Benchland News
The chronicles of Benchland Publishing
Norm and Burny Book Three
Revenge of the CAT
Preview
Abducted!
“Norm, slow down! What’s the problem? Ants in your pants?” Burny stretched and yawned as Norm rummaged frantically through the pile of clothes on the floor.
Burny was Norm’s big black-and-white dog. Never heard of a talking dog? You must not know Burny. Norm couldn’t understand him at first, but magic changed that.
“Dara’s missing!” Norm found a crumpled shirt and put it on hurriedly, buttoning it wrong the first two times. “Morgana’s back! Let’s go!” He hopped around pulling up his jeans and jammed his foot into a shoe whose mate was nowhere in sight.
Burny rolled his eyes. “You’re hopeless. Start over. That shoe is on the wrong foot. And don’t forget my kibble. I am not going anywhere on an empty stomach.”
Norm Pardee’s friend Dara had an enemy—none other than Morgana the Fey, the evil and bad-tempered sorceress who bedeviled King Arthur. She was Merlin’s pupil once, before she imprisoned him. She hated Dara’s mother, Jo, a sorceress herself, and years ago vengefully captured Dara’s father. When twelve-year-old Norm and Dara freed him, Morgana attacked Norm in reprisal. Dara used her mother’s magic to turn Morgana into a kitten and put Norm beyond harm’s reach. Unfortunately, Morgana quickly escaped, and Norm and Dara had dreaded her reappearance ever since.
Norm was a good reader. He read The Wizard of Oz when he was only seven and paid for it for a year afterward with terrible nightmares about the wicked witch.
The Wicked Witch of the West was mean and nasty, but she was nothing compared to Morgana the Fey.
Norm and Dara were almost fifteen that spring, first-year students at the Ambiguous Avenue High School for the Liberal Arts. They had been best friends for three years, ever since Norm bought a used orPad on his twelfth birthday. When you buy a used tablet, you have no idea what apps it contains, and that orPad included one that definitely did not come from the Orange Computer company—the Black Square app. It did magic.
Norm started using the Black Square app the same day he bought the orPad. From then on, he could talk with Burny. If he’d stopped there, he would never have met Dara—or Morgana the Fey. But he used the app again and again, as if it were an innocent computer game. It thrust him and Burny into magical adventures, which they enjoyed despite the discomfort and danger that always goes with magic.
In truth, it was Norm who enjoyed the adventures—not Burny, who never trusted magic or the magical orPad app. He went along because he loved Norm and couldn’t bear the thought of his boy in danger without a dog to protect him.
Within a week, they had escaped from a desert prison, fought a naval battle in an English sailing warship, and even swapped bodies, an adventure that landed Norm in a cage at the animal shelter. The app also sent them into Olde England, where they found Adara, a dark-haired Gypsy, the most interesting girl Norm had ever met. How she turned up in modern times as Dara is her mother’s secret.
The magical fun came to an end when the app tried to kill Norm and Burny both. They were fortunate to survive. Morgana was behind that attack, of course. She feared Norm and Dara’s friendship, because she saw that their combined magical strength could be her undoing.
Saturday morning emergencies are rare, and Norm was too rattled to be neat. He spilled Burny’s kibble all over the kitchen floor and had to clean up the mess. He gobbled an energy bar. He would have had two or three if he’d known what lay ahead.
“Burny, hurry up!”
Burny lifted his dripping muzzle out of the water bowl. “Who knows when I’ll get my next meal?” He turned back to his kibble.
“Well, then, I’m leaving. You can catch up.” Norm leaned into the living room, where the vacuum cleaner was running. “Back soon, Mom!” Then he bolted out the door.
Burny followed close behind, of course.
“How do you know Morgana has Dara?”
“A dream.” Norm was winded, running toward the trailer where Dara lived with her mother and father. “Jo told me she woke up to a roaring sound and saw Morgana with Dara outside the trailer. Then they both disappeared.”
“It was just a dream!”
“No, it’s real. Exactly what I’ve been afraid of.”
“Dara’s amulet was supposed to protect her.”
“I know. I don’t understand that either.” As he ran, Norm was aware of his own amulet, a tiny carved wooden rooster on a chain around his neck. It had protected him against Morgana for nearly three years. “The one thing I’m sure of is that Morgana’s back.”
