The Evil Wizard Smallbone Read online

  “You do not lack in confidence, mon brave.” Fidelou leaned forward, elbow on one leather-covered knee. “What about a noble machine? What about a Vincent? Can you fix that?”

  It was an important question. The Vincent Black Lightning was a shiny monster famous for going faster than any other bike in the world. When it went at all. For though Fidelou loved his Vincent, he did not understand it, and he rode it as if it were as indestructible as he was. As a result, it was always breaking down, and when it did, only a truly expert mechanic could fix it. Fidelou had drowned his last mechanic in the latest attempt upon Smallbone Cove, and the Vincent was now up on blocks in the courtyard, its engine silent and dead.

  The boy’s eyes shifted. “No problem,” he said.

  Fidelou smelled the lie, decided he didn’t care. Any mechanic was better than no mechanic. If the boy didn’t work out, Fidelou could always kill him. “Bon. What is your name?”

  “Jerry,” the young man said. “Jerry Reynaud.”

  “Well, then, Jerry. As we lack a mechanic just now, you will take over the direction of Fidelou Gas and Motorcycle Repair.”

  Jerry grinned. “Sounds good.” He hesitated. “The guys at the bar, they said something about coyotes. It sounded like a load of hooey to me, but I thought I’d ask, just in case it wasn’t.”

  Fidelou sat back against the snowy fur of his pelt. “It is truth they have told you, Jerry. When you have earned it, I will give you a pelt and you will run with your pack-brothers and -sisters. Until then, you will do as you are told. I expect fidelity and obedience — to me and to all the full coyotes of the pack. Do you understand?”

  Jerry nodded. “Yessir.”

  “You may call me Boss,” said Fidelou. “Hiram, take him to the garage. And bring me a rabbit. I am hungry.”

  Uncle Gabe was looking for Nick with a flashlight. He must have been drunk, because the light flashed across Nick’s eyes as he swung it every which way. In his hiding place, Nick breathed as softly as someone whose heart is thudding like a piston can breathe.

  It wasn’t softly enough. The light swung into his eyes and held. Uncle Gabe’s hand, big as a giant’s, spread over his head and . . .

  Nick struggled upright, panting. Sunlight streamed through the blue-checked curtains onto the pillow. He wasn’t in Beaton at all. That was a good thing. Except that he’d missed morning chores and breakfast wasn’t ready and Smallbone was very particular about breakfast being ready when he came downstairs. The last time he’d overslept, the old man had made Nick’s teeth grow until he couldn’t eat anything at all.

  Stupid dreams. It wasn’t like Uncle Gabe was going to come after him. Uncle Gabe considered him a waste of time, space, and Dinty Moore stew. The only reason he put up with him was because he’d promised his sister he’d take care of her little boy. No, Nick thought as he scrambled into his clothes, he was free from Uncle Gabe. He had Smallbone instead, who was probably downstairs planning something special.

  When Nick got to the kitchen, a pot of porridge was plopping gently to itself on the black stove. Smallbone had added a long mud-colored muffler to his black coat and top hat and was packing a small basket. He closed the lid and gave Nick a long-toothed and, under the circumstances, sinister grin.

  “Land o’ Goshen, Foxkin, you look like somebody left a dead mouse in your bed. That’s no way to look on New Year’s Day! I’m going fishing. Seeing as I already seen to the animals and you worked near half the night, you can take the day off.”

  Nick looked at the calendar. It had a new picture — of a covered bridge this time — and January 1 was circled in red pencil.

  Smallbone slung the basket over his shoulder and collected a long rod from the corner. “Stay clear of my tower,” he said. “If I find out you’ve been near it, I’ll turn you into a slug and salt you.” Then he whistled to Mutt and Jeff and followed them out into the bright coldness. Through the back window, Nick watched him trudge toward the wood, the dogs bounding ahead of him, black as licorice against the drifts. As the old man walked, the snow fountained out of his way as if he were using a snowblower.

  I want to do that, Nick thought. Maybe he could learn from one of those books he’d seen in the bookshop when he was cleaning it. In any case, he’d like to get a look at 100 Uses for a Dead Man’s Hand.

