Lost in the Dark Unchanted Forest by John R. Erickson Page B

bat?”
    â€œYou certainly did.”
    â€œMy goodness. I meant to say cat. I don’t work well under pressure.”
    The brothers were moving towards us, a wall of gleaming yellow eyes and long white teeth and raised hackles. “One last chance, Madame. See if you can make a correction.”
    â€œI don’t like this pressure! I simply hate doing spells before a crowd.”
    â€œHurry!”
    â€œOh, all right!” She closed her eyes. “Power, power, I said bat but I meant . . .”
    Too late. Snort grabbed her up in his jaws, but at the last second, she yelled out the right word. “Cat! Cat! Oh my goodness, cat!”
    By that time Rip had jumped into the middle of me, and before I had time to fight back, he had bedded me down and was standing astraddle of me. I’m not sure fighting back would have done much good anyway. I mean, those guys lived on the wild side, and their idea of good clean fun was to go out and beat up on badgers and get sprayed by skunks.
    You could bite ’em and kick ’em and scratch ’em, throw dirt in their eyes and chew on their ears, spit on ’em and yell at ’em and hit ’em between the eyes with a bodark club, and all it would do was make ’em a little madder.
    I could see all thirty-seven of Rip’s teeth. He had an odd number, see, because several had been knocked out in fights. Boy, they were just about the longest and sharpest teeth I’d ever seen, and I didn’t like the way they decorated his smile.
    He flicked out his tongue, swept it around the right side of his drooling lips, and then took it all the way back across his mouth and mopped up the left side.
    And then he said, “UH!” Which sounded pretty threatening to me.
    â€œNow Rip, don’t do anything you might . . . let’s talk this thing . . . tell you what, we might work out a . . .”
    I didn’t know how Madame Moonshine was doing, but my deal was looking worse by the second. Rip gave a yip and a howl and clamped his jaws around my throat, and fellers, I thought my lights were fixing to go out for the last time.
    But suddenly he stopped.
    He raised up and made a sour face. He spit several times and said, “Uhhhh!” I lifted my head to check on Madame Moonshine. Snort had her in his huge enormous terrible toothy mouth and seemed about ready to chew her up into small bites.
    But then he spit her out on the ground. Snort looked at Rip and Rip looked at Snort, and they both had puzzled expressions on their faces.
    â€œSnort not want owl.”
    â€œUh,” said Rip.
    â€œSnort hungry for . . . BAT!”
    Oh no! Madame had messed up the spell, it wasn’t going to work, all my planning had gone to . . . 
    But then Rip shook his head and said, “Uh-uh!”
    Snort stared at his brother. “Snort not want bat?”
    â€œUh-uh.”
    â€œUh. Maybeso Snort want . . . rat?”
    â€œUh-uh!”
    â€œUh. Then maybeso Snort want . . . cat?”
    Rip jumped up and down. “Uh huh!”
    Good old Rip. Maybe he wasn’t too bright, but at least he knew the difference between a cat and a bat.
    Snort came lumbering over to me and stuck his long sharp nose right in my face. “Rip and Snort not want eat Hunkbird and little owl. Hunkbird and little owl taste bad. Rip and Snort want cat to eat!”
    â€œA cat? Well, I . . . that does sound delicious, doesn’t it?”
    â€œHunkbird find cat for Rip and Snort or Rip and Snort get mad, tear up whole world, berry big madness.”
    I pushed myself up off the grass. “All right, Snort, you’ve got yourself a deal. Now you guys just back off and give us some air and we’ll see if we can find you a cat.”
    â€œUh!” they said in unison.
    â€œLet’s see, what kind of cat are you hungry for, Snort? How about a little