The children reached in their pockets for their Eat Me cakes when suddenly, the boiler room door opened.
'Someone's coming!' Sabrina shouted. The door closed and a man walked over to the coal furnace. He opened a small trapdoor on its side and reached in. Sabrina guessed he had pushed the lever because a hum filled the room, and the coal furnace began to slide across the floor. That's when Sabrina noticed it was Principal Hamelin.
The principal waited patiently, and when the coal furnace had slid away, he descended a flight of stairs hidden underneath the machine.
The children rushed to the center of the room.
'That was your dad,' Sabrina said to Wendell.
'What is he doing?' he said.
'We have to follow him,' Daphne insisted.
'We can't! If we eat the cakes and get big, he's sure to spot us, but at this size we'll never make it down those steps,' her sister argued.
'No worries, girls. I have a brilliant plan,' Puck said, proudly. He spun around on his heels and transformed into an elephant, albeit a tiny elephant. He let out a mighty roar and charged off into the far corner of the room.
'Puck, we don't have time for your stupidity,' Sabrina shouted after him, but the boy-elephant did not respond. Soon, she could hear the scraping of metal on the floor. When elephant Puck returned he was pushing a dustpan with his massive head, all the way to the edge of the steps. When the pan was on the edge of the top step, the elephant morphed back into the boy.
'Get in,' he said, beaming with pride.
Sabrina looked at the dustpan hanging precariously over the edge. 'No way,' she said. 'We'll kill ourselves in that thing.'
Daphne was already climbing inside and had found a spot in the corner to sit down. 'We survived Granny's driving,' she said. 'We'll survive this, too.'
'You'll be fine,' Puck assured Sabrina. 'You'll probably need someone to feed you for the rest of your life, but you'll make it. Stop being a baby and get in.'
Sabrina looked at Wendell. He shrugged and the two of them climbed into the dustpan.
'You all need to stay in the back of this thing,' Puck explained. 'Oh, and one more thing…'
'What?' Sabrina cried. She didn't like the tone of his voice.
'Buckle up, kiddies,' Puck shouted as he walked to the front of the pan and leaped into the air. His body came down hard on the end of the pan and the back tilted high in the air, sending the whole thing rocketing down the steps before Sabrina could even scream. Each step it cleared just made the dustpan increase its speed, until finally they crashed at the bottom of the stairs.
After Sabrina checked everyone for broken bones, she punched Puck in the arm.
'Hey, I got us here, didn't I?' he complained as he rubbed his sore shoulder.
The children climbed out of the dustpan, calmed themselves, and headed down a long, cavernous hall carved out of stone. Along the rocky path were pickaxes and dusty shovels, old buckets and miles and miles of rope.
What are they up to down here? Sabrina wondered, as everyone marched through the tunnel. The journey wouldn't have taken long if they were their usual size, but the length of a normal step now required a dozen.
'This is as far as I went before,' Wendell said when they reached a place where the tunnels branched off into two directions. 'Which way should we go?'
Sabrina heard voices arguing in the tunnel to the left.
'There's someone else down here besides your father,' she said. 'Let's go find out who.'
The children followed the tunnel to the left, turned a corner, and crept as close as they could to the two men arguing in the datk. Sabrina couldn't make out the other person's face, but Hamelin was one of them for sure. The principal was wringing his hands.
'I'm telling you again. This has gone too far. No one was supposed to die,' Hamelin said.
'Piper, you worry too much,' a creaky voice said. To Sabrina, it sounded like the voice of a man who had been alive a thousand years without drinking a single sip of water. 'Tonight we're going to reach our goal. We would already be there if it weren't for last night.'
'My son was missing!' Hamelin cried. 'What was I supposed to do?'
'Of all people, I understand,' the voice crackled. 'After all, I'm a father, too. The difference is that my children understand how important this is, while your child just gets in the way and puts this all at risk.'
'Don't threaten me,' the principal growled. 'My boy isn't going to ruin our plans.'
'Then we understand each other,' the voice said. 'Tonight we'll push forward, if you can find the time.'
Hamelin's voice was so angry it was shaking. 'Don't question my dedication. This was my idea after all.'
'I'm glad to see you still remember that.'
