Under the Magician's Spell Read online

  “Shut up!”

  “No, you shut up!”

  Luckily, Sid interrupts you. “I’ve got an idea!” he shouts over your argument.

  Turn to PAGE 37.

  So you think the ball is under the middle cup.

  WRONG!

  But you can have another chance to guess again.

  And this time, pay attention! Keep your eye on that little red ball.

  Turn to PAGE 87.

  You decide to let the scorpion finish off the Magician.

  You hear the scorpion slither forward.

  Go to it, you think. Eat the Magician. Crunch him to bits. Swallow him whole. Sting him with your poison stinger.

  The scorpion slides past you, right up to the Magician.

  You’re going to enjoy this.

  “Hey, pal,” the scorpion greets the Magician.

  Any minute now, you think.

  “Ah, my old friend,” the Magician answers. “How are you?”

  This isn’t going the way you imagined it.

  “So what are we going to do with this pesky kid?” the scorpion asks the Magician.

  “Wait!” you cry out. “I thought you were going to save me. This is the Scorpion Safetyway!”

  “Sorry,” the scorpion tells you. “But I’m off-duty.”

  THE END

  “Look out!” you shout. The balls of fire speed toward you. You put your hands in front of your face. You catch a fireball and toss it back. Before you can take a breath, the jugglers throw another fireball at you. Once again, you manage to toss it back.

  Why aren’t my hands burning up? you wonder. You notice Sid and Joanie gazing at you in awe.

  The jugglers surround you. Somehow you manage to return every ball they throw. As you toss the flaming balls in the air, the jugglers speak in eerie flat tones.

  “We,” says one juggler.

  “Know,” says the second.

  “Who you are,” says the third.

  “What do you mean — yeowch!” It’s hard to talk and juggle at the same time. You drop the fiery ball and — poof! — all the other balls vanish.

  “You took the Magician’s book,” the first juggler says.

  “The Magician wants it back,” says the second.

  “Then he’ll eat you for dinner,” says the third.

  Turn to PAGE 64.

  You roll your eyes at Joanie’s sickly-sweet act. You rush through the mall to meet your friend Sid. You spot him pacing in front of The Comic Connection. Sid is wearing a blue jacket that is a little too small for his chubby frame. He runs a hand through his spiky blond hair. “Where were you?” he demands as you hurry over to him.

  “My mom made me bring Joanie,” you explain.

  “Really?” Sid raises an eyebrow. “Then where is the little princess?”

  Oh, no! Did you lose Joanie already?

  Turn to PAGE 7.

  “Sid. Joanie,” you whisper. “If none of us said that, and the bird didn’t say that, who said that?”

  “The Magician?” Joanie squeaks.

  The three of you turn slowly and scan the room.

  A man steps out of the shadows. It’s not the Magician. But you don’t feel any better. This is the biggest, grossest-looking guy you’ve ever seen.

  His massive body towers over you. Your eyes travel up, up, up to the man’s face. His skin is the color your face turns when you’re about to be sick. Drool runs out of the corner of his mouth. You can smell his foul breath from across the room. He is one creepy dude. And he doesn’t look happy.

  We’re in big trouble, you think.

  The giant’s voice booms: “GIVE ME MY BIRDIE!”

  Turn to PAGE 65.

  You decide it’s easier to climb down the rope ladder.

  You untangle yourself and start down. When you slide to the bottom, you motion to Sid and Joanie to follow you. Your feet hit the ground. You quickly duck behind some boxes.

  You can hear Larry, D. J., and Buddy joking up ahead. Luckily, there are piles of cardboard boxes stacked around the warehouse, so the bullies haven’t noticed you.

  Yet.

  You, Sid, and Joanie tiptoe behind the stacked boxes. You peer around the side.

  D. J. and Buddy are sprawled a few feet ahead of you. They’re laughing and punching each other in the arms. Larry has the Magic Book in his hands. His lips appear to be moving.

  That’s when you realize what is going on.

  “Larry is reading one of the magic spells,” you tell Sid and Joanie.

  Turn to PAGE 42.

  “What’s wrong with me?” you ask. You try to stand up, but your muscles don’t seem to be working.

  You hear a gasp. Sid and Joanie rush toward you. The Masked Man holds out his hand and helps you to your feet.

  You glance down. Your mouth drops open in horror.

  Your feet! Your feet are on backward!

  You turn to the Masked Man. “What did you do to me?” you demand.

  “The trick was going so well,” he explains. “I sawed you in half without a problem. But then …” He shrugs his shoulders.

  Sid and Joanie crowd around you. “You have to fix this!” Sid shouts. Joanie gazes at your backward bottom half in awe.

  “I can try,” the Masked Man says. He picks up the saw.

  “No way!” you yell. “Who knows what kind of mistake he’ll make next time!”

  “Well,” Joanie says, “Mom always complains that you don’t know if you’re coming or going. Now you have an excuse!”

  THE END

  “Maybe the fishbowl would be a good place to hide the Magic Book,” you say. You walk over to the shelf and peer at the fishbowl. The fish stare back.

  “No way,” Joanie says. “It will be totally obvious.”

