Paxtol leaned forward into Jim's neck, watching the ship disappear into the distance and wanting some comfort from his dinosaur friend.
"Oh Jim." The boy said through a tear. "We've blown it."
A hard slap from a hand on the boy's back made him suddenly turn and glare at whoever dared to touch him.
"Hello." Falkirk smiled. "I'm Falkirk, remember me?"
Prince Purplerain ran over to where Capden Den sat motionless on his rock.
"The queen has asked me to?"
But the prince's words were cut off as the captain got up from his rock and pointed out towards the ocean.
"We may have a problem." Capden Den stated.
"How did you know I was here?" Prince Purplerain asked, as he sidled up to the captain.
"Instinct." Capden Den said.
"They've gone, what do we do now, fight?"
"Fight." The captain agreed.
Fairy Falkirk called from behind them and they turned to see an old fairy, together with a small young fairy, both riding on the back of a dinosaur.
"There's something you don't see everyday." The captain smiled.
As they neared, Falkirk leapt off the oviraptor's back and strode over purposefully to the captain.
"His name's Jim. Do you have a plan?" he said gruffly.
"Yes." Capden Den replied.
The prince coughed nervously.
"I do have a plan." The captain remarked, glancing at the prince. "Who's he?"
Falkirk turned to the fairy boy and the dinosaur he was riding.
"This is Jim the Oviraptor and Prince Paxtol, the queen's son."
"Oh I'm not interested in him anymore, but Dodgy Dave may be, so keep him out of trouble. I'm a pirate and he's a prince who's scared of whistles, so this could end up really bad." Capden Den barked with annoyance.
Falkirk and Paxtol glared hard at Capden Den. Suddenly there was a bitter cry from the small boat nearing their beach. It was the voice of a man who Capden Den knew very well.
"Decided to face me have you?" Came the yell from the gravelly voice of Dodgy Dave.
"Yes!" Den yelled back.
"You owe me a boat!" Dave roared back.
"You owe me a?" Capden Den stopped and leant over to prince. "I can't think of anything he owes me."
"Then just say that he owes you a chance." The prince whispered into Den's ear.
"You owe me a chance!" Capden Den roared out.
Capden Den waited for a reply but all he could see was Dodgy Dave shrug his shoulders and ask his men what that meant.
The beach fell silent; Capden Den, Prince Purplerain, Paxtol, Jim the oviraptor and Fairy Falkirk stood with uneasy expectation and a little fear, as a the small rowing boat stopped just short of the beach.
"We could hide." Capden Den said to his tiny crew.
"No." the fairy boy instructed.
"You fairies, you're all?" Capden Den stopped, a faint glimmer of memory rushed inside his head. He suddenly had the feeling that he was flying and buzzing around a small garden that shone beautifully in rich sunshine. He floated effortlessly around the garden and caught sight of a woman laughing with him, a woman flying around with him and glowing with gold. Just as the face of the woman emerged from its blur, Capden Den felt a massive thump on his head.
Capden Den fell to the floor, suddenly waking up from his dream; he looked up to see Prince Purplerain using his spells to fight off three really mean and ugly pirates.
Falkirk was with two other pirates, trying to argue his way out of a fight. Then he noticed the giant figure of Dodgy Dave glaring over him.
"Get up." Dave ordered.
"No." Den replied.
"You're nothing but a yellow coward, yellow as custard."
"Sweet as custard too." The captain grinned.
"Why did I not kill you a long time ago?" Dave snarled as he picked Den up by his shirt.
"You know what Dave? I think you need a bath."
Without any warning, Capden Den smacked Dave around the ears with his arms, immediately Dave's grip loosened and Den dropped to the ground. As Dave's ears rung with the blow, Capden Den booted Dave in the rear and sent him sprawling back into the sea.
Dave sprang to his feet with rage and stamped through the shallow water back to a waiting Capden Den. Den, putting his feet into the sand to steady himself, pumped up his chest ready to take the full weight of Dodgy Dave, who was charging at him like a raging bull.
Through the corner of his eye Prince Purplerain could see Dodgy Dave steaming towards Capden Den like a runaway train; with a flick of his wrist, a small beam of energy flew from the fingers of the prince and formed a tiny shield around the captain. As soon as Dodgy Dave hit the energy, he bounced backwards and landed on a rock, knocking himself unconscious with the force.
Capden Den puffed his chest up again with even more pride at what he had just done, not realising that Prince Purplerain had actually saved him from being squashed. Looking around and full of confidence, Capden Den turned his attention to the two pirates arguing with Falkirk. The captain took a large wooden log and whacked it over the heads of the two pirates. Then he skipped over to the three pirates fighting the prince and punched one on the nose.
"I wish I had my sword." He exclaimed. "This hurts my knuckles."
The prince pressed his fingers together and released a cloud of water that sprayed over the remaining two pirates, as soon as they breathed it in they instantly fell to the floor and started to snore loudly.
"Done!" The captain said as he clapped his hands with satisfaction.
"Where's Prince Paxtol?' Falkirk cried in panic.
Capden Den noticed a small silhouette of the pirate's rowing boat heading towards the large galleon, carrying a dinosaur and a fairy.
"Oh blimey!" Den roared.
"Sausages!" he stamped his foot with anger.
"Piles of potent pants!" he screamed with rage.
