The wizard's revenge 1/11

Jennifer Jane had been kept indoors by her Mother until she'd tidied her room.

"It's an absolute disgrace; even Jumping Jim won't have anything to do with it. I want everything put away neatly so that he can at least clean the room. Anything left out will be thrown away!"

Well that did it. She wasn't having her precious belongings sent to a jumble sale. Some of the books had been borrowed from the Witches' Home and goodness only knows what the Librarian would say, if she had to tell her she'd lost one of them. So she was folding her clothes and putting books and papers neatly on the shelves.

She was trying to make some room in one of her drawers when she found a small used spell box. She opened it and inside was the Jumping Jim charm and chain, that her dad had found under a fallen tree so long ago. She took it out and hung it round her neck, then put the box in a spare space on a shelf.

A quick look round the room to make sure it was as tidy as could be expected and she was off downstairs. She showed off the Jumping Jim to her Mother.

"That's exactly what I mean about keeping your room neat and tidy. You'd have known where it was all the time if everything was kept in its proper place. Now you can go out and play if you want, I'll just pop upstairs and make sure everything's ready for Jim to clean."

----O----

Jennifer Jane decided to go to the Witches' Home. She didn't feel like waiting for a cloud or Barnacle Bill to come and take her, so she got 'Drawrof' down from the garage roof and pulled it on it's trolley along to the giant's pool. Half an hour later she was lifting her canoe out of the water on to the Witches' Home lawn. No one was about, so it was back onto the trolley so that she could leave it safely in the flying broom shed. Then she went in the Home intending to ask for Abigail.

Rather unusually, the first person she met was a wizard.

"Abigail?" he said, "wait a minute you're Jennifer Jane aren't you? now that's a bit of luck, I was hoping I'd find you. I've got a message for you, she wants you to meet her at Timber Creek, it seems there's a problem down there and she wondered if you could help. I tell you what, I'll give you a lift there on my broom."

He took her by the hand and led her through to the castle side of the Home. His broom was lying on the ground just across the drawbridge. Jennifer Jane waved to the witch on guard duty as she flew off seated behind the wizard. He didn't land at the Timber Yard but flew straight onto the deck of a schooner anchored in the river.

"Abigail's down in the cabin," he said.

Somehow things didn't seem to be quite right. The wizard appeared to be a bit edgy, leading her by the hand had been rather unusual. Everyone knew she was familiar with the layout of the Witches' Home and he'd been in a bit of a hurry to get her on his broom, rather than let her fly over on her own. She started slowly down the companionway steps, then stopped halfway and turned to face the wizard who was coming down behind her.

"Are you sure Abigail's here?" she asked.

The wizard suddenly had a very nasty grin on his face, "Of course she isn't you horrible uppity little kid" and with that he put his hand in her face and pushed her down the rest of the stairs. He jumped on her before she could get up and pulling a piece of rope out of his pocket, tied her hands together in front of her.

"I used to be the number one problem solver at the Home," he said “and then you came along. It wasn't too bad while you were just mucking about with those blasted goblins, but when you started helping the witches and became an apprentice, everyone forgot about me. I'm going to have you lost and this time there won't be a way back. You won't even know where you are. Come to that, I won't even know where you are. The crew of this schooner has been paid to take you through the fogs to different worlds and then leave you stranded on one of them to fend for yourself. Solve that problem you nasty little human apprentice."

The wizard had been tying her feet together while he was talking. Jennifer Jane didn't know what to do. Her protective spell hadn't worked so at least she was in no real danger at the moment. The wizard turned round to look at her as he started to go back up the stairs. By now he was looking very nasty indeed and was beginning to laugh to himself in the most horrible way. She heard a murmur of voices from the deck and then the creaking of halliards as sail was raised. The thud of an anchor being brought up on deck and a slight heeling of the floor where she was lying, showed that the ship was under way.

Half an hour later a heavily built human came down the companionway. “Right miss, we’re through the fog, so we can untie your feet now. You’ve really upset that old blighter haven’t you!”

“The witches will come after me,” said Jennifer Jane, “can’t you let me go before you get yourself into a lot of trouble?”

“The witches won’t find you where you’re going. Don’t worry too much, you wont be hurt but in future you’ll have to learn to make your way in a parallel world without any help. We’ll keep your hands tied for a little while longer, then you won’t be able to twiddle your fingers will you!”

He took her into a cabin and sat her on a seat. Then he left, shutting the door and locking it behind him. Jennifer Jane was a bit disappointed, she had hoped that the schooner might belong to the Davy Jones fleet but that was obviously not the case. The humans were going to earn their money by doing exactly as the wizard had asked. She began thinking of ways to try and escape, but hadn’t come up with any ideas before the captain came back into the cabin.

“Just arriving in harbour,” he said, “we’re going to take you ashore and put you on another ship and goodness only knows where he’s going!”

He led the way up on deck just as the crew moored up alongside a quay. A gangplank was put into position and he went ashore. One of the crew pushed her onto the plank and told her to follow the captain. She followed a few steps behind her captor, while he looked round occasionally to make sure she was still there. Once they were too far from the schooner to be seen by the crew, she began to wonder if she should try and make a run for it. The daylight was beginning to fade and there weren’t too many people about. However, the captain looked as if he might be able to run faster than she could, especially as she still had her hands tied together.

She held her hands in front of there to see if there was any way of undoing the knots. No hope there, the wizard had made too good a job.

Her eye caught the gleam of the charm she was wearing around her neck. A faint hope crossed her mind, She remembered reading a story where the hero left a clue for his rescuers to follow and before she could change her mind, or think it through properly, she pulled hard and broke the chain, dropping the charm on the quayside. She was only just quick enough. The captain looked round for the last time.

“Up here youngster,” he said pointing to a gangplank leading to a large steamer.