The Witchy Worries of Abbie Adams

by Rhonda Hayter

  I didn’t mind really, but I might have been a tiny bit jealous that Mrs. Drake thought that Tom was too grown-up for her to make chocolates come out of his ears. You know what I mean? I guess I kinda wished she saw me as grown-up too.

  Meanwhile, Dean Wilkins was teaching his new incantations to the Mather triplets. Even though these three tough guys weren’t exactly the type to get excited, they actually cracked a smile for once, and Thaddeus told Dean Wilkins he might just have revolutionized witchy law enforcement.

  Once everyone was ready, the posse quickly zapped out. This time they didn’t zap back in again till much later in the day, and they came back at slightly different times, because they were all too nervous to calibrate properly. Now everybody had something to eat and Mom and Dad filled us in on what had happened.

  When they arrived at the time and place in 1848, which Mrs. Drake had found, they had disguised themselves as fence posts and trees and stuff like that. Everybody immediately got an unmistakable whiff of the bad magic Mrs. Drake had sensed. Even sensitive witches like my mom can’t always detect individual acts of bad magic, but when there’s a massive misuse of magic like was going on in that town in Ohio, any witch can detect it.

  Mrs. Drake transformed the whole group into a flock of crows and they followed the scent to a laboratory, set up right on the outskirts of town. Dean Wilkins, who’s like a walking fact factory, recognized it immediately as an identical copy of Edison’s lab in Menlo Park, New Jersey, picket fence and all. The way things were actually supposed to happen, that lab didn’t get built until 1876 and it’s where Edison invented so many things that he got over 400 patents in the seven years he worked there. Oh, nothing too important, mind you, just little items like the long-burning lightbulb, the systems to deliver electricity, the phonograph, a mimeograph copy machine, and even a megaphone. Though when I think about how Miss Rogan storms around the schoolyard with her megaphone, yelling “Walk!! Walk!!” to anybody who’s running around having fun, I kind of think we could have done without that one.

  Hey. Doesn’t the fact that he built the Menlo Park lab just go to show you how unimaginative Dr. March Hall really was, despite all the big brainpower he was always bragging about? He couldn’t even think up a lab of his own to build, he had to steal that from Tom too. I wondered if when Dr. March Hall “invented” the phonograph, as he was doubtless intending to do, he’d record himself reciting “Mary Had a Little Lamb” the way Tom had.

  The search party sniffed out all sorts of spells that Dr. March Hall had already cast in the area, all strictly prohibited by witchy law, unless for self-preservation or the protection of another witch. For instance, he’d implanted false memories into the minds of the people in the area so that everyone would think he had lived there for years and that they’d seen him building the lab over time, rather than it just popping into sight, as it actually had.

  That sort of thought manipulation spell requires really entering the minds of people, something that’s a terrible, terrible invasion of privacy. How’d you like some creepy guy like Dr. March Hall poking around in your private thoughts? When witches do things like zap little forgetting spells on people, that’s a necessary and elementary sort of spell that even Munch can do (at least some of the time) and it doesn’t mess with people’s minds much. To actually get in there among another person’s thoughts to create false memories is the worst sort of misuse of magic and if you ask me, it’s just incredibly rude besides.

  With the posse members gathered around my family’s dining room table again, they started to figure out how exactly they were going to capture March Hall. By the time most of the talking and planning had been done, it was long past Munch’s and my bedtimes again, and this time Mom wouldn’t even discuss putting on a refresher spell. Munch had fallen asleep on the couch, so he didn’t complain when Dad carried him to bed, but I couldn’t believe that I wasn’t going to get to see what happened next.

  Still, off to bed I had to go, but Tom, being two measly years older and the subject of all this stuff, got to stay up. Actually, he hardly seemed tired anyway. Some people just don’t seem to need as much sleep as others, I guess, though sometimes while Tom was staying with us I had seen him catch little five-minute naps over the course of the day. Hey, I guess you could call them “cat naps.” Maybe it’s something he learned when he was enchanted.

  I lay in bed with my brain buzzing and wishing, wishing, wishing that I could be a part of it all.

