Captain Kittyhawk & The Cloud Wars

Chapter 1. A world turned upside down

Trixie was standing on her head on the beach when she first saw the planes. From her point of view the sea was a calm intensive blue filled with white foam. It grew lighter towards the horizon were its touched the dark emerald green of the sky. Further from the horizon the turquoise filled with fast moving White clouds. Eventually the white clouds rolled into the at the golden sky above her head. At first Trixie thought the aeroplanes were fish dancing in the water. She fell forwards and dusting the sand from her long golden hair and looked again.

'Look' she said pointing into the sky. Hugo stopped building a sound castle to follow Trixie's pointing finger.

'what can you see, what can you see' asked Jack squinting into the sky.

The planes were leaving ribbons behind in the sky and making it easier for me other children to spot. It was like a dancer weaving a basket of ribbons.

'I bet you they are sky pilots pirates' said Hugo.

'How do you know?' asked Trixie.

'Only sky pirates and would be dogfighting like that' said Hugo pointing

'Let's be sky pirates' said Jack. They started to play but Hugo was upset that Trixie wanted to be a pirate too.

'You can't have girl sky pirates, it doesn't make sense' he said.

'Of cause you can have girl sky pirates' said Trixie 'what about Kitty Deathhawk she's the most fearsome sky pirate there is!'

They began arguing over who exactly was the best sky pirate.

'Well Captain Araneae eat's children' promised Jack.

'Miss Meadow' said Elizabeth to the young woman that had accompanied then to the East side of the island. 'Trixie has spotted some sky pirates' she said pointing.

Miss Meadow squinted at the sky hunting for the tiny black dots.

'I don't like the look of that, we should be getting back anyway come on lets go' she said.

Trixie flicked the sand from her ears then cover them with her hair. She had long slightly pointy ears which she hid. 'Miss Meadow can't we stay a bit longer ,they aren't going to hurt us are they?'

Miss Meadow looks confused 'its not the planes I'm worried about look at that dark cloud sheets coming this way and we don't have any raincoats. I promised your parents we would get back dry.'

Trixie looked to the south there was a Black cloud on the horizon. Homton was a small island and Miss Meadow knew the weather could change very rapidly. Hugo and Jack started running around the beach pretending to be aeroplanes and began to shoot each other out of the sky. This gave Trixie some time to watch the tiny dots chase round the sky. She felt sure it was two or three planes chasing a third one. Eventually Miss Meadow got the boys to follow the pass towards the dunes and the road beyond.

'are there really sky Pirates' asked Trixie. She was as smart as a eight year old could be, that but knew that people like her older brother loves to tell her stories and make up silly lies.

'Yes Trixie' said Miss Meadow looking down on the in lanky girl climbing over the fence. It was easy mistake her for an older child.

'Who is the most fiercest sky pilot? I heard there was a woman pirate Captain DeathHawk they call her. My brother Hayden told me that she was worse than all the other boy pirates. I heard she has a cat head, I heard she was the most dangerous pirate in all of the southern archipelago. I've got cat ears have you seen? My mother thinks that I might grow a cat head when I get older.'

'You be careful what you wish for' said miss Meadow. She reached up and tucked her long years up into her broad brim hat. Buffy Meadow's face was half way between that of a sour teenager and a worried rabbit. She was half way through the changing and all the best medicines on the island hand't done much to stop it. Within in the year she would join the five or six people on the island who had animal heads. In Homton people were fairly accepting of those who had changed. If Buffy Meadow ventured to the mainland then she might get people staring at her in the street.

'Here' Trixie's mother had kept telling her 'it was impolite to draw attention to a changer'.

The island didn't get many visitors and of the visitors very few of them changers. Sometimes when a changer would turned up the kids they would sneak trying to get a peek of them. Trixie had seen two dog people, one bear and one deer woman drinking tea in the window of the corner house cafe.

'Why do some people change and others don't' asked Trixie.

'No one knows' said Miss Meadow. 'the doctors don't know, no one in the whole Thousand Island sea has any idea. In the old days they used to think it was some kind of magic curse'

'Do you think that?' asked Trixie.

'I don't know what to think.' said Miss Meadow , 'it just happens'.

By the time they got back to the town it was time for Miss Meadows to drop them all back home. As Trixie was dropped off the sky had become dark with clouds and the wind had begun to whistle through the empty streets. Job done Miss Meadows ran back home with rain spotting her dress.

Over a dinner of crumpets and ginger beer, Trixie was keen to tell her mother and brothers all about the dogfight she had watched that afternoon. Dad had even come back early from fishing. He said it wasn't going to be a good day to be out on a boat tomorrow. Trixie watched as he looked out of the kitchen window at the black clouds grasping the horizon.

'the devil blows in on a black wind' he said before herding the children up to bed.