The dark blue transit van pulled up outside number twelve Rosemead Avenue. Inside Peter Grimshaw switched off the engine, killed the lights and waited to see if his 3 am arrival had been noticed. Not that there was much chance of that, the trick or treating was long over, the hardy folks with patio heaters had set off their fireworks and gone to their beds hours ago.
After spending the last eighteen months incarcerated in Durham for attempted theft -how was he to know that the woman with the red Prada bag was an undercover policewoman - Peter had learned to be careful and since this was his first job as a burglar he had decided to take his time.
For the last two weeks he had kept an eye on the comings and goings of the old crone who lived there. Not that there was much to see. The old woman only left the house on a Tuesdays to visit her friend in the nearby village of Willington and on Thursdays to shop in the local high street. Peter had originally thought that he would be able to break in through the day. But the arrival of a younger woman obviously the daughter - she had the same hooked nose and pointy chin - at nine each morning on those days, put paid to that idea.
So here he was in the middle of the night watching leaves dancing on an autumn wind while he made one last check in case an insomniac dog walker came wandering by. Finally satisfied he stepped out of the van and made his way up the leaf-carpeted drive towards the darkened house. On reaching the garage he slipped around to the back, jemmied open the kitchen window and slipped inside.
After scrambling over the old stone sink he looked around, it was like entering a time warp, at the far end was an old black range with a pot suspended over a dully glowing fire. The floor was stone flagged and an oil lamp stood on the kitchen table, He smiled, the stupid old crow was living in the past and the house would probably be stuffed with antiques. He stood listening, not a sound, she must be sound asleep, good; he could take his pick from downstairs while she slept.
Flicking on his torch, he move into what was obviously a dining room, if he was looking for antiques this was the place. The furniture was old probably Tudor and too heavy for one man to carry. Still, there was a lot of pewter in the dresser and that would do for starters. He began to carry it through and stack it on the kitchen table. He was on his last load when the old woman appeared from nowhere. One minute he was stacking his ill gotten gains on the table and the next he had turned around and she was there, waving her finger in his face and saying, 'Naughty, naughty.'
He wanted to reach out, grab the silly old bat by the neck and wipe the grin from her face, but he was frozen in place, unable to move. She walked around him three times, did a little jig, cackled a few strange words and touched him on the tip of his nose with a gnarled finger. A tingling began in his head and moved down though his body until it reached his toes, then stopped. For a moment nothing else happened, then he felt strange, it was almost as if he was shrinking. The old woman opened the back door and told him to leave. He looked up, gave a loud croak and hopped off, in search of a pond.
They say that a ghost roams this forest at night; the ghost of a boy who was camping in the forest with his friends, went off to get firewood and was never seen again. His friends combed the forest and when they couldn’t find him, they informed the authorities. For a couple of weeks the police searched the forest and all the surrounding area, but they could find no trace of him and the search moved elsewhere.
Months later in the autumn, when the vegetation had died back, a man walking his dog, found the body – it had a broken neck and had lain undiscovered in dense undergrowth all summer long. By then the corpse was a terrible sight, just bones with lumps of mouldering flesh hanging from them. It happened many years ago and the ghost of the boy with his head hanging to one side wanders the forest at night, looking for his friends
But I don’t believe in ghosts. Put it this way, I have roamed through every bit of this forest; have done for years and I have never seen hide or hair of this so-called ghost. Mind you, plenty of them come here because they’ve heard there is a ghost, especially the boys. Take that group at the other side of the clearing. They have come here to camp and will sit round the fire, like they are doing tonight and scare each other half to death. Just listen to them.
‘And at midnight the mouldering skeleton, rattling his bones, creeps into the camp, grabs one of the boys and drags him screaming into the trees, never to be seen again.’
‘Pack it in, Collin, it’s creepy enough out here.’
‘Why, are you scared, Bobby? You are aren’t you?’
‘No, it’s only a story …’
‘Whooo,’
‘Who did that? It was you Mick, wasn’t it?’
‘No.’‘Then why are you grinning like The Cheshire Cat?’
‘I’m not …what was that?’
‘There, you’re doing it again.’
‘Shhhh! Listen! Do you hear that noise?’
Oh, oh, they’ve heard me moving about, I better step out into the light and let them know it’s only me.
Aw, that’s always happening, they’ve run off and I only wanted to ask if they had seen my friends.
Billy stood knee deep in the river, he had been standing without moving for the past fifteen minutes. Suddenly he moved plunging his hands down and bringing them back up again grasping a large fish.
