Chapter 14: A Sprinkling of Magic
When Peter eventually awoke, it was nearly lunchtime. His stomach rumbled, not only from hunger but almost certainly complaining about the near fatal combinations of food and drink that he'd consumed just a few hours earlier. Combinations that, while he was sleeping, had produced dragon like amounts of what can only be described as... aroma, challenged clouds of a gaseous nature that, with a will of their own, had floated throughout the house of their own accord, as he was now finding out.
Sitting down at the breakfast table, eyeing two of the aforementioned clouds in the far corner of the room, he sent out his consciousness and broke the habit of a lifetime by commanding it to return with more than one paper. After only four more mouthfuls of cornflakes, he found he had access to five of the most popular telepathic tabloids. Scanning the front and back pages really quickly, headlines such as 'Greatest Game Ever' and 'Controversial Penalty Sends Shockwaves Through The Sport' made him feel warm inside. He spent the next hour engrossed in the various descriptions of the previous night's match.
That afternoon he cleaned his home, not something he looked forward to; however, he was something of a stickler for things being tidy and clean. After finishing the housework, he fancied going for a walk. Racking his brain for ten minutes, he couldn't come up with anywhere he fancied going and so after further consideration he decided, for a change, to venture below ground, deep into the dragon domain.
Making his way through the secret underground route from his house, he realised that it had never occurred to him to take a walk for no apparent reason, in the world below ground that he considered his home. Arriving at the monorail station, he'd already decided to catch the first carriage that arrived and follow it to its final destination, wherever that might be. Ambling onto the first silver carriage that presented itself without even looking at the LCD displays to see where it was headed, he watched the different rock formations pass by outside the window, stifling a grin as he did so, knowing that he was in fact heading for Purbeck Peninsula. Six minutes later, he faced out of the carriage as it pulled into the terminus at Purbeck. As the doors of the monorail carriage slid quietly aside, Peter felt the warm air from the concourse wash over him. Making his way through the surprisingly busy plaza, he caught the scent of something... ummm... delicious. Stopping in his tracks, he slowly turned, trying to find the source of the tantalising smell that was assaulting his nose. Looking around, first he ruled out the doughnuts, then the pancakes, then most of the other stalls that he could see. Just when he thought he must be imagining things, he caught sight of a tiny little alcove off to one side, which housed a vendor he was quite sure he had never seen before. Pushing his way through a whole host of people who were heading for the main exit, he eventually reached the secluded vendor.
"That smells amazing," announced Peter, licking his lips.
A dark blue dragon, with the most amazing mottled effect Peter had ever seen, looked up from a sizzling hot griddle.
"Can I interest you in one, sir?"
"What are they?" enquired Peter.
"I call them 'Charcoal Surprise'," said the vendor with a big toothy smile.
"And?" added Peter.
"That's all I'm saying."
Peter shook his head, wondering if it were some kind of scam. The vendor looked genuine, he thought, but it wouldn't be the first time some unscrupulous dragon had come along from elsewhere, selling something dubious. The 'Charcoal Surprise' did smell absolutely fantastic though, and he hadn't had anything to eat since his cereal earlier.
"Sure, I'll try one."
"You won't be disappointed I assure you sir," replied the dragon, boosting the heat on the griddle with a little of his own from between his jaws.
Watching intently as the vendor started to make the 'Charcoal Surprise', Peter was keen to know exactly what he'd purchased. Next to the griddle was a small clay oven that he'd neglected to notice up until now. Taking off its lid, the vendor tested the temperature before blowing a stream of bright orange flame into it, to warm it up. Finding it to his liking, the vendor pulled out a big lump of dough from beneath the counter. Placing the dough on the table next to the griddle, the blue dragon started to knead and shape the dough. As he did so, he grabbed a small container from beside the oven, from which he sprinkled out small dark lumps of something all over the dough.
Peter smiled.
'Hmmmm... there's the charcoal,' he thought.
Continuing to knead the dough, now speckled with charcoal, the vendor finished off by using the backs of his wings to roll the dough flat. He then cast the dough into the oven, sticking it to the curved side from what little Peter could actually see, before the lid went back on. With the griddle sizzling away nicely, again the vendor reached under the counter, this time pulling out two pink juicy fruits, that even the young dragon recognised.
"Oh my god," ventured Peter, astonished. "Are those what I think they are? Giant lau laus?"
The vendor answered with a deep throated chuckle.
"I suppose you thought the sprinkles of charcoal were the surprise?"
Peter gave the vendor a lopsided grin and said sheepishly,
"Maybe."
Expertly slicing the giant lau laus with a deadly knife that looked more like a machete, the dragon continued to talk with Peter.
"Don't worry, most dragons are the same. Most are suspicious and used to the same old things. Pancakes with charcoal, doughnuts with charcoal, fajitas with charcoal. No offence to any of that, but it's all a bit bland for my liking. When I describe something I'm selling as 'Surprise', then I genuinely mean 'surprise', and only in a good way."
"But giant lau laus? They're a delicacy and so limited in supply. Where on earth do you get them? Umm... umm... if you don't mind me asking."
Slices of giant lau lau tumbled through the air on their way to the sizzling griddle, eliciting an unbelievable aroma. Peter's stomach churned and rumbled in anticipation. Pineapple, strawberries, bananas had all been added to the mix, along with the tangy juice of the biggest lime Peter had ever seen. It was a mouth watering cocktail of fruit, one that most sentient beings would have given their right arm just to taste.
