The young oak tree 2/8

Without a moment’s hesitation, her combat training took over and she threw a fireball into a bush just in front of him, then as he dropped the scooter in fright, deluged him with the high pressure water jet that she’d used to stop Fred from flaming her.

She ran over while he was still spluttering and dumped a huge chocolate swiss roll on top of him so that he was too sticky to run away.

“My name is Jennifer Jane; I’m going to ask you a few questions. Don’t you dare try to run away again or call for help; if you do I may get really nasty. I might tell you that I’ve been to Happy Valley and come back again, so you’re in dead trouble my friend!”

She was never quite sure whether her name or the freezing water was making her victim shake so much, but the red goblin suddenly became very co-operative indeed.

“I want to know who asked one of your lot to turn a rat called Fred into a dragon, with the rather silly idea of trying to flame me?”

“Please Miss, we never seen the gentleman before. He must have been a wizard though, ‘cos he give one of the boys a paper with a spell on it to use on the first rat he could find. The paper caught fire and burned up once the spell had been cast and me fingers have only just got better. Oh blast!”

“Right then, as it was obviously you who had the spell, tell me what this so called wizard looked like.”

“Honest Miss I really don’t know. All you humans look alike to me. He could have been one of the locals, although I don’t think he was. He didn’t look the sort to be a farmer or a timber worker. More soft like!”

Jennifer Jane raised her hands and began to wave her arms about in the most theatrical gesture she’d been taught.

“Don’t Miss,” pleaded the goblin in a terrified voice, “I’m telling the truth honest!”

She had to admit to herself that he probably didn’t know any more. She stopped the arm waving, which hadn’t meant any thing anyway; she’d only been trying to get more information from the scared goblin covered in sticky cake mixture.

She picked up her scooter and sat on it ready to fly off. “As you’ve been just a little bit helpful, you might like to know that you can eat the sticky stuff you’re covered in. You might even enjoy it.”

She had only flown fifty yards when she heard a strange noise behind her. She spun round as quickly as possible, expecting some new attack, then laughed as she saw her victim, covered in a heaving mound of goblins all trying to grab as much of the cake for themselves as they could.