The Catchers

by Stuart J. Kent

  “Pebble,” said Trixie, getting one in Jamie’s circle.

  “Pebble,” replied Jamie, getting one in hers.

  “Pebble,” said Trixie again.

  “Pebble,” replied Jamie.

  Then Trixie fired a super-shot off her thumb, which flew across Jamie’s circle, hit the bucket that he was sat on and shot off into the pond.

  “Aw! You sunk my pebble!” she moaned.

  They continued playing a few more times until again Trixie fired another shot which missed Jamie’s circle again, hit the bucket again, but this time shot off into the bushes.

  As Jamie glanced around to see where it had gone, he suddenly spotted something standing in the bush peering out at him with little menacing eyes.

  “Err… I think there’s something in that bush,” he nervously said.

  “Oh don’t mind Mr Eccles, he just keeps an eye on the garden for me,” said Henry with a chuckle.

  Then stepping out of the bush a little garden gnome similar to the one they had captured the day before stood glaring up at him.

  “Good morning, Mr Eccles” called Henry, giving him a wave.

  Mr Eccles grumbled something unintelligible, waved a tiny little fist and then marched off up the garden.

  “Delightful little creature, looks after my garden very well, and keeps the neighbour’s cat out of my plants, a very helpful little man indeed,” added Henry.

  “Yeah, and I bet he’s powerful as well, that one yesterday dragged me halfway across that garden,” said Jamie, watching the gnome stomping away up the lawn.

  “Powerful,” muttered Colin, repeating the word. “Powerful, yes of course!” he said suddenly before leaping out of his chair and heading back inside.

  “What is it, old boy?” asked Henry, getting up to follow him. “What’s powerful?”

  Trixie, Jamie and Marty then all headed back inside as well and found Colin standing in Henry’s front room, searching quickly through all the books on his shelves.

  “What are you looking for, old chap?” asked Henry curiously.

  “History, laws and legends,” said Colin still scanning the book spines for the correct one.

  “Ah, sorry I don’t have a copy,” replied Henry apologetically.

  “Oh fruit flans!” cursed Colin, rather annoyed by the lack of the book.

  “But maybe my neighbour does?” Henry said eagerly. He quickly shuffled out of the room, and a few seconds later he shuffled past the front window, heading next door.

  “Well, what about powerful?” asked Trixie not willing to wait for Henry’s return.

  “I believe this whole thing is all about power,” replied Colin.

  “Well, that’s obvious,” replied Trixie.

  “Yes and no, you see there are many different types of power, electrical power, physical power, positive thinking power…”

  “Power shower” added Marty chuckling.

  “And many others,” continued Colin.

  “But they all have one thing in common, they are all about power being collected and harnessed in some way, and that’s what I believe our dark wizard is up to, he’s trying to harness magical power,” Colin said as he began to pace back and forth impatiently in the small front room.

  Henry then reappeared at the door, took a deep breath and then stepped back into the room.

  “Here you are!” he gasped, before handing Colin a large green hardback book. “So why did you need the book?”

  “Power,” replied Jamie.

  “Harnessing,” added Trixie.

  “Really?” said Henry, surprised.

  “Yes, I think our dark wizard has been doing some research, I believe he has been studying this book and there’s an old law in here that might just shed some light on what he is up to,” continued Colin. He then began to flick through the pages of the book until finally he stopped on one certain page. “The Magic laws by the high council,” he said, holding up the open page so everyone could see it. “These are the first laws written by the first high council three thousand years ago, to protect every witch and wizard and to prevent any major magical disaster.”

  Everybody eagerly leant forward to read the two-page list of laws.

  “Do clean your broom on a regular basis!” read Marty, out loud.

  “Yes, well that’s just sensible advice,” replied Colin.

  “Don’t tip your cauldron remains down the drain,” read Trixie.

  “Again, more sensible advice,” added Colin.

  “Re-cook your frog legs for a delightful tasty dish, do not waste perfectly good food!” read Jamie, with a look of disgust on his face.

  “That’s just for the French,” replied Colin. “Read this one, just here,” he grumbled pointing to one particular paragraph.

  “Never, Never, NEVER break the seal between our two universes, our magical powers must be contained in our own world, if the magical wall is allowed to be broken then we, the high council, fear it would destroy the human world forevermore, and NO magical spell would ever reverse it,” read Henry out loud.

  The little group then sat in silence for a moment, the idea that the magical barrier could be broken and that it, in turn, could destroy the human world, was a very scary idea indeed and just too horrifying to contemplate.

  “But why would anyone want to break the magical barrier?” asked Jamie finally breaking the silence.

  “There is an extra paragraph which is not printed in modern copies of this book, a paragraph that a previous high council decided should be removed from public knowledge long ago,” Colin paused almost reluctant to say it out loud. “But unbeknown to most people, deep in the Ministry library, and locked away in the high-security section, which is out of bounds from the general public, is the original copy of this book with the extra paragraph, and luckily for us I have been one of the few fortunate ones to have read it, and now, I believe, so has our dark wizard,” he said, pausing again.