"It's okay to ask. It's no big deal, not to me anyway. My grandfather owns and runs one of the biggest plantations in the South Pacific. He always supplies me with enough to be going on with. He's one of the most down to earth dragons you could ever wish to meet, and while you are right about the lau laus being considered a delicacy, in times gone by they were freely available to the likes of you and me. My grandfather keeps me supplied for that very reason, knowing that I can let ordinary dragons get a taste of these delightful fruits."
"Sounds like a top dragon... your grandfather."
A faraway look of days gone by came across the vendor's face as he tossed and turned the spluttering fruity mixture on the griddle.
"A top dragon... that would be an almost perfect description," agreed the vendor.
Taking a quick peek in the oven, the dragon quickly realised the bready concoction had finished cooking. Pulling it out, he expertly sliced a huge hole in the middle. Peter thought the bread looked similar to naan bread that he had tasted on many outings with Tank and Richie to their favourite Indian restaurant in Salisbridge. Using the bread itself as a kind of shovel, the vendor scooped up the fruity ingredients into the hole, proceeding then to pour a white dressing all over it.
"There you go Sir. Hope you enjoy."
Peter could feel the heat of the bread and its contents almost burning the fake skin from his hands, but was only interested in the fastest way to get it into his aching stomach.
"Thank you very much. I hope to see you again," said Peter, momentarily looking up from the gorgeous smelling snack.
The vendor gave Peter another toothy grin and a short bow as he started to clean the griddle for the next customer.
Walking across the plaza, weaving in and out of commuters, Peter used his hands to lift the bread
towards his mouth and gobble furiously on its contents. The 'Charcoal Surprise' was easily the most amazing thing he had ever tasted. Cooked to perfection, the fruit was so sweet and tangy, while the bread melted in his mouth as the occasional fizz of charcoal laid waste to his tongue, causing an almost perfect combination. Passersby in both forms were craning their small human and enormous dragon necks around to give him very curious looks. He didn't care one iota, imagining he looked a right sight at this very moment.
Leaving the monorail plaza, he headed towards the centre of Purbeck Peninsula. Halfway there, he stopped and sat on a seat carved into the dark brown rock. Expecting the feeling of cold, hard rock on his human shaped bum, it came as something of a surprise to get a surge of heat passed on to him by the seat. Examining the rock closely, he found tiny rivulets of molten lava running just beneath the surface, with little plumes of steam rising from the entire length of the seat, something he hadn't spotted before he'd sat down.
'Wow,' he thought, 'some fancy pants has designed the seats with built in heat from the lava running beneath the city. It's just one pleasant surprise after another today.'
Taking ten minutes or so to let his stomach soak up the delightful snack that he'd so greedily gobbled down, all the time making the most of the comfortably warm seat that just seemed to melt away his worries, eventually, and very reluctantly, he got up and continued heading into Purbeck. With his stomach content, his thoughts turned to where he should head next. He'd already had a great time, and didn't really have a destination in mind.
While trying to decide, he spotted an information terminal on one side of the path up ahead. Strolling purposefully over to it, he began to look at the display. Terminals like this can be found dotted around dragon communities all over the world. They can be used for very simple tasks such as looking up a dragon's address or getting directions, or more complex tasks such as contacting Council officials, checking on the latest construction work anywhere in the world, or if the area should allow it, boosting a mobile phone signal here underground. Found mainly in the more modern parts of the underground world, information terminals are commonplace in and around station plazas and the centre of towns and cities, unlike the area where the Mantra Emporium was located where the nearest would have been quite some way a way.
Looking at the different headings on the LCD touch screen, Peter stumbled across one entitled 'Purbeck and Surrounding Area Covert Entrances'. Scrolling down the screen, he looked at the information available. Basically it was a list of all the public surface access points into and out of Purbeck Peninsula. During their time in the nursery ring, young dragons learn all about how to access the surface discreetly and how to enter the dragon domain from any number of concealed entrances. While they aren't given the exact details of every entrance to the dragon domain, they do have access to anything they want to know, either via the information terminals, the dragon libraries or telepathically.
A big grin spread across Peter's face. When this part of the curriculum had hit his nursery ring, he, Tank and Richie had developed a game that they had played for some weeks. It was all such a long time ago, but with his eidetic memory, he could remember it as though it were only yesterday. The idea of the game was to find all the concealed entrances in and around Purbeck Peninsula and use as many as possible, with the winner being the one who found either the most fun to use entrance, or the most bizarre. Tank and Peter had spent days at the library (unusually for Peter, not so much for Tank) looking up all the access points. All their hard work, however, turned out to be in vain. As was normally the case, Richie was way ahead of them both. Not only did she find the most bizarre entrance, but two others that were so much fun, the three of them constantly used them over and over again.
Located topside at a children's park right in the centre of Swanage, the bizarre entrance was perfect for a dead of night attempt in the middle of a very humid August. Most of the other entrances Peter had come across up until that point had seemed relatively simple to him, hence he was intrigued as to why they were skulking around in the pitch black. His opinion changed forever after that very night. All three friends sneaked into the park, easy really, with just a three foot fence surrounding it. After that, Richie showed them the sequence for unlocking the entrance. Peter and Tank were both blown away, not believing a word of it at first, assuming that it was one of her infamous practical jokes. However, she was telling the complete truth. Petals of four separate flowers in three separate flower beds all had to be folded so that they pointed down towards the ground. Finding the flowers was going to be impossible, or so Peter thought. Richie managed to find them all first time, without damaging any of the nearby blooms, even though they were surrounded by hundreds of flowers that looked exactly the same.
