The Dream Easel - Part 1

Mr. Liggle was starting to get worried about his daughter. He was used to her spending a long time up in her bedroom, (which often emitted strange noises like the screeching of a bat or the kind of noise you get when you run a knife through cheese magnified one hundred times) but she did not normally miss meals. He knew better than to shout, he had given up on that long ago, she either could not hear him or did not want to hear him; and going up to get her was out of the question. He shuddered as he remembered the last occasion when he had lost his temper and had entered her bedroom: all he could remember was a lot of green sparks and the next thing he knew, his foot was on the wrong way and flowers bloomed where ever he walked for a week; which was extremely embarrassing. He did not like his daughter messing around with magic-if it where not for her Mother then he would never allow her to do magic anymore, not that he could have stopped her.

When their super had started to go cold and the shepherd's pie was looking a bit soggy, he decided that there was no harm in knocking on her door. It was then that he saw some magic leaking through the ceiling. Concentrated magic is very odd: you can never quite work out what colour it was and no matter how directly you look at it, it was always as if you could only see it out of the corner of your eye. It was an odd mixture between liquid and gas, though it could always be solid if it wanted to, and it made Mr. Liggle feel very uncomfortable. He was just wondering whether it would be sensible to run away from the magic and whether it would follow him (it is funny how something you cannot even see properly can look so menacing) when a bit of it sank through the air and onto the table. The old wooden table turned a horrible custard yellow and started bounding towards Mr. Liggle, its four legs (not having been used much) creaked and groaned at this sudden burst of energy. Mr. Liggle no longer cared about sensibility. He dived out of the room and ran into the hall, slamming the door behind him.

The door, however, did not like treatment of that kind. "You could at least say sorry you know." it said rather huffily, "It hurts my hinges to move too quickly and that's nothing compared to the impact when I hit the door frame." and it turned it's back on Mr. Liggle. (As effectively as a door can without opening.)
Mr Liggle backed onto his soft furry rug that lay on the hall floor, which was a mistake. The rug began writhing and twisting, it was like standing on soft, furry snakes and its tassels were like wriggling tentacles. That was not all, Mr. Liggle had the distinct impression that it was ticklish; after he heard a muffled giggling. It was all he could do to stop himself from screaming as he jumped of the rug. "MARIA!" he bellowed so loudly that several pieces of furniture covered their ears and a few bits of plaster lost their grip and fell onto the floor: before scuttling back up the walls and finding their places again. As he expected, there was no reply so he was forced to climb the stairs, which were whispering and giggling rather unpleasantly among themselves and he was quite sure that they were moving. He put his foot on the first step and, encouraged when nothing happened, he carried on up the staircase. He got a rather nasty shock when a confident stair about halfway up tried to buck him off, and he grabbed the banister for support. The banister, however, blew a raspberry at him and wriggled out of his grip. All the stairs laughed at him as he struggled to hang on, and it was a relief to reach the top.
He stared along the deserted landing, wondering what was going to jump at him next. There was only one piece of furniture in the landing; the old chest of draws that his grandmother had given him. He watched it apprehensively before carefully side-stepping round it: he need not have worried though, it was a very shy. Trying to ignore his pounding heart, he began to move further up the landing. He was just beginning to wish that his daughter's bedroom was not the very last room when his pillow came bounding out of his room and began rubbing against his legs like a friendly cat. He aimed a kick at it, but it quacked in a hurt sort of way and waddled awkwardly back into his bedroom. He peered round the door just in time to see it do a sort of belly flop onto his wicker chair and curl up next to the smouldering cinders of his fire.
A half-empty bottle of shampoo skipped past him, followed by some conditioner, who was having some trouble keeping up. (It was half full, and considered this to be a definite disadvantage)
He crept further up the corridor, trying to stop himself from imagining what could possibly be making the angry buzzing noise coming from the bathroom, and wondering what was causing all the purple light in the spare room. He was only about a foot away from Maria's bedroom door, when it burst open and Maria came running out amidst a cloud of magic; her face shining with pleasure.

"I've done it!" she squeaked excitedly, "Come on, Daddy, come and look!" She pointed inside her bedroom, which still looked as if it was over flowing with magic.

But Mr. Liggle, feeling that he should impress upon her the seriousness of what she had done, began thinking about what he should do as a responsible father.

Maria's face suddenly fell, "You're not going to punish me are you?" she asked, tentatively.

"Of course I am!" he bellowed, wondering how he could possibly punish someone who could probably turn him into a frog, "You've leaked magic every where! The whole house is in shambles!" he paused, and stared down at his daughter.

Maria stared back, "A bit of the magic just leaked out of the bottle . . ." her face brightened, "but I got the dream easel to work!"

Wondering what on earth a dream easel was, Mr. Liggle was just about to start shouting again, when he became aware that several pieces of furniture were peering out from behind doors and listening, so he mumbled, "You'd better come down and have your supper."

Maria delayed them slightly by insisting on stroking the exuberant pillow, which got attached to her immediately and started following her everywhere, quacking and wagging its tail. Or at least you could tell that it would have done if it had a tail. The stairs some how seemed to behave well around Maria, and they were careful not to tickle the rug, but when they got to the kitchen door, (who was still sulky) Mr. Liggle heard a lot of bangs and crashes. The door turned to face them and said primly, "I am afraid the table is frightening the cutlery out of their wits! They are running around everywhere. Well, the table seems to be enjoying himself, even if I do get stabbed by a couple of hundred knives!"

"Maria, Can't you put this all right? I mean, you must know some spell . . . or, or, something . . ." his sentence trailed off.

"Well, I haven't really learned that bit yet . . . and it should wear off after a couple of days." The pillow nodded at her heels. Maria paused for a moment before asking, "I suppose we could ask Mum to, you know, mop it up a bit?"

Maria's Mother was a witch, and quite a powerful one at that, but Mr. Liggle had been avoiding her recently. He would never admit it, but he was scared stiff of waking up one morning and looking . . . looking distinctly different. He had heard of what magic could do to people and he did not want to find out if the rumours were true or not.

"But she lives miles away! By the time we got back, the magic would probably have cleared itself up any way." he pointed out. Then, seeing the uncomfortable look on Maria's face, he added, "You did say that it would wear off after a couple of days, didn't you?"

"Probably." she said, then to cover the awkward moment, she added, "The dream easel works! I can't wait to go and test it!" and she rushed up the staircase, which gave a disgruntled wiggle, the pillow bounding along after her.

It was not until she was half way to her bedroom, when Mr Liggle remembered that he should punish her. "And there will be no supper for you!" he shouted after her. He tried not to listen to the crashing and clattering still coming from the kitchen, but he was quite sure that he was not going to be getting any either.

Once Maria had closed her bedroom door behind her, she stood admiring her dream easel. It was just like and old-fashioned artist's easel, except there was still a little magic leaking out of one corner. It had a rubber looking sucker attached to it by what looked like a long, elastic string of magic that was neatly coiled up on her bed, which now had two friendly pillows, who were playing tug of war with one of her socks. She was very proud of her dream easel. The easel should show the dreams of a sleeper, if he or she had the sucker on his or her head somewhere. The problem was how to test it. She could not sleep and watch it at the same time. It was then that she had an idea.

She did not need to wait long until her Father went to bed, she crept into his room: he was a little uncomfortable in the absence of his pillow, and was snoring loudly. She planted the sucker onto her Father's fore head; this was going to be fun!