Molly and Shark Grandad

Once upon a time, in the depths of the salty Lake Nanny, lived the fearsome and pint-sized Granddad Shark.

He was enjoying a peaceful cup of tea at a cafe by the water when suddenly, his daughter, the Jack Russell named Molly, appeared out of thin air.

Molly hadn’t really planned to land next to Granddad Shark. Her original plan was to jump onto a massive trampoline she had been eyeing from the top of a skyscraper while traveling through the galaxy on an airplane. But just as she was flying towards the ground, she noticed a delicious treat, a Baker’s Treat, floating in Lake Nanny.

Her craving got the better of her, and she diverted herself, landing with a “sploosh” into the lake and devouring the treat, splashing water all over Scary Grandad, who was sitting beside the lake with his tea and laptop.

“Oh, what are you doing? You’ve soaked me and my laptop!” complained Scary Granddad.

“I’m sorry, Granddad. Let me fix it,” said Molly as she quickly grabbed his laptop and cup of tea. Little did he know that she had also managed to take all of his money in the process. With a mischievous grin, Molly grabbed both laptops and jumped over the cafe, determined to find some Robucks.

Her quest led her to the iPhone store, but they couldn’t help her because they didn’t sell laptops. They ordered a new laptop from Amazon, and it arrived immediately. She then headed to the 7/11, the only place she knew where Robucks were available, despite it being locked at 3:00 a.m. on a Friday.

Undeterred, Molly broke in and finally found a Robuck, but it didn’t work when she tried using it. Frustrated, she wondered how she would get back home to the skyscraper. To make matters worse, the laptop started shaking, and out came the Robuck, growing bigger and causing chaos in town. The giant Robuck headed straight for the doctor’s surgery, creating a mess.

Meanwhile, Scary Granddad tracked Molly’s laptop and eventually found her trapped in the 7/11. He used his backflipping skills, aided by his water-filled camel pack, to make his way to her. With his guidance, Molly managed to escape the store.

Together, they managed to tame the giant Robuck by jumping and backflipping on top of it until it shrank back into the laptop. They then decided to use the Robuck to get back to the skyscraper. After a wild ride on an aeroplane, they reached the rooftop and sat together happily.

“I’m sorry for being mean earlier, Granddad,” said Molly.

“That’s okay, sometimes fathers and daughters have their moments, but I know that you’re really very nice,” replied Scary Granddad.

“I love you, Scary Granddad,” said Molly, and they both lived happily ever after, fast asleep in their cubes on the top of the skyscraper.

