Chapter 20
BEN TO MOM’S RESCUE
Often all that is needed to accomplish the impossible is for one humble creature to come up with a well-made plan.
—RUFUS FLYCATCHER
Beneath the glowering sunset, Ben and Amber raced over the waste, guided only by the sound of Governor Shortzenbeggar’s screams.
He wailed and hollered, begging for death, but the evil flies carried on their gruesome torment.
Ben and Amber climbed through the rubbish piles, scooting under broken couches, tiptoeing along a bit of water pipe, balancing on paint cans, holding their noses when they passed the smelly places.
Everything was covered by the corpses of slain flies in a hundred varieties.
At last they found the governor. He wasn’t hard to see. Belle Z. Bug had her henchmen holding him at the very peak of the rubbish pile. Ben’s mom was nearby, and a pair of giant flies held her, too!
“Keep him still!” Belle Z. Bug shouted. “Keep him still.” But the governor thrashed and fought like a madman. But it was no use. The superflies clung to him like death. “Now pour it on!”
Though the flies tortured him, Ben couldn’t see any marks on him, no gaping wounds or blood. In fact, Ben couldn’t see that the flies were hurting him at all.
Then it happened. One giant mantis fly held up an eyedropper and let some liquid fall.
There, at the side of the governor’s neck, something horrible began to grow, like a grotesque, black jack-o-lantern. Ben could see eyes popping out on it, but the mouth was strange and twisted, and all too soon it began to sprout odd protuberances—antennas and a mop.
It was the head of a giant fly!
“Careful,” Belle Z. Bug told the others. “Don’t get any of the Mutagenic Miracle Grow on him—just on the limbs we’re grafting on.”
“Please, no more!” Governor Shortzenbeggar cried.
The newly grown head pivoted and looked him in the face. “Please, no more!” it mocked. Then it looked to Belle Z. Bug and said, “Will somebody do me a favor here and lop this extra head off?”
The flies all chortled.
“It worked!” Belle Z. Bug called. “We got him to grow an extra head. Now let’s try a new abdomen!”
“I want to grow another head on him,” one of the flies argued. A third shouted, “Let’s give him a wing!”
Amber stood in shock, horrified. “What are they doing?”
Ben watched for a second just to be sure. One giant fly reached up and snatched a tiny fly out of the air, then tenderly twisted off one of its appendages.
“They’re sticking fly parts on him,” Ben realized, “and then making them grow. They’re going to turn him into a giant fly! I saw that on a movie once. I hate it when that happens.”
Harold Shortzenbeggar peered at the spot where the flies had dripped the Mutagenic Miracle Grow, and now he began to scream as a third arm—a long hairy fly arm—began to sprout from his ribs.
The fly’s head whined, “Seriously, this guy is screaming right into my antenna! Can someone please remove this . . . obnoxious tumor?”
“Hey, buddy,” Harold Shortzenbeggar said. “This was my body first. If anyone is going to get his head lopped off, it’s you—even if I have to do it myself!”
“Oh, yeah,” the fly head said, “what are you whining about? You know the old saying, ‘Two heads are better than one’? Well they are! I’m smarter than you, and I’m nowhere near as ugly as you!”
Amber crouched low and whispered, “What can we do to help the governor?”
Ben thought hard but couldn’t come up with any good plans. He considered stealing the eyedropper, but that wouldn’t help much. He also thought about attacking the giant flies, but that didn’t seem wise.
He only had one weapon—his spear.
“It doesn’t matter if the rest of those giant flies live,” he told Amber. “But someone has to kill Belle Z. Bug, and I guess that someone should be me.”
He brandished his needle and wiped off the gore from the flies he’d killed earlier.
“What are you going to do?” Amber asked, her voice a fearful little squeak.
“I’m going to jump up in the air and bury my spear right between that monster’s eyes!” Ben said.
“I’m afraid,” Amber cried. “Don’t leave me.”
“I have to,” Ben said. “They’ve got my mom . . .”
Amber fought back some tears. “You really are the most courageous mouse I’ve ever known, Ben Ravenspell,” she said. She lunged forward and hugged him.
