Chapter 6

Caulin and Jesi sped down the hill side. Caulin wore a pair of blue jeans with designer shoes. He had a red shirt with a red cap to match. Jesi sipped from a bottle of apple juice as they walked down the lane. He had had a bad time at home that day with is mom, Hudith Borden. 

“She saw me today,”

Jesi said, dolefully faced.

“Who, what do you mean she saw you today?” Caulin quizzed.

“My mother. She came to see me doing my shoes with magic. Expectedly she got perturbed and threatened to tell my dad. I’m pretty scared out of my wits. You perfectly well know my dad works for the government, Blarders, I am afraid I might cause him problems.”

Jesi elucidated.

“You mean to tell me you couldn’t polish your shoes without magic, so you…for goodness’ sake, why would you do something so gormlessly, huh? Tell me,”

Caulin said, quite flatly.

“You are apportioning blames on me already. You have no idea you can also be implicated.”

Jesi said sternly. He walked faster a little away from Caulin.

“I have always been certain you are such a dunderhead. You are a dupe!”

He barked nervously.

“Anyway, what do you mean I might also be implicated, tell me, you silly twerp!” He demanded imperiously, almost wanting to laugh at some point but he didn’t.

“You can’t hide things from me for long, bro, you are a wizard and I will undeniably prove it to your face soon. Watch me do it.”

            Caulin moved to the edge of the road and scorched toward Jesi who stopped too. He cast a frantic glance at Caulin and smirked.

“The last thing I wish to be is a wizard, alright? I am a Lermil and that I will be forever. Your stupid stinging spells cannot implicate me in anyway, friend, watch it happen.” He said and held his hair and pulled it slightly. Jesi managed a nod and scarcely blinked. He left it free, Jesi moved meters away from him down the hill with his hair cruelly twisted.

            He sneezed and blenched when a pretty huge stone came rolling down from a part of the hill.

“You want to kill me too?” he accused. “I am sorry but what do you mean I want to kill you too?”

“Oh, smart boy, the stone you rolled at me?” He said. Caulin had been looking away from Jesi when the stone rolled down. He glared at the top of the hill and found no one who could have possibly done it by mistake.

“Let put this nonsense behind us and move on. We are Gore Brothers, forgotten?” Caulin admonished.

            He shook Jesi vigorously and feigned a smile which faded into oblivion when Jesi focused on something on the ground.

“Look at that,” he stated; it was a lemon frog.

“I think he is marvelous.”

He confessed.

“Do you like them?” Caulin frowned. He found animals disgusting and felt an acute hatred for them. “No, I don’t. They are inconsistent of my wants.”

“Well, I have a distinct affinity for them. This one is cute isn’t it?”

“Yak, awful,”

Caulin said. Jesi picked it up and caressed it.

“Be sure it doesn’t touch me. I will certainly pierce it with my penknife if it comes any close to me.”

“I think I will call him Pilli. Pilli Par will do.”

Caulin stared at Pilli and cursed it. “You bitchy thing…you wanna keep it?”

“Don’t be so rude to Pilli, he is real good friend.”

“Excuse me,”

“It isn’t fair. He is sexy.”

“Ouch,”

Caulin cast him a sideways glance and looked ahead.

A boy came up the path towards Caulin and Jesi. On his left shoulder a parrot sat, rubbing its beak softly on his ear and saying something silently. Nothing comprehensive, as it seemed. The boy scratched the parrot’s blue head and and gazed at Caulin with his seemingly poaching eyes. His hair was blond and curly.

“So you found him,” the boy said, referring to Jesi.

“Who?”

“Hagnos.”

“What! Is that what he is called?”

“I don’t know; that was the name I called him when I first found him. He has been with me for two years you know…never dies…never fails,” he said. When neither Jesi nor Caulin said anything immediately,

“I let go of him because my parrot always gives him a hard time. But majorly, it’s because he is weird, he added.

“Weird. You called him Magnos, but I named him Pilli.” Jesi gasped terribly.

