by Bill Doyle
With a snort, the hog sprang onto its hooves. It tried to nudge the chain off its leg using its snout. But the chain held fast. Giving up, the hog climbed back into the air for another pass. Keats had the feeling it wouldn’t miss again.
“Make up a spell, Keats!” Henry urged. “We have about a second before we end up as hog pancakes.”
Keats held out the wand. Panic filled his head. Finally he said, “Halt … that thing.”
Nothing. No reaction from the wand.
“Say something that rhymes!” Henry said. He grabbed the wand from Keats.
“I’m not sure I can.” Keats groaned. He couldn’t stop watching the hog. “It’s too hard to think right now!”
Henry flicked his shoulder. “You’re the king of words, Keats,” he said. “If a yodeling pig with wings can work the wand, I bet you can, too!”
Keats had to laugh. He felt his brain unfreeze.
“Yooodooohooo!” the hog yodeled again. It was ready to dive-bomb. But Keats didn’t freak out. The words clicked into place.
As Henry waved the wand, Keats said, “Make this hog more safe for us. I really hate pickled asparagus!”
It was a goofy rhyme. Even Henry seemed shocked. “That’s it?” he said. “Did you say aspara—?”
BLA-BLIP!
A bright lightning bolt shot out of the wand. And the cousins were knocked off their feet.
KEATS SAT UP as the bolt crackled through the air. It split into two beams and blasted into the hog.
Zap! Zap!
The hog stopped in midair. Its white tusks turned dark green. And then, like two leaky balloons at a birthday party, they started to droop.
“The tusks are—” Keats couldn’t believe it.
“They’re pickled asparagus!” Henry said.
As the tusks shrank, the magical items slid off. The flying charm came loose first. It fell fifteen feet and shattered on the platform next to a pile of rusty tools. A jeweled bracelet, a diamond necklace, and a silver hoop earring also tumbled to the ground.
Then the compass slid off.
“Don’t let it break!” Keats yelled.
Henry cupped his hands and easily caught the compass.
The hog’s entire body seemed to deflate. As its body got smaller, the chain slipped off its leg.
Its wings were shrinking, too. The hog’s red eyes went wide as it dropped lower and lower.
Then flink! flink! The wings disappeared completely. The hog bounced onto the platform next to the cousins.
It opened its snout to yodel.
“… yoodoo,” it squeaked.
The hog looked confused.
“Not so tough now, are you?” Henry asked. The junkyard hog squeaked one last time. Then it leapt off the platform and ran away, darting between the cubes of cars.
“Where’s it going?” Keats wondered.
“That little piggy?” Henry said with a grin. “Probably all the way home.”
“It might be able to squeeze through the junk to get out,” Keats said. “But we’re still trapped.”
They looked at the compass in Henry’s hand. The needle was spinning around and around.
Keats felt woozy just watching it. “What should we do?” he asked.
“The sisters said to stop the needle from spinning,” Henry said.
Keats tried to put his index finger on the needle. But he completely missed.
“Um,” Henry said. “Keats, that’s my wrist.”
“Sorry,” Keats said. The twirling compass was making him loopy. He aimed his finger again and got Henry’s ear. On the third try, Keats finally jabbed the needle. It wiggled under his touch.
The needle slowed down. But now the compass case started to turn.
“Whoa,” Keats said. He felt even more wobbly as the case picked up speed.
“It’s squirmy, but I think I’ve got it,” Henry said. He grabbed the case tighter. “Press harder, Keats!”
With a grunt, Keats did, and …
The needle stopped.
Pffft! A billowing purple cloud exploded on the platform. Then Beatrice and Lillian stood in front of them. Their hair and clothes were as wild as ever, but they were smiling.
“Hello!” Lillian cried.
“My sister means Olleh,” Beatrice said, and then laughed. “Wait! Never mind! She can talk forward again. Thanks to you gentlemen!”
Beatrice took the compass from Henry while Lillian blew the cousins kisses. Henry pretended to duck, chuckling. “You’re not dizzy anymore?” he asked.
“Some people will always call us dizzy,” Lillian said. “But yes, we have our sense of direction back.”
Keats and Henry high-fived. “Another satisfied customer, cuz!” Henry said.
“How did you know where to find us?” Keats asked the sisters.
Beatrice grinned. “Why, your friend let us know, of course.”
“Friend?” Henry said.
Beatrice and Lillian stepped apart, and the cousins looked down. On the ground between the women’s feet was a bouncing toy dog.
“Fidon’t!” Henry shouted.
The dog’s spring tail waved back and forth. And he did two high backflips. Keats crouched to pat his head. Fidon’t spit out the piece of Keats’s jacket like a present.
“Don’t worry, he’ll have a good home with us,” Lillian said. “And now we can zap us all out of here.”
“Zap us out of here?” Henry repeated, startled.
“Or we can give the compass a spin and see where it takes us!” Beatrice said.
Keats didn’t like the sound of that, either. “If it’s okay,” he said, “we’d rather not travel by magical cloud or pineapple compass.”
“Very well,” Lillian said, and waved her hand. The cube cars around them went still. Beatrice waved a hand, too, and the doors to the crusher rose. The cousins could leave the junkyard now.
“Ah, that felt good,” Lillian said, giggling. “We have some of our magic back, my dear Beatrice!”
Keats nodded at Henry. The sisters were going to be fine. “Thanks for the job,” Henry said as they started off.
“Gentlemen, wait!” Beatrice called. “We can’t give you money. We used all of our funds to buy this junkyard.”
“That’s okay, really!” Keats said.
“But as payment for a job well done,” Lillian said, “please take one of the magical objects the hog left.”
The cousins looked at the small heap of charms and jewels that had fallen off the hog’s tusks. They glittered next to the old tools.
“Holy moly.” Keats whistled. “Which should we pick?”
“I’ve got it!” Henry answered. “We’ll let luck decide.” He covered his eyes with one hand. With the other hand, he plucked something out of the pile.
Keats couldn’t wait to see what it was. Would it be something to help with their next magical job?
Henry turned and held out his hand. It was a rusty wrench.
Keats laughed. Henry groaned. And Fidon’t started yapping with joy.
“Your friend is saying, Excellent choice,” Beatrice told them.
Fidon’t kept barking. Finally Keats gave Henry a nudge.
“Okay, okay.” Henry chuckled. “It’s all yours, Fidon’t!”
He tossed the wrench. It spun through the air across the junkyard. Fidon’t chased after it, bouncing happily all the way.
BILL DOYLE grew up in Michigan and wrote his first story—a funny whodunit—when he was eight. Since then, he’s written other action-packed books for kids, like Attack of the Shark-Headed Zombie, Stampede of the Supermarket Slugs, the Scream Team series, the Crime
You can visit him online at billdoyle.net.
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