If you’re following along with this silly story – click here for Chapter One.

“Darling!” Aunt Sandra screeched.  “Is it really you?  I didn’t even hear you land.” She waddled through the immaculate courtyard, adjusting her sequined turban along the way. “After all these decades, you’ve finally decided to take a trip?  Well, it’s about time is all I can say.”  She kissed the air next to Amy’s cheeks, emitting a scent of sulfur and roses. “Oh!  You’re using my bag!  Isn’t it fabulous?  I have one just like it.  Here, wait a minute and I’ll go get it.” Surprisingly spry for a thousand-year-old, she hurried into her cave, pausing every few steps to stabilize the turban.

Ignoring Aunt Sandra’s babbling, Amy trudged through the gloom and thumped her way down to the guest pit, resisting the urge to curl up on the luxuriously damp stone bed.  She gave the obnoxious Travel Diva bag a little kick and followed the sound of her aunt’s chatter to the kitchen.

“Darling! I’m just flabbergasted you’re here. But of course, so excited to see you outside of your humble abode.” Aunt Sandra retrieved the glasses hanging from a thick chain around her wrinkled neck. “Here, let me take a look at you. Oh, my.” She frowned. “Well, I see we’ve put on a little weight, haven’t we?”

A fire laden groan found its way out of Amy’s mouth and on to one of her aunt’s jewel encrusted claws.  “Oops.  Sorry.”

Aunt Sandra huffed a cloud of smoke and the two of them stood glaring at each other.

Amy’s stomach released a growl.  She looked sheepishly toward the kitchen.  “You don’t happen to have a tiny serving of your world-famous Spider Soup in there, do you?

“Darling!  Of course I do!”

Amy sprinted toward the kitchen, nearly knocking her aunt to the ground.  She wedged herself between a volcanic rock bench and a marble table, wondering again how this garish cave ever ended up on the cover of Cavern Digest. 

The minute the Spider Soup was placed before her, all judgments left her head, replaced by the earthy aroma rising from the crock.

Seeing the gusto of Amy’s hunger, Aunt Sandra looked into her cold room, hesitated and then pulled out the platter of mice meal loaf she’d planned to serve at tomorrow’s tea party.  “Why are you so famished, my dear?  Your place is barely a day’s flight from here.”

“Didn’t fly,” Amy mumbled through a mouthful of melt-in-your-mouth mouse.

“Didn’t fly?”  Did you say you didn’t fly?”

Amy nodded her mighty head.

“How on earth?  What in the world?’  Aunt Sandra sputtered.  “Amy The Dragon!  You stop eating this instant and tell me what is going on.

*The Mayor Writing – Art by Annie Raab