Ben turned and began scrambling up to the top of the heap, wading through a drift of dead flies. It was like trying to wade through snow; he fought his way forward a few feet and then looked back. He’d left a little trail among the dead flies.
I’m invisible to the flies,
he reminded himself,
but they still might see my footprints.
Amber crept along behind him. He didn’t know if she planned to help or if she just wanted to watch, but she had begun following in his path.
“No!” Governor Shortzenbeggar cried. “Not the wing! Don’t put a wing on me!”
Ben peered ahead as the poor tortured victim renewed his struggles to escape. At least his screams provided a diversion for the monsters.
“Hold still!” Belle Z. Bug shouted. “Or you’ll end up with a wing growing out of your nose!”
The torture resumed, and Ben decided to make his move. He leapt uphill in mighty bounds.
The flies were all hunched over, looking at the governor, but they had so many eyes that it was impossible to tell where they might be looking. He only hoped that the governor’s distractions would keep them from noticing the little trail of mouseprints that appeared among the dead flies.
Suddenly the governor lunged like a wild man and kicked a superfly in the pancreas. The other flies buzzed angrily and fought to control the governor.
Ben leapt up and grabbed the gunwale of the discarded yacht. There weren’t so many dead flies on the floor there. Ben raced closer to the victim and stopped just outside the circle of giant flies.
Belle Z. Bug was straight ahead, pacing nervously, enjoying the show as one of her enormous flies poured a drop of Mutagenic Miracle Grow onto a wing.
It began to sprout from the governor’s back, a huge, nasty thing that looked like it was made from wax paper. The governor had struggled so much that the flies had set it in the wrong place—instead of growing from the governor’s shoulder, the wing sprouted from his kidney.
“Wow,” a big fruit fly said, “that looks great! Let’s give him another one!”
But Belle Z. Bug had a better idea. “No, hold him down while I pull the wing off.
Then
we’ll grow another one!”
All of the flies laughed hysterically, and the big fruit fly jumped on the governor and held him. Belle Z. Bug crawled forward to do the evil deed.
Ben heard a little scuffling noise behind him. It was Amber. She’d crept up to him. “Now,” she whispered in his ear. “Do it now!”
Ben gripped his needle spear and studied the monster’s head. He was pretty sure where its brain was—right between those enormous faceted eyes. The light was still good, though the sun was dipping between the low hills.
Ben cautiously hopped over the deck of the ship, sneaking between two huge superflies posted as guards, and drew near Belle Z. Bug.
The giant fly had painted her body hot pink, and with her makeup on, Ben had to admit that she was truly beautiful—all except for a child’s charm bracelet around her neck. It was a silly thing, with little plastic tennis shoes and four-leaf clovers and whatnot. It didn’t go with the outfit at all.
I wonder why she wears that?
Ben thought.
He was just about to leap and plunge his spear between her eyes when his mother screamed, “Ben, Amber, run for your lives!”
Ben looked up. His mother was being held by two giant flies. She stared right at him.
Oh, no!
he realized.
I’m invisible to the flies but not to my mom!
Belle Z. Bug whirled and glared at Ben.
“Assassins!” she shouted. Ben’s cover was blown, so he took a mighty leap, aiming his spear right between her eyes.
She lifted her mop the way an elephant lifts its trunk, and she blew . . .
A powerful wind hit Ben like a hurricane, catching him midleap. The force hurled him backward and up into the air. He went somersaulting crazily, like a tumbleweed in a hurricane.
The same wind lifted Amber up, and both of them went flying.
“Have a nice trip!” Belle Z. Bug shouted. She began to cackle.
Ben and Amber went hurtling high into the air, tumbling and spinning until Ben felt sick to his stomach.
Just like a ride at Disneyland,
Ben thought as the wind carried them high over some trees and sent them hurtling miles and miles away.
Chapter 21
LADY BLACKPOOL
I do not fear death. I look forward to it with hope and anticipation, for I know that death is just a new beginning.
—LADY BLACKPOOL
The wind carried Amber and Ben for perhaps fifteen miles, until finally it gave out and they began to tumble. They dropped into some deep marsh grass that cushioned their fall then fell into a shallow pond.
