“This is from Toggell, from your old school.” Then she sat down as the sound of ripping paper filled the room. I looked at the spectacular… thing. I held up something that looked somewhat like a normal rock; rough, with small gem like crystals in it. It was scarlet and reminded me of blood for some reason. It was about the size of my palm. My mother made a small squeak as she saw the object.
“I thought Toggell’s family was poor.” She said aghast.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s called zethren: for “free time” in the goblin language.” My dad explained. “The goblins named it because you can only find it in their mountains. It could be used for chores if you found it necessary.”
“But what can it do?” I asked.
“Oh, almost anything!” my dad went on. “There’s something you have to do right now though; you have to hold it with both hands, then think of something you want done. It’ll know your voice-thoughts, and it won’t respond to anyone else.” I did as I was told. Immediately it jumped off my hands and got me a cup of water. It was weird how it did it: The red rock turned into a pair of hands, floated outside to the water pump, (opening the door on the way) and then did everything how I’d do it; even how much to fill the cup.
We finished the presents, and all of the other presents put together weren’t half as valuable as the zethren. But most of it was stuff I’d always wanted, so I was still extremely grateful. When we were done with the presents, we all got ready for my friends to come over to play. I was planning on going to play “Catch the dottontach”. (How you play is you let a bunch of dottontachs out and let them wander just a little, then you have to find one and hit it with a paralyzing dart that doesn’t hurt it, it only paralyzes it; and humans are immune to it. You put it in a pack and when the base-man blows the whistle, you have to bring back all the dottontachs you caught.) So I used the zethren to help gather all the dottontachs, and put them in the cage while Backleon helped me. All the rest of the family welcomed my friends as they came.

“Hello, I’m so glad you came, come in!” My parents said. Felchid Hooling came in first; after him, more came. When they came in, they handed their presents to Vensch; and she took them and put them on the couch. Once Backleon and I were done gathering the Dottontachs, we went inside to see six people sitting on the floor playing cards. Felchid looked up.
“Hey, c’mon! There’s a spot open; good thing too, ‘cause you’re the birthday-boy!” I sat down and started playing with them. Once we were done, we went out, and then we started playing Catch the Dottontach.
“Okay, we need to make a base-man. Does anyone want to volunteer?” and then we sorted that out and then we went to the cage to wait. Then we set the dottontachs free, and waited for about three minutes. Then, the hunt began… I ran out into the farmland; I couldn’t see one foot in front of me since I was in with the corn. I finally got out of the cornfield, and immediately spotted one about ten feet away from me, I was amazed it hadn’t seen or heard me. I slowly got my dart ready, and threw it. I hit it in its wing. It jumped up two feet and immediately fell to the ground paralyzed. I picked it up and put it in my pack. I looked up and saw Felchid throw a dart at a dottontach in the air, and hit it square in the chest. From what was to me fifty maybe fifty-five feet away. He picked it up and looked my way.
“Hey, how many you got? I got three. Ha ha, I know a trick that might help you.” And he instantly ran away with unimaginable speed. I stared with awe as I saw him go into the cornfield. I finally came to my senses, and ran around the house. I spotted a Dottontach and threw my dart. It nicked it’s tale, and the bird jumped in fright. It got up to probably thirty feet. It floated to the ground, and ran a way a little before it collapsed from the poison. I ran to it, and put it in my pack just as the whistle blew. I couldn't believe half an hour had already passed it felt like a minute or two! I looked into my small pack with dismay. It had taken Felchid only a little while to catch three, and all I had were two. I started walking back when I saw another dottontach. I looked around to make sure that no one was around; and then I slowly got out my dart.
“I wouldn’t cheat if I were you.” The voice made me jump. I saw the dottontach run away in my peripheral vision as I turned around to see Felchid, looking at me expectantly. He had three dottontachs outstretched to my face. “C’mon, you know you want them.” I looked at him in surprise.
“I thought you said not to cheat.”
“Look, you’re the Birthday-Boy, just take ‘em!” He then shoved them into my chest forcing me to grab them. Just as I was about to give them back, he was gone. I looked around to no avail, and had to go back to base. Once I’d gotten back, everyone was already there. Then the baseman said:
“Okay, count up your animals!” I did, and saw Felchid give me the thumbs up. I looked at my five dottontachs. “Okay, whoever doesn’t have three, step back.” I think half of my friends stepped back in dismay. “Okay, does anyone have more than three?” I stepped forward, along with one other person. “Do either of you two have four?” I held my place, but Felchid stepped back. “Well then, I now pronounce Aamyst, the birthday-boy and the winner of this game!” He then took my hand and stretched it into the air. “Okay, do you guys want to play again?” There was a deafening “YES”. Then another kid stepped up and took the role as baseman. I looked around for Felchid, wanting to thank him. Once I couldn’t find him I went to help everyone else get the antidote, and put it in the wounds of the dottontachs. When we saw the dottontachs, they were in the cage and they all had the antidote injected into them; and who should be leaning against their cage but the amazingly fast Felchid. Everyone stood there gaping.
