Picture of Mr.Philip McLean on the side.

Chapter 5 

            Dahlia awoke when the helicopter was lowered onto the helipad outside Dahlia’s father’s mansion. The mansion was easily twice the size of a five-star hotel and also twice or maybe even three times as grand. Dahlia smiled. Home, sweet home.

             When Troy first caught sight of the mansion, he choked on his own saliva. As Olive banged him on the back, he spluttered, “Gosh! That’s your home?!”

            Dahlia grinned at his expression and gestured to the mansion. “Voila. Right there.”

            Helen gaped at the house too. She had lived in a school dormitory for as long as she could remember.

            The helicopter slowly landed and the front door of the mansion flew open. Dahlia’s father ran down the drive and heaved open the helicopter’s door.

            “Dahlia, how nice that you're back!” He swept her up in his arms for a hug.

            Dahlia’s father had the same blue eyes as she did and the same fair hair although his was straight. He was a tall, lean and distinguished-looking man, still young and in his prime. His blue eyes twinkled the same way Dahlia’s did.

            Dahlia smiled and hugged her father too. She gestured to Troy who was climbing out of the helicopter with a look of awe and amazement on his face.

            “This is Troy, his sister Helen and our friend Olive. Troy, Helen and Olive, this is my father, Philip McLean.”

            Troy smiled at Mr. McLean. He looked very friendly and pleasant indeed. The man obviously loved his daughter a lot and Troy wondered what had happened Dahlia’s mother. Whenever he had asked her, she had changed the subject or pretended that she hadn’t heard or walked away.

             He glanced at Dahlia. She looked happy to be back home but there was a worry on her face that he hadn’t seen before. Now he realised that the worry was probably because of Dr. Fang and all the happenings of that day.

             She saw him looking and gave him a quizzical look. He smiled faintly and then turned away. He didn’t want her to know what he had seen.

            Mr. McLean smiled and said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Come on in, all of you. I’ll get Harold to show you to the guest room suites.”

            “Suites?” Helen asked with an expression of astonishment on her face.

            “Yes, suites,” answered Mr. McLean. “Each of you will have one of your own when you stay. In fact, I think that it would be better if Harold and Dahlia showed you around because it is perfectly probable that you would get lost.”

            Dahlia, Troy, Helen and Olive all laughed and followed Mr. McLean toward the entrance. The door was opened by a young man in a black suit with a crisp white shirt underneath and a bowtie.

            “Ah, Harold,” said Mr. McLean. “I was about to call for you. These young men are Troy and Olive and this young lady is Helen. They are Dahlia’s friends from school. Please look after them while I go and do some work. I have business to check.”

            Mr. McLean hurried off and Harold turned to Dahlia, Troy, Helen and Olive.

             “Please follow me,” he said and led the way.

            The entire entry hall was twice the size of their old school. It was frankly much too big. Harold, the butler led them up an enormous staircase and across halls with antique portraits and shiny suits of armour. They hurried down a hall made entirely of white marble and past a room with antique weapons.

             There were modern furnishings too, a Jacuzzi in one ornate bathroom, a private cinema with popcorn and Cokes and an Olympic-sized indoor swimming pool. Troy, Helen and Olive gaped as they passed rooms after rooms and climbed up staircase after staircase.

            They passed so many servants carrying bedding, laden with trays of food, carrying laundry and dusting the halls. Troy was astonished at how huge the place seemed to be and since it was so big and Mr. McLean was obviously so rich, why had he sent Dahlia to Towerhall Academy when she could have gone to a much more superior school?

            Troy was still pondering this when they passed a room of ornate jewellery. Harold permitted them to go inside so when Helen, Olive and Harold had entered, he was still standing outside.

            Dahlia grinned at him. “How do you like my home?”

            Troy gave a start and then smiled and said, “It’s huge and very fancy. In fact I don’t think that I’ve even entered a building even half its size!”

            Dahlia laughed. “We haven’t even traversed half the mansion. Do you think that the headmaster of Towerhall Academy will allow you, Helen and Olive to stay with me during the holidays? I know that you stay at school all throughout the holidays.”

            Neither Troy nor Helen knew what had happened to their parents. They only remembered what had happened at Towerhall Academy although Troy had been seven when he had started. It was almost like a bad case of amnesia that had lasted for six years.

            Although neither of them knew what had happened to them, there was a bank trust that paid for their schooling. They had stayed at Towerhall Academy for six years and both of them were heartily tired of it.

             Troy shrugged. “I don’t know. And anyway, we ran out of the camp and I think that we won’t be going back to Camp Forrest this year. Plus, we are here and I don’t think that the headmaster can do much about it.”

            “True,” Dahlia mused. “But do you think that the headmaster will let us return? We walked out on the camp.”

            “Actually, we flew out on the camp,” Troy said, a wicked glint in his eyes.