‘Here, Johnny catch,’ he said, as he threw it to his friend, standing on the bank.
Johnny caught the fish, grinned, and then screamed, as the bank gave way hurling him and the catch into the water. Billy grabbed him by the collar and hauled him coughing and spluttering to his feet, but it was too late, not only had the fish escaped, the splashing had alerted the crocodiles and they began sliding into the water.
Nothing had gone right since they had become separated from the rest of the expedition five days ago. Apart from a small amount of dried meat and a canteen of water between them, which they’d had consumed on the first day, they’d had nothing to eat and were growing weaker by the hour. Now, the fish that they had been going to grill over an open fire was gone, and there was no chance of catching another.
It had been the same yesterday, when he had spotted the nest high in the jungle canopy and climbed up to get eggs. He’d gotten two, but when he came back down and handed them to his friend, Johnny had fallen over a log hidden in the undergrowth and broken them.
Billy had shouted at Johnny then, calling him all the clumsy clods he could think of. But when Johnny had hung his head and said, ‘Sorry, Billy,’ he knew he had been unfair. Dropping the eggs had been an accident, and today losing the fish was an accident too.
‘Come on, Johnny we’ve got to keep moving,’ he said, as he helped his friend up the bank and onto the trail.
‘ Follow me and keep close behind.’
As they set off once more Johnny knew that they couldn’t go on like this, if they didn’t eat soon they’d collapse and die. He felt terrible, it was entirely his fault, if he hadn’t dropped the eggs and lost the fish they wouldn’t be starving now.
Ahead of him, Billy began to stagger as he walked, then suddenly he fell. Johnny stumbled up to him, dropped to his knees, and shook him, ‘Billy, Billy, come on get up, we need to keep moving.’
But his friend just gave a groan and mumbled something that he couldn’t make out. Now what was he going to do? He wasn’t used to making decisions, he left all that to Billy, who was good at it. But Billy was out of it and that only left him.
‘Up you come, Billy,’ he said, as he bent and hauled him to his feet.
He staggered on, supporting his friend, but it was slow work and he knew they wouldn’t get far, and they didn’t. A few moments later they stumbled and fell. Johnny lay there for a long time and then staggered to his feet. This wasn’t going to work, he would have leave Billy here, while he went to find food. The most upsetting thing was that there were berries all around them in the jungle; they’d tried eating them on the second day, but had become so violently ill that they wouldn’t dare try again.
Johnny dragged Billy to the side of the trail and propped him up against a tree and saying, ‘Bye old friend, won’t be long,’ set off.
He didn’t go far, he must have only gone twenty metres when he saw the hut to the right of the trail. It was no native hut; it was an abandoned log cabin, which must have belonged to some long gone explorers, like themselves. And maybe, just maybe, those explorers had left a stash of food behind, like Captain Scott had in the Arctic.
He made his way back to Billy, he hadn’t the strength lift him, so he grabbed him by the arms and dragged him along the trail and into the hut. Leaving his friend on the floor, he looked around. At one end there were two beds made from bamboo, at the other end, a table and four chairs and beyond the table was a kitchen area, with cupboards also made of bamboo. There was even a sink carved out of a tree trunk and on the bench next to it, were two bowls and two wooden spoons.
Johnny headed straight for the cupboards, he opened the first, it was empty, the second was also empty, but in the third he found four tins all with no labels. Carrying the tins to the table, he looked around for a tin opener; surely they wouldn’t have left tins and nothing to open them with. He tried the rest of the cupboards, nothing. There must be one somewhere he thought, as his eyes roved the hut, still nothing. He was about to go outside for a rock to bash the tins open, when he spotted the small drawer next to the sink. Pulling it open he smiled, success. Taking the opener to the table he opened the first tin, it was full of peas.
Grabbing Billy again, he managed to lift him into a chair and holding the tin to his lips fed him the pea juice. As soon as his friend could hold the tin himself, Johnny got the bowls and spoons and began opening the other tins, they were all peas, but still it was food.
Emptying two tins into each bowl he sat down next to Billy, and they had barely begun to eat, when the door opened and a voice said, ‘What on earth are you doing with my peas?’
Charlie and me had been mates since forever, he was short and broad with a mop of straw-coloured hair and freckles and I was tall and skinny and got landed with spots. We were both eleven and neither of us were into girls yet. Although, I did sort of get this funny feeling in my stomach when Jenny Simpson smiled at me and I’d noticed that Charlie tended to go all moony when Angela, Jenny’s friend, walked by. But apart from that we thought girls were a bit, well… soppy.