Wet, sick to her stomach, and miserable, Amber slogged from the water into the shallows. Darkness was falling. All around frogs croaked. Mosquitoes hung thick in the air.
Ben climbed onto the grass behind her and whispered, “We’ve got to get out of here. There are bullfrogs in this pond, all around us!”
“So?” Amber said.
“They can eat a mouse!” Ben said. “I saw one do it on the Discovery Channel.”
“Oh, great,” Amber groused. “Isn’t there any place that a mouse can go to just get away from it all?”
The two of them hopped up into the tall marsh grass and crept through a jungle of cottontails. The mud around the base of the plants had been pounded flat, so that they could sneak along quietly. Only once did they catch sight of a frog—a big, blue-eyed devil off in the cane.
They raced away, and it didn’t give chase.
Soon the pond fell behind, and they reached the edge of an orange grove. Ben stopped at the grass line and looked up, scanning for hawks or owls.
“Hop, stop, and look!” he warned.
“Where are we going?” Amber asked.
“Back to the dump,” Ben said.
“But there’s nothing we can do there. Belle Z. Bug has broken my spell. She can see us now, and I don’t have the power to cast another.”
“My mom’s there,” Ben said. “I have to help her. I can’t just stay here and do nothing.”
“You can stay here with me,” Amber said. “We could hide out in a field and wait until I get my powers back. We could live to fight another day.”
“While those flies stick a new head on my mom?” Ben asked. “I don’t think so!”
If Amber had had the power to cast a spell and make him stay, she would have done so. She knew that fighting was pointless. Her heart was breaking.
“We have more than your mom to worry about,” Amber said. “We have a world of evil to fight. I think that we’ve lost this battle!”
Suddenly a bird flitted overhead, and at the sound of wings, both of the mice cringed, freezing in place. The bird landed in an orange tree. It was small, harmless. Amber’s heart had skipped a couple of beats, but now it slowed back to normal. A second bird shot past, and then a third. A whole flock was coming!
“We haven’t lost this battle yet!” Lady Blackpool shouted from above.
Amber whirled. A fearsome-looking red-tailed hawk dropped to the ground behind her, its beak curving down like a reaping hook. Lady Blackpool rode upon its shoulders.
In all of the excitement, Amber had forgotten she was coming!
“Lady Blackpool!” Ben cried, leaping for joy. “Is there room on that thing for three of us?”
“There is,” Lady Blackpool said, “so long as you don’t thrust me through with that sharp spear of yours.”
Ben and Amber pounded through the grass then climbed on the back of the hawk. The raptor leapt into the air.
As it rose and flapped silently between the trees, Ben and Amber told the wizardess of all that they had heard and seen—the trillions of flies ahead, the governor’s failed plan to kill them, the vast powers of Belle Z. Bug.
When they got to the part about the giant superflies, Lady Blackpool nodded sagely. “As I have seen in my vision. Always in my dreams, one of them is carrying me to my death.”
Lady Blackpool peered forward stoically, as if lost in a nightmare, and then shook her head. “This fly is a great evil. Not since the dimmest times of legend has such a monster been loosed upon the earth. But I am afraid that it pales in comparison to the evils to come.”
Amber fell silent. The hawk was flying low over the orange fields. With the setting of the sun, a fresh wind had begun blowing in from the coast, and as night fell and the air cooled, the flies had all begun going to ground.
Not so the birds. Amber checked over her shoulder and watched them leap from the branches of trees and fly ahead in fits and starts. There were tens of thousands of them—flycatchers and bee-eaters, a fearsome army whisking silently through the night.
But she knew that they would not be enough. Belle Z. Bug had her own army of superflies; these birds were no match for such monsters.
All too soon the birds winged out of the orchards and soared over some fields at the edge of the landfill. The garbage rose up in great hills—noxious mounds of old diapers and moldy strawberries, candy bar wrappers and gutted cars. It was as if this were a graveyard, the last remnants of some fallen civilization.
Considering what the flies had done to mankind with their curse of evil,
Amber thought,
perhaps it might be the last monument to man.