“Well, are we going to play?” He said matter-of-factly. Everyone looked at each other and started muttering; and one person shouted “YEAH!”. So all of us got up against the cage, until the baseman yelled “GO!”. Once he did, we all ran out, and Felchid and I ran in opposite directions. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t cheat like that again. I ran out and went in with the peas. I spotted a dottontach almost instantly, at probably thirty feet away. I took out my dart and crawled up to it. Once I was about maybe ten feet away, my dart went flying past my head as I threw it dead center into it’s head. I went over to look at my prize, and saw the beauty of my shot. The only problem was, was that I’d killed it. I still put it in my pack. Then I went looking for more. I went around the cornfield, and saw another kid throw a dart into it… blindly. I went over to him. Once I was a good distance away, I accidentally stepped on a stick, he jumped and turned his dart toward me. Once he saw I wasn’t a dottontach he lowered it immediately. He quickly said “sorry”, and ran into the cornfield to see if he caught anything. I ignored him and kept on looking around the outside of the cornfield. I kept on looking in vein, until I heard mumbling and munching to my right. I turned that way and saw a fox eating a dottontach. I quickly ducked so as not to draw it’s attention to me. It must have been to busy eating, ‘cause it didn’t see me at all. I took out a dart to see if I could paralyze it. Then, I threw it. It hit it in one of it’s legs. It toppled over as my dart put it off balance, and didn’t move except to breath. I hoped I hadn’t killed it. I went over to the dottontach, just to see the damage the fox had done. It’d done a pretty bad job. It had ripped out one of the dottontach’s legs, and was munching on it when I’d thrown the dart. It’d also bitten into it’s neck, which looked like the reason the dottontach was dead. I looked over at the fox. It still had the dart in it’s leg. It looked sort of familiar. For some reason the face looked like one I’d seen before. Then I saw the fox start changing. It started glowing blue, it started turning into a human. It changed like Vensch always does when she changes from her doe form to the human form, and vise versa. Except Vensch glows red; the color of her gem. The changing only takes two to three minutes. In the end it changed into Felchid. Who looked up at me, and said.
“Hey, wh-what’s up? what am I doing here on the ground? OW!” he had found the dart in his leg. He pulled it out as I tried helping him up while trying to find the best way to ask him…
“Um y-you have your gem in already?” Felchid looked at me really seriously, and said.
“How do you know?”
“Well, you were kind of eating that dottontach.” He looked at me uncomfortably and said,
“Sorry I ate that dottontach. One thing you don’t really know, is that when you turn into the animal your gem chooses, you take on some of the instincts of that animal. I’m also sorry I didn’t tell you that I already had my gems put in. I actually had them put in about, oh when I was fifteen. I can’t believe I already have the powers, it’s only been two years! It’s been pretty sweet. I’m really sorry that I ate one of your dottontach though. I should have been able to control myself. But sometimes I get a little carried away. I let my fox-self take me where it wanted to go, and what it wanted to do. I swear on my parents grave, I wouldn’t have wanted to hurt your family in any way by wasting your money on that dottontach.” Right when I was about to ask him a question, the whistle blew. Instead of racing back to base, he slowly picked up the dottontach, and then sped into the adjacent farmyards, that somebody else owned. I went back to base. Once I got there, I noticed that Felchid was already there. I took out my one dottontach and looked over how good a head shot that was.
“Okay, whoever has…” And the baseman said practically what the first one had said. Once we got that done, we went inside to eat cake and open presents. After we ate the cake and ice cream, I went and sat at the birthday chair. I got all sorts of stuff from my friends! But none of the presents were as valuable as the zethren.
I said “Goodbye” and “Thank you” to everyone as they left. As Felchid left he gave me a wink and whispered, “This’ll be our little secret, okay?” I nodded and waved goodbye to all the rest of my friends that were there. I closed the door and sat down on the birthday chair thinking; well, now I know who the fox is. I took out the red rock in my pocket and looked at all the gemlike crystals in it. I told it, in my mind, to give me a massage and immediately, it jumped out of my hand turned into a funny thing I didn’t recognize, went down to my feet and started making me feel good; I don’t know how it did it, it just made me feel wonderful, but I do know that it suddenly went soft somehow.