41 - Bad Hare Day (7 page)

“Okay.” She relaxed. “But don’t forget you’re supposed to share it with me.”

I pulled up two chairs. “You guys sit here,” I said to Ginny and Foz. “And
get ready for the greatest magic show in the history of the world!”

I reached into the toy chest and pulled out Amaz-O’s magic kit. I held it up
in front of Foz and Ginny. “First,” I began in my magician voice, “gaze deeply
into the magic trove.”

I held the bag near their faces. They stared at it. I yanked it open.

Kaboom!
It made the exploding sound, just as it did the first time I
opened it.

Ginny and Foz fell off their chairs!

“What happened?” Foz moaned, clutching his head. “That thing blew up in my
face!”

I cracked up. “It’s only a sound effect,” I explained.

“Not funny,” Ginny complained.

“You should have seen your faces,” I said gleefully. I reached into the black
sack that held the three shells and the red ball. I set the shells in a row on a
small table.

“Watch closely,” I said. I held up the red ball. “See this ball? I’ll place
it under one of these shells.” I pretended to tuck the ball under the middle
shell. But secretly I palmed the ball and flicked it up my sleeve.

I began moving the shells over the table, shifting their places.

“Keep your eyes on the middle shell,” I instructed. Then I stopped moving the
shells.

“Which shell is the ball under?” I asked.

“That one,” Ginny said, pointing to the shell on the right.

“Are you
sure
?” I prompted. “Foz, where do you think the ball is?”

“The same one as Ginny,” he said. “I watched it the whole time.”

“If you say so,” I said. I was sure the ball wasn’t under that shell—it
wasn’t under any of them. I felt the ball rubbing against my wrist.

I lifted the shell—and gasped. There
was
a ball under there. A red
ball, just like the one I’d palmed.

“I was right!” Ginny crowed. “That’s a stupid trick.”

“But this is impossible!” I cried. I let the first ball fall out of my
sleeve. I
had
palmed it.

“This is very strange,” I muttered. “Let me try again.”

I dropped the first ball on the floor. I picked up the second ball and
pretended to slip it under a different shell. I palmed the ball and tucked it up
my sleeve again.

“Here we go,” I said, shifting the shells all over the table. I slid the
shells around a little longer, then stopped.

“The ball is under the first shell,” Foz said.

“Yes, the first shell,” Ginny agreed.

“This time you’re wrong!” I cried. I lifted the first shell. Another red
ball!

Ginny sneered. “You’re a real ace, Tim.”

“Wait a second,” I said. I lifted up the other two shells. All three of them
had red balls under them!

“This isn’t working at all,” I grumbled. I set the shells down, then lifted
them again. More balls! There were now three balls under each shell!

“This isn’t the shell game I know.” I was mystified. “This must be some other
trick.”

“It’s way better than your dumb trick,” Ginny said. “Those balls are coming
out of nowhere!”

The shells began to dance as balls bubbled out of them like popcorn. Ten
balls. Twenty balls.

Little red balls covered the table and bounced to the floor.

“They’re still coming!” Foz cried in amazement. “We’re going to be up to our
necks in red balls!”

“How do I stop this thing?” I wondered.

Can I stop it?

I snatched up the shells and tossed them into their black sack. Then I
grabbed all the red balls I could and stuffed them in, too.

“Help me, you guys!” I pleaded.

Ginny and Foz fell to their knees, gathering up red balls. We shoved them all
into the sack. I pulled the string that closed it and dropped it into the magic
kit.

The black sack kept bubbling. Red balls started bursting out of it.

“Stop that!” I yelled. I reached into the magic case and pulled out the first
thing I touched. Then I snapped the case shut.

“I don’t really get that trick,” Ginny complained.

“Here’s another trick,” I said. “This one will be better.” In my hand I held
a flattened top hat. “Let’s see what this does.”

I punched the top hat open and placed it on my head.

“It’s just a hat,” Foz said, fidgeting. “It’s kind of hot up here. Can we go
down to the kitchen and get something to eat?”

“You guys don’t get it,” I said. “This is
Amaz-O’s
magic case! Okay,
so I don’t know how anything works yet. Once we figure it out, we could put on
the best magic show ever! I could become a famous magician!”

“And I could be a famous magician’s sister.” Ginny yawned. “Big deal.”

