Young Writers Society

The whole title is "The Epic Quest to a Far Away Land in order to Defeat Evil and Save The World". It may change, depending. And, watch this video if you're confused about the Clover-dog thing.


Chapter One

Call me Clover.

Actually, I’d rather you didn’t. I don’t really like my name, but that seemed a good way to get started. I did a bit of research before I started writing this thing, and apparently, telling any prospective readers what your name is, what colour your eyes are or how you like your eggs done is called ‘an info dump’ and should be avoided like the plague. The research book also said to avoid clichés, but I can’t help that.

The problem with the book I read was that it didn’t say what to put in the place of said info dump. Maybe there’s a better book out there somewhere; I just didn’t find it. So…

Don’t call me Clover. Clover Elisabeth Neill. My name was always a source of worry when I met anyone new, and the first day of term was a nightmare. Picture the scene:

CLOVER is blithely perambulating through the school corridors, happily minding her own business. Enter a PREFECT, with a NEW GIRL in tow.

PREFECT. Hi.
CLOVER [stopping, warily eyeballing the NEW GIRL] Hey.
PREFECT [gesturing to the NEW GIRL] This is Cameron/ Rebecca/ Tracey. She’s a new girl.
CLOVER [mentally rolling her eyes at the obvious] Hi.
PREFECT [to NEW GIRL] This is Clover Neill. She’s in your group.
NEW GIRL [incredulously] Clover? Really? [starts to grin] And how’s Clovey-wovey? Does ’ou want a cheese and tommy-toe toastie? Are you expecting a visit from the smack fairy? Do you watch --
[Exit CLOVER]

See what I mean? Of all the possible names for dogs out there, why did Fry and Laurie, whichever one wrote that sketch, have to pick the name Clover? So far, I had only been spared that particular humiliation by the fact that most of the people I met seemed to be immune to good comedy. Well, you can’t have everything.

This particular day, however, was during half term. An oasis of freedom in the bleak, ravaged landscape of Sixth Form existence. YouTube beckoned, and I followed.

‘Clover!’

‘Um?’

‘Clover, get off the laptop, you’ve been on for ages!’

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘You’ve been on for hours - literally.’

‘Can I just finish watching this?’

‘What is it?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

A sound that was a crossbred between a sigh, a snort and a hiccup erupted from the parent’s lips. Recognising Mum’s danger sounds, I amended my previous statement to, ‘Clip from the extended version of the Two Towers. It’s the ent water bit.’

‘Not that old thing.’

‘Yeah, that old thing.’ The clip finished, and, with a regretful sigh, I handed the laptop over.

‘What are you doing?’ Mum asked, opening up her email inbox.

‘Don’t know. Reading.’

‘Have you done your studying?’

I paused in the doorway, experiencing what is commonly described as ‘that sinking feeling’. After half a minute, I said carefully, ‘I’ll go do some now.’

Mum’s sigh filtered through the crack in the doorframe. I offered nothing more, but went to my bedroom. Shutting the door, I sat down at my desk and blew a raspberry at the pad of paper. Dang English. Dang History. And dang, dang, dang Maths. My thoughts continued in this vein for some time, then, with a sigh that matched Mum’s for weariness, I opened Hamlet, took a fresh sheet of paper and began chewing the end of my pen.

An hour later, I muttered, ‘Alas, poor Yorick!’ and stuck the pen in its stand, viewing the doodles on the paper with pardonable pride. A double curlicue wound its sinuous way around a cat’s feet and up its body; where it touched the cat’s ears, it blossomed into a grape vine, and wine dripped from the grape clusters and made a pool on the floor. A very fat and festive-looking Bacchus viewed his reflection with an inebriated grin and patted the head of the donkey standing next to him. The donkey was also grinning, showing a mouthful of slab-like teeth, parted a little to provide an exit for its tongue, which stretched down almost to its knees and showed the tattooed message, ‘In vinum est veritas.’ I touched up the fuzz on the donkey’s ears and decided that it had been an hour well spent, with one eighteenth of the time spent on a character study for Ophelia, and the rest on perfecting the rosy curve of Bacchus’ cheek and nose.

