Ravenspell Book 2: The Wizard of Ooze Read Free Page A

Amber said, looking to Ben. “Can I make him smarter?”
    Lately Ben realized that she was leaving a lot of her thinking up to him. Ben considered for a minute. “Maybe he just needs a few more brain cells.”
    Amber said, “Well, I don’t know what a brain cell is, but if it’s that easy,” she looked at Thorn, “sure, I’ll make you smart.”
    “Hooray!” Thorn said, leaping in the air like a lunatic. He began to sing. “I’m going to be smaa-art! I’m going to be smaa-art. Amber is going to make me a geeenius!”
    He picked up his needle spear and danced around Amber.
    The other mice had returned to the garbage can on the other side of the fence. Ben heard one shout excitedly, “Did you hear that? Amber is giving out wishes!”
    There was a great deal of eager whispering.
    And in the distance, even softer than that, Ben heard his mother calling him. She’d been calling now for days, driving around the neighborhood, shouting his name. She’d been doing it ever since Amber turned him into a mouse.
    She sounded mournful and lost.
    It’s time that I go home, he thought.
    Suddenly, Ben felt outraged. He turned on Amber and demanded, “You’re still going to turn me back into a human, aren’t you?”
    “Why, why,” she stammered, “of course!”
    “Good,” he said. “We had a deal. But every time you cast a spell, it drains you of a little more power, making it harder to turn me back into a human.”
    Amber stopped and peered at him, as if surprised at the fierceness in his voice.
    Ben’s mom fell silent, but Ben could still hear the mice on the far side of the fence talking in animated whispers. He fully expected the whole herd to come ask Amber for something, but instead there was a sudden ruckus—cries of terror from the mice, and hissing from some horrible creature.
    Amber, Ben, Lady Blackpool, and Thorn all raced under the fence and reached the garbage can just in time to see their little army circling the old tarantula that lived under Ben’s house.
    One young mouse lay at its feet. It rubbed at a bleeding shoulder, and Ben could see that it had been bitten. Now the rest of the mice had surrounded the tarantula, poking their little spears at its eyes and belly. The ugly creature was so frightened that all eight of its hairy legs shook.
    “Get away from here,” one mouse shouted. “And stay away.”
    Amber must have realized that the mice meant business and would kill the vile beast if she didn’t intervene. She warned the tarantula, “Get out of here, now—for your own good. Keep walking for three days, and when you find a new home, remember: the mice of the world are under my protection. Nothing that looks like a mouse is on the menu!”
    The tarantula crept away dejectedly. Several mice followed at its heels, prodding with their needle spears.
    “Well,” Amber said, “that wasn’t hard. First we got rid of Domino the cat, and now the tarantula. We’ll have the world cleaned up in no time.”
    Lady Blackpool, who had stopped to preen, gave Amber a long look. “Are you really sure you want to try that?” Lady Blackpool asked again.
    “Yes,” Amber said. She was low on magical power, Ben realized, but Amber was sure.
    “Well, taking over the world is a lot of work,” Lady Blackpool said. “You’ll need your strength—your magical strength, that is. Perhaps tomorrow you should take a little trip, just wander around up in the woods, so that Ben gets plenty of mage dust on him.”
    It seemed like a good plan. No one was really sure where magic came from, but Lady Blackpool had told Ben that it was like dust that could cling to some animals’ fur. Some places were more magical than others, of course, and Ben would be able to replenish his magic more easily if he found one of those places, which Lady Blackpool poetically called “magic gardens.”
    By walking around, Ben would be able to “recharge his batteries,” so to speak.
    In the garbage can, the mice found some German