"Growth Spurts"

Act I

It was a dark October evening. Since the holidays were approaching, Morgana was taking the opportunity to prepare a few gifts for her family. She had decided on potions for most of the family- it was her speciality, and she enjoyed it. Well, she usually enjoyed it- working with monkey drool was not a fun business. Still, the proper recipe for her hair growth recipe required it. Uncle Nero should appreciate this, she thought. He always complains about his knees balding.

She tossed ingredients into the cauldron one at a time. "Alright, now the worm's wart... and now the frog's breath." She added that one and waved the smell away. "And now the monkey drool." She held her hand out before her, and Eek placed a small glass vial in her hand.

She delicately broke the seal and uncorked it, when the phone rang. "Always when I'm about to add the monkey drool," she said with a sigh. She placed the vial on the table. Archie, Eek, and Squeak eyed it for a while.

"Hello? Oh, Darkwing! Hello!" Morgana's familiars gave a collective sigh. She was sure to stay on the phone forever now. "No, I'm not busy at all, Dark. Oh, really? Hmmm... you're tempting me..." She laughed carelessly. Archie curled his legs under himself and grumbled. "OH!" she cried suddenly, and all three familiars flinched. "I nearly forgot. Hold on, Dark darling, the monkey drool will spoil," she said, in an affectionate voice. A moment later, more sharply, she repeated, "You know. Monkey drool. For potions? ...Right. It turns quickly after it's been exposed to air. ...Well, I've already opened it now!"

Her tone was becoming indignant and irritated. Her familiars interrupted her with various noises, and she smiled. "Oh, would you? Thank you, dears!" As they began struggling with the vial, she said into the phone, "My familiars! Why, who did you think I was talking to!"

The bats hefted the vial into the air, and hovered with it over the cauldron while Archie, who was perched on the vial, twisted around some and managed to tilt it so that the liquid poured into the mixture. He was grimacing; this was not an easy job. He lost some footing- standing on a glass vial wasn't easy, even with eight legs- and slipped into Squeak. The bat lost his grip on the vial, and it and Archie plummeted into the cauldron.

Morgana saw this and gasped. "ARCHIE! I'll call you back, Dark, Archie fell into the cauldron and I haven't added the toad's tongue yet. ...Well, I don't know what that means, I'll tell you after I find out!" She hung up and ran over, then dunked a ladle into the potion and pulled Archie out.

He looked disoriented. "Archie? Are you alright? Speak to me, sweetie!" she cried. He shook himself and glared up at her, still looking a little dizzy. "I'm so so sorry! Oh, you poor baby!" She toweled all the potion off of him, then picked him up and placed him on a pillow. "There you are. You just rest now." She stayed with him until his eyes drifted shut and he fell asleep.

Morgana petted Archie's furry back the next day. He was eating regularly- in fact, he was eating more than he usually did. But other than that, he didn't seem to want to move, he was cranky- more so than usual- and his eyes were bloodshot. She cast a quick spell to see what was wrong, and couldn't find any conclusive results. His heartbeat was fine, his blood sugar level... everything. She had checked her spellbook to see what a potion for hair growth, without the toad's tongue, would be do. There was no listed recipe that matched this one.

She was undeniably worried. There was no doubt that Archie was sick, and of course she blamed herself. She stroked his back some more and then summoned a large, leather-bound book entitled "Taking Care Of Your Familiar".

The first chapter was about basic needs, like bathing habits, food, and training. She knew all of that. She gestured and the pages flipped ahead to the health section. Her attention was attracted by the nutrition page, and she spent some time going over that. She had known about the reactions that certain foods and magical ingredients gave familiars, but it never hurt for her to refresh her memory.

No, thank heavens. None of those ingredients had been in her potion, so at least it wasn't poisoning. Maybe Archie had just caught a bug. Er, so to speak. If that were the case, she should be able to cure that just fine. She rolled up her sleeves and patted him on the head. "Don't worry, Archie," she said. "I'll have you fixed up in two shakes of a ghoul's rib."

Archie groaned. He hated when she used that expression, since the only time she said it was when she was uncertain about what she was doing.

Archie spent the next half hour as, in turn, a buzzard, a newt, an eel, a yak, pudding (Morgana's face had turned red when that had happened), Elvis, another yak, a Golgarian Taronga (Morgana had shrieked and waved her hands frantically until he'd changed again), something called a tribble (she'd thought she'd successfully turned him back for almost five minutes until she'd noticed he had no legs), a strange, glowing green blob, and finally, a spider again. Of course, he was then a red spider, a purple-with-metallic-green-flames spider, a tiger-striped spider, and a psychadelically-rainbow colored spider before Morgana finally got him back to his normal, brown-grey self.

