CHRONICLES OF MERTH - MER'S DAY OUT CHAPTER TWELVE

I say it was an army because that is what they looked like. There were all sort odf creatures standing before us. Dwarves, Elves, Goblins, Gnomes, in fact, anything small. They were all standing, staring at us, as though they were waiting for battle. As we got nearer to them, I noticed they looked even more like an army, ecause they had warpaint painted onto their faces.
as we got closer and closer, they all started brandishing spears and arrows and yelling out things, like; "There they are are! Get them!"
Huttie, the chef, reached out his hands and threw something at them. It looked like an electric-blue lightbolt. It exploded in a shower of stars, and all the Smll Beings stopped dead in their tracks.
"Calming spell," Huttie said to Sarafina and I.
He turned back to the small Beings.
"What is it you want?"
"We have come for the brats. The Choc-lin named Sarafina, and the boy, Mer!" Said a tall, green Goblin.
"Ah, but I should warn you, the girl is a Matshi!"
The Goblin rolled his eyes. "You can't scare us!" He yelled back. "We want those brats for the perfect piza, ansd we shall get them. Anfina herself sent us!"
"But Morcam, I'm telling the truth!"
Morcam the Goblin rolled his eyes again. "stop right there, Huttie. We're not under your command anymore!"
Huttie turned to Sarafina. "Show them," he said. Sarafina reached into her left breastplate, and pulled out her Matshi Gun. She aimed it at the Small Beings and shot out a couple of red sparks. All the Small Beings lay before us, dead.
"That's what Matshis do," sarafina said to me, putting her Gun away...

Meanwhile...

"Ok, boys, load her up!"
Rubean was in the front seat of the spaceship. Felps and dibs were filling up the back of it with alcoholic substance.
"Okay, boss," said Dibs, as they crashed into the seats either side of Rubean.
"Okay, shall we be off then?"
They took off into the air, and started hurtling at a thousand miles a minute.
"Hey, boss, guess what I saw?" Said Dibs.
"Surprise me," Rebean sighed Sometimes, Dibs got excited about the smallest thing. You just had to grin and bear it.
"I saw a pretty, golden carriage, and it had these two pretty horses in front of them. One was sky-blue..."
"Don't take any notice of him," Felps interrupted. "How many times, Dibs? You didn't see a golden carriage. They're legendary, them."
"Well, I did see one, so there!" Dibs declared.
"Wait a minute, Dibs," said rebean. "Did you see anyone near the carriage?2
Dibs thought for a minute. "Well, I did see a lady. Pretty, she was. Kind of like a Siren."
"A Siren!" Rebean exclaimed, makingf the other two jump out of their skins. "Of course. My old partner, Anfina. she always wanted a carriage like that. she's out to get me again. Come, we must go to the City of Pizza! She's the Princess there. Possibly, she's taken Mer there!"
"But boss!" Whined Felps. "Everyone knows the City of Pizza is a legendary place. No-one knows where it is!"
"Ah, but mark my words. We are above the atmasphere of Merth! We are bound to find it now..."

The next morning, Sidlow and I carried on with our quest. The sun beat down on us, and pretty soon, I was beginnimng to think whether it was worth it, whether I'll ever see my brother again.
The beating sun made usd experience all sorts of mirages. At one point, I thought I saw Mer in the distance, only for it to be a prickly tree. Another time, Sidlow thought he saw his litter waving at him, but that turned out to be a pile of dead Goblins, Elves, Dwarves and other Small Beings.
Pretty soon, we got to a castle, which was quite large, and we thought that this too, was another mirage, until we went running right into it.
We both stopped when we were both inside, and saw someone blocking our path. She was a pretty lady. She had brown hair, which wavered like a mermaid. she was a siren.
"Hello, Mer," she said. "How nice of you join us."
I stared at her. "What was she on about? Why did she think I was Mer? And if so, who was he? My brother Mer?
"I'm not Mer," I said.
"Of course you are. And this is your mate Sarafina, cleverly disguised as a Boblar. Well, well, I've never known before, but now I know what Matshis do. Come! We have a pizza to perfect!"
What was going on? Who was Sarafina? What was a Matshi? Why did I have to perfect this pizza?
The woman led Sidlow and I down a corrider, towads what I believed was our doomed fate...

Karina and Mitha sat down to eat their porridge. Karina wondered if she should perhaps talk to him about his two sons. A while back, he had talked about cloning Mer.
"Mitha?"
"Look, Karina, I just sat down to enjoy a lovely bowl of porridge. I don't to talk about our sons, OK?"
"Mitha, I wasn't going to talk about Mer or Juniper. I just wanted to know, are you still wanting to clone Mer?" She waited.
Mitha slurped his porridge. "Yes," he said. "Let's not talk about it anymore."
"But, Mitha, cloning's really expensive. and apparently, we need a DNA sample to give them, which we don't have." She could feel the tears welling up.
"Now, Kar, don't start crying, I'm sure he's left a hair or two on his pillow." As if that settled it. Karina knew it wasn't settled. There was still the small matter of...
"Money," she said. "We don't have enough money."
"Oh, I'm sure we do."
"Okay, where? If you think we have enough money! Where? We've been scrimping away for the past few months, on very little. Having to stretch it, because we get paid peanuts!"
"It's simple, Kar, we'll just go to the bank and ask for a loan." He picked up the honey and squirted some on his porridge. Honestly! Women! They liked to make such a drama and palava out of nothing!
They sat in silence, eating, when sudemly, Karina blurted out: "I don't want to clone!"

Find out what happens next in Chapter Thirteen...