The following story contains references and descriptions of zombies, as well as situations that may scare some young readers. Adult readers may wish to review the story prior to reading it to their child, if they know them to be sensitive to this kind of violence.

ZOMBIE TOWN

I wasn’t always like this. Like what, you ask? I guess, so… brave. It was this crazy thing that happened, that changed everything for me.

I’m a little different now. Let me tell you about it.

But I’ll have to start from the beginning.

I used to be scared of a lot of things. If there was a scary movie on TV, I’d cover my eyes and ask Mum to change the channel. If it was Halloween, I used to pretend that I’d hurt my leg so I wouldn’t have to walk around the neighbourhood and dress up with all the other kids. The sight of seeing all those crazy dress-up outfits as the sun went down and the sky grew dark… it gave me the heebie jeebies. It’s not that I thought they were real monsters. It’s more that sometimes my mind played tricks on me, and I thought, what if there were monsters out that night, and I just thought they were some dressed-up kids? What would happen then?

Sometimes it felt like I just couldn’t stop thinking. I was scared of putting the bins out at night, and bad diseases, and sometimes in bed I was even scared of the shadow my cupboard made against the wall. I knew there was probably nothing there, or nothing in real life that should make me feel like that. But my heart would beat fast and I would imagine things. I just couldn’t help it.

Mum and Dad knew all about it, but they were pretty good to me. They thought they could make me feel better by saying ‘Don’t worry Elroy, your imagination is worse than real life ever is!’ I knew it was, but it didn’t help. Anyway, Mum and Dad knew how I felt, and didn’t push me into doing anything I didn’t want to do.

But one day, that all changed.

It changed when my school sent me home with a note that our class was going away on a school camping trip.

I wasn’t ecstatic about it. I guess because I was going to be sleeping outside, in the dark, in tents. Plus, it was in the bush. Here’s something I haven’t told you yet: I live in Australia. Have you ever been to Australia? It has a reputation for being kind of one of the scariest places in the world.

There are all sorts of things in the bush in Australia. All sorts of things that can kill you. Spiders, for one thing. Snakes, for another. I even heard of kangaroos and possums breaking into people’s beds in the evening looking for food. That was one thing I didn’t want to imagine – waking up to see a big whiskery face staring at me in the middle of the night, with no one to hear me scream. Or worse still, everyone in my school class. No thanks.

So I said to my Mum and Dad that I didn’t want to go camping; I’d rather stay at home and clean my room.

It was telling them I’d clean my room that did it. I think I went too far than was healthy for any kid. Dad looked concerned and put the note down, then sat on the edge of my bed.

“Sometimes the scariest things aren’t so bad once you’re doing them,” said Dad. “Your imagination can conjure up all sorts of things that are far worse than the reality.”

“Nah,” I said. “I’m alright, thanks.”

But Mum and Dad didn’t take my response as I’d hoped. They exchanged glances with each other, and then Dad looked back at my face, examining it, as though he could see something else in it than what I’d said. I felt my face go red, and then I looked away. After a big pause he finally said,

“I think it’s better if you go.”

“But Dad..!” I said. I was shocked. They’d never forced me to do anything I didn’t want to before.

“It will be good for you,” Mum said from the doorway. “We don’t want you to live your life being scared of things. You’ll be supervised. Camping is fun. You’ll make lots of friends.”

“I’m not scared of anything,” I replied. But I could hear my voice trembling. I was just so shocked that they would force me. “I just think it would be boring,” I added.

But as Mum and Dad looked at me their eyes grew soft, and even before Dad had reached out to bring me into a hug, I just knew that nothing I could say then would make them change their mind. Great, I thought, as he pulled me into his armpit. I’d made them sorry for me. There was no getting out of it now.

***

On the day of the camping trip, it was kind of grey and heavy. I could feel my backpack cutting into my shoulder blades. I kissed my little twin brothers on the tops of their head before I left. For some stupid reason, I felt like I might never see them again. Mum would have said I was being dramatic. But I couldn’t help it. The wet look of the rooftops that morning; the sharp smell of asphalt on the road; the call of a passing crow… it all felt ominous.

But my brothers didn’t notice a thing. They’re only three years old. Too young to be scared. They grinned and waved at me, then one of them picked up the cat by its neck and made it wave to me too. Poor Goldie. She yowled but she was used to their rough kind of love, and I thought, at least I’m not a cat stuck with my two little brothers. Maybe Mum and Dad were wrong. Maybe reality was worse than our imaginations. I straightened my back and left them then, ready to take on my fate like an adult would do.

But my bravado faded quickly once our bus had pulled away from the school. On the bus I didn’t feel very good, so I didn’t talk much to my friend Jake, but only let him laugh and make jokes with the other kids on the bus. Alone with my worries, I pressed my head to the window and felt the vehicle rattle over every pothole in the road. I could still see the heavy clouds piling one on top of the other in the corners of the sky.

The camping ground was on the edge of a national park. All that nature should have been relaxing. But everything here now looked dark and foreign. When we pulled into the camping ground, Jake turned around and offered me a raisin from the packet his parents had packed in his lunchbox.

“No thanks,” I said, trying to smile.

“More for me,” he shrugged, and hit me on the arm, smiling. Jake was small and his dark eyes twinkled. He didn’t understand being scared of things, because he was always so happy.

I gazed around me as we stepped off the bus, and tried to see the area with normal eyes, like Jake would. When I looked at the camping ground like that, I could almost convince myself that it was all perfectly ordinary. I could see there was a big barbeque area where everyone could eat together. Next to it was some toilet cubicles. Investigating, I saw there were tall lockers lining the walls, with some showers at the end. Coming back out again, all I could see was a line of trees rising gently over a smooth hill, and a river we could swim in. Everything was very quiet. All the birds must have been sleeping or flown elsewhere.

I set up my tent next to Jake’s, and started to put my sleeping things out. The day remained heavy; I felt kind of sweaty. It was as though the whole place was holding its breath for something. Even the kids in my class, usually boisterous, were murmuring and quiet as they set everything up. After we were finished, I smelled sausages, and saw that the teachers had made up a lunch for us. We ate them with bread and ketchup, hot and delicious. It settled me a bit, and I started to feel a bit better.

Then the teachers told us that we could spend the afternoon swimming, or going for a bushwalk. Most of the kids wanted to go swimming, so I went on the bushwalk instead. The murky brown water of the river hid all sorts of creatures I didn’t want to think about. Besides, I secretly wanted to see what animals were living in this area, so I could identify them when they made sounds in the night.

Mr Masters, the music teacher, was pretty happy to be on a bushwalk. He hummed as he pointed out the different kinds of eucalyptus trees; the genus of rocks. He wore sandals I’d never seen him in before, with socks pulled up to his knees, and a broad, floppy hat. He smelled of sunscreen, like he’d rolled in a whole pool of it.

“For the snakes,” he winked when he saw me looking at his socks, as if snakes would balk at the sight of a bit of material.

There were only a few other kids with us. Two boys I didn’t know very well. They were pretty quiet. Jake was also there. He loved Mr Masters. He asked so many questions, and Mr Masters was so delighted to have such a curious student, that he answered them all.

“What kind of rock is that?” Jake kept saying. “Is this plant poisonous? What do you do if you get stung by a hornet?”

Jake talked so much, and Mr Masters responded so enthusiastically, that I realized with a sinking feeling after only a few moments, that between the two of them they’d scared all the animals away. Apart from the rocks and plants, we didn’t see a thing. In fact, the clouds came over heavier, and there was a moment that I looked at the sky and wondered if we were going to get caught in a downpour.

Mr Masters must have thought so too. He’d been looking at his mobile phone to see which paths to take, but suddenly he looked up at the sky, and stopped short. He made a few taps on his phone. Then he frowned.

Finally he said,

“My phone’s not working.”

He tapped his screen.

“No reception,” he confirmed. He sniffed the air, then returned to his phone. “I know the way back, but I can’t check if the rain is coming.”

He could have just looked at the sky, I thought. Rain was a certainty. The sky was pitch black now. The wind had completely died down. It was dead quiet.

Suddenly, I heard a low moan from somewhere far away. All the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. It was the weirdest sound. Even Jake looked surprised, and for once said nothing. Mr Masters stopped looking at his telephone then, and looked instead up at the sky. All of us stopped and listened.

All was quiet. Not even a cicada chirped. And then, just when we thought it was all over, it happened again. But there were more moans, this time. It was like a call, then a chorus.

“Must be the kids doing some activity back at the camping ground,” said Mr Masters.

“They’ve all got a bellyache from lunch,” Jake said. The other boys with us laughed. But I didn’t laugh. The sausage from lunch sat heavy in my belly. I could taste it in the back of my teeth.

“Well, let’s go back anyway,” he said briskly. “We’ve been gone for more than an hour.”

When I look back upon it now, I know that something in me wanted to say no. It was something different to the usual fears I felt. But – and I don’t know if this has ever happened to you – I was a bit scared to say anything. At that moment I said to myself:

Toughen up, Elroy. Now’s your chance to show how brave you are. Or how normal you are, anyway.

And so I obediently followed Mr Masters, Jake and the two other boys, lagging only a little behind.

But as we drew closer to the camp we began to hear all sorts of other sounds too. There were moans, but also cracking sounds, like things being broken, and quite a few of the kids were screaming.

“Aren’t they having a great time?” Mr Masters smiled at us.

Then, suddenly there was a great splashing sound, like a hundred people running headlong into the river at once. Mr Masters’ brow, which until now had been quite wrinkled with confusion, became all smooth when that happened. He made an ah! sound, as though he’d finally worked it all out.

“They’re doing water activities,” he said triumphantly.

They were the strangest water activities I’d ever heard, though. I felt my feet dragging behind me, but still I walked, ever slower, ever more reluctantly, back towards the camp.

Jake, on the other hand, was worried about missing out on anything exciting. He began to walk ahead of us, more and more quickly. He strode off before even Mr Masters. Then, when the clearing came into sight, he began running towards it, his spindly legs flying as he ran. I saw him turn the corner and disappear around it.

Then it seemed that he made a shouting sound, but I couldn’t make out his words. I thought he sounded panicked. As scared as I was, I couldn’t help myself. I felt my friend was in trouble. I began running too, in the direction of the barbeque area. But I stopped and slowed just before I turned the corner.

What I saw at our camping ground was enough to make the blood drain from my face. It was terrible. It was horrific. It was the kids of my class, blank-faced, drooling, assembled around the barbeque area. At least, they looked like the kids in my class. But their faces were blue, and spit hung down from their cheeks slackly. Their arms were loose by their sides. When they saw me, it was as though they all saw me in unison. Then they made that horrible moaning sound our little group had heard from afar, and began shuffling towards me.

My heart stopped in my throat. They had turned into zombies. All of them were zombies. And as they advanced towards me, I realized that I was slap bang in the middle of my own personal school zombie apocalypse.

I didn’t have time to think. I couldn’t see where Jake had gone, but there was a gang of zombie kids shuffling up against a big eucalyptus tree and I guessed he must be at the top of it. Glancing around, I saw a tree not far away that had a branch I just might jump onto. I calculated my distance, then ran towards it.

The zombies all changed direction and listed towards me. But I was faster. I reached the tree, lifted my two hands, grabbed the lowest branch and swung myself onto it. Not feeling high enough, I managed to clamber another two branches, before the boughs became too thin and I could go no higher. There I hovered, clutching the tree, my palms sweaty and the day still weirdly quiet.

Here they came now, groaning and shuffling, about fifteen of them. Their clothes were sopping wet from swimming in the river, and dripped on the dry earth as they shuffled towards my tree. When they got to the tree they reached up but couldn’t get past the first branch.

Seeing them up close, my heart was beating so hard that I thought I might faint and fall off the tree, landing on top of the lot of them. I noticed that their skin was falling off in patches, and they were salivating – actually salivating – I suppose to get a good bite into my leg. I tried uselessly to get further up the tree but the bark was too smooth; I could get no higher.

But neither could they. They clambered around the base of the tree. Then one of them realized that they could stand on the cupped hands of the other, to give each other a boost up. That was when I really started to get worried.

