Godge Delivers A Short (Not) Lecture

‘Why is there a sea serpent in a river?’ she managed to shout back.

Then suddenly, a huge cute scaly head poked above the water. It had the body of a serpent and front paws. It was a rich blue colour. Embedded on its forehead was a raw sapphire.

‘That doesn’t look so scary,’ she remarked.

Then suddenly it swung its body and struck the part of the bridge behind them, which crumbled into the river. It roared loudly.

‘Oh, diapers,’ muttered Mavis.

The bridge started disintegrating, and she and Star didn’t have long.

Her horse nickered and struggled wildly.

‘Star!’ she cried, tugging hard at his reins to stop him from throwing them both off their broken bridge.

She managed to bring him into a run to the other side, though he was neighing in fright.

And then, the bridge began to collapse beneath him.

‘No!’ wailed Mavis, who sincerely believed they were about to die.

That was when Star came to his senses long enough to give a great flying leap to the other side of the river.

‘Oh, my God!’ panted Mavis, shaking and gripping the reins as hard as she could, in terror.

‘Are you alright?’ Godge yelled over the noise the sea serpent was making.

Mavis had no time to even answer, because, at that very moment, Walter screamed and pointed to a log floating about in the water. Alpha was on it, wisely standing on all fours so that he did not touch the waters. But obviously, he couldn’t go on forever. He would have to touch the waters soon.

Mavis wasn’t sure the River of Doom doomed animals, but she didn’t want to know.

‘Alpha!’ she screamed desperately.

‘Mavis, we need to go,’ said Godge, but she wasn’t listening.

She fished the Miana Flower out of her pocket and tied its stem around her wrist. Then she dove into the water. It was freezing cold. As she dived in, water splashed outside. But she felt no fear, only confidence because of the Miana flower.

She swam to the log Alpha was sitting on as fast she could. Her arm broke the surface of the water repeatedly when she swam. The Miana flower was slowly slipping off. She realised only when it was too late.

The flower floated away in the water, but its stem still touched her hand. She grabbed it and tied it on again frantically.

Alpha’s piteous whine made her remember what she was doing. She swam up to the surface of the water and gulped down as much air as she could. Alpha was inches away from her, and yet she couldn’t grab him.

She realised with horror that her arms were soaking wet. She couldn’t touch Alpha. He was slowly slipping off.

She suddenly stuck out her hands, grabbing both the ends of the log, but careful not to touch Alpha. She couldn’t use her arms to swim now, though. So, holding the log steady, she kicked her legs and pushed it to the shore.

The moment they reached; Alpha leapt off the log. He didn’t have a single drop of water on him. Mavis had been careful not to touch him.

‘Let’s go now!’ cried Godge, and Mavis couldn’t agree more; The sea serpent was trying to poke his head through the trees and grab them.

They ran into the deep forest as fast as they could, with their animals.

Finally, they stopped.

‘I’m surprised that the sea serpent tried to kill us–let alone was lurking around in the River of Doom. He’s got no business here!’ gasped Godge.

‘How did he survive in the River of Doom, anyway?’ panted Mavis.

‘The Sea Serpent’s stone.’

‘What?’

Godge looked at her. ‘Did you see that sapphire on that sea serpent’s head?’

Mavis frowned. ‘That’s the Sea Serpent’s Stone?’

‘Yes. It’s magical and is the reason he’s been able to survive in the River of Doom. Since he’s the strongest of the sea serpents, the stone is in his possession–and so is the duty to protect Mrindawa from the outside.’

‘If he’s the guardian of Mrindawa, why was he trying to kill us?’ piped up Walter.

‘No idea. It’s probably got something to do with the giants. Maybe they hypnotised him. Well, anyway, let’s get away from here now.’

‘What about me?’ asked Mavis. She was covered head-to-toe in the water of the River of Doom.

‘Yes, you must get dry as soon as possible.’ He led her to a lake and made her wash the water off. Then he made her take the Miana flower off her wrist.

