The Evil Wizard Smallbone (20 page)

At least
, Nick thought,
this one can talk like a human
. “Smallbone calls me Foxkin.”

Hell Cat spat. “You must be evil. He’s teaching you magic. He wouldn’t teach you if you were good. I’m good, and he didn’t teach me.”

She was frowning at him as fiercely as Smallbone ever did. Nick looked from Tom, who was smearing tears and snot everywhere, trying to wash his face like a cat, to Mutt, who was curled up on the floor, whimpering, while Jeff sniffed him over curiously.

“What’s the
matter
with you guys?” Nick shouted. “I’m the good guy here. I
rescued
you. Why can’t you just say thank you and go away?”

“Evil wizard!” Hell Cat snarled.

“Meow,” Tom said.

“I’m hungry,” Ollie grunted.

Nick stalked out of the barn.

Nick checked out the damage to his face in the bathroom mirror. He looked like he’d been in a cat fight.

Nothing like this had happened in “The Wizard Outwitted.”

It was, as Smallbone would say, a jeezly mess.

Smallbone! He’d forgotten all about him! What was the old man going to say when he found out one of his dogs and both his cats were now people, not to mention his prize pig? Maybe if Nick just left them in the barn for a while, they’d all go away.

In the meantime, he had to start lunch.

Nick cast a glamour on his face to hide the scratches and went back out to the kitchen.

He was chopping onions for bean soup when Smallbone appeared, ferreted around in the fridge, and emerged with a cold drumstick in one hand and a glowing purple vial in the other.

“I’m eating upstairs today,” he said.

Nick bent his head over the knife. “Okay.”

The old man stomped to the door, stopped, and turned around. “By the way. That’s a decent illusion you’ve cast on them scratches. For a beginner.”

“Thanks,” Nick said in a strangled voice.

“Your timing might have been better, what with Fidelou howling at the door and all,” Smallbone went on with suspicious calm. “Now you turned them apprentices back, you got the same problem I had, which is what to do with a set of gormy nincompoops not worth the fire to cook their soup.”

Nick looked up. “Then you’re not mad?”

“The hell I ain’t. I had ’em squared away all right and tight, with comfortable, easy, useful lives. If I wanted a passel of kids around the house, I wouldn’t have transformed ’em in the first place. The problem with you is, you got power, but you ain’t got sense. You made this jeezly foul-up, you fix it. Get ’em off the premises. I don’t care how. You got three days, starting now.”

Nick began to feel sick. “What happens if I can’t?”

Smallbone’s smile bared a tumbled graveyard of teeth. “I get rid of ’em for you.”

Nick felt sicker. “Promise me you won’t hurt them.”

Smallbone gave him a sharp look, then shrugged. “You broke the spell. The Rule is, I can’t touch ’em until and unless you fail to finish the rescue. So I guess you better get cracking.”

Nick didn’t have a plan or even the beginnings of one, but feeding the apprentices seemed like it would be a good place to start. So he heated up yesterday’s oatmeal, dumped it in a bucket, and took it and some tin bowls and spoons out to the barn.

The apprentices were gone. Nick felt a sinking in his stomach, followed by something oddly like relief when he saw Mutt and Ollie and Tom huddled up with Jeff by the pigpen. Hell Cat was sitting by Groucho’s manger, flexing and stretching her fingers with concentrated attention. When she saw Nick, she whisked her hands into the pockets of her baggy sweater.

“I brought you something to eat.” Nick took the lid off the bucket. “Oatmeal.”

Hell Cat scowled. “I want some milk.”

“This is what there is,” Nick said. “Take it or leave it.”

Hell Cat shot him an offended look and turned her back.

Tom, Ollie, and Mutt weren’t as picky. They came out of the pen and gathered around hopefully. Ollie and Mutt stuck their faces in the bowls and slurped. Tom tried to lap with his human tongue and got oatmeal all over his face.

Nick went to see if Thalia had a little milk left in her.

She did. Nick filled Hell Cat’s bowl and held it out to her. “Here’s your milk.”

Hell Cat ignored him.

Nick gritted his teeth. “You probably won’t believe this, but I know how you feel. I’ve woken up not knowing how many arms and legs I have or what I want for breakfast. I’d probably be a rat right now if I hadn’t turned myself back.”

