by Debi Gliori
“Nearly there,” gasped Tarantella.
At last they arrived in a challenged version of the modem at StregaSchloss. Puddles of plastic oozed from the ceiling, melting giant lentils swayed on red-hot legs, giant wires glowed white beneath their feet, and they ran in the direction of the light.
The squeaking grew louder. Signor Strega-Borgia slumped in front of the screen. To the smell of melting plastic would soon be added the odor of crispy rat. It was unbearable. He buried his face in his hands and wept.
Through his tears, he saw something tiny move by the modem. Something small, growing bigger … and bigger … and bigger … with each blink of his unbelieving eyes. It yelled. It wailed. It groaned. “DAD!”
“Bwaaaaaaa …”
“Oh Lord, here we go again, pat pat, rock rock, soothe, pat.”
“PanDORA!” screamed Signor Strega-Borgia, automatically brushing the spider off his desk. “DAMP!”
“Don’t mind me,” muttered Tarantella, “I’m just the substitute nanny. What’s the odd broken leg when one has so many.… OUCH! This floor’s roasting!”
She sprang onto an unmelted chair and glared at the tender reunion taking place in front of her.
“Oh, DAD.”
“Oh, DARLINGS, oh, my little girls, Pandora, Damp.”
Not so little, Pandora thought with relief. In fact, normal size, thank heavens.
“Great,” said the spider, “now that we’ve established who we all are, can we leave? Please? I, for one, am not equipped for such a heat wave.”
“We have to get out of here,” said Pandora, looking doubtfully at her wand.
Tarantella began a slow handclap.
Six uses only, it had said. In a panic, Pandora counted: One—Pronto/Wormwood, Two—herself (huge), three—herself (normal), four—herself (microscopic), five—Damp, Tarantella, and herself (normal). She needed to use it two more times. Once to shrink them all for the journey home, and one last time to return them to life-sized once they arrived safely at StregaSchloss. That made seven. She bit her lip and decided.
“We have to risk it. Hold Damp, grab on to me, and …”
Tarantella jumped into Pandora’s arms. Signor Strega-Borgia grabbed Damp. The door to the computer room burst into flames.
“QUICK!” screamed Pandora. “Hold on TIGHT!”
She spun the wand, round and round, faster and faster. Damp opened her mouth wide and screamed. Blinding smoke poured into the room. Tarantella choked and spluttered, and in her panic, wrapped all eight of her legs tightly round Pandora’s nose.
Faster and faster. In the computer room, the lights flickered and went out.
“RUN!” yelled Pandora.
Coughing and sobbing, they waded through the melting modem, fell down the tunnel and out onto the ledge. With a final howl from the terrified Damp, they threw themselves off the ledge, and fell screaming, down into the stream of traffic.
A Bit of a Mix-up
Signora Strega-Borgia sat chewing her fingernails, peering at the screen on Titus’s computer. For the tenth time, she asked, “How long now? D’you think they’ll be all right? Can’t you send me too?”
Titus groaned.
“I can’t stand this. Waiting, just waiting. Doing nothing. It’s unbearable.…” She trailed off, hiccuped twice, and devoured another fingernail. Mrs. McLachlan silently refilled her employer’s coffee cup.
Across the room, Latch tied a final knot in the rope binding the transformed Pronto. “And that’ll put a bend in your chanter,” he muttered to his captive.
Signora Strega-Borgia wiped her nose on her sleeve and began again. “Titus? How long now? D’you think—”
“MUM!”
“Sorry. I just can’t stand this.…” She gulped another mouthful of coffee.
“Yes. You’ve told me. Ten times. Waiting. Just waiting. Doing nothing.”
“Titus, just because you once found me rolling around in a hot toddy–induced stupor, doesn’t mean that you can treat me like an imbecile for the rest of time.…”
Titus glared at his mother.
“It was a mistake, Titus. People make mistakes. Your father and I made a mistake when we split up. Mrs. McLachlan made a mistake and turned that … that creature into a set of bagpipes.…”
“Sab made a mistake,” added Latch helpfully.
Mrs. McLachlan glared at him. Not now, she mouthed.
“Um, er, no, he didn’t,” amended Latch. “I’m mistaken.”