  And now let me just say this. I swear that I absolutely meant to stay in bed and go to sleep like my mother wanted. It’s just that I thought that it would be only fair (and I’m sure you’d agree) that I should get to hear at least something about what the actual strategy was for capturing Dr. March Hall. I mean, it was my kitten he almost stomped, wasn’t it?

  So I snuck out of bed. And really, I just meant for it to be for a moment. But from my bedroom doorway and then, darn it, even from the top of the stairs, all I could hear was a quiet murmur of voices, going on for almost an hour. Then there was a little buzz of activity, and by poking my head over the stair rail, I could see that the whole search party had all popped out at once.

  I could see Tom go into Mom’s office, where his bed was, and Aunt Sophie started coming up the stairs. Yikes! I didn’t have time to run into my room, so I zapped myself into bed and lay there trying not to breathe too hard because I’d had to do it so quickly.

  First I could hear Aunt Sophie going into Munch’s room to make sure he was covered, and then she came into mine. I lay there, as if dead asleep, and she pulled up the covers and gave me a light kiss on the forehead.

  She always smells so good, my aunt Sophie. It’s from some sort of perfume she gets whenever she zaps over to France. Anyway, after she kissed me, she went back downstairs and started cleaning things up and turning down lights. By hooking my feet on the stair railings and lying down flat on the stairs, I could get myself close enough to actually hear what she said when she poked her head into Mom’s office.

  “Tom, lovie. They’ll be needing you at Menlo Park for a bit, so I think you’d better get what rest you can right now. You try to close your eyes and I’ll be just as quiet as a mouse out here.”

  What? I thought. They’re coming back for Tom? Tom is going to get to go to Menlo Park and I’m not???

  I didn’t mean to have these jealous thoughts. But I ask you, how can a person control their thoughts?

  Once, I saw this movie where these kids wanted to sneak out at night, so they stuffed pillows under their blankets to make it look like they were still sleeping in their beds. Actually, come to think of it, I’ve probably seen it about ten different times.

  Well, I hated to use a cliché, so I gave it a little twist of my own, by zapping up a life-sized doll that looked just like me, and tucking it nicely into my bed. Just to be sure that it looked real, I swept the doll’s long brown hair over its face, so that from the doorway or wherever, there’d be no reason to think that it wasn’t really me under there. Of course, if Aunt Sophie decided to plant another kiss on my forehead there’d be a problem, but I figured one good-night kiss a night is probably the usual thing.

  Then, ZAP!! I zapped myself into a whole heap of trouble.

  CHAPTER 31

  I Hitch a Ride I Shouldn’t Take

  Tom didn’t even look startled when I materialized at the foot of his pullout bed in my mom’s office. He wasn’t asleep, of course. He was reading as usual, still with his shoes and sweater on.

  “Yep. I’da bet anything you’d never stay in bed,” he said with a smug little grin.

  “Okay, you got me. I’m a little nosy,” I countered. “Now what the heck’s the big plan?”

  “Crikey, Abbie. It’s all so int’resting. I’ve just been reading up on it. Look here.”

  He showed me the page he was studying in a University Level Witch Textbook.

  I took a look.

  Yikes. There were words like “malfeasance” and phrases like “
bi-level, simultaneous decontamination of inter-dimensional, corruptive machinations.”

  I tried to get my head around what I was reading, but it might as well have been written in Chinese.

  “Okay, genius. Can you explain to me what any of that means?”

  He took the book back from me.

  “Well, I guess what it pretty near means is that I’m going to have to be there when they catch old Mr. Smarty, so that they can do spells on us both at the same time to clean up all the bad magic.

  “But, Abbie,” Tom went on gravely. “You know you’re my true blue friend and a fella never had a better one. Still, I can’t let you come with me, because I am so beholden to your mother and father and I know they don’t want you anywhere near that rotten, wicked man. Crikey. They don’t want me anywhere near him either, but it can’t be helped.”

  I understood. Of course Tom was never going to disobey my parents, or put me into any sort of dangerous position . . .

  And that’s why I wished him luck, said good night to him, zapped out . . . and materialized as a tiny version of myself, right inside his sweater pocket.

