Ravenspell Book 2: The Wizard of Ooze Read Online Free PDF Page B

scents of the earth—ripening oat grass and vetch, muddy soil and bitter pinecones. Everything smelled so much stronger and more alive than it had when he was a human.
    Perhaps, he thought, it is because as a mouse, my nose is always close to things—close to stink beetles that skulk about in the dark, close to the dirt and the dandelions.
    And so in the night he found some wild strawberries by scent alone. They were on a bare patch of ground beside the river. The berries would have been tiny for a human, the size of the nail on Ben’s little finger. But one ripe strawberry was a feast for a mouse.
    The night was uneventful for Ben, except as a small adventure. He couldn’t feel whether any magic was rubbing off on him. Only once, when they entered some dense woods and wandered through a grove of twisted yellow mushrooms, did Ben feel any profound silence, any sense that he might be in a place ripe with magic.
    But it might have just been the quiet of the forest.
    And so, as they traveled in almost total silence, Ben was free to think.
    Benjamin Ravenspell wasn’t the kind of kid who had ever wanted to take over the world. Ben had never lain in bed at night plotting how to overthrow the town council, never imagined sending fleets of tanks across the Oregon border to capture Idaho. He hadn’t even wanted to run for class president at his school.
    But now Amber wanted him to come up with a plan for world conquest, so he had a lot on his mind.
    How can we take over the world? he wondered. Mice don’t have guns or tanks, but Amber does have magic powers. There are things that she can do that no human could.
    For example, if Amber wanted, she could command an army of ants to attack a neighboring country or send out fleets of jellyfish to take over an enemy harbor or use swarms of mosquitoes as an air force.
    In fact, Ben realized, humans never really thought about taking over the world in terms of conquering other animals. When they talked about taking over the world, it just meant that they wanted to beat up on other men.
    They never wanted to subdue tribes of gorillas, never talked about brainwashing herds of deer.
    But Amber could take control of other animals in ways that humans had never considered. She could even do spurious things. Why, if Amber wanted to, she could command the mindless devotion of all the world’s garden slugs!
    Not that it would be a good thing, Ben thought. But there might be better things that Amber could do. For example, he imagined Amber riding on an elephant, a powerful elephant that could trample on Army Jeeps and turn over tanks!
    That would be cool. And if she learned to raise the dead, why, she might even bring back some dinosaurs to ride. Ben imagined himself on the back of a T. rex as it rampaged through the business district of Salem, Oregon.
    Dew had begun to collect on the grass when Lady Blackpool called a halt to their journey. They were high in the hills, near a puddle so small that only a mouse would think of it as a pond. Moonlight shone upon it, silvering its edges, and its surface reflected stars like a mirror. Deep, spongy moss grew around the pool in a broad expanse, and cattail reeds rose high in a circle, concealing the mice from every direction except from the air above. A single water strider danced upon the water.
    “What we do now must be done in darkness,” Lady Blackpool announced dramatically. “And beware. There are dangers involved. I’m attempting to spy upon a powerful wizard. If you make any noise, he will be able to hear you, and he may attack. Do not speak. Do not cough. It would be helpful if you didn’t even breathe.”
    Everyone stopped and looked at Thorn, who peered about fearfully.
    Ben had learned over the past day that Thorn was a noise machine. If he wasn’t tripping or burping, then he was sniffling or humming.
    “Why is everyone looking at me?” Thorn shouted.
    “No reason in particular,” Lady Blackpool said.
    With that, she raised a paw