I looked around in a panic for something that could help me. Nothing but a thin twig of a branch by my head. I snapped it off and brandished it like a metre ruler. The zombies didn’t react to my weapon; I don’t think they were all too bright. But when the first struggled onto the shoulders of the second, I poked the zombie’s chest with it and it sank into the soft, decaying flesh like modeling clay. He made a weird sound, and fell off the other zombie’s shoulders. Victory one for me. I kept my instrument firm in my hand and commenced poking the flesh of all the zombies that ventured too close to the lowest branch.

All this time I’d barely thought about Mr Masters, but I suddenly heard a high scream. I saw him flat on his back by the toilet cubicle, pinned down by about six kids, who all seemed to be chewing him. Oh no. Poor Mr Masters. At first I felt sorry, but my feelings turned to panic when after a few minutes the zombies all fell back, and Mr Masters shook himself and stood up again. It was his shuffling gait that made me realise the terrible, horrible truth. He was now a zombie himself.

The more horrible truth was that he was twice the height of the other kids in my class, and would have no trouble reaching the first branch that I’d swung up upon.

As if hearing my thoughts, his now-dull eyes rotated towards me, and he spotted me up the tree. Slowly, slowly, he began shuffling towards me, while my pulse thudded panicked in my ears. What would I do when he got here? What could just one boy do against an attack of zombies?

His sandals dragged in the dust. Like a fly caught in a window, I panicked and tried to scrabble higher up the tree, but it was no good. I just couldn’t get further away.

Then I heard another scream and realized that Jake had seen me. He was still ok. He was still human. He hadn’t been turned into a zombie yet. But I could see now that a different teacher zombie was pulling on the branch he was sitting on, shaking it determinedly, like a monkey trying to shake down a coconut.

Eventually the inevitable happened. Jake lost his balance and fell from the tree. I saw him running at breakneck speed towards the toilet cubicles. I saw Mr Masters continue shuffling slowly towards me, just as I remembered what was in the toilet cubicles. The high locker cupboards. There were no branches on the locker cupboards. I could sit on top of one and just kick every zombie who approached me.

I wasn’t going to let Mr Masters reach me and put his horrible teeth around my leg. With a heroic leap, I sprang down from the tree, over the top of the kid zombie heads, and went pelting towards the toilets myself. My advantage was my human speed. The zombies moved very slowly, and that was my only saving grace.

The fear put quicksilver in my feet. I streaked towards the toilet block and made it inside with no immediate pursuers. Sure enough, Jake was at the top of one of the lockers; he’d climbed up the shoe shelves to get there.

I picked one a few metres away and leapt up onto it.

“Kick away the shelves!” he cried. I kicked them away. None of them were fixed to the wall. They made a horrible clatter in the still-dull silence of the afternoon. And there Jake and I sat, pale-faced, on top of our cupboards, breathing heavily while we waited for the zombies to come.

It didn’t take long. They started to amass at the entry to the toilets. Making their horrible groans and wet sounds, they pushed their way into the room. They smelled extraordinary. Like wet dog and old sausages. I felt my lunch rise in my throat.

In waves, they came upon our lockers and rattled them. But we were too high for them, and our furniture was fixed to the wall. Occasionally one creepy hand would come exploring up around my ankle, and I would give it a swift kick and then it was gone. This must have gone on for an hour. The human body is amazing in what it can do in great moments of stress. Wave after wave of zombies attacked Jake and I on the cupboards, and wave after wave we dodged them, kicking them away with our shoe when we could, every muscle straining with the effort of not being bitten. For I knew now what would happen if we got bitten.

Of course some of the zombie teachers shuffled into the room and tried their hand at us as well. They were taller than the kid zombies. But they could never get their mouths near us, and their putrefied flesh was lacking the strength to pull us down. So we just kept on like this for hour after hour, until I realized that the sun was going down.

Soon it would be night time. And how could we keep on like this? How could we keep fighting them off when evening fell, and we couldn’t see their advances in the dark? Besides, I was becoming so tired, so strained from the stress of trying to stay alive. Jake, too, looked like he felt the same. What would we do when the night fell?

I could feel my muscles trembling from the strain of holding myself back against the wall. From kicking out at the slobbering zombies who wanted to eat us. As the corners of the toilet cubicle darkened and spread across the room, I saw what I first though was a hallucination. My father, standing in the doorway of the toilet block.

“Dad!” I wanted to cry. But at first I genuinely thought he was a figment of my tired mind. What I wouldn’t give to have my Dad here now. To have him lift me from the top of this locker and carry me away from all these zombies, safe, home, with my Mum and little brothers and my safe, soft bed.

But the more I looked, the more I realized that it was my Dad in the corner. He had come to save me.

Then I noticed that he had begun to walk towards me. Only, he was shuffling. My Dad was a zombie too.

I couldn’t help it. Tears began streaming down my face. What would I do now that my Dad was a zombie?

But through my tears I noticed something odd. Dad’s movements, although slow and shuffling, were accompanied by a glance that was not as dull as the others. He swayed through the kid zombies, who, after hours of trying, were admittedly starting to get a little tired of pursuing two boys high atop the lockers. The kid zombies dropped back when he walked through the group, probably expecting that he might get us down after all. My Dad is taller than all of the teachers; he’s pretty sizeable. When he got to my locker, he made an authoritative BOO-AH ! sound that shocked the kid zombies, who stood in dumb silence for a few moments, before they slowly shuffled out of the room.

Zombie Dad looked up at me. Very slowly, he winked.

“Dad!” I said under my breath, almost crying with relief.

“Shh,” he said. “Just pretend to be a zombie. I’ve got a car waiting outside, with three others in it. We’ve all escaped like this. Follow my lead.”

“And Jake!” I whispered. “He’s my friend. He’s over there.”

Dad looked over at an exhausted and terrified Jake, then nodded. He pulled me down and placed me gently on the ground. Then he went and got Jake too. Jake looked stunned. It was not too hard to get him to walk like a zombie after all the things he’d been through.

We made a few short screams so they’d think Dad had gotten us. Then the three of us shuffled out of the door. By now, the other zombies seemed to have forgotten about us. Perhaps the effort of trying to eat us had tired them out. Some were sitting under trees playing chess, and some were floating on lilos on the river. They were talking inarticulately; to be fair, I saw some of their teeth and lips were falling apart, so it mustn’t have been easy to keep a conversation. I felt sorry for all the kids who, this morning, had been just like me. Just coming on a school camping trip. Now they were all zombies.

Dad had driven a little four-wheeled drive I didn’t recognize to come pick me up. There was Mrs Purdy, my English teacher, in the back. She looked sweaty; one piece of grey hair was stuck wetly to her face. Beside her were one or two kids I didn’t recognize. They all looked stunned.

Jake sat beside me on the passenger’s seat. I could hardly believe it when Dad started the engine and changed gears, and then we were slowly driving away from this hell-hole; this terror camp that had destroyed my whole class. The zombies barely looked at us as we pulled out of the camping area and merged back onto the highway, going faster, faster, as the night leaked onto the road’s edges.

“Is everyone ok at home?” I asked Dad. “How did you know what happened?”

But Dad just said in a low voice, “Everyone’s ok, Elroy,” and kept driving. Everyone else in the car was utterly silent.

Eventually, as we continued driving, I began to see that our problem had not just been confined to the camping ground. There were general scenes of destitution as we approached my school. Lots of trees and rubbish bins appeared to have been torn up from the ground. But before I could work out what this meant, I heard a strange sound in the back. My English teacher, Mrs Purdy, made a barking sound under her breath, almost exactly like a dog. She tried to disguise it as a cough, but we all knew what we’d heard. I looked at Dad and he looked so steadfastly at the road that I knew he’d heard it too. Very calmly, he slowed then stopped the car.

“Angela,” he said to Mrs Purdy. “I believe this is the best place to leave you.”

Mrs Purdy looked confused.

“No, I want to go home,” she said.

“Your home is not safe,” said my Dad gently. “It’s safe here. Look, there isn’t a zombie in sight.”

It was then that I saw it, from where I was watching her in the rear-vision mirror. A big, green bite on her forearm. She must have been bitten by a zombie before Dad picked her up, and for some reason the magic that turns a human victim into a fellow zombie had been slower to work on her than it had been with Mr Masters. But after all, I reminded myself, Mr Masters had six kids feeding on him. That was surely why it had been fast for him.

Zombies are not the brightest monsters in the bunch. Mrs Purdy still looked confused, but she allowed herself to take my Dad’s arm as he got out, came around and helped her out of the car. It was only when she was standing back on the side of the road that she seemed to realise, in some slow corner of her mind, that it was not all as it seemed. Perhaps some slow stirring was alerting her to the fact that she was letting a delicious car-load of humans disappear. Whatever it was, as Dad returned to the drivers’ seat and started to rev the engine, she began running, trippingly, after the car. Her red dress now appeared tattered; her skin had turned bluish.

“Don’t leave me!” she cried. “Come back!”

She still ran faster than a complete zombie, and Dad’s car wasn’t very fast in first gear. She caught up to the passenger’s door and tugged on it; Jake and I had forgotten to put on our seatbelts. He fell right out as she opened the door. Dad slammed his foot on the brakes. But Jake looked up and cried, with tears in his eyes,

“Just go, be safe!”

“No!” I cried for my friend. But it was too late. Mrs Purdy closed her eyes and took a big bite of Jake’s arm, just below the elbow. It was too late for him. I sobbed into my car seat as I felt Dad hesitate, realise the same conclusion as I had, and then think about the other occupants of our car. He reached over, slammed the passenger door, and put his foot to the floor.

We sped away then, away from my friend Jake, now a zombie, away from the highway, down the smaller lanes until finally we got to my school. There was no-one about. Dad dropped the other boys who had been with us safely in the library, and then it was just me and Dad, steering back towards our house.

I was still thinking about my poor friend Jake. Tears blurred my eyes as we drove on.

“What happened?” I said again. I just couldn’t understand it.

“I don’t know exactly,” said Dad. “A hundred zombies started coming through the town. I left Mum and your brothers back at the house. Don’t worry,” he said, seeing my face. “The doors and windows are safely locked.”

After a few moments more in which we drove in silence, he added,

“When you get home and we’re all together, we’ll think about what we do now. Where we should go.”

I saw as we drove that many of the power lines had been gnawed and brought down. Night had almost fallen, and everything was very dark. I could smell something unusual and old in the air.

When we turned into the village where we lived, I saw groups of people clustered under trees and my letter boxes. It was the people of the town. Every single one of them was a zombie. I was astonished to see that they seemed to be doing fine. Absent the hunger for human flesh – for there were certainly no humans around anymore – some of them had lit candles, and they were slowly talking with each other, even laughing amongst themselves, and playing ball games in the shadowy darkness. In the unlit windows, I could see the contours of some of them moving through their houses. We didn’t see a single other human. Just zombies. Our town had become a zombie town.

When we pulled into our driveway, Dad told us to walk slowly again, shufflingly, as a zombie would, just in case any of them got wind of us. We got to the front door, and Dad said softly at the keyhole,

“Matilda? Matilda, it’s me.”

And then there was a laughing sound from inside that I knew was the twins, and it wasn’t my Mum but my little brothers who opened the door. That should have been odd in itself. But then, seeing their sweet, joyful faces, I realized that they were not the little brothers I had known and loved. They, too, were turned into zombies.

Sweetly, they pulled on my hand and led me into the lounge room. Our cat Goldie was laying on the floor, and with a chortling laugh, they made me pet her. Her hair was falling off in chunks, and strewn across the carpet. They crooned over her; their little arms and legs were bluish, and they moved more slowly than before. But they were still my little brothers. I wanted to cry.

“Where’s Mummy?” Dad asked them in a strained voice. Coyly, they pointed into the bathroom. We followed their guidance and stumbled to the bathroom.

Mum was sitting in the bath, her eyes closed. There was a lot of steam in the room. She raised her eyes to us when she heard us enter; there were two little gnaw marks on her cheek. She was sweating like my English teacher Mrs Purdy had.

“Matilda?” my Dad said, his voice cracking.