Downstairs, I opened the fridge and began to rummage about for leftovers. It was at that time when a free weekday begins to feel like Saturday, and one gets a sinking feeling at the thought that the weekend is nearly over, then joyfully realises that the week is just beginning. At least, that’s how it affects me. I dug out a packet of ham, then considered the cheese box. The temptations of ham and cheese were very great, but… How many calories in cheese? Far too many. Why does everything tasty have to be swimming in fat? I dithered for a moment longer, then shrugged and brought the box out. Ah, heck, I thought, as I cut a sizeable slab and wrapped it in a fold of wafer-thin ham. Cheese was made to be enjoyed. I don’t want to deny it its function in life, do I? Pleased by this logic, I settled down on the kitchen stool and ate both ham and cheese happily. The sun was shining outside, and looking through the window into the garden, I could see Dad turning over the compost bin, and Daniel kicking a half-deflated football about on the grass. Daniel is my younger brother by three years, being thirteen and a quarter. So, less for those of you who can grapple with sums of more than one digit and more for those of you who can’t, that makes me sixteen.

Daniel sent the ball sailing up into the crook between the branches of one of the trees, where it stuck. Daniel isn’t one of those die-hard football fanatics that younger brothers so often come in; he’s just as happy with a book or video game as with a leaking ball. I licked my fingers, found a smudge of cheddar trapped under my nail, dug it out and ate it. In the quiet of the afternoon, my thoughts wandered this way and that. Ideas on how Jack Sparrow could say ‘This is not good’ and Jake Lloyd couldn’t, mixed freely with daydreams about Gallifrey’s orange sky and questions about how paradoxes work. Then an unpleasant little thing wormed its way into the gauzy, half-transparent yellow daydream I had fallen into. It solidified into a query: what are you going to do about that English paper?

I’ve done it!

Only the rough copy. You still need to write it out properly so it’ll be ready to hand in next week.

It’ll be done by next week.

You said that you wouldn’t go on YouTube until you’d finished it.

I only said that to me; I didn‘t promise anything.

And you haven’t done it, but you went on it.

Too many its. Clarify.

Do I need to clarify myself to myself?

Yes.

You’re talking to yourself, you know that? That’s known as, what… schizophrenia? Multiple Personality Disorder?

There is surely a pleasure in being mad, which none but madmen know.

This kind of talk with myself could go on forever, I knew. I did want to do well in my schoolwork, but it was such a bother to get good marks. I could scrape by without making too much of an effort, and it was only sometimes that I got these uncomfortable pangs of conscience. I brushed this one fairly easily, thinking, All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Jack who?

Just saying it kind of lacks something; it’s the facial expressions that really make it funny. Take my word for it, if you want it and consider it worth anything, which I doubt you do... Whatever. Never mind; the ‘Jack who’ joke is funny, when done by the right person.

Dad came in; I heard the garden door slam, and then he was in the kitchen, washing his hands, saying cheerfully, ‘Hey, Clover. What’ve you been doing?’

‘Not much,’ I replied automatically.

‘Have you got your English paper done?’

Silence. ‘Not yet… At least, not finished…’

And the storm broke.

A sound that was a crossbreed between a sigh, a snort and a hiccup erupted from the parent’s lips.

And that's all I could find...

This was a great piece of work. When I read the title, I was like "uh-oh, they can NOT be serious... please tell me this is a joke... how can they really expect to be taken seriously... poor little noob..." Seriously, that is what went through my head. Then I started reading...

I loved this. Clover is an endearing character that just worms her way quickly into your heart. Great job there.

It was kind of funny how you began the story with a line so similar to "Call me Ishmael" in 'Moby Dick', and then go straight into a rant out of Monty Python. Pretty funny stuff that. *thumbs up*

Really great job...

~GryphonFledgling

ps: Hey! Fellow 'Dark Crystal' fan! *whoot*

*sigh*
I love reading your work, twit.

I couldn't find anything really wrong, but I do have a question. Why did you say Clover was a dog?

"See what I mean? Of all the possible names for dogs out there, why did Fry and Laurie, whichever one wrote that sketch, have to pick the name Clover?"

