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The Apprentice

They set off at a brisk pace, Marcia striding ahead of thealoshes Aunt Zelda had to break into a trot to keep up She wore a look of disht by the floodwaters There was mud, seaweed and sliht the previous night, and besides, she had been so relieved to see everyone actually alive that a bit of ht of the ave a cry of disone! My chickens, my poor little chickens!"

"There are s in life than chickens," Marcia declared,purposefully ahead

"The rabbits!" wailed Aunt Zelda, suddenly realizing that the burrows one"

"Oh, do be quiet, Zelda!" Marcia snapped irritably

Not for the first tiht that Marcia&039;s return to the WizardTower could not coh for her Marcia led the way like a purple pied piper in full flight,Jenna, Nicko, Boy 412 and a flustered Aunt Zelda to a spot beside the Mott just below the duck house

As they neared their destination, Marcia stopped, wheeled around and said, "Now, I just want to tell you, this is not a pretty sight In fact, iving you all nightmares"

"We&039;ve been havin? those already," declared Jenna "I don&039;t see what could be worse than ht"

Boy 412 and Nicko nodded in agreeht

"Very well then," said Marcia She stepped carefully across mud behind the duck house and stopped by the Mott &039;&039;This is what I found this h!" Jenna hid her face in her hands

"Oh, oh, oh," gasped Aunt Zelda

Boy 412 and Nicko were silent They felt sick Suddenly Nicko disappeared down to the Mott and was sick

Lying on the lance looked like an ee unstuffed scarecrow But on third glance, which Jenna onlyher eyes, it was only too apparent what lay before them

The empty body of the Apprentice

Like a deflated balloon, the Apprentice lay, drained of all life and substance His empty skin, still clad in its wet, salt-stained robes, lay strewn across the mud, discarded like an old banana skin

"This," said Marcia, "is the real Apprentice I found hi on my walk Which is why I knew for sure that the &039;Apprentice&039; you had sitting by the fire was an impostor"

"What happened to him?" Jenna whispered

"He has been Consumed It&039;s an old and particularly nasty trick One froravely "The ancient Necromancers used to do it all the ti we can do for the boy?" asked Aunt Zelda

"It&039;s too late, I&039; one"

Aunt Zelda sniffed "He had a tough life, poor little mite Snatched from his family and Apprenticed to that awfulto say when they hear about this It&039;s a terrible thing Poor Septireed Marcia "But there&039;s nothing we can do for him now"

"Well, I shall sit with him - what&039;s left of him - until he disappears," murmured Aunt Zelda

A subdued party e, each occupied with his or her own thoughts Aunt Zelda came back briefly and disappeared into the Unstable Potions and Partikular Poisons cupboard before returning to the duck house, but everyone else spent the rest of the e to rights Boy 412 was relieved to see that the green rock Jenna had given him had not been touched by the Brownies It was still where he had put it, folded carefully into his quilt, in a warm corner beside the fireplace

In the afternoon, after they had coaxed the goat down from the roof - or as left of it - they decided to take Maxie for a walk on the , Marcia called out to Boy 412, "Can you help , please?"

Boy 412 was only too happy to stay behind Although he was used to Maxie by now, he still was not entirely happy in his company He never could understand why Maxie would suddenly take it into his head to julistening black nose and slobbery h his So Boy 412 happily waved Jenna and Nicko off to the marsh and went inside to see Marcia

Marcia was sitting at Aunt Zelda&039;s s won the battle of the desk before she went away, Marcia was deterain Boy 412 noticed that all of Aunt Zelda&039;s pens and notebooks had been dumped on the floor, apart fro intothis with a clear conscience as they had a definite Magykal purpose - at least Marcia hoped they were going to have - if all went as she planned

"Ah, there you are," Marcia said in that businesslike way that alwaysShe dumped a scruffy old book on the desk in front of her "What&039;s your favorite color?" deht be red, seeing as you haven&039;t taken that awful red hat off since you got here"

Boy 412 was taken aback No one had ever bothered to ask him what his favorite color was And, anyway, he wasn&039;t even sure if he knew Then he reon Boat "Um, blue Sort of deep blue"

"Ah, yes I like that too With soold stars, don&039;t you think?"

"Yes Um, that&039;s nice"

Marcia waved her hands over the book in front of her andof paper as all the pages sorted thes and doodlings, and also her favorite recipe for cabbage stew, and they turned themselves into a brand-new, s on Then they bound theold stars and a purple spine that showed the diary belonged to the Apprentice of the ExtraOrdinary Wizard As a final touch Marcia added a clasp of pure gold and a small silver key

She opened the book to check that the spell had worked Marcia was pleased to see that the first and last pages of the book were bright red, exactly the sae were the words: APPRENTICE DIARY "There," said Marcia, closing the book with a satisfying thuood, doesn&039;t it?"

"Yes," said Boy 412, be him?