“The cat escaped,” she said quietly. “When he came back, I thought he was alright. But he bit the twins…”

“And the twins bit you…”

Dad’s eyes filled with tears.

“It’s not so bad,” said Mum. “They seem very happy. And from what I can see, everyone else doesn’t seem too sad either.”

Dad and I looked out the window. I heard the twins giggle in the loungeroom, and Goldie yowl contentedly. On the street, our neighbours were dancing in the moonlight. In the pale light I could see their jagged zombie edges wobbling. Occasionally, bits of them fell off.

Dad looked at me. I looked at Dad. Then we agreed between ourselves, without having to say a word.

Each of us held out our arm to Mum. And peacefully she smiled, kissed our skin, then gently bit down on it.

Short story for kids written by Jade Maitre

© Storyberries 2018

Let’s Chat About The Stories ~ Ideas for Talking With Kids

Family

1. What would you have done if you were in Elroy’s situation? Do you think it would be better to be the last human in a world of zombies, or surrounded by the family you love? What are the benefits and drawbacks of each?

Courage

1. Elroy admits that he’s scared of most things. Do you think this means that he is not courageous? Why or why not?

2. What events in the story can you identify where Elroy showed courage despite his fears?

The post Zombie Town first appeared on Bedtime Stories.

The kids in Ms.Ryder’s art group all gathered round.

“Our school Welcome sign is looking old and faded.” Ms. Ryder pointed up at the old wall painting. “It’s our turn to do something new and bright.”

The children sat around Ms. Ryder in a circle. They all looked up at the Welcome picture, now dull and not looking welcoming at all.

“Let’s collect some ideas.” Ms. Ryder stood up, the children started to think.

“Let’s just do a new Welcome sign in bright colours.” Ella beamed.

Ms. Ryder smiled. “Nice idea, but I was thinking that we could paint a big picture about all you children, something a bit more special.”

“A giant heart with all our names in it.” Sara smiled.

“Why a heart? Why not a giant dragon with all our faces.” Ali joined in.

“All our hands in lots of colours, they’ve got that my sister’s nursery school.” Carlos grinned.

“A unicorn in rainbow colours, I’ve seen that, too.” Mia nodded.

“Sport.” Tiger joined in. “We do lots of sport, let’s have an enormous picture with all kinds of sports.”

“Your ideas are all so good.” Ms. Ryder nodded. “We’ll have to write them all down to pick the best.”

“The Earth, with people all over it.” Mattie was thoughtful.

“Fair play, no bullying or nasty things. A great big rainbow and we can all write things on it.” Nik spoke carefully.

But then Eliza joined in. “It’s a puzzle, how can we all join in and paint a picture. We’ve all got different ideas.”

“Yes.” Arnie agreed. “We don’t all fit together with our ideas. We’ve all got ideas, but how can they fit together?”

Ms. Ryder smiled and raised her hand for them all to listen. “That’s it! We all have different ideas, but we all fit together and want to paint a big picture. Like Eliza says, it’s just like a giant puzzle.”

The next day, Ms. Ryder showed the group an idea. “Let’s paint a giant puzzle in the brightest colours. We all fit together, but we are all a bit different.”

And that’s what they did. But first they had to wash off the old Welcome – that was real hard work.

Then, they spread out old papers, got aprons, even made newspaper hats for splashes, and there were plenty.

They set to work, getting the big wall ready for action. They were ready to paint the giant jigsaw puzzle. The ‘Puzzle’ was very big with lots of pieces, all the puzzle fitted together, but there was a space all around.

“For our names?” Carlos asked.

“What a good idea Carlos, for ALL our names, and, for all the children in our school.” Ms. Ryder was having fun.

The paints got mixed, a few got spilled.

“We want so many colours.” Eliza smiled. “We are so many different kids, so, we all want to be in our puzzle. Red and blue and green, that’s not enough for all of us.”

Ms. Ryder agreed and the children learned to mix as many colours as there were kids at school! They had a long line of old glass jars, and good thick paint brushes. Red, blue, green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, brown. They learnt new colours, too – Indigo, Scarlett, Apple Green, Sapphire Blue, Canary Yellow, Crimson Red, Fern Green, Electric Blue and Amber Orange.

“How can there be so many different colours?” Jackson asked.

“Like there are so many different children, with different looks, ideas, languages, talents and personalities.” Ms. Ryder explained.

Ali spilled his crimson paint jar.

“Look what’ve done.” Eliza pointed at the blob of red paint on the floor and splashes of her yellow paint dropped onto the blob. Ali mixed the two colours before he cleaned it up.

“Wow, that’s cool, it’s a bright cool orange.”

The children looked down.

“Ali’s Orange, a cool new colour.”

They all whooped, and Ali’s Orange was a new puzzle fit.

Eliza’s ‘Pink Puff’ got mixed. Pablo’s ‘Pizza Red’ got mixed. Arnie’s ‘Yellow Hot Mustard’ got mixed. Mia’s ‘Ghostly Green’ got mixed. And day by day the puzzle wall got better.

The children wanted as many colours as possible in their new picture. They all mixed and invented new colours.

“They aren’t all bright, but they all fit together, just like us.”

The children stood back and were very pleased and proud with the new picture.

“Apple pie green is my very new favourite.” Eliza smiled.

“But it isn’t quite finished yet.” Ms. Ryder told them and put up a ladder. “This is for the brave ones.”

At the top, she sketched, ‘We All Fit Together’ in curly letters. “Who will start?” She held up the red paint pot. “We’ll all hold the ladder, who wants to be first?”

It wasn’t so easy, it was high up, but the brave ones each did a letter. It was a bit like a word rainbow with red, yellow, blue, green and purple.

The amazing Puzzle Picture needed a few days to dry out. All the school pupils stopped to take a look.

“Cool.”

“Fantastic”

“Wow, look at that.”

But, then came the day that Ms. Ryder and all the other teachers told them.

“We are all different, but, we all fit together. Our Big Picture is waiting for each of you to write your names all around the edge. Neat and nice. Can you all do that?”

A mighty whooping cheer went through the school. Over the next days, each class were so ‘neat and nice’ writing their names – Carlos, Emma, Jake, Ali, Jackson, Fatima, Deniz, Manuela, Pablo, Lucia, Grace- the list was long, each in turn, and, oh so very neat! Ms. Ryder told her art group,

“Wouldn’t you just know it. We’ve got another job to do. The long dark corridor near the sports hall needs a Big Picture.”

“I knew it.” Tiger whooped out mighty loud, his fist in the air. “We get to do sports paintings at last! Kids running, jumping, kicking balls…”

Ms. Ryder shook her head and laughed. “Clever idea Tiger, it fits, it really does!”

© Andrea Kaczmarek 2020

LET’S CHAT ABOUT THE STORY ~ IDEAS FOR TALKING WITH KIDS

Community, Independent Thinking

1. Can you think of some ways in which people are different?

2. How about the same?

3. In this story, the children use a puzzle to show how people can fit together while still honouring their differences. How are some other ways they might have had all their favourite colours work together?

Short Story for Kids written by Andrea Kaczmarek

In-text illustrations by Andrea Kaczmarek

The post We All Fit Together first appeared on Bedtime Stories.

© Nicole Libin and Cameron Marsollier 2020

Let’s Chat About The Stories ~ Ideas for Talking With Kids

Mindfulness, Conversation

1. Think of something that you don’t like. Can you think of it in a different way? How?

2. What was the last time you had a bad day or felt bad about something? How might you use the tips in this story to turn those feelings into better ones?

Bedtime story written by Dr. Nicole Libin

Illustrated by Cameron Marsollier

Music Video: “March of the Spoons” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), “Two Finger Johnny” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), “Scheming Weasel (slower version)” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), “Continue Life” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), “Call to Adventure” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The post Sticky Brains first appeared on Bedtime Stories.

Katie had always felt like she never connected with anyone. There’s was no one she considered a friend. So, when her parents decided to move, she was okay with it. She didn’t feel sad because she wasn’t leaving anyone behind.

She was eight when they moved to a new town. It wasn’t that different from where they had lived before. There were a lot of trees and kids running around outside, riding bikes, and playing.

One day her mother caught her staring out the window at some kids playing. Her mom told her to go out and play with those kids. So, Katie went out. She could see that they were all having fun and she wanted to join in but she was afraid. She tried to muster up the courage to ask them if she could play but she just couldn’t do it.

She decided to go for a walk instead. She liked how peaceful the town was. The people seemed nice and polite. Her stroll eventually lead her to the town’s lake. She felt the rush of cold air hitting her face. The beauty of the lake was something to behold. She sat there admiring it and decided that this would be her spot. That she would come here every day and maybe one day, she would bring her friends here.

After school, she would always stop by the lake before going home. She swore she could stay there for hours, maybe even live there. If she ever got hungry, she’d always have food ready in her bag.

She was writing a poem about the lake when she suddenly heard her stomach growl. She put down her notebook and her pen and got her sandwich out. She was about to take a bite when she heard a noise. This startled her. She hadn’t heard anything strange in all the days she’d been there. She looked around but no one else was there. Then she noticed that there was something moving in the water.

Curious to find out what it was, she walked closer to the water. She clenched her sandwich tight as she got closer and closer. When she was by the water, it stopped. Then all of a sudden, something came out of the water and Katie got splashed with the water. She wiped the water from her eyes and saw something she had never seen before.

She saw a dragon.

She couldn’t believe what she saw. She fell back on the ground and dropped her sandwich. She was terrified. The dragon was huge. She couldn’t speak or shout. She was too afraid of what she saw. The dragon submerged its neck back in the water until only its eyes could be seen. Katie looked into the dragon’s eyes and saw something very familiar. Like her, it had lonely eyes.

Katie stood up and started walking towards it. She picked up her sandwich and then offered it to the dragon. The dragon didn’t move. So, she dropped the sandwich in the water and the dragon went after it. Moments later, the dragon stuck its neck out from under water again. She got splashed with water but she didn’t mind it this time. It even made her laugh. The dragon moved its head closer to her. She reached out her hand and touched its nose.

Its scales were rough but not unpleasant. She introduced herself to it. The dragon nodded as if to say “nice to meet you, Katie.” From then on, Katie and the dragon became friends.

Every day, Katie would bring five extra sandwiches for her friend. She would tell the dragon everything that happened to her at school. Sometimes, she would sing or dance and the dragon would just nod along. For the first time, she didn’t feel lonely. She even thought of the dragon as her best friend.

In school, her teacher had asked the class to write a poem about their best friend which they would read in front of the whole class. She wrote her poem while she was hanging out at the lake. After writing it, she read it to the dragon. The dragon tapped his nose on Katie’s chest. It meant that the dragon liked it. At least, that’s how she understood it.

Katie read it in class the next day. She was the only one who had a dragon in her poem. Her classmates laughed and thought it was sad that her only friend was an imaginary dragon. She got angry and told them that the dragon wasn’t imaginary. She told them that it was real and that she would prove it to them.

After class, all of her classmates went with her to the lake. She proved to them that she wasn’t lying and that there was a dragon in the lake. Everyone was in awe of the dragon. Some of them got scared but she was able to convince them that it was harmless.

Every day, her classmates would go with her to the lake after school. They would spend time with her and the dragon. All of them would play games, sing, and dance. She didn’t want it to end. Having many friends gave her joy. It didn’t make her feel lonely anymore.

Then one morning on a weekend, she went to the lake to visit her best friend. When she got there, she noticed that the dragon was laying its head on the ground. She knelt next to it and tried to sooth her friend. When she saw its eyes, she could tell that it was sad.

The dragon moved its nose and rubbed it against her chin. Katie felt like the dragon was saying goodbye. Tears began to fall from her eyes as she wrapped her arms around its nose. She didn’t want her best friend to go.

The dragon then pulled away and submerged back into the water. Katie stood up. On the horizon, she saw the dragon burst out of the water and disappeared into the clouds. She spent all night crying. She was never going to see her best friend again.

Most of her classmates didn’t come back to the lake after that. There was no dragon to see, so there was no point in going back there anymore. Some of them still wanted to play and hang out at the lake. But with each passing day, fewer people came until none of them came back.

