(Narrated by Kevin Coffey)

* FOR PARENTS: This chapter is a bit of a spicy meatball, still suitable for kids to read, but I give it a definite PG rating. You might check it out before your kids do.

* You can always find any of this story as it progresses in order (Writing, Illustrations, Narration—OH MY!) on my home page under the new KINGDOM OF DREAMS tab up top.

Enjoy! -KC-

Gravel crunched beneath Jimmy’s feet as he waded through rolling waves of fog. A part of him desperately hoped that the mist was crawling with mysterious creatures who might latch on and swallow his legs whole so he couldn’t walk.

Anything would be better than the monster in human flesh waiting for him up the hill. I must be crazy going up there, Jimmy thought with a slight tremor. But I have to know.

The stones underfoot were the only clue that he was still headed down the alley between the veiled brick buildings of his middle school. Otherwise, he was snow-blind from the thick white fog that still lingered, even though it was almost noon.

Jimmy was supposed to be inhaling a ten-second lunch before reporting to stupid math class where Mrs. Lickey—yes, unfortunately, that actually was her married name—would undoubtedly give him a year’s worth of homework to complete in one night.

Not that Jimmy was all torn up about it. He was starting to think that even boring math problems would beat real world ones, like getting the snot knocked out of him.

His stomach tied itself in knots as those three terrible words rang through his head again: “Round Hill, noon.”

The unspoken rule was all school fights were carried out on the property behind their middle school. If someone said “Round Hill” to you, it was a challenge to fight, and you had better well go. Those who refused suffered reputations beyond repair.

Not that Jimmy had a reputation to worry about anymore, but he was willing to show up because he was too curious to miss finding out if he could really make his enemies disappear by uttering a single, strange-sounding word—some kind of black magic spell?

Then there was the other part that he couldn’t even wrap his brain around. What was that jellyfish shadow thing that popped up in his room? He couldn’t decide if it was friend or foe. And what had happened to his body that allowed him to travel to Bucky’s room? Today was the day to prove how legit these powers were, or…he’d be stomped into the ground, and that would be that.

An alarm on the side of the school wailed, and Jimmy froze, at first thinking he’d tripped a siren announcing his escape from the building. He imagined the school’s administration releasing Dobermans to recapture him. If only school were THAT interesting. But the annoying squawking sound only meant the late bell for changing classes.

Jimmy glared at the walls of his school as he passed by. It had been two weeks since Bucky Brees’ and Clayton Stones’ plan had worked to perfection to ruin his life. Since suffering his unfortunate incident, Jimmy certainly hadn’t missed attending this sucker. For his troubles, they assigned him something called Time Away—which Jimmy translated as a thinly-veiled version of forced Home School to ease the legal burdens and worries of his school.

It felt like he was in a poorly planned Witness Protection Program, with the glaring exception that everyone and their dog’s brother knew where he lived. As a result, raw eggs and other unspeakable things ended up on his driveway in a grotesque soup that sometimes recooked itself over and over as the sun baked the pavement. (Driveway eggs over-easy, anyone?) The trees in his yard were always blooming with fat blossoms of toilet paper. It was all his mother could do to keep his father from murdering his classmates.

Online, as Bucky predicted, kids across the world lined up to make fun of him. Some of the local ones that piled on used to be his friends. So, other than playing solo mission video games once in a while, he stopped going online for good.

And Jimmy almost swore off going back to school. Almost. That would have meant letting them win, and on that front, he was unflappable. Jimmy would never let them break him. Never.

Bucky Brees, the troll who had next-level embarrassed Jimmy, hadn’t fared so well either. Far worse, really. It was true that he’d also been expelled from school, but it was strange. It was as if he had been expelled and simultaneously banished to Neverland in a sealed trunk. No one had seen him since, (with perhaps the exception of some surly pirates.)

In fact, not a soul knew Bucky’s whereabouts. Not his family, nor the dimwitted dolts he roamed with—even B.F.F. Clayton Stone-Golem (Jimmy’s nickname for the mountainous bully that gleefully obeyed Bucky’s every bidding). Police and private investigators had all hit a dead end. And the real kicker? Now the FBI was involved.

