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.Chapter 13:In which Abdullah challenges FateAbdullah crouched for a while longer, but when the creatures did not come back, he began crawlingagain, in a vague, vain way, hoping to discover what had happened to him.He knewsomething hadhappened, but he did not seem to have much of a brain to think with.While he crawled, the rain stopped.He was rather sad about that, since it was wonderfully refreshing tothe skin.On the other hand A fly circled in a shaft of sunlight and came to sit on a bluebell leaf nearby.Abdullah promptly shot out a long tongue, whipped up that fly, and swallowed it.Very nice!he thought.Then he thought: But flies are unclean! More troubled than ever, he crawled around another bluebellclump.And there was another one just like himself.It was brown and squat and warty, and its yellow eyes were at the top of its head.As soon as it sawhim, it opened its wide, lipless mouth in a bray of horror and began to swell up.Abdullah did not wait tosee more.He turned and crawled off as fast as his distorted legs could take him.He knew what he wasnow.He was a toad.The malicious genie had fixed things so that he would be a toad until Midnight found Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlhim.When she did, he was fairly sure she would eat him.He crawled under the nearest overarching bluebell leaves and hid&About an hour later the bluebell leaves parted to let through a monster black paw.It seemed interestedin Abdullah.It kept its claws sheathed and patted at him.Abdullah was so horrified that he tried to hopaway backward.Whereupon he found himself lying on his back among the bluebells.He blinked up at the trees first, trying to adjust to the way he suddenly had thoughts in his head again.Some of those thoughts were unpleasant ones, about two bandits crawling beside an oasis pool in theshape of toads and about eating a fly and being nearly trodden on by a horse.Then he looked aroundand found the soldier crouching nearby, looking as bewildered as Abdullah felt.His pack was besidehim, and beyond that, Whippersnapper was making determined efforts to climb out of the soldier s hat.The genie bottle stood smugly beside the hat.The genie was outside the bottle in a small wisp like the flame of a spirit lamp, with his smoky armspropped on the neck of the bottle. Enjoyyourselves ? he asked jeeringly. I got you there, didn t I?That ll teach you to pester me for extra wishes! Midnight had been extremely alarmed by their sudden transformation.She was in a small angry arch,spitting at both of them.The soldier stretched out his hand to her and made soothing noises. You frighten Midnight again likethat, he told the genie, and I ll break your bottle! You said that before, retorted the genie, and you couldn t, worse luck.The bottle s enchanted. Then I ll make sure his next wish is thatyou turn into a toad, the soldier said, jerking his thumb atAbdullah.The genie shot Abdullah a wary look at this.Abdullah said nothing, but he saw it was a good idea andmight keep the genie in order.He sighed.One way and another, he just could not seem to stop wastingwishes.They picked themselves and their belongings up and resumed their journey.But they went much morecautiously.They kept to the smallest lanes and footpaths they could find, and that night, instead of goingto an inn, they camped in an old empty barn.Here Midnight suddenly looked alert and interested andshortly slipped away into the shadowy corners.After a while she came trotting back with a dead mouse,which she laid carefully in the soldier s hat for Whippersnapper.Whippersnapper was not very sure whatto do with it.In the end he decided it was the kind of toy you leaped on fiercely and killed.Midnightprowled off again.Abdullah heard the small sounds of her hunting most of the night.In spite of this, the soldier worried about feeding the cats.Next morning he wanted Abdullah to go to thenearest farm and buy milk. You do it if you want it, Abdullah said curtly.And somehow he found himself on the way to the farm with a can from the soldier s pack on one side ofhis belt and the genie bottle bumping at the other. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlExactly the same thing happened the next two mornings, too, with the small difference that they sleptunder haystacks both those nights and Abdullah bought a beautiful fresh loaf one morning and some eggson the next.On the way back to the haystack that third morning he tried to work out just why he wasfeeling increasingly bad-tempered and put-upon.It was not just that he was stiff and tired and damp all the time.It was not just that he seemed to spendsuch a lot of time running errands for the soldier s cats, though that had something to do with it.Some ofit was Midnight s fault.Abdullah knew he ought to be grateful to her for defending them from theconstables.Hewas grateful, but he still did not get on with Midnight.She rode his shoulder disdainfullyevery day and contrived to make it quite clear that as far as she was concerned, Abdullah was only a sortof horse.It was a bit hard to take from a mere animal.Abdullah brooded on this and other matters all that day, while he tramped country lanes with Midnightdraped elegantly around his neck and the soldier trudging cheerfully ahead.It was not that he did not likecats.He was used to them now.Sometimes he found Whippersnapper almost as sweet as the soldierdid.No, his bad humor had much more to do with the way the soldier and the genie between them keptcontriving to postpone his search for Flower-in-the-Night.If he was not careful, Abdullah could seehimself tramping country lanes for the rest of his life, without ever getting to Kingsbury at all.And whenhe did get there, he still had to locate a wizard.No, it would not do.That night they found the remains of a stone tower to camp in.This was much better than a haystack.They could light a fire and eat hot food from the soldier s packets and Abdullah could get warm and dryat last.His spirits rose.The soldier was cheerful, too.He sat leaning against the stone wall with Whippersnapper asleep in hishat beside him and gazed out at the sunset. I ve been thinking, he said
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