Ravenspell Book 2: The Wizard of Ooze Read Online Free

overhead had gone golden.
    “The beggars will only grow bolder,” Lady Blackpool warned Amber. “There’s a whole world full of them—weepy possums, angry gnats, vain butterflies, and frightened minnows. All of them will hunt you down and beg you to fix something. As your fame grows—especially if you take over the world—you’ll someday find an army of beggars surrounding the mouth of your burrow. You’ll never have peace. They’ll be hounding you day and night, until you’re just sick of it.”
    “But . . . but I have to take over the world,” Amber said. “I already promised the other mice. And they were so happy about it!”
    “I think,” Lady Blackpool said, “that there are some promises that you shouldn’t keep.”
    “I said that I’m going to do it,” Amber said, “and I will. I’m going to make the world a safe place for mice.”
    “I see,” Lady Blackpool said. “Turn it into sort of a club —just for mice.”
    “A Mouse Club,” Amber squeaked with delight. “I like the sound of that!”
    “But aren’t you forgetting something?” Ben asked.
    “What?” Amber said.
    “Your promise to me,” he reminded her. Amber had seemed to forget again. It was almost as if she were trying to forget. “It’s not so terrible being a mouse,” Ben confessed, “but I really don’t want to stay one forever—especially since mice age so fast. Each week for a human is a year to a mouse. Every week I stay a mouse, I lose a whole year off of my life!”
    Amber’s eyes welled up with tears. Ben knew that she didn’t want to let him go. He was too handsome as a mouse. Just the thought of losing him made her weepy. He feared that she had a really bad crush on him, like Becky Simms back in the second grade.
    Becky had been so crazy about him, she used to beg for his used bubble gum. Becky had told one of her girlfriends that “chewing anything that has been on Ben’s lips would sort of be like kissing him.”
    “I will turn you back into a human,” Amber promised, “as soon as I get enough power. And I won’t cast any useless spells until then.”
    Ben heaved a huge sigh of relief. Lady Blackpool had said that Amber needed to rest for two more days.
    In two more days I’ll be human again, Ben thought.
    Ben hadn’t really admitted it to himself, but he really was afraid that he’d get eaten by an owl or swallowed by a snake or something. Every moment that he stayed a mouse was fraught with peril.
    I only hope that I can make it for two more days, Ben thought.
    “Help! Help!” someone cried. Ben whirled to see several mice racing toward them, hopping and running, carrying their spears in their mouths.
    “Thorn is in trouble!” a mouse shouted, turning to lead the way.
    Amber, Ben, and Lady Blackpool raced to help, hopping through fern beds, leaping over rock piles. Ben was faster than the other mice. They were common house mice, but Ben was a Pacific jumping mouse, and he could leap over tall ferns in a single bound, while the other mice had to scurry and scoot and climb through.
    To Ben’s surprise, the mouse led him to the drainage ditch at the edge of the woods, three houses down the street from Ben’s place.
    A group of mice had already gathered; they peered into the rushing waters with great concern.
    “He fell in here,” one mouse shouted in terror.
    Ben peered down. The drainage ditch had seemed like a little thing when he was a human, something that he could jump across, a good place to hunt for bullfrogs and salamanders.
    But to a mouse, it looked like a raging torrent. Water thundered through the channel, swirled along between rocks and cattails. It was far too wide for a common house mouse to jump, though Ben suspected that he could make it.
    “Where did Thorn go?” Amber cried.
    One mouse shouted, “He suddenly began wandering in a daze, and then he headed this way, and jumped into the water. He went under, and he hasn’t come back up!”
    Ben considered leaping into the