And then he vanished.
Jen just gaped. "That was weird," said Tom.

"You can say that again!" Sam muttered.

All of a sudden, a big bunch of silver berries appeared. "Boy, those look tasty!" Tom snickered with delight, and since he was starving, he waddled over to them and began gobbling all of them.

"Tom, you shouldn't do that," Sam warned, knowing many times over that unusual food always somehow meant trouble. But it was too late, and Tom was changing into...

A gryphon!

"Tom, no!" Jen cried.

"Stand back!" yelled Sam.

Tom-

addressed them slowly and in a deep voice. "No, this is good! All of you climb on my back and I will fly us out of here."

Jen gave Sam a shaky smile and mounted Gryphon Tom's back. Sam rolled his eyes and got on behind her.

Gryphon Tom was about to fly off when Cayley yelled "Wait! I have something for you to use on your journey."

Then she handed confused Jen a magical candy cane sword that shined brightly. "Use this at your greatest need," Cayley advised.

Finally, Tom, with Jen and Sam on his back, flew away.

Cayley stood there for a moment lost in her own thoughts. But, eventually, she started to listen hard. A tune was being chanted over and over, but had been really faint at first so she hadn't noticed it. Now, it was getting louder every second.

"Ohhhhhhhh, dickity dock dick dock dick dock, dockity dickity dock."

An army of clocks was coming to attack her! She looked up to her daughter for help. But she, and the others, were already gone...

~Riella

Cayley pulled a chocolate knife from her belt and attacked the clocks.....

meanwhile, Jen and Sam were enjoying their ride on Tom.

Sam didn't understand why, but he had an odd feeling soemthing wasn't right. "Jen, Tom," he called, "I think we need to turn around!"

Jen, having a hard time hearing what he was saying, yelled, "What!?"

Cayley meanwhile was working her hardest to defeat the clocks, when all of a sudden she heard...

a horn blowing. Cayley looked up and saw -

A huge monster with 237 teeth and an evil sneer right behind them.

"Help!" cried Jen, falling off of the gryphon-that-was-Tom.

Jen fell and fell and fell. Fortunately, she landed on a bank of cotton-candy.

As for Cayley, she bust out into hysterics, complete utter hysterics.

Everybody, monster and all, stared at her and even the monster had a very puzzled expression. The brute obviously didn't know how to deal with victims which didn't act properly.

At last, the monster investigated Jen in the cotton candy. He ended up swallowing her whole, with the cotton candy, but Jen started yelling to the others "I say! you ought to come in too! It's lovely in here!"

The monster smiles. The others-

-watched in amazement as the monster opened it's mouth and revealed a portal!

"Come on, guys!" Jen grinned. "You'll love where this leads to!"

Sam and Tom the gryphon exchanged faces, but finally, Cayley replied, "We're coming dear!"

So, the boy, mother, and gryphon entered the portal and discovered...