Monday, November 7th, 9am – Just after breakfast at the Douglas house
Guess I must have been worn out, because I slept for more than a day! That’s what happens when you work so hard to help your friends and keep them safe, I suppose. We all are sitting around the kitchen table, where I am not licking the crumbs of pastry off my fingers because doing that is rude. Alice is cleaning up and Herb is looking kind of like how my old cat at home used to after he killed a bird for a present. Being observant, which is important, I notice we have two new lovely dogs at the table with us. Golden Retreivers. I stroke their beautiful fur and kiss them on their silky heads. Alice looks like a little bird that has been shoved in a cage with a hawk for a bit, but Geraldine calms her down. I am scared that growing up makes you weird, like Alice. And Rouse is back! Since no one else has, I ask him what Rouse’s friends in Bastion said about us. His answer is not a good one, but it doesn’t scare me: they want to kill us. The friend that told him this is named Xander. Please don’t be dumb and think that you say the name like “Ex-Ander”, because you say it like “Sander”. X’s can make many different xounds. After breakfast, Herb takes us out fishing on his big boat during the day! Edmund doesn’t come – that little sugar princess would probably melt if any water splashed on him! Obviously, since I’m good at animals, I catch a huge fish that is close to weighing as much as me, probably. Herb watches me clean them all to make sure I am doing it the best way. We eat Rouse’s fish because mine is too big for only 7 people to eat.
There is something called Deja vu where something happens to you and you feel like you have seen it or been there already. That is what happened to me next, when we had ANOTHER conversation about what to do next. Here are the suggestions that came up, in point form; because if I wrote out every conversation we had about this stuff in long form then I would probably have to sleep for another 2 days.
Safin wants to track down The Whip, who might be glad that John MacEachern/Marcel Green. Everyone in that sentence has more than one name. Maybe I will make people start calling me The Bow or Snake-Speaker.
Another of Safin’s ideas is to go to the Elium and do that other horrendous (a word that is shorter than saying tremendously horrible) quest with Linnfart.
Rouse suggests finding Lazelle. So he can stare at her until he can’t stand up, like when my brother looked at the pretty girl that worked at the pub in Copper.
Herb thinks the guild should be told that we killed MacEachern, or at least that we know where he is, since the guild wanted him dead, too. Since she’s a Daddy’s girl, like me, Abby thinks we should go to Bastion and see what’s happening with the guild.
The discussion then starts being about how we would contact the Guild. Marcus? Lazelle? How would we know who the message got to? Wouldn’t telling the Guild we know about MacEacheren be against the point of “staying out of things”?
Basically we end up asking more and more questions round and around until I am barely paying attention to the talking and just watching Geraldine’s flashing knitting needles. She is making beautiful socks, but I don’t know who they’re for… they look like I would like them. I should have been paying more attention, because we end up deciding to go to the Elium. Since this is MY journal, I’m going to write this: DAMN! My new family is pretending that this is useful by saying that we are going to teleport across the street from the Elium door and then run across the road to see if people try to kill us. Good one, guys. The best part of the trip, though, is going to be the stupid running part, because at least Linnfool won’t be there.
When this conversation is over (again) Abby takes me upstairs to try on dresses (!!!!). Abby chooses one that fits the best, but it’s still a tiny bit big. It looks really fantastic on me and I can’t stop swishing it around and spinning to make it ripple around me like a shiny peach lake. When we go downstairs to show me off, Geraldine gives me the socks that she has been knitting! I knew she would never give them to Safin, but I didn’t expect them to be for me! In order to display (which is a fancy word for “show”, kind of like what Lazelle’s V-neck dress did for her bosoms) the socks better, I tuck the dress, which actually fits really well, into the sparkling socks. I sit down, so happy, and that’s when it happens…
I feel better than I’ve ever felt in my entire life. Better than when I used to ride horses with my brothers, better than my birthdays, better than when I got to be a pigeon. Everyone’s voices are coming from far away and I feel like I might pass out with being so happy, it’s like living in a warm golden cloud, like jumping into our cool stream after racing my brothers through the hot fields in summer. AND THEN BITER IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!! I can’t put enough exclamation points to display how happy I am! Biter tells me that Ed brought him back for me, which is something I can never thank him enough for. I love Ed and I love Biter so much I could explode like one of Ed’s wonderful fireballs.
