Chapter 5

Chapter 5 "Worms?" Princess Pulverizer asked the wizard with surprise. "You turned a whole army of soldiers into worms?" It was the middle of the afternoon, and for hours now the wizard had been bragging about the amazing things he'd done with his magic. "Those soldiers came to steal from me," the Wizard of Wurst declared. "So I turned them into worms. Worms can't steal. They don't have any hands." Princess Pulverizer stared nervously at the jar of worms. If she wasn't careful, she might wind up in there with them. The thought of it made her hands shake. CRASH!

The jar of worms slipped from Princess Pulverizer's fingers and broke into pieces on the floor. "Look what you've done!" the Wizard of Wurst bellowed angrily. "You've freed my prisoners!" Princess Pulverizer frowned as she looked at the worms that were now crawling around on the floor. Those were definitely not the prisoners she'd come here to free. The wizard handed her an empty jar. "Catch those worms and put them in here. You better

get every single one—if you know what's good for you." Gulp. Princess Pulverizer dropped nervously to her knees and started picking up worms and dropping them into the jar. It wasn't easy. The worms were really slimy. And to make matters worse, some of them were crawling over the broken glass. The sharp slivers cut them clean in half. Strangely, the sliced worms didn't die. They kept on creeping and crawling. Except now, where there had been only one worm, there were two. And where there had been only two worms, there were four. And where there had been only four worms, there were eight. Soon, there were hundreds of worms. They were everywhere. Crawling into the corners. Winding their way up the walls. Wiggling onto the windowsills.

The Wizard of Wurst let out an evil laugh. "I'll meet you in my study when you've caught them all," he told Princess Pulverizer. "If you ever do." By the time Princess Pulverizer had captured the very last worm, she was very tired. And hungry. And cranky. "I've gotten them all," Princess Pulverizer told the Wizard of Wurst as she entered his study after hours of worm gathering. "Took you long enough," he replied gruffly. "There were a lot of worms," Princess Pulverizer explained. "And they kept slipping out of my hands." "No excuses," the wizard huffed. He pointed to an extra magic wand on his desk. "Grab that. Let's do some magic!" "Now?" the princess asked. "Can't I eat something first?"

"I've made you a liverwurst sandwich," the wizard said. "You can eat it later." Princess Pulverizer glanced at the tiny sandwich on the wizard's desk. It was two pieces of white bread with a single slice of pale pink lunch meat slapped in between. Some dinner that was. What the princess wouldn't give for one of Dribble's grilled cheese sandwiches right around now. Still, since the small black cat perched on the windowsill was also eyeing the sandwich, Princess Pulverizer figured she'd better get busy learning her magic spells if she was ever going to get to eat. "I'm ready," she told the wizard. "Let's start with something easy," the wizard said. "A growing spell." "A what?" Princess Pulverizer asked.

"A growing spell." The wizard sounded annoyed to have to repeat himself. "Point the wand at something and come up with a rhyme to make it bigger." Princess Pulverizer nodded. That didn't sound too tough. She just had to find something small that should be big. Rumble. Grumble. Just then, the princess's empty stomach began to churn. Which gave her an idea. Princess Pulverizer pointed her wand toward the liverwurst sandwich, and said, "I like things big. And I'm in charge. This object, once small, I will enlarge." Poof! There was a flash of orange smoke. When it cleared, the princess came eye to eye with the largest mouse she had ever seen!