Gone With The Wind

  The afternoon sky had turned an ominous shade of dirty brown, like old glass of an abandoned house, backlit with a faint, flickery candle-flame. Ragged, dusty clouds rolled and churned like dirtied cotton balls, floating and drifting, murderous sheep roaming round a wasteland obscuring an already tawny, fading sun. The surface of the river below rippled as murky tea would in a teacup left upon a windy balcony, a shadowy dirt-hued skin of mud fringed with a pallid grey foam. Such was the dull, dreary, landscape which hung, with the oppressive presence of a watching eye, framed with a metal window frame in Artemis's dormitory. There was a slender, slight silhouette of a fifteen year old, features hidden within the folds of darkness within the otherwise deserted dormitory.

  Artemis was skipping class again, it was something he readily admitted to himself as it did'nt much matter whether or not he attended, to him, just about everything was obsolete. He often spent times such as this in the quiet, lone solace of his dormitory, there was a peace which came quite easily to him within the stillness of the empty room. He was'nt planning heists and scams and other crimes all the time, like most people, Artemis, whom often seemed to defy all natural laws, had his moments. He was gazing, eyes fixed on something hidden to the rest of the world, far, far out on the brink of the greying horizon a storm was brewing, in more ways than one.

Three hours later

  The hurricane alarms had been sounded and all order had been hitherto forgotten amidst the ensuing consternation. It was strange, so strange that a cyclone could rise out like a terrifying, deadly column of black wind from the lake itself, undetected by any of the building's sensors until it was within a minute from the school. All students had been herded out of their classrooms once the tenebrous swirling mass was seen by a sharp-eyed janitor and were all stampeding (with numerous wails of : "We're gonna die, I tell ya'", most of which came from the self-professed 'jocks') towards the building's underground hurricane shelter. Of course, Artemis, whom had ill-fatedly (or perhaps the opposite) chosen to cut classes that day, was not among the screaming masses.

  Artemis could already feel the approach of the oncoming hurricane, the coldness of the lake-water spray, the cutting, frost-knife edge of the swirling wind, he could feel the wintry touch of the rogue gales beginning to tug at him, raise goose-pimples from his flesh and carve its cruel, dead fingernails into his warm, living heart. Peculiarly, Artemis was not the slightest bit afraid, he knew for sure that death would be inevitable whenever it came, so why not then? It was as good a time as any. Then, before he was able to continue his highly insightful internal debate, the cyclone, as big, black and deadly as life crashed through the stone walls of the dormitory block and took Artemis with it, leaving the rather more unfortunate dormitory building as flat and grey as the St Bartleby's cafeteria pancake.

  Now, as you, my dear, dear intelligent readers, you might have guessed by now that the cyclone was no ordinary cyclone (even the St Bartleby's school staff called it a 'freak incident'), rather she, (cyclone Venus she was soon to be christened) was created by, (yup, you guessed it) an unsatisfied fairy going by the not unfamiliar name of Opal Koboi.

  "So, just how did our darling Miss Koboi get out of prison (Howler's Peak, to be exact)?" you might all hasten to question me. Well, it's a long story that I am afraid I shall have to tell all whom have not been reading the newspapers in the Haven I suppose, and it all starts here.

Opal Koboi's side of the tale

  We all know (presumably) that the story of our very favourite deranged, Cat-Pixie did not end with Holly punching her between the eyes and her resulting descent into unconsciousness, in fact, that was just the beginning.

  She groaned, the throbbing pain in her forehead came back as she awakened in a small, noisy cell amidst the squalour of the infamous goblin prison. Where was she? That was the first thought which popped up in her brain that was just beginning to come (with an excruciating, pulsing pain), whirring back to consciousness. As she slowly eased open her originally scrunched-up eyelids, a hissing, lisping and terrifyingly reptilian voice came from above her (adding to her already unbearable pain), "Welcum back……ya bedda' wach' ch'oud, trai'dor."

  'What a patently ridiculous thing to say, absolutely philistine,' came the first thought in her sore head, then all of a sudden, it hit her, both ways, full in the face. With a groan, more of weary expectation rather than the actual pain, she passed out again as Phylene, one of her goblin generals, punched her still woozy head. Reality hurt……Ouch.

  With even more pain than the previous time (if such a thing were possible), Opal woke up, this time to the sound of Phylene denying adamantly that he had any blame for her present condition to the truculent warder gnome.

  "I th'wear, I'd wa'thent me, I din'd even touch her."

  "Oh, ve'ery funny. If you did'nt touch her, then tell me, who did, the wall? There ain't anyone in this cell 'sides you an' the girlie over there."

  "But it wa'thent me! It wa'thent!"

  "Jolly good liar ya'll make Mister."

  "Really? You really think th'o ?"

  "No, I don't. An' I think while ya brush up 'em lyin' skillz o' yo's ya better keep a clean record there."

  "No, no! It wa'thent, I th'wear……"

  At that point, Opal was already thoroughly compelled to sit up and give them both a lecture on proper pronounciation skills and grammar but then decided against it for her own personal safety.

  After that first encounter with Phylene, she never had much trouble with him anymore (thanks to the warder), he was far too busy practicing lying (without much success), but besides him, there were still other exceedingly fuming mad goblins roaming round the prison, and unfortunately, the very unempathetic prison officers had seen fit to introduce another goblin inmate, Hypre, an extremely hyper ex-general of hers. Fortunately (for her) and unfortunately (for the appropriately named Hypre), she was prepared. When he tried to blow a "Killer Flame-Thrower" at her, she sprayed her clandestinely smuggled, highly flammable Christian Dior Eau De Parfum at him while the fireball was still coming down a nostril where the ball of flame promptly exploded his nose, littering the place with bits and pieces of snot encrusted goblin-nose. Another thing that was going for her then was Phylene, whom was still practicing lying, and he jumped at the chance to "brush up 'em lyin' skillz" and proudly proclaimed to have blown up Hypre's nose.

  Thus, with both goblins out of the picture and the rest of the revenge-seeking idiots safely locked away in separate cells, Opal's mind was free to roam where it would, and she quickly planned out a fool-proof escape.

Want to know more? Well, stay tuned folks! It's coming up right next!