Now Otis 15 year old boy
and his sister five year old Clara had recently lost their parents when
the fishing dory their mom and dad had been in
sank during a raging
October storm.
No bodies were recovered,nor was the sunken 40 foot dory ever located
at the bottom of Mahones Bay.
Now the previous Christmas her father had given Clara
a chikdrens picture book about
Emeral.Dragon Girl who Could Swallow
all the Oceans..
It was a picture book set in Arthurian times,and
Emeral was the last dragon left in Ireland.\\Mainly because St Patrick couldn't
figure out how to deal with a dragoness
to whom mountains were mere pebbles.
Emerald was one big girl.
Naturally Otis had told his
sister that if Emerald were around
the Ocean wouldn't be drowning anyone else.
Clara had given him a strange look,like
she thought that was a good idea.
Aunt Matilda had been awarded custody of the two kids and had
promptly sold the family house to pay of the debts of her dead brother and
sister in law.
Otis could see that it had to happen
but Clara had started daydreaming about Emerald the Dragon swallowing up the oceans so that
she and Otis could run out there on the dry seabed and scoop up the gems from
all those pirate ship wrecks.
Let Aunt Matilda go trudging about in her
rubber boots,oilskins and pail
scooping up all those flopping fish.
So it came pass that one day Clara was looking over her
Emerald the Ocean Swallowing Dragon
picture book and noticed that a stranger had replaced Merlin in all the
pictures.
The stranger was a old man with a grey beard and dressed up in some
weird 1001 Nights
outfit.
The man in the book seemed to sneak little about in the picture
everytime Clara looked away
so Clara resolved to catch him in the act.
She pretended she was getting sleepy and announced to the world
and specifically that sneaky stranger in the book she'd been tired tired tired.
So she pretended to go to sleep
and in a flash openned her eyes
and caught the old grey man in the act of hopping from one
picture to them next.
"Gottcha" she squealed delightedly
And so she had
The djinn sighed and asked her what
her her five wishes were
He reminded her bringing back the dead was not possible,so forget about the parents.
1) a bag of candy
2)new oilskins for Aunt Matilda
3) a new Barbie doll
4) The kid who'd bugged her last week in school would
find a dozen toads in his desk on Monday
Snap snap snap snap
and four wishes were granted
Now Otis was a bright brainy kid and used to play with his
scientific calculator
telling her how tall Emerald would need to be,weight,etc
to do what the book claimed this wondrous dragon could
do
Swallow all the worlds oceans
And then and there Clara realized her brother Otis
was a natural to be Emerald.
He'd practically measured the beaty inside and out,including
her deepest innermost thoughts
and desires.
So wish 5 came
Turn my brother Otis into Emeral the Ocean Swallowing
Dragon Girl from this book
The old grey guys beard paled somewhat
at that 5th wish but all Clara said to the
djinn's silence was
"Wheres your Snap?"
So the old man snaped
his fingers
and the 5th wish came to be
Now the djinn was allowed a grace period of 14 days to follow
through with a wish
and he certainly applied
that two weeks.
Otis had immediately turned into a blue green
dragoness and then she started getting bigger.
But since we're talking a dragon who can swallow
all the worlds oceans
Otis-Emerald's idea of what
"Big" meant wasn't nearly enough compared to how big
she would become.
So the djinn hastily rowed a dory in the middle of the harbour,where
Otis-Emerald sat on her haunches,already towering a hundred
feet above the water
and after the djinn had got her attention
he discussed matters
with the worlds
wonder of wonders
Naturally
Otis-Emerald wanted five wishes so she could undo
Clara's fifth wish,but
alas that wasn't possible.
She could however get 5 wishes to make
her new lifetyle more
pleasant and less
destructive.
So by the end of the two week period Otis-Emerald
could just barely manage to squeeze her
draft horse sized
body into Aunt Matilda's house.
One thing Otis-Emerald couldn't
shake away was the inner certainty
that if she wanted
to dry the Worlds Oceans dry
she'd have no problem doing so.