Needle in the Haystack XI: Fluffy Again
"Minerva!" Fiona yelled, struggling fruitlessly against the monster's tentacles. "Do something!"
"I can't! It's the wrong wand!" There was the sound of thrashing water, and someone screamed.
For the first time in her life Minerva seriously thought all was lost. Her real wand was nowhere to be found. Well well well, isn't that interesting. This is great, I can play the b-flat minor scale now, I'm good. McGonagall blinked in confusion. This was not a time to think about music. Come on, try it, maybe this time you'll get "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" right, and without squeaks.
"Shut up!" Minerva hissed to herself, frantically thinking. The monster was slowly submerging and taking her friends away.
Twinkle Twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are..."I must be going crazy," Minerva said with surprising calm. The surface of the water was now quiet, the monster had gone down.
Suddenly, without thinking about it, Minerva obeyed the wand's command and put it to her lips. She began to play "Darling Clementine." When that was finished she started to improvise, playing any note that came to mind. The water in the tunnel bubbled furiously. The wand let out a wailing note, a high G. Three tentacles emerged, then the monster's head. Minerva saw her friends, limp and motionless. With all her strength she played a loud A major scale, up and down, up and down.
Pwwaaaatttttzzzssss! Flitwick coughed up a mouthful of vile black liquid, causing the monster to tighten its grip. But Minerva began to weave a snake-charming song, and the tentacles loosened. "Keep playing!" Fiona gasped, spitting out the disgusting water in her mouth.
"Play Happy Birthday." Flitwick suggested, carefully slipping away from the drowsy monster.
"Frere Jacques." Juniper untangled her tentacle and swam towards the shore.
"Hot Cross Buns." Fiona's tentacle was still rather tight, so she closed her eyes, dipped below the monster, and swam a distance until she was free.
"I'm a little teapot."
"No way!" Fiona coughed.
"Shh!" Juniper collapsed onto the bank, covered head to toe with mud.
"Mary Had a Little Lamb."
"London Bridge is falling down."
"Waltzing Matilda."
One by one they named all the dinky songs they knew, and Minerva played them in a row, face red and fingers moving quickly. Once they were all together Juniper suggested Brahm's Lullaby, which Minerva managed with lots of squeaking. The monster's head sank below the surface as he fell asleep, and his body followed.
"That's enough, Min." Fiona used her wand to place a Cleaning Spell on her robes.
"See, the wand came in handy." McGonagall was shaky and out of breath.
"The monster will sleep for some time now, let's keep going."
"Yeah, and keep that wand handy, just in case!"
"What about my real wand?"
"I have it." Juniper took it out. "It hit me on the head, and I managed to grab it before the monster got me."
"Now what?" Minerva asked, happily pocketing her wand.
"The boat's gone; let's walk along the bank until we get to the end."
Their bat abilities were still intact. The end of the tunnel was not far away; straight ahead was a sparkle of light which led to the outside. They tried to walk fast, but the mud made it difficult. Pretty soon Juniper gasped. "Over there! And there! And there!" She pointed to the waters around them, which were suddenly full of the shark-like monsters.
"Use the wand, Min!"
Once again Minerva blew into the wand, this time a simplified version of Fur Elise. They walked on; a crowd of monsters gathered to their left but kept their distance. "I think they're following us," Fiona said. At that moment Minerva stopped her playing to take a breath, and the monsters drew in tighter. "Don't stop! They can't get near us as long as you keep playing!"
The sunlight up ahead was now the size was a coin. Down the tunnel they went; avoiding the worst of the mud and being serenaded by the wand all the while. About a dozen monsters followed them. Fiona realized with amusement that they were staring at Minerva almost with awe, like one would look at a goddess. When she pointed that out ("Minerva is the Roman name for Athena, after all.") Minerva's face grew scarlet and she blew a screechy A as loud as possible.
Soon they could see trees and a waterfall at the tunnel's end. Fiona, who had never been so happy in her life to see sunlight, turned to her cousin with a big grin. "Play a gigue for us, Min!"
"Yes, something happy." Gunther agreed.
McGonagall complied by playing a Latin dance tune. The water in the tunnel turned frothy as the monsters moved in what seemed like a dance; curling their tentacles around and bobbing their heads. Fiona, Juniper, and Gunther were laughing hilariously; and Minerva's face looked red as a cherry. About five meters away from exiting the river, the monsters suddenly disappeared without a sound.
"I guess they don't like sunlight," said Juniper breathlessly, stepping from the tunnel's interior and emerging into the sunshine. They were all a little giddy from the music and the monsters. Before them was a path which wound sinuously into the woods.
"That was great, Min!" Fiona exulted. "That horrid flute came in handy after all."
"Thank goodness we had it.," said Gunther, changing their ears back to human ones.
McGonagall put down the wand with a sigh. "It's addictive. I wasn't myself when I played it. I don' t want to use it anymore."
Fiona glanced around them. "Where are we? And what about the tunnel we were in?"
"No idea," Flitwick said. "But look!"
Straight ahead was a stake driven into the ground. On the top was a board with these words written on it: YOU WILL FIND THE FISH UNDER THE SAND.
Fiona made a face. "We're back again with the fish."
"Read the second stanza again, so we don't forget," Sprout said.
"Alright. Hickory Dickory Dock/ The fish crawled to the rock/ With winking light/ Sparks powered bright/ Hickory Dickory Dock."
"So we're looking for a crawling fish," Juniper said thoughtfully. "Why would it be crawling instead of swimming?"
"We'll deal with that later," Fiona pointed to their left. "There's the sand. I guess we should dig around under it."
In the ground was a circle of soggy sand with little puddles of water in it. The four searchers squatted around the sand. Fiona prodded it with her finger. "It's just sand."
Whoosh! Without warning Fiona was whisked by some magical force into the pile of sand, head first. The sand gurgled a bit, then became still.
"Fiona!" They yelled, horrified, and as all three bent forward instinctively, they too were drawn under the sand.