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weeks.”
    B wasn’t interested in debating him. The Dismantle Squad wouldn’t stand around talking, and Mr. Bishop certainly wouldn’t, either, if he found out that she’d revealed her magic to a nonwitch.
    B dumped the contents of her and George’s backpacks onto her desk, looking for things to use in her bag-cauldron. From the pile of rubble she picked a half-empty pouch of Enchanted Chocolate Smooches and a stick-figure doodle George had drawn of himself kicking a goal, and put them all into her backpack. It felt like her spell needed one more thing, for good luck.
    A coppery glint on the floor supplied an idea. A penny! Finding one was lucky, wasn’t it? She spun it into the air with a flick of her thumb, just for fun. Oops! It landed in Mozart’s cage.
    She fished it out from the cedar chips, wiped off the flecks of dust and hair that clung to it, and tossed it into her backpack-cauldron.
    Ready.
    She watched George pet Mozart’s soft orange fur, and filled her mind with the image of her best friend, looking like his normal self.
    “H-U-M-A-N,” she spelled.
    His tail didn’t vanish. But it twitched in astonishment.
    Sitting on George’s lap, where the hamster had been, was a kid in an orange tracksuit with a white collar, and a leaf of lettuce dangling from his mouth!
    B blinked.
    “M-Mozart?”

Chapter 9
    “Holy cats!” B cried.
    The kid in the tracksuit sniffed the air, revealing protruding buckteeth. George stood up suddenly, and the kid, still chewing his greens, stumbled to his feet. He turned and grabbed at George’s bag of lettuce.
    “Gimme some more of that lettuce action! I don’t know when I’ve ever been so hungry.”
    George, in a daze, still held the bag back, away from Mozart — or rather, the kid Mozart had become.
    “Oh, come on. What’s the matter? Is that the last bunch of lettuce on earth or something? Bet you got a whole backyard full of it at home.” Mozart’s nosetwitched. He turned and waved at B. “Hiya, Missy, did you turn yourself small all of a sudden? You gotta watch out with those spells of yours.” He clutched his stomach and bent over, laughing. “You turned this guy” — he pointed a thumb at George — “into a horse, ain’t ya? One of them stripy horses you see in pictures? I smelled him yesterday when he came into class. Mr. Big Teacher Man, he’s so smart, even he doesn’t notice there’s a stripy horse in his class!”
    And please, keep it that way
, B thought, wringing her hands.
But what am I going to do about you? This is terrible! What if Mr. Bishop comes back in the room?
    Mozart caught sight of George stuffing his lettuce back into his backpack, and pounced on the pack before George could zip it shut. “You got anything else in there? Carrots? Peppers? C’mon, bub, I’m starving!”
    George gave up and handed Mozart the lettuce bag, giving B a helpless look.
    “Mmph,” Mozart said, chewing and sprayinglittle bits of lettuce. “That’s good stuff. One time someone brought me some
zoo … zoo
… zucchini, that’s it.
That’s
something a hamster doesn’t taste every day.”
    Just then, Mozart noticed his hands. He held them up before his face in wonder.
    “I ain’t a hamster anymore, am I?” he breathed. “I’m a … one of
you.”
He gazed down at his feet, and the tall orange-clad body in between. He poked at his own ribs and shoulders. “This real?” he asked.
    B gulped. “Apparently.”
    Mozart spun around, spreading his arms wide, letting out a yell. “Whooooooopeeeee!”
    George and B looked at each other in alarm. George bolted for the classroom door and shut it, peering through the window to see if any teachers had heard Mozart holler.
    Mozart sprang toward the chalkboard and grabbed a new piece of chalk. “I
always
wanted to do this,” he said, and snapped the chalk in half. He dropped one half on the floor and stomped it topowder, all the while laughing shrilly. Taking the other stumpy piece of chalk, he drew huge