We were more into football, not for a team or anything like that, but we played a mean game in the park. We’d also go down to the river, mainly to throw stones at the rats. Then there was the camp in the middle of the Elderberry bushes at the bottom of the churchyard, decked out with a couple of battered old armchairs that we had humped over from the tip; we’d sometimes hang out there and down a few cans of Fanta.
But the place we used to spend most of our time at was the really neat tree house we’d built high up in one of the trees next to the big tanks at the back of the Fire Station. The tanks were used to store water for the pump engines and a crisscross of metal bars covered the open tops to prevent anyone falling in. Some of the trees overhung them and that’s why we built the tree house in the first place.
It was a bright sunny day and Charlie and me were looking for something to do. We had gone down to the park, but there wasn’t a game on, so we’d picked up a couple of jars and wandered over to the swamp – it wasn’t really a swamp, it was just a big, smelly, muddy pond in the middle of an overgrown piece of land – it was where we used to go to hunt for Newts. We didn’t find any, but did manage to get ourselves Plastered in mud and it didn’t half pong. After brushing the thick off with some grass we decided to head back.
To get home we had to pass the back of the Fire Station and since there didn’t seem to be anyone about we decided to jump over the wall and climb the trees – we found out later that the firemen never came into the trees, they just pulled up on the road, stuck a hose in the water, filled the pump and then drove off again. Which was great for us, we had all these trees to climb and as long as we kept out of sight when a pump came around, no one would chase us. Anyway we climbed every tree in the place and I was about to follow Charlie down from the last one when I spotted something in one of the tanks; it wasn’t that big and it was thrashing about in the water.
‘There’s a bird in one of the tanks,’ I shouted, and by the time I reached the ground Charlie was already reaching out with a long stick, trying to talk the poor thing into grabbing the end.
‘Come on, little birdie, come to Charlie,’ he called softly
The bird obviously didn’t understand a word of it and continued to flap and circle weakly.
‘That stick’s no good, we need something to fish it out with, keep trying, I’ve got an idea.’
I raced over to an elderberry bush by the wall, snapped off a long branch and leaving a small bunch of leaves at the top stripped the rest bare. I handed it to Charlie and he slid it through the mesh and out to the bird. This time surrounded by leaves it sort of scrambled onboard and Charlie pulled it slowly to the edge.
That was the first bird we saved, then we built the tree house and it became a bird rescue centre, mainly in the early summer when the young birds were learning to fly. We fished them out with fishing nets, dried them off, fed them up and let them go again, away from the tanks. We must have rescued hundreds and every one of them flew away, except for one, a young crow that Charlie called Kaw, he had a damaged wing and couldn’t fly, so he stayed with us and lived in and around our tree house. Charlie loved that bird and if you saw them together you’d say that the bird loved Charlie. He used to hop onto Charlie’s hand, make his way up his arm onto his shoulder and stayed there, like a pirate’s parrot, until it was time for us to go home.
Kaw was the only pet Charlie ever had; his dad had asthma really bad and wouldn’t allow any pets near the house. I was luckier, I had my dog Butch, don’t be fooled by the name, he was a total wimp, he didn’t even bark and hid if he saw another dog, he was so friendly that if a burglar had broken into our house he’d have lick him to death. But he was my dog and he followed me everywhere, he even came to the tree house and was quite happy to stay on the ground chasing butterflies, or even playing with Kaw if Charlie took him down.
That’s why I couldn’t believe it when I saw what he had done. I had gone to the tree house with Butch as usual, but when I climbed up, there was no sign of Kaw. He wasn’t inside or on his favourite perch just outside the window or anywhere else in the tree. It wasn’t until I turned to go down to see if he had fallen that I spotted the black feathers sticking out, either side of Butch’s mouth.
‘Drop it, Butch,’ I screamed, and Butch like the wimp he was, dropped his tail, ran off and squirmed his way into a clump of bushes.
‘Charlie will never speak to me again,’ I kept muttering over and over as I scrambled to the ground.
I leaned into the bushes to grab Butch but he slithered back out of reach. I tried coaxing him out, ‘Good, boy, come to Gary,’ but he didn’t move, so I shouted at him and he dropped the bird, shot out the back and disappeared. Worming my way into the bushes I picked up Kaw; he was soft, light and very, very dead, his head flopped and his normally bright eyes were glazed. My mind raced as I laid him on gently on the ground. What was I going to do? How would I explain it to Charlie? Maybe I could get another crow to take his place, I even looked in the tanks to see if one had fallen in, but even if one had, Charlie would have known the difference.