Katie was back where she started. She was all alone again on the lake. It didn’t bother her though. She’d sit there day in and day out, hoping and waiting for her best friend to come back. And if the dragon did return, she promised herself that she’d keep it a secret from everyone. She still brings five extra sandwiches, just in case.

One day, Katie was sitting by the lake looking out at the horizon. She felt the cold wind as it enveloped her body. She hugged her knees buried her face between them. After convincing herself that every day that she wasn’t lonely, she finally admitted that she was. She cried. It was too painful.

Suddenly, she heard a noise. She looked up but there was no one in front of her. She was hoping that it was the dragon. Then she noticed that someone was sitting beside her. It was one of her classmates. His name was Dylan.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

He didn’t answer her.

“Are you waiting for the dragon?”

He remained silent and kept staring at the horizon. This made her mad. She stood up and said,

“The dragon’s not coming back okay! My best friend isn’t coming back.” Tears start falling from her eyes again. She wiped her eyes and said “So, you can just leave, okay? You can stop coming to the lake like everybody else.”

He smiled and said “I didn’t come here for the dragon.”

“Then why did you come here?” she said.

He looked at her and said “I wanted to ask you if you wanted to be friends with me.”

“You want to be my friend?”

“Yes. I was too afraid to ask before. When I finally had the courage to ask, I was too late. Everybody in class started coming to the lake. Seeing as you had so many, I figured you didn’t need any more friends.”

Katie sat down beside him and said “Everyone just wanted to be friends with me because they thought I was cool for having a dragon as a friend.”

“Well, they’re all stupid then,” he said. “Because you’re pretty cool, even without the dragon.”

Katie smiled and offered him a sandwich. From that point on, they became friends.

© Glenn Francis F. Faelnar 2020

Short bedtime story written by Glenn Francis F. Faelnar

LET’S CHAT ABOUT THE STORY ~ IDEAS FOR TALKING WITH KIDS

Friendship, Conversation

1. Have you ever moved to a new place, or started a new activity, and needed to make new friends? Did you find it easy? 

2. What do you think it means to be friends with someone?

3. How do you think friendship can help us to feel happy?

The post Katie and Her Best Friend first appeared on Bedtime Stories.

New Feature – Book Samples !

The following story is a sample of the chapter book Tiger Kingdom and the Book of Destiny. You can read the first three chapters below.

If you like it, you can find out more about the rest of the story here. We hope you enjoy!

Prologue

“You will need this.” The boy reached out to the girl, handing her a knife. She turned the hilt around clumsily in her delicate hands. The great white beast at her side lifted his paw to her fingers.

“She does not need this weapon of man,” the beast said with a voice that was smooth like silk. His sharp blue eyes pierced the boys with their power. “She has the power to fight within.” He took the blade from her, and he could see streaks of fire within the tiger’s icy blue eyes as he held the weapon up to them. But the boy persisted.

“She will have no power against the spirits!” He spoke passionately. “To fight, she must be armed. And she must have help, she can’t go alone. I’m going with her, try and stop me!” He lunged forward at the beast, going for the knife—but the beast moved, and he swiped only air. The girl shivered at the violence of it and shrank back into the shadows.

“I shall go wherever you bid me.” Her voice rang out like crystal into the darkness, clear and also wispy, like the qualities of air and water mixed to create a fine tapestry of sky. The boy jumped back, surprised. This was not the voice of the girl he knew, the girl from his world. “I will not have you with me, because it would only endanger you. And I will not carry a piece of violence. But I will fight, when I need to.”

“Yes, you have the light with you always.” The beast nodded, opening his paws toward her. “We have given it to you to keep, to guide and protect you. You are one of us now; you are part of the Kingdom, forever.” She stepped toward him, and he enfolded her into his coat of fur, her slim figure lost within his great one.

The boy could only stand and stare in disbelief. He had lost her to this strange Kingdom. He was alone. And he knew it was up to him to find a way back to his world, a way back home.

Chapter 1.

Tiger’s Escape

I could hear the paws of the tigers

pounding the pavement, the heaving sound

of their hot breath against

the chilly Autumn air.

I could see their golden eyes,

striped coats glinting

in the night shadows

as they ran.

I climbed into bed, freeing the sheet

from underneath Jack’s iron grasp.

I tried to press my eyes closed tight

yet lay there for hours,

eyes opening to the streets below,

still seeing tiger stripes blazing

in the light of the street lamp,

still hearing the sounds of leaves rustling

as they rushed past in the night,

the wind moving steadily through the trees.

The wailing of the sirens woke me. “Jack, Jack!” I cried. “Wake up!” Beside me, my brother groaned and stirred from his sleep.

“Hmph.” He grunted and turned over, putting his pillow over his head. “I’m sleepin’, Suz. What is it?”

“Don’t you hear the sirens?” I pulled the pillow away from him and whispered excitedly in his ear. “I saw them. In the street!”

Jack sat up abruptly, flipping on the lamp, his eyes wide, as if his senses were suddenly aware of the sirens blaring around them. “Saw who?” he questioned me, getting up from his bed and looking out the porch screen to the street beyond. “Who’s in the street?”

“The tigers! I saw them running past the house just minutes ago. I thought I was dreaming…but then…”

“Tigers? You mean those big, ferocious beasts that live in the jungle?” Jack snorted. “You were dreaming, sis. It’s probably just a policeman chasing a speeder. Go back to bed.” And with that, he fell back into bed and resumed his previous position. “Hey, where’s my pillow?”

“I’m not giving it back until you go talk to Mama and Daddy with me. They’ll want to know about the tigers.” I stubbornly held his pillow to my chest.

“Wake them up over a dream you had?” He rolled his eyes at me. “It was just a dream! And you’re just scared of sirens! Now give it back and go back to sleep.” He reached out his long arms and grabbed for the pillow, catching its corner and swiftly releasing it from my hands. “Goodnight.” He winked at me in his victory, turned over on his side and flipped off the lamp.

I stood in the dark, frowning at my brother’s obvious lack of faith in his twin sister, not to mention in his sense of adventure. The tigers had been real, I was sure of it. Where were they now?

Chapter 2.

Suzie & Jack

Only a few hours later, the sun streamed through the tiny holes in the screen, bathing the porch in bright light. I rolled over, grabbing my pillow from underneath my head, to cover my eyes. Then, a switch seemed to go off in my brain, a flash of stripes moving across my mind. “The tigers!” I called out loud, sitting up and flinging the pillow away. “Jack—” I started, turning to the empty space next to me, surprised to see that my brother had already woken and gone.

Pulling the sheet and quilt over our bed, I hastily threw on my robe and house slippers and ran down the hallway. The grandfather clock stood ominously over my head at its end. It was 7:00. I only had twenty minutes to get to the bus stop.

Rushing into the kitchen, I bumped into Jack. He was already dressed and eating a bowl of Cheerios at the breakfast table. “Running from the tigers?” he teased. He dodged by me and slipped out the front door before I could hit him. Why did he have to be so annoying sometimes?

“Suzie! You’re not even dressed yet. Here, take this and go on—hurry!” Mama held out a banana and cup of juice toward me, scooting me back down the hallway. “Oh!” Mama suddenly slipped, and the cup fell to the ground, splattering juice across the white tile floor, staining it orange.

As I reached for paper towels on the counter, my hand brushed Daddy’s newspaper. I looked down at it; the front-page headlines blazed in large black ink. But what caught my eye wasn’t this page, it was a small corner of another peeking out from underneath it. Pulling it free, I stared at the tiny print, nearly hidden in the bottom left corner.

“Greatest Show on Earth To Entrance Audiences,” it read. Mama was still shooing me down the hallway. “Go on now. I can take care of this.” Taking the newspaper with me, I obeyed.

Ten minutes later and with little time to spare, I slung my backpack over my shoulder and ran toward the bus stop. The large yellow school bus was already there, and it looked nearly full.

“Hi, Suz!” My best friend Emily stuck her hand out and waved from a window near the front of the bus. “Come on, I saved you a seat!” I waved back, stepping up into the bus and making my way as quickly as possible to the free seat beside her.

“Thanks, Em,” I said breathlessly, rummaging into my backpack as she spoke. I pulled out the newspaper page and smoothed it out in my lap.

“What’s that?” Emily leaned over my shoulder, reading the newspaper headline aloud.

“Greatest Show on Earth to Entrance Audiences”…the circus is coming to town? Cool! You want to ask our folks if we can go together?” Her eyes widened in excitement. “I’d love to see the acrobats! And the tigers—it says there will be tigers!” She pointed to the center of the article. I sucked in my breath, not answering right away. I could still see the tigers rushing past in the night, their stripes blazing in the light of the street lamps. I was right, it hadn’t been a dream!

“What is it?” Emily turned to me, taking in my wide-eyed look.

“The tigers!” I blurted out fast. “They’re here—I mean, I saw them last night! Jack told me it was a dream, but I knew. I knew it was real!” Emily furrowed her brows in confusion. “They must have escaped from the circus!”

“Alright, everyone off in single file, please! Watch your step!” came the shout of the driver from the front, and a wave of students came plunging forward from behind us, their bags hitting the seats. I quickly folded the newspaper article, zipping it into my backpack. The bus had come to a stop in front of South Middle School.

“See you at lunch!” I waved goodbye to Emily as we stepped through the big double doors of the school and into the main hallway.

“Save me a seat!” she replied, turning left toward her fifth-grade homeroom while I turned right toward mine, smiling. She knew I always saved her the same seat every day, at the table next to the long lunchroom windows— “our” table—but she always reminded me anyway.

Everyone was chatting excitedly when I entered the classroom. Mrs. Drake sat at her desk sipping her coffee through pursed lips. She frowned. “Margo, could you please tell us what all the commotion is about?” She turned to the shy girl with shaggy brown hair who had the unfortunate seat nearest hers.

“Um…” Margo stammered, looking up slowly at the students around her. “We…we were just talking about…about…” She looked around helplessly.

“About the exam coming up,” Michael offered from the back. Mrs. Drake stood up and walked over to him.

“Mmm.” She lifted her mug to her lips again, sipping slowly. “Well, then, Michael, I hardly think an exam is worth so much noise.” She walked back toward her desk, setting down her mug and picking up a piece of paper from her desk. Then she walked over to the message board next to the homeroom door and pinned it up. “Greatest Show on Earth To Entrance Audiences,” read the headline. Smiling wide, my heart beating faster, I nearly jumped out of my seat in wild excitement. My usual shyness vanished for the moment, and I was ready to tell everyone about the tigers. But I held myself back, as I knew talking during morning announcements was a bad idea.

“Now this may be worth some noise!” Mrs. Drake’s face broke out into an uncharacteristic smile. “In celebration of the circus coming to town, I’d like you all to use this week’s writing time to expound upon it. Write about what you think you’ll see there, creating a story about it. Remember, the beauty is in the details. And, as always, pay careful attention to grammar and punctuation. But creativity and originality will be rewarded! I’ll collect them at the end of the week, and the most creative and original story will win a free ticket to the show—courtesy of the generous family who owns the circus!” She gave a small clap. “Now, get out your writing journals, pencils, and begin!”

Chapter 3.

A Magic Key

As Mrs. Drake spoke, I felt my excitement waning, then plunging down deep into the pit of my stomach, turning to dread. There’s nothing I hate more than a writing assignment. It isn’t that I don’t have ideas—they swirl in my head so fast that my pencil can never keep up! At the end, I’m left with a jumble of letters that often make no sense to anyone but me. I sat with my journal opened to a fresh, clean lined page. I stared into it, willing my pencil to begin the words. Instead, I began to draw. I drew the tigers, their bold stripes bending along their backs, their paws held up in mid-flight, flying across the page. With each line, my pencil moved faster, my heart beat stronger, and I felt the familiar rush of creating something.