“That hat looks way cool on you,” Foz said. “Now can we get something to
eat?”

“I’m hungry, too,” Ginny added.

“Wait!” I cried. I felt something move under the hat. I whipped it off.

“A white dove!” Foz cried.

“That’s a good trick,” Ginny admitted.

I shook the dove off my head. “How do you get it back in the hat?” I asked.
Before I had a chance to try, another dove popped out of the hat.

I set the second dove on the floor. “There’s another one!” Foz shouted.

A third dove flew out of the hat and settled on top of an old lamp. Out
popped a fourth, and a fifth…

Foz started laughing. “These tricks are totally out of control!”

“This is no joke, Foz!” I snapped.

“We’re going to be in major trouble,” Ginny warned. “We’ve got to find a way to get rid of these birds!”

The attic was quickly filling up with flapping, fluttering doves—and they
kept coming. I knew we had to get rid of them—but how?

“Maybe there’s something in here that will help.” I ripped open the magic
case.
Kaboom!
It made that stupid exploding sound again. Dozens of little
red balls flew into my face.

“I’m really getting sick of this,” I muttered.

I brushed away piles of balls. I pulled out a long black stick with a white
tip. A magic wand!

“Maybe this will help!” I cried. I hoped it would. The attic was a total mess—white doves and red balls everywhere.

“This is the answer,” I declared. “Amaz-O probably uses this wand to make the
magic stop.”

“I hope you’re right,” Ginny said. “If that doesn’t work, you and I are going
to have to run away from home.”

“It’ll work,” I insisted. “It’s got to.”

I waved the wand in the air. “Stop!” I shouted. “Everything stop!”

Did it work?

No.

More doves flew out of the hat. More red balls bubbled out of the black sack.

“That magic wand is the only thing in there that
doesn’t
work!” Foz
joked.

“Be quiet!” I snapped. “I’ve got to think!”

“Yikes!” Ginny screamed. “A snake!”

She pointed at the magic case. A snake slithered out of it. Then a second, a
third.

The mechanical snakes had come back to life!

Hissing snakes soon covered the floor, wriggling over the bouncing red balls.
Dove feathers fell from the ceiling. The attic was so crowded I could hardly see
across the room.

Ginny yelped as a snake began to crawl up her leg. “Let’s get out of here!”
she cried.

She yanked open the attic door. She and Foz hurried downstairs. I grabbed the
magic case and followed them. A snake slithered after me.

“Get back in there!” I yelled. I picked up the snake and threw it into the
attic room. I shut the door. I pushed on it to make sure it was closed. Then I
ran downstairs and out to the backyard.

A gust of March wind slapped my face. Ginny’s long hair flew out behind her.

“Snakes—ick!” she squealed. “Tim—what are we going to do? When Mom and
Dad see the attic, we’re dead meat!”

Foz stared at the magic case. “What did you bring that out for? It’s
dangerous!”

“It’s okay if we stay outside,” I told him. “So what if a bunch of birds
comes out? They’ll fly away.”

I wasn’t as sure about that as I sounded. But I couldn’t give Amaz-O’s case
back without seeing everything in it first. I just couldn’t.

“Hurry up, Tim,” Ginny whined. “I’m starving. It’s lunchtime!”

“Wait. Wait.” I opened the magic case.
Ka-boom!
It didn’t sound so
loud outside—especially with the wind blowing as hard as it was.

I held the magic wand poised between my fingers. What does this thing do? I
wondered.

I waved it around, trying out new magician names. “The Great Incredible-O.
Mister Terrifico—that’s not bad. Get out of there, Ginny!” She was rummaging
through the magic kit.

“You promised we’d share it, remember?” she snapped. Then her face
brightened. “Hey! Great!”

She pulled a carrot out of Amaz-O’s bag. “Just what I needed—something to
eat.”

“Put that back!” I ordered.

“It’s still fresh,” she said. “Yum!”

She opened her mouth, ready to bite the carrot.

“Ginny—no!” I cried. “Maybe you shouldn’t eat that. Maybe—”

Ginny never listens to me.

She crunched down on the carrot.

A flash of white light blinded me for a moment.

When my eyes focused, I saw the most amazing thing I’d ever seen in my life!

The carrot dropped to the grass. Ginny’s nose twitched. Then she began to
shrink.