I think I get what you're saying - 'ew, it's a stupid dog name' - but it's not very clear.

I think this video may help the Clover-dog question. ^_^ Thanks for reading, both!

This was good, very funny, and Clover was a good character. But the dog thing confused me. At first it seemed like you were talking about... a girl was my guess, but you never said anything to lead me anywhere. Then I thought that it was a dog. Like the Tales from the House of Bunnicula books, which are "written" by a dog. And then you have her talking to humans. It confused me, but at the end I understood that she was a person, but didn't know why you mentioned a dog.

The screenplay-writing scene was awesome. When I scrolled down to see how long the story was, I thought "whoa, that doesn't fit! You shouldn't have screenplay writing in a story...!" and then it fit beautifully. Lol. Anyways, this was a really good story. The only thing that I would edit, besides maybe a few grammar problems, is the confusion about the dog part.

Keep writing!!

Teh Wozzinator

Oh! There is a video lol. Unfortunately I cannot watch your video because my computer is ridiculously slow. But anyway, I still loved your story.

Chapter Two

There was an argument. Very heated. It involved a lot of shouting and broken promises and ended up with both parents talking together in the kitchen, and me upstairs in my bedroom, glaring angrily at that bally English paper. Bacchus leered up at me and I took my pen and scribbled all over his smug, fat face, gouging through the paper and into the wood of my desk. ‘Heck,’ I said aloud. ‘Dang. Darn. Dash. Bally heck.’ In a sudden fury of movement, I hurled my pen at the opposite wall, inwardly screaming obscenities to the skies. The pen bounced off the yellow paint and landed, unharmed, in the carpet. I kicked it, stubbed my toes and collapsing on the floor, began to cry.

I cried steadily for about two minutes, then got up and sat back down at my desk. I took a new piece of paper, sniffed, wrote at the top, ‘Character Study For Ophelia,’ wiped my nose on the back of my wrist and began, ‘Ophelia is one of the main characters in William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet.’ But was she really? Was she main or minor? I groaned aloud. Well, she would have to be a main character for this essay. After a few more sentences, I felt in my jeans pocket for a packet of gum, found nothing and stopped writing to open the small box on my bookcase, next to the desk. It was a smallish, rectangular box made of white china with pink painted flowers on the lid. I didn’t really like it, but it had been sent me by a cousin for my birthday and I didn’t like to not use it. Still, every time I met the pink gaze of those flowers, it made something squirm in embarrassment at the bottom of my stomach. The box’s one redeeming feature was that it happened to be the perfect shape for holding a dozen packets of gum in loco, if that’s the right phrase. My fingers hovered for a second, poised between Wrigley’s peppermint and Hubba Bubba’s atomic apple, then dived upon the latter.

Chewing noisily, I eyed the diminishing stock. When you go through packets of gum at a rate of knots, you need to refresh your banks fairly often. I leaned over from my desk and felt in the pocket of my coat. Left, right pockets - nothing. Inside pocket - three packets of cola flavoured; no specific brand but with the taste left untarnished. I’d last for a few days yet.

‘Clover!’

‘What?’

‘Clover.’

Dang. I went out onto the landing and stuck my head against the banisters. They were cool against my hot face. Mum was in the hall, looking up. ‘Clover?’

‘What?’ Been here, done this…

‘Will you run along to the post office and post this letter for me? Get some fresh air…’

‘All right.’ Olive branch?

I went back and got my shoes. They were canvas, and the weather was still a bit too chilly to wear them, but they reminded me of the Tenth Doctor’s shoes and today I felt that the attractions of that out-weighed the practicalities.

Downstairs when I was zipping up my coat in front of the hall mirror, Daniel came out of the sitting room. He looked at me in the mirror, propping his chin on my shoulder. ‘You’ve been crying.’

‘No I haven’t!’

‘Yes you have. Your face is all red and blotchy.’