Godge looked at them nervously. ‘It is not safe here,’ he said. ‘The attack of the sea serpent . . . It doesn't give me a good feeling. We must get to the Village of The Villagers as soon as possible.’

Mavis nodded. ‘Wouldn’t want to come across that giant snake again.’

Godge looked confused. ‘What giant snake?’

As if on cue, the large black head of a snake soundlessly poked out of a bush and gave a low hiss.

‘That giant snake!’ cried Mavis. She jumped onto Star’s back and tugged his reins, before galloping away.

Godge froze, then grabbed the screaming Walter’s hand and leapt onto Peanut Butter’s back and dashed after Mavis.

Alpha, who had been left behind, barked, but the others were far away from him already. Darn it, he thought.

‘The giants must have turned that snake so big!’ shouted Godge, but Mavis was focusing on getting away from the snake.

She looked around, scanning everything with her eyes. ‘Fly!’ she shouted suddenly

Godge, not knowing what else to do, did as she told. He tugged hard at Peanut Butter’s reins and shot up like a jet. The horse skillfully swerved, dodging the canopy of tree branches above. Mavis followed on Star.

It took the snake a second to realise what had just happened. It suddenly jerked its head up and flew up as fast as it could. But unfortunately, before it could dodge the tree branches, it hit them hard with its head, then fell to the ground.

The snake stroked its head with its tail to get rid of the throbbing pain. Then flew up again, this time careful not to hit the canopy of trees.

‘The intestine’s up again!’ shouted Mavis without realising what she’d just said.

The horses zoomed off again. The snake was still after them. And this time, amazingly, it breathed fire!

‘That’s new!’ said Mavis.

Just then, the snake decided to breathe its flaming fire at Mavis. It did so, but Star swerved, missing it by inches. But unfortunately, Spark slipped out of Mavis’ hands when she clung onto Star’s reins for dear life. She watched as her weapon fell to the ground and snapped clean in half.

Mavis would have been upset, but the weapon had been pretty useless.

Meanwhile, the snake was posed right behind Star. It opened its toothless mouth and with a great huff, blew fire. Star swerved just in time. This time it was Mavis’ turn to slip off his back. She fell to the ground like Spark but thankfully didn’t snap in half.

What did happen, though, was that she hit her head on the hard ground and fell unconscious.

Godge didn’t see Mavis fall. He was too busy saving his own life. Walter saw her fall, though. This was purely bad luck for Godge because the horrified Walter screamed and made him jump.

While Godge was trying to calm him down, the snake took proper aim to blast them away.

Godge noticed this and groaned. ‘Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!’

He decided that the first step for him and Walter to survive was to get Walter out of the way. He flew towards Star and pushed him onto the horse’s back. Godge flew away, happy to get away from the company of Walter.

Just then, the snake decided to blast Walter away. Revenge for outsmarting it before. It took proper aim and blasted.

Star jolted away and missed the shot. But Walter, who was too frightened to grab hold of the reins, slipped off the horse’s back. Star made a vain attempt to grab him, but the snake had already taken care of that. It blasted its fire towards Star. He swerved in the air, dodging it. But as he did it, he hit his head on a tree and fell to the ground, to join Mavis and Walter.

The snake, pleased with itself, turned to Godge, on Peanut Butter.

Mavis sat up, rubbing her sore head. Her face was wet with doggy drool. Alpha had been licking her face as if she were a popsicle. True, he’d been left behind by the others, but he’d found them all in a clearing, unconscious.

She pushed him away and looked around. Walter was lying unconscious on the ground beside her.

Third time fainting, she counted.

Star whined and rubbed his leathery nose on Mavis’ face. Alpha, proud that he had woken Mavis up, moved on to Walter and began licking his face. In a few minutes, he had woken him up too.

Mavis shakily stood up, then suddenly realising something, frantically began rummaging through a pile of dried leaves. Finally, she pulled out a broken Spark.

She turned to Walter. ‘Gimme a bandage.’

‘What?’

‘Hand it over, or prepare to meet thy doom!’

