by Becket
Peter Butterpig snorted with even greater delight than before. Now he and Sir Copperpot would be librarians together. And the two started talking and squealing about all the kind of work they would do.
But poor old Uncle Glitch crossed his arms and gave a robotic humph. “I never win anything,” he grumbled. “You two will work in the library, read all the books you like, lend them and shelve them, and shovel magic dust all over the place, while I sit out here in the cold.”
He reached into his pocket and took out six motes of magic dust. He had been gathering and saving them to give to Meredith. Now seemed like as good a time as any.
Sir Copperpot took the mote of magic dust that he had collected from the coffee shop and dropped it in Uncle Glitch’s palm.
Uncle Glitch poured the seven motes into the thimble and handed it to Meredith.
“Here,” he said in a kinder tone, “at least one of us should be happy, and that one should be you.”
Meredith took the thimble from him and stared at the shimmering magic dust inside.
The seven little motes had a soft violet glow and they warmed the thimble in her fingers. There was just enough magic inside for one simple spell.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Magic Spell
The two old robots gathered around little Meredith Pocket, curious to know what kind of magic spell she might weave.
Peter Butterpig fluttered up off his hoofs to get a better look.
Meredith brought the thimbleful of magic dust close to her nose and inhaled. It almost smelled like snow.
Sir Copperpot and Uncle Glitch were not programmed to weave magic spells, yet they had taught her everything they could remember from books.
With that little pinch, she could have woven a spell to make herself feel happy or warm. She could have woven a spell to make herself read all the books in town in seconds flat. And she could have even woven a spell to help herself find the next magic book.
But she had something else in mind.
“Don’t give it too much thought,” Uncle Glitch told her. “You’ll be stuck standing in the snow all day. You might become a great big icicle.”
“Oh, stop bothering her,” Sir Copperpot snapped at the other old bot. “You’ve always been so testy. Whoever wrote your programming must have been very impatient too. Let the girl make her own decisions.”
Peter Butterpig snorted a suggestion.
Meredith smiled at him.
“Yes, I suppose I could weave a spell to give me butterfly wings too. Then you and I could go flying all over town.”
Peter Butterpig fluttered a little higher off the ground at the thought of it.
“You take your time,” Sir Copperpot told her. “In fact, you do not have to weave a spell today. You can save it for a later time, if you like.”
Meredith nodded, staring at the thimbleful of magic dust in her fingers. She knew what she could do with it. And she knew what she should do with it. Yet she also knew what she would do with it.
“I think I know what you’re thinking,” said Uncle Glitch with a mechanical wink.
She looked up at him in surprise. “You do?”
“You’re thinking you should weave a magic spell to help you find one of the last two magic books.”
“You should not be embarrassed weaving that spell,” Sir Copperpot told her too. “If you have the ability to do it, then you should.”
“I hope you do get that book,” Uncle Glitch said encouragingly. “I hope you get it and become head librarian and get to do all the wonderful things I used to do when I worked in the library. You’ll love it. I know you will. Go on. Weave the magic. Make it work.”
Meredith held the thimble before her. The magic dust glowed beautifully inside, like a little treasure of the stars in the palm of her hand. Very slowly, she spoke the magic words that the two old robots had taught her long ago, weaving them together into a wonderful magic spell.
But then, much to everyone’s great surprise, she cast the magic dust all over Uncle Glitch.
The motes stuck to him like glitter.
“What are you doing?” he cried, trying to brush off the dust.
But it was too late. They were seeping into his metal. And that was when the magic started to work.
Uncle Glitch’s metallic body turned one way, then another, squeaking loudly since he badly needed an oil change. Then his tin head swiveled left, then right, while his eyes were blinking helplessly at Meredith.
“What have you done to me?” he cried.
“I’ve made you the next librarian,” she answered him with a loving smile.
Sir Copperpot and Peter Butterpig gaped at her in astonishment.
Uncle Glitch was about to ask what she meant, but his legs suddenly dashed up the street while he cried, “HEEEEELP!!!”
He stopped at the next corner. Townsfolk in the street backed away from the runaway robot. His whole metallic body swung around and around, magically looking for the right way to go.
Meredith, Sir Copperpot, and Peter Butterpig hurried after him. They finally caught up with Uncle Glitch just as his legs carried him off down another street.
“What sort of spell did you weave over me?” he yelped.
Meredith beamed delightedly at him.
“It is a spell that is helping you find the next magic book.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Third Magic Book
Uncle Glitch’s legs carried him across town. He dashed over a bridge, under a hedge, around a post, and through a ghost.
The whole time Sir Copperpot, Peter Butterpig, and little Meredith Pocket kept running after him as fast as they could, all of them with great big smiles on their bright faces, wondering if Uncle Glitch really would find the third magic book.
