Mr. Conuters’ Magic Monitor

  It was a bright, sunny day in the kingdom of Bergdonia. The bees buzzed, the flowers flowered, babbling brooks babbled, all as they should. In the happy little village of Harddrive the people were enjoying a quiet, relaxing day. Of course, it was always fairly quiet in Harddrive. The village was surrounded by tall hills and the only roads into the town were narrow and bumpy, which made it too hard for most wagons and carts to drive.

  Usually the biggest news in town was a wagon losing a wheel on the dirt road outside town or one of the children catching an unusually large catfish from the local river. This day promised some excitement though. At the local school the children were being gathered in the yard to see the great traveling wizard Micro Conuter’s latest invention. It was a box with a glass screen in the middle of it, which showed images when asked. Mr. Conuter had invented it to replace crystal balls and magic mirrors so that people without a talent for magic could see the latest decrees from their beloved King, King Tevon the 104th, as he made them. Unfortunately most adults couldn’t work the device, so Mr. Conuter decided he would try teaching the children instead.

  Mr. Conuter looked out from the stage at the assembled children. They were a motley group. Most of them were missing teeth and wearing clothes sewn together with patches of mismatched fabric. A glance around showed one child picking her nose. Another was cleaning earwax out of his ears with his fingers and putting it in his pockets. What he was saving it for Mr. Conuter preferred not to know. He made a mental note to cast a forgetting spell on himself to get out the image of what the third child was doing. Mr. Conuter was beginning to think involving kids was a bad idea but it was too late to back out so he pressed on.

  “Silence!” he commanded with a magic clap of thunder to get their attention. “I am the great wizard Micro Conuter. You will call me Mr. Conuter. As I’m sure you all know our mighty king, King Tevon the 104th, lives in the Bergdonian Palace many miles from here. This box is a way to let you monitor his proclamations. You’ll be able to hear his commands when he declares them instead of waiting weeks for horsemen to deliver them. Let me show you how it works. I just need some helpers. Hmm, you and you, what are your names?” asked Mr. Conuter as he pointed out two children in the audience.

  “Lisa and Honey Woodstock, Sir.”

  “Sisters eh? Alright girls, come on up here. I’ll show you how this works and then you will do it.”

  As the two girls climbed onto the stage Mr. Conuter raised his hands and chanted the magic words, “Left click, type password, enter!” And with that the most wonderful, fantastic, amazing thing... did not happen.

  “Huh, what’s wrong with this thing?” Mr. Conuter pondered aloud. When he turned back toward his box he saw Lisa holding a tube she’d pulled from it.

  “Hey Mr. Computer, this tube came off your monitor.”

  “It’s Conuter, and give me that!” Mr. Conuter snapped as he swiped the tube out of the girls’ hand. “This is the magic transformer! Without this it could...” POOF!

  In a flash of light and smoke the box turned into something on four legs.

  “Blast it!” Mr. Conuter yelled as he strained his eyes to see through the smoke at what his box had become.

  “It’s a dog!” one of the boys with better eyesight yelled.

  “A black lab I think,” said another. As the smoke thinned Mr. Conuter could see it was indeed a very surprised looking labrador. After a moment looking at itself the dog gave a loud bark and was off, running its newly formed legs for the first time.

  “The Computer lab is running away!” hollered Lisa.

  “It’s Conuter, and someone grab it!” Mr. Conuter commanded. The following scene pushed the boundaries of Conuters’ patience. In their efforts to catch his monitor, two of the boys ran right into each other. One young man slipped and split his pants. A girl who picked up a small fallen branch attempted to hit the dog on the head, but missed completely and ended up knocking out two children who’d been following close behind it. It was not long before most of the children were lying on the ground groaning in pain. Worse yet before anyone could stop it the lab ran off into town, clearly enjoying being alive. Mr. Conuters’ left eye began to twitch.

  “Curses,” he said aloud, “I’ll have to find it myself.” From the recesses of his robe he pulled out an old fashioned crystal ball. A short incantation and a wave of his hand over the ball caused images to begin floating across its surface. The pictures were grainy, mixed with black and white flecs but he could just make out the monitor turned lab sniffing around the town square.