Walter reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of bandages. Mavis chose one and used it to tape the two halves of her weapon together. ‘That should do it!’ But unfortunately, it didn’t do it. The bandage slowly peeled off, but Mavis hadn’t noticed.

Just then, Godge came walking out of the forest. ‘Ah, you’re up! That snake kept breathing fire at me and Peanut Butter. Thankfully, Peanut Butter kept dodging till the snake was tired out and flew away.’

‘Well, good for you,’ said Mavis. ‘You weren’t knocked unconscious like me and Walter,’

‘I suppose so,’ admitted Godge. ‘Anyway, I found a clean lake. Anyone thirsty?’

‘Much as I’d like to quench my thirst, we have much more important things to worry about,’ said Mavis showing Godge the bandaged Spark.

Godge shrugged ‘It doesn’t work well, does it?’

‘Well, of course, it works well, only I don’t know how to use it.’

Godge had a look at her weapon. ‘It has suffered terrible damage–nothing a blue phoenix feather can’t fix,’ he muttered.

‘A what?’

‘Blue phoenixes: they are vaguely related to red phoenixes.’

‘So, I’m guessing they’re super-magical birds?’

‘That, they are. In fact, they’re immortal.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, they are quite close to the Wina. They live in a cave with him. Or at least, he used to live there.’

‘Who’s the Wina?’ asked Walter.

‘A dragon,’ said Godge simply. Walter paled.

‘But don’t the dragons work for the humans?’ asked Mavis.

‘Well, now they have been hypnotized to do so. The Wina included.’

Mavis eyed him. ‘Shall we be off then?’ she asked.

Before Godge could reply, Walter let out a wail. ‘I don’t wanna go! We always get into trouble somehow or the other!’

Mavis knew he was right, but did they have a choice? She mounted Star. ‘Come on, we’d better leave in case there are creatures after us.’

‘Agreed,’ said Godge mounting Peanut Butter with a struggling Walter.

That night, Mavis and Godge pitch up their three tents given by the Tribes. They had given them an extra tent ‘just in case.’

Walter was sitting on a large red mushroom with white spots. Mavis had told him to do so so that he would stay out of trouble.

After ten minutes of fumbling with the tent, they had finally pitched them up. They weren’t triangular like in all those movies, but Mavis felt they would do.

‘I want to light a fire,’ said Walter. ‘To keep away wild animals.’

‘I know we would feel a lot safer if we had a fire,’ said Mavis calmly. ‘But trust me, we wouldn’t be. Lighting a fire means sending smoke flying, which would expose our exact location.’

‘She’s right,’ said Godge stepping into his tent. It was green to camouflage in the thick vegetation.

Mavis wasn’t sure how to get Walter into his tent (which was, by the way, green too). He seemed to think it was filled with ‘creepy-crawly bugs.’

‘Oh, no! Here comes the big dragon! Quick hide, Walter!’ she said hopefully.

Amazingly this worked and Walter leapt into his tent.

Mavis gave a sigh of relief and walked into her own green tent.

The next day, Mavis was the first to wake up. She stretched and looked around. Yes, she was still in her tent, not kidnapped (which was a relief). She walked out. Everyone was still asleep.

She decided to take Star for grazing before Walter and Godge were up.

‘Wake up, Star!’ she said softly.

Immediately, Star leapt to his feet, or ‘hooves,’ for that matter. This was just like Star; you could never catch him off guard.

Mavis took him into the forest. They walked through the forest, with trees like broccoli, till they found a grassland stretching for miles and miles. Dewdrops, like sparkling crystals, were glittering on each tuft of grass. Star gave a delighted neigh and leapt over the grass. Mavis wondered why they couldn’t have pitched up their tent there.

She craned her neck to see the end of the grassland, but she couldn’t. What she did see was a little hill. Star was running up it. Whenever there was a grassy hill, Star decided to graze on it. This was because the grass at the top of the hill was always the juiciest with all the dew drops.

‘Wait up!’ shouted Mavis and ran after him.

