Description
If you liked the movies Elf and Shrek, you’ll love THE ENCHANTED FILES—a magical, hilarious comedy series about fantastical creatures in the modern world by the bestselling author of My Teacher Is an Alien: Bruce Coville!
Meet Gerald. Gerald is a griffin—a creature with the body of a lion and the head of an eagle. According to the Code of the Griffins, that means he should be:
1. Brave and fierce in all situations!
2. A guardian of a great treasure!
3. Completely and totally hidden from the humans!
But what if a griffin ISN’T brave or fierce? What if he’s NEVER found a great treasure (or ANY treasure, for that matter)? What if he feels like such an embarrassment that the only thing left for him to do is run away? And what if the only place no one will look for him is . . . the human world?
“Bruce Coville is a wizard at telling stories.” —Christopher Paolini, New York Times bestselling author of Eragon
“Hilarious. Middle-grade readers will be carried along by the buoyancy of the writing, the skillful design, and the humor on almost every page. Egg-ceptionally funny!” —Kirkus Reviews
“Coville brings his signature wit and humor to this fantasy story. This second installment adds authentic and engaging, multidimensional characters to a strong series that finds heroes in outcasts.” —School Library Journal
Read a sneak preview of this title
Gentle Reader—
I am pleased, but nervous, to present this account of my adventures in the human world and what happened to me there.
To give you the story completely I have woven into my diary (which was originally intended to be quite personal!) many documents and papers that I hope will help you fully understand the terror and the drama of it all.
Gaaah! That sounds a little over the top, doesn’t it? Well, my teacher, Master Abelard (whom you will meet later in these pages), has occasionally called me a drama queen.
I will not demean myself by explaining what that means, but I sometimes fear it is true.
On the other wing, I did indeed experience a great deal of terror on this journey. So that is also true.
In addition to my diary, you will find many pages from the journal of a human boy named Bradley Ashango, as well as photographs he took with a strange device called a cell phone. He swears the thing is not magical, merely scientific. I am not entirely convinced of this. It certainly seems magical to me.
Many times Brad and I had written about the same experience, so I trimmed some of our entries to avoid unnecessary repetition. However, nothing has been added! We want you to experience this as we did.
Well, not entirely as we did. I suffered a great deal of fear, doubt, and emotional agony during the events here recounted. Though I hope you will read with a sympathetic heart, I also hope that the emotional effects will not be as overwhelming for you while reading it as they were for me.
One last note: please excuse my poetry. Master Abelard tells me it is not very good. But it is part of who I am, so I felt it was important to leave it in place.
Yours very sincerely,
Gerald Overflight, Griffin
The Code of the Griffins
I. A griffin is brave and fierce in all situations. The heart quails not, and the beak and talons are ever ready to strike in the name of truth and freedom.
II. Now that Great Alexander has left the human world, and the divine Dante has gone to the Fields of the Blessed, griffins are no more to be seen by humans.
III. We are guardians of treasure, and any item of value placed in a griffin’s care, whether it be glittering diamond or hope of heaven, will be protected unto the death. A griffin who fails in this regard is no griffin at all.
IV. The Enchanted Realm is our home and haven, and we go no more to the human world.
V. We live in a state of joy and gratitude that we have been given the gift of the sky. And we are ever thankful for these treasures: the power of wings, the ferocity of heart, the strength of limb, and the purity of intent that make us, now and evermore . . . GRIFFINS!
This is the Code of the Griffins, as given to us by Izzikiah Wildbeak and written down by Josiah Cloudclaws in The Griffinagria.
Reader—
I put in the Code so you would understand the kind of pressure I was facing. We grifflings (“grifflings” is the word for young griffins) are given a copy of this document on our seventh Hatchday and ordered to memorize it. Our elders expect that within two weeks we will be able to recite word for word any item on the list when asked.
“Gerald, give me number three,” some grown-up will demand, and I have to be ready to spew it back.
Anyway, now that you’ve seen the Code, it’s time to show you my actual diary, which starts on the next page. You will always be able to tell when it’s me writing, because I begin my entries with the full day and date. (Brad claims this is overly fussy, but I think it’s the proper way to do it.)
For ease of reading, I have converted the dates of events in the Enchanted Realm to match corresponding days in the human world.
You’re welcome. —G.O.
Friday, June 19
This was a bad day, mostly due to the continued teasing from my rotten siblings, who claim I am not a true griffin.
This wounds me.
In fact, today it made me so mad that I wrote a poem about Cyril:
Higgledy-piggledy,
Berries and tarts,
Cyril’s the king
Of huge stinky farts!
That made me feel better.
I’m going to try to write a poem every day. They seem to help me get my feelings out.
To check the claims of the SS (Stupid Siblings) that I am not a true griffin, I looked up “griffins” in our family’s copy of the Encyclopedia Enchantica.
Having read what the EE has to say, my response is “What a lot of unicorn poop!”
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