‘No it isn’t!’ I shoved him away and grabbed the letter from the hall table, wrenched open the front door, then slammed it behind me. The sun was still shining, but the wind was cold and it blew bits of hair into my mouth. I spat them out and crossed the road, my shoulders slouching as I kicked against the pavement. A lump was knotting itself in my throat again, making me yawn. For some weird reason, I always yawn when I’m going to cry, so I scowled hard at the ground, trying to force the tears back again. My vision blurred, and a tear ran down the side of my nose and hid in the crease where all my blackheads were. I scrubbed at it with one hand. Just post the dang letter and go home again. It’s difficult to cry when chewing gum; my atomic apple almost fell out of my mouth several times on the way, and I only just caught it in time.

I got to the cross roads and went right, saw the bright red box imbedded in the post office’s outside wall and dropped my letter in. Left and around the corner at the cross roads this time. My head hurt and I wasn’t paying much attention to where my feet were going. That was probably why I walked straight into a man who was just coming out of the fish and chip shop, clutching a large, hot and greasy parcel of chips.

‘Ow!’ I said, because the chips were hot, and, ‘Sorry!’ because half the chips were now spread about on the pavement.

‘You clumsy twit!’ The man glared at me, his grey eyebrows beetling together and apart again in anger. ‘Why don’t you watch where you’re going!’

‘Sorry. I was thinking.’

‘Thinking? Thinking of what? Your new video game? Your latest boyfriend?’

‘No, actually. Of my exams.’

‘Don’t you get cheeky with me, young lady. Why don’t you try and help me pick these up, instead of simply shooting your gob off?’

I could feel my face getting hot and desperately wished it wasn’t. Bending down and trying to scoop the spoiled chips together, I could hear the man still waffling on above. ‘Barging around like that - you’ve no respect for any one else, have you?’

‘Yow!’ I burnt my finger on a particularly hot specimen.

‘Don’t be so feeble.’ He bent down; I could smell his aftershave. ‘Try and actually do something useful for once in your lifetime.’

‘I am!’ I glared at him. My ears felt scarlet. ‘I’m helping.’

‘If you can call it that,’ he retorted nastily.

That lump was back in my throat, and I could feel my heart beat quickening. ‘I do call it that…’

‘Well, I don’t!’

‘Here you go…’ My voice cracked in the middle and, blinking furiously, I thrust my handfuls of soggy and dirty chips onto his neat black trousers, leaving greasy smears on the knife-edge creases. He began to bleat about no respect for other people’s property, but I left him and the horrible mess had made and ran off down the street. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Stop blubbing, you're being stupid! My lungs hurt, and only now that it was all over did my mind start throwing up sarcastic witticisms that I could have used. Move with the times, grandad. You want something done, do it yourself, why don't you? Making the most of your freedom before you get locked in a bath chair, are you? None of which I'd ever have the courage to say out loud.

I managed to get to the end of the street, wheezing like a dying donkey and, without looking properly, dashed into the road.

There was a screech; an awful, long, tearing screech that seemed to rip the air and leave it jagged and wounded.

There was a hiss, like a python being deflated.

There was a bang that hurt.

There was a bump.

Then, quite suddenly, I wasn’t there anymore.

---

Make way for the cliches!

this ws a great story. it kinda reminds me of myself. i am the kind that pushes my mind to do the work, but tehn my body laughs at me. i like the paart about the ham and cheese. it brought me great joy. keep up the awsome work.

what happened?! didi she die? did she just get hit by a car?! AHHHHHHHH! Ya gotta tell me. Please!!

Ok, I enjoyed that. Especially the 'talk with myself'; I do that all the time. But, being American, I must ask: Who's the Tenth Doctor?

Kyte wrote:But, being American, I must ask: Who's the Tenth Doctor?

...

The Tenth regeneration of Doctor Who. David Tennant. Sa?

Thanks for commenting, both of yawls.

will there be more? *is hopeful*

that was really good! and funny vid lol

goodluck with the rest of it!

Chapter Three


Another bump.

This time, it was me hitting my head on the ground. The ground was hard and seemed to resent my hitting it. ‘Ow!’