  He ran into the bookshop and looked at the MYSTERY section, where he thought he’d seen it. It wasn’t there. Nor was Recipes Every Witch Should Know in COOKING or How to Catch a Leprechaun in FOLKLORE. Even ARCANA was stocked with nothing but books on the kind of magic that includes card tricks, disappearing handkerchiefs, and pulling rabbits out of hats.

  Disgusted, Nick pulled The Hobbit out of SPECULATIVE FICTION and looked around for somewhere to read it. There wasn’t one. And the bookshop, though clean, was cold, bare, and gloomy. He could just hear his mom saying it needed some cozying up. A rug, curtains, a chair or two, some lamps and tables to put them on would make it into a place you’d actually want to hang out in.

  Evil Wizard Books had lots of rooms. There had to be stuff in them he could use.

  Nick was not a kid to let grass grow under his feet. He ran upstairs and started opening doors. Most of the rooms were furnished like his, with a bed and a chest of drawers and not much else. Pushing his explorations farther, he found a little sitting room with a flowery rug, which he rolled up, dragged down to the shop, and spread in front of the counter.

  He ran back up for an armchair.

  A fancy bedroom with a four-poster bed yielded more chairs, a table, and a brass inkwell shaped like a raven. The next door he tried led to a kid’s room with a crib and a life-size stuffed seal on wooden rockers. It was dusty and dim, and Nick closed the door without going in. There was nothing there he could use anyway.

  Finally he turned a corner and found himself in a hall with gray stone walls. There was one door at the far end, made of heavy oak banded with iron, with an arched top.

  It had to be the door to Smallbone’s tower.

  Blood racing, Nick went up to it and slowly reached one finger toward the latch. A spark leaped out and gave him the kind of electric shock you get after shuffling your feet across a carpet in winter, accompanied by a smell like overheated metal.

  Nick shook his stinging hand and kicked the door, hard. A bolt of miniature lightning caught him on the leg, sharp as a needle.

  So the tower was guarded. He wasn’t surprised. He was, however, hungry.

  He retraced his steps to the kitchen, made himself a ham sandwich, and went back to work.

  Gradually, the bookshop began to look more welcoming. There were chintz curtains on the windows, chairs in the aisles for reading, a table on the rug, and three milk-glass lamps casting a warm glow over the rows of books. The air smelled pleasantly of lavender soap and lamp oil. Tom, who had been watching the process with interest, curled up on a comfy chair, and Hell Cat humped herself into a furry loaf on the end of the counter.

  Then Nick heard a rattling back in the bookshelves.

  The nape of his neck began to prickle.

  He picked up a lamp and followed the sound to the section labeled CHILDREN — USEFUL, and listened. Whatever was making the noise was definitely behind the books on that shelf — there. He raised the lamp, illuminating the nearest titles: Goats Are Fun!, How to Sew an Apron, E-Z Spelz for Little Wizardz.

  E-Z Spelz for Little Wizardz?

  Nick reached for the book. The spine felt warm and buzzed under his fingers slightly, like a tiny motor. He pulled it down.

  The cover was bright blue, with a neon-yellow wand and a sparkly red star under the title. A little-kid book, but a magic little-kid book. He opened it.

  CHAPTER ONE: So You Want to Be a Wizard.

  Warning!! A young magic worker should never try a spell without an experienced witch or wizard present to explain things and prevent accidents.

  Nick had himself a good laugh over that.

  Don’t laugh. Magic is dangerous stuff, you know. There�
��s still time to change your mind.

  “I won’t,” he said, then felt like a ding-a-ling for talking to a book. But wasn’t the book talking to him? He read on.

  Magic isn’t anything very special. Almost anybody can learn to do magic, just like almost anybody can learn to throw a ball. But to be really good, you need something extra. It’s the same with magic. If you want to be a witch or a wizard, the first thing you need is TALENT.

  Reading this book proves you have more magical talent than most. Congratulations.

  HOWEVER. Being a wizard takes more than talent.

  You have to really WANT to be a wizard. You can’t think maybe you’d rather be an engineer or a superstar. You have to believe a cat can be a king and pigs can fly, and a million other things most people think are impossible. You have to know those things can happen, then make them so. You need WILL.

