Free Witch & Wizard by James Patterson, Gabrielle Charbonnet

continued, “if you say another word against her, I will hold you in contempt of court. The penalty for which will make all the rest of this look like kindergarten.”
    You’re a lowly, miserable cock-a-roach,
I thought.
    Meanwhile, Whit retorted, “I’m sorry. Maybe your little lackeys’ test machines weren’t working properly that day?”
    “Shut up!” screamed the judge. “You obviously did something to the testing apparatuses. You used your wizardry on them! You fixed the results!”
    Roach! You’re a roach!
I shouted inside my head.
If only I could turn Judge Unger into a roach,
I thought.
I’m a witch, right? Why can’t I do this? Why, why, why?
    Turn into a roach,
I murmured silently.
Turn into a roach!
    My brain began to ache with the effort. Witches cast spells. I didn’t know any spells. I remembered only a few rhymes from when I was a kid. Did I know any rhymes about roaches?
    The only chant thingy I could think of was
    Flies in the kitchen, lawsy, mawsy,
    Flies in the night, lawsy may
    Flies on the river, lawsy, mawsy
    Flies at first light, lawsy may.
    And who knew what the heck
that
meant?
    The judge was still screaming at Whit, and Whit’s face was stiff—he was trying so hard not to lose his temper. A sister recognizes the signs.
    Suddenly a loud buzzing distracted me, and I looked away from Whit to the air above me.
    Could it be possible?
    The sound became louder, and then one of the guards said, “What the—? Hey! My God, my Lord, my Good God!”
    The courtroom was suddenly full of enormous biting horseflies.
    I’d brought on a plague.

Wisty
    HORSEFLIES. They were dive-bombing everywhere I looked—crazed rogues, intent on sucking our blood. I had created them.
Total, total oops.
    If someone had tossed a sackful of stink bombs and some M-80s into the courtroom right then, it couldn’t have caused a bigger commotion. Tough-guy guards were frantically waving their arms over their heads and screaming like little boys who’d stumbled into a hornet’s nest.
    Judge Unger’s jaw dropped in stunned horror. He quickly shut it when several humongous flies attempted kamikaze missions down his throat.
    Whit and I ducked under a table. “What’s going on?!” he said. “Did you—”
    “Um,” I began guiltily, “sort of. Maybe. Yes.”
    “Wisty, what did you do?” Whit whispered against my ear.
    “I don’t know exactly what I did,” I answered. “There was a song about flies, and flies on the river, and lawsy, mawsy.”
    The buzzing quieted suddenly.
That’s it?
I thought.
That’s the whole plague?

Wisty
    I PEERED OUT from beneath the table and saw the Visitor whirling this way and that, helplessly swatting at the air with his sticklike arms. Judge Unger was peeking out from beneath his tent of robes, his eyes the size of baseballs.
    Then, “Oh God!” one of the guards screamed.
    “God, no!” yelled another. “This is worse!
Much
worse!”
    I couldn’t believe what I saw now. All the flies were gone. But stuck to everybody’s arms and faces—to any bare skin at all—were… small, dark splotches.
    That
moved!
    “Oh man,” Whit breathed. “The flies all turned into
leeches!
”
    “I didn’t say anything about leeches,” I said in a defensive whisper.
    Apparently those nasty little suckers were elastic as all get-out. One guard tried to pull a bug off his lip, and it stretched and stretched until it broke in a disgusting yellowish mess. More leeches clung to walls, desks, and chairs—thousands of them, moving around like giant blood-seeking clingworms. Some were dropping from the ceiling.
    “This is probably the most repulsive thing I’ve ever seen,” Whit said. “Even given what we’ve been through at the Hospital. I kind of like it.”
    “Hey,” I said, “in case you haven’t noticed, they don’t seem to be crawling all over
us.
”
    Then a booming voice took over the courtroom.
    “
Stop! Stop this kindergarten nonsense!
No more flies, no more leeches, no