Chapter Seventeen

"Hi!" called down Moffat. "It's me all right. Unless I'm you, which I'm not, so it isn't and a good thing too!"

"What are you doing up there?" asked Jennifer.

"I'm flying," Moffat told her.

"I didn't know you could fly!" said Jamie.

"Neither did I," replied Moffat. "It just goes to show you never quite know just what you can do till you do it."

Actually, he wasn't really flying at all. He was floating, or rather the chair he was sitting on was. It was hovering there about four meters overhead kept aloft by a number of large balloons which were tied to its seat.

"Coming in for a landing!" cried out Moffat enthusiastically and he started popping the balloons.

The chair dropped down closer to the ground with each explosion. Soon it was just a few centimeters above the surface of the bridge, swinging comfortably from side to side like a large swing, still held aloft by the last two balloons.

"How do you like my new invention?" Moffat asked. "I wanted to look for the new- moon stones too and I knew there had to be some way to do it. And there was! It was easy! Remember those pots of goo?"

"Sure I do," said Jennifer. "There was yellow and blue. You stuck my stick apple in yellow and it made me giggle."

"Well, the yellow was made from the sun," explained Moffat. "That's why it tasted so happy. The blue was the sky. When the raccoon tasted it he started to float and that got me to thinking. The first thing I thought was to hold his tail and I tried to fly that way. But one raccoon just isn't enough to get you off so I ended up having to use some balloons instead. I blew a few up and I painted on sky, then I tied them all down to the back of my chair. And the next thing I knew I was flying! Imagine my surprise! I never quite realized it would actually work! I flew out the window as soon as I could and here I am! Come on, let's go to the new-moon clearing. I can follow you there in the air on my chair."

The children all looked at each other. No-one wanted to tell him. Finally Jennifer broke the news.

"We've already been," she said.

"Is it over?" cried Moffat. "Did I miss it?"

"I'm afraid you did," said Jamie.

"We even found the source stone," said Rachael.

"The source stone?" said Moffat. "What's that?"

"It's the most special of all the new-moon stones," explained Jennifer. "It connects all the others. . .

"And it has all their magic," said Jamie.

"And all their power," said Rachael.

"And all the best secrets," said Jennifer and she told her great-grandfather all about what the sprite had said.

"Source stones certainly do sound special," he agreed.

"They are," said Jamie. "Everyone wants one."

"Especially dwarves," said Rachael. "Two of them tried to take it away but Jennifer stopped them!"

"Yeah, she was awesome!" said Jamie and he told Moffat all about the dwarves and the wolf in the sack and everything else that had happened.

"Amazing!" he said. "So let's see what this source stone looks like. Which one of you has it?"