The flies had grown quiet now, gone to rest for the night. But Amber conjured visions of burning cities and looted banks, a world where people did evil things just because some nasty little fly whispered for them to do it, with the good folks helpless to disobey.
“Take us down,” Lady Blackpool whispered to the hawk, and the great bird soared to the ground and landed without the slightest jolt.
“Get down,” Lady Blackpool told Amber and Ben. “This fight is not for you.”
Amber knew of Lady Blackpool’s destiny. Amber’s eyes brimmed with tears. She dropped safely to the ground, and Ben landed beside her.
“Promise me,” Lady Blackpool asked Amber, “that when this is done, you will go to S.W.A.R.M.”
Amber hesitated. She looked at Ben. She didn’t want to go without him. The thought of taking off across the country alone, finding some school in a strange swamp, and meeting odd new magical animals frightened her. But she had fought great evils in the past two weeks, and she found the courage to say, “Yes, I’ll go.”
Lady Blackpool looked to Ben. “And promise me that when Amber turns you back into a human, you’ll have a long and happy life and that you’ll always be nice to mice—and all other creatures smaller than you!”
“I’ll be nice to mice,” Ben said. “But the flies are going to get what they’ve got coming!”
“Flies are not evil by nature,” Lady Blackpool said. “Icky and disease-ridden, yes, but not evil. Belle Z. Bug has warped their thinking!”
With that, she turned her snout toward the landfill once again, as if she would go do battle. Then she said softly to Amber, “You need to know, Amber, a good wizard only uses magic as a last resort when it comes to resolving disputes. Remember what I said? It is far better to win the hearts of others with reason and gentle persuasion than to use force.”
With that she raised a paw in the air and cast a small spell. When next she spoke, her voice came out as a roar, amplified thousands of times over.
Lady Blackpool shouted, “Flies of the world, Belle Z. Bug has sought to seduce your hearts with a lie: she has told you that you are hated by all of the other creatures of the world because flies are ugly. But that is not true.
“The Great Maker, the Master of Field and Fen, created you! Nothing that he has made is ugly or foul. Flies are a masterpiece of intricacy unequaled in all of creation. The Master made you well, and even flies are beautiful.
“The truth is that you are hated because you land on our food and then mop it. You taste our food and then vomit onto it. When you do this, you spread diseases, and you ruin our food. This is why other animals dislike you.”
Lady Blackpool’s voice boomed and echoed out over the dump, and the flies held still, listening to her attentively. Amber couldn’t tell what the flies might be thinking. They weren’t like mice. They didn’t have any facial expressions. Lady Blackpool continued.
“Stop eating our food!” she pleaded. “Stop being icky, and I’m sure that the rest of the animals will like you better! And for those of you that like to bite: knock it off!
“The truth is that Belle Z. Bug’s makeup doesn’t truly make you beautiful. It might enhance your natural attractiveness, but you don’t need it.
“The truth is that greater beauty can be found within you than upon your surface. Beauty depends more upon what you do than what you look like!”
Lady Blackpool quit her sermon, and her voice boomed out a warning, stern and dangerous. “Flee from Belle Z. Bug!” she roared. “Leave her now, and fly to safety. I give you five minutes, and then the battle begins! All who do not heed my warning: prepare to die!”
Silence fell over the dump. It had not been a stirring speech. It wasn’t a rousing masterpiece of oration. Instead Lady Blackpool had made a simple appeal to reason.
Amber hoped that the flies would depart in a great cloud.
Indeed, the dump filled with buzzing as flies rose into the air and nervously began to leave. But not many left—only a thin haze of them.
The remaining flies shouted, “Cowards!” “Turncoats!”
The birds kept winging in, arranging themselves for battle until they covered the ground behind Amber and Ben.
Lady Blackpool shook her head sadly. “The flies have become too invested in evil,” she said. “They have bought into Belle Z. Bug’s cunning lie, and now they dare not back out.”
The birds sat for the full five minutes, sometimes fluttering up in the air for a second to grab a wayward fly. Overhead, darkness had fallen completely, and now stars were beginning to come out. Amber looked up at one lone star, shining bright and indomitable against the encircling darkness.
