Humdrum, Hapless, Righteous, Puny, Troubled, Quirky.
I am - once again - continuing the story of the mysterious examination in transformation and using the words in the order they were given.
I'm still not satisfied with the story or my writing skills. But I want to tell this story! Bits and pieces are missing. This whole chapter is in for a solid re-write before making it into the book. But as I can't just leave out a bit of the story, here we go:
The humdrum process of reading through pages and pages of encyclopedias on mammals, marsupials and other animals in Australia, was interrupted at regular intervals by someone reading aloud when they found a relevant passage.
"Tigers!" Kalle said, "There is an Australian tiger." He paused looking down into the book again: "The Thy-la-cine, wow hope I said this right - is an extinct, or possibly extinct - this means died out, doesn't it?" Knud nodded and Kalle read on: "a carnivorous marsupial that was native to the Australian mainland and the islands of Tasmania and New Guinea. It is commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger or the Tasmanian wolf. The Tasmanian tiger was relatively shy and nocturnal, with the general appearance of a medium-to-large-size canid." He stopped. "What's that?"
"Canid?" Hilde said, Kalle nodded his blonde head and Hilde continued. "Canid is the adjective to canine, meaning as or of a dog. That means dog-like, or a member of the dog-family!"
"Thanks," Kalle said and went on: "This then means that it looks like a medium sized dog except for its stiff tail and abdominal pouch similar to that of a kangaroo."
He drew a deep breath: "The Tasmanian tiger was an expert predator; but exactly how large its prey animals were is disputed. Its closest living relatives are the other members of Da-sy-u-ro-mor-phi - another of those big words," Kalle said with sigh "including the Tasmanian devil - good old Taz!"
"Are they extinct or are they not?" Hilde asked impatiently.
"The last hapless specimen, a male, died in a zoo in 1936. Since then people claim to have seen some, but none have been photographed or caught."
They read on in silence.
"When is our deadline?" Kirstin suddenly asked.
"I know!" Hilde said with a righteous mien. "Today, just before lunch!"
"We're in deep trouble," Kirstin answered. "Lunch is at one o'clock as always. Now it's almost eleven. Two hours to solve this. Our puny magic is not up to this!"
"Earth!" Knud exclaimed. "That was what was troubling me. We're missing the last clue from Jon, the last element!"
"You sure have a quirky mind," Susan said.
"You're right," Hilde said to Knud and at the same time a stone came in through the window. Kirstin looked out, but she could only see the empty yard below and the branches criss-crossing overhead.
- - - - -
This is an impossible to answer question!
I would like to live in several book worlds, the Hobbits' Middle-Earth, the magical world of Harry Potter, Laura Ingalls Wilder's prairie home, Paksenarrion's mediaeval world, the high fantasy "Earth" of Paul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, The Broken Sword, or Operation Chaos, or the Avalon from People of the Wind. Or the musroomy village of the Smurfs. Or the forlorn planets of Enemy Mine. Or the Palumbian rainforest where Marsipilami are to be found. Or the world where the right dime handed to a newspaper man is a portal to a parallel world. Or Xanth. Or Landover. Or Araluen, home of Rangers' Apprentice. Or the Ringworld. Or Kardemommeby. Or the underseas colonies of a short story the name of which eludes me. Or Pern, as described in the first books and the Harper's Hall series. Or Salzburg and surroundings from The Sound of Music. Or the sewers of New York together with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Or the cosy town of Bullerby. Or some of the worlds invented by Olga Godim. Or the postapocalyptic, world from The Waveries. Or my own Unicorn Farm ...
Do you see a common trait? Worlds with magic, friends and family, and order fighting chaos.
