Wizards (10 page)

"Child, have you not yet learnt to glim?

"Meep," [Sorry, Father]

"Then your mother and I will teach you and you may return with the wizard, if that is your desire?"

"Meep." [Yes!]

Jenny and I were left on the massive outcrop as Fluffy took to the air with his father. Far above us we saw a spectacular flying display as Fluffy's mother joined the other dragons.

"What does glim mean?" Jenny asked.

"I don't know, but if it means that Fluffy can stay with us, that's fine by me."

"What are we going to do on this rock while waiting for Fluffy to come back?" Jenny asked as she sat down on a patch of grass that had managed to get a foothold on the rock.

"I have no idea."

"You really aren't very bright sometimes," Jenny said as she pulled me towards her.

Chapter Eight
: Return to Salice

I
knew it was inevitable even though I'd been fighting it from the day we got back from visiting Fluffy's parents. Jenny didn't even give me time to sit down before she started.

"Now that you can take me with you, I want to visit Salice."

"It's very old fashioned," I prevaricated. Why, oh why had I told her that Princess Esmeralda was fat and ugly? What had I been thinking of?

It didn't satisfied Jenny, but she let it go for a time. Probably because meeting two adult dragons on a strange world had been enough of an adventure for now. However, I knew she was going to come back to the subject. It was only a matter of time.

"It's raining and there's nothing on at the cinema. Why don't we hop over to that world with the fairy tale palace and look at their shops?"

"We don't have any local money."

"We don't have to actually buy anything. I just want to look around."

"Meep, meep, meep!" Fluffy had thrown in. [Me too! You never take me anywhere.]

"I am not arriving in Salice riding a dragon. The locals would probably come after us with pitchforks!"

"Retnor has a point," Jenny said in a critical tone. She had taken to calling Fluffy by his dragon name, much to my annoyance. I think it's her way of drawing attention to the fact that their relationship has grown deeper with each passing day. If I thought they could get up to any hanky-panky together, I'd definitely be jealous.

"We aren't going!" I reiterated, but I knew even then that it was only a matter of time.

"Daddy bought me this dress," Jenny said as she held it up in front of her. It was a beautiful blue ball gown and my heart sank. The chances of Jenny getting to wear anything so fancy in our part of Wales were so close to zero it didn't bear thinking about.

The dress was her father's birthday present to her and she knew I could afford to buy her little more than a card. I could see the trap had been sprung perfectly and I resigned myself to the inevitable.

"Perhaps we could go to Salice and you could wear it there?"

If you are going to lose anyway, pretend it was your idea. I learnt that a long time ago in the schoolyard.

"Do you really think so?" Jenny looked suddenly pensive, "I don't want to make Princess Esmeralda jealous, she being so fat and ugly and all."

"About that." I stopped, as I was lost for an acceptable explanation for my lies.

"She's actually beautiful, isn't she?"

"How did you know?"

"Some boys are good liars, some are bad…"

"And…"

"Don't take it up as your day job, is all I'm saying."

Jobs are a sore point with me right now. I had been doing casual labor over at Griffith's Wood Yard, mainly moving pallets about using a fork lift truck. Mr. Griffith knew I was a hard worker and he often gave me work when he needed an extra pair of hands, but I wasn't any good behind a till or at any admin job.

When the recession got worse and he had to cut workers, I was pretty much the first person to go. I was hoping he would get rid of Malcolm - a pimply faced twenty-two year old with the personality of a park bench. But Malcolm has a degree in textile engineering, whatever that is, and my only qualifications were that I knew my left hand from my right. So I left and he stayed. I haven't been able to find a job since and have been sponging off my parents.

"When will you take me? And can Retnor come too?"

"I'll go over first and see if they can spare us a room. And find out what their attitude is to dragons."

"Retnor can always glim," Jenny suggested.

Fluffy never showed the slightest sign of being able to perform magic before we visited his parents. It would have been a great help to me if he had when he was growing up. The number of times I got blamed for him destroying something…, well it's far too many to count. I could have done with a pet that could clean up after himself.

It was clear dragons come equipped with a lot of magical powers. Fluffy's parents hinted he would soon come into other magic. I found it all very worrying.

"He can't do it for days on end, you know that."

"He only has to do it when he's out of our room."

"He's fifteen feet long and when he stretches his wings he's over thirty feet wide, wingtip to wingtip. We're going to visit a palace, not a bloody airport."

"There is no need to swear," Jenny said primly. "You just go and ask your pretty princess when we can come."

I hopped out of the room and into the room I stayed in at the King's Palace in Salice.

The bed was devoid of blankets and the room had an empty, musty smell to it. It probably hadn't been occupied since the day I left. I got a bad feeling and rushed to the window to check everything was okay, suddenly worried the kingdom might be in trouble again. Given how much trouble I had brought onto the citizens of Salice in the past, it was a miracle they didn't lynch me on sight.

I sighed with relief when I saw people walking around the courtyard below. They looked normal and there was no sign of any trouble.

The door opened and Princess Esmeralda walked in. I caught my breath because she looked more stunning than usual. It didn't occur to me at the time to wonder how she knew I had returned.

"Here you are," she said matter-of-factly. "I was wondering when you would come back to us."

"There isn't any trouble, is there?"

"Not so far, but now you are here…"

"I was wondering if we could come and visit."

"We?"

"Jenny, remember? She's my girlfriend, and maybe Fluffy as well."

