The Fairly Extraordinary Tale of Jamie Owens
by Yasar Saleem

Chapter Two

The moonlight streamed through the crusty windows of the Smokepot Inn, attempting to compete with the torches which shone so brightly inside. It soon realised it wasn’t worth all the effort, and so resigned itself to striking up a conversation with the nearby embers of an abandoned bonfire, complaining about how rude Christmas lights were becoming.

Inside, around a wood-chipped table, sat Corporal Curtains. His face was shrouded by a muddy brown top hat, and the long grey jacket he wore reached down to his newly shined boots. He was smoking a cigar, in a further attempt to look cool, and was altogether failing rather miserably.

Corporal Curtains stubbed out the cigar and sighed. He’d been waiting for just over twenty minutes now, and not a soul had shown up. He’d get earache from his commanding officer for this*, and, as he looked down at the floating bits in his half-drunk pint, probably a pretty bad stomach ache tomorrow morning too.

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*This is despite the fact that, of course, no one turning up wasn’t Corporal Curtain’s fault at all, but rather, an error of Commanding Officer’s own, whereby he had entrusted the handing out of the leaflets advertising the job to the nearest person he had seen, who incidentally, had happened to be very drunk. Fortunately, fundamental instinct tells anyone in charge to cover up mistakes of their own through shouting at people below them.
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Curtains got up out of his seat, bones in his legs creaking as he did so, struggling from the weight of his stomach. If anyone was arriving, they would have showed up by now, and so he began the trudge to the counter, with the idea of buying some sort of peanuts and leaving.

He was interrupted by an ever-so-slightly crazed looking man bursting into the inn and shouting…


…”I’m here to take the writers job!”

Several of the other customers glanced up from their drinks and stared briefly, before apathetically going back to their beers, and pondering individual thoughts, such as the meaning of life, the creation of the universe and why marmalade wasn’t simply called orange jam.

Incredibly, all their personal theories were absolutely correct. Unfortunately, no one ever wants to hear what a collection of balding drunks have to say.

Constable Curtains, meanwhile, was slightly taken aback. Not from the fact that this man was demanding a job, despite the fact that he was over fifteen minutes late, or even from the fact that he was demanding a job despite the fact that he smelt very noticeably of rat urine.

No, Constable Curtains was somewhat amazed that he was demanding a job despite missing out on what should have been an extra three exclamation marks from his dramatic entrance.

Jamie, spotting Curtains’ waving hand, also noticed the somewhat perplexed look on his face. Jamie’s lip curled downwards as he realised what he may look like to a potential employer; dirty, unshaven, and obviously crying a few moments before. There was nothing at all to separate him for your average Panarikan job applicant.

Jamie sat at the command of Curtains’ ushering arm. He grinned forcefully as he shook Curtains’ hand, whilst making an innocuous attempt to straighten his hair without the man opposite him noticing.

Curtains cleared his throat, steadying himself, and began the interview in the way he had been instructed back at the academy. “Name?”

“Jamie Owens.”

“And you’re here for the writer’s job?”

Jamie merely nodded in response. He always struggled for words when it came to interviews, and he’d be damned if he was going to waste them confirming what he’d just been yelling a few moments before.

“Can you spell ‘hippopotamus’?”

Puzzled, Jamie nevertheless began to recite, “H-I-P-P-O-P-O-T-A-M-U-S”

“Fantastic! We’ve been looking for someone for ages to record all the crimes we solve and write them all up in a dead exciting way for the local paper! Commander White says there’s loads of money in it if we sell the better stuff to the papers. Congratulations! You’re hired!”

If Jamie had been drinking coffee, he would have spat it out. “What?”

Curtains, surprised at the response, repeated a bit slower, “I said you’re hired.”

Jamie was flabbergasted. “Aren’t you going to ask me anything else?”

Constable Curtains became even more puzzled. The police force had always told him to merely ask the name, not hire anyone called ‘John Smith’*, followed by an enquiry as to whether they could spell ‘hippopotamus’** or not. The idea was to haul employers in as quickly as they could, before they realised how crap the job actually was.
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* If anyone anywhere refers to themselves as ‘John Smith’, they are almost certainly concealing their true identity. Incidentally, this same theory was used by the Panarikan Irrigation Team, who controlled who was and wasn’t allowed in the country. A lot of problems were caused when Pope John Smith II was blocked from entering the land.
** Something which didn’t quite work, seeing as how Corporal Curtains had no idea as to how to spell it himself.
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“Such as what?”

“You haven’t even posed upon me what positive qualities I would bring to your team! Or requested to take a look at my resume!”

“Okay. What, um, positive qualities would you bring to the force then?” Curtains said, attempting to ride Jamie’s wave.