Next, three small children's spring mounted rides had to all be twisted around to face a northerly direction. As if that wasn't enough, the next stage of the operation was time dependant. The children's roundabout had to be spun at more than twenty revolutions a minute. After that it would be a case of sprinting to the far end of the playground to the giant yellow enclosed spiral slide. With the flowers and the rides in position, a small gap would open up about halfway down the slide, just above a wide metal support that held part of it in place, for only as long as the roundabout managed to stay turning faster than twenty revolutions a minute. Richie bounded up the yellow ladder, leaping feet first into the slide. Tank followed next, his gigantic frame a tight squeeze to say the least. Peter knew he had to hurry, because the roundabout was slowing down all the time. Grabbing the rail above his head, he hurled himself down into the dark after his friends. Turning one of the sharp corners in the dark, he suddenly felt the surface disappear beneath him. He fought the urge to scream, knowing that his friends before him hadn't made a sound. Almost as soon as the falling sensation had started, it stopped with a very wet THUMP.
In the pitch black, even with his enhanced dragon senses, he could still not see his friends, who he assumed were still somewhere in front of him. Sitting up to his tummy in freezing cold, flowing water, after only a few seconds he started getting swept along. He could feel the water behind him building up more and more, making him move faster and faster along the twisting and turning underground stream. Twice he banged his head on the ceiling as he was carried along, only just managing to hold back some very bad curses. Just as he was about to call out to his friends to make sure he was still travelling in the right direction, again the world beneath him fell away and he found himself falling in a shower of cold water in the pitch black. Tumbling wildly, he noticed a small cavern with a body of water rushing up to meet him. With a huge SPLASH he found himself dumped unceremoniously into the small, shallow lake. Sitting up, he was assaulted by roaring laughter from his friends that echoed around the cavern. Shaking themselves dry on the water's edge were Richie and Tank, curled up with mirth. Getting to his feet, Peter waded over to his friends, the smiles on their faces causing him to laugh, which in turn made the other two laugh again. All three of them looked a right sight, soaking wet, freezing cold, bursting with laughter. Peter couldn't recall that incident without chuckling out loud. To this day, it was still the most unusual entrance to the dragon domain that he'd ever come across.
Of the two fun entrances, one was a sinkhole, a little offshore from one of the beaches at Sandbanks, just East of Swanage. Hardly ever used as far as he could remember, it was designed to be accessed by boat, but it was possible to swim there, as it was only about three hundred yards from the shore. A discoloured old buoy marked the sinkhole's position. Had any humans dived in that particular area (they shouldn't have as it was marked out as being a site of special scientific interest), all they would have found was the wreck of a small ship, with absolutely no defining features. Something utterly uninteresting. However, a dragon would know that the sinkhole lies directly below the small wreck. He remembered fondly how Richie had led him and Tank out into the night, much in the same way as she had to the park i
n Swanage. Way too many people would have been here to do it any other time than late at night under the cover of darkness. Three swimmers going out that far and then not returning would definitely arouse suspicion in the daytime on the usually crowded beach. Shrouded by the darkness, the three had a leisurely swim out to the wreck, changing into their dragon forms halfway, a new experience for Peter, having never done it underwater (steady!) before. He wanted to laugh madly at the overwhelming tickling sensation which was the only way to describe the very different experience, from his point of view anyway. Diving down to the bottom on occasion on the way, to swim among the delicate but stunningly beautiful seahorses and other marine life, the three weren't sure who was more surprised: the three of them to see the vast array of unusual aquatic creatures, or the creatures at seeing three prehistoric monsters larking about, blowing bubbles and just generally having a good time in the warm, late summer water. On reaching the wreck, Richie found an old steel bar lying on the bottom, no doubt part of some far reaching mantra, which she used to lever up the old ship's corpse from beneath. As she did so, water and sand started to disappear at a tremendous rate into the gap that she'd created. Richie indicated to Tank and Peter that they should dive through the narrow gap and into the darkness. Tank didn't need a second invitation and dived through, once again just making it due to his oversized dragon frame. Reluctant to throw himself into the darkness, Peter closed his eyes and propelled himself forward, knowing that Richie was becoming more and more impatient. Using his enhanced dragon senses, just like Richie and Tank, Peter was capable of holding his breath for more than half an hour, something he concentrated on now more than ever. Finding himself surrounded by a dizzying array of bubbles, suddenly something hard smashed into his shoulder, sending him tumbling head over tail. It was all he could do to keep holding his breath, as Richie's graceful form plummeted past him. Telepathically, she sent him a short apology for bumping into him, just managing a brief wave before a huge plume of bubbles engulfed her. For someone, or something, that was used to doing acrobatics (normally, of course, the aerial kind) he found himself having a great deal of trouble controlling his urge to throw up. He felt as though he'd been whisked up in a raging underwater vortex, spinning round and round at a positively dizzying rate. Imagine, if you will, the biggest, most amazing waterslide, only underwater and at the speed of a bullet. That's the only way he could think of the experience he was currently suffering. Still tumbling wildly out of control, concentrating on holding his breath and not throwing up (which in his mind only added to the building sense of panic, as he assumed that if he opened his mouth to throw up, then he would probably drown. No pressure then!) he could just make out Tank in the distance, being tossed around like a rag doll, seemingly loving every second of it. Richie had by now turned her uncontrollable descent into something of an art. Having stopped tumbling, she'd made her slim dragon form resemble a kind of torpedo shape, and was currently zipping in and out of the giant bubble columns at a jaw dropping angle. As he watched his friends, it dawned on him that just maybe he was approaching the journey all wrong.
'Perhaps enjoying the experience is key to surviving it,' he thought. With this in mind, he spread out both his wings in an attempt to gain more control over his ungainly drop. Rushing water and bouncing bubbles caressing the membranes in his wings made him want to... giggle. It tickled. It really, really tickled.