“I made a mistake,” admitted Titus. “I sneezed my baby sister into the modem and sent her … sent her …” He burst into tears.
“Oh, Titus.” Signora Strega-Borgia wrapped her arms round her son’s shaking shoulders. “Oh, my dear, it was all a big mistake.… What’s that?”
“What?” sniffed Titus.
“On your computer television thingy.” She flapped vaguely at the screen. YOU HAVE MAIL.
“Pandora!” yelled Titus. “She’s BACK!” His fingers flew over the keys, downloading the incoming mail and opening it as far as he could. “Stand back,” he warned. “Don’t breathe.”
Signora Strega-Borgia sneezed carefully over her left shoulder. A large gobbet of goo flew across the room and landed on the fallen Pronto.
“Perfect,” said Latch, with deep satisfaction.
“Oh my,” breathed Titus, backing away from the footstool on which the modem sat. “Oh MY.”
Appearing in front of him was an odd assortment of tiny shapes.
“Mum … it’s them,” he said in an awed voice. “They’re back, but they’re the wrong size. They’re too wee.”
The tiny shapes waved and squeaked.
“Let me deal with this,” said Signora Strega-Borgia, producing a wand from her pocket. “I’ll soon have them back to life-sized.” She began to mutter under her breath in Latin, passing her wand in careful circles and loops over the heads of her miniaturized family. The tiny shapes grew bigger and bigger.
“Um … Mum, something’s gone wrong,” said Titus in alarm. “Remember what you were saying about mistakes?”
The tiny shapes were now life-sized. Behind Titus, Mrs. McLachlan buried her head in her hands. Signora Strega-Borgia’s face turned an unhealthy shade of gray.
“Oh, Pandora,” said Titus sadly.
“What?” she yelled. “What now?” She followed Titus’s gaze downward to where her feet should have been. “Aaaargh! What are those?”
“Legs,” said Titus helpfully. “Eight of them.”
“Oh NO,” wailed Pandora. “Look at Dad!”
“What’s wrong with me?” said Signor Strega-Borgia.
“Shall I tell him, or will you?” said Titus to his sister.
“Darling,” breathed Signora Strega-Borgia, “your bottom half appears to have been confused with that of our littlest daughter.…”
“My bottom half …,” Signor Strega-Borgia repeated, looking down. “Oh yeuuchh, excuse me, I need a diaper change.”
“And Dad, um … while you’re about it,” said Titus, blushing deep crimson, “you’re wearing lipstick.…”
“Somehow, I don’t think I’m exactly cutting a dashing figure, what with a soggy bum and fuchsia-pink lips.…”
“I don’t care what you’re wearing,” said Signora Strega-Borgia loyally. “I’m just so glad to have you home.”
“Oh, baby,” cooed Mrs. McLachlan. “My little … no, my large Damp … come to Nanny, pet.”
Blissfully unaware that she’d been transformed into an adult-sized infant, Damp stopped in mid-whimper and crawled toward her beloved nanny.
“Poor wee mite,” said Mrs. McLachlan irrelevantly. “Let’s see if we can find you something to eat.”
“Better make that an adult portion,” suggested Titus as the huge baby crawled slowly across the room.
“What about meEEEEE?” moaned Tarantella, crashing to the floor with a squawk. “How you bipeds manage with only two legs, I cannot imagine.”
“Those are my legs,”
said Pandora, in a voice that indicated they were only out on a temporary loan.
“And all eight of those fine furry ones that you’re wearing are mine.”
“I’d better see if I can find some spells in one of my textbooks to undo this muddle,” said Signora Strega-Borgia.
“Later,” said her husband, wrapping his arms around her and their two older children. “Magic can wait. Right now, we have all the magic we need.…”
Amen to that, Mrs. McLachlan silently avowed, leading the enormous Damp through the door and closing it behind her.
Husband and wife hugged each other long and hard, squeezing tight, not ever wanting to let go. Titus found his eyes watering alarmingly.
Latch hoisted the ex-Pronto onto his shoulders and coughed tactfully. “Sir … modom … shall I put this in the attic for now? I imagine we shan’t be needing it for some time?”
“I’m determined to get the hang of this,” Tarantella muttered under her breath as, using the wall for support, she followed Latch out of the bedroom.
