The Chameleon Shop

In the darkness, Kaylee drifted in a most relaxing sleep. She felt neither the cold, nor the panic she had felt a short while ago; rocked by the graceful movements of a giant turtle, who was determined to repay the kindness, Kaylee had shown to her.

As Kaylee’s body had begun to sink lifeless beneath the waves, the huge turtle swam beneath her body and lifted her up to the surface, swimming with her face just above the water line. Kaylee coughed up some seawater upon breaking water’s surface and passed out again, sleeping with her cheek pressed to the turtle shell and the sounds of the wind and sea in her ear.

She dreamed of mermaids singing, dolphins leaping way up in the air and whales splashing giant rolling waves all over her. Salty water was in her ears and up her nose, making her cough so hard she almost threw up. Distorted images of her mum, her dad, Paul and Jett drifted through her mind. She even wondered randomly where it was that Jett disappeared to now and again. Images of the wolf boy, what a sad tale that was and feeling terribly sad she was dying and would never get to find out how it ended … all drifted through her half conscious mind. Delirium mixed with reality until she couldn’t recall any longer which was which.

Kaylee’s knees dragging in the sand eventually woke her. Wet through and freezing cold, she squinted into the blinding sunlight to see sandy beaches all around and in the distance, a few palm trees. The tide came crashing in from behind without warning and drenched her again. It left her retching up seawater, the horrid stuff burning in her nostrils.

She made several failed attempts to stand up, eventually managing on legs now turned to rubber. She rubbed her numb cheek with chilled fingers and felt ridges in the skin there where she had lain on the turtle shell. Turning in all directions, her world spinning and tilting on its axis, she found the sea. There in the surf, she saw the turtle waiting patiently a little way off. Waiting, to make sure that Kaylee would be all right.

‘Thank you,’ Kaylee croaked through her aching throat. The turtle nodded goodbye to her before it sunk beneath the waves.

She stood shivering as the sun made its descent on the salmon-pink horizon above the dark blue line of the ocean. She could see the Mount on the other side of the bay. It would have been a pretty sight if it were not for the circumstances. She gazed across the sandy beach and to the palm trees beyond.

Not far away she saw a small grass hut. A stocky little woman in a white dress covered with yellow flowers, waddled towards her.

‘Dear, dear what have we here then?’ Before Kaylee could answer, the woman kept talking. ‘Lolita will make everything alright, my dear. You look like you could use some warm food, dry clothes and a bit of tender loving care. You’re not from these parts, are you?’

‘No, I’m not. I was ─’ Again, Lolita talked over her but Kaylee was too drained to put up a fight.

‘Come along sweetheart, Lolita will sort you out, there’s the girl.’ She dragged the surprised but very weary Kaylee towards the cute little grass hut. Kaylee wasn’t sure if it would be safe, given she’d never met this woman, but she seemed like someone’s Grandmother and it was not as though Kaylee had many other options other than to sit in the sand shivering and hungry.

At the door they were greeted by a yapping but friendly little white dog with brown spots who bounced off her wobbly legs like a diving board, nearly taking her knees out from beneath her.

‘Sit, Rosie, you greedy thing. No need for all this fuss! You only saw me five minutes ago,’ Lolita chastised the small dog, while patting her head.

She plonked Kaylee at the table and whipped away returning minutes later with a fluffy towel, with which she began to roughly towel-dry the girl’s soggy hair. The room was furnished with just the basics; a wood fire-cooker, a kitchen bench atop a few door-less cupboards and a cane shelf with plates, cups etc on it. There was a lantern in the middle of the table, which the woman lit before she left the room again through a doorway down the hall. This short hallway was a sort of connection between two other smaller huts where the bedrooms must be, Kaylee presumed.

Kaylee was in a bit of a daze, but starting to make thoughts that were more coherent when Lolita returned seconds later with a white fluffy bathrobe.

‘You can pop that on and put your clothes and little bag in front of the fire to dry for a while if you like.’ She continued fluffing about selecting buns and things. While Lolita busied herself making them a hot pot of tea, Kaylee put on the warm dry robe. She sat back down at the table, taste buds excited as she smelled the yeasty scent of freshly baked bread.

The food tasted delicious although it had a strange taste and scent that she could not identify. She must remember to ask Lolita what it was. It was not quite aniseed or cinnamon but something unique, perhaps some foreign spice, native to these realms.

They sat and drank cups of citrus and rose petal tea with honey and Kaylee told Lolita of the garbage chute Ricky had tricked her into taking, before slipping down and out into the ocean.

She also told of the turtle she rescued and who rescued her back, when she almost drowned.

Lolita ‘tsk-tskd’ and told Kaylee about how useless a guardian Wilfrey was with his polluting habits, greedy nature and evil minions: hagars, gargoyles and those horrid giant-wasps.

‘It used to be wonderful when our Water Realm was able to trade through the tunnel with the other realms. I had lots of visitors then.’ She looked very melancholy all of a sudden. ‘But thanks to Wilfrey and his crone with her spells blocking it off, now ferrymen ─ oh sorry, they’re pirates, so they tell me,’ she chuckled and said, ‘silly men and their silly games ay? Boys will be boys won’t they. Any road, now we have to go the long way round to the Spirit Realm docks to deliver water for trade. Now nobody comes to see us out here anymore.’

As they talked, Rosie sat at Kaylee’s feet panting and whining, a tiny paw on her knee begging for some food. Kaylee smiled at the dog and went to hand her a little tid-bit from her plate.

‘Ah, ah! No lovey! Mustn’t do that,’ Lolita halted her action. Kaylee looked confused. ‘Don’t be feeding that fat thing. Makes her fart up a storm all night.’

