Chapter 3 Felicity Felicity dreamt of home and of her family.
Her father was holding her up to the sky,
His fingers dug into her sides and she was giggling breathlessly.
Her mother was scolding him,
Put her down Jack,
She scared.
But she wasn't.
She loved flying in the sky.
Her father smelt of lemons and spice as he hugged her,
Laughing before setting her on the ground.
The day he had left for good,
She had climbed into his wardrobe.
The empty hangers clanked as she crawled inside and sat on the hard wooden floor.
The empty space smelt of lemons and spice.
Her mother seemed to cry all day,
Mainly in her bedroom.
Her beautiful face twisted into ugly grief as her heart broke,
Her great love gone.
The house felt cold,
Too.
Felicity tried to explain the feeling to Al one day.
It's as if the roof has been ripped off.
Mum's gone mad and Freya just goes out every night with her friends.
Your mum isn't mad,
Flissy,
Al had replied as they sat on the splintery swing seat in Felicity's garden.
The cats were fighting again.
Felicity's sister Freya had a cat.
Miss Mew had had kittens and Felicity had asked to keep the tiny black runt of the litter.
He was so small and defenceless.
However,
Within a year his length equalled the neighbour's collie and his entrance through a window was announced with a large heavy thud.
He had grown into a black panther and his tiny mother hated him.
Their growling and spitting became so noisy,
Felicity and Al went inside.
Can't you simply rehome him,
Felicity?
Said Al.
The fighting was awful.
No,
He belongs here,
Said Felicity.
Al looked at her friend's face and said no more.
Her own parents were terribly boring.
They didn't talk much and they certainly never had loud,
Exciting fights like Felicity's parents.
Once when Al had stayed over,
Felicity's parents were shouting so loud it had woken her up.
It was amazing.
She could hear crockery being smashed.
In the morning there was no evidence downstairs and Felicity had not mentioned it.
But Al knew she'd woken too.
They lay on Felicity's bed on their backs.
They did a few sit-ups,
Then ate a bag of Haribos and watched silly videos of cats being weird online.
When are you going to see your father,
Ozdal?
Never,
Replied Felicity.
A loud crack broke into Felicity's dreams.
The fire was fat and hot with spitting logs.
She opened her eyes and looked straight into the crinkled tiny hedgehog eyes of a colour changer who was offering her a drink.
The cup was wooden and the outside surface scratchy with bark.
Felicity took it gratefully.
She sipped the sweet amber drink,
Reminiscent of honey and lemon inside.
She had no choice.
She needed Reuben until she could find a way of returning home.
She leant back,
Sipping the delicious drink,
And let her eyes close.
Her thoughts returned to her last memory of home,
Back to that day at her mother's reunion.
The key to getting home had to be remembering what had happened before landing on the damp,
Mossy floor of this world.
She went through it again,
Step by step.
She'd found the wooden entrance door to the old school and,
Leaving Al with her mother outside for a minute,
She'd stepped into the musty hall.
Floorboards worn from a thousand girls' feet stretched out into the darkness beyond.
Her mother had once told her that the twisted matron had sent bad girls off in the middle of the night with a green saucer and an old knife to scrape up black smears of prehistoric gum.
She looked down with vague interest to see if she could identify these nuggets of penance.
Then the sound had made her peer into the dark depths at the back of the hall.
Was the floor trembling a little or was it her?
She glanced back to the rectangle of light.
She felt rebellious,
Angry.
She was cross with her mother for what had happened.
So what if she was trespassing?
She took a small step into the gloom.
At the back of the hall there was a staircase.
The sound had come from there.
But she had to go further into the darkness.
She took a huge breath and walked straight across the dividing space.
The floorboards creaked as she passed over them.
The staircase sat at the back of the hall like a huge squatting toad.
Its treads branched to the left and to the right,
Fat arms outstretched to embrace the wood mountaineer.
She stepped onto the first step.
The dust filled her nose and she sneezed.
Bless you,
Said a voice.
The hairs on Flisty's arms lifted.
She let out her breath very,
Very slowly and peered intently up and down the soaring staircase.
There was no one there.
Who spoke?
Did the staircase speak?
Was she going mad like her mother?
She sat down,
Her legs trembling a little.
And her back was something small and hard.
It dug in.
Then her head started to spin.
It felt horrible.
She remembered thinking she must be ill,
That she should get back outside.
The little hard lump still poked into her spine and the throbbing in her head was unbearable.
She was in the dark,
Surrounded by dark,
With a battering and roaring in her ears like an old ship sinking in a storm.
When she could hear the noise no more,
She was flung shipwrecked into the eerie silence.
So that is how you came to me,
Felicity Isabel Penfold,
Said Reuben with a big grin.
His voice snapped her out of her reverie and she opened her eyes.
No school here.
Just an exotic,
Handsome boy-creature,
A slinking lizard and a very large fire.
Do you mind?
She said.
But really she wasn't sure she did mind.
She felt she could trust this boy.
However,
She wasn't going to let him keep taking advantage of her.
I would like some privacy in my own head occasionally,
She added,
Flicking her curly hair back from her neck.
Reuben stared at her blonde curls as they nestled back onto her shoulder.
Then he sat back and said,
Well,
You must learn to close your thoughts from me.
Think only of the thought as if looking at a page.
Allow no side thoughts to creep in.
With them enter the minds of others.
I'll try,
Felicity said.
She looked at him.
He truly believed she was some sort of saviour.
Obviously he was wrong,
But she quite liked him.
Perhaps if I help,
He'll show me the way back home.
But still.
Reuben,
Why am I here?
She asked.
She sat up straight and faced him.
Actually,
I have to tell you,
I think this is a big mistake.
I am just a girl.
Just a girl who wandered off and wishes she hadn't.
I do not belong here.
I don't have any special powers,
Apart from being able to wiggle my ears and crack my fingers.
She could hear her voice in the night air.
It sounded pathetic.
You are here for the quest,
Felicity.
My quest is to save our ailing world,
Said Reuben.
Nothing more,
Nothing less.
I was sent to the Far East to find a stranger who would help me.
Your she,
Felicity.
Your she,
He repeated,
Looking directly into her eyes.
Felicity felt that strange energy flow back into her.
She heard her breathing calm and still.
Reuben's eyes glowed in the light of the campfire.
Felicity felt very warm.
Maybe home is weird now.
Cold and strange,
She sighed.
Why not?
Maybe she said aloud,
But I am not staying long.
She swept her glance to all within hearing.
You may as well all understand that whatever force brought me here,
Fine,
I'll do the job,
The thing,
The heroine ending.
But then I'm going home.