November 8th Morning – After breakfast at the Douglas’s
In the morning after saying goodbye to Herb in the pouring rain, we take off our rain gear… and teleport to the middle of a worse rainstorm in Finnsbury. Biter does not love the rain, but I make sure he’s dry. He’s hungry, though, and wants a whole mouse. I tell Ed this, who says that he’s only allowed a few bugs otherwise Biter won’t be able to move. Biter is ok with this, because Ed knows a tonne about animals and pretty much everything.
Once we make it across the street safely (big shock, I’m 12 an I knew that we would be fine even if we had to fight), we enter the Elium and head into Dimfard’s room. It has enough beds in it for all of us, and pretty much no room to move or probably even store clean underwear. Safin and Rouse go to the library while we do our own reading in the room; Dumbfard has left a note on his bed telling us that he’s away on an errand but to he’ll be back in 2 days. Oh well! I guess we won’t be able to do our quest with him just now! That is called sarcasm, when you say something you mean the opposite of. Here are some more examples:
When we go find Rouse and Safin in the library, Safin is reading a book about animals and tells me (and everyone else, I guess) that Biter is very poisonous. SOMETHING THAT I ALREADY KNOW. I think Safin must mean scaredy cat in some language. Biter has already promised not to hurt any of my friends, especially Ed, not that Ed couldn’t save himself even if Biter messed up. After getting nagged at for touching the stupid books, Mother Jana finally summons us to her office through Brother (more like bother, haha) Nelson. She doesn’t really tell us anything new, just that we need to come back when Buttfard is back. Then Willard calls Ed so we get our weapons and teleport to Willard’s.
11am – At Willard’s house (home!)
As usual, we teleport into Ed’s room, which I never really noticed was such a nice colour of red. We go to Willard’s study, with his permission, don’t worry. Poor Biter was getting so hungry that I bet watching Willard eating his jam and scones was almost painful for my little friend. Willard has a problem for Ed to take care of, which I of course will help him the best I can.
This is the job we have to do:
Willard got Salithius’s island because he beat him and proved that Salithius was wrong in front of the entire group of the most powerful wizards in the land. This is the island with all the pirates. The pirates are Willard’s problem…he doesn’t want to deal with them or with the island. And probably because Edmund is such a good student, Willard gives him the island as a present! All we need to do is clear out the pesky pirates (so much easier than one of those giant bug things, I bet) and then we can go there whenever we want! In a smart idea, Ed decides that we will go to the island to talk to the people in the fishing village there, and then let the pirates know they have to get out.
We put on our rain gear again and go outside into the barn to let Biter hunt, but Felicia hunts Biter, so I keep my eyes on both of them so that bugs are the only things that die. Oh yeah, and to be detail oriented, Safin is blabbing about how poisonous Biter is and to watch him and how scared he is all the time of everything. Since Biter is so thoughtful, he agrees to let Ed or me milk his teeth to get his poison so that Safin can make a cure for it. Hopefully Safin doesn’t poison himself by accident. When Biter is done hunting, we grab Ed’s arm and teleport to our new island. And guess what, it’s even raining there. Instead of a path, there is a swirling muddy river, and I wonder if the village is a lake now. On the walk down to the village, I splash in the road-stream, especially when I find out it annoys Safin. Biter laughs-he has a great sense of humor. The village is deserted-looking (0 people in the street). There are some handcarts, there are 0 horses, there are 0 pubs. There are 5 lines of houses with 4 houses in each line. The houses are painted bright colours, like candy. Then, there is 1 person in the street. He looks like what my mom used to say pirates looked like:
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- Wooden leg
- 3-corner hat
- Creepy
- Old (not only pirates are old, just this guy was).
