It isn't about how big the mouse is who is in the fight, it's about how big the fight is in the mouse.

—Doonbarra the Sugar Glider

At dusk, Ben led Amber and Bushmaster to the outskirts of town. Never before had the town seemed so strange and ominous, with its smelly cars growling like bears as they hunted along the bleak asphalt streets, and houses looming above him like storybook giants.

Clouds now blackened the sky, threatening a storm. Ben's fears had been growing all day. Now, every nerve seemed electrified. His hair stood on end.

Ahead, Ben could see Noah's Ark in the shadows. Its outside was painted with kittens and puppies, which didn't look as innocent now as they had a couple of days ago.

Ben gripped his spear tightly. "Let's get this over with," he said as he led Amber and Bushmaster forward.

#

Inside the pet shop, the monster in the back room lurched to its feet. It climbed up on its back legs, peering around, all three eyes peering in different directions.

The monster had keen sight, keen ears, and a cunning mind. Now it went to work.

It grabbed the bars of its cage with its tentacles, squeezed its stomach hard, and slowly vomited out the contents.

What came out was no cute kitten. It was a large creature with blood-red hair covered in mucus, enormous ears, bits of wing as limp as rubber, and clawed feet.

Nightwing then tumbled to the bottom of the cage, then struggled to his feet, gasping, and began to fan himself with his wings, trying to dry the mucus. He hissed to the monster, "Excellent, my friend. Now I know how Jonah felt inside the whale."

The monster was much thinner now, almost weasel-y.

"I not friend," the monster groaned, a sound like boulders rumbling together. "Freeee meeee."

"All in good time," Nightwing assured him. "First, you must kill the young wizardess. Bring me her corpse, and then I will free you."

The monster blinked all three eyes at once, a sign that it understood.

"But remember, do not harm her familiar, the jumping mouse, Ben. He will be of more value to me alive."

The monster grunted in understanding. With that, it vaulted to the top of its cage, a jump of three feet straight up. Worming its tentacles between the bars, it grabbed several at once. With a vicious jerk, it pulled the bars wide, making a hole wide enough for a cannonball to fly through.

It jumped through, plopped to the floor, and wiggled forward on its tentacles, studying the room as if seeking a place to set an ambush.

Darwin, pulled his proboscis from Nightwing's back and said, "Why do you want Ben alive? Wouldn't it be easier to kill him? I mean, if you cut the wizardess off from her source of power, she'll be easy to kill."

Nightwing grinned evilly. "Never mind. Don't tax your brain. You're not used to thinking."

"I do too think!" Darwin said. "I had an idea just last month."

"Really?" Nightwing asked. "Tell me about it."

Darwin stammered, scratched his tiny head with two of his feet, and said, "I was thinking that television is the new obsession of the masses."

"Interesting," Nightwing said. "You have a shallow mind, but it does have some deep spots. Sort of like sinkholes." Nightwing suspected that Darwin was lying, of course. He hadn't really come up with that idea on his own. He'd probably just eavesdropped on the beetles that lived on the floor of the cave. They often spouted such nonsense.

So Nightwing decided to test him. "Are you sure that television is the new obsession of the masses? Perhaps a decade ago, I'd have agreed. But lately it seems that the masses have begun to splinter video games, consumerism, Ben and Jerry's ice cream, and working out."

Darwin sat sucking blood with loud squishing sounds.

"So," Nightwing asked. "The real question is, Why does mankind seek an obsession in the first place? Are sunrises so miserable that they must escape from them? Or is it that they just have some innate longing for something better, for . . . perfection," Nightwing loved to infuriate the tick, so he added, "perhaps even a spiritual longing."

"Oh no," Darwin growled. "Don't go there! I won't have any talk of 'spiritual' longings', We're all animals, not spiritual creatures. We're nothing more than a few basic elements combined in such a way so that we can amble about and stuff our guts. We're all just chemical accidents, and every child that is born is only a part of a runaway chain reaction! Someday, when the chain reaction reaches its end, we'll all just blow up!"

The tick went back to sucking blood in a rather morose fashion, but Nightwing smiled inwardly. At least Darwin had forgotten his original question, "Why does Nightwing want Ben alive?" The answer was simple. If Nightwing were to gain Ben's power, the very foundations of the earth would tremble at his command.

If Nightwing could just let Ben see that Amber wasn't the kind of master that he should be serving, Nightwing could convince Ben to become his familiar.

Then Nightwing would finally be able to get rid of Darwin.

Nightwing chuckled as he flew up out of the cage and found a corner to hide in. He could hardly wait for Amber to arrive.
#
The lights were off at Noah's Ark pet shop, and the parking spaces empty.

Ben heard the growl of distant thunder. He whispered to the others, "Let's get under a roof quickly, in case it starts to rain."

Ben raced to the front door of the pet shop, looking for a way in. But the crack under the door was too small, even for a mouse. So he led Amber to the back.

Several doors stood in a long row. Ben couldn't be sure which one led into the pet shop. He made a guess, and went to a door that had a tiny hole under it where some mouse had chewed its way through long, long ago.

Ben took one last look outside. It was getting dark fast. He could see streetlights beginning to flick on. He sniffed the air. No sign of danger. But he smelled the rising storm. Ben worried about what might be inside, what trap any sorcerers might have set. The spider's warning wasn't something he'd take lightly. His

But even more worrisome than the spider was the bat's warning: Every time Amber cast a spell, she drained mage dust from Ben. And if she cast too many spells, she'd empty him out and never have enough to turn him back into a human. He had to stop her from using magic.