He wasn't able to tell whether things had gotten better or worse. On the plus side he'd forgotten about wanting to throw up, but the desire to laugh out loud was overwhelming, which again made him think he might well drown, only this time from laughter. Panic once again started to rise from the pit of his stomach, but before it had a chance to take hold he found himself tangled up in a mass of slimy, dark green seaweed. It was everywhere, preventing him from moving, let alone getting himself untangled. He looked around for his friends, but they were nowhere in his eye line. Abruptly the seaweed contracted, nearly forcing open his clamped shut mouth. With a vice like grip on him, the seaweed spun him around and around, hurling him straight towards a bright orange, oversized starfish which, unbelievably, used one of its arms to bat him away in a totally different direction. Things were getting weird now, even for the dragon domain. Unable to change his trajectory even in the slightest, Peter now found himself heading for the wide open mouth of a monstrous giant clam. Looking back on it, he could certainly see the funny side, but at the time he had no idea if this was what was supposed to be happening. Hitting the back of the clam's mouth at considerable speed, its massive structure slammed shut, leaving him alone in the dark. Lying trapped in the clam, concentrating on holding his breath, he could feel everything all about him move, in an upwards direction he thought. After what seemed like an hour, but was actually only a few minutes, the clam's mouth opened, revealing the inside of a well lit chamber. Swimming gently out of the clam's mouth, careful not to touch the sides for fear of being swallowed again, he broke the surface to be greeted by his friends’ laughter. Richie and Tank were desperate to go again, and come to think of it, now that Peter knew what to expect, so was he.
'The other fun entrance, well that's... that's... hmmm. That's only a short walk away,' he thought. Indecision set in, well at least for a split second. It was a bit childish to want to use the concealed entrance just for the fun of it, wasn't it? Especially as he was on his own.
'What the hell,' he thought, heading off in the direction of the nearest way to the surface.
It turned out the closest access point was only a few minutes' walk away and would bring him out in one of the arcades in Swanage itself. This worked out quite well because the 'fun' entrance he was planning to use to get back was only a little further along the seafront, in the guise of a beach hut.
Turning off the main walkway he'd been on since exiting the monorail station, he headed up a steep flight of rocky stairs. Climbing roughly three storeys, he turned a corner and found himself in a small circular chamber, entirely carved out of rock. In the middle of the chamber was a round glass cage with a circular metal pad at the base of it. Warning signs were plastered on either side of the cage's door. White writing on a red background warned 'ONLY USE IN HUMAN FORM' and 'NARROW IRIS IN USE. DRAGON BODIES WILL NOT FIT'.
Sliding the glass door aside, he stepped onto the metal pad. A tinny voice came out of a small speaker beside his head.
"Keep your body within the circumference of the pad. Be prepared for human interaction."
The glass door in front of him closed automatically, encasing him fully. Bending his knees slightly, he prepared to be shot upwards at high speed. The lights dimmed, before a staggeringly loud 'WHOOSH' sent him straight up into the air, through a hole in the top of the chamber and up into total darkness. Crouched ever so slightly, he could see the rock as it raced by only inches from his face. The noise from the ascent started to die off as the pad slowed. He craned his neck to look up. He was close enough now just to make out the metallic surface of the iris, able to make out the seams where it would split to let him through.
Only moving at about a metre a second now, Peter's eyes were suddenly dazzled by the bright light shining through the now open iris. Familiar sounds of arcade machines reverberated all around him as he came to rest in the middle of a group of slot machines. Having stopped moving, the pad looked just like any other part of the surrounding floor. Ducking down on coming through the iris, he was now looking for the opportunity to sneak through the very narrow gap between two of the machines. Right on cue, one of the two penny machines down at the far end of the arcade made a loud paying out kind of sound, followed by the ching-ching-ching of coins falling out of the bottom. With everybody's attention focused elsewhere, Peter squeezed through the gap and nonchalantly stood up.
Nobody in the arcade had witnessed his arrival, with the exception of the woman behind the change counter opposite: a seemingly middle aged woman with long, dark hair, part of which was tied back with a stripy bandana. She gave Peter a long sta
re, before breaking into a smile and giving him a surreptitious wink with her right eye. He returned the gesture before casually leaving by the seafront entrance.
The lady (or dragon) behind the counter was known as Madam Ladybird, and was renowned for the charity work she carried out not just in the human world up above, but also in the dragon domain down below. As well as working in the arcade, she was its owner and had been for some time.
Stepping out into the daylight, Peter found himself looking out across Swanage Bay, a sight he never got tired of, even on a chilly day like today. Much as the heat and warmth of the underground world he called home felt wonderful, there was something mesmerising about the sea, and this view in particular, that he found intoxicating. Whether it was the golden sand, the overpowering cliffs, the gentle sound of the waves lapping against the shore, just the right number of boats in the bay, the breathtaking view of the Isle of Wight and the Needles or the tummy rumbling smell of fish and chips, he just didn't know, but Peter felt this could well be his spiritual home, if such a thing existed.
Turning, he headed east along the seafront, past the three storey homes that were successfully rented to holiday makers throughout the year. In the distance he could just make out the shrill whistle of one of the steam trains that ran regularly on the celebrated railway. Walking towards the main stretch of beach, his attention was drawn to the waves rolling in and crashing on the sand only a few feet below the raised walkway he was on.
'The tide,' he thought, 'seems to be neither in nor out.'
Continuing past two bars and a couple of shops that sold all sorts of holiday stuff (inflatable boats, beach balls, boogie boards, buckets and spades, towels, swimwear, that kind of thing) he made it onto the road that ran behind the main expanse of beach, walking past another arcade, a fish and chip shop, the information centre and a newly designed toilet block. Set back from the road, past the aforementioned facilities, was a row of brightly coloured beach huts.