The Forgotten Witch and the Fire Garden

by Alexander Owen-Hill(story by Hesther Owenhill)At the centre of a great, green moor there stood a castle. The walls of the castle were built into a huge square and, at the back, reaching far up into the sky, there was a tall, thin tower. At the top of the tower was a dovecot, where doves from miles around would come to roost. Above the castle the clouds were usually white and around the castle the green grass and purple heather smiled at the blue sky so much that even on grey days the castle seemed to be sitting on a cushion of happiness. In the tower, during a day, would sit the princess of the kingdom. Her name was Lilias and she loved to sit at the window, doves all around her, and stare into the distance, imagining what wondrous lands she could visit outside of the castle. From the tower Lilias could also see down into the square courtyard below. In the courtyard were carts of vegetables, barrels of ale, piles of hams and buckets of water. Most of all, however, there were people. Hundreds and hundreds of people, singing and dancing, talking and laughing, drinking and eating, and making lots of jubilant noise. Travellers and visitors would come from miles around in the Great Kingdom to visit the castle. King Donnan, Lilias’ father, was a happy King. He loved the people around him to be happy and every day would provide food and drink for revellers from all round the land to come and spend time in his large, green courtyard. He sometimes loved to hear tales from travellers of their adventures voyaging throughout the land. Sometimes he just loved to see the people dancing and would have musicians play dancing music from the battlements for the hundreds of merrymakers. Much drink was drunk and many songs sung.Lilias liked to hear the tales of travels in far lands but she preferred to come down from her tower and sit on the battlements to hear them. The deafening noise of the people, she found, was too much to ever go down and mix with them. The soft cooing of the doves was as much noise as her sensitive ears could cope with.She liked to listen to the tales with her back to all the people – staring north from the castle and imagining pictures from the tales which they told.* * *In the wind whipped sea, where harsh waters frothed over the black rocks at the far north of the mainland of The Great Northern Kingdom had sat a small green island topped with white thatched cottages. It had been a tiny town of great peace, despite its rough surroundings. It had been inhabited by those subjects of the kingdom who found life at the centre of the bustling activity in the capital city too much. It had even been a prosperous town. It had, in its own very distinct way, been beautiful. It had been.On the island had lived a witch, Kentigerna. She had been a friend of the old King, King Lachlan Aitken. He had asked her, as a personal favour to himself, to take care of the island and its people – the small island which has long since been washed away from the north of Shetland. The old King had loved the island, he said, more than any spot other on the surface of the kingdom and had told Kentigerna that if she should ever want for anything she should send him a blue collared dove and he promised to come personally to her aid, as she had promised to watch over the island for him. That had been before King Lachlan had died and his son, Donnan, had become King.Kentigerna, unaware of King Lachlan’s death, had kept her promise and, with her magic, had helped the island through a famine, many storms and even an earth tremor which had threatened to sink the whole island into the sea. One day a wooden boat had been seen through the mists, heading from the east straight through the choppy waters towards the small island. A crew of large warriors had beaten their way into the homes of its people and raped and ransacked all that had been peaceful and calm. Kentigerna, along with the island’s farmers, had fought against the invaders. She invoked spells to send winds at their ship and bolts of lightening to their camps but a new ship of invaders had come. She had sent a blue collared dove to the castle, as King Lachlan had bidden and hoped that his aid would come quickly, while her magic held strong. She had waited two months for news from the King. She and a small group of townspeople had defended with all they could give until they held only a small croft at the south of the island. Finally, with no news from the King, she and three others had been forced to leave the captured island on a raft made from the door and beams of the croft. Drained and beaten the group of four had paddled to the mainland and headed south looking for refuge.* * *The witch and her companions had walked for many miles, creeping south down the map of the mainland. As the screaming wind had beaten their tired heads, what little energy had been propelling their abused bodies had drained and their progress had become unbearably slow. The four had become three as they had dragged themselves along the rough, boggy landscape. The three had become two as a cold winter had frozen the group into huddling ice statues under a remote crag. The last villager, a farm hand by the name of Sholto, had also finally fallen away, leaving the witch alone. It had happened one early spring morning. Needle sharp hail had pierced their ears as they battled through winter, leaving them both almost deaf. He had stumbled away from the witch during one foggy storm and, her cries of warning passing his deaf ears unheard, had stumbled over a high cliff edge and into the torrential sea.The witch’s longing for help from her old friend King Lachlan had been blown from her, to be gradually replaced by a grumbling resentment at his apparent rejection of her message for help. The pride in her mind at being entrusted with such an important task had turned to suspicion of the King’s motives for sending her, alone far away to the edge of the kingdom, out of his sight.As the late spring sun rekindled her energy this bubbling resentment grew into a raging fury. She pulled herself up from the awakening countryside and vowed to take her revenge on the neglectful King Lachlan. The many days of walking yet to reach the castle no longer stretched into eternity but rang with the thrill of an immediate confrontation.* * *The young princess Lilias sat in her tall tower, leaning heavily on the window sill. It was morning on the hottest day of the decade. The flapping of doves behind her blew pleasant, cool air past her radiantly warm face and out into the sky above the courtyard far below. The courtyard was filled with the most people she had ever seen packed between the castle’s four walls and she was lazily enjoying watching them as the crowd relished the sun. Jesters were telling jokes and singing around stalls of men selling beer in large tankards. Handsome knights were lounging on the grass telling stories of their travels to the wide eyed children and aloof women who surrounded them. Kitchen boys and giggling housemaids were kicking a ball around outside the doors of the inner castle. The castle, as she had always known it, was full of life – laughing, singing, screamingly happy life.She had seen her father, King Donnan, walking amongst the people but now could not see him in the courtyard below. He had joked with the knights and played along with the jesters. He had kicked the ball around with the kitchen boys and drank jolly, frothing tankards of beer with the travellers. She guessed that nowhere was there a King more loved by his people. He cherished the sight of people happy and having fun.The small, wooden door of the tower creaked open and her father’s silhouette stooped to enter the room. He tried, as he often did, to coax her down to the courtyard and join the party. He hated to think of her unhappy and alone whilst so many interesting people were here and having fun. After all, as a princess, they were her people too. She, as she usually did, turned down his well intentioned pleadings, saying that she was enjoying the party and that she could enjoy it all the more by watching it from the quiet, comfortable vantage point up here with the doves. The King eventually conceded and left a plate of pork and a small glass of beer for her on the wooden stool by the door of the dovecot.She heard the clomp of his carefree boots as he climbed down the narrow, spiral staircase to the party below.