  “What does the extra paragraph say?” asked Trixie curiously.

  “It says, if the magical wall is broken and our two worlds are exposed to each other, then we believe our world being more magically powerful will supersede the human world, our world will actually engulf the human world and destroy what exists there, and if this happens the human world will be lost forevermore, and it is the consensus of the magical high council that if this was to happen the magical world would actually become more powerful and stronger for it.”

  “I can see why they removed it,” said Henry, in horror.

  “Yes, because if they hadn’t, every wizard or witch that has gone bad over the years would have been trying to break the wall down long ago,” Colin said, bitterly disappointed this information had finally got out.

  For a moment, they sat in silence, then Trixie asked,

  “So if someone did break the magical barrier, how would we become more powerful?”

  “No one knows,” replied Colin with a shrug. “Scholars have been secretly pondering this for hundreds of years, but no one can come to an absolute conclusion.”

  “So, is this what the dark wizard is really trying to do, break the magical barrier down?” asked Jamie, a little worried.

  “I believe so, I can’t think of any other reason why he would be sending magical creatures through it, to the human… I mean your world, every time he sends one of those creatures through it, it creates a tear in the magical barrier. Now they do reseal in time which is why we use doors to cross it, but send enough constantly through and eventually…” Colin then gestured with his hands a tearing, explosive motion, and again they all sat there for a moment in silence.

  “Unless, of course, he is just completely and utterly bonkers and is just doing it for a laugh,” added Marty, trying to lighten the mood.

  “Well,
yes, he could be…” continued Colin before glancing out the window, where he could now see Streak madly shaking his head around.

  “What on Magicdom has gotten into Streak?” he exclaimed loudly, before he then quickly marched outside, followed by the others to investigate. Streak, still in his black disguise, was neighing loudly and thrashing his head up and down as Colin quickly approached.

  “Steady there, steady, what is it old boy?” he asked trying to calm the horse down as he rubbed its nose. Streak flicked his head back, indicating to something in the cart, and Colin quickly moved to investigate. Peering carefully into the back, he could see a strange white glow coming from under an old cloth sack, and without hesitating he whipped it back and found the crystal ball from the day before, sitting there glowing alarmingly.

  “Ah, we forgot to return this to the yard,” Colin sighed, relieved it wasn’t anything dangerous as he picked it up. And as he held it in his palm, it began to show an image, an image that made him gasp in horror and drained all the colour from his cheeks.

  “Oh no!” he exclaimed in disbelief.

  “What is it?” asked Trixie, a little worried by his reaction.

  “Another magical creature has been shoved through the barrier,” replied Colin, turning to face her and the others.

  “What creature?” Jamie asked

  “A dragon!” replied Colin.

  “A dragon?” they all said at once, repeating his words in disbelief.

  “And not just any dragon, A Ddraig Goch!” Colin added in dramatic horror.

  “What should we do?” asked Trixie.

  “There’s a dragon on the loose in the human world, lives are certainly in danger, we have no choice we must go capture it!” replied Colin before tossing Trixie the ball.

  “But what about the dark wizard?” she asked.

  “He’ll just have to wait! Henry, thank you for your hospitality old boy, but we must get going,” he said shaking Henry’s hand firmly before climbing into the cart. “Hopefully we will return later.”

  “Okay, just all of you take care,” replied Henry before stepping back from the cart as the others quickly clambered in. “And don’t worry, I’ll have a pot of tea on for you ready when you return.”

  Colin flicked the reins and Streak slowly trotted around in a circle, turning the cart to face back up the road before gently trundling away.

  “Good luck, be careful!” called out Henry before they disappeared out of sight back into the main street.

  A few seconds later, they were free of the little town and once again racing through the magical colourful countryside towards the dragon’s location.

  “Aren’t there some other catchers who could deal with this?” asked Jamie, puzzled why they had to do this right in the middle of their own crisis.

  “No, the crystal ball only shows a job to one group of catchers at a time, so that we don’t all end up at the same place and miss a creature somewhere else,” replied Trixie. “This was intended for us, so we must answer the call.”

  “Oh!” replied Jamie, understanding a bit more of how the job worked. “So what is a Ddraig Goch dragon?” he then enquired.

  “You tell me, where’s your book?” asked Trixie.

  Jamie reached into his pocket and pulled out the now slightly damp, crumpled blue pocket book.

  “It got wet when we fell in the river,” he sighed before carefully opening the damp pages until he found the right page.

  “A Ddraig Goch, a Welsh red dragon, a proud and noble creature but very fierce and aggressive if provoked,” Jamie read out loud.

  “Sounds like my last wife,” muttered Marty with a chuckle.

  “Likes big open spaces to fly in, some can also breathe fire! And they generally like Welsh rarebit,” he continued, before pausing. “It eats bunnies?” he said, horrified at the thought of poor defenceless fluffy bunnies being gobbled up by big monstrous beasts.

  “No, that would be weird, it eats cheese on toast,” replied Trixie.

