I rang the NHS helpline and they told me to avoid going out for 48 hours since the last time I was sick, which meant that... oh no... I just had to stay at home all day, and write another chapter! It's a bit longer this time to make up for the last one. Enjoy! (And apologies for any delirious ramblings.)
Bzzzz… Bzzzz… Bzzzz…
"Unghhhh." Sarah rolled over and, eyes closed, fumbled among her pillows for her phone. When she finally located it, she pressed one of the buttons and her alarm turned off. With an effort, she opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling.
"Well," she said to herself. Her voice was croaky from sleep and given that it was 8am on a Saturday, she would have loved to have shoved her head under the pillow and revisited her blissfully dreamless slumber; but the memory of the previous night was enough to drag her into a sitting position and blink at the sunlight pouring in a honey-coloured flood through her pale curtains.
He'd given her thirteen hours. And when he'd disappeared, it had been just after one thirty. That gave her… oh crikey… six and a half hours until he reappeared to demand her answer. Sarah gulped.
Ignoring the rapidly growing urge to just sleep till then and wing it and damn his whole 'this is your last chance' speech, she clambered laboriously out of bed and stood, swaying slightly, while the dizziness of deep sleep cleared. Something felt wrong and it wasn't until she'd wrapped herself in her fluffy dressing down and put slippers on that she realised there were no goblins around. Usually by now they'd be clustering round her, demanding attention and breakfast and marshmallows. She remembered Jareth sending them away and wondered, with a touch of sadness, whether they were gone for good.
Her stomach growled and she decided that breakfast should be achieved before any thinking was to be done. Hastily, she grabbed her hairbrush and tried to persuade the tangled strands of hair to assume some semblance of good behaviour. Having thick, waist-length tresses was all well and good but boy, did it tangle. She brushed hard for a moment and then noticed that little specks were fluttering out of it and onto the floor and her shoulders. What…? She looked closer at her reflection and realised that her hair was chock-full of glitter. She was sparkling like a bloody vampire.
"Stupid Goblin King and his stupid glitter and promises of dreams and crowns," she muttered to herself as she twisted her sparkly hair into a bun and stuck a chopstick through it, a trick she'd learned from Beth whose hair had almost reached her knees before she'd had it cut. "Showing up and kissing me and threatening me…" She continued to mutter all the way down the stairs and into the kitchen, where Rowan was scowling at a frying pan in which two eggs spat and crackled. "Morning, Rowan."
"Mm," he said without looking up, but she didn't take offence; he was always like that.
"Sleep well?"
"Not bad." He pulled the frying pan off the heat and quickly and neatly flipped the eggs onto a piece of toast. "Later."
"See you."
He was halfway out the door, balancing his plate of eggs in one hand and holding a glass of water in the other, when he turned and added: "By the way, Sarah."
She nearly jumped. "Yes?"
"My keys are missing. Again."
"Oh." She hoped she didn't look as guilty as she felt. It wasn't like he could have an actual reason to suspect her of having any part in the matter. "I'll look out for them."
"Thanks." He vanished into his room, and she looked after him with a frown. If the goblins had gone, then who…?
"Miss Lady! Lady Sarah!" A small hand tugged the back of her dressing gown. She turned round, and there was Sprog. He grinned up at her and held out a steaming cup of tea that was about the same size as he was. "We made you brekfas!"
She wouldn't have admitted it, but she felt a warm sense of relief that the goblins hadn't been banned for good. She'd have missed the little buggers. "Thank you, Sprog!" Even as she spoke the kitchen became overpopulated with his friends. It seemed that Jareth's action, rather than intimidating them, had made them more determined to visit Sarah. She tried to count them and gave up at twenty. It was harder because they were so varied in shape and size – from Sprog himself, who fitted comfortably in the palm of her hand, to Nig who was about the size (and shape) of an overweight housecat. Also, they tended to move around a lot. They seemed to have the ability not only of bouncing off hard surfaces, but of jumping straight up in the air in distances several times their own height.
Between them, they made 'Lady Sarah' sit down at the table and – evidently excruciatingly proud of themselves – brought her 'brekfas'. This consisted of a bowl of soggy cereal, a piece of toast that was somehow burnt on one side and still bread on the other, and a biscuit or two to dip into the tea. She accepted everything graciously, unable to hide her smiles at how ridiculously pleased they were that she liked the food. She was halfway through a long-winded explanation of why Jareth had randomly turned up last night ("He was lonely and he wanted a chat" hadn't quite cut it), when she heard footsteps coming down the stairs and hastily shut up. The kitchen door opened and Beth and her boyfriend, Kalum, entered, arms round each other and identical beatific smiles on their faces. Sarah regarded them sardonically. As a couple, they tended to be hard to stomach, what with the whole never-leaving-each-other's-side thing and the kissing whenever they got the chance.