* * *The heat at the height of midday filled the air, over the green countryside that surrounded the castle, like a thick, sweet soup. The witch drew near. She climbed to the top of the nearest hill and after so many terrible months of travelling, finally saw the castle there in front of her. The heat pushing on her shoulders squeezed any last traces of patience out of her. Her anger at the King raged into her small legs and she marched towards the huge front door.The drowsy laughter spilling over the walls from inside the castle were those of joy and contentment but to the witch’s almost deaf ears sounded like derisive laughter. She hammered on the door with a fist of booming sound. She hammered again, but the party makers within seemed not to hear it. Eventually the pounding was heard and the King himself opened the door with a huge tankard of beer in his large hand. Had King Donnan noticed the subtle signs of hatred on the woman’s face he would have treated her with politic delicacy. Had he known she was an old friend of his father’s he would have instantly become sincere, a skill all good Kings should have, and broken to her the sad news of the old King’s death. Had he realised that she thought that he himself was King Lachlan he would have spent no time putting her right. Had he not looked the spitting image of his father the witch Heather might have realised this herself.As it was, King Donnan perceived only a small, weary, old woman in need of nourishment and laughter. He laughed warmly at her scowling face and invited her into the castle loudly, as he had had quite a lot of beer to drink and indeed had been sleeping in the midday sun with the other revellers when the witch had knocked. The witch saw his laughter as mocking. She spat angry words at his jolly face and he, the great politician that he was, tried in vain to calm the woman, who he feared had been walking in the sun for too long. As he failed to react to any of the memories that the witch spoke of, searching in his face for recognition that he had wronged her, her turbulent anger bubbled inside her and dark magic began spilling out of her blackened ears. The King, realising that he was not getting no response from this woman, decided that the best course of action was to go and find a doctor amongst the dozing lawn of people in the courtyard. He tentatively stepped back through the gate, promising sweetly that he would return presently with a friend.The witch perceived this action by the King as an admission of his guilt. He was running away from her like a coward.In fury she growled in an ancient and grotesque witches’ tongue. The Curse, which had grown violently stronger with every vengeful step she had walked, whipped like a red cloud from her feet, spiralling up her body and into a storm cloud over her head. With a terrifying wail the storm cloud burst into leaping flames. With the last surge of energy which her long life could muster, she hurled the giant fire ball up and over the walls of the castle. The Curse slammed the huge doors shut.The witch turned and stumbled on the grass as she walked away. The slow wave of screams which trickled over the castle battlements blew right past her deaf ears. With the weariest sigh which no one has ever heard the witch Kentigerna evaporated into the warm afternoon air. * * *The soft cooing of the doves had lulled the princess into a warm, afternoon sleep in the dovecot at the top of the high tower. As she slept this quiet sound was overshadowed by the dull roaring noise of a raging fire far below. A wave of roasting hot air, eager to catch up with the sun, suddenly whipped past the tiny window, knocking the princess back into the dovecot. Suddenly awake she jumped to look out of the window. A cloud of smoke billowed past and the clear gap below it allowed her to see the frantically screaming people in the courtyard as they tried in vain to beat open the door to the castle. The princess, with more fear than she had ever felt, ran down the tiny stair case. Deliriously, her foggy head felt that it must do something to help. Halfway down the tall tower a tongue of flame licked up the thin staircase to meet her and she was forced back up into the dovecot. Distraught, the princess could do nothing but gasp for air out of the window as all that she loved burned fiercely below her. The doves, in a panic, flew from the dovecot and away to the lands beyond the castle.As the enormity of the situation slowly crept into the mind of the princess she started to cry uncontrollably. Her tears flooded the floor of the dovecot. They spilled, in a river down the staircase and through the window. As the hours passed, the hissing of her tears on the fire below reached the quiet ears of the princess far above. She looked out of the window once more to see a square of wet ash where the courtyard of the castle of The Great Northern Kingdom had been. Alone the princess stood. Her bare feet splashed as she walked over the stone floor and down the staircase.The courtyard, which had seemed so small from the high tower, felt huge as she stepped out onto the wet, blackened ground. She walked to the middle of the courtyard and sat down, desolate.* * *Years past and grass grew from the grey earth of the courtyard. The life given to it by the happiness of many years of joyful people made it the most fertile place in the whole of The Great Northern Kingdom. Rare plants which never before had grown on this land burst from the soil. Sweet smelling creepers leaped up the castle’s brick walls. Trees spurted towards the sky, showering flowers of red, blue and yellow over the ground. A mass of bushes and leaves shed green patches over the once black ground.The princess walked, alone in the garden. The Curse cast by the witch kept the door of the castle stuck shut, but even so she never tried to open it. Her young dreams of foreign lands had blown away with the clouds of smoke which had burned her people and she was comforted by the silence of the garden.As the years pushed life forwards the princess did not age. The same life energy which had grown this wonderful garden trickled up from the ground through her bare feet and into her veins, giving her skin a pearly glow as she walked, solitary, beneath the trees.* * *As the decades passed people tried to enter the castle. The princess’ quiet ears heard the noises of their knockings and bangings as loud as huge thunderclaps. She would cover her ears in terror and hide under the bushes to escape the noise. More decades passed and the world outside the castle walls continued to grow and develop. With the progression of time were born more and more people. With more people came buildings and civilizations and roads and cars. With all these came more and more noise. The princess, who had been comfortable in her secluded garden became more and more disconcerted by the deafening noise which poured over the now crumbled battlements into the garden.One day, perturbed and scared, her head filled with so much unbearable noise, the princess curled into a ball and hid in the roots of the tallest tree in the garden.Years raged forwards outside the castle and the tree’s roots grew around the entwined princess. The tree’s embrace, deep below the ground, blocked the sound from the poor princess’ sensitive ears and at last she fell calm with the blissful silence. There the princess stayed and there the princess stays now. Eternally silent at the heart the tall tree with the glowing blue blossom where the doves sit.