The train whistle blew. It sounded so far away. Coralis was going to be furious. Just as Henry decided to make a move, the squirrel directly in front of him jumped on top of the one next to it. He watched, fascinated and horrified, as the two squirrels became one larger one. This isn’t good, he thought.

A third, a fourth, and a fifth squirrel jumped into the mix. With each addition, the original squirrel got bigger. Henry kept count until number fifteen, at which point he had the urge to pee again … this time from fright.

When it was finally over, Henry had no doubt he was in serious trouble. Magnified by a factor of twenty-something, the beady little eyes of a squirrel became glistening balls of hate. Teeth and nails the size of toothpicks transformed into fangs and claws that would look more at home on a velociraptor. The creature towered over him.

The train whistle blew again—a long, urgent blast telling him he was doomed to be left behind. The squirrel twitched its enormous tail and flexed its claws.

“Kuk, kuk, kuk!” The squirrel barked warning sounds that bounced off the walls and hammered back at Henry. It leaned in close enough that he could smell rotting acorns on its breath. It was trying to tell him something, but it was like listening to a dog bark in an alien language.

As Henry began to edge sideways along the wall, it whipped its tail around to block his path. Another quick twitch of the tail knocked him to the ground. In a panic, he scrambled crablike backward, knowing it was pointless. His wrist buckled and he fell to his side, landing hard on the gold nugget from his footlocker. Pain erupted through his body like a jolt of electricity. He attempted to scream but nothing came out.

The effect on the squirrel was nothing short of extraordinary. It was as if the gold and the animal could sense each other. The squirrel thrashed its head wildly and screeched a long, keening wail, sounding like a cat being tortured. Henry knew then that this was some kind of dark power at work.

But how could he fight it? He concentrated on Coralis, willing him to appear and save the day, yet knowing the train had probably left by now, and Coralis with it. Hopelessness engulfed him as the mammoth squirrel recovered, leaning over him, gnashing its teeth.

Somewhere out of sight, people nearby shouted like cheerleaders, “Rock chalk, Jayhawk!” over and over. It wasn’t until the fourth or fifth time he heard it that he connected the dots.

Jayhawk. Blue jay. His wand! The one that had gotten him into all this trouble to begin with. He had nearly forgotten it.

He recalled the time he’d witnessed a savage attack in his backyard, when a mother blue jay had been forced to defend her baby from a squirrel. What if … ?