There's good days and bad. On some days you can lick a gator; and on other days the gator gobbles you for dinner.

—Rufus Flycatcher

Ben and the mice celebrated their good fortune at Fat Jim's Pizza. It had been an easy matter for Ben to lead the mice there, only a couple of blocks from the pet shop, and then have Amber wish that the folks inside would deliver a couple of pizzas and some root beer. Fat Jim brought the food out himself, in something of a daze. He bowed and scraped and presented the meal, thanking the mice profusely for their business, seemingly unaware that he was talking to rodents.

The pizzas were steaming hot, fresh from the oven. Ham and pineapple, pepperoni and cheese, one with everything, and one—specially ordered just for Bushmaster, was the "Vegetarian's Ambrosia." The root beer had been delivered in huge glass goblets, with plenty of straws and napkins.

The mice sniffed at the pizza, and Ben was satisfied to hear their little stomachs grumbling. Bushmaster gingerly crept up to the edge of his pizza, reached down with a paw, and scooped up a glob of mozzarella cheese. "Hey," he said with delight after downing a bite, "it's got mold in it!"

"Yeah," Ben said. "It's moldy milk. Us humans call it cheese."

"Wow," Bushmaster cried. "This is really good!" Then he raced over the hot pizza on tiptoe, crying, "Ouch, ooh, aah!" with every step, and began scooping up bits of artichoke heart, sun-dried tomato, mushrooms and other delicacies.

Then the mice began scrambling all over the pizzas, while others were trying to get to the root beer. Amber wished a fork up against one of the goblets. It was great fun to watch Bushmaster climb to the edge, do a double somersault, belly flop into the goblet, and then sink to the bottom and peer out with big eyes like a goldfish before he climbed out. Soon, all of the mice were taking turns.

Ben filled himself up on ham and pineapple pizza. It was like heaven. His own pizza. It looked like it was as large as a flying saucer, and it was half as tall as him.

He was nibbling contentedly, watching the newly freed pet shop mice have the time of their lives, when Amber came over to him.

"Thank you," she said. "I owe you an apology."

"For what?" Ben asked.

"For thinking badly of you," Amber said. "I was afraid that you'd break our bargain, or run away. But more than that, I realize now that I should never have forced you to make a deal like that. It's not your fault that other humans imprison mice."

"Thank you," Ben said. "I'm sorry, too, Amber. I shouldn't have tried to feed you to that lizard, no matter what my dad said."

Amber whispered, "That was a brave thing that you did, letting me heal Bushmaster."

"I had to," Ben said. "He's my friend."

"Are you always so good to your friends?" Amber said.

"I don't know," Ben said. "I don't have many. I used to have a friend, Christian. But he moved away." Ben found that his throat grew tight as he talked about Christian. He had never told anyone what he was about to tell Amber now. "His dad told me that he got a job at a penguin cannery in the Antarctic, and so they had to move. But I know that that's not true. Some kids at school said that they heard that Christian got sick, and went into the hospital. He had cancer. I think that he died there, because if he was still alive, he would have sent me an e-mail, or called on the phone to talk, or—or—something."

Amber leaned forward, stroked Ben's hair with her paws. It was kind of nice, but Ben suddenly realized that he was being petted by a girl.

"What are you doing?" he asked, backing away.

"Preening you," Amber said.

"What for?"

"It keeps the cooties off."

"Oh," Ben said. Then he let her preen him for a moment. He felt overwhelmed with sadness. He missed Christian.

Overhead, the heavens grumbled, and hail started to fall from the sky. It rained down, and the shiny pebbles, like boulders, bounced all over the pavement. The mice peered at the spectacle in awe as lightning flashed from hill to hill.

But the protective umbrellas at Fat Jim's Pizza just shook in the high wind and let the hail bounce off. The mice were well protected. Only a few drops of hail bounced around on the table.

"Are you ready," Amber asked, "to be human again?"

Ben nodded, but added, "Amber, when you turn me back into a human, I don't think I'll be able to understand mouse talk anymore. But I want you to know, that you're welcome in my house, anytime. In fact, I was thinking that maybe you and the other pet shop mice could come live in my backyard. That way, I could bring you food and stuff."

Amber smiled gratefully, stopped her preening, and gave him a hug. "I'd like that," she said. She seemed to think for a moment, and then she asked, "Ben, do you still think I'm ugly? Like a what-do-you-call-it, a parasitic worm?"

"No," Ben said. "I think that you're the prettiest mouse I've ever seen."