“The time has come,” Lady Blackpool said. She turned to her army of birds. “Take to the skies, my feathered warriors! Eat your fill! Death to the evil flies!”
A roaring wind suddenly burst over the land, shaking the grass and making it hiss. It came from behind, and Amber realized that Lady Blackpool had summoned it with a spell.
The birds lifted off in a rush of wings, speeding toward the dump, the tailwind propelling them swiftly. Lady Blackpool’s hawk outraced them all, winging ahead.
A vast cloud of flies rose up to meet them, blotting out the evening stars, blocking the sorceress shrew’s path. But her fierce wind cut through the ranks of the flies that could not fight the headwind.
Amber and Ben could hardly tell what happened next. The storm roared in Amber’s ears, and the humongous cloud blotted out the stars, bringing on an intense night.
A fierce battle ensued. A bolt of purple lightning rained down out of clear skies, and lances of green lightning seemed to rise up from the earth to do battle with it.
The army of birds swept into the clouds of flies, darting this way and that, shrieking with angry cries and gobbling flies by the tens of thousands.
Eerie lights strobed over the dump. Thunder boomed and rumbled, making the ground tremble as it roared. A column of fire-lit smoke rose up.
“Gosh!” Ben Ravenspell said.
Amber could think of no reply. She’d never been near a battle where two wizards of immense power dueled. She suddenly felt small and insignificant and stupid.
For two weeks she’d been squandering her magical energy, wasting it on frivolous things. But Lady Blackpool had been hoarding her mage dust for decades, growing stronger and stronger, preparing herself to face true evil.
Now the battle was joined, and even from this great distance it was a miracle to behold!
Amber found herself breathless from excitement.
But suddenly the great wind died, and the birds began to chirp in despair. Seconds later, Amber spotted birds whipping overhead in full retreat.
“I think . . .” Ben said, fighting back a sniffle. “I think Lady Blackpool has lost. She’s dead!”
Tears welled up in Amber’s eyes. She fell to the ground and wept in despair, her heart breaking. More birds whistled overhead, flying away.
“Don’t move,” Ben whispered. “Maybe our enemies won’t see us . . .”
Ben and Amber huddled side by side as birds winged past, followed by clouds of flies.
Suddenly a larger shadow arced overhead then wheeled toward them in a flurry. “Flee!” Lady Blackpool shouted from the back of her hawk. “The battle is lost!”
“You’re alive!” Amber cried, jumping up in joy. Ben and Amber hopped to the great hawk and scurried onto its back.
Weary from battle, barely able to cling to the hawk, Lady Blackpool gasped. “Amber,” she said. “I’ve cast my last spell. The wizard wearies are on me, and I can battle no more! Help me hold on, so I don’t faint.”
So Amber clung to the shrew, and the hawk leapt into the air. It flew swift and sure toward the orange groves then dove beneath the protective canopy of leaves. Fast as a bolt it thundered between the dark boles of orange trees. The smell of fruit was strong and cloying in the darkness.
The hawk veered, and by the time it left the orange groves and went winging toward the stars, the landfill was miles away.
Amber glanced down. She couldn’t even see the dump anymore or the cloud of flies. Yet the hawk continued to climb, leaving the danger farther and farther behind.
With every wing-beat, the hawk bore them closer and closer to safety.
Ben began to weep openly. It wasn’t some impersonal battle that he had lost. Yes, human civilization was on the brink of ruin, but Ben had lost his own mother.
Amber had come to realize that she liked Mona Ravenspell; silently Amber mourned too.
But the moment was short-lived, for just as they rose up so high that Amber felt that she could reach out from the hawk’s shoulder and catch a passing star, she heard a terrible buzzing behind her.
She glanced back just in time to see a trio of giant flies racing up behind.
The hawk let out a frightened screech and tried to dive too late.
A giant fly snagged Amber in its paws and then somersaulted in midair. The monster had her in its clutches!
A moment later, she heard Ben screech, and then two more flies came up behind her. Each fly was carrying one mouse-sized package. Lady Blackpool struggled valiantly to bite her captor, but the monster was holding her by the tail, and she was too weak from battle to reach him.