“Not Magnos. Hagnos. He takes only milk as food and talks when in a good mood.” Caulin screwed his face. Jesi became more interested in Hagnos, now Pilli.

“Hey pal, tell me, what he has ever said?” Jesi demanded.

“The truth is in Alkuiza. Qiujah definitely will break the seal,” the boy said.

“He said that? What does it mean anyway?  Alkuiza and a strange Qiujah; I don’t get it!”  Jesi confessed.

“Who then is Qiujah, do you know, little boy?” Caulin asked. The boy cast him a glare which Caulin despised.

“No way, I have no idea. Some wizards should know,” he said.

“Are you a wizard then?” Jesi requested.

“I bet I would have known who Qiujah and Alkuiza were,” the boy said dramatically.

            Caulin did not like the boy. Jesi did not seem to care of how mean he was. He was only interested in Pilli, the lemon frog. He took careful note of the boy and who he could possibly be; obviously he hadn’t seen him before. Having a scowl on his face, Caulin said,

“You’ve had a frog that talk and drinks milk for two years and you have the guts to deny you’re a wizard. How convincing. I am jolly sure you rolled the stone down the hill didn’t you?”

The boy looked away to Jesi and gave a cursory gaze. He affected a smile at him and darkened his words.

“I asked a question, you tell me now before I let something out. It’s funny how certain folks are becoming less and less scared of giving off impressions that clearly shows they are wizards.”

“You are just unbelievable, rich boy,” said the boy, unable to keep eye contact with Caulin, just looking at Jesi most often and fidgeting with his parrot.

“Aye, and I’m sexy too.” Indifferently, Caulin replied, “But you would have to answer me, did you roll that stone?”

“No, let go me,” he said, as Caulin had already entangled him with his arms. Jesi thought Caulin was simply overreacting and shouted at him to cease making a fuss over nothing, but Caulin wouldn’t listen. He fed a stinging punch at his face and caused him to bleed.

“Zeuk forlorn!” Jesi cast. Caulin froze and fell to the ground.

“Sorry, he is not always that way. He’s had a bad day from the start. Forgive him.”

“Just take care of Hagnos, will you?” the boy said as he held a hand to the punched spot, a sad look at Caulin on the ground and back at Jesi with a face that said preached his thanks. Spitting out a disgusting string of blood,

“I sure will, why not?” he heard Jesi say. “I just will share my breakfast with him and he will talk to me. The boy nodded and started to walk away. Jesi stared after him, taking a bit of an unresponsive look at the cold body of his best friend and back at the departing acquaintance. He probably deserves the pain of that spell.

“What should I call you, frog boy?”

Jesi screamed after him.

“Marimon, just Marimon Hagnos,” he shouted back. And then Jesi realized he had named the frog after himself. Cool, he thought. What strange name! Never heard of it before. He mulled, glancing at the frog.

“Call me Jesi Borden.” The boy looked up the hill but said nothing.

            Gone now, Jesi smirked at Caulin and made a sign with his hand and touched him. Caulin sneezed and stormed up, his face effectively getting masked with some anger.

“What was that for?”

“You know, why were you so vexed at him? You are trying to accuse him for what you’ve done. I am not even complaining and you go ahead to fight an innocent boy you haven’t seen before?” Jesi ranted veraciously.

“Really,” Caulin said out of spite.

“Listen, Caulin, it’s about time you got rid of your seemingly splenetic nature. Haven’t you noticed that it always gets your day splattered with inconveniences? New word, by the way…splenetic…cool huh?”

“I see that,” Caulin said and shook his head.

“Aye, it makes you splashy all the time.”

Caulin looked as if he was taking the words of Jesi in. He said nothing but gazed at him intently.

“In life, one always have to anticipate the consequences of his actions before executing them, unless the person in question has no zest for life and does not care of effects. You like to splurge and you get angry over things that are apparently irrelevant.”

“Stop philosophizing already. I have heard – I have heard you, you don’t have to keep rubbing it in. And, I don’t give a hoot about your love for big words!

Caulin spoke, cuttingly. Jesi smiled…he got him.