Taking a deep breath, he crawled under the door, and peered in. Everything was dark. Gurgling sounds from the aquariums assured Ben that he was indeed inside the pet shop. Up a dark corridor, Ben could make out weird lights—heat lamps for terrariums and aquariums.

As soon as Amber and Bushmaster crawled in, Ben whispered, "This way!"

He began creeping up the corridor. Strange shapes huddled on both sides of him. He suspected they were bags of dog food or boxes filled with birdseed, but in fact he could hardly see a thing, and couldn't be sure.

He neared the first terrarium, saw a huge anaconda large enough to swallow a small pig. The snake flicked its tongue. A loud hiss issued from its cage, echoing through the room. A command. "SSSS. SSSSS. SSSlither hither."

Ben glanced into the snake's haunting eyes. He felt compelled to move toward the cage, and stumbled a bit, but Bushmaster nuzzled his shoulder, urging him forward, and out of the trance.

Ben glanced back at Bushmaster. "Thanks."

Ben and the others raced past the snake's cage and past a huge tank of gurgling water. Other terrariums held creatures the remained mostly unseen, hidden in shadows, lizards as big as dinosaurs, tarantulas as large as cars.

Ben raced past them, too afraid to look, and found a door cracked open, leading into the pet shop. Ben looked up. Above him now were the birds. Finches, mourning doves, and brightly colored macaws slept in their cages, eyes closed as they clung to their roosts. The massive birds looked like pterodactyls. He could almost picture the huge flying dinosaurs, sitting high up on craggy cliffs as they silently watched for prey.

The only sounds came from the gurgling of water pumps in the fish tanks, and the sweet music of crickets at the front of the store.

But the odor of animals was everywhere, the hair of dogs, the dropping of birds and guinea pigs.

Somewhere, a kitten began meowing, and Ben heard a banging noise on the far side of the store, as if a ferret were leaping about in its cage.

Ben hurried down an aisle, and twisted to the right, where the aquariums were. The neon lights on the saltwater fish tanks glowed in the darkness, giving the room a strange ambience. Sea horses and eels clung to sea grass, hiding, while colorful reef fish darted about like living gems.

Ben heard a strange noise, and looked up. Near the top of one tank, a light-tan octopus with blue rings splotched on its skin stared at him with knowing eyes.

It sang in a strange voice, like metal warping under pressure, far in the distance, "What is your song, child? What is your song?"

It was strangely similar to the question that Vervane had asked. Who are you? What is your song?

Ben felt empty. He had no song for the octopus.

"I'm just a boy," he answered.

"Are you sure?" the octopus asked. "Or could you be something more?"

Amber and Bushmaster raced up behind him. Ben scrambled around a corner, threading past displays of sunken ships and twisted lumps of coral rock for aquariums.

The mouse cages were around the corner. Ben and his companions crept toward them, and suddenly something came plummeting out of the darkness.

It hit all three of them like a falling rhino.

Ben rolled to his side, trying to get under the lip of one of the display cases, for safety. He gasped for breath, the wind knocked out of him, and faded from consciousness for a second. He heard shouts above, the voices of dozens of mice calling, "Watch out!" "There's a kitten loose!"

Cries of horror came from the mouse habitats, as if the mice were burning.

Ben peered up, and dimly saw a tan-colored Abyssinian kitten with almond-shaped eyes and large ears. It was muscular, lithe, and evil-looking all at once as it sat under the garish light of the fish tanks. It held Amber under its paw. She had been knocked senseless.

Bushmaster raced off into the darkness, shouting, "Run! Run!"

The kitten seemed gigantic. Ben had seen a lion once at Wildlife Safari. The big cat had been chest-high to him. But this monster towered above the mice like the statue of the Sphinx in Egypt. Each paw was nearly half as long as a mouse, and the retractable claws that hooked into Amber's back were the size of scythes.

"Purrrfect, purrrfect little mouse," the Abyssinian murmured. "Sooo purrrrrrrfect."

Amber lay trapped beneath the cat's glistening claws. The pet shop mice screamed and swooned in their cages.

Ben peered about weakly, wondering how a kitten got loose in the pet shop?

The kitten wasn't trying to eat Amber, just torment her. Ben wanted to run, but he knew that if he left Amber in the kitten's jaws, she'd be killed.

What would happen if she died? he wondered. Would I grow old and die as a mouse in six months?

He had no choice. Ben grabbed his needle, propped it up as if it were a cane, and hobbled forward.

"What do you think you're doing?" Ben demanded.

The kitten chuckled low in her throat, and said, "Purrrfect. She'll make a purrrfect present for my master. Then he'll praise me and pet me—purrrrfectly."

Ben saw the kitten shift just a little, its muscles bunching, its long black-tipped tail whipping about playfully. It was just waiting for Ben to try something. But Ben felt too woozy to take on the kitten.

The mice in the cages were all calling to Amber, trying to rouse her. But their voices were muted by distance and the thick wall of glass that surrounded them.

Amber lay unmoving.

"Hey," Ben said. "If you're planning to eat her, doesn't she deserve a last wish?"

The kitten's eyes shone like bright copper. "A wish?" the kitten said. "No last wishes for this one. I've been warned!"

So, Ben realized, someone had talked to the kitten. This was all part some of a plot! But who was behind it?

The kitten licked Amber's head with her huge, rasping tongue. The gesture seemed to rouse the mouse, who lifted her head groggily. Amber kept gasping for breath as she lay crushed beneath the cat's paw.

The mice in their cage cried louder, shouting, "Help her!" and "Amber, run."

Amber lurched, trying in her daze to bolt free, but the kitten instantly grabbed tighter with her claws. The kitten threateningly gaped her mouth. Her fangs were as long and as white as elephant tusks. She prepared to puncture a hole through Amber's skull.