Around me, everything seemed still, the classroom silent except for the scratching of pencils on paper. I didn’t look up from my drawing, though, wanting to add the details of my dream. As I began drawing the streetlamp in the background, something seemed to glimmer on the page. I raised it up from the desk, shaking it as if to shake away dust. But now the paper seemed to be glowing, right in my hand. I stared, my pencil suspended in the air in disbelief. In the shadow of the streetlamp I had drawn was an outline of something. I put the paper right up to my eye. It was a key. I dropped my pencil, head jerking up to look around the classroom.

But I wasn’t in the classroom any more. I was outside, standing in the darkness. A streetlamp glowed near me. It was as if I had closed my eyes and stepped into my drawing—into my dream where the tigers had been. How is this possible? I gaped.

Suddenly, the silence was broken by a thundering, a pounding so loud it vibrated the ground below me. The tigers! As if in response, my own feet spun into action and I ran, the cold wind biting my skin as I rushed forward. But I heard another sound on the wind, this one a high-pitched melody. It seemed to twinkle and echo, repeating over and over, pulling me in the other direction, away from the road. I turned toward it, running straight into the thorny brambles of a rosebush.

“Arrrrgh! Owww!” I cried as I fell sideways into the thorns. I had never been an athlete, and in fact was something of a klutz. I cursed myself for my two left feet, feeling the pain of fresh scrapes on my legs. I rolled away from the bush, peering down to see if there was any blood, hoping I wouldn’t have to test my nursing skills too. Something was glowing in the grass next to me.

It was the key. It shone as bright as gold, with a beautiful blue stone at its center. Around the stone were three animal shapes: a tiger, a bear, and a bird. And there were symbols on it, too, which looked like ancient hieroglyphic script. I stared at it, transfixed. The music I had heard seemed to be louder now—as if coming from the key itself. Enchanted by its power, and with the pain of my legs forgotten, I reached out my hand and picked it up.

Kids Story Sample written by Stacie Eirich

Illustrations by Suzanne Hunt

If you enjoyed reading this sample of Tiger Kingdom and the Book of Destiny, click below to read more about the series and author Stacie here.

Tiger Kingdom & The Book of Destiny

Volume 1 of The Dream Chronicles

by Stacie Eirich

Illustrations by Suzanne Hunt

Copyright @ Stacie Eirich 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior consent of the author/publisher.

Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

The post Tiger Kingdom and the Book of Destiny first appeared on Bedtime Stories.

Dec looked up in alarm.

“I’m coming to inspect that room of yours, right now,” his mother’s voice continued from downstairs, “and if it’s not completely spotless, then I’m going to sell a non-essential bit of you for medical experiments.”

Dec swallowed, dropped his book, and looked around in despair. What he saw wasn’t good. In fact it was so far from good that even bad might be generous. A room in a house that had been in an earthquake and then a landslide and which had then been looted and then stampeded through by a herd of rabid wildebeests might be messier. A bit. But it would be close.

Where had the time gone? His mother had given him an hour to tidy his room and he’d intended to spend the time cleaning, he really had. It was just that the first thing he’d picked up had been his old battered copy of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, which he was re-reading for about the zillionth time, and that little part of his brain which for some reason he hadn’t learned to ignore yet, had whispered seductively to him, “Go on – a couple of pages won’t hurt. You’ve got plenty of time.”

And he’d had plenty of time, only that had been about fifty-nine and a half minutes ago, and now he didn’t. He now had something like ten seconds – ten seconds into which he had to cram an hour’s worth of cleaning. He leapt off his bed and began shoveling piles of dirty laundry under it.

“And if I find anything stuffed under your bed, I’ll make it an essential bit,” called his mother, displaying one of those astonishing but seriously annoying flashes of mind-reading she seemed to be capable of at the most inappropriate times.

Dec started reefing clothes back out again, wondered briefly why he seemed to have more than he’d started with, and then remembered with a sinking feeling that last week’s laundry was still under there as well. His shoulders slumped in defeat. With his under-the-bed fallback off limits and about five seconds left, things were looking pretty grim.

His mother knocked. “OK Dec, open up. Let’s see what that floor of yours looks like. It’s been so long, I’ve forgotten.”

“Coming, Mum,” he replied, getting dejectedly to his feet. He took a step towards the door, but as his mother hadn’t been kidding about his floor going missing, he inadvertently stepped onto his skateboard, or at least onto his biology textbook, which was sitting on top of his skateboard, which had also gone M.I.A., just shortly after the floor had.

The skateboard went sailing across the room and cannoned into Dec’s waste-paper basket, a basket into which he had, via a combination of determination, spatial orientation, brute force and extreme laziness, managed to cram approximately six times its intended capacity of rubbish. In sudden clear proof that Newton’s third law of thermodynamics can sometimes be delayed, but never broken, a fountain of paper, chocolate wrappers and other bits of junk cascaded out of the basket with an equal but opposite force to that which Dec had crammed them in with.

Dec, meanwhile, went flying back in the opposite direction to the skateboard. He crashed into his desk, sending books, magazines and other assorted paraphernalia flying. He bounced off the desk, struggling to regain his balance as a pair of jeans, two shirts and a dog leash wrapped around his legs, and clutched desperately at his bookcase. Big mistake. The bookcase was big and solid and looked immovable, but was so overstuffed with books that it was dangerously top-heavy.

It swayed ominously and then slowly, ponderously, began to fall. Desperately, Dec tried to lunge out of the way, but the knee-high tide of junk lapping around his legs tripped him. He tumbled to the floor and could only look up in horror as the bookcase’s massive bulk accelerated towards him. He closed his eyes and braced for the impact.

For a second nothing happened. Then for another second, nothing kept on happening. Several more nothing-filled seconds crept by. The small part of Dec’s brain which wasn’t consumed with terror began to wonder what was going on. He wondered if he should open his eyes. On the one hand nothing was happening while they were closed, and compared to the something that had been about to happen, nothing seemed like a good option. On the other hand, vision was quite a useful attribute and he was probably going to have to open his eyes again sometime.

“You alright, kid?”

Who’d said that? Slowly, cautiously, he opened one eye. No pain, no being squished. He opened the other. Still no squishing. For some reason his bookshelf seemed to have stopped just short of turning him into a Dec pancake and was now hanging suspended just above him. Weird. And some strange voice was asking if he was alright. Weirder.

A face appeared in the gap between the bookcase and the floor to his left, the face of a young man with blonde hair. He held out his hand. “Need some help?”

For want of any better options, Dec took the proffered hand and extricated himself from under the almost horizontal bookcase. He started to say something, but the stranger was concentrating on some sort of device strapped to his wrist, and held up his other hand to stop him. He was tall and slim, and dressed in dark grey overalls with the letters ‘DCP’ embroidered on the sleeves and breast pocket.

“Um,” said Dec. The situation was so surreal he wasn’t quite sure how to approach it. Who was this guy and what was he doing in his room? Apart from somehow saving him from deadly falling bookcases?

“Er, look, sorry to interrupt, but who are –”

Without warning the stranger leapt at him and sent him crashing to the floor. The top drawer of Dec’s bedside table flew open and something small and pale came bursting out. It streaked across the room, right through the spot where Dec had been standing moments before, smacked into the wall, bounced off and came hurtling back again. The blonde stranger leapt to his feet, pulled something that looked like a half-sized baseball bat out of a holster hanging from his belt, and smashed the flying object back across the room and into the cupboard, which as usual, Dec had left open. The stranger lunged over to the door, slammed it shut and then wedged Dec’s desk chair against it. The door began to rattle and shake, but the chair held firm. The stranger turned to Dec, who was sitting speechless amongst the junk on the floor.

“Sorry about that, kid. Now, what were you saying?” He put his bat back in its holster and sat down on a pile of dirty laundry.

“Oh yeah, that’s right, you were asking who I am. Link’s the name, Link Delphson. I’m an equilibrian from the Department of Continuum Preservation.”

“Um,” said Dec. “I’m Dec.” Deciding that sounded a bit lame, he added, “I’m a kid.” Sadly, once he’d said it, he realised that sounded even lamer. “What’s an equilibrian?”

“You don’t know? Yowsers, I must have come back a long way.” He consulted the device on his wrist again. “OK right, 21st century, that explains it. Dec, an equilibrian is someone whose job is to maintain the integrity of the space-time continuum.”

Dec processed that. “The space-time continuum,” he said.

“Yes.”

“You maintain it?”

“Yes.”

“Its integrity?”

“Yes.”

Dec processed some more. “Um, maybe I should let my mother in. The integrity of the space-time continuum sounds a bit like a grown-up’s thing to me.”

Link shook his head. “Dec, no-one can come in here until we sort out the breach.”

“The breach?” queried Dec, not liking the sound of that very much.

“That’s why I’m here,” replied Link. “You’ve got a level two breach in your drawer over there, and the Department has sent me to sort it out.”

“A breach? In my sock drawer?” Dec shook his head. “Look, I’m sorry, but I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about, and I was kind of already in big trouble even before you arrived, and I really should let Mum in, ’cause she must be wondering what’s going on, and thanks for helping me with the bookcase and all that, even though I’m not quite sure how you did, but um, thanks anyway and I really have to be going now.” He started edging towards the door.

Link sighed. “Look Dec, I’m sorry, but you can’t leave, and your mum can’t come in. Not yet, anyway. This room is sealed, and will be until the breach is secure. I’ve thrown a field of slow-time over the area so as far as your mum is concerned, virtually no time has passed since I arrived anyway, and the same goes for everyone and everything else in the area. Apart from us, that is. How do you think you got out from under that bookcase? It hasn’t stopped falling, it’s just doing it about a million times more slowly now than it was before I activated the field. I normally wouldn’t exempt any locals when I’m cleaning up a breach, because the less witnesses the better, but in your case it was either that or seeing you end up as a stain on the carpet.”

“Slow-time,” said Dec, nodding and edging faster towards the door. “OK, now I understand perfectly.” Clearly Link had some reality issues to work through, and Dec decided he’d prefer to leave him to it.

Link smiled. “You think I’m nuts, don’t you? OK, how do you explain that?” he asked, pointing. Dec looked where he’d indicated. It took him a moment to comprehend what he was seeing, but when he did, his jaw dropped, his eyes bulged and his stomach did somersaults. His brain was so busy directing these various acrobatics that it forgot about his legs, which folded under him and deposited him gently back on the floor.

What he was looking at was his wastepaper basket. His skateboard had sent it flying, he remembered that. The thing was, it didn’t seem to have stopped yet. Flying, that is. It hung suspended in mid-air, with an airborne spray of rubbish still spread around it. “How are you doing that?”

“I told you,” said Link. “Slow-time. It’s not floating, it’s just falling very, very slowly. Time has slowed down for everything in this area, everything except you and me. Understand?”

“No.”

Link sighed again. “Look, it’s really very simple.” He frowned. “Actually it’s really horribly complex, but I’ll give you the super-simple summarised version. OK?”

Dec nodded. What else could he do?

“Dec, I’m from the future, a long way into the future. And in the future the human race has done some stuff which caused weaknesses to develop in the space-time continuum of our universe. Now, when one of those weaknesses coincides with a highly chaotic area, a breach can develop. A doorway, if you like.”

“A doorway to where?” asked Dec.

“Anywhere,” replied Link. “Another place, another time, another universe, anywhere. Breaches are incredibly dangerous and need to be resealed ASAP. That’s where the Department of Continuum Preservation comes in. We monitor the continuum, and whenever a breach is detected an equilibrian like me is sent in to reseal it and clean up the mess. And we have some handy high-tech future stuff like slow-time fields to help us.”

“Um, you said that these breaches form in chaotic areas.” Dec looked around. “So, you mean…”

Link grinned and nodded.

Dec swallowed. “My room got so messy, it broke the universe?”

“Basically, yep.”

“OK, so how do we fix it?”

“Already being done,” replied Link, looking at the device on his wrist. “The DCP is channeling a bi-directional gravitational barrier through my QDA here, which will seal it up.”

“QDA?” asked Dec.

“Quantum digital assistant,” said Link, and then seeing the look on Dec’s face, “Don’t ask. Anyway, the breach is being held just fractionally open until we send our visitor in the cupboard over there back through, and then it can be shut.”

Dec had completely forgotten about the mysterious flying object, which was still rattling the cupboard door furiously.