Finally, the old robot paused at a forgotten school on the edge of town. Goblins had taken it over years ago, chasing out all the students. A new school opened in town while the goblins turned this old school into a fortress. And a fortress it remained until recently when a young girl named Good became Queen of the Goblin Kingdom. (This is the same Good the Goblin Queen who helped repair Uncle Glitch and Sir Copperpot.) She gave the school back to the town, but everyone was still too scared to go in it. They had many bad memories of goblins living in there, brewing potions and throwing wild pumpkin parties. And they were all too afraid to go back inside.
Yet, right when Uncle Glitch recalled this fact, his legs carried him toward this scary school.
“NOOOOOOOOO!” he cried as he burst through the front doors.
The other three were close behind him. Together they ran down the main hall, rushing past old classrooms on either side, all filled with cobwebs and the smell of campfires. The goblins had left magic fires burning in each room, some colored yellow, some green, some purple. They would burn and burn and they could not be snuffed out by anything except more magic, such as magic water, or magic sand, or Mary Ficklesnick’s Famously Magic Fire Snuffing Stuff.
At last, Uncle Glitch came to a stop in an empty classroom filled with spiders and broken desks. His legs carried him straight over to a table that had been turned over. His hands and arms automatically pulled it up. And his eyes now saw that underneath was a picture book for young children.
“Oh,” he cried as he picked it up and turned it over in his hands, “I used to love picture books. Still do in fact.”
The other three followed him into the classroom and looked over his shoulder at the book.
The cover was hard and square. The title was The Little Dwarf.
Uncle Glitch’s robotic smile broadened.
“Why, I have not read this story since I was a little bot. My motherboard used to read it to me before she powered me down for sleep each night.”
“Will your read it to us?” asked Meredith, eager to see if it really was a magic book. She was curious to see what would happen after he read the last page, even though Sir Copperpot and Peter Butterpig already knew.
Sir Cop
perpot organized everyone. He cleared the ground so that he, Meredith, and Peter Butterpig could sit, but he placed a tall chair before them so that Uncle Glitch could sit high up, read the story aloud, and show them all the lovely pictures.
And they all did just that. The three huddle together on the floor near a magic fire burning with a deep red flame. When they were all comfortable, Uncle Glitch began reading to them the story of the Little Dwarf.
Meredith loved it right away.
It was about a dwarf named Dwindle who was smaller than any other dwarf that had ever been. He was so small that his long red beard dragged on the ground several feet behind him. None of the other dwarves let him dig for gold or gems because, every time he lifted up a pickax, it tipped him right over. The only job Dwindle could get was as a mine reader. It was the least desired job in the Dwarf Kingdom. The dwarves wanted to dig in the mines and they did not want to learn to read. Yet it turned out that Dwindle was very good at reading aloud. In the mines, for all the other dwarves, he read exciting books about dragons and magic. His reading kept the other dwarf miners entertained while they swung their pickaxes and chipped away rocks and unearthed beautifully colored gems. But perhaps more magical than the stories was the sound of Dwindle’s voice. He had a deep and powerful tone, deeper and more powerful than any dwarf voice that had ever been. If he spoke too loudly, he would rattle the tunnels and cause cave-ins. But if he spoke just right his voice was a booming melody that sang through the mines. Everyone loved to hear his voice and they begged him to read more stories. They wanted no one else but Dwindle. Soon he became one of the most popular dwarves ever, not because he was like other dwarves, but because he was different, and he was happy being different.
Uncle Glitch stopped on the last page, surprised by what he read.
“That’s strange,” he muttered to himself. “I don’t recall that being there before.”
As with the other two books, there was no THE END at the end, but instead there were the words THE BEGINNING.
Also like before, this book floated out of his hands and the voice of an old man began speaking from its pages.
“Congratulations! My name is Mr. Fuddlebee and you have finished the third magic book. Only one more to go. Once it is found and read, please report to the library to begin your new work. If you do not wish to be the next librarian—”
“Are you mad?” demanded Uncle Glitch, interrupting the book’s speech. “Of course I’ll take the job!”
“Well, that is excellent news,” the magic book stammered, clearly not used to being interrupted. “Be sure to bring this book then. Otherwise you will not get the job.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Scent of Magic
The next day Sir Copperpot, Uncle Glitch, and Peter Butterpig were the talk of the town. Everyone had been searching tirelessly for the remaining magic books and now they could barely believe that two homeless robots and one poverty-stricken butterpig had found them.
Now there was only one magic book left.
And the last magic book meant that there was only one position left open in the Magic Library.
Once the townspeople realized this, the search for it became even more frantic than ever. They scoured every nook and cranny of the town with book finding bloodhounds, hardcover hunting hawks, paperback pursuing pigs, and even textbook chasing trolls, scroll seeking skeletons, and novel catching gnomes.
Meredith was sincerely happy for her three friends. They were going to be the Magic Library’s new librarians. They would not only have good work, but also a new home since all librarians lived inside the library’s enchanted halls.
Sir Copperpot and Uncle Glitch soon became very busy giving interviews to several news reporters, including Fang Figgans, a werewolf reporter for the Welkin City news.