‘Oh sorry,’ Kaylee said to Rosie. She ate the food herself. ‘Mmmm, this is very tasty, but I don’t recognise the taste. What’s in this?’ She asked Lolita.

Lolita’s smile dropped and she ignored the question, immediately changing the subject. Instead, she began talking of her grandchildren.

’My little Daniel got a new pair of shoes one spring. Blue they were, isn’t that strange? Oh how he loved those shoes. Would sleep in ’em he would.

‘And little Janie wouldn’t be parted from her toy giraffe ...’ She rambled on and on and Kaylee tried to listen respectfully, but her mind began to tune out.

She did not remember much after that stage because she became suddenly very drowsy. She half-pie recalled being led gently to a pretty girl’s room and a comfortable bed. The last thing she recalled seeing before her head hit a soft pillow with eyes half-closed, was a shelf on the wall. On it sat a row of very life-like dolls. Something about those dolls made the hairs on her arms prickle, but only momentarily, before she was snoring in the land of nod.

As worn out as she was, you would have assumed that she would have slept like a rock. Instead, Kaylee found herself tossing and turning with strange dreams flashing through her mind. She woke often and noticed at one stage, Rosie curled up asleep at the foot of her bed, letting off the occasional ‘pop-pop’s’ of tiny machine-gun dog farts.

Have you ever noticed how problems you had while awake, have a funny habit of unravelling themselves in your subconscious mind, while you are asleep?

Kaylee’s dreams that night were very odd. That was not so unusual, most dreams were. However, what really bothered her and made her brain work overtime, was recalling the conversation with Lolita, before she became so tired.

Lolita had talked about her grandchildren, how one of them had loved his blue shoes. Kaylee recalled the dolls on the shelf. She was certain one of them had blue shoes.

Another grandchild, Lolita had said, was always carrying a little toy giraffe, would not go anywhere without it.

Kaylee lit the lamp next to her bed with the firestick there, got out and wandered over to the shelf. Sure enough, one of the dolls had a toy giraffe in her arms.

Rubbing her eyes, she fought the drowsiness and muzzy feelings in her head, chasing details from the talk with Lolita round and round. Somewhere in the conversation, she thought she had heard of another grandchild who apparently had these ‘hideous dreadlocks’ that Lolita detested. Sure enough, when Kaylee looked up on the shelf, there was a little boy with brown dreadlocks next to the other dolls...

Kaylee sat down suddenly on the end of the bed, very alarmed. She had a sudden urge to run; the little voice inside her head was screaming, get out of this place, now!

She lay awake in bed, eyes flicking nervously to the door, for the rest of the wee small hours until morning. Weariness had been replaced by fear and uncertainty.

As the early morning light began to creep in between the cracks in the sheer lemon curtains, she could hear banging sounds coming from the little kitchen area of the hut. The smell of bacon cooking wafted into the room. Bacon and that extra something-else ingredient, that strange taste and scent that Kaylee had asked Lolita about, but never did get an answer to.

During the long sleepless hours spent lying there scared stiff and staring at the door, Kaylee had come up with a plan. She climbed out of bed and headed for the kitchen.

‘Morning, Kaylee,’ Lolita smiled warmly. ‘Hope you have a good appetite this morning. I’ve cooked us up a feast!’

‘I have, thank you. It smells lovely,’ Kaylee forced a smile and she shed the robe by the fireplace and put on her now dry sweatshirt and jeans. She sat at the table and Lolita placed a plate before her. She leaned close to inhale the smell of it. Bacon, yes, but there it was again, that strange smell. Not horrid but certainly something she had never come across before.

She thought it best not to ask directly though. She had a sneaking suspicion she was next in line to become one of the dolls on Lolita’s shelf. Kaylee had no plans of joining them.

As she poured a little honey into her teacup, she casually asked Lolita, ‘Tell me more about your grandchildren. Do they live nearby? I’d love to meet them.’

Again, Lolita’s smile disappeared. She suddenly became very cross. She had hardly touched her own breakfast. ‘Eat up dear,’ she said sharply, ’before it gets cold. I might just go and have a wee lie down, I feel one of my ‘heads’ coming on.’ She frowned. Putting her hand to her forehead Lolita shuffled off down the hall without another word.

‘Yes, I will. You go rest, Lolita.’ As soon as the woman had left the room, Kaylee put her plate down on the floor and let Rosie eat her breakfast. She felt a little guilty doing it, but then again, she could not afford to risk the dog barking and ruining her get-away plan. Therefore, it was somewhat necessary.

Watching the bedroom anxiously in case Lolita should return and catch her out, Kaylee sat and waited impatiently as the dog quickly polished off the bacon. Then, she waited some more for what she suspected would happen.

Within a short time, Rosie sprawled out flat and froglike on the floor. She wasn’t dead though, which Kaylee was very relieved about, but Rosie was extremely relaxed; everything loose and floppy, including her lips.

Kaylee was glad that simply being asleep was as bad as it got for poor old Rosie. She faked a loud yawn and then called softly down the hall, for Lolita’s benefit, ‘I’m feeling a bit tired myself. Think I will have a bit of a lie down too.’

She slipped her half-dry backpack on her back, went into her room, closed the door gently and ran to open the window. It hadn’t been opened for quite a while judging from the stiffness of it and it creaked loudly making Kaylee’s heart skip a beat. She couldn’t stop now though so she forced it open and quickly climbed out. A short drop to the sand and she was off running, adrenaline pumping wildly through her veins, as she tore down the beach towards the Ferryman-Pirate’s dock.