            Dahlia scowled. Before she could lash out a retort, Helen, Olive and Harold returned from the jewellery room.  Still scowling, she and Troy followed the three others on their tour.

            Finally Harold stopped outside a fancy door with gilt designs on the ornate frame. It was large and covered the entire west side of the building.          

            “Your suite, miss,” Harold said, bowing formally.

            Dahlia smiled. “Thank you, Harold. Please show Troy, Helen and Olive to the guest suites. And please instruct some maids and servants to please stay near them so that if they want to go around, they won’t get lost.”

            Harold bowed deeply again. “As you wish, miss.”

            Dahlia waited until Troy, Helen, Olive and Harold had left and were out of her sight. Then she opened a hand pad and pressed her thumb against the display. The gadget scanned her thumbprint and then, with a beep, a green light appeared.

             She then placed her chin on a holder. More green lights scanned her eyeball and there was another beep.

            “Confirmation complete. McLean, Dahlia, daughter of McLean, Philip and Bolton, Rachel. Welcome home, Dahlia,” the computerised voice said.

             There was a mechanical click and the door swung open. Dahlia smiled as she walked inside. Home, sweet home.

            The suite was enormous. There was a huge four-poster the size of a small boat. It had a pink silk with different coloured swirls. The ceiling was painted midnight blue with stars and the moon on it. Whenever she entered, the constellations of stars on the ceiling gleamed silver and bathed the room with light.

            There was a huge bathroom with a bathtub the size of a small swimming pool. It had hundreds of taps with perfumed bubbles coming out. There were foam bubbles inside and different types of shampoo coming out of the taps. The water could be as hot as a boiling flame and as cold as the Atlantic Ocean.

             Dahlia dropped herself down on a fluffy armchair and put her feet up. Bliss. She closed her blue eyes. She grinned to herself when she remembered the last time she had done this and swallowed hard. She missed Towerhall Academy because it was so normal and so real.

            So far in just a few hours, her carefully perfect world had been altered and changed irrevocably. She had witnessed magic which Olive had performed, learned that she was a magician who could apparently control the elements and fought a monster that had no right to live out of storybooks.

            Dahlia’s life had been so normal before today. She lived at boarding school with her friends, liked Troy though she would never admit it to him, was slightly higher than average student and had an extremely rich father and a mother who had run out on the family when Dahlia had been born.

            She frowned. No one knew about her mother, not even Troy. When he had asked, she just casually changed the subject or pretended not to hear his question. Gradually, he had learned not to ask her about her family.

            Dahlia did likewise to her curiosity about his past and his amnesia till he was seven. She had asked at first until she realised that he was embarrassed that he knew nothing about his past. So she didn’t question him anymore. It was a simple solution but it worked.

            Dahlia raked a hand through her long, curly blonde hair. What had happened during at Camp Forrest? Had they all witnessed a series of hallucinations? Or were magic real and all the terrible monsters along with it? She could answer none of these questions but was positive that Olive could.

            Now, Dahlia had a feeling that her mother had been involved in this magic. Otherwise, why had she walked out on Dahlia and her father after Dahlia had been born? There were no simple answers to this question either.

            Before she knew it, her pondering mood was shattered. Someone knocked on the door.

            “Come in,” she called.

            The door, which was voice activated, swung open. Dahlia’s father entered the room and smiled at her.

            “Hi, Dahlia. Tonight shall we have the usual dance?”

            Mr. McLean always organised a dance when Dahlia returned from boarding school. She hadn’t used to like it but now she did. She felt a usual flare of hope when she thought of Troy. Maybe he would ask her to dance.

            Dahlia nodded enthusiastically and her father looked at her in surprise. She never had been so enthusiastic.

          “Is it Troy?” her father asked, curiously.

            Dahlia flushed strawberry pink and stared at the floor. Her father smiled to himself and left the room. Dahlia groaned. She would have to have a soak in her Jacuzzi before the party started.

             In five minutes, Dahlia was stretched out in her bathtub, scented bubbles filling the tub and a relaxing massage soothing the aching bones in her body. She popped in her iPod earphones and closed her eyes.

            Dahlia stayed there for half-an-hour. Then, wrapping herself in a fluffy velvet pink towel, she drained the tub. She blow-dried her curly blonde hair and rubbed her lotion on her skin. Dahlia squirted her signature rose-scented perfume on and then got dressed.

            Then, Dahlia donned a pink silk dress with satin ribbons that fastened around her neck. It was backless and flared around her knees. She slipped on a pair of pink stiletto heels on her feet. Dahlia twisted her golden curls into a soft crown on top of her head with several tendrils of hair falling around her face.

             Dahlia stared at herself in the mirror. Was she presentable for the dance? Yes, she was, but would Troy like her looking like this? She couldn’t answer her own question. She was hardly ever vain, but she wanted to look good for Troy.

