A Trio of Anomalies - The Quest for Paradise

CHAPTER 21 - A JOURNAL AND A POSTCARD

"Lil Dud, Father's home!" cried his big sister.

"Oh yes! Be right there!" Dudbelly leapt up in glee, tossing his scissors halfway across his table, "I can't wait to show him what we caught just now!"

"Hope you haven't killed it!"

"I didn't! Not yet," He quickly undid the shackles and threw Erwin back into the glass jar, locking the lid and taking it with him as he ran out of his room.

Only when the sorcerer felt his face against the damp straw at the bottom of the jar that he dared open his eyes, for just a moment before Dudbelly's enthusiastic grin was too much for him to bear. Having the wind knocked out of him as he fell he laid still and caught his breath, the straw being just as soft as his queen-sized bed back home, relief comforting him like a blanket. He pulled his hoodie over his head and hugged his backpack with his back against a wall, the trepid feeling still looming over him despite the fact that all his limbs were still intact.

Intrigued and nervous, he sat still as the ogre's bedroom grew smaller behind him, Dudbelly running like mad across the landing and down the stairs and past the storeroom. He couldn't see much, for everything flashed by him in a blur and he was enjoying the rollercoaster-like ride to care anyways.

"Dad! Dad!" Dudbelly screamed, "I caught a live one! I did it! I really did it!"

Erwin gasped when the jar jolted, as the ogre presented it to his father, "Look! He can walk, and talk, and run, and fight, and even scream! You've always said I'm too young to go hunting, but here! Look! He's so pretty! Like a super-smart doll that big sis has!"

Trapped in the jar, the sorcerer waved shyly at Baldsquash, frustrated that he was somehow abashed by his captor's compliments. Dudbelly continued, "Could I keep him? Please? Please? He's so pretty! I don't want to eat him! Could I keep him? Dad?!"

Baldsquash drilled his stare into the trepid sorcerer as the two made eye contact. He remembered the same creature, taunting him while dangling in the air like a peculiar spiderlike creature of some sorts. Curse that insolent pest! Causing him to wreck his favourite chair as he tried to kill it, yelling at his ear and helping the rest of the trespassers escape, lurking in his own house even a few days after, and to his delight, captured and brought to him in a jar by his own son. Dudbelly gasped when his father laughed and gave him an affectionate pat on his head, and even when the giant hand left his head he was still beaming with pride.

"Could I have him just for a minute, Dud?" Baldsquash gruffed, and Dudbelly puckered his face and hugged the jar tightly, disappointed and worried.

"I don't want to eat him!" he cried, "He's so pretty!"

"He is a pest!" Baldsquash reached for the jar, and the young ogre turned away, causing Erwin to tumble to one side, "Let me see him for a moment!"

"Please don't eat him ..." Dudbelly pleaded, "I want to keep him in my room!"

Baldsquash sighed, and Erwin winced as it sounded like a storm, "Give it to me ... that's a good boy. You can have him later, alright? I need to have a word with him."