The Runaway Spell by Lexi Connor Read Free Book Online

toward the kids at the other end of their table, who were looking at B strangely.
    “I know it looks weird,” B whispered, “but we can’t just leave him there! The poor thing’s scared to death!”
    “The poor thing,” George replied, “is a tall sixth-grader who’s crying under the table. How are you going to explain that?”
    “Tell them he’s your cousin,” B said, “if you need to tell anyone anything. Find me a carrot, will you?”
    George trotted to the salad bar while B tried to comfort Mozart, who was curled in a ball, chewing on his lower lip.
He’s got the tracksuit on,
B thought,
but he’s still more hamster than kid.
She held out her hand.
    “Come on, Mozart,” she crooned in a soft, soothing voice. “It’s all right. You can come out now.”
    Mozart leaned toward her hand, almost sniffing it, his eyes wary and distrustful.
    “I won’t hurt you,” B said. “I’m your friend, remember?”
    Mozart hesitated.
    George returned with two carrots, one that he ate himself, and another that he offered Mozart. The carrot tipped the scale. Mozart crawled out, clumsy and trembling, and snatched the carrot from B’s hand. Then he let himself be guided to stand up and take a seat next to B. He hunkered down, gripping his carrot with both hands and stuffing it into his rapidly chewing mouth.
    “Hey, what’s with that kid?” a curly-haired boy from the end of the table asked. “His clothes are the same color as his favorite food, carrots!”
    Mozart’s head flew up. “Carrots? More carrots? Where?” He rose from his seat, sniffing the air, his nose twitching a mile a minute.
    “The carrots are there, on the salad bar,” the curly-haired boy said, pointing.
    Mozart followed the kid’s pointed finger, and gasped. His eyes bulged. His tongue hung out. “S-salad bar?”
    B looked at George. “Oh, no!”
    Mozart was already waddling off toward the salad bar, his arms outstretched like a zombie.
    “Grab him, George!”
    But before George could get far, the bell rang. Mozart never made it to the salad bar. He was swept out of the cafeteria on a surging tide of sixth-graders heading for their next class.
    “What do we do?” George asked.
    “You go ahead to gym,” B said. “I’ll search for Mozart. If I don’t show up in a few minutes, though, get a hall pass and come looking for me, okay?”
    George nodded and galloped off. B felt pretty sure that the zebra in George would hate missing gym even more than he’d hated to miss lunch.
    B pressed her way through the hallways, scanning for a bright orange suit at every turn. Only when the halls had thinned out, after the bell rang, did B spot him, cringing, tucked into the recess in the wall next to a drinking fountain. Every time a nearby locker banged shut, Mozart jumped in fright.
    “Poor Mozart,” B said, approaching him slowlyso he wouldn’t bolt away again. “You’ve had a rough day, haven’t you?”
    Mozart rubbed his eyes with the sides of his wrists, looking for all the world like his hamster self. “I wanna go back,” he whimpered. “This place is wham-bang scary! People screaming like hawks about to attack, then they show you ‘salad bars’ and don’t let you eat the lettuce.” He sniffled. “I don’t like it out here anymore.”
    B put her arm around Mozart’s shoulder, not caring if anyone saw her, and steered him down the hall toward Mr. Bishop’s room.
Please, oh, please let him not be there, or anyone else,
she thought.
And please, let my transforming spell work this time!
    And luck was with her. Once inside the room, she asked Mozart to sit on the window ledge next to his cage. “H-A-M-S-T-E-R,” she spelled.
    Mozart’s head sunk into his shoulders, his feet gathered in toward his body, and in a blink, his orange suit disappeared and became his tawny coat of fur.
    B scooped him up in both hands and nuzzled him against her cheek. “That’s how I like you best,” she said.
    “Me, too,” Mozart