The Wonderful Roundabout
them.’
‘So what did she do with the book?’
‘She moved it in the basement and put another alarm charm around it. The entry to the basement is right under her bed but there’s an air pipe that we could use without much trouble. So it’s easier for us now. What we have to do is just dodge the alarm.’
‘How do we do that?’
‘Well, the witch’s clothes have a cloaking spell on them so she never triggers the alarm herself. So what we have to do is wear her clothes. You can use a sock and I’ll use a scarf.’
‘A sock? Really? A sock?’ Mouse asked with a tone of disgust.
‘She has clean socks, Mouse!’
‘Oh, alright then. So when do we leave?’
‘Well, I’d say we best do it tonight cause she definitely won’t expect for someone to try to steal her spell book twice in the same day.’
‘Good thinking. Let’s go!’
So the two friends quickly ran to the house and slowly crept inside the witch’s bedroom.
‘She keeps her socks in that there drawer and her scarves on that cabinet. If she wakes up, just hide. She’s used to having me around so she won’t think that anything’s going on unless she sees you.’
The mouse did as he was told and the cat got the scarf. The witch fidgeted a little in her sleep but she didn’t wake up. Cosmo and Twist then met on the roof, close to one of the air vents.
‘Now look, Mouse, you have to crawl down through the vent, into the pipe, then make a right to the kitchen and push the grate open from the inside. I’ll be downstairs, pulling on it from the other side. I’ve tried to get that grate out before, it’s one sturdy thing. When we take it out, I’ll crawl into the pipe, to the basement where I steal the page from the book. There’s no way we can take the entire book with us and it’s too dark for even me to read. Now I might get stuck in the pipe because that scarf ain’t exactly slippery and I ain’t really small. So if I do you’ll have to get me out. Let’s take some butter with us, just in case.’
So they both followed the plan again and everything went perfect until…
‘Mouse! I’ve got the page! I’ve got the page!’
‘Great! Don’t get any butter on it! Let’s go!’
‘I can’t! What do you mean you can’t?!’
‘I can’t feel my legs. Mouse, get over here, take the page and go! Something’s happening!’
‘What?!’
‘I don’t know, I can’t see, I’m turning into something!’
The mouse quickly ran and when he got to the cat…
‘Cosmo! Are you alright? I’m here. Cosmo?! Cosmo! Say something!’
The mouse tried to touch his friend but could only feel something cold and hard, like rock. Then he found the page and took it with his tiny paws.
‘Cosmo… I’m scared. I found the page. Are you here? Where are you?!’
Just as he desperately tried to see something, a ray of moonlight reflected from a neighboring roof and fell through a crack next to the basement ceiling, right to where he was standing. So he saw that his friend had turned into stone. He started to cry with terrible dread, feeling lost and hopeless and guilty once again. And as his tears fell down, one of them landed on the old, worn out page and sparkled in the moonlight. Mouse saw it and suddenly realized…
‘I’ve got the page! If I could only read it and transform him back! Oh! I can’t read humaaan! What is this? It’s symbols! This is the full moon, and this is… the wind blowing through the leaves and this is… I’ve got it! Here goes: when the wind blows under the full moon, you will rise like the lightning and transform from the womb into… a cat!’
The table started to shake under them and Cosmo’s skin started to crack. From under the rock spots of fur appeared. In a moment he was shaking off the last pieces of stone and he was as alive as he’d ever been.
‘I feel amazing! Mouse! You saved me!’
‘Cosmo! I’m sorry Cosmo!’
‘It’s alright. Let’s get out of here, quickly.’
‘I don’t need the page anymore. I know the spell.’
‘Good. Let’s put it back in the book, then. I don’t want the witch hunting for me all her life because she figured out I stole her spell.’
‘Here! Now let’s go!’
So back they crawled, through the pipes, and they got to the shed with their furs all murky and covered in butter.
‘Topsy! Topsy, wake up! I have the spell! I can do it now, because it’s the full moon. Wake up!’
‘Oh, Mouse! I’m so sleepy. But very well, do the spell… Oh, wait! Mouse… what do you want to turn me into?’
‘A mouse, of course.’
‘Well, I was thinking… wouldn’t you rather be a different creature? Like a puppy?’
‘I could be a puppy…’
‘I’d love to be a puppy.’
‘Puppies live longer than mice, the cat said.’
‘Fine, puppies it is.’
So the next day when she walked into her shed, Maria sadly discovered her bike wasn’t there anymore. But the sadness didn’t last very long, because out of a box crawled two adorable white puppies and a lovable, although fairly greasy, cat. She vouched to take care of them and, as you can imagine, she most certainly did and they all lived happily ever after and Topsy made up one happy poem:
‘Once there was a little white mouse
Who wanted to have a spouse.
He managed to befriend a cat
Trick a witch and wear a hat.
And one lovely summer day,
Luck happened to blow his way:
The pink bike he loved so dearly
Turned into a puppy clearly!
So he followed right along
And now they both sing this song!
And the cat that helped their chance,
Learned to love and learned to dance!’
THE PANDA THAT NEVER LOST A FRIEND