Alfie’s POV

I must admit I’m uneasy about being at Garnet Valley.

For a start, I’m here because my family is so poor. They sat me down at the rickety old table in our tiny kitchen with strained smiles and apologised that they could no longer afford to take care of me, but that I would be provided for if I worked at a school run by witches. There’s always work to do at Garnet Valley, babysitting the little green kids, making myself an object for the aspiring wives when they practice flirting with guys… Great.

Second, the castle is remote and secluded, surrounded by forest. And I have to remember all the rules that Ruby the head witch, and Lottie the head girl, told me about. Ruby’s a bit scary, I wouldn’t want to cross her. Do I fit in here? I feel out of place amongst a sea of girls and new mums. I’m grateful that I know Poppy. If I didn’t I’d be very lonely and unhappy.

Third cause of my uneasiness – Gary.

Sharing a room with a total stranger is uncomfortable; sharing a room with a stranger who drives me crazy is unbearable. He’s a total slob, and so inconsiderate. Right now, Gary is lying on his bed dressed in nothing but pants, eating a chicken leg. He chucks the bone into a corner and starts humming in a really annoying way.

“Can you keep it down?”

Gary hummed louder.

At that moment, the door swings inwards and Lottie the pregnant head girl comes waddling in, Violet her green skinned toddler toddling along beside her.

I feel embarrassed on Gary’s behalf, since he’s obviously too thick to care that he’s almost naked in front of the head girl.

“Gary, put some clothes on,” I say. “Do you want to offend Lottie?”

“I’ve seen an ogre naked,” says Lottie briskly. “Gary doesn’t shock me.”

“Gary’s such a slob!” I complain. “Look, he’s chucking chicken bones and other rubbish about. It stinks in here! I can’t stand it.”

Little Violet is holding a teddybear. She waves it around and gives an excited little squeal.

Lottie wrinkles her freckled nose at me in semi-disgust. “I’ve slept with an ogre before. What do you think his den smelled like? There were bones and filth everywhere.” Then her tone softens and she gently touches my arm. “My dear, treat it as a way to improve your social skills. Now, the reason I’m here. Alfie – you have one job. You have to fish a girl out of the sewer. The ogre sometimes dumps us there after he’s finished impregnating us. Go and rescue her now, please. Take these just in case.”

Lottie gives me a woollen blanket and a clay beaker and waddles out, her long red hair rippling and bouncing as she goes, Violet toddling along at her heels.

It occurs to me I don’t know where the sewer is, so I ask for help. Maddie the mother I saw at breakfast has been here a long time. She must know where everything is. I go to her room and find her very busy – she is occupied with her four kids. But she tells Star, her oldest kid, a little green-skinned girl of about five years old, to show me the way.

Star looks up at me, her green face wreathed in smiles. “I’m happy to see you again. My heart is happy. Hey Alfie, can you sing?”

“Yes. There’s a time for singing, but this is not it. Do you know where things are in this place, Star? Have you been to the sewers before? Have you explored Garnet Valley?”

“Well I don’t always have time to ‘splore, cos I have to help Mummy with the cleaning an’ help with my brothers and baby sis, but I do know where the sewers are. You can follow me, if you like.”

She runs off, her long dark blond hair streaming out behind her. I quicken my pace so she doesn’t run off out of my sight.

“Not so fast, Star.”

She turns and gazes at me with big brown eyes. “Am I too fast? Sorry.” She walks alongside me and points at the staircase that leads to the entrance hall. “We have to go outside.”

We leave the castle through the double doors and step onto the path. I really hope Star doesn’t run off. She skips around clapping her little green hands, clearly excited to be outside. “This way.” She points to the left at a weatherbeaten track that leads off the main road. We start to walk down it, around the perimeter of the castle.

“Look, look, that’s the Twilit Forest,” Star says, pointing at the forest. “There’s lots of animals there.”

“What’s your favourite animal, Star?”

“I like giraffes cos they’re ador’ble. An’ I like the unicorns. But bugbears are a bit scary.”

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“I expect they are.”

Star gazes up at me with wide brown eyes. “Alfie, will someone marry my Mummy? That’s how me an’ my brothers and lil sis get a father.”

“Being a father does bring status. More kids mean higher status. There will be men who want to marry a mother of four.”

I’m not going to go into the topic of sterility, or the darker topic of childless people who steal children.

“If my new father has a farm, I c’n work on it,” says Star. “I c’n pick berries. Can you pick berries, Alfie?”

“Oh yes. My family does have a tiny farm. I had to help with the animals too.”

“I c’n feed a piglet,” says Star giggling. “I held a liddle piglet to feed it with a bottle of milk, an’ it wriggled! So cute.”

“Cute,” I echo.

“I can pick thunder fruit as well,” says Star, “Alfie, wanna see me pick thunder fruit?”

“We’d better find this girl first,” I reply. “Are you sure you know where she is, Star?”

Star tilts back her head and sniffs the air, her shiny green nose crinkling. “Yeah, I c’n smell her.”

So, little Star can sniff people out. Must be her ogre blood.

The little ogre-girl leads me down a slope, through a small copse and then to a valley by the castle. There’s a mucky ditch at the bottom of the valley. My heart skips a beat when I see Poppy lying stark naked and unconscious in the green muck in the ditch.