It was interesting to watch how the goblins rearranged themselves neatly so that they never got in the way of Beth and Kalum, who couldn't see them. More than once Sarah had to stifle a giggle when a particularly cheeky goblin made faces or, from the shelf on the wall, tweaked Beth's hair. She pulled away and muttered something about getting it caught on a nail.
"Morning, Sarah," she added happily. "Did you sleep well?"
"Sort of," Sarah replied truthfully. "I was up late."
Beth took the bowl of cereal Kalum had thoughtfully prepared for her and sat down opposite Sarah, scattering invisible goblins. "That's funny, I thought I heard someone talking last night."
"Oh?" Please keep your cool, please keep your cool, Sarah thought desperately to herself.
"Yes. In fact, I could have sworn it came from your room."
"How odd," said Sarah desperately, all too aware that her whole face was flushing. Suddenly, every single being in the kitchen was focusing on her with the greatest possible attention.
"Sarah, did you have a boy in your room last night?" asked Beth with a mixture of curiosity, astonishment and laughter.
"No," she answered loudly – too loudly. Kalum tipped his head to the side, quizzically. He was good at reading people. She avoided his eyes. It wasn't like she was lying, anyway. One could refer to Jareth by any number of names, but boy wasn't one of them. Man, maybe. But even that one required a stretch of certain truths.
"Whatever you say, darling," said Beth kindly, though Sarah could see that she didn't believe her. She scrabbled for a truthful-sounding lie.
"I was Skyping my father and Karen," was all she could come up with, but she winced as it came out of her mouth. Kalum and Beth looked sceptical.
"At one o'clock in the morning?"
"They… went to a late party," she invented frantically, and getting up, dumped her washing up in the sink. "I, er, I have to go. See you later."
"We're going out to the park to enjoy the sun while it's still here," called Beth. "We'll be back tonight."
"Okay!" Sarah stomped upstairs, followed by her faithful retinue of goblins. Bloody Jareth. He had to make everything awkward, didn't he? At least the two love-birds would be out when he returned. She wouldn't put it past him to somehow embarrass her by showing up in front of them.
She spent the remainder of the morning in an increasingly irritated frame of mind. First of all there was glitter all over her floor, and she had to lug the hoover upstairs and endure its horribly loud roar as it all too ineffectually tried to clean her carpet. In the end she got rid of most of it, but her back was aching and there was still a very visible sparkle in the sunlit floor. Then she had a shower, but first had to expel by force several goblins who had apparently not yet got out of the habit of spying for Jareth. One of them had tasted the soap and had to be patted on the back until the bubbles stopped. After that she had laundry to do, which the goblins were very excited about, and during which she discovered that a) goblins have an unnatural propensity to steal socks and b) even being trapped in a washing machine full of water and wet clothes and being whirled at ridiculous speeds cannot injure or in any way affect (other than to slightly daze) a goblin. Fortunately, neither her clothes nor the washing machine suffered any adverse effects – though Paten did have a tendency to walk in circles for the next few hours.
By the time she'd tidied her room, hung her washing out, finished the essay she'd begun yesterday, grabbed a quick lunch, and put proper clothes on rather than trackies and a vest, she was in a truly Bad Mood. Even the goblins had sensed it and took to muttering nervously in corners. She found herself unexpectedly sympathising with Jareth – not, she told herself, that she'd ever go to the lengths of punishing a goblin with the Bog of Eternal Stench. (Though she was not above using it as a threat.)
Sarah looked at her watch. It was one o'clock. She had an hour and a half left. The goblins regarded her anxiously, wanting to be of help but unsure of what she was planning to do next. She made up her mind.
"I'm going for a walk. Where are my keys?"
There was some heated discussion and then Jumble came forward with a bunch of keys. Sarah took it and then looked at them sternly. "These are Rowan's! You guys, I've told you, stop stealing his stuff. I know J – the King doesn't like him but it's too bad, you'll get me into trouble if you carry on." They all hung their heads. Sarah felt a little sorry for them. After all, they were only doing what they thought was their job. "All right. I'll take these for now, and while I'm gone you find mine and then we'll return these to their rightful owner, okay?"
"Yes Lady Sarah!" they chorused excitedly as she wrapped up warmly – it may have been sunny but it was Autumn and there was a decided chill in the air. As she left the house, she could still hear them bickering about who had last had custody of her keys. She rolled her eyes.
Thanks for the sympathy! I'm much better now - definitely a 24 hour thing. And just FYI, how I catch goblin flu is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS... ahem... besides, Jareth won't leave me alone, so I'm allowed to have some fun with him, right?
As for edible glitter, my housemate and I are compulsive bakers (sudden gasp: I NEED TO DO SOME LABYRINTH-THEMED BAKING! I'll get back to you on that...) so we have rather a lot of cake-decorating stuff. We got the glitter from Tesco, but you can probably find it really easily online. Have fun painting peaches! As for Sarah's problem, hopefully you'll understand it after the chapter coming up next. May or may not update tomorrow. Hint: I LIKES REVIEWS.
As always, love and glitter!