Finally I decided to take the coward’s way out, I would hide the body and tell Charlie that Kaw was missing when I arrived, well it was partly true. Having made my decision I picked up the body set off towards the farthest corner of the grounds and was halfway there when I found the hole. It was next to a small Hawthorne bush and had been dug by some kind of animal, it was just the right size, so I laid Kaw inside covered him with soil and said, a little prayer.
When I got back Butch was waiting with his ears and tail down, I couldn’t forgive what he’d done to Kaw, so I ignore him and his big soft eyes. He dropped his head and slunk off into the bushes out of sight. Full of sadness I climb up to the empty tree house and waited for Charlie. Within minutes I heard him call out as he began climbing the tree. ‘Are you there, Gary, I’ve got something to tell you.’
I'd been dreading this moment and suddenly I wanted to Climb down and run away, to be anywhere but there, it was all my fault, if only I'd left Butch at home instead of bring him with me, Kaw would still have been alive and I wouldn't have been about to lose the best friend I'd ever had. But I could stop that happening, all I had to do, was to look my best mate straight in the eye and tell him a lie. I wasn't sure if I could do it. But if I were going to do it, I'd have to do it right then and there. Suddenly, I couldn’t wait any longer. As soon as his head came into sight I blurt out my story. ‘Kaw’s missing, Charley, I can’t find him anywhere.’
His eyes and his mouth sort of started to screw up and I was sure he was going to cry, then he pulled himself together. ‘Sit down, Gary I’ve got something to tell you.’
Oh, God, he knew what butch had done, now he was going to dump me as a mate, It was no use, I’d have to confess, tell him that it was my fault, ‘I’ve got to…’
He held up his hand to stop me and said, ‘Wait, Gary, I want to tell you about Kaw.’
I closed my eyes and waited for it.
‘Kaw died yesterday and I buried him over there beside that little Hawthorne bush. Now, what were you going to say?’
I opened my eyes and manage to stammer, ‘J-J-Just that I need to find Butch, I shouldn’t have shouted at him.
We’d pitched our tents in a clearing by a stream in Washerwell Woods. As tents go they weren’t up to much, just a couple of broom shanks, a piece of clothesline, and three old tarpaulins we’d scrounged from various sources. But for one long hot summer when we were 11 year olds, it was our hideout. A special place where we could let our imaginations run wild and be whatever we wanted to be.
There were six of us in our gang, Colly Morgan, Tommo Smith, Daza Wilkinson, Pongo Hutton, Frankie Dodds and me, Geordie Miller. While the whole bunch of us knocked about together, we, each of us that is, had our own best mate. Colly and Tommo lived next door to each other and seemed to share families. Daza and Pongo, never one without the other, were so close that they might have been twins. They even dressed the same, Tatty jeans and black and white tops. That just left Frankie and me; what can I say, Frankie was the funniest, maddest, dare devil there ever was, and I as always, went along with Frankie.
It was the last summer holiday before we moved up to the seniors – as it turned out, it was also the last time we’d spend our summer holidays together as a gang – and we made the most of it out there in the woods at the back of the estate. School broke up at 3-30 on the Friday afternoon and by 5-30 we’d had our tea and begun lugging our gear to the campsite, all of 15 minutes away from home.
Don’t laugh; I know what you’re thinking, right bunch of dorks; setting up camp fifteen minutes from our own back doors. But it wasn’t like that, fifteen minutes walking through an overgrown and unused section of the woods took us so deep into the trees that the estate could have been a million miles away. It was a special place that no one else visited, the other kids, because it was our territory and the adults because there were better places to take a stroll or walk the dog. Besides being so close to home had practical advantages, a quick trip home and all eventualities were covered. Think of it, no latrine to dig, no meals to cook, no dirty dishes to wash and one or other of our mothers on hand to treat a grazed knee or cut hand with a dab of antiseptic and a sticky plaster.
After a great struggle and much hilarious laughter we managed to get the tents up. They looked a bit duff, but at least they didn’t collapse like the first time, when we crawled into them.
‘Yours isn’t up to much,’ said Colly.
‘It doesn’t sag in the middle like yours,’ replied Daza.
‘And it doesn’t lean to one side neither,’ said his mate Pongo with a grin.
‘It does not lean,’ stated Tommo confidently and then spoilt the effect by asking. ‘Does it?’
‘None of them are much cop,’ I said. ‘But they’ll have to do, they’re all we’ve got.’
