The Adventures of Lando Erif :: The Day I Hosted a Tour (Pt. One)

It's cold.

Everyone online is just starting to celebrate about summer and here all us southern-hemispherers (shh it's totally a word) are settling in for a winter.

Hence my fingers are cold.

But even with frozen fingers (and a cold) I managed to get a brand new story written for this week! I don't remember if this was a request that someone gave me or what, but anyways. Here it is. I'm looking forward to hearing how you like it. :D

(and apologies for any typos, I wrote this while in the car to and from several different places today because otherwise I was going to run out of time to get it done.)

I think everyone has at least one annoying relative.

And I, certainly, am not an exception to that.

Just take one look at my cousin, Kyle, and you can guarantee that you won’t be arguing with me any time soon.

Okay, maybe that’s not entirely fair. I mean, it’s not like he’s fat and ugly or anything. He looks pretty normal, talks pretty normal, and dresses pretty normal. He doesn’t gel his hair, and he doesn’t sneer all the time. In fact, if his mother introduced him to you, you’d probably never notice anything wrong with the perfect darling child.

Maybe he’s just a bit too perfect for my liking.

Or maybe he just has a delusional high ego that gets on my nerves.

Or maybe a touch of both added together to make one big messy relationship.

But anyway. This story isn’t to tell you about my cousin’s wardrobe or hairstyle choices. It’s to tell you about the day I took him on an ‘tour’ to Dragon Island.

I know right? Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

It started because Aunt Josephine was going on a conference over the weekend, and she thought it would be a perfect opportunity to have Kyle stay at our house so that we could ‘get to know each other better’ or some such rubbish. Mum tried to save me and back out of it, but Aunt Josephine is the sort of person who can manipulate anything you say to be the exact thing she wanted you to say.

So Kyle was coming to stay. For the entire weekend.

And I was going to Dragon Island that Saturday and I jolly well didn’t want to skip it just because my cousin was coming to stay. It was Visiting Day for the Recruits and I had several duties. If I skipped out, Sir George would have a fit.

I should have. It would have been a lot less dramatic.

Aunt Josephine dropped him off in the morning, laughing and chattering about nothing at all. I stood in the corner trying not to look awkward.

“Now you be good, Kyle.” She patted his shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

He nodded. “Sure.”

“Don’t get up to any mischief, you two.” Aunt Josephine raised her eyes and wiggled her fingers at me before turning away and disappearing into her car.

“Uhm no way. Of course not.” I shoved my hands into my pockets. Maybe I could manage to get Kyle absorbed in a book or something and then I could sneak off to Dragon Island without him.

No such luck.

As soon as I got him into my bedroom, he flopped down on my bed, yawning. “Dude, you’ve got a small room.”

“Well, okay. That’s what happens when you live in the middle of Sydney.” I shrugged, standing awkwardly to the side.

He sat up. “Well? What do you do all day?”

“I do school work. And…” I thought for a moment and then shrugged. “Other stuff.”

“Other stuff like?”

He just couldn’t let it go apparently.

I grabbed a book from my shelf and shoved it at him. “I read. This was a really great book.”

Kyle took it carelessly and flicked through a couple of pages, reading a little. “It sounds okay.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I think you’d love it.”

He grunted and kept reading.

Okay. Operation sneak-out-unnoticed time. I backed toward the door, but he looked up. “I’ve just got to do something, and then I’ll be back.”

“Sure.”

What? That was it? I hurried out before he could change his mind. That was way easier than I was expecting and I let a grin cross my features. Dragon Island here I come.

Ducking out the back door, I dug in my pocket and pulled out a TransNet. The silver threads made it easy to distinguish from the dragon ReLocation Nets, and it made for a much smoother travel. I shook it out so it was big enough to cover me and then swung it over my shoulders like a cloak.

Then someone grabbed it.

I yelped and jerked sideways, but Kyle was beneath the Net beside me and then I felt the familiar poof of air and the ground was gone from beneath me for a moment. Until we landed on Dragon Island.

Kyle stumbled forward and fell to his knees as soon as we hit, and I whipped the Net back and scrunched it small enough to fit back in my pocket.

“Why did you do that?” I demanded in annoyance.

He pushed up off the ground and looked around. “Wow, this is so cool.”

“Why are you here?” I grabbed his shoulder. “I told you to wait.”

“You brought me here. I knew you were planning something.” Kyle pulled away from my grasp and started walking.

“No—what—” I choked over my words and jogged to keep up. “You can’t just walk in here like you own the place.”

It might be Visiting Day for all the Recruits, but that didn’t mean I needed a cousin running around asking questions.

“Then how come you can?” He stopped and looked at me.

I rolled my eyes, giving up. “I belong here, okay? This is…work experience, you could say.”

“You intern on an island? What do you do?” He looked more interested than anything else now.

I stopped, thinking for a moment. “It’s not what most people would expect.” I looked up and noticed a familiar figure storming across the grounds toward me.

Oh great.