After Bucky went missing, of course, Jimmy had been questioned because of the massive earth-shattering public humiliation he’d suffered at the bullies’ hands. He had plenty of motive. Jimmy’s computer had been seized and torn apart with its guts inspected from top to bottom. The authorities found some questionable sites he’d visited online.

He told them the truth. What would you want to do to your classmates if they posted naked pictures of you being humiliated and they went viral?

The adults didn’t have a clue how to answer that without sputtering some phony wisdom they didn’t truly mean, and they couldn’t relate to what it was like to be him, nor did they find any incriminating evidence, so he tuned them out.

There should have been more suspensions, but then nearly the entire school would have been a ghost town. There was pending litigation against the school courtesy of Jimmy’s parents that towed along behind their family about as gracefully as an aircraft carrier.

His big sister Lem, an eighth-grader in his middle school, flip-flopped between wanting to break him in half or simply ignored him like he was a total stranger.

Jimmy told the authorities the worst thing he did to Bucky was curse at the troll before he threw Jimmy into the pit of jackals holding cameras.

A good thing nobody bothered to ask him what curse he used.

He didn’t like to admit it, but in private, Jimmy shared his town’s same question: where WAS Bucky Brees? Did he really make him disappear that night? And was that a cool thing or plain horrible? Undecided.

As for Clayton Stone-Golem? He wasn’t implicated at all in Jimmy’s incident despite Jimmy’s earnest insistence. And of course, on Jimmy’s first day back to school, Clayton was the one demanding the fight on Round Hill.

Jimmy clenched his teeth. You’ll get it you big troll. I’m through hiding.

Jimmy shuffled through the waist-high, unmowed back section where the school’s property line ended, and the hill began; the grass there had grown to seed. Tiny feathery pods broke off as he walked through them, coating his clothes like alien fur.

Round Hill used to be part of a long-extinct elementary school playground. It sat just off school property like it was being punished. Its forsaken terrain looked like the remains of an unlucky target hit by bombs during a forgotten war—an unofficial junkyard. There was a modern art blend of rubble: bricks, broken glass, scrapped metal lunch-boxes, cracked hula-hoops, #2 pencils (remember those?)—you name it.

At the crest of the hill, the landscape created a natural built-up stage, a raised platform as if the school had installed it just for fights. In truth, it was an arena of terror for picked-on kids like Jimmy that had next to zero fighting ability.

There was usually an armed officer that patrolled the school boundary in front of the hill after school to keep the peace. But lunch was another story. Jimmy had to hand it to Clayton; he wanted to throw down in a bad way without chancing the adults might step all over it.

Jimmy wiped his brow, looking up at the rest of the intimidating shadow of the immense hill left to climb blanketed in fog. Now comes the hard part.

And—

Can’t do it, Jimmy thought. He felt like he had with Bucky in the locker room, nauseous again. Who could blame him? Clayton was twice Bucky’s size, and the rumor was, he had rounded up a pack of other criminals to support him.

Jimmy cursed and drop-kicked an ugly clump of weeds, did an about-face, and began stomping his way back toward the school. Fight back? Yeah right. “Who am I kidding?” he said, talking to himself. “They’re the toughest bullies in the school; there’s no way I can win.”

You CAN, I said as a popping, confident whisper he couldn’t confuse with the wimpy-voiced Burks. Show them, I urged him on.

Would you believe it? The little punk ignored me and just kept on trucking.

I walloped him with everything I had:

SCARE THEM.

Jimmy stopped again, slightly interested.

SCARE THEM. SHOW THEM YOU MEAN BUSINESS! Besides, it’ll-be-fuuuun, I sang to him.

You’re right, Jimmy answered me in thought, whipping back around with a sneer on his face and hot-footed it up to the top of the hill without managing to trip or impale himself on any of the numerous broken off sharp objects lying about.

He heard me again! Game on.

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Jimmy arrived in the middle of the ring without fanfare, like a lesser-billed fighter nobody wanted to waste a bet on. Towering over Jimmy, obscure shapes of bullies veiled by the infuriating fog closed in around him.

Now that they were close enough to identify, it appeared Clayton had recruited the worst bunch of troublemakers in their middle school. Jimmy figured half of them should have probably already graduated from high school, but he guessed they were still a good five or six years away from that miracle happening.