  “Quickly!” he cried, “to the town square!” The few remaining children who could still run scurried down the corridors with Mr. Conuter wheezing behind them. When they arrived they found the dog drinking from the town fountain, but something was happening to it. Curtains of purple-green smoke began swirling around it. With a soft POOF the lab was again transformed.

  “Hey Mr. Computer, your lab turned into a mouse!” Lisa said.

  “I can see that! And it’s Conuter!” This was bad. A dog had already been too hard to catch, but a tiny mouse was going to be even harder.

  “Um, Mister Computer?”

  How was he going to catch a mouse?

  “Mister Computer?”

  Did he know any spells for catching rodents?

  “Mister Computer!”

  “Blast it girl can’t you see I’m…” Mr. Conuter’s scolding came to a halt when he looked over to see that Honey had turned into an apple. A talking apple!

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  “I don't’ want to complain but could I maybe get some help?” the tiny apple asked.

  “Oh no, the broken spell must be spreading!” He looked around the town square as more and more of the children began to change.

  “My sister’s an apple!” Lisa moaned, cookie crumbs falling out of her mouth as she spoke. “And Jack turned into a Ram! Alexa’s a key and Adel’s a board! And Siri turned into a fox! Wow, her coat is so red! Like a fire red! And Mal, where’s Mal? Oh, there he is. He turned blue! And Craig’s a giant letter X? Holy cow look at…”

  As Lisa continued to list all the changes that took place Mr. Conuter took a moment to look around. The magic was spreading like a virus. What was worse was that it wasn’t just people that were changing. The water in the fountain had turned to lemonade. At least he hoped it was lemonade. Many of the potted plants had grown legs and were now walking around, and the trash cans had turned into giant spiders. Even the clouds had changed, unless they had always been made of pink cotton candy.

  “What am I going to do?” he thought aloud, “I could, wait a minute, spiders!” To Mr. Conuters horror the trash can spiders were headed toward the transforming children. Their mouths drooling. It made sense that a creature made from a trash can would not be picky about what it ate. “Lisa, grab the mouse. I need to stop those spiders before they reach the kids!” Mr. Conuters’ hands crackled with magic energy. He called out a few magic words and with a great whoosh a wall of fire sprang up, surrounding the spiders, stopping them from getting further into the town square. “That should hold those nasty bugs for a while. Lisa, did you get the mouse?”

  “I’m sorry Mr. Computer, it got scared and ran off when you’re fiery wall appeared.”

  “Blast it! And it’s Conuter!” Mr. Conuter pulled out his crystal ball again, but all he could see was a swirl of white and black. “Drat! There’s too much magic in the air, I can’t get a good picture!” Mr. Conuter thought for a moment. “Do you know anyone with a good blood hound?” he asked.

  “Nmphyburrrcuttt.” Lis replied.

  “What??”

  Lisa swallowed the cookie she has apparently crammed into her mouth. “No, but I have a cat. Cats are good with mice.”

  Mr. Conuter considered this. Cats were good at catching mice but not tracking them across an entire village. Also he didn’t like the idea of putting the town’s fate in Lisa’s hands. She was the one who had broken his device in the first place. Plus she kept getting his name wrong! He looked to the sky again. If the affected clouds rained the magic malfunction could get into the river and be spread throughout the kingdom. Time was not on his side.

  “It will have to do. Lead the way.” The pair dashed through the ever changing town, with Mr. Conuter struggling to keep up with the young girl. After what felt like forever Lisa led him up the stairs to her home. A moment later they burst through the door.

  “Grab that huff cat and be huff quick about it!” Mr. Conuter panted.

  Lisa found her fluffy little cat curled up by the windowsill and grabbed her but when they turned to leave they found Lisa’s mom blocking the door.

  “Where do you think you’re going with that cat young lady?” she asked.

  “We need it to catch a magic mouse Mom!”

  “Oh really?” replied her mom in a tone that clearly said she did not believe this. “Well you and your friend will have to play magic without the cat. He’s a pure bread. You know he cost a fortune.”