‘I agree with Geordie, They’re all rubbish to look at,’ said Frankie, ‘And the time it’s took us, we could have rebuilt the Tyne Bridge.’
‘Look, instead of standing around gabbing about the tents, let’s go and get some blankets and some supplies?’
‘Yes, Oh Lord and Master,’ mocked Frankie making a low bow.
I aimed a kick at him, but he sidestepped and we all burst out laughing.
Later we lit a campfire and sat in a circle cracking jokes, drinking lemonade and telling stories, till the early hours. Then after an uncomfortable night on the hard ground we limped off home for some breakfast.
That’s the shortest camping trip I’ve ever seen,’ my Mum said, as I walked in the back door
‘Aw, Mum, I’ve only come for my breakfast, then I’m going back again.’
‘In that case, me bonny lad, you better get yourself upstairs and clean up, because you’re not sitting down at my table in that state.’
I didn’t say anything, I just headed for the bathroom, my mum was the best mum in the world and she’d let me away with most things, but she had this thing about cleanliness. If you didn’t get a wash and make sure your hands were clean, you didn’t get fed. Weird or what?’ After wolfing down a plate of beans on toast, I made for the back door.
‘Whoa, not so fast my lad.’
I let my hand fall from the door handle and turned to face her, she had that look on her face, you know, the one that all adults put on when they want to give you a lecture.
‘Now, let’s get a few things straight before we go any further, are you planning on camping out for the whole of the six weeks?’
‘Yeah, we all are,’ I said.
Which turned out not to be quite true, because we weren’t all in the camp all of the time; we were all there for the first five weeks, but after that one or several of us would go missing for a day or two or even a whole week, either to visit relatives or go on a family holiday.
‘And just so that I know, are you coming home for your tea?’ mum continued.
‘Well, Yeah.’
‘In that case, tea is a six, so be on time.’
‘Aw, Mum.’
Never mind, ‘Aw, mum,’ if you’re not here it’ll go in the bin, understand?’
‘Yeah, Mum,’ I said and shot out of the door.
When we first decided to camp out we made a pact. No books, comics, or transistor radios, even with earplugs, allowed, we had to make our own entertainment and we did. The first week was cops and robbers and Mutant Ninja Turtles, but somehow they didn’t feel quite right out there in the woods, so on the second week we changed over to Robin Hood. We eventually grew bored with that and became explorers, constantly under attack by hostile natives, who shot at us with poisonous darts from their blowpipes.
It was while we were being explorers that we found the hut. Well it wasn’t really a hut, more part of one. The others were stalking Frankie and me, so when we came to a clearing full of really long grass and weeds, we ducked down and ran as fast as we could to get to the other side. One minute Frankie was racing along in front of me, and the next, he gave a yelp and disappeared from view. I dived to the ground thinking a poisoned dart had hit him – the others were using peashooters and if Colly, who was a big lad, hit you in the back of the neck with a dry pea, it really stung. I hit the ground and lay still listening, but all I could hear was Frankie cursing.
‘Did they get you?’ I hissed.
‘No, I tripped over something in the grass,’ he called back.
I stood and walked forward, to find him tugging at whatever it was.
‘Don’t just stand there, give me a hand,’ he said.
So I bent down next to him and grabbed this overgrown piece of wood, ‘OK, one, two, three,’ we both heaved, there was a tearing sound as the wooden section of a hut came free of the grass, revealing three more sections and quite a few beetles beneath. It wasn’t much of hut; you wouldn’t have gotten more than a few garden tools and a bike in it, and besides the door hanging off, there were holes in two of the walls.
‘Cool, just what we need,’ I said.
Frankie looked at me as if I’d gone mad. ‘It’s crap, that’s why somebody dumped it here.’
‘Their lost is our gain, it’s just what we need, go and borrow your dad’s hammer and some nails and meet me at the camp.’
‘You know what, Geordie you’re barmy,’ he said.
But he went anyway and by the time he got back the rest of us had carried the sections to the camp.
‘Right, Colly, Tommo, stand that end up, OK, Daza, Pongo lift the other one up. Not that way, turn it around, OK, Frankie nail the corners together.’
Frankie held the first nail in position, squinted as he took aim and screamed as he brought the hammer crashing down onto his thumb. We all burst out laughing, not so much at him hitting his thumb, more at the way he was dancing around screaming curses at the hammer, the nail and all of us, but mostly at me. Finally, he stopped his prancing about and turned on me.
‘And who put you in charge, Geordie Miller. Here,’ he said, throwing the hammer and barely missing my head. ‘You nail the bloody thing together.’
