The Remin Chronicles

As they approached the bridge, Kira stopped suddenly. Kneeling at the edge of the bridge with his back to them was a tall man who was frantically looking for something in the dirt. He sobbed quietly as his fingers scrabbled through the dirt and the river grass along the bank. Kira held the machete in front of her and signaled the other two to stop. Queenie sat at her feet and waited expectantly. The man must have sensed their presence for he suddenly froze and slowly stood up and turned around.

David stared in amazement at the tallest and strangest man he had ever seen. He stood at least eight feet tall. He was wearing a vest that contained hundreds of tiny pockets. His arms were long and completely round like pipes, as were his legs. His body was very square. David felt like he was looking at some kind of robot but scratches and blood on his arms seemed to prove that the tall man was indeed alive. David would have been scared except that the man’s face wasn’t scary at all. He had been crying and tears streaked the dust on his face, but when he saw them all standing there he broke into the biggest grin that David had ever seen.

“As you can see, I’ve run into a bit of trouble. Do you think you could help me?”

Kira stepped forward. “What kind of trouble and what kind of help do you need?”

The man indicated the pockets on his vest. “I took a very bad tumble when birds attacked me yesterday evening and I have lost some of my heads. I have been looking for them ever since.”

“Your heads?” David queried.

The man fumbled in one of the pockets and held out a tiny object. They all moved forward to look and found themselves looking at a miniature head of a frog. Its eyes were blinking slowly. After staring for a moment, they all looked up at the man.

“My name is Sir Heads-a-lot and I have lost a number of my heads.”

Aradel stepped back a little. “The frog head is a neat trick but what’s so important about these heads?”

Sir Heads-a-lot smiled. “Please don’t be alarmed.” He reached up quickly with his hands and twisted his head slightly and David gasped as the head came completely off! As the head came off it shrunk to the size of a button and at the same moment he placed the frog head onto his neck. They all watched in amazement as the frog head grew to match the size of the body. The arms and shoulders of the man transformed into frog legs and one leg placed the button-sized head in a pocket on his vest. They found themselves staring at an eight-foot tall man with a frog’s head and front legs. The frog paused and stared at them all for a moment, then winked and reversed the process restoring the original head in a whirl of flailing green. He placed the frog head in a vest pocket.

“That was amazing!”

“Where do you come from?”

“What was the trouble you mentioned?”

The questions flew fast and furious, and Sir Heads-alot held up his hands good-naturedly. “I will be glad to answer all your questions but first I could really use your help in finding the rest of my heads. I’m missing fourteen heads.” He pointed to an area at the edge of the river. “I fell right here. I think that none of the heads are in the river but I can’t be entirely sure. If at all possible, I don’t want to lose any of them. They are very important to me.”

Kira, David, and Aradel all knelt down and began searching. In no time at all Kira found a groundhog head and a cicada head. David was digging right under the bridge when a puppy head suddenly blinked at him from the mud. Aradel waded along the edge of the river with all his eyes staring at the ground. In the shallow water a few feet downriver he spied a weasel head. They spent the next twenty minutes slowly expanding their search and soon had found twelve different heads. The last two heads eluded them.

Just when they were ready to give up, Queenie began growling and digging with her paws in the grass. Kira hurried over and found a button-size snake head hissing at the wolfat. With one more to go they all redoubled their efforts.

David was searching in the grass near the river when Fred and Michelle popped up right next to him. “Looking for something?” crooned Fred. David explained the problem and they both disappeared under the water.

Minutes later Michelle surfaced with a scream. “Get it off, get it off.” She was shaking her head violently. Clinging to the serpent was a button-sized turtle head. David waded into the stream trying hard not to laugh and removed the turtle. Sir Heads-a-lot was ecstatic as he pocketed the last head. They all moved to a tree near the bridge, sat down and began to talk.