The Only Thing Worse Than Witches (15 page)

All the Ways a Spell Can Go Wrong

R
UPERT HOPPED. AND HOPPED. AND HOPPED.
He hopped as fast as his bunny legs could drudge through the sand. Sandy stood next to him and cheered him on, but the flock of bunnies behind them was moving too fast for poor, tired Rupert.

“You've got to keep going without me,” Rupert panted.

Sandy cringed and laid her hat on the ground. “Hop in,” she said.

Rupert jumped into her hat, and she folded it around him, just to make sure that he wouldn't accidentally touch her. She whispered into the hat, “Hold on, Rupert Rabbit!” and then she ran as fast as her little witchy legs could take her.

Rupert jostled around in the hat, feeling very disconcerted and dizzy and frazzled.
If this is what animals feel like when they're picked up by humans, I'm never touching another one again,
he thought.

Finally, the bumpy run stopped, and the next thing Rupert knew, he was being tousled out of the hat. He fell splat onto a table, where he lay with all four legs sprawled out while Sandy locked the door.

He recognized the room. They were in Sandy's lair in Pexale Close
—
where Rupert had first met Sandy during his interview. He hadn't been there for a long while, since the witches booby-trapped it with their magic, but it looked the same as it did before. It was still musty and smelly, like the sole of a sweaty shoe, and knickknacks were still all over the shelves. The only thing that looked different was that there were loads of spiderwebs everywhere.

“Are we safe here?” Rupert said.

Sandy nodded. “For now.” Sandy walked to her supply cabinet and pulled a piece of wilted lettuce out of the fridge. She set the lettuce in front of Rupert, and then she sat down on a stool.

Rupert jumped forward and began to nibble at the greens.

“What am I going to do, Rupert?” Sandy suddenly cried. “I'm not a good enough witch to save anybody in the town, let alone everybody!”

“I know you can do it,” Rupert said with his mouth full of lettuce. “And Nebby and Storm believe in you, too.”

Sandy peeked at Rupert through her fingers.

“What are you doing?” Rupert asked.

“I can't look at you,” she shuddered. “Those ears! That tail! That twitchy nose!”

Rupert hopped behind a stack of books. “I'm hidden so you don't have to look at me anymore. Just listen to my voice
—
I'll coach you through this.”

“Okay!” Sandy said. “What do I do, Rupert?”

Rupert poked his head above the books so that he could catch a secret glance at Sandy, but she screamed.

“DON'T. DO. THAT,” she said. “GO AWAY AGAIN!”

Rupert ducked back down.

Sandy cleared her throat. “I need to think of how to phrase my words so that they won't mess up. But the only words I can think of that don't sound like anything else are
orange, silver,
and
month,
but I don't see how any of those relate to the spell I need.”

“No,” Rupert agreed, “they don't.”

Just then, scratching sounds came from the door. Rupert knew the noises came from a boatload of bunnies trying to get in. He looked at Sandy in panic, and she collapsed on the table. “There
have
to be more words that don't rhyme!”

Rupert gasped. “That's it!” he said, turning his head to look at the door. The scratches were growing increasingly louder, and he knew that they only had about another minute before the bunnies clawed their way through the wooden door. “Maybe we're going about this backward!”

“How?”

“Instead of trying to think of words that don't sound like anything else, we need to think of words that
do
sound like the words we want. Get it?”

Sandy shook her head no. “Not really.”

Rupert urgently thumped his foot on the table. “Your spell casting is opposite, so you need to approach it backwardly. So let's say you wanted to turn me invisible. Instead of saying
can't be seen
you say
turning green
. Then maybe the opposite of your intended spell will happen and I really would turn invisible.”

Sandy clapped. “Rupert, you're brilliant! Thank goodness I asked for a smart apprentice!”

Splintering sounds came from the door, and Rupert saw a tiny rabbit nail break through.
Help us!
the rabbits cried.
Help us!

“STAY BACK!” Rupert shouted. Then he turned to Sandy. “Test it on me. That way if things go wrong, you won't have messed up on an entire town.”

Sandy gulped. “Um . . . see a toy!” she snapped her fingers.

Rupert felt a tingling sensation all throughout his body. His fur fell off his body, landing at his bald bunny feet like a new carpet. Then his arms and legs expanded, stretching out like taffy until they hung slack at his sides. With a whoosh, clothes materialized over his loose limbs. His eyes rolled back into his head and came back white and brown, rather than like black coals. Hair sprouted out of his head. And with a final
POP,
his ears shrunk and his nose wiggled back to its normal size.

Rupert stumbled to a mirror
—
he was himself again!

“See a toy?” he said to Sandy.

“Be a boy! It was all I could think of!”

The wood on the door splintered again, this time big enough for a bunny to hop through. A black bunny with milky eyes soared through the hole in the door and hopped toward Sandy.
Help us!
the bunny said. A group of bunnies followed in the black bunny's wake. Rupert supposed there were fifty of them in total.

Sandy shivered and backed into a shelf. “Stay away,” she said. “I'll help you if you stay away.”

The bunnies hopped closer, and Rupert swung his legs onto the table to avoid them.

“Hurry!” he said. “I can't help you if you get turned into a rabbit!”

Sandy closed her eyes and snapped her fingers. “Attack in two steeples! Attack in two steeples! ATTACK IN TWO STEEPLES! AUGHHHHHHH!” she shouted as the bunnies jumped toward her.