I sat up, rubbing the back of my head. Then things started clicking. For a start, I was not in the middle of the road, where I had been. I was sitting on a large, smooth rock, staring out at a big, greenish-brown plain covered with long, withered looking grass. A bird screamed in the sky, and I jumped. Okay… I did all the things you’re supposed to do: I pinched myself, slapped my face, closed my eyes, opened them again, rubbed them, blinked and pinched myself again. And, as they always do, they didn’t work. I remained where I was, sitting on the rock. I waved a hand in front of my face and cleared my throat. It sounded very loud. After a moment’s pause, I rattled off, ‘She sells sea shells on the sea shore. If the shells that she sells are from the sea shore, the shells that she sells are sea shells, I’m sure. So if the shells –’

‘Stop!’

The voice was so loud and so sudden that I jumped about five inches and slipped off the rock, skinning the palms of my hands on the rough ground. My heart seemed to leap up and get stuck in my throat and I squawked in fright. Sucking the side of my right hand, I turned on my knees to see where the voice had come from.

On the rocks above me were two men. The second one was less confident on the rocks than his companion; he often paused and waited for the first to go ahead so he could follow in his path. The first one leapt from rock to rock with the poise and balance of a mountain goat. I goggled at them both as they came down and stood before me. They were both young and dressed in medieval looking clothes; leather trousers, pale shirt and a long cloak secured at the throat by a small, round broach, engraved with circles. The second man was shorter than the first, with shining gold hair slicked back, leaving a little tuft sticking up on his forehead. The little part of my brain that took notice of these things catalogued his blue eyes and passed verdict as, ‘Quite hot.’

Then I saw the first man properly, and the aforementioned little brain circuit spasmed, went into overload, and exploded. Golly. I felt a little shiver run up my spine and an idiotic grin tugged at the corners of mouth. My eyes ran over him, taking in his soft, wavy chestnut-brown hair, his large, soulful green eyes with a slit of blue streaking out from the left iris… His perfect white teeth, his smooth, wide forehead, the way his dark tan was set off by the pure white of his shirt…

‘What are you doing here?’

His voice… It had a delightful American twang that reminded me of Mark Hamill. I simply stared at him, a goofy grin threatening to spread all over my face.

‘What are you doing?’ His voice had hardened, the edges of his accent sharpening the words and drawing them out. I wanted to sigh and pick the petals off a daisy.

The second man glanced at him. ‘Maybe she’s a mute?’

‘No,’ I said, finding my voice now that someone else was talking. ‘No. No, I’m not a mute.’

‘Then answer me!’ The streak of blue in his eye seemed to grow brighter in his irritation.

‘Answer you what?’

‘What are you doing here? What spell were you casting?’

‘Spell?’

‘Spell! The incantation. What was it for?’

‘Spell?’

‘Spell!’

‘Spell?’

The Hot One raised a hand and wiped his forehead. ‘Lorens,’ he said in a strained voice.

‘Yes?’ answered the other.

‘I think I now know. She’s imbecile, not mute.’

‘She’s not, actually,’ I said, a little annoyed.

‘Then answer me!’

‘What?’

The Hot One closed his eyes and took in a deep breath through his nose. Lorens said hastily, ‘What are you doing here? Who are you?’

I blinked. Oh yes. What am I doing here? ‘I don’t know.’

‘How did you get here?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Who are you?’

‘I don’t… no, actually I do know that… My name’s…’ The old hesitation came back, and that feeling, so out of place in this mad daydream – nightmare – coma – whatever it was, suddenly made the whole situation mind-bogglingly absurd. I began to giggle.

‘What are you doing here?’ The Hot One lost patience and grabbing my arm, shook me back and forth. I rocked, snorting and giggling, until he let me go and I collapsed against the rock, wheezing.

‘Whoever you are,’ Lorens knelt down and tried to look into my face. ‘Please, try and speak. Something. Anything. What can you tell us?’

‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!’ I gasped and howled with laughter.

‘Stop it!’ the Hot One snapped and again grabbed my arm, hauling me up onto my feet. I gulped and in a desperate attempt to control myself, sucked down a lungful of air so big that it hurt. That helped and I managed to put the lid on my merriment. I coughed, wiped my eyes and took another breath.

‘Now,’ he said, his perfect dark eyebrows drawing together and making an adorable little pucker at the bridge of his nose, ‘let’s start again. What’s your name?’