Lies began formulating around Jamie’s mind. “Well, I have a dedicated work attitude, and I’ll always make sure to give 100%. My English teacher called me the brightest student she’d ever taught, and although she did often dub me as arrogant, I think that aspect can only be beneficial in a job such as this. I also win street fights regularly, so there’s no need in worrying that I might be a nuisance, and that you’ll have to constantly keep protecting me.”

Curtains nodded, pretending to consider the tripe Jamie was spouting. He shuffled his hands together, adjusted his hat, and pulled an offendingly large hair from his left nostril, before timidly asking, “Can I hire you now?”

Jamie half considered making a sarcastic comment, but then decided it wasn’t safe to gamble with irony on someone like Constable Curtains.

“Yes.”

Curtains broke into a smile which didn’t quite reach his eyes, and got to his feet. “I suppose it’s off to headquarters then. Come on, we’ll have to sign you up official like, and introduce you to Commander White.”

With that, he wobbled out of the Inn, with all the elegance of an overgrown jelly treat.

Jamie followed closely behind, leaving a rather bemused innkeeper wondering how the hell he had got in in the first place.



The pigeon soared through the air, its wind ruffled coat invisible in the black night, each flap of its wings soundless to the near empty streets below. It too was pondering what the meaning of life was, with rather less success than its drunken human counterparts. For some reason, every one of his ideologies involved pecking up leftover chunks of stale bread, or crapping on a statue of sorts.

His thoughts were interrupted by a quick movement in one of the streets he was flying over. Intrigued, it swooped down low to investigate.

It was brighter here, the wizards’ streetlights doing their duty, and one could make out the greys and light purples of the pigeons’ feathers. Its miniature head bobbed in jerks, tiny red feet struggling to gain a foothold on a precarious window ledge.

The light also lit up the faces of the two people below, and the pigeon moved down a floor in order to gain a better view. Its beak opened slightly as its eyes expanded in the way that only the magical birds of Panarika can.

A man and a woman. Both dressed in blood red robes. The woman tall and slender, her hair concealed by a hood, the man larger and heavier built. They were dancing around each other. No…not dancing. For the pigeon had never seen a dance with swords before. They were fighting, but with all the elegance of performers on stage. Their bodies were one motion, a blur at times, blades missing flesh by inches, and cutting off individual strands of hair.

Sparks made the floor ever brighter as their weapons clashed, but there was nothing to separate the two fighters. A grunt, a groan, a gasp as a fatal blow met with air. They were on completely level ground.

The man somersaulted off a wall, attempting to come down with a deadly downwards thrust. The woman rolled to the side, slashing out her own blade in a form of counter attack. The man parried, rising to his feet again. The woman mirrored him, eyes steely with concentration.

And then…

…a flash of speed, a thrust, a squelch, a twist of a blade. The man fell to his knees, clutching his side. He struggled for breath, gasping in ragged heaves, the reality that these would be his final moments dawning on his mind.

The woman sheathed her sword once more, and in an instant she was gone, disappearing into the shadows from whence she came.

The pigeon’s eyes grew wider still…




On the other side of the city, Jamie Owens and Corporal Curtains (who had informed Jamie, rather proudly, and on many, many occasions, that he shared his first name with the current Mayor – Nicodemous) arrived at the official Panarikan Police Force headquarters.

It had been a long journey, to Jamie at least. Nicodemous had insisted that on informing Jamie of some of the most exciting moments of his job. This wouldn’t be so bad in itself, would Corporal Curtains take interest in anything other than bunking off work, and not doing anything in particular all day. As it were, Jamie was treated with an hour’s worth of tales where Curtains described himself lazing around his office chair, spinning round in circles.

“Ah, here we are, Owens. Your new home! I bet you can’t wait to get to work, huh? You’ll love living here. We single fellers get to stay in the lodgings for free, y’know. And even if you do decide to settle down, the force offer you a decent sum to get a home sorted.” Nicodemous made an effort of sucking in his pot belly and continued, “It usually takes years to become one of us; fit, lean police officers. But you Jamie, you’ll get to start straight away! You writers don’t need too much physical build up, huh?”

Another time, Jamie would have been fairly annoyed that he’d been instantly branded as being single (even though it was the case, much to Jamie’s discontent) and a weakling in the same block of speech. Right now, however, he was still in awe at the majesty of what would be his lodgings. It doesn’t take much to impress someone who has been living in a dump for the past two months, but the building in front of him truly was a sight for sore eyes.

The headquarters was about the same size as two of your average football stadia put together, but shaped in such a way that the walls were constantly curving inwards and out. The lawn was littered by fountains, and incredibly realistic statues of past commanders, with a wonderfully crafted metal gate surrounded its perimeter, glowing rocks of sorts protruding from the top of the pikes.