‘OK, Ok, don’t get your knickers in a twist,’ I said, and picking a couple of nails and the hammer I began to nail the corners together. It took the rest of the afternoon but eventually it was done and I stood back to admire our hut, ‘Great init?’ I said.
‘No,’ said Frankie, ‘It’s got no roof.’
‘And it’s got holes in the walls,’ said Tommo.
‘And the door don’t shut properly,’ said Colly.
‘Yeah, but it’s still great.’
'Yeah, for the tip,’ said Daza.
‘Naw, it’ll make a fantastic time machine.’
‘Wow, like Doctor Who, Cool,’ said Pongo.
I mustn’t have been explaining properly, because a soon as Pongo said that, everyone agreed that it was a brilliant idea. From then on the only limit to our adventures were our imaginations and the imaginations of six eleven-year-old boys can be pretty wild and weird.
We travelled into the future, the past and outer space with the ease of the Time Lord himself; we explored the arctic wilderness, trekked through deserts on camels and hacked our way through the African jungle. We fought alongside Starship Troopers, Ghost Busters, Roman soldiers and a thousand other heroes’ past, present and future.
The weeks passed in a whirlwind of non-stop action filled days, rapidly eaten meals and late nights round the campfire and it wasn’t until the middle of the last week, when there was only Frankie and me in camp that the dragon appeared. No, that’s not quite right, because at first we only heard it.
Colly and Tommo had gone to Disneyland Paris for a week’s holiday. Daza had been forced to go with his family to visit his aunty Doris down in Plymouth and Pongo, despite protesting loudly was hauled off on a three-day break to the Lakes.
With only Frankie and me in camp, it was so quiet that we could for the first time in weeks hear the birds singing in the trees, But we were too hyped to sit around listening to them, when there was further adventures out there just waiting at the other side of the time machine.
‘Where to,’ I asked when we got inside.
‘Let’s just spin the time dial and see where it lands.’
The time dial is an old bicycle wheel with a dab of paint on the rim that turns on a big nail driven through the hub and into the back wall. I give it a spin and the dab becomes a white circle whizzing past the markings chalked on the wall; there are four of them, Past, Present, future and outer space. The time dial slows; the dab comes back into focus and finally stops next to the past.
‘OK, what’s it to be?’ I ask.
‘Knights of the Round Table.’
‘Great, let’s go.’
We stepped out of the time machine and began to search for weapons; we needed swords. It took only ten minutes to find two stout sticks for swords and for the rest of the day the woods resounded to loud cries and laughter as we sword fenced in and out of the trees. I glanced at my watch when we stop to get our breath back it was 5.39.
‘Quick we’ve got to go, my mum will kill me, if I’m late.’ I cried.
‘OK, OK, keep your hair on, we better get in the time machine,’ said Frankie.
‘Don’t be daft, I’ve got to go now.’
‘It’ll only take a minute to get back to the present,’ he said.
I gave him a queer look; he was certainly taking this Time Lord stuff seriously.
‘Come on, I thought you were in a hurry,’ he said, as he dived into the time machine.
I followed him in, like I said before, I always went along with Frankie. The time dial was already spinning and believe it or not it stopped exactly on the spot marked present. I hadn’t time to wonder about it, I was out the hut and off at a run, I hadn’t eaten all day and mum was serious when she said she’d dump my tea in the bin.
When I got back after tea Frankie was already there and was stuffing grass into an old sack.
‘Give me a hand then,’ he said.
‘Why, what are you doing?’
‘If we stuff this sack, we can hang it from a branch and practice with our lances.’
‘What lances?’
‘The ones we are going to get once we’ve finished the sack.’
It took about fifteen minutes to fill and hang the sack, but nearly two hours to find and cut branches suitable for lances. Frankie did the selecting and insisted that they had to just the right thickness and length.
‘What for?’ I asked.
‘The dragon hunt tomorrow.’
‘The what?’
‘Have you gone deaf, or what? I just told you; tomorrow we are going on a dragon hunt. So let’s get these back to camp and get them ready.’
Brilliant, pretty cool idea, I thought, but I wish Frankie wouldn’t take things so seriously; it was only a game after all. Later we sat around the campfire and after peeling the bark from the branches, Frankie insisted that we harden the ends in the fire and sharpen them to a point.
‘Why do we need points, it’s only a game isn’t it?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, sure, but you never know,’ he said.
‘What does that mean?’
‘Nothing, it’s just more realistic if the lances have points.’