Fang Figgans was very tall, very furry, and wearing a very yellow necktie. He growled threateningly into his microphone and then shoved it into the metallic faces of the two old robots.
“No, I’ve never read Night of the Postman,” Sir Copperpot answered him. “But it sounds perilous.”
“It’ll scare the screws out of me, that’s for sure,” Uncle Glitch added.
Peter Butterpig did not like being interviewed. So he stayed near Meredith. Together they watched the fanfare from a distance.
A handful of townsfolk were not looking for the magic book. They were so happy that the Magic Library would soon open again that they were planning parades and parties. The reopening celebrations would begin as soon as the final magic book was found.
Peter Butterpig squealed at Meredith.
She smiled. “No, I’m not going to look for the last magic book,” she answered him.
He snorted.
“Everyone is looking for it now. What chance do I have? Hardly any.”
He furrowed his brow and gave her a disgruntled grunt.
“I’m not giving up hope,” she replied. “Maybe I don’t want to be a librarian. Ever think of that? All I’ve ever known is living on the street. My box is my home. Finding food and warmth is my daily work. I don’t know how to live any other way.”
Peter Butterpig started to argue with a decisive snort when he suddenly looked in another direction.
He sniffed the air.
The scent of magic was on the wind!
In a flash he flapped his big bright butterfly wings and flew toward the scent, squealing for Meredith to hurry after him.
He flew up and down throughout the town, swooping over and around in large loops, going up one building, over another roof, around a chimney and sometimes through a window.
He finally landed right in between two very tall buildings—one was Ogre Tower, the other was the Brownie Bank.
Between them was a very tiny house. Its welcome mat was a little leaf. The front door was a wall plate for plugs. And the roof was an opened book turned face down. A small square had been cut into the spine for a chimney.
Meredith studied the roof book with great curiosity.
“Is that the last magic book?” she asked Peter Butterpig.
He grunted for her to knock.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Mouse House
Meredith knelt low to the ground and tapped on the front door, not too loudly, for fear of frightening whomever might be inside.
A family of mice opened the door. It was a father mouse, a mother mouse, and their two children, a boy mouse and a much tinier girl mouse.
“Hello,” the father mouse squeakled. “How can we help you, miss?”
Meredith looked back at Peter Butterpig. He gave her a little nudge forward. She did not quite know how to ask the mouse family if she could borrow their roof for reading.
“My friend has a very good snout,” she began to say, gesturing toward Peter Butterpig. “And he thinks there is a bit of magic coming from your house.”
The mouse family looked at one another. The father mouse shrugged.
“I never take my work home with me, my crumb,” he said to his wife. “You know that.”
Then he turned back to Meredith, giving her a questioning expression.
“Could your friend be wrong, miss?” he asked.
“He thinks the magic is coming from your book,” Meredith replied.
“My book?” the father mouse said doubtfully. “You mean our roof?”
“If I could read it for a minute—” she started to say.
“Read it!” exclaimed the father mouse indignantly. “How would you like it if someone came along and read the roof off your house?”
“I’ll put it back,” she promised.
“Tedric,” the mother mouse said to her husband in a much gentler tone. “Surely it would not hurt us for too long if we let her borrow the book, you know, like the way they do at the library.”
“You mean the way they used to do before it closed,” he growled.
He stroked his long whiskers and thought, narrowing his little black eyes doubtfully.
“What
kind of reader are you? Fast or slow?” he demanded.
“I’ll read it as fast as I can,” Meredith assured him.
Peter Butterpig flapped his wings and hovered over the mouse house.
The two mouse children giggled with they saw the big pig with even bigger butterfly wings.
“He’s beautiful, mommy!” the little girl mouse joyously cried out.
“There, you see,” the wife said to her husband. “This one will keep the snow off our house while the other one borrows the roof. Oh, won’t you just lend its pages, my dear.”
The father mouse crossed his arms and said reluctantly, “All right, all right. But you had better read quicker than quick.”
Meredith smiled and nodded. “I will,” she promised again. “I most certainly will.”
Carefully she took the book off the top of the mice’s home and studied the front cover. It was called Robert and the Robot Factory.
It was a thick book, but the words were big. Meredith read page after page very smoothly and speedily. Her hands shook the more she read. She had a feeling that this was the last magic book. She just knew it. And when she came to the end (“or the beginning,” she said to herself,) she could join her friends in the Magic Library.
Oh, wouldn’t that be lovely! she thought.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Robert and the Robot Factory
The book was about a young boy named Robert Bottle who was very good with machines. He could build anything. But his family was very poor. They could not afford to buy him new tools or machines. He had to make all his tools or find old tools in junk heaps, which was where he also found plenty of machine parts. From them, he built all sorts of wonderful new devices, gizmos, doodads, and doohickeys. He tried to sell them to people to help his family make money, but no one would buy them because they were not bright and shiny like the new models coming out of the Robot Factory right down the road from his family’s little shack on the edge of town.