“Wheel, what do you know,” said a wavering, high-pitched voice full of more twang than a badly tuned banjo, “gooner showed.” Hardly the kind of voice that should have belonged to an Alpha bully, let alone the colossal teenager that owned it.

Jimmy’s insides turned watery at being spoken to by the unnerving sound of those sing-song tones. For good reason.

A massive shape strutted forward, reached up, and easily slapped a set of rusted monkey bars next to him that let out a whimpering screech, causing them to leak dust. It was a miracle the twig of a bar didn’t snap off in his dinner-plate-sized hands.

It was unmistakably the eighth-grade goliath who had thrown down the challenge, fresh from the moment Jimmy stepped off the bus this morning with more than enough witnesses to make it in an official event: Clayton Stones. The other member of the Tyrannic Duo.

Clayton Stones: it’s as if his own parents caved on their choice of a nice-sounding name upon realizing they were about to spawn a rabid ogre. The other bullies moved in closer to Jimmy, their mouths practically watering with the cruel interest of a pack of starving hyenas.

All law-abiding classmates had obviously been warned to stay away or else. Clayton clearly wanted something and was prepared to go to terrifying lengths to get it.

Jimmy clenched his jaw, unknowingly grinding his teeth with the increasing stress. A tense energy almost matched the thickness of the fog, unsettling Jimmy. Not a good start.

The yokel yeti yawned like he was bored while scratching a patchwork beard that wildly merged into a hairstyle that Jimmy thought best resembled a half-plucked rooster.

Surrounded, Jimmy’s confidence plunged to cowardly levels, but he was too curious to bolt. He had to find out if the curse was real.

“Well… I’m here, aren’t I?” Jimmy chirped. Jimmy cringed at how high-pitched and broken his voice came out.

More botched laughter.

Then that blasted Burks piped up again: Enough of this. Jimmy, wise up. Let’s vamos!

“Definitely not now,” Jimmy muttered under his breath before realizing he had scolded Burks out loud, out of habit.

Clayton squinted, like Jimmy had spoken in tongues. “Ah heard you do that, but you really are a loon, ain’t you, gooner?”

There was that useless word again, gooner. It’s never catching on, bonehead, Jimmy thought.

Clayton shook his head with fake pity, but looked more like he was suffering through a rough bowel movement. “Nice pics, by the way. Wee, wee, wee!” Clayton waved a pudgy pinky in Jimmy’s face.

An undercurrent of rage rolled through Jimmy, igniting his insides.

“Before Ah cave in your face, tell me where my boy Bucky Brees is, and wheel decide if you git to live.”

“Don’t know. Don’t care,” Jimmy shrugged. His raging adrenalin allowed him to keep eye contact with Clayton, but prayed the bully couldn’t detect how badly his insides were squirming.

Clayton produced a pouch, and put a stinking, hairy wad of tobacco inside his bottom lip that made it bulge horribly, like his mouth was suffering from an instant allergic reaction. “Ah thank you do. Ah help you remember.”

“No, Ah really don’t, gooner,” Jimmy said, lilting his voice into an ignorant drawl, spot-on imitation.

The hyenas gasped as one.

The big redneck’s eyes flickered with deadly intent. “Comedian, huh? Only Ah git to say gooner. Never you.”

Clayton hocked a loogie of tobacco, tagging the front of Jimmy’s shirt, causing a slowly descending but monstrous slug trail.

Jimmy scowled, his jaw involuntarily trembled. His rage rocketed to nuclear. The shirt—his absolute favorite of a mind-blowingly real illustration of a dragon locked in a ferocious battle with a knight—totaled.

Jimmy cursed Clayton under his breath and spat on the ground, something he would have never done in a million years until today, spoken out loud in front of all of the bullies.

The curse word might as well have been a thunderclap. Clayton’s hyenas let out another collective gasp—now one too many—at his daring to insult their pack leader.

Clayton leaned into Jimmy’s face. That tobacco reeked something fierce. “Ah’m gettin’ tired of asking. Ah want that reward money they offerin’ to find Bucky. Kindly tell me where he is. Last chance, head-case. Talk or die.”

Clayton jerked Jimmy’s head back by his hair and, this time, coated his entire face with an unholy stream of spit-up tobacco juice. He shoved Jimmy to the ground.