Then, with her eyes full of tears, she said, "Ben Ravenspell, I wish that you were human again."

Ben felt the pain hit him as his bones began to grow under his skin. He ballooned to the size of a dog, and his tail felt as if it were being sucked up inside him. His nose was pulling in, too, and he stared at his paw as it began to transform into a hand.

Then something strange happened. Amber cried, in pain and staggered away from Ben, falling to the top of the table.

And Ben began to shrink back down to mouse size. Then he blew up again like a puffer fish, his tail growing back. It was as if his skin were bubbling tar, rising one moment, shrinking the next. One moment his hand was as big as a human's, but with every tiny hair and detail just like a mouse's, then the next he was shrinking down.

"What's wrong?" Ben cried. "Are you out of power?"

But when he looked at Amber, he saw that she was in no condition to answer. She was lying on the ground, apparently having fainted, tossing and turning, and crying in pain.

"Amber," Ben called, as he tried crawling toward her.

And suddenly he was a mouse, nothing more than a mouse. But Amber was still trembling, unconscious, and twisting in pain.

The heavens grumbled, as if with thunder, and Ben heard a single word. "Behold," the heavens said. Ben looked up. Lightning flashed across the sky, and far above, Ben saw a huge cloud light up. It looked like a dragon, winging its way toward him, ghostly and purple. "Behold your weakness!"

But as he peered up, he saw that it was no dragon. It was a bat, an enormous bat wide enough to swallow the world.

It roared as it dove toward him, and all of the pet shop mice screamed and leapt off of the table. Only Ben stood over the fallen Amber. He grabbed his spear and held steady.

But the mighty dragon shape began to diminish, growing smaller as it neared, until finally the bat Nightwing plopped onto the table and stood over Amber's fallen body.

"Put that away," he said, with a wave of his claw-like wing, and Ben's spear flew from his hand.

Nightwing stared down at Amber in triumph. The mouse groaned in pain, twisting. "The fool," he hissed. "What she doesn't know about magic will get her killed."

He whirled and looked at Ben; Ben saw the fat tick, Darwin, clinging to the bat's neck.

"What's wrong with her?" Ben asked. "Did she run out of magic?"

"No," the bat said. "She tried to cast a spell that was a lie! And that can never be done." He looked Ben in the eye, and said, "For you see, a magic spell must be born from your innermost desires. It is a wish, given power and force. And when you try to cast a spell that is a lie, one that conflicts with your innermost desires—" the bat aimed a wing at the dazed and wounded mouse, "that is what happens. The magic force turns against you."

Ben worried for Amber, but then he began to understand. "Are you telling me that Amber can't turn me back into a human?"

The ugly bat nodded, shook a bit of water and hail off of his wings. "Never. She has grown to like you too much. And so she will want to keep you.

Ben suddenly felt sick with shock. Amber cried out, as if in pain, and Ben saw something odd. There was a light around her, like a pale red fog, that seemed to be leaking from her body. Indeed, as he looked down, he could see tiny bits of fiery light seeming to bleed from every pore.

"What? What's happening?" Ben asked.

"It's her shayde," Nightwing said. "The magic will leach it out of her, tear her apart, just as her conflicting desires are tearing her apart."

"Isn't there anything we can do to save her?"

"Save her?" Nightwing said. "Why would you want to? If you save her, she will hold you captive."

"But, I don't want her to die," Ben said.

Amber shrieked in torment, and Ben could see the mist bleeding from her, rising up, turning into a strangely ghostlike mouse shape, that looked up toward the sky, as if seeking refuge in a distant meadow.

"Her spirit longs for release," Nightwing said. "Let her go."
"You can do something," Ben suggested. "You said that you know some magic."

"Perhaps," Nightwing said. "I could save her—for a price." He hesitated, as if thinking what he might want. "How about this? You will serve me. You will become my familiar for a month, and at the end of that time, if your service has pleased me well, I will turn you back into a human."

"Hey," Darwin said, pulling his proboscis from the bat's shoulder. "I thought I was your apprentice?"

Ben thought about the offer. What did Nightwing mean, "If your service has pleased me well?" What were the responsibilities of a familiar? Didn't he just have to sit there and let the bat drain the magic from him? What could Ben possibly do that would displease the bat? Ben was afraid to make such a deal, but he didn't really see any other choice. And he had to do it now, before Amber died.

"Quickly, now," Nightwing urged Ben. "She's nearly dead already."

"Okay," Ben said. "I'll do it."