Dara’s father opened the trailer door. That was unusual—normally, Jo sensed Norm’s arrival and appeared at the door before he reached the trailer. Now she was slumped in a chair, red eyed and ashen faced. Dara’s father greeted Norm quietly and went to his work table
The trailer was decorated like a Gypsy caravan, with bright colors, tasseled pillows, and spangled ornaments. Norm had always known it as a place of enthusiasm and energy. The dark mood made the place feel unfamiliar.
“Jo, Rico—what happened?” Norm had known Dara’s parents for a full year before he felt comfortable calling them by their first names, as they preferred.
“Chain broke, and Dara gave to me for fixing.” Jo’s voice choked as she held up Dara’s amulet. “Rico mend already, but Morgana is taking her before I give back.” Jo had always spoken with a strong accent.
She looked up at Norm. As always, she reminded him strongly of Dara, with olive skin setting off dark hair and eyes. Jo wore her hair in a single heavy braid that fell over her shoulder, while Dara’s formed a curly froth around her face. To Norm they both looked exotic.
Jo wiped her eyes. “I cannot see how this is ending. I am afraid. And I cannot bring her back. Must be you.” She handed Dara’s amulet to Norm. “You are needing yours and hers both. Hold them if you are getting into trouble.”
As Norm took Dara’s talisman, it struggled urgently toward the identical one around his neck.
“Keep them apart,” Jo said. “I fix.”
She searched through the top drawer of her desk and found a small red leather bag with a drawstring top. Norm dropped Dara’s amulet into the bag, tightened the string, and put the chain around his neck. The bagged amulet snapped against Norm’s with a loud clack, like a magnet against a bar of iron, and the two talismans vibrated under his shirt.
“Amulet for Roderick too.” Jo went to Rico’s work table and returned with a small metal dog tag. “Rico is making this morning.”
She handed it to Norm. He admired the engraved rooster image, and turning the tag over he saw the name Burny preferred—Roderick. Dara, who understood Burny as well as Norm did, had called him Roderick since she first met him. Jo called him Roderick too, but Norm had always thought of him as Burny and felt that would never change.
Norm snapped the tag onto Burny’s collar. “What should I do, Jo? Where should I start?”
Jo looked at him, a picture of misery. “Don’t know.”
The Secret Cave
If only this were a bad dream, Norm thought. He knew the truth, though, and Dara’s amulet, heavy around his neck, was a constant reminder. She was missing, and he had to find her. He stood in a daze, wondering what to do. Without Dara, and without Jo’s help, he felt lost.
Burny saved the day once again. “Snap out of it! Dara was right here.” He sniffed the air. “Morgana too.” He raced through a search pattern with his nose to the ground. “They went toward the park.”
“That’s it, Burny!” Norm smiled for the first time all day. “The bench!”
“That’s where everything seems to happen. That’s where we found Fritz.”
Norm remembered Fritz, a Prussian soldier from long ago. Morgana’s spell had made him smaller than the ants she forced him to count. She was trying to trap Norm and Dara, and she almost succeeded. When they escaped and freed Fritz, her roar of rage could be heard for blocks.
“And the park bench is where Adara turned Morgana into a kitten! That’s where she’ll be!” Norm set off for the park at a run. Burny loped along beside him, sniffing the air.
“What the heck?” Norm stopped a hundred yards from the bench, which had been clearly visible at first but was now shrouded in mist. Colors swirled around it, and nearby trees whipped wildly.
Despite his fear of Morgana, Burny sprinted toward the bench. Norm followed at a run, but Burny was far ahead.
Abruptly, the day darkened. The park, the trees—all disappeared into a dim twilight. Nothing remained but the glow of the mist cloud.
Fear grabbed Norm. “Burny! Watch out!”
Too late. The mist cloud thickened and twisted into a small tornado. Burny was thrown high into the air, tumbling head over paws. He landed hard and lay still.
Norm was horrified. “Burny! Are you OK? I tried to warn you—”
He need not have worried. Burny was already on his feet, racing after Morgana, following his nose. Norm saw only a black-and-white streak. He ran his fastest, but Burny was almost out of sight. When Norm emerged from the park onto Main Street, Burny was blazing through the town square. Then he turned a corner, and Norm lost sight of him.
Norm caught up at a baseball field on the edge of town. Burny was turning in circles, nose in the air and then to the ground.
Norm skidded to a stop and leaned forward, hands on knees, trying to catch his breath. “Burny,” he gasped, “how did you know to come here? Surely Morgana didn’t run through the middle of town.”
“Maybe not, but her smell was clear.” Burny was panting, his tongue hanging out.