Sandy whimpered and wailed
—
but in mid-leap, the fifty bunnies shed their hair, sprouted arms and legs, and lost their ears. Fifty people stood in Sandy's small lair, packed so tightly that no one could move an elbow.

Sandy snapped. “Wet snout!”

The door sprung open, and everyone scrambled for the exit. Except for Rupert.

He turned to the panting witch with a grin. “Get out,” he said. “Nice touch!”

Sandy ran over and hugged him. And it was the best hug ever.

What To Do About the Witches

“B
UT WAIT,”
R
UPERT SAID, BREAKING AWAY
FROM
Sandy's hug. “Where are the witches? Are they still coming to find me?”

Sandy burst out in giggles. “That's the best part!” she said. She ran outside, and Rupert followed her. They walked around town for what seemed like forever, but as soon as Sandy led him past the fish-and-chips restaurant, Rupert knew exactly where they were headed
—
to the witches' lair. They walked up to the boulder that marked the entrance, and Sandy put her hand on the rock, which grumbled and rolled to the side to reveal the passageway into the heart of the lair. And there, in the entrance to the lair, fourteen bunnies huddled together.

Sandy cringed at the sight of the bunnies, but she quickly snapped her fingers and conjured a cage that surrounded all the bunnies. Then she held her hands out in a ta-da pose.

“What's that for?” Rupert said.

“The Witches Council!” Sandy laughed. “And four witchlings.”

Rupert's mouth fell agape. “But how?”

“Attack in two steeples,” Sandy said. “Turn back into people. But the witches were never people
—
they were always witches. It was a tiny loophole that I thought might work.”

Rupert stared at the bunnies. A gray one bared its teeth, while the rest looked humbled and frightened.

“Turn us back!” the gray one squealed. “By order of the Fairfoul Witch, I command you!”

“The Fairfoul Witch, huh?” said Rupert. He picked up a nearby stick and poked the Fairfoul Witch gently in the side. She hissed and tried to bite the stick, but Rupert poked her again.

Sandy stroked her chin with her thumb and pointer. “Weelllllll,” she said. “Look at this. I'm the only one who has the power to change the bunnies back into witches.”

“Oh please, please!” squeaked a few spotted bunnies.

Rupert scanned the bunnies and found the brown bunny that he recognized as Nebby
—
she was hanging back behind the group with a tawny-looking bunny, which Rupert assumed was Storm. Both their whiskers twitched, but they did not say a peep.

“Hmmm . . .” Sandy said. “I should turn them all back into witches. They are my family after all, and we witches
do
do a lot of secret things that keep Gliverstoll working.” Sandy paced around. “But
will
I?”

Sandy winked at Rupert, who took his cue. “I don't know,” he said. “I sure would hate to have to lick their feet or eat my way out of a pool full of Jell-O.”

The Fairfoul Bunny snarled a deep throaty snarl, but the other bunny witches began to plead. “Oh please!” they said. “Please, Witchling Two, turn us back! We will leave the boy alone! Just turn us back!”

“I demand to be materialized back into my original form!” the Fairfoul Bunny said. “If you don't obey right now, I can assure you that you'll never be part of the Witches Council!”

Sandy folded her arms. “Then I can assure you that you'll all be bunnies forever.”

“Please!” the rest of the witch-bunnies cried. “Turn us back!”

“Only if you promise to leave Rupert and his family alone,” Sandy said.

“We promise! We promise!”

“I need written proof.” Sandy whipped up a scroll and an inkpad with a snap, and each bunny pressed her paw into the inkpad and then marked the scroll.

The Fairfoul Bunny trudged over to the inkpad. “He broke the rules. You broke the rules. I will
not
agree to keeping him safe! He knows too much! He must perish
—
I shall make him eat the sludge from a fish tank
—
or I shall make him suck eggs up his nose with a straw
—
”

“No!” Sandy said. “I won't change any of you back until you all agree to leave him alone.”

“But he is a human! We hate humans! We punish humans!” the Fairfoul Bunny howled.

“You may hate humans, but I don't,” Sandy said. “And human or not, Rupert is my best friend, and I can't have you hurting him.”

The Fairfoul Bunny dipped her paw into the inkpad. She glared at Sandy with her red eyes, and then she stamped the scroll, just below the signatures of the other bunny witches. “I will find some way around this,” the Fairfoul Bunny said. “You mark my words
—
I will make this boy's life miserable!”

Rupert stared down at the Fairfoul Bunny. “You've made my whole year miserable,” he said, “but from this point on,
you're
going to be miserable, not me. Isn't this what you call
fair
and
foul
?”

The Fairfoul Bunny spat. “How dare you speak to me like that! I will make you suffer in ways you can't even imagine. I can make your
mother
suffer.”

Rupert trembled with anger. “What happened between you and my mother?”

“You mean you don't know?”

“I know my mom stole some forbidden potions from the witches, and you claimed me as punishment
—
”

“Told you!” squeaked a tiny ginger rabbit. “Told you Witchling Two brought him to see the files!”

“What did my mom steal?”

“A fertility potion,” the Fairfoul Bunny snarled. “She wanted a baby.”

Rupert sat down on the grass. “You—you mean
—
”

“Yes, you owe your entire existence to the witches, boy.” She hopped forward, her red eyes glinting with glee. “But it's time to take back what was originally ours.”

“And what's that then?” asked Rupert.

“You.”