Thistlebloom and the Secrets of Brewer's Botanicals

Chapter Six

Lysander woke early the next morning. Although he could tell it was daylight, he kept his eyes shut tight. 

'It was a dream. I dreamed Thaddeus came to tell me I was going to a school for Beastmasters, and those creatures are my imagination.' 

There was a loud tapping noise. 

And there's Butterball scratching on the door, Lysander thought, his heart sinking. But he still didn't open his eyes. It had been such a good dream. 

Tap. Tap. Tap 

'All right,' Lysander mumbled, 'I'm getting up.' 

He sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. The room was full of sunlight, and he was surrounded by the same white walls. He heard the tapping again and his attention was drawn to the window. There was a creature rapping its claw on the window.

Lysander scrambled to his feet he went straight to the window and jerked it open. The creature swooped in and dropped next to his feet. It began to peck at his ankles, and he shuffled his feet to shoo it away. 

'Don't do that.' 

Lysander tried to wave the creature out of the way, but it snapped its beak at him. It had bright pink feathers but the strangest thing of all was its head. It looked like the head of a phoenix, but its body resembled that of a peacock. 

'Hey!' said Lysander loudly. 'That is mine —' 

The creature had jumped up and had its head buried inside a bag of cookies. Lysander tried to grab them away, but the creature snapped at his hands and moved under the bed. 

There was a crashing sound from the kitchen and Lysander stood straight up. The sound was too loud for Butterball to have knocked something down. 

He pulled on his slippers and made his way down the hall. Lysander hugged the wall as he approached the steps there was a series of shouts and a few more crashes and he got closer.
'Hello?' He called out. 'Who is there?' 

He had nothing to defend himself with but a break-in in Eldridge that was unheard of.
As he rounded the corner, he peeked into the kitchen making sure to keep his body hidden behind the wall. A flutter of patchwork clothes blurred around his kitchen. 

'Thaddeus?' He whispered to himself. 

He stepped out behind the wall and there Thaddeus stood fighting with his coffee maker.

 'Thaddeus, what are you doing?'

'What is this thing?' Thaddeus asked holding up the now smashed machine. 

'A coffee machine.' 

'Well, it started to blare at me, and I tried to make it stop but it would not cease.' 

'What did you do it?' Lysander asked as he took the smashed parts away from Thaddeus. He sat the machine down and looked at Thaddeus. He wouldn't take his eyes off the machine as if it would suddenly come to life and attack him. 

'Best be off, Lysander, lots to do today we need to buy all your stuff for school.' 

Lysander was going through everything in his head. 

'Um — Thaddeus?' 

'Mm?' said Thaddeus. 

'Where do you plan on getting all these,' Lysander looked around the kitchen as if someone might be listening to them. 'Beastmaster books?' he whispered.

'Don't worry about that,' said Thaddeus, 'I know the place and I bet you will even remember it.' 

'But what does that mean?'