Bending down on the pavement, pretending to tie his shoelaces, he looked along the beach front to see if anyone was acting suspiciously or paying him any undue attention. He saw several couples with young children, a couple of groups of youths and numerous elderly people dotted about the place, taking in the brisk sea air, but nobody looking at him. Keeping his wits about him, he wandered down in front of all the beach huts. Being the end of October, none of them were in use. Probably luck more than anything, as he'd been here much later in the year and found huts with their doors open, with people sitting down inside, taking in the sights.
Eventually finding the hut he was looking for, he carefully placed one finger on the tip of a rusty old nail that poked ominously out of the door frame and using two fingers on his other hand, pulled out a small fragment of wood from the side of the hut, just a few inches. With the wood fragment pulled out as far as it would go, he pushed down on the tip of the nail until a satisfying 'click' could be heard as the door unlocked. All this happened in a split second. For a human to have witnessed it, there would have to have been an awful lot of luck involved. Checking quickly in the reflection of the hut's window, satisfied, he squeezed inside, silently shutting the door behind him. Looking out at the seafront through the once white, musty, net curtain, he once again checked that nobody had paid him any attention. Nobody had. Satisfied that he hadn't been seen, he turned his gaze to the interior of the hut. It was just as he'd remembered, right down to the ancient white gas stove that stood in the back right hand corner and the blue and white striped deck chair placed smack bang in the middle of the floor.
'I'm sure the deck chair had red stripes,' he thought, wondering if his eidetic memory was playing up in some way, shape or form. Half deflated beach balls and inflatable dinghies were all propped up in the other corner, along with an array of mismatched oars to heaven only knew what sort of boats. An old metallic white fridge stood at waist height next to the stove, a brown electric kettle straight out of the 1970's keeping it company. He wrinkled his nose as he took a step further into the hut. It smelt of old carpet, decaying mould and strangely... candy floss. Running his hand along the old worktop that the kettle sat on, he was rewarded with the thickest layer of dust he'd ever seen in his entire life, accumulating on the side of his fingers.
'Exactly as I remember it,' he thought, ignoring the OCD tidying instinct that threatened to overwhelm his body.
Jolted out of his daydreaming by the sound of small children running and laughing, he knew better than to hang around for no apparent reason. His body screamed at him to get on and activate the entrance as soon as possible. Racking his brain, for this was another puzzle activated entrance, just like the children's park, which ironically was only a stone's throw from where he now stood, he thought long and hard about exactly what to do. First, he took the lid off the dark brown kettle, checking first to make sure it was plugged into the dilapidated mains socket. Next, he opened the fridge door, while the light inside stuttered and flickered on, looking as though it was about to fail. Inside the fridge door, there were three bottles of ancient looking lemonade. Carefully taking out the first bottle, he poured its entire contents into the kettle. He then put the lid on and flicked the switch to boil, whilst at the same time putting the empty bottle back in the fridge and shutting the door. All he had to do now, he knew, was sit back in the deck chair and wait for the kettle to boil. Slumping down in the deck chair, he looked at his watch. From what he could remember, the whole thing would take about three minutes. He looked around at the old junk, desperate to keep his mind occupied in an attempt to ignore the urge that threatened to overcome him. It was no good. He just had to look. Standing up, he paced over to the fridge and opened the door. Sure enough, all three bottles of lemonade were now full. He marvelled at the magic behind the mantra.
'It must be some sort of self replicating mantra,' he thought, vowing to ask his friend Gee Tee about it when their paths next crossed.
The sound of the kettle bubbling away made him leap back into the deck chair, ready for his journey below. Through the dirty net curtain that covered the window, he could just make out a brilliant luminescent rainbow that stretched from one end of the bay to the other, looking stunning against the back drop of the grey autumn sky. Abruptly, the floor beneath him opened up and swallowed the deck chair whole. Had anyone been in the hut watching, all they would have seen was a section of the dusty old floor rotate through one hundred and eighty degrees, with a new deck chair, this one red striped, appearing again in the middle of the hut.
Peter found himself zooming down a steep rocky slope mostly in the dark, occasionally lit by tiny patches of lava that he either zipped over or noticed low down to the side of the deck chair's crazy trajectory. Sparks flew from the metal feet on the bottom of the chair that constantly remained in contact with the twisting rocky path. Nothing short of exhilarating, the screeching ride with its sharp twists and turns in the near dark had his heart beating double time, especially on some of the steeper drops and the wicked hairpin bends. Speeding along at an unbelievable rate, he guessed he was travelling in excess of ninety miles an hour. Something he'd never been able to work out, in all the times he'd taken this journey, was whether or not he had any control over the ride. It always seemed as though he could affect the course of the chair by throwing his weight to one side, changing direction ever so slightly, but he always got the impression that the chair itself was almost... humouring him, if such a thing were even possible.
Without warning, the angle of descent increased dramatically, along with the speed, forcing him back in the chair as the screeching of metal on rock got louder and the sparks from the feet got wilder. Gripping the side of the chair for all he was worth, he prepared himself for what was to come.
Sure enough, it came. The excruciating drop changed in a split second, being replaced by a feeling of heading up a slope, and then... aaaahhhhhhhhhhh!