Sir George reached us in another few moments. “Lando, what are you doing just standing around? We have a schedule, you know.” He stopped and looked at Kyle. “I didn’t know you had a brother.”

“I don’t,” I replied hurriedly, not wanting him to think that we were related at all preferably.

“I’m his cousin,” Kyle said, offering out his hand. “Kyle Thompson.”

Sir George looked a little surprised as he shook Kyle’s hand. “Welcome to Dragon Island, young man.”

I almost groaned aloud. Why was it that some people just managed to charm Sir George? And not me. Never me. Sometimes I think that I’ll work it out, but really I haven’t got a chance. Not one.

“Well?”

I realised the Sir George was looking back at me again. “Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”

“Obviously not. You’re on a time schedule and you’re slowing it down. Titus and Thomas Kanter are already at the Lunch Bay so you’d better go get started helping them.” 

“Okay.” I nodded and turned away toward the path leading to the Lunch Bay.

“Enjoy yourself,” Sir George added and I twisted around in confusion.

Oh yes. Of course. He was talking to Kyle.

“I absolutely will.” Kyle turned to me and raised his eyebrows. “Are we going somewhere?”

I  resisted the urge to roll my eyes and just turned around again and started off up the track. Kyle tagged behind me, looking around at the buildings with a vague curiosity.

“So Dragon Island?” he prompted, breaking the silence a few paces later.

“Yep.”

“Actual dragons?”

“Yep.”

“Yeah right.”

I shrugged. “No seriously. There are actual dragons. You’ll see them in a moment.”

He looked sideways at me, but I ignore his steady gaze. He’d believe me soon enough.

The dragons came in sight about the same time as the Lunch Bay did. Kyle pulled up short, his mouth dropping open.

I kept walking.

In a moment, he returned to my side, jogging to catch up, his eyes wide. “You really weren’t kidding then. Those are actual real live dragons.”

“Yep.” 

He blinked. “But how?”

“It’s not really common knowledge so there’s no surprise that you didn’t know.” I tugged open the door of the Lunch Bay and pointed him inside.

The twins looked up when we entered, pausing in their work.

“Sorry I’m late, guys.” I shed my jacket and tossed it into the corner. “Where’s my post?”

“No problem,” Titus waved it off. “You can grab some more vegemite jars from the box and load them up. These ones are starting to get empty.”

I ducked into the side room, grabbing a box of jars and turning to lug it out. I crashed right into Kyle and toppled sideways, falling over and dropping the box on my foot. A yell escaped from me and Kyle stumbled back.

“Sorry,” he said instantly.

“Lando are you okay?” Thomas ran forward, going to offer his hand to help me up.

I looked at his hand for a moment, bit back a sigh, then took it, standing up. “I’m fine.” I shot Kyle a look. “If you could stay out of the way, it’d be great.”

He looked slightly miffed but nodded. “Okay.”

Heaving up the box, I lugged it out to the Automagic machine — the twins’ latest invention project. Dumping it on the floor, I started to unpack the jars onto the lunch maker. About half a minute later a yelp from the other side of the room brought my eyes up. “What’s going on?” I stood.

Thomas and Kyle were in a heap on the floor, Titus standing wrathfully over them. “Okay. You’re out. Out, I said. You can’t stay out of the way, so you’d better get out.” Titus pointed to the door.

Kyle jumped to his feet. “What are you insinuating?”

“I’m not insinuating anything.” Titus glared. Turning, he grabbed a sign from leaning against the wall. “Go outside and hold this sign. Make sure that none of the visiting families do any stupid dragon feeding.”

I glanced at the sign. Do not feed the dragons. Fair enough. It’d give Kyle something to do and get him safely out of the way.

Kyle himself didn’t seem so happy about it, but he snatched the sign and stalked out, slamming the door.

“Wow.” Thomas picked himself up. “He’s an interesting guy.”

“No kidding.” Titus calmed down, shaking himself. “I feel kinda bad for yelling now.”

I shook my head. “Don’t worry, he’ll get over it.” Hopefully. At least now he wouldn’t be getting tripped on and crashed into.

In comparison to what happened just after that, getting tripped over and crashed into were absolutely nothing.

I’d just finished loading up the new jars for the Automagic machine when things got even worse. I stood up, leaning against the bench with a sigh. 

“Are we almost ready? Because there’s crowds of people out there.” Thomas was leaning over the bench beside me and looking out.

“What are they going on about anyway?” I squinted, trying to see what they were all looking at.

Then a swirl of flame made my throat go dry.

Kyle was standing right in the middle of the dragon lunch area. Holding a sandwich.

With a dragon roaring toward him.

- - -

AND THERE I LEAVE YOU. Because I love cliffhangers. *evil laugh*

I haven't actually written the second half of the story yet so if you have any suggestions, feel free to shoot them at me and I might be able to include them (maybe, but no guarantees).


Are you enjoying the summer warmth, Northern-Hemispherers?
(and all those down south with me *gives blankets*)
How is the story so far?