  “Lovely with a bit of brown sauce,” added Marty, licking his lips.

  “Right!” said Jamie, looking very confused again because once more he wasn’t sure if they were telling the truth or just joking with him. “Anyway, baby Ddraig Gochs are known to be as big as a large dog, and adults can grow to the size of a double-decker bus, so use extreme caution in capturing this creature!”

  “Well, that goes without saying,” added Colin.

  Jamie then sat there for a moment, thinking about the description he had just read.

  “A double-decker bus!” he repeated in disbelief after a few seconds had passed.

  “Yes, well, let’s hope it’s only a young one,” replied Colin, thinking positive.

  A few seconds later, after passing the screaming waterfalls in the Upside-Down Tree Park, they arrived at a small grassy mound in the middle of a clearing.

  “Quickly,” said Colin, leaping from the cart. “We don’t have a moment to waste, that dragon could be causing all kinds of chaos in the other world.”

  Trixie and Jamie pushed the old door out of the cart and with a thud it landed on the ground. Colin then picked it up and, leaning it against a fallen log, said,

  “That will do, just there!”

  “So, what are we going to use to capture it?” asked Jamie holding up a large glass jar in one hand and a metal cage in the other.

  “Not them, they’re too small, no, we’ll need shackles and chains, and one of these,” said Trixie holding up a very large old leather muzzle.

  “Wow!” exclaimed Jamie seeing the size of it.

  “And you can put it on,” she added tossing him the muzzle and making him drop the jar and cage with thud.

  “Come on, come on people!” urged Colin impatiently standing by the door.

  “You guys go ahead, I think I’ll just sit this one out,” replied Marty sitting casually in the back of the cart. “I’ll just stay here and keep Streak company,” he said, trying to sound all innocent and concerned for Streak.

  “Afraid not, Marty, we may need you as well,” Colin replied scooping him up and placing him in his top pocket like usual.

  “Oh great! So we can all be eaten together!” groaned Marty.

  “We’re not going to get eaten,” replied Colin reassuringly.

  “Eaten!” repeated Jamie in horror, having only just realised that was a possibility.

  “Relax, we’ll be fine!” Trixie said, patting his shoulder. “Unless you smell of cheese and toast?”

  “I had toast for breakfast!” exclaimed Jamie, now really worried.

  “Well just don’t breathe near it,” replied Colin, then he tapped the top edge of the door and then twisted the handle and the magical door opened. Colin then stepped through into the human world, and emerged on to a stone cobbled street in a little Welsh human village at the foot of a mountain.

  “Ah, back in Wales again!” he muttered to himself, pleasantly surprised.

  The village was built on the lower slopes of a mountain, and the road was lined by little stone houses that gently disappeared down a steep slope into the valley below, where most of the village sat.

  Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, he ushered the others to follow him through, and Jamie and Trixie quickly joined him in the quiet little street.

  “Have you seen it?” asked Trixie looking around nervously.

  “No, but it can’t be far,” replied Colin as he shut the door behind him. “Now, wands ready,” he said, pulling his out of his jacket. Trixie and Jamie quickly did the same.

  “Good, now you two stick together and head that way up the hill and Marty and I will head this way down it and if you see it, use a stun spell or shackle spell to protect yourself and then call me,” continued Colin. “That is very importan
t, do not try to take it on yourselves, call me, okay?”

  “Yes, Uncle we will,” sighed Trixie hating how overbearing and protective her uncle could be sometimes, because she already felt that she was more than capable of taking on a dragon on her own, just like all young teens do.

  “Good, so get going, and alert me the second you see it, I mean it, don’t try and take it on yourselves.”

  “Yes, yes, shout for you if we see it, we will, Uncle,” replied Trixie with another long sigh.

  They then quickly split up and began searching the village streets for the magical monster.

  Jamie and Trixie quickly jogged along the pavement following it up the hill, and as they moved they attempted to remain half crouched down so as not to be seen as they passed one garden gate after another, in case the dragon was hiding behind it, until suddenly Jamie stopped.

  “What is it? Have you seen it?” asked Trixie excitedly as she peered out from behind him.

  “No,” replied Jamie. “Have you?”

  “No,” replied Trixie, looking slightly confused now.

  “So why have you stopped?”

  “Oh I’ve got an itch,” replied Jamie, scratching himself.

  “Boys! You’re so disgusting!” Trixie said in despair before moving on.

  A few seconds later they reached the top of the road and then followed it left into a side street where it continued on following the side of the hill, and from up there they could see all across the whole valley and the rest of the village below. They both stopped for a moment and scanned the view in all directions, trying to spot the dragon.

  “Where is it?” asked Jamie.

  “I don’t know, it’s a big red dragon in a little village, it shouldn’t be too hard to find,” grumbled Trixie, slightly frustrated. “Wait, is that it?”

  “No, that’s a post van,” replied Jamie seeing the red van Trixie was pointing to further down in the village. Then they heard a deep, rough snort of breath behind them and felt a sudden gush of smelly warm air whoosh past their necks.