Hell Cat growled. “That’s because you’re an evil wizard.”

“And you’re a snotty little brat!”

He had tried not to shout, but he’d failed. The boys lifted startled oatmeal-streaked faces. Tom started crying again.

Nick took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I yelled,” he said, trying to sound like he meant it. “I’m sorry about the whole thing. I just wanted to help.” That, at least, was true.

“You want to
help
 us?” Ollie squealed.

“Smallbone was wrong to turn you into animals. I wanted to fix it.” Nick sighed. “Guess I’m a numb-brain, huh?”

Nobody disagreed.

“Smallbone’s going to kill us when he finds out,” Hell Cat remarked. “You, too, probably.”

“No, he won’t,” Nick said.

“How do you know?” Mutt asked.

“Because I’m still alive.”

Everybody went very still. Nick looked up. Their faces were frozen, wide-eyed, white with fear. “What’s up with you guys? I mean, it was totally evil of him to turn you into animals and keep you as pets — that’s why I turned you back. But it’s not like he beat you or starved you or fed you to the coyotes. You got to admit, the old man’s not so bad, for an evil wizard.”

Hell Cat spat. “Not so bad! Now I
know
you’re evil!”

“Quit saying that!”

“Why? It’s true.”

Mutt was sitting with Jeff, cross-legged. He’d found a few words. “Devil!” he barked. “Evil wizard! Mean!”

“Mutt’s right,” Ollie said. “Last thing I remember, he told me he was going to make me into sausages come fall.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Nick said. “He’s always threatening to turn me into a slug and salt me, but he never does.”

Ollie grunted skeptically. “How about this, then? He had this stick he kept by the fire, used to beat me all by itself. If I forgot to sweep under the stove or didn’t scrub the pots just right, or took a piece of cheese more than I was allowed, it’d fly up and larrup me until I was black-and-blue.”

Nick’s mouth fell open. “But —”

“He set a spell on me once,” Hell Cat said. “Made me scrub nonstop for nearly two days. When he took it off, I hit him with a frying pan. That’s when he turned me into a cat.”

Nick looked from face to frightened face. They were telling the truth. “Maybe he’s changed,” he said weakly. “I mean, he’s crabby and all that, but he’s never actually hurt me, if you don’t count the spider thing. I’ve got warm clothes and enough to eat. He carves little wooden animals, for the love of Mike.”

The apprentices exchanged looks.
He’s lying
, the looks said.
He’s crazy. He’s an evil wizard
.

“Listen,” Nick said earnestly. “He took real good care of you when you were animals. He liked you. Ollie, he played ball with you. Mutt, you were always following him around and wagging your tail and asking to be petted. You liked him. You all did.”

“I didn’t,” Hell Cat said smugly. “I remember. I scratched him every chance I got.”

Nick stood up and brushed straw from his jeans. “You can see for yourselves if you don’t believe me. Come down to the house and have supper with us. It’s fried mackerel and peas and mashed potatoes.”

“And if we don’t?” Hell Cat asked.

“I’ll bring you sandwiches,” Nick said. “If I remember.”

“What about Smallbone?” Ollie said anxiously.

“He won’t hurt you, I promise. Supper’s at six — that’s just after sunset. See you then.”

Nick was frying mackerel when Smallbone came down to the kitchen that evening. He took in the extra chairs, the steaming heap of golden-brown fish keeping warm at the back of the stove, the huge bowl of mashed potatoes, the economy-size package of frozen peas, and munched his jaws thoughtfully.

Tom scampered up to him, meowing in a little-boy voice. The old man’s beard twitched, and he reached down and stroked the ginger curls as if the boy were still a cat.

Nick let go his breath and started putting out the meal. It looked like Smallbone intended to keep his promise. There was some use to those Rules of his after all.

When the clock struck six, the back door opened. Hell Cat walked in.

“Evening, Hell Cat,” Smallbone said. “You joining us?”

Her eyes narrowed. “You got a problem with that, Evil Wizard?”

“Only if you lick your plate. Foxkin, young Hell Cat needs a glass of milk. And a napkin.”

