Contents

Megan's Thirteenth

DEDICATION

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1 MAM’S SURPRISE

2 THE OAK

3 THE BIG DAY

4 THE AFTERNOON PARTY

5 THE EVENING PARTY

6 MEGAN’S FRIENDS

GLOSSARY

Megan's Thirteenth

A Spirit Guide, A Ghost Tiger and One Scary Mother!

by

Owen Jones

Megan’s Thirteenth

Copyright © 2021 Owen Jones Author

All rights reserved.

Published by

Megan Publishing Services

The right of Owen Jones to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. The moral right of the author has been asserted.

In this work of fiction, the characters and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or they are used entirely fictitiously. Some places may exist, but the events are completely fictitious.

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Other novellas in the same series:

The Megan Series

A Spirit Guide, A Ghost Tiger and One Scary Mother!

The Misconception

Megan's Thirteenth

Megan’s School Trip

Megan’s School Exams

Megan’s Followers

Megan and the Lost Cat

Megan and the Mayoress

Megan Faces Derision

Megan’s Grandparents Visit

Megan’s Father Falls Ill

Megan Goes on Holiday

Megan and the Burglar

Megan and the Cyclist

Megan and The Old Lady

Megan’s Garden

Megan Goes To The Zoo

Megan Goes Hiking

Megan and the W. I. Cookery Competition

Megan Goes Riding

Megan Goes Yachting

Megan at Carnival

Megan at Christmas

DEDICATION

This story is dedicated to my parents Colin and Marion for the wonderful upbringing they gave to me and my brothers.

CONTENTS

1

Mam's Surprise

2

The Oak

3

The Big Day

4

The Afternoon Party

5

The Evening Party

6

Megan's Friends

Glossary

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to acknowledge the help of my wife and my friend David Prosser with the cover design.

1 MAM’S SURPRISE

Megan’s mother, Suzanne, had been a different woman since the last time she had locked Megan in the coal cellar six months ago. She knew that Megan could still tell her father about it at any time, but as time receded from that awful day, it was becoming less and less likely that she would do so. Megan had let her off the hook and she knew that she owed her something for that. Megan had also more or less stopped talking about her supernatural, psychic powers too, at least in front of her mother.

From Megan's point of view, she finally had her mother as an ally again, as she always should have been, in their unspoken mother-daughter pact. Megan had been aware that, in the beginning, her mother had been worried that she would use the incident to blackmail her for favours. She knew that that was what her own mother was thinking about her and it hurt her. However, when it didn't happen, she had begun to warm to her young daughter again.

Slowly at first, but with gradual, definite progress all the same.

Both Megan and her mother were well aware of this ‘Entente Cordiale’, but it was Megan who fostered it rather than her mother. Megan thought that she was behaving particularly filial.

She helped her mother prepare food and do the beds; she offered to carry the shopping and, when she saw her mother tending the vegetable patch, she tried to find the time to work with her. Suzanne did nothing special, because she was waiting for the axe to fall. She did not have the sense, literally, to see that Megan would never let her down on purpose, whereas Megan knew what her mother was thinking so well, that she could probably have transcribed her thoughts verbatim.

However, one Saturday morning at the breakfast table, a week before Megan’s thirteenth birthday, Suzanne surprised both her husband and Megan:

“It's your thirteenth next Saturday, what would you like to do for it, Megan? Thirteen is a very special birthday, you will no longer be our little girl, – you’ll be a teenager. Won't she, Dad?”

“Yes, all grown up… Thirteen! My gosh, doesn’t time fly? How about a party in the garden? Or we could put a marquee on The Green. Then you could have some music so you and your friends can have a dance after the jelly and blancmange.”

“Daddy! I hope you won’t embarrass me by giving me and my friends food like jelly and blancmange… What are you like?”

“What? Too big for all that now are we, little Miss Grown-up? Well, I'm not even if you are. I love it. I love kids’ food. Yum, yum! Never mind, I'll have yours. How about a birthday cake? Or are you too big for that too?”

“Oh, I want a birthday cake – a birthday cake is cool. I'll have to think about the rest of the food though… Maybe, pizzas and curry.”

“Pizzas and curry? I've never heard of that before. Curry and rice, sure, pizzas and cheese, sure, but never pizzas and curry.”

"Not on the same plate! Mam, Daddy's being silly.”

“He’s only joking with you, darling, take no notice. He has these silly turns sometimes. Always has had,… haven’t you noticed before? He's still just a boy at heart, aren't you, Bobby Boy?”

They all laughed.

It was what had been missing in their family life for years… even before the first time that Megan had been locked in the cellar and the pact had been broken, in fact.

“Can I be excused, so I can phone my friends, please?”

“May, I be excused, sure you can, er, may and don't forget to ask them which type of curry goes with which type of pizza topping?”

“Oh, Daddy!” she mock-sighed as she kissed them both. “Thanks ever so much for my party. It’s going to be my best party ever, you wait and see.”

The first thing that Megan noticed as she opened the door to her bedroom was Grrr, her friend and spirit tiger, who was lying stretched out on her bed. Grrr raised her head slowly, looked at her friend and purred loudly.

“Come on, puss, move over, I’ve got some serious organizing to do.” She nudged Grrr, who rolled over onto her back hoping to be tickled. Megan leaped onto the space that Grrr had created and reached over to her bedside table for her mobile phone.

