A Touch Of Magic

Chapter Ten: A Change Of Colour

A change of colour

The gang had gathered in Treeroot’s underground tree house on Friday a week later, Treeroot and Aimée where staring at Emma with disbelief, and Blingko was rolling on the floor laughing,

“You did what?” Treeroot was yelling, Emma bit her lip and started to explain,

“I thought I had made the perfect concoction. It was supposed to enhance muscle growth and strength, and I thought I had worked out all the kinks, but there was one thing I must have over looked, because now instead of being muscular, Andy’s...well he’s...um...”

“Blue.” Finished Treeroot, which sent Blingko off into another round of giggles.

Aimée didn’t know what was stranger, the fact that Emma somehow made a drink that had turned Andy’s skin blue, or the fact that there was a laughing cat at her feet. She looked up at Andy; he was wearing a big coat with the collar up, long pants, sunglasses, a big hat and gloves to cover his skin.

She stepped towards him and pulled of his hat and sunglasses, Well, she thought, at least it’s a nice shade of blue. Blingko had started to slow down his giggle fit but as soon as he saw how blue Andy was he laughed so hard Aimée was worried he’d burst.

“Wow, he is blue.” Said Treeroot, then her face changed to one of a mischievous imp and ran to a tree-door that was two trees wide and slid sideways. She ran out with a handful of blue paint tubes, and held up one after the other, until she found the one that looked exactly like Andy’s new skin and shouted triumphantly, “Ha, I knew it, ‘ENCHANTED BLUE’, nice choice Emma.”

“I don’t wanna be ‘ENCHANTED BLUE’; I wanna be normal skin colour.” Andy protested.

“What’s with hiding behind your clothes?” Aimée asked, Andy looked at her,

“I might ask you the same question.” She looked down. Aimée’s hair was now completely purple, and had started going different shades. It stopped growing when it got to her elbows, and she couldn’t keep it shorter or longer than that. Even if she cut a big hunk out of it, by the next day it’d be fine.

Andy took advantage of her deep thought and ripped of her hat, her purple hair fell down and her face fell into her hands. They’re going to ask me about why my hair’s purple and then I’m going to have to tell them about what’s been happening to me. Strangely there was silence, Aimée looked through her fingers and into the gob smacked faces of her friends, and even Blingko had stopped laughing.

“There’s something you’re all not telling me, isn’t there.” She said through her fingers as her hands slowly slipped down her face,

“Blingko,” said Treeroot, not taking her eyes of Aimée’s hair, “get the Book.” He nodded but still sat there. Treeroot gently kicked him, “Get the Book.” She said again.

Blingko looked up and Aimée thought she heard him say ‘Hum? Oh,’ before quickly running to the library and coming back dragging a very large, old, and musty, book with his tail. It was about a foot and a half wide, two feet long and at least a foot thick.

“What’s that?” Aimée asked as Treeroot took the book from Blingko,

“It’s called ‘The Gemtan Book of Magic’ but we usually call it the Book,” she explained, quickly shifting through the parchment pages, “unfortunately it most of its pages are written in different languages and there’s only a handful of then written in English. Some of the pages are written in my language, so Blingko, Max and I can read more than Emma or Andy. But the disturbing thing is that you're hair and its new colour looks remarkably like one of the Gemtan in the book, I’m just wondering if it’s a coincidence.”