  “And the fish might get mad,” Sid adds.

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” you tell them. You’ve just noticed the fish aren’t real. They’re just painted on the inside of the clear bowl. You reach into it.

  And do a double-take. You can’t believe what you see! Your hand becomes invisible inside the fishbowl! It disappears completely.

  You test it again. You pull your hand out of the bowl, shake off the water, and then stick it back in. It disappears again. This is so cool!

  “Hey, Joanie!” you shout. “Check this out.”

  Joanie glances your way. You watch her eyes travel down your arm to the fishbowl. Her mouth drops when she notices that your hand appears to be gone!

  Then you lift your arm out of the water. Joanie’s eyes grow wide with terror. You glance down at the end of your arm where your hand should be.

  “My hand,” you gasp. “Where’s my hand?”

  Turn to PAGE 106.

  Granny’s rough treatment is starting to annoy you.

  “Let me help you there,” Granny Kapusta says in her crackly voice. As she yanks you to your feet, you spot something on the floor. It looks like a tooth.

  Granny Kapusta pushes you in front of her. That creepy feeling is back. You glance at Granny. She has stopped to pull shut a window curtain and doesn’t notice you watching her.

  You don’t believe it! Her blue eyes — they turned yellow! It was just for a second, but you know what you saw. That’s it, you think. We’ve got to get out of this house before it’s too late.

  But how?

  Your eyes dart around the hallway searching for some escape route. There’s an open door up ahead. It might be your only chance to get out of here alive.

  Do you want to escape by going through the door? Go to PAGE 33.

  If you want to go into the kitchen to grab Pat the Rat, go to PAGE 89.

  Too bad. This isn’t your lucky day.

  “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

  Oh, no! It didn’t work — the Magician is still alive!

  But where is he?

  You eye the crumpled cape. He couldn’t still be under there, could he?

  You creep toward the cape. It’s just a piece of fabric, you te
ll yourself. You try to shake off a feeling of dread as you move slowly forward.

  CLINK! Your foot accidentally hits the hourglass that was sitting on the floor. It skitters across the room, stopping in front of the cape.

  You reach out for the hourglass. But another hand clutches it first. A hand that stretches out from under the cape.

  The Magician’s hand!

  Turn to PAGE 51.

  Come on, you know better than that! If you touch a hair on Joanie’s head, you’ll be grounded for life and you won’t be able to finish the rest of the adventure. So take a deep breath, count to ten, and be nice to your little sister.

  Go on. You can do it.

  Go back to PAGE 6.

  “What’s a henway?” Mr. Knowledge repeats the question.

  You can’t help yourself. “A hen weighs about six pounds,” you shout from the audience. You love these old jokes.

  Mr. Knowledge gazes out at the audience. “Very good, my young friend. You may ask the next question.”

  You know exactly what to ask. “How do we escape from here?”

  Mr. Knowledge looks startled. “That is an interesting question. It requires an interesting answer. Please, join me onstage.”

  You, Joanie, and Sid race up to the stage. When you are standing beside Mr. Knowledge you are amazed to see that the entire audience has vanished.

  “The answer to your question is in the red ball,” Mr. Knowledge explains. He pulls a small red ball from his pocket and places it on the table in front of him. From a drawer in the table, he produces three small cups. He puts them in a row — one cup on the right, one cup in the middle, and one cup on the left.

  Then Mr. Knowledge takes the red ball and places it under the middle cup.

  Now what?

  Find out on PAGE 87.

  The curse of the Magic Book must be working. Joanie is disappearing! You don’t want to scare her, so you don’t say anything about her missing ears.

  But you’d better get that book back — fast!

  “Okay, back to the plan,” you say. “Let’s track down those jerks and find out what they’ve done with the Magic Book.”

  “Shh,” Joanie hisses. “I hear something.”

  You and Sid lie down with your ears to the floor. No mistaking that laugh. Larry, D. J., and Buddy are downstairs.

  You creep toward the center of the room where you think you’ll be able to hear them better. The floor squeaks under your feet. You try picking your feet up, high, as if you were marching, and putting them down slowly.

  It’s working. No more squeaks. Foot up — foot down. Foot up — but this time there is no floor beneath your foot!

  You desperately try to balance yourself on the edge of the hole in the floor. Your knees start to shake. Back and forth you sway. You try to steady yourself, using your arms for balance.

  It doesn’t work. You’re falling into the open space, down toward the hard cement floor below you!

  Turn to PAGE 127.

  You can’t juggle? That’s okay. Not too many people can. It’s really hard!

  But this is a story about magic. So now, PRESTO! you can magically juggle!

  Turn to PAGE 17.

  You’ve got it! You grab the Magic Book from the floor of the Dumpster. But you lose your balance. Your arms and legs fly out in the air as you sink down into the trash.

  You scrunch up your face to avoid breathing in the awful stench. You open one eye and prop yourself up on one elbow.

  Two red eyes peer back at you.

  A long, twitchy nose is inches away from your face.

  You are staring at the biggest rat you’ve ever seen. This rat is the size of a sheepdog!