Even though he knew what to expect, the ferocity of it took him completely by surprise. The very firs
t time he'd used this entrance with Tank and Richie, it had been explained to him that this section of the track was what can only be described as a 'loop the loop'. Used to 'G' forces of varying intensities, this was nothing new to dragons who regularly pulled more G's than most fighter pilots. This loop the loop though was something else. Maybe because the darkness didn't allow you to anticipate what was coming next, just the sheer speed, the enclosed space, or a combination of them all, the only thing that Peter knew was that this ride was like nothing else he'd ever experienced. It combined fear and excitement in equal measures, which certainly got his blood pumping.
Once through the loop the loop, he found himself back on a relatively gentle slope in the deck chair, but instead of facing forwards to travel down the slope, the chair itself was turning in circles, much like the Waltzers at the fun fair that comes to Salisbridge market place every year.
Just as he was regretting having eaten the scrummy 'Charcoal Surprise', the circles stopped and it slowed right down. Looking around, the faint light of liquid lava showed him that he'd come to a halt at a complete dead end. A solid rock face stood no more than three metres away, blocking the entire route. Peter sat tangled in the chair, legs almost around his ears, puzzled. For the life of him, he couldn't remember this part of the journey. As far as he could recall, the chair was supposed to cross paths with two underground streams, travelling down one for a short period, before hitting a tight spiral and ending up just on the outskirts of Purbeck Peninsula.
Grabbing the armrests of the chair to lift himself out, Peter decided to get up and look around. Halfway to a standing position the chair unexpectedly folded up on him, disappearing into a very small opening that had appeared beneath it. He couldn't move. Not an inch, with his knees firmly clamped against his chin, and no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't force the chair any wider apart. Changing forms flicked briefly through his mind, but given the vice like grip the chair had on him, he wasn't so sure it was a good idea. All he knew was that he and the chair were falling fast now, very fast, and as far as he could remember this was not supposed to happen.
Suddenly, the speeding V shaped deck chair with Peter sandwiched in the middle, tore through a mass of thick roots and vines as it shot out into the top of a well lit cavern. Craning his neck to look back down the side of the chair, he could just make out dragons in natural and human form walking along a well worn path hundreds of metres below.
'Don't they realise I'm about to fall to my doom?' he thought, preparing to scream at the top of his voice in the hope that someone would come to his aid. Opening his mouth to do just that, he realised that his descent had started to slow. It was then that he noticed the roots of the plant, that he'd fallen through on entering the cavern, had in fact attached themselves to the deck chair and were responsible for slowing the fall. The roots and vines seemed to have an almost elastic quality, something Peter was only just noticing now that he was able to look back up towards the roof itself.
Still sandwiched in the V shape, instead of falling it was now more like being lowered. Half a metre from the ground, the roots let go of the chair, whipping back up through the air, no doubt waiting for the next poor sucker to use that particular entrance. Landing with the click of metal on rock, the deck chair sprang fully open, allowing Peter to bound out, to applause and laughter from smirking dragons all around. Trying hard to look casual, but not really pulling it off, he stepped through the gap in the short wall and onto the busy path. His legs felt like rubber. Deciding momentarily to sit down on the wall and regain his composure, he felt a giant hand slap him on the shoulder.
"Shook you up a bit did it, son?"
He turned round to find a tall, mature, spindly-looking dragon, munching on a stick of charcoal, looking down at him.
"It just wasn't quite as I remembered it," stammered Peter.
The dragon let out a high pitched giggle, and something of a splutter as a lump of charcoal seemed to stick in his jaws.
"They only changed it a week ago. It had to be closed off because part of the main shaft collapsed when a small tremor hit."
'Ahh,' thought Peter, 'it all makes sense now. Emergency repair teams often come up with some ingenious solution to a critical problem, which would certainly explain the giant plant and its over-friendly roots.’
Peter gave the tall dragon a reluctant smile.
"Thanks for letting me know. I was starting to feel more than a little stupid."
"That's okay son. Most of the dragons walking along here are only doing so in the hope of seeing some unsuspecting traveller get a bit more than they bargained for. If you stick around long enough, someone else will come down."
With that, the dragon patted Peter on the shoulder, turned and walked slowly away. He stayed sitting on the squat stone wall, getting nods and smiles from those that had seen his fall in the deck chair. Sitting there, he suddenly felt his mobile phone vibrate in his pocket. Bemused, he took the phone out and had a look. At some point he'd received a text message.
'Must have happened while I was at the surface briefly,' he thought. Bringing the message up, he opened it, pleased to see it was from Tank. The message read:
Pete, what a night. Still can't believe it. Trying my best to get tickets to the final. Also got something for you from my boss. Will pop round Thursday night if that's okay. Let me know. Tank.
'What on earth can Gee Tee have given him?' Peter wondered, starting to reply. About halfway through, he heard an echoing scream from high above him. Those dragons around him all glanced up at the top of the cavern, where the thick rooted plant had taken hold. Sure enough, a small dark gap appeared in the middle of it, followed shortly by another unsuspecting victim, sandwiched in the middle of a deck chair, rocketing towards the ground.
'I was right,' he thought. 'There was a red and white striped deck chair.' Smiling and shaking his head as the plant's long roots locked themselves around the chair, gradually splaying out, slowing the fall and bringing the dragon, in the form of a rather stricken old lady, to a gradual halt, only metres away from him.
Finishing his text, remembering to mention the 'Charcoal Surprise', knowing his friend would like it as much as he had, he headed for home, having had enough excitement for one day, constantly thinking about what his friend had for him from the master mantra maker. Thursday evening couldn't come round fast enough as far as he was concerned.
Work was fairly routine, with absolutely no sign of Manson whatsoever. He didn't even appear to be in the grounds of Cropptech, with no one having seen hide nor hair of his black Mercedes. His armed guards, or as Peter like to think of them, gun toting goons, still patrolled certain areas of the facility, making him more than a little uncomfortable, but without Al Garrett's help, there was absolutely no way to remove them.