  Tom had hardly had time to settle himself back with his book when my mom zapped into his room.

  “Are you ready, sweetheart?” she asked.

  I sank back farther into the warm wool of Tom’s pocket, hoping she was in too much of a rush to sense anything out of place, magically speaking. My hopes came true, because Tom barely had enough time to answer before there was a great whoosh of air, and he found himself in Milan, Ohio, circa 1848. He was standing behind a hedge, a few hundred yards away from the buildings of Thomas Edison’s famous Menlo Park lab.

  Only in this case, it was Dr. Smarty March Hall’s not so famous Menlo Park lab.

  Peeking through the loose weave of the sweater pocket, I recognized the lab from Tom’s and my Google searches. I could also see various bushes, trees, and picket fence posts around it that could possibly be the posse members—or that might just be bushes, trees, and picket fences. Still, Tom and I were so far away from the lab that there was no chance of me seeing what was going on.

  “Hide here for now, dear,” said my mother to Tom worriedly. “The Mathers have warned us that Dr. March Hall may have set up booby traps and we don’t know what to expect just yet. I’ll be back for you the moment we feel it’s safe to get you.”

  My mom zapped away and Tom ducked down into the bushes . . . where I couldn’t see a darned thing from inside his stuffy pocket.

  I couldn’t stand it, I just had to see what was going on. So, shaking with nervousness, and maybe also from a very guilty conscience, I zapped myself out of Tom’s pocket and back to my normal size, behind the lab building, where I found a window near a corner. Back in the distance, I could see Tom, still hunkered down, unaware that he’d ever had a stowaway in his sweater.

  Through the window, I spotted old March Hare, working with glass tubes and wires and things. He had lots of helpers and everybody was busily bustling around and seemed pretty excited about what they were doing. Well, why wouldn’t they be? Hello? They were about to help with one of the most important inventions of all time—the long-burning lightbulb.

  I didn’t have to have a university level witchy education like the one Tom gave himself, to figure out that the most logical way for the ambush of Dr. March Hall to start was for the Mather triplets to get together to throw a gigantic time freeze on the entire lab.

  Sure enough, there was a strange waver in the light. Ants, crawling on the window ledge, froze in place. A beaker, which had just been knocked off a table, hung in space, and the workers in the lab suddenly stood stock-still.

  Because they can move in and out of time freely, witches aren’t susceptible to time freeze spells. So a moment or two after the time freeze took hold, I saw old March Hare glance up from his work and suddenly notice nobody else was moving. It was sort of funny actually, because he jumped about a foot into the air with shock. I almost giggled because it looked like the kind of jump I once saw Mom do when Munch popped a balloon right behind her back.

  Unlike Mom though, old March Hare didn’t start laughing. Uh-uh. He began storming around in a huge rage, knocking over his own lab tables and roaring out stuff like “NOOOOO!!!” and “HOW??? HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN??!”

  It was scary, let me tell you. I’d never seen an adult lose control of their behavior like that, and I made really sure that I couldn’t be spotted by the doctor as he raged around the lab.

  Pretty soon there was a shimmer in the corner of the room and some delicate violet particles like flower petals started floating about. It was Mrs. Drake, quietly making her presence known so that she wouldn’t startle March Hare too badly. And he did quiet down as he focused on the spot where she was starting to materialize.

  Now that there wasn’t a lot of yelling going on though, I couldn’t catch much of what was being said because the windows were closed. It looked to me as if Mrs. Drake was calmly and reasonably talking to Dr. March Hall. I imagine she was trying to convince him to give himself up.

  That’s just like her, you know, hoping that people will do the right thing if given the chance. But it was clear from the ugly stare that old March Hare was directing at her that he wasn’t likely to do that. Then Mrs. Drake made a big mistake. She stepped toward him.

  All at once, some kind of horrible force came slamming into her, as if an invisible wall had come crashing down. She cried out and crumpled right down to the floor. I gasped.

  I’d just seen my first witchy booby trap in action.