“Is your amulet doing anything? These two are buzzing like mad.”
“So that’s what it is! I was afraid I had a bee under my collar!”
“We must be close.”
“I don’t need a rooster around my neck to know that. My nose never fails me. Dara is not far away.”
He sniffed the air. “Over there!” He headed for a creek beyond the baseball field and leapt down into the water. By the time Norm was close enough to see him again, Burny was some distance downstream.
“Burny, that’s where the cave is!”
Concealed in the rocks on the streambank was the entrance to a small cave loved by every boy in town. The opening was a tight squeeze that led to a tunnel tall enough to walk in. It wasn’t long—twenty feet from the entrance it came to a solid rock wall. That didn’t bother Norm and his friends at all. The cave made a fine secret hideout. They knew that if the cave were huge and showy, many people would visit. They loved it as it was—tiny and plain, and hard to enter. The boys felt the cave was theirs alone.
By the time Norm was close enough to see the cave entrance, Burny had wriggled almost completely through. Norm saw two hairy legs and a tail, and then they too disappeared.
When Norm crawled through the entrance, the amulets against his chest buzzed vigorously. He couldn’t see a thing.
“Burny?”
“Over here.”
“Why would Morgana come here? I know every inch of this cave. There’s no place to hide.” The amulets stopped vibrating as he spoke.
“Norm, I know for sure she and Dara were here when I first crawled in. I could smell them both, and my dog tag buzzed like a whole hive of bees. Now it’s quiet.”
When Norm’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, he saw Burny near the rear of the cave. “Burny, that’s a dead end back there! They must still be in here somewhere!”
Light flared as a ray of sun struck the entrance. Norm could see the entire cave.
He and Burny were alone.
Norm’s father looked up from his magazine. “Elaine, does Norm know your brother is coming this afternoon?”
“No. He left for Dara’s in a rush. I’d better call.” She picked up the phone.
“Jo, this is Elaine. Is Norm there? I’d like to speak to him.”
“Elaine. Hi.”
“You don’t sound like yourself. Is everything OK?”
Jo hesitated. “Norm not here. Things not OK.”
“What’s wrong?”
Another silence, long enough for Elaine to become alarmed. “Norm came there this morning, right?”
“Yes, but gone now.”
“Where did he go?”
“You come here, please? Then I explain.”
“I’ll be right over.”
Elaine put down the phone and turned to Norm’s father. “Jack, Jo sounds terrible. I’m going over to see if I can help.”
“Norm’s there?”
“No. Something’s wrong. I’m concerned.”
She was opening the door to leave, purse under her arm, when the phone rang.
“Elaine? Is Jo. I am thinking about how you can help. Can you bring clothes from Norm? An old shirt, maybe.”
“Clothes? What on earth for?”
“I use to help him. I’m explaining when you get here.”
“A shirt?” Elaine sounded puzzled. “OK. I’ll find something. I’ll see you in ten minutes.”
Jack Pardee looked up. “Elaine, what’s going on?”
“I have no idea, but it sounds serious. I’ll let you know.”
She left the house, troubled.
“Norm, I’m sitting at the edge of a hole in the floor. I can’t see how deep it is, but I’ll bet it goes to the center of the earth.”
“I’ll come look.”
“Be careful. It’s big enough to swallow us both.”
Norm made his way to the rear of the cave and sat next to Burny at the edge of a pit that echoed every sound. He peered downward, but the blackness was total.
“Burny, I know this cave. There was never a pit here before.”
Norm picked up a rock the size of a golf ball and tossed it down the hole. He heard it strike the rock wall more than a dozen times, fainter and fainter. Then the sounds faded away completely.
Burny was the first to find his voice. “Wow. That’s deep. You know this hole is Morgana’s black magic. A trap set to catch us, with Dara as bait.”
“I’m going down there. I’ll need a flashlight. And some food. I’m already hungry. Maybe I should bring a rope.”
“You’re going down that hole? People have no common sense. That’s exactly what Morgana wants you to do! She could kill you!”
“I don’t have any choice. You heard Jo—rescuing Dara is up to me.”
“Much good you’ll do Dara if you’re dead.”
Norm and Burny were used to arguments of that sort. They both knew that Burny couldn’t possibly clamber down into the pit. The debate might have been settled by Norm going alone, leaving Burny to feel like a failure.
It didn’t come to that. Before they spoke one more word, they dropped into space.
End of Preview
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