“I don’t think so,” Mona Ravenspell said as she thrust her finger against a red button clearly marked Launch.
She’d crept back to General Crawley’s command center.
The ground began to tremble and shake, and suddenly flames erupted from the back end of the rocket. Fluke Gutcrawler suddenly whirled and peered down in terror as the rocket began to lift off.
With the song finished, Ben’s eyes cleared, and in three leaps he bounded away from the launch site.
“Amber,” he shouted. “Amber, you have to turn that missile into a fireworks show!”
Amber peered toward Ben. She could hardly hear anything over the roar of the rocket. “What?”
The ground rumbled, and the rocket blasted off with Fluke Gutcrawler clinging to the top of the cone in terror.
“Like the fleas back at Mrs. Pumpernickel’s house!” Ben shouted.
“Oh, yeah!” Amber said.
It takes a lot of magical energy to turn one thing into another. And the nuclear bomb was far bigger than a mouse. Amber was afraid that she didn’t have enough magic left, and trying to cast a huge spell without magic—well, it could be deadly.
Ah, well, Amber thought. It was a good life.
She took a deep breath, and hurled her spell.
The missile roared into the sky atop a pillar of fire, great clouds of smoke issuing from behind. It blazed like the sun as it thundered to its apex.
And there, two miles above the earth’s surface, it exploded.
Enormous fireballs shot out of it from horizon to horizon, in fantastical colors, each of them trailing a brilliant rainbow. There were glowing gems of lime green, and brilliant crescent moons. There were reds that looked like chrysanthemum flowers, and white-hot stars twinkling in their own little galaxies.
All across the earth, humans and animals stared up at the display, their mouths open in awe, clapping and applauding.
The boom from the exploding missile rattled windows and made spiderwebs vibrate, but nothing more.
And for long moments afterward, the people applauded.
With that, Benjamin Ravenspell turned and hopped away from the camera, out of the lights, and went to Amber by the side of the road.
She was lying there, completely lifeless.
Ben stared down and fought back tears. He watched for the longest time, but Amber didn’t move.
Ben’s mother came and joined him.
“Is this your friend?” Mona asked.
“Yeah,” Ben said. “She’s more than a friend. She’s a wizard.”
“She’s the mouse you bought at the pet shop!” Mona said. “Isn’t she?”
“Yeah,” Ben said. “She’s the one who turned me into a mouse.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Mona asked.
“She cast too many spells,” Ben said. “She got the wizard wearies. I think she’s dead.”
Amber’s chest did not rise and fall. Not a single whisker on her snout moved.
Ben crawled forward and pushed down on her chest quickly, trying to remember his CPR. He saw that it wouldn’t work on a mouse. He might be able to get her heart beating, but he couldn’t give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation—their mouths were shaped all wrong.
Air escaped from Amber’s lungs.
He pulled his paws off her chest, letting it fill with air.
Amber didn’t move.
He tried again. A crowd of humans began to gather, and Ben felt frightened. He heard Bushmaster out in the tall grass, calling, “Ben, let’s get out of here.”
But Ben couldn’t just run away.
He hammered above Amber’s heart, then shoved down on her chest again, letting her get more air.
Time seemed to stand still.
Amber coughed softly—once, twice. Then she took a deep gasp of breath.
A cheer rose up from the crowd of people, and Ben looked up. There were hundreds of them, all gathered around him. The news cameras were shining on him, and the reporter smiled at him, her mascara running as tears streamed down from her eyes.
“He did it,” someone shouted. “He saved the mouse!”
Suddenly everyone was clapping and cheering.
Amber’s little paws waved in the air as she fought her way back to consciousness, and she flipped on her stomach and just lay on the cement for a moment. “Oh,” she said. “I feel really, really sick.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Ben’s mom said. “Why don’t you two come home with me? I’ve got some pizza in the fridge and plenty of root beer.”
“Can I invite some friends over?” Ben asked. It was an odd question. He’d never really had any friends before, so he’d never asked it.
“Mouse friends or human friends?” Mona asked.
“Mice,” Ben said.
“You can invite all of the friends you want,” Mona said as she reached down and picked up Amber and Ben, scooping them into the palm of her hand so that she made a little nest.
“Wait for me!” Bushmaster cried as he came racing through the grass at the side of the road, leaping from a screen of vetch, its rich purple blossoms hanging above him in clusters.
He climbed into Mona’s hand too, and she carried them back to the house, patting and stroking their heads.
“I hope you don’t mind staying a mouse a little longer,” Amber told Ben. “It will take a few days to get my energy back.”
“I don’t mind,” Ben said. “I kind of like being a mouse—as long as I don’t have to eat granola every day.”
And it was true.
Other RAVENSPELL books by DAVID FARLAND
Of Mice and Magic
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
ATTACK OF THE KILLER FLEAS
Chapter 2
THE ENEMY WITHIN
Chapter 3
WISHES
Chapter 4
AT THE HEART OF THE WORLD
Chapter 5
A WORMY TAIL
Chapter 6
IN THE CLUTCHES OF EVIL
Chapter 7
GENIUS
Chapter 8
SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION
Chapter 9
WHITE ON WHITE
Chapter 10
FALLEN ANGELS
Chapter 11
MOUSETRAPS
Chapter 12
TELEPATHIC MESSAGES
Chapter 13
THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM
Chapter 14
CREEPY CRAWLY
THE STRAGE BURROW
Chapter 16
DREAMS
Chapter 17
WEASELS
Chapter 18
THE TALE OF THE GERM MEN
Chapter 19
PREPARING FOR WAR
Chapter 20
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
Chapter 21
HIS FATHER’S SON
Chapter 22
WAR OF THE WORMS
Chapter 23
FLUKE
Chapter 24
THE MASTER OF FIELD AND FEN
Chapter 25
ONE SMART MOUSE
Chapter 26
THE HOMECOMING
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
ATTACK OF THE KILLER FLEAS
Chapter 2
THE ENEMY WITHIN
Chapter 3
WISHES
Chapter 4
AT THE HEART OF THE WORLD
Chapter 5
A WORMY TAIL
Chapter 6
IN THE CLUTCHES OF EVIL
Chapter 7
GENIUS
Chapter 8
SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION
Chapter 9
WHITE ON WHITE
Chapter 10
FALLEN ANGELS
Chapter 11
MOUSETRAPS
Chapter 12
TELEPATHIC MESSAGES
Chapter 13
THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM
Chap
ter 14
CREEPY CRAWLY
Chapter 15
THE STRAGE BURROW
Chapter 16
DREAMS
Chapter 17
WEASELS
Chapter 18
THE TALE OF THE GERM MEN
Chapter 19
PREPARING FOR WAR
Chapter 20
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
Chapter 21
HIS FATHER’S SON
Chapter 22
WAR OF THE WORMS
Chapter 23
FLUKE
Chapter 24
THE MASTER OF FIELD AND FEN
Chapter 25
ONE SMART MOUSE
Chapter 26
THE HOMECOMING