The Evil Wizard Smallbone Read Online Free PDF Page A

he said.
    Dinah crowned his checker. The buzzing grew louder.
    “Bikers,” her dad remarked. “Funny time of year for them.” He jumped his king across the board, capturing all Dinah’s checkers.
    “Aw, Dad!”
    The buzzing swelled to a coughing roar, then cut off. As her father reset the checkers, the Mercantile’s glass door flew open, letting in a blast of frigid air and two men in brown leather jackets.
    Dinah shivered, and it wasn’t just the chill. She’d always thought of herself as brave, and she was, about things like skinned knees and worms and climbing trees and swimming out over her head. But there was something about those bikers that made her skin crawl. They were dirty and skinny and they smelled terrible — not just BO terrible, but like they’d been rolling in something old and rotting. It was all she could do not to retch.
    “Afternoon,” Lily said in a bright shopkeeper’s voice. “Can I get you folks anything?”
    The bigger of the two bikers went up to the counter and leaned on it. There was a picture of a howling coyote on the back of his jacket, under the words HOWLING COYOTES painted in spiky yellow letters, outlined in red. “A pack of smokes and some beef jerky.”
    “I’m sorry.” Lily sounded anything but. “We don’t sell cigarettes and we don’t sell meat. You’ll have to go to Blue Hill, I’m afraid.”
    The second biker’s eyes narrowed, mean as a junkyard dog’s. “That’s funny. I smell meat.”
    “Special order,” Lily said.
    He bared his teeth. “Sure it is. For us.”
    “Hand it over, honey,” the first biker said, “and nobody’ll get hurt.”
    Dinah’s dad jumped to his feet, sending the checkerboard flying and the checkers rolling across the floor. His face was flushed and he was snarling. Dinah had never seen him so mad.
    “Back off!” he barked.
    The big biker laughed. “Who’s going to make me? Sit down, fatty, or Sid here will take a bite out of you.”
    The second biker growled and lunged, teeth bared. Zery Smallbone plopped back into his chair, panting. Dinah released her breath in a frightened little puff.
    “Meat’s in the freezer in the storeroom,” said her mom, her voice even colder than the freezer.
    The big biker turned to his companion. “You heard the lady.”
    Helplessly, Dinah and her parents watched as the Howling Coyotes took every bit of Smallbone’s special order, threw it all into plastic bags, and screeched away in a cloud of black exhaust, leaving a tense silence behind them.
    “
Dang
it,” Lily said shakily. “That kind of thing isn’t supposed to happen. It’s in the Contract. No mosquitoes, no snakes, no drugs, no shoplifters, no tax collectors, and no scruffy, no-good, vagabond thieves, with or without motorcycles!”
    Zery got up and hugged her and Dinah. “There’s something bad wrong.”
    “Will Smallbone fix it?” Dinah asked.
    “It’s not that simple, honey,” her mom said. “For Smallbone to fix it, somebody has to tell him it’s broken. Which means somebody has to go to Evil Wizard Books and knock on his door and stand in that horrible dark old bookshop with the spiders and the rotting books and tell him something’s gone wrong with his magical Sentries. And that his Christmas ham is gone. If all he does is turn us into frogs, we’ll be getting off easy. No, I think I’d rather deal with the Howling Coyotes.”
    Zery said, “You’ll have to tell him sooner or later, when he comes for the meat.”
    “Even he’s not going to be running to town in this weather. With any luck, I’ll get it replaced before he shows up. In any case, I’d rather tell him on my turf than his.”
    “It’s all his turf,” Zery reminded her.
    “I know, but at least this part of it is clean.” Lily sighed. “If those bikers come around again, I’ll reconsider. In the meantime, let’s just call the meat their Christmas present and go down to Eb’s for dinner. I hear he’s making gravlax.”

N ick was on