in shock. ‘Something is wrong, Drabon. Something is dreadfully wrong!’
‘Take them away,’ Drabon roared to Losing-it and Lost-it. The Hatchlings stopped their humming. ‘We are hungry!’ they began bleating. ‘When do we eat?’
Losing-it and Lost-it looked at each other nervously. ‘Er, that’s another thing, Master; they won’t eat the food we give them. They say they don’t eat blood!’
‘What?’ Drabon and Putrida looked at each other in disbelief. ‘They must be enchanted!’ cried Putrida suddenly. ‘But how?’
‘No, no. It can’t be,’ Drabon told her. ‘Remember we have Oberon and Mab. Statues can’t work magic! Scowla is in the River of Forgetfulness and the Kingdom of Fairy doesn’t have anyone who can work strong magic now!’
‘What about the fairy children?’
‘The fairy children can’t make spells yet; they are too young!’ Drabon said scornfully.
As they continued to argue, the Hatchlings began to bleat with hunger.
‘Let them starve to death!’ Drabon roared at Losing-it and Lost-it.
Chapter 7
‘We have to keep feeding the Hatchlings,’ Tatiana told Janus. ‘They won’t accept any blood now and Drabon has ordered Losing-it and Lost-it to let them starve to death! Tristan will have to continue to feed them once a day until we can get them back to the Kingdom of Fairy.’
Each day, Tatiana was becoming more and more like the Tatiana of old. The fairies had all arrived in the forest of Gloomia, along with the children.
‘Now would be a good time for Ella to step in,’ Andrew told them. ‘Drabon and Putrida are very confused about the Hatchlings and can’t understand what has happened to them.’
Ella wasted no time and as the others looked, she morphed into a tiny flea. Putrida was seated outside the caves looking down at the burnt Village of Toadstools. The gnomes had been working day and night trying to rebuild their homes. Ella, now a flea, resisted the temptation to give Putrida a bite. She might just as easily swot me, then it would be all over, she thought to herself. She left Putrida sitting idly picking her nose. Then she morphed into Putrida’s shape just before she entered the cave where Drabon was snoring, hanging upside down off a wall.
‘Wake up!’ she roared in Putrida’s voice. Drabon fell to the floor as the loud voice woke him with a start.
‘What do you want?’ he asked in annoyance.
‘Is this the way you solve the problems of the Hatchlings? I thought you would have figured it out by now!’
‘Figured it out? No … not really,’ he said slowly narrowing his eyes.
‘It’s the statues, I’m sure of it!’ Putrida told him.
‘The statues? What do you mean?’
‘I mean that obviously Mab and Oberon are exerting their power through the statues. Why else would the Hatchlings be affected? There is no one left in the Kingdom of Fairy who has that kind of power!’
‘You mean that Mab is still able to work magic even though she has been turned into a crystal?’ he said in disbelief. Putrida nodded. ‘That’s exactly what I mean!’
‘Mm … maybe,’ Drabon agreed. ‘But what do we do now?’
‘We get the statues out of the caves – that’s what we do!’
‘Out of the caves? How?’ Those statues are solid and weigh many tons!’
‘Use magic to remove them to the forest of Gloomia,’ she said quickly.
Drabon’s eyes lit up suddenly. What made him think that Putrida wasn’t every bit as clever as Scowla had been? He rushed from the room and headed to the cave containing the statues with Ella still morphed as Putrida on his heels.
‘Quickly, quickly, we must act quickly before they can do more damage!’ she urged him, silently praying that Putrida would remain outside the caves. Drabon wasted no time.
Absent yourself from these parts – set yourself up on the banks of the River of Forgetfulness! he commanded as he waved a claw over the statues. They began to shimmer at his words and then they simply disappeared.
Ella in the body of Putrida gave a sigh of relief. ‘Now we can relax!’ she told Drabon. ‘You’ll see, within a few days the Hatchlings will begin to act as they should! Now you can return to your cave and nap in peace; you will need your energy for the hunt later tonight!’
Leaving Drabon in his cave, she quickly ran towards the outside entrance, morphing from Putrida’s shape to that of Drabon. When she got to the entrance, she saw Putrida still sitting there. Having finished picking her nose, she was now pulling lice out of her straggly hair and popping them into her mouth. Ella inwardly shuddered in revulsion.
‘I’ve figured it out, Putrida, I’ve figured it out!’
‘Figured what out?’ Putrida asked in boredom.
‘Why the Hatchlings are acting the way they are!’ Putrida sat up suddenly, discarding the last lice she had picked from her hair. ‘You have?’
‘It’s those statues. Mab has still been able to work magic even though she is a statue of crystal. She has enchanted the Hatchlings, I am sure of it!’
‘You are sure?’
‘Yes. There is no one else left with that kind of magic in the Kingdom of Fairy!’
‘What can we do?’ Putrida asked.
‘Do? I’ve already done it! I put a spell on the statues and removed them to the banks of the
River of Forgetfulness. They are out of harm’s way and will no longer be able to influence the Hatchlings. They should be back to their normal selves before long!’
‘Great,’ Putrida said, settling down again to her meal of lice. Once out of sight of Putrida, Ella morphed from Drabon’s body back into a flea. She flew out of the entrance, quickly nipping Putrida on the way out. When she arrived back in the forest of Gloomia, she morphed into her shape as Ella and faced the others with a smile on her face.
Chapter 8
The stone statues of Mab and Oberon sat quietly on the banks of the River of Forgetfulness.
‘Don’t go too near the edge!’ Dominique warned everyone. Although she had no memory of her time as a flower on the banks of the river, she had no desire to expose herself to that possibility again. ‘What do we do now?’ Ella wanted to know.
‘We have to find a way to reverse the spell,’ sighed Tatiana.
‘It will be a mammoth task getting Drabon to reverse the spell,’ said Janus.
‘Don’t forget what The Fairy Chronicles says,’ Dominique reminded him. ‘You need to focus