“Jane? Megan. Mam and Dad just told me I can have a 13th birthday party! Cool, eh? Next Saturday, the 13th. Yeah, I'll be thirteen on the 13th. You will come, won’t you? You are the first person I’ve asked, but I’ll ring all the guys from school too.”

“Dad suggested hiring a marquee on The Green. Food, disco, lights, the whole works… What do you think?”

“Pizza, curry, jelly, ice cream, cake and kebabs?”

“Sounds great! I'll ask Mam to order that.”

“How about a DJ?”

“Oh, yes, great idea! Jack Hammer! He's so cool and so fit! OK, I've got to go now, Jane. Tell everyone you see that they are welcome too. I'll ring you when I know the exact times. Bye.”

Two hours later, Megan had invited all her best friends and had given them all carte blanche to invite anyone else as well. When she finally put the phone down, she closed her eyes and just felt the warmth of Grrr and the mingling of their lights, as Megan had used to call them, but which she had since learned to call their Auras from her Guide Wacinhinsha.

As Megan felt their Auras mix, she experienced complete and utter peace from the tiger. The tiger has no serious enemies except man, but as Grrr was dead anyway, she had no fear of anything or anyone at all in any world or in any life.

Megan bathed in the feeling of utter contentment, but knew that she would have to get up soon, because she had promised to go shopping with her parents.

“OK, Grrr, are you coming with us or are you staying here?” The big cat was purring, but she may have been asleep - it was impossible to tell, especially with a dead cat - even a tiger.

“Well, I have to go now… I’ll see you later.” There was no answer, as she knew there wouldn't be, but she liked to talk to Grrr, as people like to speak to their living pets without expecting a reply.

Grrr was a big cat and cats can’t speak human languages when they are alive or dead, but they can still make someone feel happy or afraid whether alive or not. Megan had learned that nothing changed just because something or someone died, except that it did not have a body any longer.

Megan’s father drove them to the local, out-of-town shopping complex to do the normal weekly shopping and pick up some basic supplies for the forthcoming party. Her parents treated her to a new party frock, which Megan took her time over, but she eventually chose a beautiful, pale blue, full-length, sleeveless dress in the style of that worn by maidens of ancient Rome and Greece. She also picked out a straw bonnet that took her fancy to wear during the warm afternoon.

Megan loved shopping and so did her mother, although her father was not as keen. They soon had a trolley full of goods each at the check out and when her mother suggested that Megan take hers back to the car and unload it first, she did so reluctantly, because she suspected that her parents wanted to do some more shopping for her birthday.

Megan dawdled outside the shops looking at items displayed in the windows since she had forgotten to ask for the car keys. Twenty minutes later, she spotted her parents coming out fifty yards away, so started walking towards the car.

As she approached it, Megan became aware that something was wrong. She saw a young man opening the driver’s side door. At first, she thought that she had the wrong car, but knew really that she had not.

When five yards from the vehicle, she shouted out to the man to stop what he was doing and then froze in terror thinking how stupid that that had been for what could she do about it? She involuntarily closed her eyes for a second.

When Megan reopened them, Grrr was standing inches from the intruder growling fiercely. Grrr could not intervene physically, but she produced a feeling of fear in the thief and one of courage in Megan.

Megan heard her father shouting and running up behind her and she lunged with the trolley to trap the man in the car. Her parents did the rest. Her father prevented the man, who was now cursing wildly, from leaving the car and her mother phoned the police. However, security staff from the complex arrived minutes later having witnessed the events on the mall’s CCTV system.

They led the man, who now looked like any scared teenage boy, to a holding room within the main building to await the police who arrived soon afterwards. An ambulance came too. Megan was shaking so much that she could barely hear the by-standers telling her what a brave girl she was.

Her mother, Suzanne, on the other hand was admonishing her never to play the heroine again, while Grrr brushed up against her legs and gave her a warm, comforting glow.

She had known from her experiences in the cellar that her friends would never let her down, but the speed with which Grrr had reacted and the confidence that she had been able to instill in her amazed Megan.

As the police took statements from her parents, Megan sat on the rear step of the ambulance with a blanket around her shoulders and a tiger over her feet. The paramedics were looking for signs of shock or trauma, but all that Megan felt was amazement that she had acted in the way that she had, since she had never performed any act of bravery before in her life, although she had also never been in a situation where she could have.

However, one thing that she now knew for certain was that Grrr could have a profound effect on her and so probably on others too. She had witnessed herself that although she could not physically do anything, she could alter the ‘atmosphere’. The boy had seemed frightened, but she didn't know how much he had been aware of Grrr.

She doubted that he had actually seen or heard the tiger, but something had happened. It was something else that she would have to find out about.

That was the first time that Megan had ever met the local police and paramedics but she made a lasting impression on them. She had been a brave girl, there was no question about that, but there was something else about her too.

Some of them said that Megan had a composure that was rare in a person of her age. She was being taken care of as a matter of routine, but it was obvious to everyone present there that she didn't need any help – yet she allowed people just to get on with their jobs without making a fuss, although she was not at all macho about her heroism.

Megan was the strong, silent type and that suited everyone just fine. It would be one of Megan’s hallmarks – she never made a fuss and didn’t want anything.

Little did anyone know that Megan got most of her inner strength from the presence of a long-dead Siberian tiger, even though she was an impressive nine feet long from tip to tail and stood three feet off the ground. When she was alive, she had weighed over three hundred pounds, but was now virtually weightless.

Megan was so unaffected by what people were calling ‘her ordeal’ that she was able to spend the rest of the evening writing out invitation cards that her parents had bought that afternoon to send to family.