then the bat leaped toward Amber and inhaled a deep breath. The red glowing fog was sucked into his nostrils. And as it entered the bat’s chest, Amber cried out one last time and then went still. She lay in a stupor, unmoving, perhaps even dead, her lips parted as if in pain.
The bat leaned forward, blew toward Amber, and the red haze left his lungs, forming a mist in the air, much like the mist that comes from a warm body on a cold morning.
But this mist moved like something alive, inserting itself between Amber’s lips. It bubbled and boiled, shrinking back into her. And when it was gone, she took a deep breath, and lay there, sleeping.
“She’ll awaken in time,” Nightwing said. The bat turned its glittering black eyes toward Ben. “Now, what shall I do with you? I need a familiar that I can carry.” He seemed to think a moment and then smiled cruelly. “Ah, I know.”
Without notice, Ben felt a sharp twinge in his side, and suddenly two pairs of extra legs came ripping through his chest. They were monstrous, crablike things as pale as flesh. He had half a dozen segments in each leg, and as he flexed his newfound muscles, the things curled inward. He stared in shock as both his arms and legs began to lose their form, becoming like the other four legs, and then Ben was shrinking, shrinking.
In half an instant, he stared up at the bat, which now did indeed look as large as a dragon.
Ben had turned into a tick.
“Come,” Nightwing said, raising one wing up. “Come to me, and I will protect you.”
“What have you done to me?” Ben cried.
“Come, taste my blood,” Nightwing said. “You will feed from me, even as I feed off of your power.”
“But, I don’t want to be a tick,” Ben cried. “I don’t want to drink your blood.”
“Nonsense,” Nightwing said. “In time, you’ll learn to crave it, just as Darwin does now. He wasn’t always a tick, you know. He started out life as a dung beetle.”
“Dung,” Darwin wailed, as if the very word caused an uncontrollable craving. “Ah . . . what I would do for just one little ball of dung.”
Ben stood, his many feet rooted to the table, and looked about. Amber was a giant compared with him now, something the size of an elephant. Pizza crumbs that the mice had dropped looked as big as boulders. Indeed, a single ball of hail that had bounced to the table was large enough that it could have crushed him.
Slowly, Ben made his way to the bat. He couldn’t figure out how to crawl with so many feet.
Eight legs, he realized, and all of them are shaking so badly that I can hardly stand.
So Ben crawled. He got down on his hands and feet and just let his extra legs dangle uselessly as he crawled to his new master.
I won’t eat, he promised himself. I won’t eat for a month. Luckily, his stomach was still full of pizza.
“Cheer up,” Nightwing said. “There are worse types of vermin than a tick that you could be.” Then he giggled, “Although I really can’t think of one.”
Ben was still inching across the table when Nightwing leaped forward, grasped him tenderly in a claw, and swept up into the air.
It was a wild ride through the hail, but strangely, none of it seemed to hit the bat, who dodged this way and that as he flew, swerving and dipping, climbing and stalling in the air only to veer off in another direction—all the while letting giant hailstones go whistling by like cannonballs.
Ben glanced down and saw Amber sleeping quietly on the table while the pet shop mice crept out of hiding, making their way toward her. The lights of Dallas, Oregon, were growing small in Ben’s sight, shrinking, shrinking.
“Good-bye, Amber,” Ben whispered. “You really are the prettiest mouse I’ve ever seen.”
Darwin began to plead, “Okay, boss, I see what’s going on. You’re done with me. You’ve got a new buddy. So let me down.”
Nightwing shook all over as he laughed evilly, squeaking like a rusty hinge while twisting between the falling balls of hail.
“You’re not really going to let me go, are you?” Darwin begged. “Oh, I know what you’re thinking.”
Suddenly, the bloated tick leaped off of Nightwing, crying out as he fell.
Nightwing swooped, diving toward the tick, and grabbed the poor beast in his mouth. There was a crunching sound as the bat ate his former familiar.
Nightwing gulped the horrible meal down and smiled. Ben clung to the bat’s warm, stinky fur, afraid that if he fell, he’d be next on the menu. He was even more afraid of that than he was of the pellets of hail that were whistling past.
He could smell blood flowing through the bat’s veins, just beneath the skin. It seemed to call to him.
With a rising sense of helplessness and horror, Ben was swept off into the night.
Chapter 13
THE SWAMP WITCH
Arriving in the nick of time is good enough and makes life far more entertaining than arriving early.
—LADY BLACKPOOL
The next thing that Lady Blackpool knew, the turtle was spinning wildly out of control.
LADY BLACKPOOL RODE her flying turtle through the storm. They had been traveling all day at an altitude of nearly three hundred feet, and so the turtle had to climb each time that it reached a hill or cliff, then dip into each valley, thus making for a bumpy ride. Half a dozen times, Sea Foam had retracted his head as he braced for impact with low-flying ducks and geese, and each time that he did so, Lady Bla
ckpool nearly got squished to death.
But she endured it. Rufus Flycatcher was depending on her to save Amber from the enemy—and Lady Blackpool was up to the task.
Still, she was tired. They crossed the snow-covered Cascade Mountain range, diving under the clouds where the night was as dark as a witch’s brew. Suddenly, the hail began to fall.
Ahead, Lady Blackpool sensed powerful magics. There were flashes and purple mushroom clouds rising up, clouds that only a powerful mage could see. Lady Blackpool imagined that a battle was going on.
Balls of hail were battering poor Sea Foam’s head and flippers, bouncing off him like marbles, and he retracted them as best he could.
“Maybe we should call a halt,” Sea Foam said after getting bashed on the noggin by a particularly large hailstone. “I feel like someone has been using my head as a conga drum.”
“No,” Lady Blackpool urged. “Keep going. We’ve only got a few more minutes.” And it was true. Traveling at two hundred miles per hour, they were nearly to their destination. She pointed down to some lights. “In fact, we only need to get there—to that human village.”
“Okay,” Sea Foam said with a groan.
It was just then that a horrible blinding light sizzled across the sky. Lady Blackpool felt each of her hairs stand on end, just before the lightning bolt struck.
Sea Foam lighted up, and then his eyes rolled back in his head. The next thing that Lady Blackpool knew, the turtle was spinning wildly out of control.
“Sea Foam,” she shouted, trying to wake him, but he was as limp as a dead minnow, and the ground was coming up fast.
Lady Blackpool thrust her paw forward, trying to create something of a force field in order to protect them during the crash, just as they dove over the Willamette River and went careening into a pile of blackberry bushes.
The force field softened the blow as the three-hundred-pound sea turtle ripped through the bushes, plowed into the wet, muddy ground, and skidded into some farmer’s wire fence.
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