It was a quiet meal. Hell Cat concentrated on drinking from a glass, eating with a knife and fork, and pretending Smallbone didn’t exist. She managed pretty well until he moved to the rocking chair and Tom crawled up in his lap. She nearly choked on her potatoes when the old man put an arm around the little boy, lit his pipe, blew a smoke ring over his head, and rocked.

Hell Cat took a hasty gulp of milk, licked her hand, flushed beet red, and stalked into the bathroom, where she turned on the taps full blast.

Smallbone set the sleeping Tom gently on the rug.

“This place is like a jeezly nursery school,” he grumbled. “I’ve half a mind to turn you into —”

The door opened and Jeff trotted in, tracking in lumps of sticky mud. Behind him was Mutt, a little unsteady on his pins, looking hangdog.

“Jeff’s hungry,” he muttered.

“I see you’re looking yourself again,” said Smallbone amiably. “Foxkin, you better heat up them taters. They’re gone gluey cold.”

Mutt wouldn’t sit at the table, so Nick put his plate down on the floor next to Jeff’s. He was a messy eater, but at least he was using his fingers now.

After a while, Hell Cat came out of the bathroom, pink faced and clean, her dark braid trailing water down the back of her baggy sweater. “I’m going to sleep,” she announced to the room. “In a bed. Like a person.”

“Take the first room to the left at the top of the stairs,” Smallbone said. “It’s got a bed and a mattress. There’s blankets in the bureau.”

When Nick got back from doing the evening chores, Smallbone was gone and Mutt, Jeff, and Tom were asleep on the hearth rug in a pile. Nick went upstairs, put on his nightshirt, and climbed into bed.

He found himself missing Tom. No, not Tom, but the little orange cat who had slept on his pillow every night.

Apparently, Tom missed him, too, because it wasn’t long before Nick heard insistent mewing outside the door. Nick put the pillow over his head and told himself Tom would go away if he just ignored him. Eventually, the mewing stopped, but Nick didn’t fall asleep for a long time.

A
s the Spring Equinox approached, the seal folk of Smallbone Cove became exercised over the question of Walking the Bounds. Opinions varied wildly. On one side, there were those who agreed with Miss Lily and Miss Rachel that the Bounds should be Walked. On the other were those, like Saul and his friends, who were willing to see the Sentries come down if it meant they could fish farther out or even leave Smallbone Cove completely. Between them were the farmers and merchants who couldn’t see the point of tromping fifteen or so miles through the mud and rain to perform a ritual nobody remembered for Sentries that weren’t even working.

Miss Rachel didn’t have any patience with this kind of thinking. “It doesn’t matter if we remember or not. We promised we’d do it, and we will. As for the ritual, perhaps the magic will take the intention for the deed. It’s worth a try.”

At dawn on the morning of the Equinox, all the Smallbones Lily and Miss Rachel could persuade or bully gathered in front of the white clapboard church. There weren’t many — a few farmers, like Ruth and Naomi from the Smallbone Cove Goat and Dairy Farm; shopkeepers like Bildad and Zilpah Smallbone, who ran Three Bags Full Knitting; Joshua from Kites ’N Chimes; and Zery. Also Mr. Micah, who taught grades four through seven at the Smallbone Cove School, and Eb. Ruth and Naomi had brought their daughter Sarah, who was in kindergarten. And Dinah, of course. Nothing on earth would have kept Dinah away.

Miss Rachel was waiting for them in front of the church. To her sorrow, she wouldn’t be coming with them, her chair not having been built for cross-country wheeling. There had been a path once, all the way around the borders, but most of it was as neglected as the ritual.

“Well,” said Lily as they all stood looking up at the steeple, where the Weathervane pointed immovably east. “Here we are.”

“What do we do now?” Ruth asked.

Everybody turned to Miss Rachel.

“We sing,” she said. “There was always singing, I remember.”

“What kind of singing?” Mr. Micah asked.

Miss Rachel sighed. “I don’t know. I’ve thought and thought, and I’ve looked in every book I can think of, and I simply can’t remember. I was only a little child when Mam stopped going.”

There was an awkward pause. “Anybody know any songs about the wind?” Lily asked.