As she shrank, her hair turned from blond to white. Her nose turned pink.
White fur and whiskers sprouted from her face. She grew smaller, furrier,
whiter….

“I don’t believe it!” Foz gasped. “Your sister—she’s a rabbit!”

Ginny sat on the grass, twitching her little pink nose. She stared at me with
her rabbity eyes. She waved her little paws and made angry, rabbity noises.

“Man, she is
steamed!”
Foz cried.

I was stunned. “I wished it,” I murmured. “And now it’s come true.”

“What are you talking about?” Foz demanded. He grabbed me by the shoulders.
“Get it together, Tim. We’ve got to do something! What’s going to happen when
your parents get home?”

“I told Ginny I’d turn her into a rabbit,” I explained, still dazed. “To get back at her for ruining all my magic shows. And
now she
is
a rabbit!”

Ginny the rabbit rose on her hind legs, gesturing angrily at me. Then she
bounced up and thumped my shin with one of her big rabbit feet.

“Ow!” I cried. “That hurts as much as one of her karate kicks!”

“Look in the kit, Tim,” Foz urged me. “There’s got to be some way to change
her back.”

“You’re right. There’s got to be!” My eyes fell on the carrot in the grass.
“The carrot,” I said. “When Ginny bit it, she turned into a rabbit. But maybe if
a rabbit bites it, it turns into a girl!”

Foz shook his head. “Huh?”

I snatched up the carrot. “We’ve got to try it. There’s nothing to lose,
right? She’s already a rabbit. What else could happen to her?”

I shoved the end of the carrot toward Ginny’s mouth. “Come on, Ginny. Take
another bite.”

She stared at the carrot suspiciously. She clamped her mouth shut and turned
her face away.

“You little brat!” I shouted. “You
want
me to get in trouble, don’t
you! You want to stay a rabbit just to get me in trouble!”

Foz grabbed the carrot out of my hand. “Calm down, Tim. You’re scaring her!”

Ginny’s long rabbit ears perked up—she heard something. I heard it, too. A
car coming. Pulling into the driveway!

“Hurry, Ginny!” I cried. “I think Mom and Dad are home. Take a bite of the carrot. It’ll turn you back into a girl. I know
it will!”

Ginny eyed me suspiciously. She sniffed the carrot with her twitchy pink
nose.

“Hurry!” I shouted again.

She opened her mouth and took a nibble of carrot.

Foz and I watched her in a panic. “Please let it work,” I prayed. “Please let
it work!”

Ginny’s rabbit nose twitched. Her ears stood straight up. Then they flopped
down.

Nothing happened. She was still a rabbit.

“Mom and Dad!” I cried. “They’re here! Foz—stay with Ginny. If Mom and Dad
ask, say she’s your sister’s rabbit!”

I ran to the driveway. A car was backing out—not Mom and Dad. Just somebody
turning around in our driveway.

Whew. Close one.

The wind gusted as I ran back to Foz and Ginny. Foz was on his knees, digging
through the magic kit. Ginny hopped up and down impatiently.

The magic wand lay in the grass. Maybe this will work now, I hoped, picking
it up. I’ve got to change her back!

I waved the wand over Ginny. “Turn my sister back into a girl!” I cried.

Nothing.

“Maybe you need to say the spell in a rhyme,” Foz suggested. “Magicians
always do that.”

“Okay.” I waved the wand again. “Let me think…. Magic wand, winds that
whirl, turn Ginny back into a girl!”

The wand began to shake. “Something’s happening!” I shouted.

The white tip of the wand broke open. Out popped a white silk handkerchief.

“Wow!” Foz gasped. A blue one flew out, then a red one, then a yellow one.
The wind blew them away before I could catch them.

I turned back to Ginny. Still a rabbit.

“It didn’t work,” I said unhappily. I tossed the wand into the grass. “It
only makes stupid handkerchiefs.”

I crossed over to the magic case. Ginny leaped at me, trying to bite my leg.

“Watch out!” I warned her. “I’m trying to help you!”

She twitched her nose in disgust.

Foz moved aside as I dove into the magic kit. I dumped everything out. A slip
of paper tumbled out of a pocket in the case.

I snatched it up. At the top of the paper I saw the word INSTRUCTIONS.

“Look!” I cried. “Instructions!” I patted Ginny between the ears. “I’ll have
you back to normal in a second.”