Dragons in Disguise

Chapter 3 - Treehouses and trouble (Joy)

A lot of chapters will be in this perspective because this is my character.

On their way home, Alex said his head felt like it was being hit with a hammer, so Andy boosted him onto Joy's back for the journey home. Joy grunted, Alex was heavy, she walked home slowly while everybody chattered about the treehouse plan. If Alex was feeling alright, Joy wanted to start construction tomorrow. As she staggered to a stop in front of their houses, their anxious mothers came out to meet them. Both gasped in shock and concern at the sight of Alex's swollen face and they relieved a very tired joy of her burden and took him inside.

Amidst all the fussing over Alex, and Joy because she carried him, the story was told. Joy thought she had never seen her uncle so mad. Eventually, there was a beat of silence before Mum said, "Robert's dad visited today." 'Crap,' Joy thought, 'This won't be good.' Sure enough, "He said David kicked him?" "Yes," Joy said, "but it was semi-self-defense." Dad looked confused, "Meaning?" "Meaning Robert was hitting on us girls, but Grace was closest to him, so David stood between him and told Robert to back off. He said, 'or what?' and then David kicked him. Um... where it hurts."

Joy told her tale and watched in interest as the faces of the four parents turned from concern to anger, to trying to hide smiles all in one blink-and-you-miss-it moment. "Well..." Uncle Jerry started, "David, that was very brave and noble of you, defending your cousin like that, but only in extreme situations like that. Capeesh?" David nodded and said, "Sure!" and Joy thought he looked rather pleased with himself.

*Time Skip*

The next morning, the swelling on Alex's eye had gone down and he had a fantastic shiner with lovely purple and black colours. Joy's excitement, they were going to start construction on the treehouse today. The woodshed had more than enough planks for their project. It was going to have one big hut in the biggest tree for a 'Meeting house,' as well as a place to put their notes. In addition to that, they were each going to pick a neighboring tree for their own private hut. The plan was to sleep there as much as possible once it was finished.

They headed out to the forest behind the houses after breakfast to pick their trees and Joy all but bolted, she was so excited. 'The sooner we get there, the more time we have.' They went pretty far into the forest, marking trees as they travelled. Suddenly, Joy spotted a small grove of oak trees, big enough and strong enough for what they wanted. Six out of the seven Dragon Nerds stopped to decide what tree they wanted. Joy did not. She raced up the biggest tree which was, helpfully, pretty much in the middle of the grove.

"This one can be the meeting tree!" she yelled down to the others, who were looking up with zero surprise. Joy raced along a branch and leapt to the next tree. "And this one is mine!" "Why that one specifically?" Andy yelled back. Joy waved at him, "Did you not see what I just did? I wanna do that every day!" Alex also called to Joy, "We're building bridges you insane moron! Or did you forget that part?" Joy jumped down out of the tree and pulled a face at him. "Where's the fun in that?"

*Time Skip*

They decided to work on the biggest hut first. This took them a total of two months, they worked every day and slowly, the huts took shape. Months passed as and they built and built. They Dragon Nerds made sure to rotate one person in the library to make copies of the scrolls they wanted to keep at their new base. Joy was relishing the challenge, and, true to her word, she found a reason to leap like a squirrel to her tree and back at least once a day. Everything was going great until, one day. The treehouses where nearly finished when a fully recovered Robert and Co. cornered Grace in the library, offering a duel.