The Chameleon Shop

Kaylee wandered slowly through the purple wisteria archway, enjoying the deliciously fragrant breeze while trailing fingertips through the velvet petals dangling about her shoulders. Her sense of urgency was still there, but these flowers were almost hypnotic.

At one point, she thought she saw a butterfly dart between the flowers. It appeared again and landed on a big red and white spotted toadstool. Only it wasn’t a butterfly.

‘A fairy! Of course ... it’s not a butterfly.’ The fairy, which had a green suit, yellow slippers and golden wings that sparkled as he flitted about, hopped off the toadstool and proceeded to pick berries off a raspberry bush nearby.

‘Oh! Oh, how sweet. That’s so cute,’ Kaylee whispered to herself. That was precisely when Kaylee saw the amber eyes glowing in the dark shadows of the bush. Large catlike amber eyes, though too large for your average house-moggy.

The eyes seemed focussed on the little fairy and Kaylee was about to shout a warning to it, not even realising that she herself was probably in equal danger, when a giant puma-like black cat erupted from the bush and pounced on the poor wee fairy, pinning him to the ground with a startled squeak.

Kaylee squeezed her eyes shut in horror, as she usually did when something horrifically terrible was about to occur. Not a great survival skill, but still, that was her first reaction.

‘Oh lordy, Jett! Ya scared the bloomin’ toothpaste outta me, ya big hairy brute.’ The little man-fairy said in his tiny, high-pitched voice.

Kaylee opened her eyes and watched the big cat laugh at him. As he lifted his paw, she saw the only white spot on him, around his throat area. He gently helped the little madly blushing fairy back up on his feet again.

‘Sorry, Benjamin. Sometimes you just make it too easy. I couldn’t resist. Are you alright?’ Jett said.

The fairy flexed his translucent gold wings a few times and shook his head banging first one pointy ear with the palm of his tiny hand, then the other. ‘I appear to be. No thanks to you. One of these days, boy, you’re going to squash me proper flat, you know.’ He waved his finger and scorned the big cat that looked like a housecat, only jumbo sized.

‘Never!’ Jett replied. ‘Who would I play with then?’

‘Someone your own size, perhaps?’ Benjamin suggested sarcastically.

Jett was about to reply when he finally noticed Kaylee standing there, giggling at them. He turned to face her, then began stalking towards her, as if she was a bird he had spied. She wondered if he was going to pounce on her too when he came right up to her, almost eye to eye and surprised her by hopping up on his back legs slightly and giving her a soft head-bump on the cheek. He began to purr loudly as he went smooching round her body affectionately, as if she was his best friend in the whole wide world.

‘Ah, hello,’ Kaylee said smiling.

Jett crooned. ‘Hello, and who might you be?’

‘My name is Kaylee Browne. I’m not sure how I got here, but I think it may have something to do with this,’ she pulled the iron key from her backpack, noticing that it no longer glowed or hummed.

Jett sat back on his rump and tilted his head to one side in thought. ‘Looks like the work of the gnomes beneath Mount Beaton.’

Kaylee frowned, ‘Gnomes? Did you say gnomes?’ She shook her head trying to clear it. ‘Look, I’m from a little town in New Zealand and I’m not sure, but I think this ruddy thing,’ she waved the key round irritably, ‘somehow ... put me on the edge of a very frightening volcano.’

‘Ah, I see. Well if it has magic powers, then I’d hazard a guess that the gnomes probably had a bit of help from the dragon for some reason. Although, she is a bit of a grumpy old thing, I can’t imagine she would have done it for their benefit alone. How very strange.’

A DRAGON? Kaylee repeated the word under her breath, tempted to pinch herself, certain she must be asleep standing up.

Jett looked around for Benjamin but the fairy had grown bored with them and flown off somewhere. Several other fairies were flitting about the beautiful garden, in and out of the bowls and petals of flowers like large butterflies.

‘Come along then, Kaylee,’ Jett suggested. ‘I’ll find someone who might be able to work out why you’re here.’

Off they toddled, on and on down the shaded path beneath the long purple arch, enveloped by its floral scent which the warm midday sun had intensified. They stopped twice while Kaylee sat on a tree stump for a drink of water from her pack.

After an hour or two of pleasant strolling and chatting happily, they reached a small log cabin nestled in among a little ring of evergreen trees. Two brown and white goats bleated a welcome from behind a wooden rail fence in the yard and smoke drifted heavenward from the chimney.

Kaylee looked at Jett. ‘Who lives here?’

The sun was sinking low in the sky and nighttime’s dark shadows were beginning to creep up from the ground.

‘He’s an old friend of mine. A hermit named Dougie. He’s a nice fellow. But he prefers his own company to that of some of the local idiots in the village. Can’t say I blame him for that really, knowing most of the villagers myself. He’ll give us something to eat and a place to rest for the night.’