One beautiful day that long, steaming summer Lawrence and Lucy sat relaxing by the old oak tree. Swaying fields of flowers stretched out in front, fluttering enchanting patterns. Shy forest animals sneaked out to play happily in the afternoon heat, lured by warm gusts of wind blowing funny shapes across the sky. Way off on the horizon a dazzling rainbow shimmered brightly. Almost hidden beneath its glittering arc, a tiny speck of black blinked off.
Before long sun grew so soothing even the ancient oak creaked a long groan of utter contentment. He relaxed so much his larger leaves bent down a little to fan their faces. Lawrence and Lucy sighed along with him at such rare and wonderful sights.
Lawrence closed his eyes for a split second. Suddenly Lucy yowled in surprise, vanishing in a puff of smelly green smoke. Lawrence leapt to his feet, searching round the tree earnestly. Bah, no luck! Where had she gone? Had she been kidnapped again? Why did strange things always seem to happen when they were resting? Lucy had kittens to look after too. And the friends had only just recovered their energy from saving the land of dream, not to mention the weird parcel incident last week.
All the animals in the field hadn’t noticed the commotion and carried on normally. Naturally Lawrence grew worried, hoping this was just Lucy’s magic beginning to shine through. He enjoyed adventuring as much as her, but had planned spending much of this school holiday with friends.
Faced with yet another tough problem to puzzle over, Lawrence sat down again to help him think. Mr Davis had gone on holiday to France with his family. Mum was a wonderful person who was always happy to listen, but would think he was just playing games again. Who was there left to help him?
Clouds moved quicker, leaves shook high above and the mighty tree groaned once more. It almost sounded as if the old fellow wished to lend a hand. There’d always been something special about the elderly oak, though what could a tree possibly do about this?
Low buzzing noises grew far down the meadow, where lush grass brushed ancient forest. Seconds later Lawrence caught sight of a colourful blur shooting high above. In a weird blue flash an insect dropped down and crawled all over his shirt. Before he knew it a beautiful dragonfly danced merrily across his shoulders. Dad used to call them: ‘Daddy Long Legs.’
Lawrence tried to carefully shoo it away in case he harmed it accidentally, but the lively insect proved way too quick for him. It outsmarted him so easily it was almost as if it read his mind. The excited creature buzzed all over his head, then danced downwards, tickling his neck with its long, silky legs.
“Get off!” Lawrence laughed. Touching his neck, he found a tiny dot of golden slime.
“I really hope this is nothing mucky!” he exclaimed.
In another weird flash Lawrence found himself floating above ground. Suddenly the world went black. When it slowly grew light again everywhere looked very strange indeed. His vision was made up of hundreds of tiny pictures, each showing the same small scene. Lawrence felt a little sick and a little scared too, especially when ground started bobbing up and down weirdly. Then it spun round and round, and he fell uncontrollably towards the grass. A dragonfly flew beneath him. Instead of Lawrence squashing it on the ground, six long, wispy legs stretched out beneath him and settled right on top of it.
In flickering stages the tiny pictures started blending together into one large wide one, which allowed him to see further than ever before in all directions. Everything happened so quickly and was so unexpected, no wonder Lawrence took some time to understand what was going on. These were his legs now. With a massive jerking start he realised he’d turned into a dragonfly! Surely the other dragonfly helping him had to be Lucy, so perhaps this bizarre situation was due to her strange and powerful magic?
“Keep your wings adjusted against the direction of the wind, and you can hover for ages,” a young girl’s voice sang out. Lawrence tried it straight away with a little success.
Lucy had spoken once before through the guise of Lenora, the white magician. Still, hearing her talk again seemed a little strange. Her light, airy voice whizzed round his body and played amongst the branches. Soft and gentle like a warm summer breeze, it showed her to be very clever and blessed with kindness, which was why she made such a good friend.
“How can you do this!?” Lawrence asked, totally amazed. Lawrence knew Lucy was special, but never imagined she could be as powerful as this. No wonder Brandice May kidnapped her before her magical powers shone through!
“I don’t know friend,” she gushed, buzzing closer and nudging him affectionately.
“I’m not even sure I’m doing it either. We should probably try and find that out first,” she giggled.
“Lucky you seem to be happy about this Lucy, it feels very strange and awkward to me.”
“Come on, it’s fun!” she laughed, buzzing off round the top of the tree in colourful circles. Her wings shimmered so brightly in the sun they looked like fairies dancing. Whenever she giggled her long body pulsed deep red, and she giggled an awful lot.
Lawrence followed slowly because heights still made him feel a little queasy. He’d prefer fighting evil witches any day. Lucky for him in the body of a dragonfly this fear quickly vanished, for he’d taken on the good and bad points of the insect, and every dragonfly loves to fly - the higher the better!
Lucy dove down, humming enchanting tunes with her wings as Lawrence fluttered round clumsily. “It doesn’t take much practice you know,” she sung.
Lawrence had never been good at making music, so didn’t make much effort. Besides, right now he needed all his concentration to control flight. Lucy had a big advantage over him because she’d always been an animal, so could think quicker and act instinctively in times of need. Knowing this, Lucy kindly helped him practice a little more. Eventually Lawrence picked up the basics. Before long he’d learnt how to dart forward and sashay sideways without too much effort.
“Follow me!” Lucy laughed. Because dragonflies had many wings and long, slim bodies they could fly at quite high speeds. So the adventurous pair sped off into the forest, keen to explore hidden areas in their fabulous new bodies.