When she had trekked up the hill, she felt she could see the whole world. The grassland stretched a long way. It was stopped by a much larger hill. Beyond the hill was the thick vegetation of the forest.

Mavis froze the moment she saw the hill. There were some kind of square-shaped rocks all around it. Mavis looked at them closely and found that they were actually small cottages. They were built clumsily. As the hill sloped, so did the cottages. It seemed that they may fall any moment.

She suddenly had the feeling that she had found the Village of the Villagers. She turned to Star. ‘Race you to the campsite.’

When he was at the farm, Star had heard this phrase many times from Mavis. Of course, she hadn’t always said ‘campsite,’ but Star always knew where they were going to run. On the farm, Mavis had taught him the name of every place. But here, he assumed they were going to run where all the humans were.

Every time Star and Mavis had the races, Star always won, probably because he was a horse. But when he was a foal, Mavis beat him each time. She felt confident she would win this time too.

She sped off like a hare, but Star overtook her with ease. Mavis wouldn’t give up so easily. She took a flying leap and landed on Star’s back–only to grab at the reins too late and slip off.

She landed face-first in some muck and groaned. She looked up to see Star disappear beyond the horizon without even giving her a glance.

Mavis shakily got to her feet, shocked at how heartless one could be. Then again, she’d fallen off Star five hundred and forty-eight times. He was quite used to it now.

‘YOU ORCESTROPHIC ORGLE OF A BORGLE!’ she shrieked, racing after him. The wind whipped past her face and her feet crashed onto piles of dried leaves and stones. She smiled widely. She was so fast she had probably overtaken Star from a different path.

She saw the tops of a few green tents. She was going to win for the first time in her life!

‘YES!’ she bellowed as she flung herself into the campsite. Star was nowhere to be seen.

‘I won! I really won!’ she gasped.

That’s when she noticed the hairy black horse lazily chewing on a bit of grass.

‘Oh,’ she said, disappointed.

There was no point shedding tears over being slower than a horse, so Mavis turned her attention to how she was to wake up Walter and Godge. She could dump a bucket of mice on their faces–only she had no mice. She could spray water on them–only she couldn’t afford to waste water.

She decided to wake them up the Old-Fashioned Way. So, she took a deep breath and shouted at the top of her voice: ‘BIG DRAGON COMING! RUUUUN!’

Godge jumped to his feet and Walter froze with fear.

‘Just joking,’ said Mavis drily; ‘but I did discover the Village of the Villagers.’

‘You do realise that could be a trap?’ said Godge.

‘Oh, don’t spoil the moment.’

Walter looked nervous. ‘Must we take the risk?’

‘Of course!’ snapped Mavis. ‘We’re short on food, aren’t we?’

Godge sighed. ‘We’ll have to snoop about before we jump to conclusions. For all we know that village you saw could be a wooden cut-out.’

They marched into the forest. Mavis was in the front because Walter was too frightened to and Godge had insisted that whoever had the plan was the guinea pig.

Finally, they reached the long grassland. Walter and Godge stared at it in disbelief, taking in its beauty.

‘Why couldn’t we have pitched up our tent here?’ asked Godge not taking his eyes off the sight.

‘I know, right!’ cried Mavis.

Peanut Butter glanced at Walter hopefully. He didn’t seem reluctant that she could graze a bit. So, she went ahead and gulped down mouthfuls of the delicious juicy grass. Star neighed to suggest that she grazed on the little hill. That was where the juicy grass grew.

So Peanut Butter trotted away, and a minute later was at the top of the hill. Mavis looked at Godge and Walter. ‘Follow that horse! I saw the village from the top of that hill!’

Godge twitched nervously. ‘That seems like a nice place to trap us all. They’d probably wait for the right moment when all of us are there. Then, the next second, we’re all trapped!’

Mavis sighed. ‘Oh, you’re difficult, aren’t you? If it makes you feel better, we’ll all go, leaving one of us behind. That way they won’t trap us because they’d want all of us together. You’d be okay with it then, wouldn’t you?’