Read Lost in the Dark Unchanted Forest for Free Online Page B

mean. You do look sort of backwards, hanging up there. I noticed that right away.”
    â€œHow clever! But that is only the first half of the three-halved problem. There are two more halves to my dilemma.”
    â€œWell shucks, Madame, if I was a witch like you, I’d use my special powers to get myself unhooked.”
    â€œNo you wouldn’t.”
    â€œHuh? Well . . . yeah, I think I would. Why not? If you’ve got special powers, you might as well use them.”
    â€œBut what if the power works backwards? There is always that danger with power. If I am backwards, maybe my power is backwards too, and my goodness, we don’t know what might happen then! I wouldn’t dare try it . . . unless . . .”
    â€œUnless what?”
    She looked at me with her big upside-down eyes. “Unless you were absolutely convinced that I should, and then I might. Or might not, depending upon my mood.”
    â€œI think it’s worth a shot, Madame.”
    â€œDo you now? And tell me again what your title is?”
    I sat up straight and lifted my chin a few inches. “Head of Ranch Security, ma’am.”
    â€œMy goodness, the Head of Ranch Security! How could we go wrong if we’re in the presence of the Head of Ranch Security?”
    I smiled to myself. “A lot of people ask that same question, ma’am, and the answer I always give ’em is that with me around, there ain’t much that can go wrong. Let’s give it a shot.”
    â€œVery well, if you’re sure.”
    â€œGo for it.”
    She closed her eyes and mumbled some magic words. Let’s see if I can remember what they were:
    Topsy-turvy, downside-up, vertigo and spirally.
    I wish, O Power, you’d intervene: reverse the scene entirely.
    Sounded like pretty good words to me. The only problem was that, all at once, I heard a rush of wind and felt myself flying through the air; and the next thing I knew, I was hanging upside-down from the same vine as Madame Moonshine!

    She stared at me and blinked her eyes. “My goodness, what have we done?”
    â€œWell, we’ve changed the scene entirely, Madame, but I think it came out backwards.”
    She clicked her tongue. “I was afraid of that. Oh Hank, I shouldn’t have listened to you. I knew better. But on the other hand . . .” She rolled her head around, funny how she could do that, and looked at me with her big owl eyes. “On the other hand, I’ve been in worse places before.”
    â€œYou have?”
    â€œOh yes. And now that you’re up here with me, I don’t feel upside-down anymore.”
    â€œYou don’t?”
    â€œOh no. We can pretend that everything else is upside-down and that we’re right-side up, can’t we?”
    â€œWell . . . uh . . .”
    â€œAnd who knows, maybe we are. There are so many strange things happening these days. Maybe my backwards power made the whole forest turn topsy-turvy, and now we’re the only objects that are right.”
    â€œNo ma’am, I don’t think so. I think we’re hanging upside-down and I’m completely disoriented.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong with that?”
    â€œWell . . . I don’t like it, is all I can tell you. Let me see if I can explain it.”
    At that point, as strange as it may sound, my being upside-down and everything, I sang her a little song.
    Disorientation
    Now, Madame Moonshine, tell me truly,
    If your view of life’s unruly,
    How can you figger it out?
    See, my down-side is up, I’m confused as a pup,
    I can’t distinguish up from about.
    I’m told the world spins ’round the sun,
    What’s here is here, what’s done is done,
    And I can accept that as true.
    But the normal world looks strange enough without this bunch of other stuff,
    I’m backwards, Madame, how about