            She hesitated. She could go looking for Troy, Helen and Olive but she didn’t want to. None of them had ever seen the others dressed up like this before, even at proms at school. But she still didn’t go.

            Surprisingly, Troy solved her dilemma for her when he knocked on the door of her suite.

            “Knock, knock?” Troy called.

            “Come in, Troy,” Dahlia replied, hoping that he hadn’t heard the nervous tone in her voice.

            Troy entered, dressed in a black silk tuxedo with a velvet collar. He looked incredibly handsome. His hair was newly trimmed and he looked like he had had a good, long shower. He wore a pair of Italian dress shoes.

            “This is incredible,” he said. “I can’t believe your father has my exact size in silk and velvet.”

            He plucked at his velvet tuxedo lapel.

             Dahlia laughed at his expression. “We have every single size.”

            Troy laughed with her and then said, almost shyly, “You look beautiful.”

            Dahlia blushed strawberry pink again and said, “Thanks, Troy. You look handsome too.”

            It was Troy’s turn to go red but shrugged modestly at her compliment. “These are your guest clothes so praise your father’s good taste.”

            Dahlia laughed again and said, “Would you like a tour after we find Helen and Olive? I can show you all over the mansion.”

            Troy smiled too and followed Dahlia from the room.

            In no time they found Helen and Olive since the two of them had stayed in their suites. After Dahlia and Troy met them again, they went all over the mansion. She showed them statues of famous people, galleries of famous portraits and many more places. Then she showed them to the library.

            It was huge with hundreds of shelves of books lining the walls. Books on every topic under the sun were stacked neatly in alphabetical order. Antique books lined another two or three shelves. Comfy armchairs were placed all around so you could sit anywhere and start reading. New computers were at the back. Light sparkled down from a pretty glass chandelier.

            “Wow!” Helen gasped. “Your library is amazing!”

             She ran into the room and plucked a book from one of the shelves. It was a simple storybook about myths and legends.

            “Cool,” Troy said.

            Yes, the room was amazing but he preferred computer games to piles and piles of books. Even if the books were old, there was nothing special about of them.

            Dahlia saw his look of uncertainty and muttered in his ear, “I thought we could look up the stuff about Dr. Fang and Olive being a ‘Magician of Earth’.”

            Troy perked up immediately. “Yes!” he agreed enthusiastically.

           Dahlia glanced at Olive who had gingerly taken a book from the antique book section.  He was leafing through the pages slowly, barely touching the pages. Olive carefully flipped though the book.

            She cleared her throat and said, “What have you got there, Olive?”

             Olive smiled. “An original book written by Benjamin Franklin,” he said. “I’ve got a summer holiday project on him. I’ve got to write a 50 page project on it.”

            While Olive searched for information about Benjamin Franklin, Dahlia, Troy and Helen attempted to find out information about ‘Magicians of Earth’ or monsters like Dr. Fang. Dahlia scanned the shelves for a book that might help them find out all the stuff that Olive clearly didn’t want them to find out.

            A large leather volume caught her eye. She pulled it out and scanned the index. It was about mythological monsters and creatures.

            Dahlia sat down next to one of the computers and opened the book. The book was old with crackly yellow pages but had colourful pictures illustrating monsters.

            Troy sat at one of the computers and switched it on. The screen flickered to life. Dahlia punched in the password and then the computer powered up. Troy typed into Google and then glanced at all the names of monsters written across the page in Dahlia’s book.

            “This is going to be a long day,” he muttered.

            Dahlia started to turn the pages. There were the usual creatures; unicorns, the Pegasus, dragons, centaurs, the Minotaur, manticores and many more. She flicked through every page and examined every picture on each ancient page.

            Nothing struck her as anything like Dr. Fang had been.

            Troy clicked away on the computer, scanning each article carefully before clicking another. Nothing hit him as remotely familiar.

            Helen flicked through more books with Dahlia but nothing screamed ‘Dr. Fang’! Troy felt annoyed and tried not to show it. He glared at the exasperating computer. Despite his best efforts to control his temper, Troy would have thrown the computer out the window if he knew it was Dahlia’s father’s computer.

            He glanced at Dahlia. “How are we to check all the information on the internet to find out whether it says anything about Dr. Fang? We can’t look at all the articles.”

            Dahlia shrugged. “Maybe fortune will smile upon us.”

            She grinned as she said this and Troy himself had to give a chuckle.  Both of them understood the statement and laughed at it.

             Helen rolled her eyes. “Maybe we can just ask him to tell us. It’s true that he’s a Magician of Earth but we are still his friends, aren’t we?”

            Dahlia hesitated. “Do you honestly think that he isn’t just telling fibs? He lied to us for a long time. He never mentioned that he was a Magician of Earth or that we might be magicians too. I don’t think that we can trust his answer, whether or not he tells us the truth."