“What is it, anyway?”

“Hard to be sure, but I think it’s a fairy.”

“A fairy?” exclaimed Dec.

“Yeah, but not the kind you’re thinking of. Fairies are genetic mutations gone wrong, from the distant future. They’ve somehow gotten loose in the continuum of whenever and wherever they’re from and pop into our universe occasionally. They’re small, fast, mean and very tough. In any case, it doesn’t belong here. It needs to be sent back where it came from.”

“How?”

“Well, being extra-dimensional, it’s not affected by the slow-time field, so we’re going to do it old-school,” Link replied, pulling his club out of its holster. He moved over to the cupboard. “OK, watch yourself,” he warned, pulling the chair out of the way and reefing open the door.

The fairy streaked out and Link swung, but it swerved and he only caught it a glancing blow. It spun crazily towards Dec and landed with a crash beside him. Dec looked down at it in wonder. The tiny figure was about ten centimetres long and dressed in a pale, loose fitting outfit. On its back was a pair of gossamer wings, which twitched as the fairy shook its head and got unsteadily back to its feet.

“It is a fairy,” breathed Dec. The next thing he knew he was pinned against the wall, with a tiny bearded face just millimetres from his own.

“Who you callin’ a fairy?” the creature growled, drawing back one of its fists.

“Err, sorry,” Dec stammered, astonished by its strength.

“You will be,” the fairy replied in its remarkably deep voice. “For future reference, we prefer ‘genetically modified, winged humanoids of short stature,’ OK?” It grinned evilly. “Not that you have much of a future.”

The tiny fist swung towards him, and Dec braced for the impact but before he could find out what it was like to get beaten up by a fairy, Link smacked it with his club again. The blow sent it in a spiraling arc across the room and into the open drawer it had originally burst from. Link slammed it shut, and after a few seconds of frenzied rattling, there was silence.

He glanced at his QDA. “OK, all sealed.” He walked over to Dec, who had collapsed in a heap on the floor and helped him to his feet.

“Dec, I’ve got to go, so I’ll make this quick. Don’t tell anybody about all this, nobody would believe you, and even if they did it would just cause trouble, trust me. I really shouldn’t do this, but I’ll leave the slow-time field on for another hour, so you can clean up before your mum comes in.” He pressed some buttons on his QDA. “Oh, and one more thing. The breach has been sealed but the weakness in the continuum is still there – if things get chaotic enough it could open again.” He grinned. “So keep your room tidy, OK?”

There was a flash of blue light, and he was gone. Dec blinked and stood motionless for a few seconds. Then he started tidying, like he’d never tidied before.

Short story for kids written by Geoff Blackwell

Let’s Chat About The Stories ~ Ideas for Talking With Kids

Community

1. Why do you think Dec’s Mum often asks him to clean his room? (Hint: it’s not because he’ll break the universe!)

2. This story shows how the things we do can sometimes affect others. How else do you think Dec’s messy room might affect people other than Dec?

The post The Sock Drawer Anomaly first appeared on Bedtime Stories.

Table of Contents

Jerry and Jacob clean out Gran’s old garden shed to make a den, but on their first late-night walk in the woods behind it, they come across a very strange, grubby little person and their problems begin. A small pile of rags that can talk! The boys want to run away fast, but they take pity on the peculiar, moaning, groaning and very smelly creature. They promise to try and get it back to its own world – GoblinLand. And hiding a goblin in their den is a full time job..!

Chapter 1 – Everybody Needs a Shed

Jerry and Jacob are twins, but they don’t look like each other at all, which they think is just so unfair because they can’t play the usual “twin tricks” on people. Jerry is the curly one and Jacob is the spiky one; Jerry is tough and has clever ideas, and Jacob tags along.

One of their favourite places to hang out is the rickety old wooden shed at the end of Gran’s garden. She doesn’t use it much, just to store the garden things and other junk in winter.

Mum is away quite a lot, and then the twins stay at Gran’s, not so far away, just like the other week.

“Gran never ever lets us do anything dead exciting!” Jerry moaned, punching the air as he walked around the garden shed.

Jacob grinned. Yes, Gran always shook her head and laughed. Gran was always busy doing things, like baking or gardening, but she enjoyed having the twins to stay with her, and liked them to play ‘out of her way’ too!

But Jerry was feeling brave and decided to ask, “Gran, can we turn the old shed into a secret den, just for us?” He said ‘secret’ again, a bit louder, just in case Gran hadn’t got the message.

“That’s a good idea, boys. It can be your secret summer den, if you promise to tidy it up for me,” Gran chuckled. “But I want it back in the winter.”

“Wow! Thanks a million, Gran.” Jerry smiled and nudged his brother as Gran went back to the house.

“That was too easy, there must be a catch,” said Jacob, shaking his head. “She’ll probably change her mind. Did you understand the tidy up thing?”

“Perhaps she’ll let us camp out there,” Jerry whispered hopefully.

Jacob laughed. “Not without an okay from Mum, but we can work on that.”

The boys looked round the shed again, not quite so sure of the plan now.

“This place is a mess.” Jerry grabbed a handful of cobwebs. “Ugh!”

“Yeah! But we’ll charge Gran a cleanout fee and get cash for the all the den stuff we need,” said Jacob, and pulled another handful of cobwebs from the wall.

Up at the house, the deal was sealed over a sticky banana split.

“You boys do a good job cleaning out the shed and I’ll take you to the shops to get some camping gear,” Gran suggested.

Jerry spooned his ice-cream and looked at Jacob, who looked at their grandmother.

“Did you say ‘camping gear’, Gran?”

Gran nodded, looking at both of them. “I hope I won’t regret this,” she laughed.

Maybe the boys were beginning to regret it, after two days of clearing cobwebs, scrubbing the filthy floor, washing grime from the two small windows and generally getting the place shipshape for the promised camping gear.

“Cleaning out wasn’t supposed to be such hard work,” Jerry moaned.

“Yeah,” Jacob sighed, “this all goes on Gran’s camping kit bill.”

On day three Gran drove them to the department store and they all headed straight to the Campers’ Paradise section.

“Wow!” Jerry picked up a small gas primus cooker.

“No cooking down in that old shed.” Gran put it back right back on the shelf. “Picnic yes, flames and fires, not in a wooden shed! Not for nine-year-olds!”

Jerry pulled a face behind her back. “Almost nearly ten, if you please!”

Jacob shrugged his shoulders and mouthed, “She didn’t say anything about an outside campfire, did she?”

Two hours later they stuffed their goodies into Gran’s small car and lined up for the hot dogs.

Gran was pleased she’d only bought things she thought were good and sensible. Jacob ticked them off on his fingers, “Two sleeping bags, a power torch, paint, floor cushions and a hammock.”

The hammock and the squashy floor cushions were Gran’s idea, not the boys’.

“That’ll make it cosy, and I can borrow the hammock later for the garden,” she’d suggested, and Jacob mumbled, “We don’t want cosy, we want rough, tough, survival camping.”

But Gran wasn’t listening and continued, “I’ve got an old cooler at home. You can use that for storing cold drinks, picnic snacks and midnight feasts.”

“Oh no!” Jerry rolled his eyes, “She’ll want to sleep there too, that’s why she’s so keen on that old hammock thing and the midnight feasts.”

Chapter 2 – The Shed Takes Shape

The den was slowly being transformed. After the scrubbing with a million buckets of water, came the painting.

“Just white, please.” Gran insisted. “But you can hang up some nice pirate posters and things if you like.”

“Pirate posters, as if,” Jerry mumbled after she’d gone.

Jacob nodded. “It’d be more like Gran’s den than ours. We’ll hang up some of our dinosaur and space monster posters and see how she takes it.”

Jerry grinned as they pinned up their posters, spread out their sleeping bags and scattered the cushions that Gran loved around the floor.

“It’s our den, our place, and I can’t wait to camp out here. Tonight’s the night.”

Even Gran had to agree as she inspected the new shed den.

“That’s what I call a big improvement. You can phone for pizzas. You’ve earned it, boys.”

So Jerry and Jacob ordered their favourite extra-cheesy pizzas before bedding down for the night.

Gran filled the cooler with apple juice and snacks for a ‘Midnight Feast’ and then left the boys to enjoy their first real camping survival night.

“A midnight walk through the scary woods is more like it, eh, Jerry? Not too scary though,” Jacob laughed as he tore into his slice of pizza. “Are the batteries in the torch okay?”

Nervously, Jerry picked up the torch and tested it.

“Yeah, just fine.”

Chapter 3 – A Walk in the Midnight Wood

Behind Gran’s garden gate, the trail to the bluebell woods was something the boys knew pretty well – but not at midnight. And that was the real adventure.

“Hey, it’s dead weird and a bit creepy at night,” Jerry whispered, as they slowly made their way along the rough dirt trail.

An owl hooted overhead and a tiny mouse skittered across the path, dazzled by their torchlight.

“Yeah, it’s awesome creepy,” Jacob agreed.

And then, just after the owl hoot, they heard another, even stranger, noise.

“What on earth is that?” Jacob stopped dead in his tracks.

“Sounds like something in pain,” suggested Jerry, stopping too. “Where’s it coming from?”

The boys stood quite still and listened to the whining, wheezy wail, which did not sound human at all, but not quite like an animal either. Sometimes the wailing stopped for a moment and they heard huge sniffing sobs.

“It’s a lost kid,” Jerry frowned.

Jacob shook his head. “No, it’s a puppy dog, lost, hurt or trapped. Kids don’t hang around here at midnight.”

“We do,” Jacob muttered and they continued to listen carefully, until Jerry whispered,

“It’s coming from over there, near that crabby old tree.”

“Don’t want to frighten it, whatever it is. Switch off the torch, Jerry, there’s enough moonlight to see our way.”

Jerry switched off the torch and straightaway Jacob tripped over a tree root.

“Ouch, so much for the light of the moon.” He rubbed his scratched knee.

“Shut up,” Jerry hissed. “We’ll never find it at this rate.”

The boys crouched and listened to the croaky wail. “My life, my miserable life!”

“It’s human,” Jerry hissed.

“It sounds mad,” Jacob hissed back.

“Let’s get back to the shed.” Jerry’s voice wobbled.

“No! Let’s take a look at whatever it is,” Jacob said, sounding so much braver than he really felt.

They crept through the knee-high stinging nettles. Now they could see the bent old tree and the moaning noise got louder and stranger.

Chapter 4 – The Pile of Rags Can Talk

And then, at last, they saw what was making the awful creepy sound. Cowering under the tree, hard to see in the tall grass, was a small, snivelling, greenish-grey object. Jerry looked at his brother in amazement.

“What is it?”

Jacob said nothing, staring in horror at the pile of green rags which seemed to be making the wailing noise. The boys stepped a little nearer to the tiny raggy object.

Jerry summoned up his courage. “Who − who are you?” he gulped and stammered.

Suddenly the pile of rags pulled itself up from its crouched position, which really wasn’t very high.

“And who are you?” it yelled back, in a croaking, angry voice.

“I asked first.”

Jerry felt braver now that he could see that green rag thing was very, very small. Not much higher than his knee from what he could make out, not that he wanted to get too close. That made him feel a lot braver.

“Take a look, shine the torch,” Jacob hissed.

Jerry aimed the torch at the green snivelling thing, which shouted, “Put out that blinding light, you giant monster, or I will kill you.”

The boys stared at the object. Its head and hands were greenish too. The head was bigger than the skinny body and its strange ears were long and floppy, and pointed and green as well.

“What − what are you?” Jerry stammered again, not feeling quite so brave, even if the thing was pretty small.

The thing shielded its eyes from the torchlight.

“I am Hob. Now answer my question – what are you? Are you giants?”

“Hob, what kind of name is that?” muttered Jerry, and quickly Jacob said,

“I’m Jacob and this is my brother Jerry. We’re twins.”

“Huh! What kind of names are those?” The little green thing spat out angrily. “And what is twins?” The creature’s voice was rough and rasping, like he had a bad cold.

“But what kind of creature are you?” Jerry tried again.

“I am Hob, a brave and speedy goblin.” The goblin, if that is what he really was, folded his green arms and stood up straight.