The shock of the event hit Jimmy like flood. He felt violated. Even the laughs of Clayton’s hyenas turned muted as oily chunks of hot-sticky tobacco ran down Jimmy’s face—some into his mouth, burning his tongue and causing him to choke and gag.

On his hands and knees, Jimmy coughed and sputtered, looking at the muddy ground through watery eyes. His body urged him to retch, but he held it in like a trooper.

You’ll be okay. Don’t cry; just get up and tell them what they want to hear. Burks said with an empathizing gentleness. Jimmy—

Jimmy shushed the voice, calmly wiping his soiled face with his sleeve. Jimmy climbed to his feet, and stared Clayton down, defiant. “You want to know what really happened to Bucky? I personally paid him a little visit and…Cursed him. And I don’t mean what I just called you. A real curse—a hex!” He let his gaze wander to each bully in Clayton’s pack for maximum effect.

It worked. The hyenas in Clayton’s gang of goons began nervously muttering among themselves.

At first, Clayton too, took a step back like a cornered skunk might spray him. Then he let out a high-pitched, sputtering an out-of-place laugh. “You kidding, right? Cursed? What? You a little witch or something?”

The hyenas, however, continued to look at each other, uncertain. The rumors of what Jimmy might be had clearly been circulating around the middle school.

“Look—I have no idea where your boy is. All I know is he attacked and humiliated me, so I cast a curse and?”—Jimmy snapped his fingers—“adios.” Jimmy’s self-confidence had never felt better—he owned these chumps. Plus, he’d never stood up for himself before.

Uh… Might want to think about hauling buns, AMIGO, Burks chimed in.

With shocking speed for a lummox, in one motion, Clayton spat out the rest of his tobacco wad on the ground, heaved Jimmy off his feet by the throat, and squeezed, holding him inches away from his primitive face.

A pang of genuine fear buzzed in Jimmy’s stomach for the first time.

“Where-is-he?” Clayton asked through gritted teeth.

Jimmy tried to say the hex word out loud, but choked on it with Clayton’s giant paw around his throat!

Game over, Jimmy thought.

Clayton hoisted a gasping Jimmy high in the air, ready to slam him against the ground.

Jimmy closed his eyes, bracing himself for the worst. I tried my best—

“Clayton… The swings,” one of the hyenas practically yelped.

Jimmy’s watering eyes shot open.

Just outside of their circle, a crooked line of ancient swings screeched to life, moving in the quickly dissipating fog.

The seats began to glide back and forth…on their own!

The seats were empty but bowed, and the rusty chains holding them shifted and pulled, grinding and squeaking as if straining with actual weight, propelled by the folding and straightening legs of small invisible children. All by themselves, the spirited swings sped up and climbed higher and higher. Shrill giggles and screams of an army of phantom children at full play assaulted the air.

Jimmy had no clue what was going on; he was just as stunned and freaked out as the bullies.

“Clayton, drop him or he’ll curse you, too! He’s legit,” a lesser bully yelled.

Clayton hurled Jimmy away like he’d transformed into a rattlesnake; all of Jimmy’s breath exited the building upon making hard contact with the ground. Jimmy winced as one of his shoulders wrenched too far backwards, like it had been dislocated.

Clayton’s hyenas bailed and scampered down the hill, practically screaming themselves silly.

Clayton slowly walked over and lifted a dirty boot to kick Jimmy to Mars and put him out of his misery. “Don’t know what you are, but time for you to git.”

“Mishfictnishnee,” Jimmy whispered at the last second with an ability and confidence that surprised himself once again.

Clayton planted his swinging boot down as if by command; his eyes grew planetoid in size and his mouth scrunched up like Jimmy had given him a brain wedgie.

The monstrous bully stumbled backward down the hill with the stunned expression still plastered on his face, then turned, running as fast as his lumbering body would take him back toward the school.

Jimmy smiled with satisfaction. The once dense fog had completely lifted, and it was beyond magical to behold the toughest bullies in the school, fleeing from the sight of him.

Burks’ voice in Jimmy’s head came rushing back in a panic: Dude, do you have any idea what you just did? And where did you learn to say… THAT?

Funny you should ask.

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