“You really don’t understand do you?” enquired Meow. “I had such high hopes though, we could have been brilliant.”
“But it isn’t about the money,” protested Hans. And for Hans it wasn’t. If he was honest he would admit it came in handy, and he was glad he’d bought the castle for all the things that had happened in his life since. But he’d also come to the conclusion that castle’s were lots of hard work – you never realise how much repair work needs doing with them, just about everything leaks, and in a castle that’s been permeated by lots of magic occasionally the leaks leak leeks. People also never seem to realise how cold they are either, fortunately magical heating is much cheaper than conventional methods.
Plus if they lived in a flat then he wouldn’t be living in the same house as his girlfriend’s dad. No matter how scared he was now, fathers of girls he had dated could be much scarier. There must be some unwritten code, he thought, that means that as a father you have to attempt to terrify any one he might even possibly become a future son-in-law. For starters, there’s the menacing looks, the attempting to crush your hand every time they shake it and the various other things you feel like you’re compelled to do as some sort of male bonding session. The weird thing was that it had got to the stage where Hans really wanted a daughter at some point in his life so he could have a go at doing that as it looked fun. He wasn’t particularly sure whether that was such a good reason to bring a child into the world though.
“It’s always about money, it keeps me in yachts, cars and cat nip.” Retorted Meow, “And you could have had it too, but you are too righteous, too judgemental, too damned nice for your own good.”
If anything, Hans’ strongest motivation was that he wasn’t sure how long Chloe would last in the greenhouse. Being outside during the day was hard enough on her, but in a greenhouse that was designed to magnify the sunlight was even worse. Hans was worried that she had hardly spoken, surely she’d have given Meow one or two witty retorts. Certainly she was a damn sight better at it than Hans was, the best he’d managed so far was ignoring Meow who seemed to be picking up his concern.
“You are a fool,” she cried out, turning and walking away “So be it, if you wish to be abandoned here and consign your girlfriend to torment…”
“You wish,” whispered Chloe barely able to speak.
Meow whipped around, “What did you say?”
“I said, you wish,” replied Chloe. “I mean it’s not like he didn’t warn you earlier,” she added as an imaginary, invisible moose collided with Meow’s back.
Of course, to the casual observer (not that there were many around the greenhouse), all you would see would be Meow sent flying into the air and transforming automatically, because of shock, into her feline form.
The reader will no doubt want to know the juicy details of what happens when a rampaging moose is unleashed on a scheming villain and her two henchmen. But if you were really reading that for blood and gore, then you’ve already read most of the story without it, what on earth is making you think it’s gonna change now. And given it’s an imaginary moose it has to be apt that the reader has to imagine the bone-crunching experience they were now being put through.
Surely, you must be thinking, Meow and her henchmen could transform into some sort of vicious creatures that could take down said moose. For starters, it’s hard enough when said moose is invisible to even know where it is to attack it. But real beauty of this situation is that the moose is imaginary anyway, and how can you injure something that doesn’t exist? You can’t and as a result they were soon laying in crumpled heaps on the floor.