“Such an unflattering shade of pink,” said Signora Strega-Borgia, tenderly wiping lipstick off her husband’s mouth.
I haven’t seen her look this happy for … oh, ages, thought Pandora.
“Come on,” muttered Titus, pulling his sister out of the bedroom and closing the door behind him. “They don’t need us right now.”
“But, but … I need Mum,” wailed Pandora, waving a hairy leg for emphasis. “She’s the only one who can sort me out. Look, six surplus legs.…”
“Later,” said Titus firmly, dragging her down the corridor. “Meanwhile, we have a few small matters to sort out.”
“Like what?” Pandora’s voice came from the ceiling. “Hey … being half spider, half human isn’t all bad, you know. Look at MEEEEE.”
She scuttled along the cornice and with a nimble leap, hung upside down from a chandelier. Titus refused to be impressed.
“Like what happened to our wager?” he insisted. “Remember? Tock? The ratlets?”
Pandora abruptly let herself down to the floor on a rope of spider silk. “Suddenly,” she said, “I’ve got an overwhelming desire for a nice crunchy bluebottle … or a sun-dried daddy longlegs.”
“Stop trying to change the subject.”
“Titus, I can’t swim the moat right now, can I? Think about it. Spiders hate water. All that Itsy-Bitsy up the waterspout is nonsense. Show me a swimming spider and I’ll show you a little bedraggled ball of ex-arachnid.”
“Absolutely,” agreed Tarantella, dropping into the conversation from the floor above. “What are we talking about? Remind me—why does she have to swim the moat?”
Titus shuddered. As if his transformed sister wasn’t bad enough, here was that revolting tarantula again. He took a deep breath and began, “We had a bet. She had five days to find Multitudina’s babies, or else she had to swim one lap of the moat.”
“Them,” spat Tarantella, “those vile rodentettes? Those squeaky pink nastinesses? Well … that’s easy. She has found them.”
“She has?” said Titus.
“I have?” said Pandora.
“You have,” Tarantella said firmly. “Think back. While we were enjoying the delights of exceeding the speed limit on the Web, we had a near collision. D’you recall? Coming toward us? Faster than a sneeze? Speed of light and all that stuff?”
Pandora’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, that was them. I wondered why they seemed so familiar.…”
Tarantella dangled from the ceiling, her twin legs tightly folded round her body. “So let’s have no more talk of moats”—she shivered—”or spiders in baths”—she shuddered—”and especially not that verminous baggage and her unspeakable offspring.”
“So I did find them,” said Pandora wonderingly. She felt … oh, light, airy. Her body appeared to be filling up with millions of tiny bubbles. No bet, no moat, no CROCODILE! She extruded several feet of spider silk and launched herself off the banister into the lofty heights of the stairwell. “FREEEEEEEeeeeee!” she yelled as she vanished from sight.
Tarantella sighed. Still such a drama queen. Noise and theatrics. And, she decided, the girl has a lot to learn about spinning silk. She gazed at Titus. His mouth opened and shut and opened again.
“All I want to know is what happened to them? Where did they go?”
“I neither know, nor do I care,” said the spider. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going home.” Lurching inexpertly on her two new legs, Tarantella headed for her attic.
A Simple Twist of Fate
Professore Flense-Filleto removed his surgeon’s gloves with an audible snap and dropped them in a garbage can. Over the green surgical mask, his eyes were red-rimmed with exhaustion. The operation had not been a success. In fact, due to a computer failure, it had been a disaster.
On the other side of the recovery room, the anesthesiologist frowned at his equipment and tapped it with a rubber-gloved finger. “Useless machine,” he muttered, giving it a good kick. The heart monitor sprang to life, disgorging one hundred feet of graph paper from its chittering innards. “That’s better,” said the anesthesiologist, scanning the printout. He patted a bandaged form lying on a gurney nearby. “Thought you’d died on me for a minute.…”
The nurse looked up from where she was counting blood-smeared scalpels onto a tray. “When he wakes up, he’ll probably wish he had.”
The professore groaned and massaged the bridge of his nose. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, nurse.”