Falkirk called out to Prince Paxtol. "Come back. It's not safe!"
"It's safer than with you!" was the faint reply that came back from the boy.
"I'm going after him." Prince Purplerain said.
Falkirk pulled him back. "We can't fly that distance over water. You won't make it."
"I can swim." The prince uttered unconvincingly.
"Really? You'd be the first fairy who could." Falkirk mocked with raised eyebrows.
Capden Den looked around at the fallen pirates that littered the beach starting to stir back to life.
"We may have a problem." He said as he stroked his beard.
Chapter Twenty-Three of?
Prince Paxtol flew up from the rowing boat and onto the deck of the pirate vessel, carrying Jim in his arms. There were no pirates on board and all he could hear was the wind thudding against the folded sails on their masts. Suddenly, they heard footsteps and the figure of Fairy Osborne appeared from below deck. For a second they both looked startled at seeing each other; Osborne at catching the fairy prince and a dinosaur and the prince at seeing Osborne on a pirate ship. But then the slimy Osborne quickly recovered himself.
"Your majesty." Osborne smirked.
"Get him, Jim." The boy ordered without hesitation.
In a swirl of green haze, the dinosaur hurtled towards the fairy chancellor and, with one kick of its muscular hind leg, sent the fairy flying into the hard wooden hull of the ship, knocking Osborne out cold.
The prince chuckled as he nodded appreciatively to Jim. He went over to the large hoist that pulled the chain of the anchor and waved his wand over it. It began to move with a painful screech and, slowly, the anchor began to lift up. As the large metal weight lifted from the seabed, the ship started to drift away.
The fairy swept over to the helm, as Jim bounded up to stand beside him; using his magic, all the sails fell from their tethers and flew open.
"Let's get out of here." Prince Paxtol smiled.
Chapter Twenty-Four of?
Capden
Den tied the last pirate up to the rock and checked his handiwork.
"Now what?" he asked.
Falkirk grumbled under his breath and Prince Purplerain stared out at the boat getting smaller and smaller.
"Follow that ship." The prince instructed.
"Yes, but how?" The captain moaned.
Falkirk started to jump up and down, for a minute the captain and the prince thought he needed the toilet, but in fact, Falkirk suddenly had an idea.
"Fairy Otto had a few goes at making a 'car' and he used a few ships to do it." Falkirk mused. "Somewhere on this island is another boat that may still be sea-worthy."
Capden Den screamed with delight, like a cowboy on the back of a horse.
"Yee-hah! Then what are we waiting for!" he shrieked.
"Well, I'm not sure where he would have put them." Falkirk replied matter-of-factly.
"Another thing," the prince cut in. "We're not sure where they are heading."
Falkirk nodded knowingly, much like an old man does when he knows he is older and wiser than those around him.
"They're heading to Hippo Lagoon." He said.
"How do you know?" Capden Den squealed.
"The wind told me."
"My wind doesn't tell me things like that that." Capden Den moaned.
Capden Den stared at his two new crewmates and began to move around, thinking while he paced.
"Right then," he started. "First of all we need to find a boat. Then we need to get it working and head to Hippo Lagoon to get the boy. After that we need to head to the fairy kingdom and hope that the queen has not been killed by her evil husband. Once that's been done I need to find Sally, marry her, start a family and then tell her there's every chance I could be a fairy, then I need to find out if I'm a fairy or not. But if that weren't enough my friends, if that wasn't enough for you, we also have another thing to think about."
Falkirk and Prince Purplerain glanced at each other, then at the captain, then back at each other. They shook their heads, shrugged and looked back at their captain.
"Oh it's always me isn't it? I thought you were wise, you stupid old fairy."
Falkirk glared angrily at Capden Den and before he could raise his voice to challenge this rude pirate, the captain continued.
"We also have to try and get these irate pirates on our side to help, or we're not going anywhere. And trying to get Dodgy Dave to do something he doesn't want to do, makes all the rest of what I've just said sound like a holiday."
Prince Purplerain gulped as his eyes fell on the unconscious and tied up body of Dodgy Dave.
Fairy Falkirk continued to glare at the captain for daring to call him stupid.
Capden Den burped as he stared out at the ocean; then he gulped as the large body of Dodgy Dave began to stir.
"Oh well, looks like we're going to have to start now."
Chapter Twenty-Five.
As Grand Hippo Raz smouldered on her beach, she felt a break in the flow of the wind. She opened one eye and saw an odd shape floating in the sky above her. As the tiny speck got nearer, shimmering in the heat of the day, it began to resemble a small dinosaur with fairy wings. Suddenly intrigued, Raz lifted her heavy weight up and walked over to the edge of the beach, letting her toes connect with the waves. The winged dinosaur landed softly on the golden sand beside her.
Grand Hippo Raz bowed low to the fairy prince and his oviraptor called Jim.
"Your majesty." She said. "I've been expecting you."
To Be Continued?
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the following people:
Samantha; Steve B; Dani; Steve H; Roger; Nat; Joe; Alice; Anne; Glenn; Ty; Alan and everyone who has shared my enthusiasm for writing; finally, Amanda, for all your belief and perseverance, drive and love.
Published 2011 ? Zac Thraves This edition 2013 Xax Studios
[email protected] zacthraves.wordpress.com
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