Yeah, Ben thought, that’s what I’ll do.
Ben hadn’t taken more than a dozen steps when his legs got tangled and he tripped, falling on his face. He just lay there a moment, wishing that someone would step on him, when he felt something strange—a quivering in the ground. A pounding sound came once, then stopped, then rose again more loudly.
Just like on Jurassic Park, Ben thought. A T-Rex is coming.
He didn’t move. The ground quivered again, and then the rumbling shook in earnest. It felt as if the whole world would tear apart. The trees were shaking, and the monsters roared in fear.
Ben staggered to his feet and peered around. The creatures were gaping about in terror and began to scream.
Ben was looking straight at the eelipede when it shrieked. One moment, there was a horrible monster in front of him, with armored plates on its back and a hundred oily feet, and the next there was a giant wolf eel slithering on the ground while a centipede crawled off.
The same happened with a nearby scorpion-rat. One moment, there was an evil creature squeaking in pain, thrashing its tail as if looking for something to poison, and the next moment there was a rat racing away from a tiny scorpion. Even Fanglorious was a strange snake one moment, and the next he was a common garter snake, slinking away, while next to him lay a Polaroid camera.
Is all of Nightwing’s magic dying with him? Ben wondered. He glanced toward Amber and saw what looked like dust falling off of her.
Suddenly she breathed. She threw her tiny paws up in the sky and shouted to the creatures and the plants of the Weird Wood, “You’re free! I free you all!”
And then Ben saw the truth: Amber was un-mushing everything!
A nearby bush that had looked like some monster trapped in pain, suddenly turned into a crow and flapped into the sky. A tree became a deer that bounded away gracefully. And suddenly there were raccoons and squirrels and robins bolting from Shrew Hill in a wild stampede.
Amber whirled toward Ben. “Let’s get out of here,” she shouted, “before we get trampled by a herd of rampaging chipmunks!”
Just then, a crazed cottontail came leaping through the grass, and Amber ducked just in time to keep from getting squished.
Amber reached a paw out to Ben, and he went whisking toward her and landed with a plop on the soft fur of her belly.
“Hold on tight,” she commanded him, and then added, “I wish we were at your house.”
The effect of her wish was amazing. It was as if a bottle rocket exploded beneath Amber. One moment she was standing on the ground, and the next moment there was a hissing explosion, and she was hurtling through the air. The force of the wind buffeted Ben, and he clung tightly to her fur, but even eight legs didn’t seem to be enough. He began to slip, and Amber reached down with a comforting paw and just held him in place.
Then they were whisking through the air, shooting over the endless forests, the hills and lakes, the winding rivers.
They picked up speed, and the wind became stronger, and suddenly it stopped altogether. They were going faster and faster, but it was as if there were a magical pocket of air that surrounded them. Ben realized that Amber must have wished for it.
“Did you mean what you said?” Amber asked. “Do you really want to stay a mouse and come with me to help free all of mousekind?”
Ben thought for a long moment. “I guess,” he said, for he didn’t have any other choice.
“I think that you’re lying,” Amber said. “I think that you really want to be a human.”
“I don’t know,” Ben said honestly. “I wasn’t very good at it.”
“And I haven’t been very good at being a mouse,” Amber said. “At least . . . I wasn’t good to you.”
Ben thought back on all that had happened, on how Amber had come to save him, even if all that she could do was to act as a decoy and draw off his enemies. “You did pretty good at the end,” Ben said.
Amber smiled.
“If I turned you back into a human,” Amber asked, “could we still be friends?”
“Yeah,” Ben said, growing excited at the thought. “I could even help you. I could take you to pet shops and help you free the mice. And then we could let them live in the backyard, and I’d bring lots of food for them, and . . .” the thought trailed off. “But you can’t turn me back into a human. You can’t cast a spell that’s a lie.”
“You’re right,” Amber said. “I didn’t want you to be a human because I thought that it meant that I would lose you. But . . . I think I know a way.” Amber sniffed.
Ben looked up and saw that Amber was crying.
Suddenly there was a jolt, and they began to slow, as if they were in a car that was running out of gas. They shuddered, and Ben looked down. They were dropping toward Ben’s backyard.
“Hold on,” Amber said. “I think you’re running out of magic.”
They sputtered and began to fall, and just as they neared the ground, Amber seemed to get her magic back, and they spurted the last few yards over the huge pine trees and housetops, over the cars and yards.
And then they were there, falling with a thud among the wildflowers and deep grass.
Against all hopes, Ben found himself home, and a profound sense of gratitude welled up in him.
“Ben,” Amber said. “Close your eyes. And keep them closed for a minute.”
“Why?” he started to say, but it just came out as a grunt. He closed his eyes.
“Now,” Amber said, “let’s see if I can do this right.”
She reached down, stroked Ben’s head and back, and then stepped away a few paces. Ben sat in the sunlight, letting it bounce on his head. In the distance he could hear the slamming of a car door as the neighbor headed for work, and from the fields across the street came the song of a meadowlark.
“Ben,” Amber said sincerely. “I wish that we could see what it would be like to be human.”