The hospital orderly stopped disinfecting the floor and languidly rinsed his mop in a rusted steel bucket. Pink-tinged water slopped out over its side. “What a massacre,” he moaned, “blood everywhere … d’you have to be so sloppy? This job’s taking me twice as long as usual, and I’m still not done yet.…”
“All right, ALL RIGHT!” yelled the professore. “So. I make a mistake, huh? We all make mistakes. Nobody is perfect. My father—rest his soul—always said to me as he filleted the pork bellies and the lamb shanks and the ox hearts, in this life, sonny, nobody’s perfect … not even your mama.”
“Hey, come on,” said the anesthesiologist, “lighten up. It’s hardly your fault, Professore. So there was a major fault with the computer linkup, right?” Despite the silence that greeted this question, he warmed to his theme. “So there’s a bunch of nomadic rodents on the Net, right? And they get mixed up in the computer-generated model we’re working from to remodel this guy’s face, right? Not your fault. So this guy wakes up, right?” He prodded the silent body on the gurney. “He looks in the mirror and he goes, ‘WHAT’S THIS?’ and he sues you, right? You sue the computer company, right? The computer company sues its supplier of microprocessors—”
“Right?” interrupted the professore, catching on at last.
“The supplier of microprocessors fires a worker on its assembly line.” The anesthesiologist paused for effect.
“RIGHT!” chorused the nurse and the orderly.
“And …,” the anesthesiologist added, “the worker on the assembly line goes home and yells at the wife and kids …”
“He’s coming round,” warned the nurse.
Don di S’Embowelli Borgia was swimming in a blood-filled fish tank. Suspended, drifting in claustrophobic redness around him were the skeletons of the hapless Ragu plus countless other bodies whose lives the Don had taken. He thrashed and gargled, trying to reach the surface … the light … the air.… Squeaking pitifully, he exploded into daylight … into an echoing steel nightmare with his senses magnified a hundredfold. The smell of disinfectant burned his bandaged nose, the light seared his bandaged eyes, and every noise crashed and boomed like thunder in his ears.
Nearby came an oceanic splashing followed by a rhythmic swish swish, then a voice grated in his ear, “If I was you, signor, I’d sue them for everything.…”
“Squeak, eek, squee?” said the Don.
“Feeling better, signor?” This new voice was accompanied by a deluge of cheap p
erfume. “Don’t try to say anything just yet.”
“Squeee! SQUEAK, EEE, eek!” said the Don.
“Bad luck, old chap,” said a third voice, growing painfully loud as its owner approached where the Don lay. “We ran into some little problems during your operation, but nothing that we can’t sort out with two years of intensive corrective surgery.…”
“Eek, EEEK SQUEEE,” shrieked the Don, thrashing his bandaged head from side to side.
“NURSE!” yelled the anesthesiologist. “Hold his head, I’m going to put him under again.”
The Don’s plaintive squeakings grew fainter as he slipped back underneath the red tide again, his new whiskers streaming behind him. Swimming, he decided, was easier when you used your pink tail as a rudder.
Sorted
“Right,” said Signora Strega-Borgia, with a confidence that she didn’t feel. “Let’s get this muddle sorted out.”
The family was gathered in the library at StregaSchloss, smiling for the camera as Pandora took a photograph of them all. “Just one last one, Mum, but with me in it,” she said, passing the camera to her mother and scuttling across the floor and up the wall to dangle upside down from the cornice.
Tarantella crossed and recrossed her human legs and rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on,” she demanded peevishly, “I was halfway through the most delicious dinner when you dragged me back down here.”
“SMILE,” said Signora Strega-Borgia. They smiled and the camera captured the moment forever: Signor Strega-Borgia standing, one arm on the mantelpiece, clad in a dry diaper; Tarantella gazing into the camera, with her legs draped over the arm of a chair; Damp asleep, propped up against a pinnacle of books; Titus in his pajamas, affecting total boredom as Pandora swung back and forth in front of him, suspended on a lumpy length of spider silk.…
Did it flash? wondered Signora Strega-Borgia to herself, peering into the lens of the camera, before laying it down on a nearby chair.
The mantelpiece clock began to chime midnight.
“Now … um, let’s see if I can understand this.” Signora Strega-Borgia leafed through an enormous leather-bound book, chewing the end of her wand thoughtfully.
