The Imposter 7/9

Jennifer Jane agreed and spent the next two days wandering around the village getting to know people.

Every one now accepted that she was a witch, but still didn’t believe her when she said she was the real Jennifer Jane.

She was also beginning to think that the parson was telling her stories about the arrival of her nine foot high namesake, just so that he could have a continuous supply of chocolate swiss rolls.

Then on the third afternoon of her stay, one of the children came running in from the fields. “Jennifer Jane’s coming,” he shouted as he ran along the street, telling everyone the news.

Jennifer Jane was just as excited as all the rest of the village, even if it was for a different reason.

Sure enough, about two hundred yards away, a very tall lady with a small dragon trotting by her side, was walking towards them. Several of the smaller children were already following her excitedly; indeed the lady had picked one of them up and was giving him a ride on her shoulders.

“Now that really is Jennifer Jane,” said several people in the crowd rather loudly; looking at Jennifer Jane to make sure that she’d heard them.

The lady could be seen quite clearly now. She was very tall indeed, much taller than her dad and quite a lot older than Jennifer Jane, although still younger than her mum.

In contrast, the dragon was quite small. He was only the size of a small pony and was brown in colour like most baby dragons. The parson had gone to meet the lady and welcomed her to the village, then he started chatting in a quiet voice. Jennifer Jane had a feeling he was talking about her, sure enough the lady looked across at her and then walked over.

“I hear you are claiming to be Jennifer Jane,” she said with a laugh, “I should have thought it was perfectly obvious that you’re not nine feet tall! Besides, where’s your pet dragon?”

Jennifer Jane held out her scroll, “This proves who I am,” she said. “That is if you can read,” she added rather nastily.

“Of course I can read, I’m a witch, but this doesn’t prove any thing does it! The parson has already told me how he proved to you that he was the Archbishop of Canterbury. Bits of paper don’t really mean much! You’re supposed to be a bit of a witch yourself so they tell me. I challenge you to trial by combat!”

“Rules of engagement, paragraph seven, er clauses two and three?” replied Jennifer Jane, trying desperately to remember some of her old lessons.

The lady suddenly looked a bit less sure of herself. “That’s right,” she said, then before Jennifer Jane could do anything, kicked out at her with one of her long legs.

Jennifer Jane blocked the blow without even thinking. Whatever else she’d learnt in the past, her combat training was still fresh in her mind. However the move took her by surprise and she didn’t make any attack of her own in reply. Even so, stopping her attacker’s leg in full flight had taken the lady off balance and she fell over.

The villagers were all running away to a safe distance, while the baby dragon looked on with rather a puzzled expression on its face. It obviously had no idea what was going on.

The next move the lady made took Jennifer Jane completely by surprise. Without even getting up from the ground she ‘threw’ a fireball.

Fortunately the combat class training took over and without consciously thinking, Jennifer Jane countered with the correct defence and threw a huge bucket of water that drenched her opponent. The lady looked at her in absolute amazement, before disappearing completely under a massive swiss roll that arrived immediately afterwards.

Jennifer Jane had just remembered how effective the same method had been, when she’d stopped the wizard Malcolm in his tracks after his last kidnap attempt. She rushed over and helped the lady get out from under the sticky mess.

To her surprise she found her in tears. “I’m not really Jennifer Jane,” she admitted. “When I heard all the stories, I thought that if I was nine feet tall I’d be able to travel all over the country and live for nothing in every place I stopped.”

She fumbled at her knees with a rather sticky hand and then stood up. Lying on the ground were two short stilts that she’d used to add to her height. Even so she was still far taller than any one in the village.

“People have always laughed at me because I’m over six feet tall. Then I had the idea of impersonating you and now you know the truth. What are you going to do?”

“I think you should get cleaned up first and then we’ll go off somewhere quiet and have a good long chat.”

As they turned to go, Jennifer Jane laughed and pointed back towards the heap of sticky cake. The blacksmith and parson had both rushed home to get big bowls and were busy spooning up as much as they could, before everyone else realised that it was good to eat.