"Wait a minute," Darwin told the bat. "You can't be serious about taking this kid on. He doesn't know the first thing about being a familiar. Besides, you can only have one familiar at a time. Where does that leave me?"

Nightwing looked down at the tick, and gave him an evil smile that showed his rapacious teeth.

Then the bat leaped toward Amber and inhaled a deep breath. The red glowing fog was sucked into his nostrils. And as it entered the bat's chest, Amber cried out one last time, and then went still. She laid in a stupor, unmoving, perhaps even dead, her lips parted as if in pain.

The bat leaned forward, blew toward Amber, and the red haze left his lungs, forming a mist in the air, much like the mist that comes from a warm body on a cold morning.

But this mist moved like something alive, inserting itself between Amber's lips. It bubbled and boiled, shrinking back into her. And when it was gone, she took a deep breath, and lay there, sleeping.

"She'll awaken in time," Nightwing said. The bat turned its glittering black eyes toward Ben. "Now, what shall I do with you? I need a familiar that I can carry." He seemed to think a moment, and then smiled cruelly. "Ah, I know."

Without notice, Ben felt a sharp twinge in his side, and suddenly two pair of extra legs came ripping through his chest. They were monstrous, crablike things as pale as flesh. He had half a dozen segments, in each leg, and as he flexed his new-found muscles, the things curled inward. He stared in shock as both his arms and legs began to lose their form, becoming like the other four legs, and then Ben was shrinking, shrinking.

In half an instant, he stared up at the bat, which now did indeed look as large as a dragon.

Ben had turned into a tick.

"Come," Nightwing said, raising one wing up. "Come to me, and I will protect you.

"What have you done to me?" Ben cried.

"Come, taste my blood," Nightwing said. "You will feed from me, even as I feed off of your power."

"But, I don't want to be a tick," Ben cried. "I don't want to drink your blood."

"Nonsense," Nightwing said. "In time, you'll learn to crave it, just as Darwin does now. He wasn't always a tick, you know. He started out life as a dung beetle."

"Dung," Darwin wailed, as if the very word caused an uncontrollable craving. "Ah . . . what I would do for just one little ball of dung."

Ben stood, his many feet rooted to the table, and looked about. Amber was a giant compared to him now, something the size of an elephant. Pizza crumbs that the mice had dropped looked as big as boulders. Indeed, a single ball of hail that had bounced to the table was large enough that it could have crushed him.

Slowly, Ben made his way to the bat. He couldn't figure out how to crawl with so many feet.

Eight legs, he realized, and all of them are shaking so badly that I can hardly stand.

So Ben crawled. He got down on his hands and feet, and just let his extra legs dangle uselessly as he crawled to his new master.

I won't eat, he promised himself. I won't eat for a month. Luckily, his stomach was still full of pizza.

"Cheer up," Nightwing said. "There are worse types of vermin than a tick that you could be." Then he giggled, "Although I really can't think of one."

Ben was still inching across the table when Nightwing leapt forward, grasped him tenderly in a claw, and swept up into the air.

It was a wild ride through the hail, but strangely, none of it seemed to hit the bat, which dodged this way and that as he flew, swerving and dipping, climbing and stalling in the air only to veer off in another direction— all the while letting giant hail balls go whistling by like cannonballs.

Ben glanced down and saw Amber sleeping quietly on the table while the Pet Shop mice crept out of hiding, making their way toward her. The lights of Dallas, Oregon were growing small in Ben's sight, shrinking, shrinking.

"Goodbye, Amber," Ben whispered. "You really are the prettiest mouse I've ever seen."

The tick Darwin began to plead. "Okay, boss, I see what's going on. You're done with me. You've got a new buddy. So let me down."

Nightwing shook all over as he laughed evilly, squeaking like a rusty hinge, while twisting between the falling balls of hail.

"You're not really going to let me go, are you?" Darwin begged. "Oh, I know what you're thinking."

Suddenly, the bloated tick leapt off of Nightwing, crying out as he fell.

Nightwing swooped, diving toward the tick, and grabbed the poor beast in his mouth. There was a crunching sound, as the bat ate his former familiar.

Nightwing gulped the horrible meal down, and smiled.

Ben clung to the bat's warm, stinky fur, afraid that if he fell, he'd be next on the menu. He was even more afraid of that than he was of the pellets of hail that were whistling past.

He could smell blood flowing through the bat's veins, just beneath the skin. It seemed to call to him.

With a rising sense of helplessness and horror, Ben was swept off into the night.