The Runaway Spell Read Online Free PDF Page A

read a title more carefully, and it paused before moving on. What would she give for time to read all of these books! Especially
Revengewith Rutabagas and Other Produce Concoctions Your Tutor Never Taught You.
    B giggled. She’d have to remember that one for later.
    Halfway up the tower, when B was starting to feel a touch of vertigo from the dizzying height, her ladder stopped in front of a dragon-scale green–covered book called
Undoing Magic Spells.
    This is it!
B felt a wave of relief. Here at her fingertips was the information she needed to turn George back into himself.
    “How did you know what I needed?” B whispered to the ladder, but it didn’t answer.
    She reached for the book, but a shimmery film suddenly appeared, blocking her fingers. It was soft to the touch, and it looked no thicker than spiderwebs, but it would neither yield nor let B grab the volume.
    B pulled her hand away, and the film vanished.
    She reached up again, and the magical barrier zapped her!
    “Ow!”
    “Ahem.”
B looked down to see an older witch in maroon robes whose ladder was swiveling past just underneath B’s. Her lips were pinched tightly together, her face disapproving. B lowered her hand and looked around the room in what she hoped was an innocent way until the maroon witch’s ladder passed.
    Only then did she realize that the people on ladders weren’t removing books from the shelves. They were only browsing. When they got off the ladders, they lined up in front of the circulation desk, where they waited for a turn to browse the hundreds of tiny card catalog drawers. B stepped down for a closer view, and noticed her ladder shrinking as she did so.
    “Thanks again,” she told it when it was little more than a footstool. She could have sworn it nodded, in a laddery sort of way.

Chapter 7
    B stood, watching the other witches in the library, wondering how she was going to get to that book, when Mr. Bishop appeared at her side.
    “Hi, Mr. Bishop,” B said. “Did you have fun with Dirk?”
    “Hah,” her teacher said, rubbing his arm. “I’m lucky I survived. How’d you make out?”
    “I’ve had a good look, but why can’t I take books off the shelves?”
    Mr. Bishop smiled. “It used to be that you could take any book off the shelves,” he explained, “but just like other libraries, there were problems with books not coming back on time, books getting lost, et cetera. Then, the librarians put overdue curseson the books, giving borrowers purple pimples or itchy rashes, but the nineteen twenty-nine Council on Witch Rights decided that was unethical. So, now we do things differently.”
    “Meaning, you don’t let the books off the shelves?”
    Mr. Bishop laughed. “No, no. Look around you!” He pointed toward dozens of witches, seated at tables and reading. “The way we do it is …” He snapped his fingers. “Better yet, I’ll let you figure it out. You’re a word fan. You’ll love this.”
    They approached the card catalog and stood where they could watch. B saw each witch approach the shelves in turn, pull open an alphabetized drawer, and speak some words — perhaps the title of a book?
    B peered around the arm of a tall witch dressed in yellow to watch more closely. Out from the card catalog drawer poured a silky gray vapor that formed into a cloud. Inside the cloud, a hazy face appeared, its hair pulled back into a tight bun, with bifocals on a string perched on the end of its nose.
    “Your selection, please?” the face said.
    The witch who had summoned the librarian’s head spoke. “Fleeciest Sulphur Show Too.”
    Huh?
B glanced up at Mr. Bishop, but he only grinned at her. He wasn’t giving her any clues.
    The librarian’s face nodded, and the witch making the request stepped to the end of a table while the head in the cloud zoomed through the air, reaching nearly to the topmost stacks.
    Fleeciest Sulphur Show Too?
B thought. It could be the name of a witching book, but what on earth could it