‘Clover Neill.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Nothing.’

‘What do you mean, nothing?’

‘I…’ The lines of his face were chiseled in such strong, straight lines, like a perfect bronzed statue… ‘I don’t know.’

‘How did you get here?’

‘I was just walking along, and then I wasn’t… and I was here.’

Lorens drew in his breath sharply and said, ‘Oh!’ Turning to the Hot One he said, ‘Raoulin-man’us, do you think – maybe she’s the ninth member!’

Raoulin-man’us?

‘Perhaps.’ Raoulin-man’us hummed, considering. After a moment he said, ‘Yes, perhaps you’re right. After all, we waited long enough. I wonder what she is, though?’

‘I’m what?’ I asked, still blinking over the Raoulin-man’us. Who was called anything like that? Something out of your imagination might be...

‘Come on then. We’ll take her back to the camp.’ Raoulin-man’us turned and began climbing back up the rocky slope.

Lorens said to me, ‘Come on,’ and also began climbing. Dumbly, I followed. The slope went up for a little and when I eventually reached the top, I stopped short and stared.

Below me, the slope went down and ended in a small flat space which spread out in all directions before meeting the base of more small, rocky hills. Between the hills were more of the brown-green plains that I had seen before and after the plains were mountains, mountains that took my breath away. Blue-grey and jagged, they rose high into the bright sky, touching the clouds. Some had snow at their tops and others were shorter, with odd tufts of bare, straggly bushes among the crags. They had harsh, ragged outlines, their sides bulging with masses of rock and stunted plant life. I wasn’t sure what would go best as background music – Jupiter or Baba O’Reily.

‘Come on!’ Raoulin-man’us called. He was already at the bottom of the slope, Lorens halfway down. I could see a group of people further along in the flat space at the bottom and began to hurry down. That was a mistake, I realized in a few minutes. My scraped hands were stinging and my feet managed to get tangled up with each other. A little way from the bottom, I tripped and fell, catching my feet under a rock and coming down hard on my side. I squawked in pain and slid the last few feet, coming to rest in a pile of dust and shingle.

Raoulin-man’us raised an eyebrow incredulously and I felt myself turn red, tears embarrassingly near. ‘Ow,’ I mumbled, getting up and brushing myself down. Biting my lip, I followed them both to the group of people I had seen from the top of the slope.

There were three; two men and a woman. A pale grey horse was standing next to them, its reins dropped over its head. The woman came to Raoulin-man’us’ side and said, ‘Oh Raoulin-man’us, what was it?’

I stared, almost glared at her. She was tall, very slender and radiantly beautiful with tumbling golden curls falling around her oval face. She had blue eyes under perfectly arched eyebrows and these eyes were looking at the Hot One with a loving adoration. Worse still, the look was returned.

‘I think,’ said Raoulin-man’us, after the Look was finished, ‘that I’ve found the ninth member of our Quest.’

‘Who?’ Little Miss Priss looked at me. ‘Her?’

‘What’re you staring at, blondie?’ I snapped.

‘Be quiet!’ Raoulin-man’us scowled at me. ‘Yes, this is the ninth member, I believe.’

‘Ninth member of what?’ I demanded. My hands hurt and my side hurt and my throat hurt. Something inside me was twisting up at the sight of Little Miss Priss’ golden curls and making me stomach hurt too. A hot tear spilled down my cheek and ran to the bottom of my chin.

‘Of the Quest.’

‘What quest?’ I almost shouted it, suddenly full of tumbling feelings, all fighting and scrambling for uppermost place. ‘This isn’t real! None of it’s real! I got hit by a car in the real world and I wake up here? It’s not real, that doesn’t happen!’

‘It must have happened,’ said one of the men. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.’

I glared at him. He was tall and thin, with bright blue eyes and dark brown hair. He had a bag slung over one shoulder and his long fingers played with the strap of it. ‘Or,’ I snapped. ‘I could be imagining all this. That’s it. I’m imagining it all.’

‘But why do you think that?’ Little Miss Priss asked. Her soft voice grated on my nerves.

‘I’m surrounded by hot guys,’ I said sarcastically. ‘That has got to be my imagination.’