“A goblin?” Jacob’s jaw dropped.

Hob raised a finger. “Yes, a goblin, we are a proud and brave folk.”

“Where are the rest of you, then?’ Jerry asked, looking around.

The goblin took a long, long time to answer.

Chapter 5 – A Lost Goblin

“I am not sure, I am lost, I think” Then he sat on the grass with a bump. “I do not know what happened. I fell and fell, down and down, then there was a great sound of wind and I landed here, bang, and now I am hurt all over.” He pointed at the ground with his long, bony finger. “I think I fell through a long, dark hole.”

Hob shook his large head and his floppy, greasy hair shook with it. He said nothing more but made a few gasps and a coughing noise.

“Can we, er, help you look for that hole?” Jerry wasn’t sure what else to say. “And, um, help you back through it?”

The goblin took a while to answer, then he sniffed, “Yes, that is a good plan.” He pulled out a filthy green handkerchief and blew his nose long, loud and hard.

“We’re not going to find that hole now, Jerry, not in the dark,” Jacob whispered after they had crawled around, hole-searching. “What do we do with him until it`s morning and we can go hole-hunting proper?”

The twins looked at each other and shook their heads.

“We’ll have to leave him here. No way are we taking him back to the shed with us.” Jacob kept his voice low.

“Yeah, but look at him. What harm can he do, he is pretty small?” Jerry felt a bit sorry for Hob, snivelling in his rags.

“And what’s Gran going to say?” Jacob still wasn’t sure.

“Well, she always tells us to help people,” Jerry grinned.

“Yeah, people, not lost goblins.” Jacob shook his head. “And just where’s it going to sleep?’

Jerry laughed. “In the hammock, looks like his size?”

Jacob still wasn’t convinced, but they both laughed and told Hob that they would take him back to their den and the next day would help him find the hole he had fallen through … that was the plan.

“Better mark this spot, the hole must be nearby,” Jerry said, deciding to be practical, so they found a few stones and placed them in an easy-to-find circle for when they started the search in the morning.

Walking back didn’t take as long as the boys had thought – if there’s one thing a goblin’s very good at, it’s running. Well, chasing actually. That’s what goblins do – they chase, they are world-class chasers − and Hob chased along behind or in front of them, at full speed. He disappeared only once when he chased after a squeaking mouse, but the mouse fled into thick nettles and Hob started whistling an eerie, tuneless goblin song.

Chapter 6 – Minding a Goblin Is Not Easy…

Back at the shed the boys told Hob that the hammock was his, just for one night.

Hob looked pretty ragged – and he was quite smelly too, in fact, stinky was the word! Jacob flopped onto his sleeping bag.

“Boy, I’m starved. What’s in the cooler?”

Jerry looked inside at Gran’s Midnight Feast.

“Jam tarts, a couple of muffins, chocolate biscuits and crunchy chocolate nut bars,” he laughed. “All Gran’s favourites!”

“Are you hungry, Hob?” Jacob remembered his manners.

Hob nodded and his scrawny hand stretched out to grab, well, snatch the jam tart Jacob held out to him. There was no ‘thank you’ – that was clearly not a goblin thing.

Hob gobbled and made snorting noises as a mass of crumbs disappeared down his throat and sprayed out all around him.

“Not hot on table manners, these goblins.” Jerry pulled a face at his brother.

“Table? What is table?” Hob asked and half the jam tart crumbs fell out of his mouth. He scooped them back in. “This is good. Very good.” He nodded vigorously while his hand grabbed a chocolate biscuit and shoved the whole thing into his mouth.

“Do you think ‘goblin’ comes from ‘gobble’?” said Jerry, deciding to move the packets of biscuits out of goblin reach.

“Sleep now, Hob,” Jacob announced. “We’ll go back and find the hole in the morning, just like we promised.”

“And shove Hob right back into it,” Jerry mumbled as he turned in his sleeping bag and went to sleep.

They were woken up next day by Gran’s cheery, “Breakfast for campers.”

She placed a basket of croissants and a jug of hot chocolate on the floor near the hammock, where Hob was still fast asleep, snoring rather noisily. Speedily Jacob threw a cushion on top of him, which muffled the noise and hid the horrid sight of the sleeping, dribbling goblin.

Gran looked around, a little alarmed.

“What’s that noise, can you hear it?”

Jerry was quick. “I left my old Game Boy on, Gran. It makes noises like that when the battery is running low.”

She glanced curiously at the cushion where the rattling noise was coming from.

“It vibrates too,” Jacob added, quick as a flash, and hurriedly stood in front of the hammock to block Gran’s view.

“You’d both better shower at the house. It’s really very smelly in here.” Gran sniffed and opened a window as she left.

Chapter 7 – The Trouble With Goblins Is …

“She’s right there. Old Hob does pong a bit,” said Jerry, helping himself to a croissant and a mug of hot chocolate.

The goblin sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Where am I?”

“Good morning, Hob.” Jerry handed him a croissant which Hob grabbed and stuffed into his mouth.

“We’re going up to Gran’s house to shower,” Jacob informed Hob. “Do you want us to bring you a bowl of water to wash?” he ventured as the goblin snatched another croissant.

“Wash?” Hob spluttered through a shower of flaky croissant crumbs. “What is that?”

“Thought as much.” Jerry grinned at Jacob.” We’ll be back in half an hour. Don’t touch anything. Then we’ll go off and find your hole, goblin’s honour.”

‘Don’t touch anything’ was a bit optimistic. When the twins got back, Hob had eaten the remaining contents of the cooler, spilled most of the hot chocolate, broken a plate and pulled all the monster posters off the walls.

“Don’t like,” was Hob’s only explanation about the posters he had torn off the wall and ripped up.

“Thanks Hob, we knew we could rely on you to make a mess,” Jacob muttered as he quickly cleaned everything up and then pointed a finger at the goblin. “Let’s get going back to the woods to find that hole.”

Hob scratched his head, looking unhappy, but you can’t always tell with goblins, they are always scowling.

“If anybody comes, you hide dead quick, over there in the brambles, okay?” Jerry told Hob.

Having a goblin chasing along behind you might not be easy to explain to any neighbours jogging in the woods. When they got to Hob’s tree they easily found the small ring of stones., which was a nice surprise.

“Now tell us where you landed, the hole must be nearby.” Jacob looked around for anything promising.

Hob scratched his head and screwed his face up in a kind of ‘trying hard to remember’ glowering frown.

“I bumped my head and then I walked around in the dark, like this.”

The goblin began staggering around in crazy circles, this way and that, all over the place.

“Great,” Jerry muttered. “That means the hole could be anywhere within ten metres.”

“What about checking rabbit holes?” Jacob suggested.

Chapter 8 – Finding Hob’s Way Back Home

And so the big ‘hole search’ began. They peered between the roots of the trees. Hob even scrabbled down the one and only rabbit hole they found. He came out filthy, covered with clods of damp soil, and said, “Not long dark hole.”

“Perhaps the hole is not down. Perhaps it’s up.” Jacob stroked his chin. “Hob said he fell, so he must have fallen from somewhere higher up, you fall down − don’t you?”

“Good thinking,” agreed Jerry and they began peering up into the branches of nearby trees.

“Where is he?” Jacob looked around. “It’s his problem. You’d think he’d help.”

The twins stared in surprise as they spotted Hob in a pretty grassy clearing tearing up wild flowers, jumping up and down and stamping on them, all the while singing very tunelessly, Ha ha ha, there you go, that’s the end, hee hee hee.

“Hob!” shouted Jerry. “You are supposed to be helping us.”

Hob stopped flower-mangling and ran into the brambles, yelling, “Little mouse, little mouse, I am the fastest.”

“Why are we bothering? Hope he doesn’t catch that mouse,” Jacob grumbled.

“Because we want him to go back where he belongs.” Jerry was thoughtful. “He can’t stay here, this is not goblin territory and, if he stays longer, how can we explain him to Gran?”

When Hob came back out of the brambles even dirtier, he flopped down on the ground and began to writhe in agony.

“I shall die, Hob shall die. It is so terrible.” The goblin’s voice trembled and he rolled over and over clutching at his belly.

“What’s the matter now?” Jacob frowned as they knelt next to the rolling, smelly Hob.

“It is the terrible hunger, I shall die!” The goblin continued to clutch himself, writhing.

“But you scoffed everything in the cool box!” Jerry raised his eyebrows. “Everything, Hob, every single crumb.”

The twins agreed all this wailing and rolling could not go on. They promised him a huge meal if he shut up and followed them back to the shed.

“Now, don’t move out of that hammock, or you get nothing to eat, do you understand? Nothing! Nowt, or whatever you say in GoblinLand.”

Jerry raised a finger at the goblin who was now rolling round in the hammock.

“Yeah, Hob, we’ve got the message. You’re hungry. Just stay put.”

The twins shut the shed door and marched up the garden path to the house. Gran was in the kitchen.

“We’re starving, Gran,” Jerry announced. “We thought we’d make some sandwiches.”

Gran frowned.

“It’s only eleven and you had half a dozen croissants for breakfast.”

Jacob said at once, “We’ve been tracking in the woods, makes you hungry, Gran.”

“Alright then, but I’m making spaghetti for lunch, so go easy on the sandwiches.” Gran turned her back and was busy sorting out her cupboards. The twins shoved as much bread, tomatoes and cheese as they could into their pockets.

Then Jacob carefully buttered a few slices of bread to make peanut butter sandwiches, making a fuss of showing Gran they hadn’t made too many.

“Oh Jerry, put these old pasta packets in the bin, will you? They are all past the sell-by date, so just throw them away for me, there’s a good lad.”

Gran smiled and handed him the old pasta boxes, adding, “Make sure the bin lid is closed. Mr Roper thinks we’ve got a fox at the back of the gardens, says he can smell it.”

“Will do, Gran.” Jerry grinned, then winked at his brother.

“So, spaghetti at one. You’ll eat up here in the kitchen, though. There’s a very strange smell in that shed, it’s probably the drains, or maybe a fox.” Gran frowned.

“Skunk, more like, and we’re stuck with it.” Jacob hissed under his breath.

As Gran turned to watch them go, Jerry hoped she didn’t notice their bulging pockets.

“Great,” said Jacob as they carried the boxes away, “if all else fails, we can stuff him with old pasta. Maybe that’ll keep him quiet.”

The boys were not surprised to find that the Goblin had made a new mess and that he’d also ripped up all Gran’s flowers around the shed.

Chapter 9 – Feeding Hob is a Full-Time Job

“Here, Hob, eat these sandwiches, and make them last.” Hob stuffed the food into his mouth with a huge slurp and a gulp, and then it was all gone.

The boys were awestruck but fascinated by the goblin’s greed. Jacob said, “Gran will catch on to all the food raiding soon. Better keep the P- A- S- T- A for later.”

Then a thought struck him and he looked at Hob warily. “Er, can you read and write and spell?” he asked the goblin, but Hob’s mouth was too full for him to reply.

“Don’t you chew anything?” Jerry frowned, but he already knew the answer.

“Chew? What’s that?” Hob spluttered out a storm of breadcrumbs.

Jacob eyed up the goblin. “Now, Hob, let’s get down to business. Tell us exactly how you fell. What were you doing? It may help us to get you back home.”

Hob stared back.

“Doing?” he grunted.

“Yes. What were you doing before you fell? What was happening?” Jacob repeated the question nice and slowly.

Hob screwed up his face as if remembering.

“It was those elves,” he grunted. “Yes, I caught one of those sneaky, twisty, nasty little elves.”

“You were chasing elves?” Jacob asked, shaking his head.

But Hob stared as if Jacob were stupid.

“Chasing elves, yes, that’s what you do with elves, chase them, and catch them and poke them and bite them.” Hob was enjoying himself and but he shook his head as if to say, everybody knows that.

“Okay,” Jerry chimed in. “Just tell us what happened, please.”

Hob scratched his chin.

“I caught one of those twisty little ones and I bit his toe.”

