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Langley, curious about what he might penetrate to such profound effect.

      It took but a moment to realise that it was the buttercups that surrounded them, in particular the rather large, teacup-sized one that Arrabella had landed next to, that was wafting the scent straight up her nose.

      Arrabella peeked over the edge and saw that within the buttercup's cup swirled a sticky liquid that looked like nougat-nectar or hedonist-honey.

      Arrabella picked the cup from its stem and raised it towards her lips. She hesitated and put it down; lifted it up again and… sniffed. Oh my!

      Should she drink from the cup? Was this part of the test or was it mere coincidence that she was presented with the challenge of whether to drink a drink from a flower with the very same name she'd just given the Towers?

      Wait. The Reginas had taught her that according to Gibbs Law - Rule Number One - there was no such thing as a coincidence.

      But, even so, was this non-coincidence a good thing?

      Would drinking from the buttercup's cup move them forward in their quest to find their quests? Or was it, like the oft-talked-about podiatrist's poison, a punishment for petulance?

      Arrabella searched her heart once more, deep down into the bloody, meaty and veiny parts of the thumping muscle. She delved further and further inside her instinctual bones. She knew to trust those deep-down fleshy instincts, a lesson the Reginas had entrenched into her since she was but a babe. The Gypsy blood coursing through those veiny bits allowed Arrabella's true nature sing to her, and it sang a singing-sonnet for her spirit - so that all at once she knew the answer, just as she had all along.

      'Yes! Yes!' cried Arrabella, lost in the spell being spun by the spirit sonnet.

      'YES!' she writhed across to Langley. As she grasped his thigh with one hand - just because she could - the other lifted the buttercup cup to her trembling lips. She upturned the flower and the sickly-sweet liquid slid onto her tongue and down her throat, warm and fuzzy and all kinds of tickly in just the right spots.

      'Yes! Oh yes! Ohhh, yesss!' Arrabella's growl - which, in another time and place would have no doubt been embarrassing - swept through her three companions like a gushing downward wind from a salami-eating giant's flatulence.

      Lord Langley clung to his love, his hands desperate to wander inappropriately; Gary felt the urge to pucker his mouth; and even Jim was a little excited - their quest, momentarily forgotten - as the vision of the writhing maiden was imprinted on their minds forever.

      'I'll have whatever she's having!' said Prince Jim to the Wizard Gary, who passed him an identical buttercup from the lawn of golden blooms. In the wink of a Bell-Frog's eye, he too was twisting and turning amongst the urochrome buds; even if it was in an altogether different manner.

      Soon Gary himself could not resist and joined in the fun, confident in Arrabella's training and instincts; or at least indulging in wishful thinking. He too upended the cup of luscious lager and swallowed it in one delicious gulp.

      Langley shrugged and resisted bravely, until he realised he was scared to be the straight-laced party pooper, soon he too was squirming like a slippery eel playing in golden powder paint.

      It was Arrabella who first noticed the daisies and dandelions and buttercups growing at an alarming rate. Instead of a soft cushioning under her bruised buttocks, the grasses and foliage actually pushed her out of the way as they began to grow around her, higher and higher; the perfectly bright spring sunlight now dappling through the ever-enlargening leaves. The fine stems of the daisies and dandelions were soon as thick as Lord Langley's... bicep; and the ripening buttercup buds threatened to explode and shower them with pollen.

      Faster and faster, bigger and bigger, thicker and thicker, harder and harder this obviously-enchanted forest grew, until Arrabella realised she could barely make out the shadows of her trusted companions any longer.

      'My Lord! My wisest of the wise, wise wizards! My little Fairy Prince! Come to me, come, come now. You are under a wicked enchantment! Hurry, we are stronger as one; come NOW!' she cried as though her life depended on it.

      Together and apart the four fought their way through the jiggling giant jungle until they could at last clasp each other's hands. Gradually, the heaving of the cadium blooms subsided, and the heroes took in their new surroundings. The peaceful tranquillity of the meadow was gone, replaced by a different kind of quiet. They were now in a woodland; again, and always, like none they had ever seen before.

      Well, except Jim. Being a prince of the Fey people, he was right at home among the thrusting wood of the trees. And to prove it he clapped his hands and did that strange little jig that he did so often. In fact Arrabella was beginning to wonder if it was actually a tic.

      'Ooh, I know where we are! This is the Exotically Expansive Extraordinary Enchanted Forest!'

      'The Exotically Expansive Extraordinary Enchanted Forest?' chimed the other three travellers in unison.

      'Yes, the E.E.E.E.F. - or eeeef if you're a local - is well known to all who reside in and around and anywhere near the forests and lakes and harrypotted snapes of this land; and the adjoining ones. It's the most magical of all the forests.'

      'What's so magical about it?' asked Langley, looking rather unimpressed. 'I mean it's just like any other...'

      His voice petered off as he stopped, mid-sentence, mouth agape with the unsaid words still dangling all spittle-like from his lips. He stared somewhere past Gary's frosty shoulder. Jim and Arrabella directed their gaze beyond Gary too. Gary checked his shoulder first, then realised that wasn't the source of everyone's consternation; then he too turned to see what was.

      And there - no, over there - weaving and dodging, scurrying and skittling, around and between and through the trunks of the dandelion trees was a nose-twitching, limb-quivering, fluffy, white, very worried, very large, and singing Rat!

       'The time. No time. For any silly rhymes.

      I'm late, I tell you, late, late, late.

      To ring the bell-tower's chimes.'

      It had to be said that he sung rather well for a Rat.

      Arrabella called after him, seemingly unaware that rats couldn't and shouldn't and usually wouldn't talk. 'My friend, why do you hurry so? What bell tower?'

      'No time to talk, no time to walk, I'm late, I'm late, I'm... LATE!' he squeaked, sounding and seeming altogether more Rat-like now except, of course, for the insistent wringing of his little white paws that cupped a timepiece he oughtn't be able to read.

      The Rat scurried over the Padalecki Prune bush and dashed towards the thick trunk of the Jensonian Tree.

      Langley rushed forth to save the Rat from the impending crash that was almost certain to occur as the oversized rodent ran full speed at the tree. But he was too late. Langley watched in frozen horror as the Rat ran, without slowing one iota, straight at and then into the tree.

      But… instead of a crash, or even a bang or a thump, there was a little snap and a creak and the flustered Rat disappeared by way of a door, barely visible in the base of the tree's trunk.

      'Wait,' called Jim, to the gust of air that was all that remained as evidence that the Rat had ever rushed. 'He's gone. And we didn't ask him. Wonder if there are more giant talking rats like him in these parts.'

      'Young Prince, you have much to learn,' Gary said. 'For all your fairy knowledge and magical oomph, you simply do not have the wisdom to recognise a simple, everyday, common or garden-fork variety Rat when you see one.'

      'What do you mean?' squawked Jim, so flustered and confused and agitated that his happy little dance was now more of a busting-for-a-wee hop, 'But you saw it. He was huge. He towered over all of us. Even our hulking great Lord over there,' he said, pointing at Langley.

      Arrabella tried to resist the urge to look at Langley but failed; the lure of the lusciously rippling and well-oiled

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