Hamelin spun around and rushed back up the tunnel, narrowly missing stepping on his own son, who just managed to leap out of the way.
'Are you OK?' Daphne asked, taking Wendell's hand in her own.
'I can't believe it,' the boy said.
'We should go farther into the tunnel,' Sabrina suggested. 'We need to know where they are digging to.' Everyone agreed, but just then something crawled out from around a corner and stopped the group in their tracks. An enormous brown mouse as big as a semi truck lumbered toward them. The rodent's pink nose and whiskers flicked and twitched as it sniffed at the children. Sabrina knew that at their current size they'd make a great snack for the hungry mouse.
'Eat the cakes,' Sabrina advised, eyeing the mouse.
The children unwrapped their cakes and were just about to eat them when the mouse barreled forward and knocked Sabrina down. Daphne screamed and Puck leaped forward and dragged Sabrina to her feet. Unfortunately, she had dropped her cake right in front of the beast. The mouse spotted it, sniffed it, and with a quick flick of its tongue, ate it.
'That was a bad thing, wasn't it?' Sabrina said, sheepishly.
'Oh, man,' Puck said, quickly shoving his own little chocolate cake into his mouth. 'This is going to be awesome.'
Daphne and Wendell were already munching their cakes, too, when Puck offered Sabrina his pinky.
'Hang on Sabrina,' Puck said, flashing his devilish grin. 'This is about to get interesting.'
Sabrina grabbed his pinky finger and held it tightly just as the first changes affected the mouse's body. It sounded as if someone were blowing up a balloon. A ripple rolled across the mouse's skin and its eyes widened as its body inflated by a thousand times, yet its little legs and head stayed the exact same size, causing its massive body to plop to the ground. This was followed by a loud, squeaky rubber sound as the rodent's feet, legs, and head expanded in size. The children dashed down the tunnel to avoid the quickly expanding mouse.
Puck, meanwhile, was growing in the same awkward manner. His legs got big first, pushing him to his normal height and sending Sabrina soaring high into the air. When his upper body and hands finally followed, his pinky got thicker. Sabrina held on with all her might. Luckily, Puck was paying attention. He quickly swung her into his shirt pocket, where she clung to the top, just as Puck's head inflated.
Meanwhile, Daphne's head and feet were the first to inflate and the not-so-little girl hobbled around like a pumpkin that had suddenly sprouted shoes and was making an escape from the patch.
'I don't like this at all,' she groaned. No sooner had she complained than her legs sprouted up like over-eager cornstalks, followed by her upper body, and lastly her neck. Wendell experienced the same kind of disturbing growth.
'It's all good,' the runny-nosed detective announced, checking for all ten fingers. But what he didn't see was that it wasn't 'all good.' The mouse was also getting bigger and bigger until it was nearly as wide as the tunnel, and worse, it seemed very, very angry.
Puck grabbed Daphne and Daphne grabbed Wendell and they all rushed down the tunnel and up the stairs. When they got to the top, Daphne and Wendell raced across the room to the door, unlocked it, and hurried into the hall. Puck followed close behind, giggling like an idiot.
'Do you laugh every time we're in trouble?' Sabrina shouted.
The boy looked down into his pocket. 'What are you squeaking about?'
When he was safely in the hall, Puck slammed the door shut and the children leaned against the walls on either side to catch their breath.
'I don't think we have to worry about him anymore,' Puck said.
Just then, the door flew off its hinges, slammed against the opposite wall, and fell heavily to the floor. The giant mouse lumbered into the hallway and roared angrily. It was as big as a stuffed buffalo Sabrina had seen at the Natural History Museum. It let out a deafening squeak and licked its gigantic front teeth. To make matters worse, the dismissal bell rang and every classroom door opened. The hallway was immediately flooded with a sea of noisy children, eager to get to their next class. The mouse stomped hard, creating a chasm in the shiny floor, and all conversation ended abruptly.
'Well, piglet, you wanted to do the dangerous stuff,' Puck laughed, as he turned to a stunned Wendell. 'Be my guest!'
9
OK, everyone, there's no need to panic. We're professionals and we know how to handle things like this,' Daphne assured the crowd of stunned