Using up a little of his accrued flexitime, he finished an hour early on Thursday, keen to meet up with Tank and find out what was going on. He didn't have to wait long before the doorbell of his house rang. He opened the door to be greeted by his friend's big toothy smile.
"Evening!" declared Tank, squeezing past Peter into the narrow hallway.
"Come on in, why don't you?" replied Peter jokingly, as Tank swept down the hall.
Sitting down opposite each other in the living room, Peter couldn't contain his eagerness any longer.
"Come on then... spill it. What's the old shopkeeper got for me?"
"First things first," interjected Tank. "Guess what I managed to get hold of?"
Peter just wanted whatever it was that Gee Tee had sent Tank to deliver. He wasn't in the mood to play guessing games. Shame. He'd have really liked this one.
"I don't know. Please can I have whatever it is that Gee Tee's sent?"
Tank waved a finger at his friend, admonishing him for being so impatient.
"I have something way better than anything the old dragon's sent you. Three things in fact," he said raising his eyebrows.
Peter became suspicious.
&nb
sp; 'Three things', he thought. 'Hmmmm.' Then it dawned on him.
"NO WAY... YOU... YOU... HAVEN'T, HAVE YOU?"
"Yep," quipped Tank, pulling three large golden tickets from the inside of his jacket pocket. "Three tickets to the Grand Final of the Global Cup, to be held in Australia on Sunday the 6th of November."
Peter was flabbergasted. He took one of the tickets from Tank's mighty hand and gazed lovingly at it. It was genuine, all there in gold and white, tickets to the final of the Global Cup between the Flaming Fire Crackers and the Indigo Warriors. After a few seconds of worshipping the ticket, he leapt up in the air to celebrate and then, grabbing his friend's hand, shook it furiously.
"You are the absolute best, man. I can't thank you enough. What do I owe you?"
Tank shook off Peter's comparatively feeble grip and smiled.
"You don't owe me anything. The tickets are on me. Let's just all three of us go to the game and watch the Warriors become champions of the world."
"Agreed," Peter added, handing back his ticket to Tank. "Perhaps you'd better hold on to all the tickets, for safekeeping."
"Sure thing," said Tank, taking the ticket and putting all three back in the inside pocket of his jacket. Once the tickets were safely tucked away, he pulled out a leather bound parcel wrapped in delicate twine that was about the size of his fist. Gently, he passed it over to Peter. Holding it with both hands, Peter asked Tank,
"What is it?"
"Typically, I don't know. You'll have to open it to find out. Gee Tee said that it would help you wrestle back control of Cropptech."
Carefully, Peter untied the twine and then slowly unfolded the creased green leather. Inside lay a black fabric pouch, tied at the top, with a crinkled up note in the old dragon's handwriting beneath it. Holding up the pouch, he looked at it with one hand, while picking up the note and reading it with the other.
Peter,
Having applied my considerable brilliance and knowledge to your current predicament, I have used all the resources available to me to create a broad based multi-adaptive cure for the poison that you believe currently affects the owner of Cropptech based on the success of the mantra used to cleanse the house of the now deceased Mark Hiscock. The powder in the pouch stems from an ancient Egyptian antidote to an airborne plague. Combined with the mantra at the bottom of this sheet, the result should be an almost immediate reversal of the poison's effects. The powder has to be in the immediate vicinity of the individual concerned, i.e. on their clothes, hair, etc. Once the powder is dispersed the mantra should be chanted as powerfully as possible, out loud. As previously mentioned the reversal should be almost immediate. Please don't let this information fall into the wrong hands, as this powerful mantra in only known to a handful of dragons still in existence. Good luck with your task.
Your friend
Gee Tee
Poison and evil, out you shall seep,
The infections you caused while good people did sleep.
Purification, is nature's good way,
Of making sure, that gone you will stay.
Peter handed Tank the note, as he continued to study the fabric pouch, knowing that Gee Tee wouldn't mind his apprentice seeing what was written, in fact he was sure the old shopkeeper would count on that happening.
One of Tank's huge hands clasped onto Peter's shoulder, not quite surprising him enough to drop the fabric pouch, he was still holding on to.
"Well my friend, looks like all your problems might be solved by this," Tank commented, holding up the letter from his boss. "Douse Al Garrett with the powder, use the mantra and BANG, things are back to normal, Garrett can get rid of Manson and you'll be a big hero."
Taking the letter back from Tank, Peter carefully put it and the fabric pouch into the top drawer of the old wooden sideboard that stood along one side of the room, considering his friend's remark.
"The last thing I want to do is be a hero, as you well know," said Peter, clipping his friend playfully behind the ear. "I just hope though, it's as simple as you make out. Nothing would make me happier than curing Garrett and returning Cropptech back to the way it should be. Guards running around toting machine guns should be reserved for Hollywood, not Salisbridge."
"Perhaps you're letting your imagination run away with you, and just perhaps it will be as simple as all that. Don't over complicate things, and don't worry about things that haven't come to pass yet. Concentrate on the things YOU have control over. That's how you'll win, that's how things will get back to how they should be," urged Tank, getting up out of his chair. "Anyway, I have to go. I've got to pick up some coaching kit from the sports club as I'm coaching at one of the local schools tomorrow afternoon."
Peter shook his friend's hand on the way out, and they agreed to catch up later on in the week.
Drifting off to sleep that night, Peter's mind continued going over and over the eventual use of the mantra and powder on Garrett. Each time it ended with success, a fit and well Garrett once again controlling Cropptech, with Manson nowhere to be seen. It was all going to be soooooooo easy... at least in Peter's dreams.