  Now, as I stood paralyzed in shock, I saw my dad zap into the room at hyper speed, whisk Mrs. Drake up in his arms, as if she was as light as Munch, and zap right out of there with her. My heart was pounding through my chest and I stood frozen as inside the lab things started to happen really fast.

  Appearing in tight formation, Mom, Dean Wilkins, and the Mather triplets flashed into sight and surrounded Dr. March Hall on all sides from about ten feet away. They threw their arms out, as if they were reaching for each other’s hands, and started chanting. Even muffled like it was through the window, it sounded really, really scary. I’d never seen a dark look like that on my mother’s face in my whole life, and let me tell you something, I hope I never see it again.

  Dr. March Hall screamed without words and slammed his arms out and every time he did it, Mom and the other witches lurched back as if they’d just walked into an invisible electric fence.

  Whoosh!! Booby trap number two exploded in everyone’s faces. Flames surrounded March Hare. This time everybody was ready, and their energy shields forced the flames down until they disappeared.

  Oily, black smoke started billowing up underneath Dr. March Hall’s feet, so dark and thick that he began to disappear. All the while, Mom and the other witches chanted their weird and scary spell, slowly pushing their way forward through what seemed to be March Hall’s magical force field. I couldn’t make out much of what they were saying but I can tell you this: The word “CRUSH” kept coming up. Yikes!

  March Hare’s force field seemed to be getting smaller under the strength of the other witches’ powerful, combined magic. I knew that once they got close enough to actually grab each other’s hands, the Mathers could triple their power, and we wouldn’t ever have to worry about March Hare again.

  Well, I’ve been wrong plenty of times in my life. But I’ve never been as wrong as that.

  CHAPTER 32

  Dad Gets into Terrible Trouble

  All my attention was glued to the window, so it took me a second to notice the foul smell of sulfur that strangely wafted past my nose. I knew exactly what it meant. I leaped behind a bush around the corner of the lab so fast that I couldn’t have done it any faster if I’d zapped myself there.

  Less than five feet away from me, black smoke bled out into the air, from out of nowhere. Flickering in and out of physical form inside of it was the enraged and raving Dr. March Hall himself. By great good luck, he was faci
ng the other way from me and he was writhing and shaking as if he was straining to do something that required enormous strength. Then, before I’d had a chance to think about what move I should make, POP!!! he emerged fully formed out of the smoky air and took a hard fall to the ground.

  The doctor picked himself up and looked around in shock. An evil mutter came from his tight mouth: “Not here. Not here. Not here!!”

  He started trying to zap himself somewhere else but he just kept sputtering in and out of view. I guessed (and hoped) that all the magic directed at him when he was inside the lab had weakened his powers. Who knew for how long though?

  Trying not to make a move that might be noticed, I shot a quick glance inside the window. From there, I saw that the black smoke was still filling the gradually shrinking space inside of the circle Mom and the other witches were forming. They were still pushing as hard as they could against the force field and reaching for each other’s hands. It was clear that they thought Dr. March Hall was still inside of that thick cloud of smoke.

  I was quickly running over my options in my head, when something just terrible happened.

  My dad, back from taking Mrs. Drake home, materialized, right in front of Dr. March Hall!

  It was all so fast that Dad didn’t even have a chance to realize what had happened before Dr. March Hall grabbed him with both hands and slammed his forehead right into my dad’s!!

  Then, in this horrible growl that hardly even sounded like talking, he cast a paralysis spell on him and there my dad stood, bleeding from the head but completely frozen. Right away, all that fury that March Hare had been spitting out all over the place got focused, absolutely terrifyingly, right on my completely helpless dad.

  “You! YOU!” he raged as he stormed back and forth in front of my dad. “My own student! My protégé! You’d turn on me? You’d betray me? What is it to you, if I take a little something for myself? Not ethical enough for you, good Saint Marley? Does the student think that he can teach his teacher? Oh, how ironic. Well, here’s a little more irony for you, you ungrateful snake! After having wasted my brain power on teaching you, I’m going to wipe your mind absolutely clean now. You’ll be nothing but an empty shell for the rest of your tiny, suburban life. They can use you to hang hats on!”