Princess Esmeralda gave me a most severe look, the kind Mr. Griffith used to give me when I moved a pallet of wood to the wrong place.

"Fluffy?"

"My pet dragon. He's very tame. He wouldn't eat anyone or anything, unless they were a sheep. He eats sheep, or lamb if he can get it. He could stay in the stables, he's never eaten horsemeat, well I don't think…"

"Stop!" Esmeralda demanded and my stream of drivel spluttered to a halt. "You wish to bring your maiden and a fire-breathing dragon into my father's palace?"

"Well, if you put it like that."

"We would be delighted."

"Huh?"

"The Spring Ball is in two days’ time. We have invited the kings from the three bordering kingdoms and they have promised to come. Dragons are considered very auspicious and it would raise our standing with the other kingdoms to have one in attendance."

Esmeralda frowned at me.

"Our standing as a kingdom is at an all-time low because of the period we were enslaved by the Master. If you had not dealt so effectively with Wizard Plath, the kings would never have come at all."

I wasn't sure how Esmeralda meant that. It sounded like I raised Salice's status by defeating Plath, but that didn't make sense as he would never have been there if I hadn't got rid of the Master, and the Master was all my fault. My head began to spin and I gave up. I never was good at politics.

"Is she presentable?" Esmeralda asked. It took me a moment to work out she was talking about Jenny.

"More than I am. And she has just been given a dress by her dad for a ball."

Esmeralda sighed. She seems to sigh a lot around me. Perhaps she did it with everyone.

"Bring them both tomorrow. Come to the Palace Gate and make sure everyone in town gets a good look at your dragon. We do not want him glimming in on us, as the idea is to let everyone know he's here. Pack enough clothes for a week. No, on second thought, I will get the royal tailor when you arrive, and I'll send for the royal shoemaker. I do not understand why you always arrive here dressed as a tramp."

Esmeralda turned and walked out of the room without a backward glance. Apparently, my audience with her was over. I hopped back to Jenny's bedroom.

Jenny was standing naked in front of her full length mirror. She yelped and reached for the towel on the bed to cover her body. I don't understand women. It’s not like I haven’t seen her naked before.

"It's on. We leave tomorrow and will be staying for a week," I told her triumphantly.

"Out! Get out of here right now, Jake Morrissey!" Jenny pushed me backwards towards the door with the hand that wasn't holding her towel.

I shrugged and hopped to the Bat Cave to tell Fluffy the news. If I'd known then what I know now, I have hopped to some unknown dimension and cowered in the first unoccupied cave I could find.

Up to this point in my life going to other worlds had been easy. Over the years, I got my parents used to the idea that I would disappear for a few days before returning safe and sound. My mother sometimes complained about it, but never too loudly. I think she feared that if she complained I might vanish forever.

Now I was taking Jenny with me, I suddenly discovered vanishing for a few days was no longer quite so simple. Mr. and Mrs. Owens weren't happy with the idea of the two of us heading off without any apparent destination. I was quizzed at length about where we would be and why I couldn't give them an address where they could get in contact with Jenny in an emergency. They were also concerned that Jenny's mobile would be out of action, despite it being capable of receiving calls anywhere in the world.

"This has something to do with that gift of yours, doesn't it?" Peter Owen asked when he managed to catch me alone on the landing.

Many of the locals think I'm a psychic because I've told the police where to find missing people. However, my track record of finding people alive is pretty poor as I only get asked when other approaches have failed. It's a pretty thankless task and I try and put people off. I have enough hassles in my life without adding grieving relatives to the list.

"Jenny will be safe. This was her idea you know, not mine."

"Why can't she phone us?"

"It would spoil it," I told him. This was our new excuse. Jenny suggested it to me less than an hour before and it looked like I was going to give it its first field trial.

Mr. Owens gave me one of those looks that parents reserve for dumb boyfriends. It was remarkably similar to the looks both Jenny and Princess Esmeralda give me all the time. It's nice that everybody sees me in the same way.

"Can't we find a compromise, Jake? Jenny could switch on her phone and ring home every other day. It would get her mother off my back if you'd agree to it."

I gave this idea some serious thought. I have no idea how I travel across the multiverse. I just do a mental hop, skip and jump as though I'm on a hopscotch court and there I am. It doesn't tire me, and bringing Jenny and Fluffy with me takes no extra effort now that I don't need a physical court. I could always hop Jenny back to my bedroom for half an hour every other day so she could make a phone call.

"That might be possible, Peter. Can I talk to Jenny about it before I agree?" Using Mr. Owens first name made me feel uncomfortable. It felt like being cheeky to a teacher at school.

"You do that, Jake."

Jenny thought it was a brilliant idea, mainly because her mother had come close to telling her she couldn't go. With our new agreement in place, Jenny's parents gave us their blessing.

There was one more thing I had to do before we could set off and that was to teach Jenny and Fluffy the language of Salice. I learnt it by magic and I taught them the same way, putting my hands on their foreheads and willing them to understand. We wouldn't know until we got to Salice if it worked.

We set off in Jenny's car, using it as a smokescreen for our real intentions. I arranged with Mr. Griffith to park the car in his wood yard. We parked first in a lay-by and I hopped Jenny's bags to the Bat Cave where Fluffy waited impatiently for us. Then Jenny drove the car to a secluded spot in the yard where it wouldn't be seen. As soon as the car was locked, I hopped her to her luggage in the Bat Cave.

"Meep!" [About time]

"Your parents don't do the sound effects, so why do you?" I asked Fluffy a little huffily.