  “Madame I assure you this is no game. The whole town is transforming!” Mr. Conuter explained. Mrs. Woodstock looked the wizard up and down.

  “Aren’t you a little old to be playing make believe?” she asked. “I don’t know if I…” POOF! The smoke cleared to reveal a small yellow bird where Mrs. Woodstock had been. The cat looked at her and licked his lips.

  “Take it!” Mrs. Woodstock tweeted. “Take it now!”

  “You know,” Mr. Conuter huffed as they sprinted through the ever changing town, “your mom’s tweeting gave me a great idea for a new bird based messaging system.”

  “That’s great Mr. Conuter, but I think we need to get your monitor fixed before you start tweeting,” Lisa replied. The pair dodged and weaved their way through what used to be the towns food district. This required, among other things, sprinting past a giant pumpkin creature, leaping over a marching army of forks, and avoiding a tribe of primitive multi-eyed potato people that appeared to be experimenting with making stone tools.

  Mr. Conuter stopped them when they’d reached a safe zone between the chaotic food district and the rapidly changing cattle yards. The monitor had to be nearby, but where? He glanced up to the clouds again. They looked a darker shade of pink than before. They would surely rain soon.

  “We’re running out of time,” he said.

  “Sorry, Mister Conuter,” Lisa mumbled through yet another cookie, “but I don’t see your monitor anywhere!”

  “Blast it girl, where the devil are you getting all those cookies?”

  “I’ve been finding them everywhere! I think they appear wherever your monitor goes.”

  “What? You knew this the whole time and you didn’t tell me?”

  “Well you’ve been so busy trying to find your monitor I didn’t think you’d want any cookies.” Mr. Conuter stifled the urge to turn Lisa into something poetic like a glass of milk and instead looked around for a cookie. There, not too far from them, was indeed a tasty looking chocolate chip cookie.

  “This way! Look for all the cookies you can find!”

  “Sure thing Mr. Conuter! You must be really hungry!”

  Before long they arrived in the wooded area outside of town. The leaves on the creeping vines that grew on the trees had turned into books. Those who had gotten too close to the books while trying to read them found their faces trapped, as the books had slowly closed on them before they knew what was happening.

  “My word!” exclaimed Mr. Conuter. Lisa set the tabby loose, near the last cookie they had seen. In no time it had slunk its way around a hollow log and began circling it. It crouched down, flattened its ears, and slowly inched its way forward. In a flash of fur the cat’s paw pinned the mouse down.

  “Good girl!” Mr. Conuter praised, “Hold it there!” He held the tube over the tabby and chanted “Tech support, hold 3 hours, power off, power on!” In a puff of smoke the mouse turned back into the glass box. One by one, everything else changed back as well. The books turned back into leaves, the spiders into trash cans, the lemonade in the fountain back into water, and all the people back into their usual, and in some cases unusual, selves.

  “We did it Mr. Conuter!” Lisa cheered.

  “It’s Conuter! Oh, sorry, you said that. Yes Lisa, yes we did. Good work.”

  Lisa returned the cat to her home without issue. Her mom however never really felt comfortable around it again. The villagers were not happy about what had happened. They thanked Mr. Conuter for his efforts anyway, because it’s not a good idea to be rude to a wizard, then politely but firmly suggested he move on to another town. As he left, the wizard pondered where to go next. He hadn’t been to his hometown of LapTop in the Valley of Silicone for several years now and realized he had missed it.

  “Oh Micro,” he chuckled to himself, “you must be getting soft in your old age.”

  The End

  Epilogue:

  Many years later in what became the Kingdom of Cleavendale, Mr. Conuter’s dream was realized, in the scry network, a system utilizing looking glasses and crystal balls but with easy user interfaces… well mostly. And Mr. Conuters descendants went on to found the Grand Wizards Tuning Guild. Of course, the waiting time for repairs was 3 to 7 months, and you had to be home in that window to receive them.

  [1] Had they had time to watch said pumpkin they might have noted some vampire like qualities as it had bitten into a hapless condiment bottle and was draining it of its ketchup.

  This came at an especially good time for the potato tribe as it had come under attack by the fork army and was losing ground.