The one with the bag snickered. The other man said nothing, just looked. He was also tall, and very dark, with sorrowful, secretive eyes.

‘If we can get back on topic,’ Raoulin-man’us said, looking annoyed. ‘I suppose as you came in late, you didn’t see who else was chosen. Well, then. I am Raoulin-man’us and this is my beloved, Laratishn’nialyae.’ He put his hand through the crook of Little Miss Priss’ arm.

‘What?’ I gawked. ‘Laratish… that’s got, what, eight syllables in it!’

Little Miss Priss looked hurt, and Raoulin-man’us said sharply, ‘Watch your tongue, girl.’

‘No, it’s all right,’ she said.

I cringed. ‘This is not real,’ I repeated.

‘This,’ Raoulin-man’us continued, ignoring me, ‘is Iolo. He is the tone deaf bard.’ He gestured to the man with the bag who raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes. ‘This is Domyn’c.’ The dark, silent man gave a small nod. ‘And… where’s Alifvani?’

‘Here,’ chimed a small voice and something flew up into the air. At first I thought it was an enormous butterfly, but after a second glance, I saw that it was a very small thing of about half a foot tall, with gauzy wings and a huge amount of floating auburn hair. It hovered in front of my face and said in a tinkling voice, ‘I am Alifvani, a faerie. That’s faerie with an e and not an i, by the way.’

‘This is definitely not real.’

‘To bring up our numbers to nine,’ Raoulin-man’us said, ‘we had to include my white stallion, Wil’ym and, erm…’ He paused, looking rather embarrassed. Iolo smirked and reaching down among the packs and bundles strewn on the ground at their feet, lifted up something small, white and fluffy.

‘Meet Spot,’ he announced. ‘A most worthy representative of the canine race.’ The small, white and fluffy thing yawned and wriggled in his arms. It was a dog, looking something like a cross between a Pomeranian and Chihuahua. Its white fur stood out around it like a halo and it had a carefully cultivated topknot, tied with a bit of pink ribbon.

‘He’s my sister’s,’ Lorens said, going a little pink about the ears. ‘When we couldn’t find enough members, I… I got a bit desperate.’

‘He kidnapped his sister’s lapdog!’ Iolo crowed. ‘He rose to the heights of infamy and stooped to the depths of treachery!’

‘It was for the Quest!’

‘All right, that’s enough.’ Raoulin-man’us looked at me. ‘So now that just leaves you. What part are you to play in our Quest?’

‘Plucky street urchin?’ Little Miss Priss suggested. ‘Honorable thief?’

‘Maybe she’s comic relief,’ Lorens said hopefully.

‘She doesn’t look very comic,’ Iolo said, looking me up and down.

I don’t know whether you watch or read a lot of those stories where the hero or heroine travels back in time or goes to another world. I have, and one of the things I always thought went on for far too long was the main character’s disbelief in what was happening. Sam Tyler spent practically both series of Life on Mars doubting what was really obvious, I thought. But now that it was actually happening to me, I found I could sympathize with Sam completely. I didn’t believe it, couldn’t believe it, because it just could not be real. Fantasy was fantasy, which was why it was called fantasy. If fantasy wasn’t fantasy, it would be called reality. It wasn’t, so it was fantasy.

But it was so real. My hands still stung from my fall and I could feel the wind and the pale sunshine on my skin. These people – ridiculous though they might be – were so real. So real.

Even if it was all my imagination, there was nothing I could do to escape from it. And besides, an imaginary world with faeries and tone deaf bards and super hot heroes… how bad could it be?



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ROTFLOL!!!

oh my gosh...I love how this is so deadly serious and yet its a total spoof off of Lord of the Rings and all the other epic literary fantasies floating around out there....very nice, very nice. The lapdog thing was a little...um...maybe too much. It went beyond effortlessly funny into she's-trying-too-hard funny. Just a suggestion.

I especially love the "comic relief" part. Awesome.

And I finally got to watch the Fry & Laurie skit! I feel so enlightened! haha. I love British comedy. It's so much funnier than American comedy... Britain does randomness so much better than the USA.