“Oh ye gods.” I pull her out and wrap her in the blanket, but she’s unresponsive and flopping about like a ragdoll. There’s green muck all over her. There’s a foul smelling greenish yellow muck smeared all over her pretty, freckled face. I lay her on the grass wrapped in the blanket and place the clay beaker beside her.

Star gazes at Poppy, her brown eyes wide in her little green face. “Is she OK?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. I have to check if she’s breathing.”

“She is breathing,” says Star. “I c’n hear her breathing.”

I take a blade of grass and hold it near Poppy’s nose. It flutters, so Star is right. Poppy is breathing. But she’s unconscious. How do I wake her?

“Do we have any water?” I wonder aloud.

“I’ll get it!” says Star. She grabs the beaker and dashes off. I hope she doesn’t get lost, although the little ogre girl does know her way around and I don’t want to leave Poppy.”

Star soon arrives back with the beaker and hands it to me. It’s full of pink water.

“From the rainbow ponds,” says Star smiling.

Not knowing what else to do, I slosh the pink water over Poppy’s grime encrusted face. She stirs and splutters and her eyelids flutter. She awakes, and gazes up at me with her soft, brown eyes.

“Alfie…” she murmurs.

“Here, let’s get you back to the castle.” I support Poppy as she stands. She doesn’t have any shoes on, but she treads on the grass. Star leads us through the copse.

“I wish I was big enough to hold you,” says Star, looking up at Poppy anxiously. “Here, I’ll show you what I can do. I’ll get you some nice fruit to cheer you up.”

She shinnies up one of the trees like a monkey. The tree has silvery leaves and round, brazen fruits. Star comes clambering back down the trunk with one of the fruits and breaks it open against the trunk. “Here, you’ll feel better.” She hands the fruit to Poppy. The fruit fives off a sweet smell. It has gooey gold flesh.

“That’s sweetie,” says Poppy, tasting the fruit.

Back at the castle, Star runs back to her mother’s quarters. She’s definitely competent enough to find her way back there, I know that now. A girl our own age with shoulder length blond hair and a pert nose comes up to us in the hallway. “Hey Poppy, who’s your friend?”

“I’m Alfie,” I say.

“Hi Carly,” says Poppy. “I need to scrub all this muck off me.”

“The communal showers are this way,” says Kayla. She leads us through a door off the main entrance all and to a stone door that leads to a marble shower room lit by glimmering crystals in the ceiling.

“I’m off to get a drastic facial treatment at the spa,” says Carly. “See you.”

I turn to leave with Carly to give Poppy some privacy, but Poppy touches my arm. “Please don’t leave me, Alfie.”

I cover my eyes with my hands as Poppy casts off the blanket and steps behind the wall of the shower so that only her head is still visible to me.

The shower water is pink and sparkly and Poppy sighs and I here the splashing sounds of her soaping herself.

“How did you end up in the sewer drain, Poppy?” I ask.

“I got sent to the breeding ground in the dungeons,” says Poppy. “A massive green beast shuffled towards me on all fours, but he was seized by a great green ogre and they started to fight. I tried to slip away down a tunnel, but it was a dead end. Then I felt the clammy green hands of an ogre on me. The ogre’s hands were the size of dustbin lids, with fingers the size of cucumbers. He picked me up and stared at me. He had a huge nose and a bloated forehead. His arms and legs were thick as tree trunks, but his stomach was bloated. He must have weighed a ton. He was stark naked and…”

Poppy blushes and then continues her account:

“The ogre spoke in a rumbling voice. “Freckled face, doey eyes, cute nose, de’ent boobies – but is she sexy? Le’s fin’ out.

“The ogre’s bed was a bunch of filthy animal skins. He had the carcass of the green beast he killed and was gorging on a leg and I felt sick. “Wan’ some, ah’ve got moar,” said the ogre.

“No thanks,” I replied. “Listen, please let me go?”

“Ah’m gonna give you a babeh! Give it up!” roared the ogre, putting his terrific weight on top of me and – and he started doing it. I was pinned down and couldn’t move at all. The ogre did it again and again and I orgasmed so hard I blacked out. He roused me by smearing his poop on my face and then did it again. When I blacked out again, he must have flushed me down the sewer system.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through this,” I say, feeling pretty sick and what Poppy’s been through.

Poppy comes out of the shower, wrapped in a pink towel. The much and grime have been wiped off her and her face looks fresh and clean. Her auburn tresses glint in the light of the crystals in the ceiling. She puts her arms around me and I feel excited by her closeness, the feel of her firm breasts pressed against me…

“Hey!” Carly’s back and we turn at the sound of her voice. Her face is now bright yellowish green, smooth and shiny, like she’s wearing a tight fitting green mask.

“You look, uh, green,” I say.

“My face is clay now so I can reshape it as I like,” says Carly. “I always wanted my nose to grow longer…” she pulls her nose and it grows to be a foot long. Carly laughs and beings squashing and moulding her green features with her hands until she has an entirely different face, sculpted with high cheekbones and a patrician nose. “I like it…” she peers at herself in the mirror. “But if I feel like a change…” she moulds her face some more and now her face is the same shape as Poppy’s. She looks like Poppy with green face paint and blond hair.

“Very pretty,” I tell her.

If Carly is happy to have a face made of green clay, I'm glad she's happy, What strange and disturbing things happen here at Garnet Valley!