  You fling yourself as hard as you can to the other side of the Dumpster. But it’s no good. You slip and slide on the slimy trash. You don’t even have time to let out a scream when the monster rat lunges for your throat.

  THE END

  It’s a trick, you tell yourself. But how does it work?

  A second sword pierces the cabinet. Without thinking, you lift your foot and step onto the sword as it slices through to the other side. Somehow, it manages to hold your weight.

  That’s it, you realize. I have to step on each sword as it comes through the cabinet wall.

  It’s difficult, but you manage to keep your balance as you climb on top of each sword that slides into the cabinet. By the time the final sword is pushed through, you are crouching in a tiny space at the top.

  Now what? you wonder.

  Then the swords are slowly pulled out again. As each sword slides out, you place a foot on the sword below it.

  Finally, you are standing again at the bottom of the cabinet. The door flings open.

  “Excellent!” The Masked Man congratulates you. “Such good work should be rewarded. What is it you want?”

  “We want to get out of here,” you tell the Masked Man. “How do we escape this crazy place?”

  The Masked Man gazes at you sadly. “I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you that.”

  Turn to PAGE 50.

  Sid looks terrible. His face is the color of paste. His eyes are squeezed tightly shut. His mouth is wrinkled up in a tight grimace.

  “What’s wrong, Sid?” you ask. But you think you already know the answer.

  “I don’t like small spaces,” he whispers.

  That’s what you were afraid of.

  “Are you claustrophobic?” Joanie asks. “Do you have a terrible fear of close spaces? Do you feel like you can’t breathe? That we’re running out of air in here, and you’re about to suffocate?”

  Sid’s hands reach out for Joanie’s throat. You grab Sid’s wrists. “Cut it out,” you warn them.

  This is just great, you think. Sid is about to go ballistic. You’re trapped inside a cardboard box. What else could go wrong?

  You’re about to find out.

  Turn to PAGE 122.

  “Okay, let’s see if we can find a spell that will do the trick,” you say. You’re willing to try anything. You grab the small, gold-covered book from Joanie and skim the pages.

  “It must be written in some kind of code,” you say. “I’ve never seen words like this before.”

  “I bet I can read it,” Joanie brags, grabbing the book back from you. “Let me have it.”

  “Fine, smarty-pants,” you say. “Go ahead.”

  Joanie studies the book, turning the pages slowly. “It must be a foreign language,” she says finally.

  “Yeah, like Transylvanian,” Sid jokes. “Maybe the English translation is in the back of the book.”

  Joanie flips to the back pages. “I think you’re right,” she says. “This looks like English.”

  You peer over her shoulder at the book. “Oh right,” you say sarcastically. You snatch the book back from her. “If this is English, then what does ‘Ibin dos yaget nobis tagoo’ mean?”

  Unfortunately, you are about to find out.

  Go to PAGE 40.

  That door looks like your only chance to escape.

  There’s no time to explain to Sid and Joanie what you’re doing. You grab their hands and begin to run. You push them through the open door. Then you slam it behind you. You slide the bolt shut. Joanie and Sid stare at you as if you were crazy.

  You put your finger to your lips, listening at the door. Horrible growling sounds start coming from the other side.

  “Come out of there!” Granny bellows. Then claws scrape against the door.

  “Granny doesn’t sound so friendly anymore,” Sid says nervously.

  You feel around in the dark and find a light switch. A single lightbulb flashes on. You are at the top of cement steps leading into a cellar. You glance around the damp room. You’re in luck! You notice a small window, high up near the ceiling. And it’s open!

  “We can get out that way,” you tell Sid and Joanie, “but we need something to climb on.”

  “There, on the other side of the cellar,” Sid points out. “Those dry pet food bags.”


  You and Sid cross to the stack of bags. Then you notice what’s written on them. Wild Wolf Chow.

  Turn to PAGE 72.

  The Magician will be here any minute!

  “Those jugglers made it sound like we’re goners,” Sid whispers to you.

  “Even if we give him back his book,” Joanie adds glumly.

  You’ve got to act fast. But you can’t escape because you don’t know where you are. Besides, there doesn’t seem to be a normal door in this black room. Your only hope is to hide the book. Then the Magician will need you alive if he wants the book back.

  “We’ve got to hide the book,” you tell Sid and Joanie. “I’m going to put it in the coffin.”

  “No,” Sid says. “It will be too easy to find. Let’s look around.”

  You search the room for a hiding place. There isn’t much choice. A wide shelf runs along one wall. On it sits a large fishbowl with three exotic fish and an old-fashioned metal birdcage with a yellow canary.

  If you still think the coffin is the best place to hide the book, go to PAGE 101.

  If you hide the book in the fishbowl, turn to PAGE 22.

  If you put the book in the birdcage, turn to PAGE 132.

  You open your eyes and sneak another look at the cowboy. It’s hard to see his face as you spin round and round. He seems to be concentrating very hard.

  “Is this trick safe?” Joanie asks, her voice trembling. She sounds scared. It’s kind of nice to know she’s worried about you.

  “I’ll tell you a secret, young lady,” the cowboy assures her. “It’s a trick knife. Completely harmless.”