  Nick grinned to himself. Uncle Gabe always called him pigheaded, and even his mom used to say he was willful, so he guessed he was all set there.

  Once you know it’s possible to turn straw into gold, you have to believe that YOU can do it. You can’t think maybe, probably you can — if you don’t screw it up, if you’re in the mood. You have to know that straw’s going to turn to pure, solid gold every time you tell it to. Truly great wizards know that magic is real because they make it real. They have CONFIDENCE.

  There were lots of things Nick knew he was good at, but none of them seemed very magical. Lying. Stealing. Fighting. Screwing up. Pretending he knew what he was doing. Maybe if he pretended he was confident?

  Bending reality takes a lot of work. When you’re doing magic, you can’t be thinking about lunch or a TV show or what might go wrong. You have to put your whole self — body, mind, and spirit — into doing it right. Spells focus your attention on what you’re doing so that the energy you raise will go where you want it. You need CONCENTRATION.

  Nick flipped ahead. The book was called E-Z Spelz. There had to be some actual spells in here somewhere. Turning straw into gold might be useful.

  The next few pages were blank. Nick kept flipping.

  Lines appeared.

  Magic isn’t like cooking, you know. You can’t just start throwing stuff together and hope it all comes out okay.

  Nick slammed the book shut. The last thing he wanted right now was another one of those lectures on focus and keeping on task and paying attention his teachers were always giving him. The air thickened, and a faint sharp smell, like an electrical short, tickled his nose. He sneezed and peered uneasily into the shadows. There was something there — he knew it, something watching and waiting and judging him.

  Carefully, he opened E-Z Spelz for Little Wizardz with trembling hands. If the book wanted him to read a bunch of preachy rules before he could get to the good stuff, well, he’d read them.

  He didn’t have to follow them all.

  Now, where were we? Oh, yes. CONTROL. As you’ll soon find out, magic is energy, and the energy comes from you. Use too little, nothing happens. Use too much, you’ll use it up quicker. Use it wrong, you can do a lot of damage. Here are a few examples of what can happen if you miscast a spell. I hope you have a strong stomach. You’ll need it.

  There followed pages and pages of what could go wrong if a Little Wizard was weak on Concentration and Control. With sick fascination, Nick read about explosions, fires, tempests, and floods. “Inversion” seemed to mean people’s skin turning inside out. There were pictures.

  The list ended with “Death” and “Dismemberment.”

  Just when he thought things couldn’t get any weirder, the next page contained an Aptitude Test. It wasn’t like any test he’d had at Beaton Middle School.

  1. Place your thumbs on your two favorite letters on this page.

  2. Think of your worst enemy.

  Wow. He’s bad, all right.

  3. Think about what you would do if he was hanging off a cliff by his thumbs.

  4. Pull a hair out of your head.

  5. Tie a knot in it and put it in this circle: O

  6. Say “Shelley Sells Sheep to Silly Sharks” six times fast.

  And so on, for five pages.

  When he got to the end, a neat paragraph appeared.

  Your Will is off the charts, but you already knew that. Your Confidence is a sometimes thing, and your Control and your Concentration both stink. As does your sense of self-preservation. It’s getting dark. Do you want the old man to catch you? Oh, and you might want to cut up some potatoes for dinner. Boiled potatoes go well with fish.

  Dinah Smallbone was getting impatient.

  More than two weeks had passed since the Howling Coyotes had hit Smallbone Cove Mercantile. Somehow everybody in town knew all about it, and they were considerably exercised. This sort of thing wasn’t supposed to happen in Smallbone Cove. Wasn’t it the evil wizard’s job to protect them? What about the magical Sentries that were supposed to keep them safe? Lily called a Town Meeting in the white church to talk it over.

  Miss Rachel Smallbone suggested that the townsfolk walk the Town Limits and sing to the Sentries, the way her parents used to do. Ham Smallbone said no full-grown man would be caught dead tromping around the woods in the middle of winter, singing to stone walls and streams. Jezebel Smallbone pointed out that nobody knew what the songs were, anyway, unless Miss Rachel happened to remember. Miss Rachel said, rather huffily, that she’d been a child when the custom fell into disuse, but she was looking into it.

