Ravenspell Book 3: Freaky Fly Day Read Free

trip.
    “Where would we go?” Butch asked.
    “I don’t know,” Ben said. “Anywhere, I guess.”
    “How about Disneyland?” Ben’s mom suggested.
    Ben’s heart pounded for joy. He’d always wanted to go there, but his mom had always said that they were too poor.
    “That would cost a lot of money,” Butch said. “Our credit cards are all maxed out.”
    Suddenly a tiny spider came crawling up the back of the couch.
    “Hiya, Ben,” the spider said.
    “Cob!” Ben whispered in surprise. “How are you doing?” Cob was a little spider that lived in Ben’s garage. Ben had met the strange fellow when Ben had first been turned into a mouse. Cob had warned Ben that an evil bat was going to try to stop him from reaching the pet shop to free the mice there. Cob had told how all of the spiders in the area were betting that Ben would never make it to the pet shop alive.
    Ben had seen the flies that Cob won in the bet. There were about a million of them stacked on the floor in Ben’s garage. Ben’s mom was really freaked out about it. Ben’s dad had already asked why his garage was filled five feet deep with dead flies, but Ben had pretended that he didn’t know. He didn’t want to get Cob in trouble.
    “I’ve got a message for your friend there,” Cob said, nodding toward Amber. “It just came in on the web.”
    The “web” was the worldwide web, a vast spider web with strands that reached everywhere. The spiders could talk on it by plunking a strand, sending vibrations all around the world.
    “A message from who?” Ben asked.
    “A bullfrog named Rufus Flycatcher,” Cob answered. Ben knew the name. Rufus Flycatcher was a wizard famous in the animal world. He ran a magic school called S.W.A.R.M.—the Small Wizard’s Academy of Restorative Magic—out in some swamps, far, far away. “This Flycatcher fellow says, ‘You must warn Amber immediately. Danger is brewing. Prepare for war. The black lotus has bloomed!’”
    Black lotus? Ben wondered. He had no idea what the message meant.
    He only hoped that Lady Blackpool might understand the significance of it.

Chapter 2
    SHADOW OF EVER SHADE
    The shape of the future is defined by what we do today. 
    Our limits today are bound by what we have accomplished in the past.
    For this reason, each day we should struggle to make a better tomorrow.
—LADY BLACKPOOL
    Lady Blackpool climbed up on the armrest of the couch, while down below her on the cushions the mice and voles stood in a crowd, waiting for her to reveal the meaning behind Rufus Flycatcher’s vague message.
    The festive mood of the evening was quite ruined. There had been talk of war, and Amber felt weary to the core of her soul. The pizza on the couch lay cooling, its cheese drying as hard as cement, while outside the window strange lights flashed as news camera crews continued to gather. Every ten seconds the telephone would ring, and Ben’s father was making a game of looking at the caller ID, demanding more money for an interview, then hanging up.
    The phone rang, and Ben’s dad said, “Say, Ben, some publisher wants to know if you’ll write a book about your adventures as a mouse!”
    “Oh, wow, I don’t know, Dad,” Ben said. “My cursive isn’t very good.”
    “He says he’ll pay you three million dollars,” Butch said, a smile creeping across his face.
    Ben’s eyes widened in surprise.
    “Is that a lot?” Amber asked.
    “We’d have more than enough to go to Disneyland!” Ben said.
    “We’ll take the deal,” Butch cried with glee. “I’ll want half of that in our bank account in the morning.”
    The person on the other end of the line began talking excitedly.
    “Movie rights?” Butch said. “No, those don’t come with it!”
    The person on the other end began to shout frantically.
    “Call back when you’ve got a serious offer!” Butch demanded; he slammed the phone down and pulled the plug, turning to listen to what Lady Blackpool had to say.
    Ben sat staring