The Runaway Spell Read Free Page B

Hartmann’s mountain zebra, she spelled them all.
    “Well,” George said, patting his ski cap, “the ears are still there.”
    B sighed. “That’s probably because those aren’t really words anyway.” She snapped her fingers. “Let me try one other thing, okay? Take your hat off again.”
    George complied. Staring hard at George’s ears, B spelled the word slowly and carefully. “D-I-S-A-P-P-E-A-R.”
    The ears vanished.
    “Holy cats!” B whooped for joy. “Look at yourself, George! They’re gone!” The worry B had been feeling all day about getting caught suddenly disappeared. She had gotten away with it.
    George stared at the dim reflection of himself in the window. “Are they really gone? I can still hear like crazy. When you hollered, you just about busted my zebra eardrums.” He inspected his face and profile more closely. “But they’re gone, aren’t they?”
    “Not a trace of zebra ears,” B said proudly. What a relief!
    “Today’s pizza day,” George said. “Let’s go before the mega-meat pie’s all gone.” He turned toward the door.
    That’s when B saw it.
    “Eep!” B couldn’t help herself. The sound slipped out.
    “What’s the matter?”
    B stood and pointed toward her own lower back. George twisted and craned his neck to see … a zebra tail, poking out through a new hole in his jeans!
    George stared at B.
    B stared back, feeling her elation crash to dread. “Oops?” she said.
    “‘Oops?’” George repeated. “‘Oops?’ I’ve got a tail now. A
tail!
Make it go away, quick!”
    B, still shell-shocked by this new development, shook her head feebly. “I don’t think I dare try.” Turning the ears into a tail was
not
good progress, and who knew what zebra feature would come next if she took the risk.
    George twisted around and wiggled until he could stuff the tail down into his jeans.
    Why can’t I control my magic?
B thought despairingly.
    Finally George pulled off his “La Zebra” sweatshirt and tied it around his waist to hide the bumps and hole. “You are going to fix this, right, B? Because there’s no hat I can put on over my backside, if you know what I mean.”
    B nodded. “I’ll fix it, George,” she said. “Somehow.”
    “Race you to the caf, then,” George said, and B, relieved that he wasn’t too angry at her, nodded. They grabbed their bags and headed out the door.
    B could never really beat George in a race — he was the sixth-grade champion in the fifty-yard dash — but today George had nearly reached the end of the long hallway before B had even gotten halfway. He was flying!
    Galloping, more like. Like a horse.
    Like a zebra.

Chapter 5
    After school, George took off to the athletic fields for soccer practice, and B headed to Mr. Bishop’s room for magic tutoring. She always looked forward to her magical studies, and she’d never needed instruction more than today. But she almost dreaded today’s session. It felt as though she had something to hide from him. Well, she did … George’s tail! And that was the very reason she needed so much help.
    But how could she ask Mr. Bishop for help without him figuring out what she’d done? She tried to picture the scenario: “Suppose, Mr. Bishop, I were to turn my best friend, who’s nonmagical, into a zebra? How would I fix that problem?”
    Nope. No good.
    She would just have to figure it out on her own, as long as things didn’t get any worse. If they did, B would
have
to confess, and face whatever consequences there were for breaking the no-telling rule.
    She reached the classroom and sat down next to Mozart, the class’s hamster, who lived in a cage on the windowsill. She and Mozart were old friends — in fact, the opinionated hamster had helped her solve her first magical mess. At the sight of B, the hamster stood on his hind legs and waved a paw, his tiny nose quivering.
    She reached in and pulled him out, nestling him in the palm of her hand.
    “S-P-E-A-K,” she said after checking