Extract from The Neverending Story - a collaborative blog which can be found at my RomanticSynonymous Blog.

"You took your time."

Kallyn whirled towards the gravelled, just-edged-with-sarcasm tone. At least she would have if something hadn't gotten in the way.

She frowned, focused on the offending thing and realised in a vague and testy kind of way that it was her own tail. Just for one brief moment she allowed herself to wonder what exactly had been in the Secret Surprise sauce she'd used on her pasta, and whether she was eventually going to wake up from this odd Secret Surprise dream.

Then she took a deep breath, refocused, and stepped carefully over the tail which now seemed to be twitching her irritation. She avoided the intriguing discovery

"And who are you?" It came out a little edgy, but the diminutive and definitely scrawny man didn't seem to notice.

"I," he responded, drawing himself up into a self-important pose that should have been amusing but wasn't, "am Harkus."

"Right." Except it wasn't. Not really. Especially since both Phil and Jake had slouched into a shared attitude of discomfort. Kallyn looked at Aunt Cecily, who carefully avoided looking back. It promted a small needling voice of suspicion. "What the hell is going on here?"

"Nothing at all." Harkus sounded wa-a-a-a-y too smooth. Kallyn's suspicion crept up a notch. "And this isn't a dream you know. It really has nothing to do with surprise sauce. Or sauce of any kind for that matter."

Kallyn gaped her astonishment, and her horror. So the little fella could read minds? To test him she wondered hard what was going on.

"You'll find out soon enough." He was grinning at her, like he knew stuff. It occured to Kallyn that he probably did. "You're right, I do. But we're late, so best we move along."

He turned and headed off across the meadow, whistling a cheerful ditty. Kallyn gritted her teeth to hold back the growing irritation and was almost tempted to stay put. Who did he think he was anyway, just assuming that she'd trot along after him like a good girl?

Except that the others didn't seem to share this particular need to rebel. Clicking her exasperation, Kallyn gathered her tail under one arm and hurried off after them.