He awoke the next morning, rested, more so than he had been in a little while. He could vaguely remember snippets of his dreams, all of which centred around curing Garrett of the poison. During breakfast he toyed with the idea of taking Gee Tee's cure with him to work and keeping it there in his office, so that if an opportunity presented itself to get to Al Garrett without Manson around, he was fully equipped to go ahead with the plan. After much consideration, he decided that it was just too risky to keep the valued cure at work, and that he should concentrate on finding a way to track Manson's movements so that he could approach Garrett without fear of Manson getting in his way. So far he'd had little luck with the computer program he and Tank had developed, with Cropptech's mighty mainframe rebuffing it at every opportunity, but just maybe he could apply it in a different way to try and help keep tabs on the dreaded Manson.
Over the next few working days he worked furiously to try and find a way to get to Garrett with Manson out of the way. Using the CCTV surveillance system seemed to be utterly useless, as his previous investigations had found out, and was no better at the moment with Manson popping up in unexplained places that he just shouldn't have been able to, bypassing some cameras while being caught by others. He spoke to the secretary in charge of the entire top floor, asking for a copy of Garrett's schedule, something he used to be given on a regular basis before Manson arrived, only to be told in no uncertain terms that he did not need to know that particular information.
The break Peter was looking for only came late on a Friday afternoon. He'd phoned across to the guard room to ask one of the managers for some much needed information regarding next week's duty roster, only to be told by the lady on the phone that said manager was off the premises attending a meeting. She stated that had Peter checked the scheduling software that the company used on its main computer, he would have known that to be the case, and not be wasting her time. That's when it hit him. The scheduling software was the answer!
Over the moon, he apologised to the lady on the end of the phone, thanking her for helping him solve a much bigger problem, much to her bemusement. For the next hour, Peter busied himself on his computer, sifting through the scheduling software with a fine toothcomb, eventually coming to the conclusion that his program just might work, with just a little reconfiguring. Unlocking the drawer to his desk, he picked up the dark blue memory stick with the program on it and attached it to his key ring. Remembering to pick up his lunch and jacket, he headed home.
Friday night was spent in front of the computer, trying to put the finishing touches to his computer program. Not one to go out very much apart from with his friends or the hockey team, which normally meant a Saturday night, it was no different from what he normally did. Working well into the night, he finally stopped, pleased at his slow and steady efforts. His technical abilities were there, they were just more suited to taking the computer ap
art and putting it back together, rather than playing with lines of code. Letting out a series of yawns, he figured it was time to hit the sack, in the hope of getting some rest for his away game of hockey the following day.
The weekend didn't pan out quite the way he'd hoped. By his standards, he had a very poor game, with his side losing 4-1, their worst defeat of the season so far.
Monday came round, and as Peter drove through the security gate into Cropptech, he couldn't help feel a little guilty about the program contained within the memory stick attached to his key ring, even though he had the best interests of everyone in the company at heart.
Once in his office, he got on with all the relatively boring tasks associated with his job: emails, filling in log books, checking the CCTV system and its backups, were just a few of them. By late morning, most of the mundane tasks were out of the way, so he carefully uploaded his program. Almost instantly he knew it was going to work, because the mainframe hadn't blocked it in any way, shape or form. His alterations to the program now meant that it would only attach itself to the scheduling software, something the mainframe clearly considered little or no threat at all.
Feeling more than a little pleased with himself, he decided to treat himself to lunch in the staff canteen, something that had become a rarity since his little run in with Manson's gun toting maniacs.
Logging out of his workstation, he made sure to lock his office door, something he never usually did, before walking round to the other side of the building to see what was on offer for lunch. As soon as he caught sight of the decorative coloured writing on the giant chalk specials board, he knew exactly what he was going to have.
'Steak fajitas... ummmmm,' he thought, his stomach rumbling as he grabbed a tray and joined the back of the queue. With each step forward, the sound of the sizzling steak, onions and peppers became louder, the smell of the sumptuous dish more intoxicating. Eventually it was his turn. Smiling as the friendly staff gave him the fajitas and the sizzling hot skillet, he knew he'd made the right decision to come to the canteen. So pleased was he with his lunch, that he totally forgot all about the program left running on his computer. Leaving the canteen some forty five minutes or so later, he took a roundabout route back to his office, hoping he might bump into Richie, wary of meeting Manson. He didn't see either, but ended up having a leisurely stroll through the site, burning off just a little of his delicious lunch. Upon returning to his office, his thoughts turned to the computer, which he quickly logged back on to. He couldn't believe his eyes.
'Success!' he thought. His program had searched the entire scheduling database and had found exactly what he was looking for. On Friday 4th of November, just a little over three weeks away, Manson was scheduled to attend the Annual Security Awards of the Year dinner, on behalf of Cropptech, at a hotel in London. Starting mid-morning, the event was supposed to go on well into the evening. It was ideal.
'Maybe just a little too ideal,' he thought suspiciously.
He spent the next ten minutes on the internet double checking that the awards ceremony was genuine and was to take place on the date that he'd seen in the scheduling software. It did indeed check out.
Spending the next half hour erasing any trace of his program, he tucked the memory stick back on his key ring and got on with his mundane work, happy that everything was going to be cleared up and better within the month. Disappointment with just a hint of helplessness played on his mind at the fact that he had to wait so long to put his plan into action. Part of him wondered how much further downhill Garrett would go in that time. He had everything he needed, he just lacked the opportunity for three more weeks. Frustrated as he was, the more he pondered, the more it seemed clear that the best thing was to wait until 4th November when Manson wouldn't be in a position to ruin things.