I didn’t actually see the point in the lances having points, if you see what I mean, but I let it go, it’s wasn’t worth arguing about. The next morning we were up at first light, charging at the sack with our lances. As it turned out we were both pretty good at hitting the sack, although we might have been better without the points since they ripped the sack and the stuffing fell out. Anyway, by that time we’d had enough practice and it was time to go for breakfast.
‘Don’t forget to bring back your bin lid,’ said Frankie.
Like everyone else we had green wheelie bins at home, but before that we used to have the old round ones and the metal lids with a handle in the middle would make excellent shields. Luckily for us the council allowed people kept the old bins – my dad used his to make compost for the garden – so there were still plenty of them about. Frankie’s dad had one and I was sure dad wouldn’t mind if I borrowed his for a while.
Back in the camp after breakfast, complete with swords, shields and lances, we entered the time machine, spun the dial and exited when it stopped at the past. Almost immediately there were several loud bellows deep in the woods. Frankie cried, ‘Dragon!’ and set off at a run in the direction of the sound. I ran after him and caught up with him at the edge of a clearing and stopped dead. Something huge had certainly run amok, the grass was all trampled, bushes were torn from the ground and some of the trees had great gouges in the trunks.
‘Wow!’ was all I could say as I tried to figure out what could have caused so much damage; I refused to believe it was a dragon; after all it was only a game. I might have believe that, but Frankie didn’t, I could tell, he’d taken the whole thing to heart and believed there really was a dragon out there.
‘Come on,’ he cried excitedly. ‘This is the way he went.’
We crossed the clearing and followed a trail that had been trampled through the bushes and undergrowth. The trail was wide enough for the two of us to walk side by side so I began to think that maybe Frankie was right and a dragon had made it. Suddenly there was a teeth-rattling bellow from a thicket to the side of us, followed by deep grunted snorts and the snapping of branches as the beast moved about.
Frankie dropped to one knee and pulled me down next to him, ‘We’ve got him trapped, I’ll circle around and charge him from the rear and you wait here to get him when he comes out.’
‘I’ve got a better idea, why don’t we leave it be and go home.’
‘If you’re scared, you go, I’ll do it myself.’
Of course I was scared, who wouldn’t be facing a great dragon with only a pointy stick for a weapon, but I wasn’t going to admit that to Frankie, was I?
‘Naw, I’ll stay.’
Five minutes later two things happened. One, I heard Frankie scream, ‘Charge,’ and go crashing into the bushes from the other side and two, the thicket exploded into a million pieces as a great, black, horned beast with red eyes charged straight at me. I did what any young warrior would do in such a situation. I dropped my shield and lance, ran for and climbed the nearest tree. The enraged beast rammed into the tree, I hung on and as it backed off for another charge scramble higher. Wham! It whacked into the base and then reared up snorting and grunting as it tried and nearly succeeded in reaching me. Grabbing the next branch I swung myself up, the beast gave a frustrated bellow, dropped to the ground and began tearing off great chunks bark with its horns. The tree swayed and shook as I hung there with my knuckles turning white, praying that it would stop before I lost my grip and fell. My prayers must have worked because after a few minutes the beast left my tree and began to attack every bush and tree in the vicinity.
I had a grandstand view from my perch in the tree and it looked to me like it was searching for someone, then I spotted the broken piece of lance stick from its rump and I knew it was looking for its attacker and that was when I screamed, ‘Frankie, get out of here, now.’
There was no reply; I just hoped he wasn’t lying somewhere injured or unconscious.
‘Frankie if you can hear me, go and get help.’
Still no reply, but there wasn’t much I could do about it, at least not until the beast calmed down and lost interest, which might take a long time since it was madder that a bucket full of bees.
For an hour the beast trashed every bush and tree in the area and just when I thought it might be tiring, turned it’s attention back to me. With great bellowing roars it charged into the tree again and again. Until just when I thought I wouldn’t be able to hang on for much longer, the beast grunted, keeled over and lay still.
In the silence that followed two men, one of them holding a rifle, the other in a police uniform stepped from the trees, walked over, checked out the beast and the rifleman said, ‘You can come down now son, it’s safe.’
‘Is it dead?’ I asked when I reached the ground.
‘No, son just tranquillised,’ he replied.
‘Come on,’ said the Policeman. ‘Let’s get you home.’
As we stepped from the trees a ragged cheer went up from the gathered neighbours and my mother grabbed me into a bear hug, ‘Thank goodness you’re safe,’ she cried.
I hugged her back, then hissed, ‘Let me go mum, everyone’s watching.’
