The Only Thing Worse Than Witches

All the Ways a Spell Can Go Wrong

RUPERT HOPPED. AND HOPPED. AND HOPPED. He hopped as fast as his bunny legs could drudge through the sand. Sandy stood next to him and cheered him on, but the flock of bunnies behind them was moving too fast for poor, tired Rupert.

“You’ve got to keep going without me,” Rupert panted.

Sandy cringed and laid her hat on the ground. “Hop in,” she said.

Rupert jumped into her hat, and she folded it around him, just to make sure that he wouldn’t accidentally touch her. She whispered into the hat, “Hold on, Rupert Rabbit!” and then she ran as fast as her little witchy legs could take her.

Rupert jostled around in the hat, feeling very disconcerted and dizzy and frazzled. If this is what animals feel like when they’re picked up by humans, I’m never touching another one again, he thought.

Finally, the bumpy run stopped, and the next thing Rupert knew, he was being tousled out of the hat. He fell splat onto a table, where he lay with all four legs sprawled out while Sandy locked the door.

He recognized the room. They were in Sandy’s lair in Pexale Close — where Rupert had first met Sandy during his interview. He hadn’t been there for a long while, since the witches booby-trapped it with their magic, but it looked the same as it did before. It was still musty and smelly, like the sole of a sweaty shoe, and knickknacks were still all over the shelves. The only thing that looked different was that there were loads of spiderwebs everywhere.

“Are we safe here?” Rupert said.

Sandy nodded. “For now.” Sandy walked to her supply cabinet and pulled a piece of wilted lettuce out of the fridge. She set the lettuce in front of Rupert, and then she sat down on a stool.

Rupert jumped forward and began to nibble at the greens.

“What am I going to do, Rupert?” Sandy suddenly cried. “I’m not a good enough witch to save anybody in the town, let alone everybody!”

“I know you can do it,” Rupert said with his mouth full of lettuce. “And Nebby and Storm believe in you, too.”

Sandy peeked at Rupert through her fingers.

“What are you doing?” Rupert asked.

“I can’t look at you,” she shuddered. “Those ears! That tail! That twitchy nose!”

Rupert hopped behind a stack of books. “I’m hidden so you don’t have to look at me anymore. Just listen to my voice — I’ll coach you through this.”

“Okay!” Sandy said. “What do I do, Rupert?”

Rupert poked his head above the books so that he could catch a secret glance at Sandy, but she screamed.

“DON’T. DO. THAT,” she said. “GO AWAY AGAIN!”

Rupert ducked back down.

Sandy cleared her throat. “I need to think of how to phrase my words so that they won’t mess up. But the only words I can think of that don’t sound like anything else are orange, silver, and month, but I don’t see how any of those relate to the spell I need.”

“No,” Rupert agreed, “they don’t.”

Just then, scratching sounds came from the door. Rupert knew the noises came from a boatload of bunnies trying to get in. He looked at Sandy in panic, and she collapsed on the table. “There have to be more words that don’t rhyme!”

Rupert gasped. “That’s it!” he said, turning his head to look at the door. The scratches were growing increasingly louder, and he knew that they only had about another minute before the bunnies clawed their way through the wooden door. “Maybe we’re going about this backward!”

“How?”

“Instead of trying to think of words that don’t sound like anything else, we need to think of words that do sound like the words we want. Get it?”

Sandy shook her head no. “Not really.”

Rupert urgently thumped his foot on the table. “Your spell casting is opposite, so you need to approach it backwardly. So let’s say you wanted to turn me invisible. Instead of saying can’t be seen you say turning green. Then maybe the opposite of your intended spell will happen and I really would turn invisible.”

Sandy clapped. “Rupert, you’re brilliant! Thank goodness I asked for a smart apprentice!”

Splintering sounds came from the door, and Rupert saw a tiny rabbit nail break through. Help us! the rabbits cried. Help us!

“STAY BACK!” Rupert shouted. Then he turned to Sandy. “Test it on me. That way if things go wrong, you won’t have messed up on an entire town.”

Sandy gulped. “Um… see a toy!” she snapped her fingers.

Rupert felt a tingling sensation all throughout his body. His fur fell off his body, landing at his bald bunny feet like a new carpet. Then his arms and legs expanded, stretching out like taffy until they hung slack at his sides. With a whoosh, clothes materialized over his loose limbs. His eyes rolled back into his head and came back white and brown, rather than like black coals. Hair sprouted out of his head. And with a final POP, his ears shrunk and his nose wiggled back to its normal size.

Rupert stumbled to a mirror — he was himself again!

“See a toy?” he said to Sandy.

“Be a boy! It was all I could think of!”

The wood on the door splintered again, this time big enough for a bunny to hop through. A black bunny with milky eyes soared through the hole in the door and hopped toward Sandy. Help us! the bunny said. A group of bunnies followed in the black bunny’s wake. Rupert supposed there were fifty of them in total.

Sandy shivered and backed into a shelf. “Stay away,” she said. “I’ll help you if you stay away.”

The bunnies hopped closer, and Rupert swung his legs onto the table to avoid them.

“Hurry!” he said. “I can’t help you if you get turned into a rabbit!”

Sandy closed her eyes and snapped her fingers. “Attack in two steeples! Attack in two steeples! ATTACK IN TWO STEEPLES! AUGHHHHHHH!” she shouted as the bunnies jumped toward her.

Sandy whimpered and wailed — but in mid-leap, the fifty bunnies shed their hair, sprouted arms and legs, and lost their ears. Fifty people stood in Sandy’s small lair, packed so tightly that no one could move an elbow.

Sandy snapped. “Wet snout!”

The door sprung open, and everyone scrambled for the exit. Except for Rupert.

He turned to the panting witch with a grin. “Get out,” he said. “Nice touch!”

Sandy ran over and hugged him. And it was the best hug ever.