No one dared steal them, lest they face the wrath of the trolls who had so recently joined the force. Trolls are very sensitive when it comes to glowing rocks.

For all it’s majesty from the outside though, Jamie was a little let down when he entered. It was as though the Police had called upon the greatest architect of all time to construct the building, and then had left the interior design to some tacky makeover show on terrestrial T.V, where they manage to make anything look crap with £500 to spend.

The entrance hall had a ragged grey carpet, stained with what Jamie could only hope was coffee. At the desk sat a middle aged elven woman, puffing a cigarette and curling strands of her greying hair occasionally. She had heavy bags under her eyes, and her long pointy ears were drooping slightly. As Nicodemous approached, she seemed to awake from a day dream, and made the effort of popping her magazine away. Jamie managed to catch the heading: ‘How Dolrina Goozle manages to keep her Halfling abs firm!’.

“Hullo, Nora” said Nicodemous, a little too brightly.

“Corporal Curtains,” replied Nora, her gruff voice uneasing Jamie slightly, “what can I do for you?”

“This here’s Jamie Owens. I’ve just signed him up. He’ll be filling the writer’s role Commander White has been so eager to get filled. I was wondering, could you possibly inform Mr. White of his arrival so he can fill in the necessary paperwork? In the meantime, I’d be happy to take Jamie down to his lodgi-“

“Commander White isn’t here at the moment,” cut in Nora, “But I’m sure you would be more than happy to fill in the forms, right, Nick?” There was a touch of pleasure coated with malice in the way she said the words, and she thrust a large stack of papers into his arms, whilst taking Jamie’s hand in her own. “I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble though, Mr. Corporal Curtains, so I’ll just run along and take Jamie to his dorm, hmm?”

Curtains opened his mouth to protest, but was left staggering to keep the papers in balance. By the time he had steadied himself, he alone in the corridor.

“Shit.”

“Silly old fool…” Nora was guiding Jamie down what felt to him like a maze of corridors, not dissimilar to the alleys he had been storming down earlier that day. The carpet here too was grey, with even more signs of wear and tear. There was a strong smell of alcohol in the air, and Jamie could hear the distinct thudding of party music. ”How he ever got beyond the training camp I’ll never know…” She began to speak in a language Jamie could only guess to be elvish, though he did note the occasional curse in the black tongue of Veronia. She appeared to notice Jamie for the first time. “You. You seem like a nice boy. What’re you doing in a job like this?”

Jamie opened and closed his mouth, at a loss as to what to say. Overweight males he could deal with. Women, whatever their age, were Jamie’s biggest fear in life.

Nora narrowed her eyes, taking another puff from her cigarette, and exhaling smoke in a way which made her look like a dragon. “Not much of a talker, eh? Well, you don’t seem like you’ll cause me no trouble. It’s me who has to deal with pesky youngster workers like you, y’know.” Her face softened as she the rather terrified look on Jamie’s face. “Tell you what kid, I’ll hook you up in a room with a real nice view. Stretches out to the meadows behind us! You’ll like it.”

Jamie smiled weakly, before stopping as the woman knocked on a door.

“Timothy? Are you in there?”

Jamie heard a light thud from inside, a patter of footsteps, and the clicking of a lock.

Out stepped a fairly small looking boy, no older than Jamie himself; around eighteen. Curly blonde hair leaked out from a navy blue beanie hat, matted against his pale, freckly skin. His grey eyes gleamed from underneath a pair of circular spectacles, which sat on the bridge of his long, pointy nose. He wore baggy black trousers, and a matching shirt, upon which someone has scrawled the words: ‘Silver Spiders on Tour!”.

He grinned toothily, outstretching a hand. “Tim Parks.”

Jamie took the hand into his own, and, drawn in by Tim’s energy, returned an equally wide smile. “Jamie Owens.”

“So, you’re me new room-mate?”

Jamie turned his head to confirm the fact with Nora, but she had evidently gone back to her office. “Well, I guess so, yeah.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have any super powers, would ya’?”

Jamie gave Tim a strange look before replying, “Not that I’m aware of, no.”

Tim looked disappointed, before rearranging his features into another smile. “Well come on in, I’ll give you the grand tour!”

Jamie put his hands in his pockets, before entering the room, turning his head to take in the surroundings.

To the left lay a handsome kitchen, or at least, a set of machinery which one could be used to cook food. Further on was the door to what, if the sign was correct, was a bathroom, and to the right, a lounge. Two doors were on the right, and Tim revealed that these lead to the bedrooms. Every wall had at least two “The Silver Spiders” posters on, and Jamie recognised them to be a band who were massive a few decades back.

“Sorry it’s a bit of a mess” said Tim, picking up stray pizza boxes and throwing them into the bin.

Jamie laughed at this, long and hard, as only a man who has been living in a dump for the past two months knows how to.