She let me go and I turned to a grinning Frankie and said, ‘What happened to you?’
‘Well, it was pretty gloomy in thicket, but I could just make out the shape of the dragon, so I charged in and speared it with my lance, then I was flying backwards through the air to land in a bush. I must have blacked out because the next thing I heard was you shouting for me to go and get help. So I did.’
‘Right, lads get off home now, I’ll call and get your statements when I’ve finished here,’ said the policeman.
As we headed home Frankie asked, ‘Do you think we’ll be famous, finding a dragon and all.’
‘Aye, maybe we would have, if the dragon hadn’t turned out to be a farmer Jones’s bull.’
Billy the Easter bunny was searching in the bushes, he had been at it for quite some time. Everyone assumed he was looking for Easter eggs, little did they know. He was actually searching for Long John Turnip’s treasure.
Franklin Frog had told him the legend of the treasure as they sat by the bridge, talking about this and that. The subject of pirates had come up in the conversation, as they idly followed the progress of a small boat on the river.
‘I knew a pirate once,’ Franklin said.
‘Where?’ Billy asked.
‘Right here on the river.’
‘Never,’
‘It’s true; his name was Long John and he was a turnip.’
‘A turnip! Don’t be silly, turnips just sit around in fields and don’t go anywhere.’
‘This one did. He had a black eye patch, a parrot, a boat and a crew.’
‘Never.’
‘He did, and the Spud brothers were his crew, big ugly brutes they were.’
‘Never.’
‘Will you stop saying never! He and his crew used to go out to sea and dig for treasure.’
‘I don’t believe that, you can’t dig holes in the sea.’
‘Silly, he didn’t dig holes in the sea, he travelled to the pirate islands and dug for treasure there.’
‘Oh, and did he find any?’
‘Yes, loads.’
‘What did he do with it?’
‘He came back here and buried it in a secret location.’
‘Where’s Long John now?’
‘Alas, Long John is long gone, and his crew too.’
‘What happened?’
‘Well, when he left on his last voyage, he said he was sailing north and that was the last I heard of him.’
‘And you never heard from him again?’
‘No, but six months after he disappeared, one of the Spuds made it back, he was in a terrible state, not half the spud he used to be. I couldn’t believe it when I saw him; he used to be known a Beefy, now all that was left of him was a chip.’
‘And did he tell you what happened?'
‘Yes, Billy he did, with his last breath he gasped out the tale. Apparently they sailed to the Islands of the Hebrides, in search of Black Hagrid’s gold, and they found it. But as they left the islands, they were set upon, by the Haggis Eaters and taken to the mainland. Not satisfied with the gold, the Haggis Eaters wanted more, so since it was coming up to Burn’s night, they turned Long John and his crew into neeps and tatties and had them for supper.’
‘Ugh, that’s horrible. So the secret of Long John’s treasure died with him.’
‘No, before he left, he gave me an envelope to keep until he returned, when I knew he wasn’t coming back, I opened it and inside was a map showing where the treasure was buried.’
‘And you never went after it?’
‘Listen, Billy I’m a frog, I live under a rock on the riverbank and I eat slugs, snails, flies and bugs. What would I want with treasure?’
‘Could I have the map, then?’
‘Yes, but do you think it will do you any good?’
‘Any good are you kidding? I could buy a Castle and a Ferrari and a Jet and a Yacht and have servants to wait on me hand and foot.’
‘And will you be happy?’
‘I’m sure I will.’
So now it was the Easter fete and the vicarage garden was filled with stalls, all there to raise money for the bell fund, and Billy was deep in the shrubbery at the bottom of the garden.
The map told him that the treasure was buried, twenty-five paces north of the gooseberry bush. But there were three gooseberry bushes and Billy had already checked out two; all that digging and nothing to show.
Twenty-four, twenty-five, Billy began to dig; this was the last bush, the treasure had to be here. Two foot down his spade hit something hard; he knelt and brushed the soil away revealing the lid of the chest. Gently he raised the lid, the chest was empty save for a note that said, ‘Praise be the Lord.’
Crestfallen, all his dreams gone in a flash Billy made his way out of the shrubbery and arrived back just in time. The vicar was about to make an announcement, ‘Fellow parishioners we have worked hard to raise funds for the new church bells and now our prayers have been answered. We now have sufficient money to buy the bells.’
No one had any idea where the money came from, and the vicar wouldn’t tell.
But every Sunday morning when the bells rang, Billy knew that it was Long John’s treasure that called everyone to prayers.
