The Chameleon Shop

Wilfrey knew he had not seen this young lady before, but had his suspicions about who she must be. He could not believe his luck. The girl he had been trying to find had fallen right into his lap. He wanted to know why she was here in the realms and how she came to be there. ‘Come, my dear, join me for a dance. I do not believe we have met. Tell me, what is your name?’

‘Ah ... Joan,’ Kaylee lied. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you about this old key I found. I was told you were a very wise and powerful man and might be able to help me find out who made it.’ Flattery was her best weapon against this conceited man.

‘You were well informed, my dear. I am the very man to help. If you would be so kind as to let me see the key, I could possibly ─’

Kaylee was not that silly. If he got his hands on it, she would never get it back. ‘I can’t just now, I’m afraid. I left it with friends in the Water Realm. I’d be glad to show you later sometime, perhaps.’

‘Certainly. I must say, I am wondering, why is this key of such importance to you?’

He had looped his arm through hers, the action making her skin crawl and led her to the dance floor. Oh Lordy, I don’t know how to dance ...

She’d never been good with lies, but he was awaiting her answer. ‘No reason really. I just like it and wondered where it came from. I’m going home soon and … um,’ Kaylee was scared she had said too much, but was a bit caught short by his quick-fired questions. She avoided mentioning the dragon though.

‘And where, pray tell, would home be?’ Wilfrey asked, leading her around the dance floor in simple moves that she managed nobly to bluff her way through.

Oh, bugger! Not prepared for that one she had to make an excuse to leave and regroup. ‘Do you know, I find I need to use the, ah, where one goes to be in private? Girly stuff, you know?’ She knew that would make him uncomfortable. It always did with men.

‘Yes, of course, right over that way on the corner. Follow the smell.’ He pointed in the direction of the gardy-loo; suspecting the girl was stalling.

Kaylee hurried away, every step conscious of the light thump of the egg in her backpack, clipped to her waist beneath the bustle.

Wilfrey watched her leave, his eyes fixed on her back. Without looking, he picked some food off a passing tray and nibbled it, holding his goblet in the other hand. Part of his nibbles broke off and plopped into his glass. Wilfrey muttered annoyance, ‘Oh, what the …?’ He fiddled about fishing out the soggy nibblet. When he looked up, the girl Joan was gone from sight.

He was planning on what he would do with this girl when he had gotten the truth from her, how to make her disappear. Maybe he would get the Crone to turn her into something ... unnatural.

When Willy the monkey finally made an appearance, he did it in true simian style by creating a perfect diversion. Whether deliberate or just as was his usual habit of attracting mayhem. In the Ball Room, he had been stealing food as usual. He had grown bored with this and discovered the pretty pyramid of fancy wine-filled glasses. It was their fault for making it so tempting, really.

Willy crawled along unseen beneath the tablecloth, tying shoelaces he came across as he went. When he reached the wine glass display, he stretched his skinny arm up and pulled out one of the bottom glasses. All came crashing down in a loud smashing pile; red wine splattered dresses and tablecloths. Women screamed at the ruining of their lovely gowns and men yelled at the women who were screaming.

This caused more chaos and commotion with people jumping out of the fray and others unhelpfully cramming up closer to see what had caused it. Several men found Willy had tied their bootlaces while they had sat dining and when they jumped out of their seats to see what all the commotion was about, they tripped and stumbled into each other.

Willy ran from the scene; his work here … was done.

Unfortunately, Wilfrey grabbed him as he scampered past and held him up eyeball to eyeball, literally shaking with fury.

He held him at arm’s length, fist tightly clenched in the little monkey’s tunic. He moved swiftly and dangled the monkey threateningly out the nearest castle window. Beneath it was a perilous drop. Wilfrey snarled, ‘Tell me primate, how do you think your head is going to look on one of the spikes on top of my castle!’

Wilfrey had heard from the Crone that the girl travelled with a monkey. He was not the sharpest tool in the shed but he had put two-and-two together. It was obvious that the strange girl called Joan he had met earlier was here with the little fleabag. ‘Guards, find that girl! The one in the purple dress!’

The monkey jutted his arms straight up above his head and in the wriggling struggle, managed to slip free of his tunic. Screaming pitifully, he fell down ... and down …

Meanwhile, Kaylee, who had been frantically searching for a way out, heard the uproar behind her. In her blind panic, she had run for it, up the stairs. Up and up, as high as she could. She didn’t know where she was heading; it was just a fight-flight reaction to her fear to climb when scared of pursuit ... particularly with a now twice stolen dragon’s egg on her person.

She heard gargoyles coming up the hall. She could not yet see, but knew it was them by the horrid clicking sound they made with their stone fangs and scraping of their concrete feet on the smooth flagstone surface.

Desperate, Kaylee climbed to an arched window, gripped the sides and poked her head out looking for some way to climb down. However, outside the window was just a dizzying drop into nothingness. She panicked, heart rate beating flat-out in her ears and temples. She looked back to the hallway, sure she was about to be caught. When she swung her eyes back to the open window, she spied the wide black wingspan of the Pegasus flying towards her.

She took a deep breath and then made a huge leap of faith out the window. She barely had time to scream in the few terrifying seconds before she landed securely on his back. She closed her eyes in relief as they flew down to the safety of the woods where her friend Jett waited.

It was not until she was safe on the ground again that it occurred to her that Willy was still somewhere up at the castle.

‘He’ll be alright,’ Jett said. ‘Go take that egg back to its Mama. I’ll wait for Willy.’

‘Right! Out! The party is over, you can all get out!’ Wilfrey shouted.

The guests were leaving now anyway; they had had quite enough of Mr Hobb’s company for one evening.

Wilfrey had realised what the girl was after and stormed down to the dungeon to check on the egg. The Crone saw him coming and her eyes darted to the fireplace. Her face froze, ‘It’s gone ...’ she said under her breath.

Sure enough, Wilfrey saw the cradle by the fire was empty. Stolen! By a girl. A cunning little girl!

Blood boiling he grabbed a knife from the table and went stab, stab, stab randomly on a pewter plate, then again into the table surface itself, venting his frustration. He stopped and gave the Crone a terrifying stare that would make others shrink to their knees.

‘Something vexes thee?’ She answered in an annoyingly calm tone, as though he was a three-year-old toddler packing his usual tantrum.

He almost had steam coming out of his ears, ‘YOU… LET… HER… STEAL… MY… EGG! THAT’S WHAT!’

‘Don’t worry Junior,’ she had not called him that in years and MAN did he hate it. ‘You’re going to get it back.’

He was about to nut off at her again, but those last words brought him up short.

‘I am?’ He narrowed his dark eyebrows at her suspiciously. ‘How?’

Last thing we saw of Willy was when he was dangling precariously outside the castle window and then slipping through his tunic, presumably plummeting down the mountainside to a grizzly death on the snowy rocks below.

However, Willy proved to be a little harder to get rid of than that. He slipped through his tunic and was falling alarmingly but managed to reach out and grab hold of one of the castle’s real stone gargoyles on the way down.

It was a simple matter from there to swing his way down the castle wall. He hid from the falling snow in a wagon belonging to one of the guests at the Ball.

Willy fell asleep waiting for them to leave and when they did begin rumbling down the mountain trail again, he waited until the woods were in sight and jumped ship.