surprise," Jenny said cheerfully to me a couple of days later. I got up from the kitchen table to look over her shoulder at the latest issue of the Evening Chronicle.
In a small column at the bottom of the page, there was a notice to the papers readers.
Peter Williams has left the Chronicle due to problems with his health. We wish him well with his treatment and hope that he makes a full recovery in the very near future.
"You didn't make him ill, did you Jake?" Jenny asked me with a smirk on her face.
"I suspect that when he went to his editor with a story about real dragons in Wales and showed him those photos, he was sent straight to the nearest psychiatrist," I said grinning. "My spell on him must have worked."
I had changed all the photographs so Fluffy became a large cuddly toy dragon. I don't know how I did it, but the pictures looked better to me than anything I've ever seen Photoshopped. Every shadow and nuance in the photos was perfect. Of course, Williams would still be seeing the originals but everyone else would see Jenny cuddling a toy. The editor must have been convinced Williams had cracked up.
"You are a mean, mean boy, Jake Morrissey," Jenny said with a twinkle in her eye. "And I'm going to have to take you to my bed again for making this work."
"But it's been less than half an hour since the last time," I protested.
Chapter Seven : Dragon's Home
S ometimes things that you think of first as a disaster turn out to be the best thing that could ever happen to you. I have a beautiful girlfriend called Jenny and a pet dragon called Fluffy. Fluffy is not at all fluffy and he's more my friend than my pet. That fact is very important in all that happened to us.
It was a couple of weeks after Jenny and I saw off the reporter who discovered Fluffy. Now, if wizards are as rare as hen's teeth across the multiverse, they are still plentiful when compared with the number of dragons you can spot flying over the valleys of Wales. Since it happened I'd been keeping my head down and Fluffy well hidden in the cave he calls home.
I noticed one corner of the carpet in my bedroom was flipped over. The remarkable thing about it was that it shouldn't have been possible. I fastened down all four corners of the carpet some years ago using special hooks I screwed into the floorboards.
Below the carpet was my hopscotch court painted onto the floorboards. The court was the mechanism I used to transport myself to anywhere in the multiverse. I must have a limited imagination because that was less than a dozen worlds, though I've been hopping to them since I was six years old.
When I investigated further, I discovered the carpet corner had been torn away from the hook. A quick check at another corner showed that it had also been disconnected. I rolled back the carpet with my tummy tingling as if a nest of butterflies had taken residence in there. The painted court was gone, not even the faintest outline remained. I felt my blood run cold. My secret had been discovered and I was trapped on Earth.
"Mum!" I shouted in my most petulant teenage voice. I have little choice but to live at home as the job opportunities for wizards in Wales are exactly zero and I have never been any good at schoolwork of any kind. I was therefore, as usual, stone cold broke.
"What is it now, Jake?" Mum called irritably up the stairs. "I'm just off to the supermarket to get something for your dad's dinner."
"Did you lift the carpet in my room?" I called down from the landing.
There was a long pause before I got my answer.
"I haven't got the time for any of your foolishness. I was giving your room a clean out while you were off gallivanting God only knows where, and having left Jenny in tears I might add, when I found your carpet was nailed down.
Fancy trying to cover up some childish graffiti like that, Jake. I'm ashamed of you. A bit of turpentine soon got rid of the drawing underneath. You must have done it when you were very
In a small column at the bottom of the page, there was a notice to the papers readers.
Peter Williams has left the Chronicle due to problems with his health. We wish him well with his treatment and hope that he makes a full recovery in the very near future.
"You didn't make him ill, did you Jake?" Jenny asked me with a smirk on her face.
"I suspect that when he went to his editor with a story about real dragons in Wales and showed him those photos, he was sent straight to the nearest psychiatrist," I said grinning. "My spell on him must have worked."
I had changed all the photographs so Fluffy became a large cuddly toy dragon. I don't know how I did it, but the pictures looked better to me than anything I've ever seen Photoshopped. Every shadow and nuance in the photos was perfect. Of course, Williams would still be seeing the originals but everyone else would see Jenny cuddling a toy. The editor must have been convinced Williams had cracked up.
"You are a mean, mean boy, Jake Morrissey," Jenny said with a twinkle in her eye. "And I'm going to have to take you to my bed again for making this work."
"But it's been less than half an hour since the last time," I protested.
Chapter Seven : Dragon's Home
S ometimes things that you think of first as a disaster turn out to be the best thing that could ever happen to you. I have a beautiful girlfriend called Jenny and a pet dragon called Fluffy. Fluffy is not at all fluffy and he's more my friend than my pet. That fact is very important in all that happened to us.
It was a couple of weeks after Jenny and I saw off the reporter who discovered Fluffy. Now, if wizards are as rare as hen's teeth across the multiverse, they are still plentiful when compared with the number of dragons you can spot flying over the valleys of Wales. Since it happened I'd been keeping my head down and Fluffy well hidden in the cave he calls home.
I noticed one corner of the carpet in my bedroom was flipped over. The remarkable thing about it was that it shouldn't have been possible. I fastened down all four corners of the carpet some years ago using special hooks I screwed into the floorboards.
Below the carpet was my hopscotch court painted onto the floorboards. The court was the mechanism I used to transport myself to anywhere in the multiverse. I must have a limited imagination because that was less than a dozen worlds, though I've been hopping to them since I was six years old.
When I investigated further, I discovered the carpet corner had been torn away from the hook. A quick check at another corner showed that it had also been disconnected. I rolled back the carpet with my tummy tingling as if a nest of butterflies had taken residence in there. The painted court was gone, not even the faintest outline remained. I felt my blood run cold. My secret had been discovered and I was trapped on Earth.
"Mum!" I shouted in my most petulant teenage voice. I have little choice but to live at home as the job opportunities for wizards in Wales are exactly zero and I have never been any good at schoolwork of any kind. I was therefore, as usual, stone cold broke.
"What is it now, Jake?" Mum called irritably up the stairs. "I'm just off to the supermarket to get something for your dad's dinner."
"Did you lift the carpet in my room?" I called down from the landing.
There was a long pause before I got my answer.
"I haven't got the time for any of your foolishness. I was giving your room a clean out while you were off gallivanting God only knows where, and having left Jenny in tears I might add, when I found your carpet was nailed down.
Fancy trying to cover up some childish graffiti like that, Jake. I'm ashamed of you. A bit of turpentine soon got rid of the drawing underneath. You must have done it when you were very
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