This story takes place in England. It is about a boy and a dog. This boy, James lives in an abandoned apartment building because of his money problems. James is a 25 year old boy with pale white skin (because of England’s cold climate), blue eyes, sandy brown hair, freckles, and is 6ft. 2in. He is also ill-clad as he wears ripped up rags. James is persistent, but because he is poor and badly fed, usually passes on most opportunities for adventure. His parents had died when he was 15.

The story begins with James going to the park with his most prized possession, a sack with a teddy bear, an old alarm clock, a bottle full of green liquid, and the only £2 he had. As he entered the park gates, a big, shaggy, poorly fed dog knocked him down and stole the sack. James sped after the dog and chased it to the mouth of a large cave. Inside James sighted a large brown fuzz ball. As he drew deeper into the cave, it began to become clearer and clearer that this was an enormous sleeping bear. Suddenly, the old alarm clock, which had not worked for the past 7 years, decided to ring loudly. The noise aroused the bear, and the bear started to chase after James. James darted into a bush, but the dog had escaped. James began to weep. He had now lost the two things he had to remind him of his parents (the teddy bear and the clock), his only source of some sort of liquid, and all his money. He had decided his life was meaningless, and he was going to drown himself in River Thames. Then he saw the dog drinking from the bottle of green liquid.

“Give me that!” James yelled as he lunged toward the bottle. The dog side stepped, and James tumbled to the ground.

“You were rather rude back there, you know,” the dog told him, which was quite peculiar to James as we all know dogs don’t usually talk.

“Blimey! I must be dreaming! Dogs can’t talk,” James screamed, although strangely uncertain of himself.

“Marvelous drink…wherever did you get it?” the dog questioned.

James pinched himself, “Ouch! Blimey! I’m not dreaming. Oh, right, I pilfered it from the lady with the magic stick who lives in the black house on the hill with dead trees and ravens around it.” The dog quickly scampered off. James, who was not well educated, finally realized that that drink was a potion that permits animals to speak English and that the woman who had the magic stick was a witch. The dog soon reappeared with another green drink, quickly gulping it down.

“Where’s my sack, anyway, Mr. Dog?” asked James.

“Oh, I just traded it for this terrific drink,” it replied. “And my name is Peter, not Mr. Dog.” James stared at Peter with his mouth open in disbelief.

“We have to get my sack back!” announced James as he scooped up Peter and sprinted all the way to the black house on the hill. Seeing an open window, he climbed in to a room radiating with the luminous gleaming of gold as bright as the Sun. James began to stuff his pockets with the gold. Suddenly, the door creaked open. The frail and bony witch crept in. She aimed her wand at James. He tried to run, but the gold was too heavy and fixed him to the spot. Peter attempted to tackle the witch to buy James some time, but the witch pushed him into a stack of gold. James began hurling the contents of his pockets at the witch, but the witch was quite agile for an old woman and dodged all but one piece. Both James and Peter leaped for the open window as she made contact with the metal.

“James, help me out! I’m too short too reach the window!” Peter exclaimed. James began pushing him up, but by the time he was finished, the witch had recovered and had stunned James immediately after she did.

“So, trying to steal my gold, eh?” the witch interrogated in her wicked voice.

“No, madam,” James lied.

“Liar!” the witch responded “I will not tolerate liars!” The witch aimed her wand at James for the killing spell, but in the nick of time Peter bounded in, distracting the witch by making her have to stun Peter instead in order not to get killed from Peter’s powerful leap. By the time Peter had fallen to the ground, James had recuperated and he began heaving huge amounts of gold at her. The witch, who was unprepared  as she was dealing with Peter, made impact and, because of the witch’s frail body structure, the blow had been fatal.

“Why did you save me?” James asked.

“If it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t have gotten that wonderful drink,” Peter responded. They both chuckled. James took all the witch’s belongings (including his sack) and Peter and James stayed together and had a very wealthy life.

Several years later, James and Peter looked back on this event from their huge mansion and thought, “A little adventure in life can be extremely rewarding.”

 

 

 

 

JAMES’S SACK

Elliot C.