  Bildad Smallbone, who owned the Three Bags Full knitting shop, said the Sentries were wizard business and it was up to the Wizard Smallbone to see that they worked right.

  “It’s in the Contract, ain’t it? That he gotta take care of us?”

  Miss Rachel gave Bildad a look over the tops of her spectacles. “You ever read the Contract? Keeping the Sentries strong is our responsibility.”

  “It says we got to farm his land and work in his house and give him a portion of our daily catch, too.” Saul Smallbone thought the evil wizard was a thief and a tyrant and didn’t care who knew it. “But we don’t, and he hasn’t done nothing about it. What do you say to that?”

  Then Ham asked if anybody had noticed that they were in the middle of the worst winter in living memory. “I’m not going out in that,” he said, pointing at the sleet whipping sideways past the windows. “And neither is old Smallbone — or the bikers or anything else. At least let’s wait until the weather lets up.”

  Miss Rachel threw her hands in the air and wheeled herself out of the church.

  They discussed it a while longer, but in the end, they decided to do what Ham had suggested. Nothing.

  On the first day it wasn’t actually snowing, Dinah put on long johns and a parka and boots and set out on the path that led to the Stream to investigate.

  The Stream wasn’t flowing. It was covered with snow.

  That never happened. In Smallbone Cove, “As long as the Stream flows” was the same thing as saying “Forever.” Dinah knew she should run back and tell everyone. But Dinah was a scientist down to her bones, and no scientist worth her microscope would theorize in the absence of hard data. She wasn’t going anywhere until she knew whether the ice was just on the surface or went all the way down, in case that made a difference to whether the Stream was completely broken or only kind of broken, like a car that wouldn’t start when it was raining.

  Poking at the ice with a stick told her nothing, dropping a stone on it very little more. Dinah stepped onto the snowy ice, her heart racing. The Stream wasn’t all that wide. Ten good steps, and she’d be outside the Town Limits.

  There were all kinds of schoolyard theories about what happened to Smallbone Covers who tried to cross the Town Limits. You’d explode or go up in flames. You’d turn into a frog or a fish or a snapping turtle or a tree or a rock. Older kids dared one another to wade to the middle of the Stream or climb the Wall or cross the Stone Bridge that connected Smallbone Cove to the county road. Some of the bolder ones even took the
dare. But nobody ever came anywhere near succeeding. First they’d get dizzy, and then their skin would start to twitch and prickle. If they kept going, they’d fall over like they were having a fit, and somebody would have to pull them back.

  It was the sort of thing nobody tried twice.

  Dinah had never tried at all. She was curious, not stupid.

  But now, in the interest of science, she shuffled slowly over the frozen Stream, testing each step for creaking or cracking. She was almost halfway across when her foot hit something that felt horribly like a dead animal. She squeaked and jumped back — because she was all wound up, not because she was grossed out by dead animals. Scientists did not get grossed out. Last summer, she’d recorded the gradual decomposition of a dead skunk from flies through maggots to bones.

  Dinah brushed the snow away, revealing an untidy bundle of fur, stiff with ice but not completely frozen. Poking it with a stick told her there wasn’t an actual animal inside it.

  This was even better than the skunk. Carefully, she spread out the crackly pelt. It was perfectly preserved, head and legs and tail still attached, no tears or holes or ragged edges. It was a pretty color, too, cream and sand and black all mixed, with a long fluffy black tail. She’d take it home, maybe put it in her bedroom for a rug. She’d have to get the smell out, though. Even in the cold, she was aware of it. Not bad, exactly, but pungent, like the smell of seaweed at low tide.

  She threw it over her shoulders.

  What happened next was not something Dinah was ever able to remember clearly. One minute, she was gagging and trying to throw off the horrible thing. The next, an icy agony was stabbing into her forefeet, forcing her to dance backward, yipping with pain, until she was back on the shore she’d just left.

  Whimpering, the young coyote licked her paws until they stopped tingling, then got up and lifted her nose to the air.