Then it happened. Ben felt no pain this time. Only a twinge really, as his extra four legs began to shrink away.
His front legs turned into arms, and he could feel himself rising, rising, his hands and feet all on the ground, until he straightened up and stood.
He just held still, quivering in the sunlight, rejoicing in the sensation of being human—in feeling the cool morning wind blowing on his arms and face. He hadn’t felt that in days—not as a mouse, insulated by fur, or even as a tick, insulated by a carapace.
“You can open your eyes now,” Amber said, and Ben looked down and saw the bare feet of a young woman. She wore a simple dress that looked like a print stolen straight from the backyard—stalks of grass, buttercups and daisies, dried coneflowers and Indian tobacco.
And as Ben looked up into her face, he gasped. Amber stood before him, transformed. She was, Ben realized, the most beautiful girl that he had ever seen. Her hair was a strange brownish gray. Mouse-colored, he realized. And her eyes were black and sparkling.
“Amber?” Ben asked in amazement.
She nodded. “We’re low on magic. This won’t last. But I think that when we’ve got enough power again, I can wish that you are human, as long as I’m human too.”
“Wow,” Ben said.
Had Amber been that pretty as a mouse? Ben wondered. And in his heart he knew the answer. Of course she had been that pretty. That’s why he had picked her from the pet shop.
But what now? he wondered. What would I do with her? Where would she live?
He imagined her living like a wild creature in the woods up above the house, somewhere near Bushmaster’s burrow. But then he thought, No, she’ll be a human now. She’ll need a house, and I’ll need to take her to school with me.
He imagined keeping her in the attic where Mom and Dad never went. She could use magic to feed herself, and they could go everywhere together, freeing the mice of the world.
And even as he stood there, imagining what the future might bring, he began to shrink again.
In moments, he was small again. As small as a
mouse.
He heard a yowl.
The sound of a cat wouldn’t even have registered a week ago, but Ben nearly jumped out of his skin. He whirled, and saw the white body and black spots that identified Domino.
The cat was fleeing in a wild panic, and right behind him, tripping and leaping, half a dozen mice and voles gave chase, all of them armed with needles.
He could almost imagine the news headlines now, as word got out that the mice of Dallas, Oregon, had armed themselves.
“We’ve already changed the world,” Amber said, her black eyes peering at him from dark fur. “Maybe more than either one of us has realized. Maybe that’s all that I really need to do—teach the mice of the world how to free themselves.”
Ben glanced back toward the house and thought of going home. He noticed that there was a mass of black objects spilling out the back door of the garage. Flies. Dead flies.
And he remembered the spider who’d said that the odds against him getting out of the pet shop alive were a million to one.
A million greenbottle flies! Ben thought. Looks like he collected on the bet.
“We really did change the world,” Ben said, shaking his head in wonder. He looked at the flies and imagined trying to clean out the garage with a shovel. That was one mess that he didn’t ever want to pick up, even if he had to leave it for his mother.
Then he turned away, and he and Amber went hopping toward Bushmaster’s hole beneath the pine—hop, stop, and look.
And for the moment, Ben was grateful just to be a mouse again.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
MINOR MIRACLES
Chapter 2
THE CAGE
Chapter 3
THE GREAT ESCAPE
Chapter 4
A MOTHER’S LOVE
Chapter 5
STRANGE CRITTERS
Chapter 6
NIGHTWING
Chapter 7
THE RESCUERS
Chapter 8
A GATHERING OF WEAPONS
Chapter 9
DREAMS OF MICE AND MEADOWS
Chapter 10
THE BATTLE AT NOAH’S ARK
Chapter 11
THE DARK MAGE
Chapter 12
THE STORM
Chapter 13
THE SWAMP WITCH
Chapter 14
THE MUSH ROOM
Chapter 15
DOONBARRA
Chapter 16
THE EYE OF NEWT
Chapter 17
THE FLIGHT OF THE OWL
Chapter 18
A TICK WELL FED
Chapter 19
A SONG FOR A FRIEND
Chapter 20
THE MOUSE THAT ROARED
Chapter 21
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MOUSE IN THE WORLD
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
MINOR MIRACLES
Chapter 2
THE CAGE
Chapter 3
THE GREAT ESCAPE
Chapter 4
A MOTHER’S LOVE
Chapter 5
STRANGE CRITTERS
Chapter 6
NIGHTWING
Chapter 7
THE RESCUERS
Chapter 8
A GATHERING OF WEAPONS
Chapter 9
DREAMS OF MICE AND MEADOWS
Chapter 10
THE BATTLE AT NOAH’S ARK
Chapter 11
THE DARK MAGE
Chapter 12
THE STORM
Chapter 13
THE SWAMP WITCH
Chapter 14
THE MUSH ROOM
Chapter 15
DOONBARRA
Chapter 16
THE EYE OF NEWT
Chapter 17
THE FLIGHT OF THE OWL
Chapter 18
A TICK WELL FED
Chapter 19
A SONG FOR A FRIEND
Chapter 20
THE MOUSE THAT ROARED
Chapter 21
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MOUSE IN THE WORLD
Of Mice and Magic Page 18