- Wooden leg!
The old pirate tells us that his name is “The Village Idiot”, probably like my name is “The Bow”, and that he runs the town. He leads us to the second house from the left in the first row of houses, and I think we all notice that there are people in the windows of all the houses, but most importantly, in the windows of the house he’s leading us into. The Village Idiot really is one… he doesn’t know how good we are at fighting. Ed asks who the people in the house are, and then the Idiot makes a stupid mistake – he puts his hand inside his cloak, so Safin attacks him. When Safin drops back, The Idiot falls to his knees and pulls out a gun (one of those things that we saw in Blybank) and tries to shoot Abby, but misses (of course). Rouse yells something and then I draw my bow, which I realize then isn’t even strung. Whoops.
That was really stupid of me, I must have forgotten just because I wasn’t scared to come here. I really could have let my friends down if they needed me and I couldn’t protect them. Luckily we have Edmund, and as the Idiot’s friends are running out to attack us, Ed blows them up with a fireball. WOOHOO! There is a boat sailing away out of the bay, and Ed turns invisible and goes to chase it while Safin and Rouse go to check the other houses. Abby pulls me back towards the two houses that aren’t on fire, I think so that I have time to string my bow so I can help Ed protect us. Safin is peeking around in the windows of houses and then BLAM, he almost gets shot in his ugly face! He jumps in and starts attacking the people in THAT house. Details: he tells us later that one of them is a lady that he killed while she was trying to reload her gun. We also hear an explosion from the water where the boat was. Then the house next to Abby and I (to the right of the first house that Ed set on fire) gets exploded and is on fire. Children and babies are screaming. There is fire everywhere and crying and yelling are everywhere and blood and fire and screaming. Everything is burning and the school and the pub and the barn and all of Copper is on fire and everyone is screaming and screaming. I put my hands in my ears and screw my eyes shut.
When I crack my eyes open a peep, the leftover villagers have left their houses and are running up the hill behind the village (this is what Ed tells us – he can see them because he’s flying above the houses now). “Are you going to fireball the whole village!” I yell, but not loud enough. Edmund knows what he’s doing, right? I don’t know. Ed shouts twice at the running people “Stop running or you’ll die!, and shoots 4 little warning magical missiles. I guess they must have been so scared that they decided to die because over the snapping, roaring fire I still hear another FOOM! And screaming. He is attacking the pirates like I would attack those filthy Orcs. He saved Biter. My ears are plugged again.
Edmund lands and gets his invisible servants to light the rest of the village on fire. He leaves to talk to the pirates in the other town. Just to talk to them. When he comes back, he tells us that he told them to be gone in 2 days. We leave.
November 8th, 1pm – At Willard’s House
At Willard’s house, Abby and Edmund have a fight. I can’t talk, I just sit there and I can’t say anything because my brain is too busy remembering and thinking and remembering to forget stuff. Biter is ok; he is around my neck giving me a snaky best friend hug. Lists help organize your brain, so here’s the fight in point form.
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- Abby thinks that Ed shouldn’t have burned the whole village, mainly because of the kids and innocent people.
- When Abby says this, Ed explains that someone in the house with kids in it was trying to kill me and Abby. Abby says that this fireball was ok.
- Ed says that when he shouted the warning to the running people, two men shot at him even after he did the magic missiles.
- Abby thinks he shouldn’t have fireballed a group of people, just the two men. Because there were kids. But I would kill kid Orcs.
- Rouse thinks Ed did a good job.
- If Abby had such a problem, why didn’t she say something to Ed? I should have. Just like I didn’t do anything to save my family.
Today didn’t turn out to be that good of a day. I hope it’s one of those things you understand when you’re older. Good thing I have Biter to talk to.