"Whew!" sighed Morgana. "All that for a simple flu-healing spell! I wonder if I was doing something wrong...?"

Archie grumbled and jumped off of his pillow, then shuffled down the hall towards the kitchen. Morgana didn't notice for a while, and continued peering intently at her book. "Oh. I see. It's pronounced 'a-GAH-ve'. Archie, are you ready for- Archie?" She stood, and saw him loping down the hall. "Well," she said, "maybe he's just tired..."

Early the next evening he hadn't improved, so she took him to the Eldritch Academy. Consultations with her old professors didn't help any; invariably they commented, "Oh, look how big you both are! Morgana, you've grown up! And Archer-"

"Archie."

"He's so big, too! Why, Morgana, what have you been feeding him?"

She looked at him closely and discovered that they were all right. Archie was bigger. It must have happened over time, without her noticing. "Er...nothing out of the ordinary." She told them the story of what had happened the other night, and they nodded their heads somberly and told her that she had done everything right. The conclusion that was reached was that the illness may be psychological, and that she should consult any books she could find on psychosis and magic in the Academy's library.

She did try the library. Archie seemed disinterested and irritable, and she wondered if she should drop him off and then come back. She decided against it, though. Why make two trips? She set him on a table and went to look in the Psychology of Magic section.

Archie hopped off the table and sniffed around the bookshelves. He saw a book on meditation, and his eyes widened. Checking to make sure no one was around, he proceeded to laboriously drag it out of the bookshelf. Then he caught his breath for a moment, and when he was done, he took a big bite out of the cover of the book. It was delicious.

More than an hour later, Morgana emerged from a fruitless search. Again, she had found nothing that she hadn't already known. When she reached the spot where she'd left Archie, he wasn't there. She was annoyed. It had been a long enough night without this. "Archie," she called. "Archie, come here this instant." Her only response was a soft belch. Puzzled, she followed the sound of it and found Archie sitting in the middle of a table, looking content and sleepy.

He was the size of her head.

She stared. "...Archie?"

"Morgana, you sound like you're at the end of your rope. Calm down, Archie will be fine," said her doctor. "It's nearly dawn. Why don't you get some rest and call me later tonight? After all, you keep telling me now that you don't know what's wrong. What good is that doing either one of us?"

"Well... Dr. Strangeduck, I know you're right, but I just don't know what to do!"

"So you've said," replied her doctor.

Morgana sighed. "I checked the potion, and it showed no signs of anything like this happening! Growth potion is another recipe entirely!"

Dr. Strangeduck made an "mm" noise in the back of his throat. "Well, maybe he really is just sick. Is he eating?"

"Yes," she said. "I couldn't get him to stop if I tried." She paused. "Should I try?"

"There's no harm in his having a good appetite. However, I'd check his diet if I were you. He might be getting into things you don't want him digesting, if you know what I mean."

"Of course, I know all about that. I've made sure he's kept away from any of my ingredients that could harm him."

"I know, Morgana. After all, you've had familiars around all your life, right? And you should know that there are just certain things that you shouldn't feed them. Not only certain magical ingredients, though- also things that might have been left lying around, like Hungarian Ghoulash, chocolate... all of these can have an adverse affect on familiars, like Archie. I'd suggest you keep an eye on him and make sure he's eating right."

"Alright. Thank you," she said.

"And in the meantime, you know, familiars are just like people. They do experience growth spurts."

"Do they? I didn't know that." She started to feel silly. Maybe that was all this was.

"Oh, yes," said Dr. Strangeduck. "I once knew a witch whose cat grew to the size of a horse!"

Morgana nodded. "Thank you. You've helped to put me at ease immensely," she said.

"Of course, Morgana," he said. They hung up. As she was replacing the phone, she heard a crash from outside the room. She glided to the source of the sound, and wasn't sure if she should be pleased or distressed. On the one hand, Archie was breaking lamps and vases all over the room, as he chased Eek and Squeak around. They were flying as high as they could, but Archie was quite a jumper, and he looked quite gleeful as he jumped and snapped at them. The bats looked terrified.

On the good side, Archie certainly didn't seem sick anymore.

"Archie! Stop that right now!" she cried. Archie obeyed her instantly. She shook her finger at him and began, "Now, you know better--" but stopped when she noticed he was staring at her. Before she could stop him, he leapt at her. He landed in her hair, trying to nest in there, and she lost her balance and fell over.