“I’m not lying! It’s Rupert! Really! The Fairfoul Witch caught me! The Witches Council gave me a potion that turned me into this!”
Sandy froze in horror, a nauseated expression on her face.
“You have to help me,” Rupert said. “The witches are chasing me! Well, they’re not really witches anymore — they’ve all turned into bunnies.”
She blanched. “They’ve all turned into bunnies?” Sandy said with a shudder. “That’s the only thing worse than witches!”
“But it’s not just the witches — everyone in my class has turned into bunnies, too. And anyone who touches us becomes a bunny — soon the whole town will be full of bunnies!”
Sandy winced. “What can I do?”
“You have to turn us back!”
She shook her head. “I can’t. My spells are still rubbish, remember?”
“I’ll help you,” Rupert said. “I’ll coach you through it. You’re the only witch that can stop it. All the other witches and witchlings are rabbits right now. Without you, Gliverstoll is doomed.”
Sandy held her arms close to her chest and trembled again. “I. HATE. RABBITS,” she said through clenched teeth. “We certainly can’t have a town full of them.”
“If enough people turn into them, you might become one, too,” Rupert said. “I imagine it would be hard to fight off a horde of bunnies.”
Sandy shuddered violently. “Please stop talking about them! Just… let me think of an appropriate spell.”
She sat down on the sand across from Rupert and buried her face in her hands. Rupert waited patiently as she mumbled. “Honey,” she said. “And money. And funny — oh, that’s no good. Rabbit — habit. Still no good. What about people? Oh… steeple.”
“What are you doing?” Rupert asked.
Sandy looked up. “Trying to think of all the ways my spell can go wrong.”
Rupert’s nose twitched, and he stuck his bunny ears straight up. “We’ll be here forever, if you do that,” he said.
Sandy sighed. Then she froze, staring at something behind Rupert. He turned his head — thousands of bunnies were hopping down the steps. Black ones, white ones, gray ones, brown ones, tan ones, dotted ones, plain ones. They were pouring down like water out of a watering can, showering down the stairs. From a distance, Rupert thought the bunnies made the steps look like they were covered with a shaggy rug.
Sandy’s bottom lip quivered. “BUUUUNNN- NNYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
“GO!” Rupert squeaked. “YOU CAN’T TOUCH THEM! YOU HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE!”
Sandy started to run, but then she hesitated. “You’re coming with me,” she said. “Rupert Rabbit, you had better be fast!”
A Brief Interlude from Real Bunnies
To Whom it May Concern:
We’re not that scary.
We’re actually pretty fluffy, warm, and snuggly-wuggly soft.
Okay. Sure, some of us carry nasty little diseases. And sure, the Black Plague rode in on our distant cousins — the rodents — but that wasn’t our fault. And we formally protest our horrible reputation. Consider this letter our formal complaint regarding our cruel repute. We are certain that you will take the appropriate measures to ensure that our reputation as a lovable animal will be restored.
Cordially,
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.”