The boys looked at each other, but said nothing as Hob added, “Yes, I bit his toe and the nasty little elf screeched and screeched and screeched and …”

Hob hopped around, holding his toe, screeching to tell the story better.

“We get the picture, Hob. What happened then?” Jerry said impatiently.

Hob stopped dancing around on one foot.

“Well, then his horrible little elf shoe came off and I grabbed it and ran away, fast like the wind. And then I fell, bump, bump, bump and hurt myself.”

The boys looked at each other again.

“Maybe this elf’s shoe is important,” said Jacob, watching Hob. “Are elves magic at all? Could it be that this elf didn’t like you pinching his shoe?”

Jerry grinned. “Never mind biting his toe. Perhaps he was very angry?”

Hob grinned to himself, “Oh yes, he was hopping mad. He screamed and yelled at me.” And Hob hopped around, yelping to give the story a bit more drama.

Jerry tried again. “And magic? Are elves magic?”

Hob shrugged. “They are stupid, not like goblins, but they do magic things too.”

“Now we have it, Hob,” said Jacob. “You got on the wrong side of an elf, bit his toe, pinched his shoe and he put some kind of ‘go away’ spell on you!”

Jerry was thoughtful. “Where is that shoe, Hob?”

“When I landed with a bump, I threw it away, I don’t want a stupid elf shoe,” Hob grumbled.

Jerry looked at his brother,

“We’ve got to find that elf’s shoe, that’s how to get him back. Beam him up holding that shoe, sort of thing.”

“So, one last question, Hob. What colour is that elf shoe?”

Jacob had a horrible feeling he already knew the answer as Hob looked at him as if he were completely daft.

“Green. That is the colour of an elf shoe.”

Just at that moment they heard Gran approaching the shed.

“Spaghetti, boys!” she yelled, and Jerry opened the shed door as Jacob hissed at Hob, “No nonsense in here, or you won’t get any lunch!”

“Don’t you even think of touching a single thing.” Jacob waved a finger at the goblin. “Goblin’s honour, if there is such a thing, okay?”

Hob jumped, sulking, into the hammock, mumbling to himself about unspeakable goblin things – biting elves and chasing creatures, lighting blazing fires, but Jerry and Jacob didn’t wait to hear more about that one. They closed the door on him and ran to meet Gran as fast as they could.

In the kitchen, Gran’s spaghetti was steaming and her famous tomato sauce was bubbling in a pot on the stove.

“Wash your hands first, boys.”

She sat at the table and ladled large portions onto their dishes. After washing his hands, Jacob looked under the kitchen sink and saw a small yellow bucket. He slipped it between his knees as Gran lifted the pans onto the table for everybody to help themselves to seconds.

“Oh, I nearly forgot the cheese.” She shut the fridge door. “Be careful if you see any animals in the garden. Mr Roper is talking about a fox, or even a racoon, now.”

As Gran stood at the fridge, Jerry slipped a pile of spaghetti into the yellow bucket and Jacob quickly ladled some of the tasty red sauce on top. When Gran handed them a slab of cheese to grate onto the spaghetti, Hob’s portion was safe between Jacob’s knees.

“We’re learning about, um, tracking. Maybe we’ll find Mr Roper’s fox, smelly things, foxes, aren’t they?” Jerry shook his head when Gran asked what they were up to in their new den.

Luckily, after their lunch, she was bending down with Jacob to stack things in the dishwasher and didn’t notice Jerry carrying a yellow bucket with him back to the shed. Jerry saw at once that Hob had been busy – this time in the wood pile at the side of the shed, which was no longer a pile, but spread all over the place.

“Looking for bad creatures,” Hob explained.

Jacob, who had just finished helping Gran and had arrived at the shed, shook his head.

“The only bad creature around here happens to be you, Hob.”

“Don’t understand silly words,” the goblin chuckled, just as Mr Roper’s dog Flash growled through the fence. Hob puts his fists up for a fight but Jacob steered him into the shed away from the snarling dog. Hob seemed pretty disappointed.

Jacob groaned. Perhaps he wasn’t as simple as they’d thought. Inside the shed with the door safely shut, Jerry handed Hob the yellow bucket.

“Here. I hope you like spaghetti?”

Now, everybody knows that spaghetti is not easy to eat and that sometimes you get a few splashes of tomato sauce on your T-shirt. Hob’s case was different though. He ignored the spoon Jacob held out and dived head first into the bucket. Hob slurped and gobbled and sucked with all his might, licked his green lips and dived in again. The goblin loved spaghetti, that much was clear. In between his slurping and swallowing and gobbling, he yelled, “Good, good, good.”

Within a couple of minutes, the yellow bucket was licked sparkling clean – which is more than could be said for Hob. He’d already been messy from the bramble berries and smeared with brown clods of earth and streaks of grassy stains from the rabbit hole and now, added to this, he’d covered himself from head to toe in bright red tomato sauce.

Jerry and Jacob didn’t know about other goblins, but surely this one had to be the messiest and greediest of them all. The boys had simply sat and watched in amazement. Hob didn’t pause for a single breath, slurping up the spaghetti just like a high power vacuum cleaner.

Chapter 10 – Finding Out About Hob

“Wow, what a performance,” said Jerry “Are they all like you in your family, Hob?”

“Family?” Hob looked puzzled.

Jacob tried again. “Have you got brothers and sisters, Hob?”

The goblin seemed to understand this time.

“Yes, brothers and sisters.” Then he looked sad for a moment: even a greedy, grubby goblin misses his family.

Jerry felt a bit sorry.

“What are their names, Hob?” He sat down beside the messy little creature.

Hob thought for a minute and then rattled off, “Rob, Tob, Dob, Sob, Bob, Cob, Lob and Fob.”

Jerry and Jacob looked startled.

“Wow! Eight brothers,” said Jerry.

“One’s enough for me,” said Jacob, grinning.

Hob frowned. “No, no, one is a sister, girl goblin. Bob is a girl.”

Jacob laughed.

“That figures. Poor old Hob, I bet you miss them. Anyhow, we’d better start on the shoe search. Goodness knows how long it is going to take to find a tiny green elf shoe in all that lovely green, green grass,” said Jacob.

Jerry agreed. “Yes, it’s probably about the size of a tiny doll’s shoe, and Spaghetti Hob here can’t even remember where he dropped it.”

Hearing the word, Hob jumped up to join the boys. “I like spaghetti – it is so good.”

Chapter 11 – Getting Hob Back to GoblinLand

“We can see that,” Jerry laughed as they walked back to the woods.

The Elf Shoe Search took ages and ages and there was still no sign of a little green shoe anywhere.

“Let’s try again.” Jacob turned to Hob, who wasn’t really helping at all, but rushing round madly, swiping at butterflies; luckily the butterflies were faster.

“Hob, listen carefully.” Jacob fixed the goblin with a stare. “Was there anything different about this shoe, something that you noticed, that could help us find it? Please think hard, Hob.”

Hob stared right back.

“No, it is just a stupid elf shoe.” He scratched his grubby chin. “I have said. It is green and it has a silver tinkle bell.”

At this, Jerry slapped his hand on his forehead. “A silver tinkle bell, Hob? You never mentioned that before, not once.”

Hob frowned at Jacob. “All elf shoes have silver bells, everybody knows that. Elves like stupid things – bells, flowers, moonbeams – uugh.” Hob made a retching sound and blew his nose into his blotchy, stained, green hanky.

Jerry said impatiently, “Now the little squirt tells us. But silver might be easy to spot if the sun glints on it. At least, easier than looking for a green pea in all this grass. Let’s go.”

Spotting a tiny glint of silver might sound easy – but it wasn’t. Also, the fact that an elf shoe is just a bit bigger than a peanut, didn’t make it easier.

The boys crawled carefully on their knees, taking care to go inch by inch across the area where they had found their little green goblin. No surprise, Hob’s help was minus a hundred. He jumped, chased and trampled. The boys were waiting for the usual I will die of starvation act, so they had a pocket full of crumbly old pasta at the ready! And then, Jerry suddenly yelped, “I think I’ve found it!”

Jacob peered over his brother’s shoulder at the tiny object. Actually, they were both a little scared to touch it, but there it was: a crumpled green doll’s shoe with a pointed toe and the tiniest of silver bells at the very end of the point.

“What now?” Jerry whispered. “Can we touch it or will we disappear in a puff of smoke? What do you think?”

Jacob gulped. “Dunno. But that’s the elf shoe alright.”

Jerry glanced across at Hob chasing around with a stick and trying to whack some poor insect.

“It’s his only chance to get back. We’d better pick it up.”

Jacob nodded. “Yeah, it’s no good him staying here. We couldn’t keep him, even if we wanted to.”

“Which we definitely don’t.” Jerry looked at the goblin again. “Who’d want to keep a goblin?”

Jerry felt brave and picked up the tiny shoe carefully, between his thumb and finger.

“Hob,” he called, “we’ve found the elf shoe, come and take a look.”

Hob stopped chasing the insect and peered at the shoe.

“Yes, stupid elf shoe. I shall bite it.”

“Please don’t.” Jerry pulled the shoe away from the goblin. “This is the key to you getting back to GoblinLand, so just be careful.”

The boys sat quietly under ‘Hob’s Tree’ – which was what they called it now.

“What’s the plan, brother?” Jerry asked.

“Dunno. You’re usually the one with the ideas.” Jacob was thoughtful, then he said, “Well, we found him at midnight and there was moonlight. So, I’ll say that’s how he has to go back.”

“Yeah!” Jerry said hopefully. “How about this? We’ll make him hold the elf shoe and concentrate on going back.”

“Sort of – if he can,” Jacob nodded in agreement. “But concentrating isn’t exactly a goblin talent, if you see what I mean.” Jacob nodded in the direction of Hob, who was ripping up a few wild flowers for goblin entertainment.

“We’ll train him,” Jerry said in a strong voice. “We’ll train him like a circus lion or − or something.”

Both boys burst out laughing – their circus lion was now rooting down a rabbit hole, getting filthier by the minute.

Chapter 12 – The Plan!

Twenty minutes later, back in the den, Hob was fed on the old pasta. He didn’t complain, though he liked jam tarts better – but for a goblin food is food! Have you ever trained a goblin to concentrate on one single thing? No? Neither had Jerry and Jacob.

“Now, Hob,” Jerry began, “you hold this elf shoe nice and tight and think about going home, like this.”

Jerry demonstrated, holding the shoe tight to his chest. He closed his eyes and said slowly, “I want to go home. I want to see my mother, I want to see my brothers, I want to see my Gran … Okay, Hob, now you.”

Jerry handed the grimy goblin the tiny green shoe. Hob sniffed and frowned. He held the shoe just like Jerry showed him and started, “You want to go home, you want to see your mother, you want to see your brother, and you want to see your Gran …”

Jerry shook his head.

“No, Hob, you want to go home. You want to see your brothers Tob, Sob and the rest of them. You!” Jerry wondered how long this was going to take.

Jacob wondered, “What if the magic works now and we don’t need moonlight?”

Jerry gave his brother a puzzled look.

“What’s wrong with that? If he disappears now in a puff of smoke, are you going to cry?”

“True,” Jacob agreed. “Now, Hob, try again. Think of your family.”

Hob mumbled, “But I don’t like Bob. Do I have to say Bob?”

Jerry laughed. “No, just think of all the nice things you miss at home. Try to picture them in your head.”

Hob nodded in agreement. “Yes! I do want to go home, I want a big, big pot of goblin guzzle, I want to bite elves and frighten stupid fairies. I want −”

Jacob laughed again. “Goblin guzzle? What’s that, Hob?”

Hob looked surprised.

“You throw everything into the big black pot on the big fire, mix it up and guzzle it down.”

Jacob turned to the goblin, thinking, ‘Why did I even ask?’ But he said aloud, “Great, Hob, that’s fine. Keep saying things about your home and hold that shoe nice and tight.”

The boys were not at all sure the ‘Beam me up while clinging to an elf shoe’ thing was going to work, but they were determined to try.

“Midnight it is then.” Jerry shrugged his shoulders.

“But how do we keep him fed and quiet until then?” Jacob was worried.

“Let’s teach him some games!” suggested Jerry. “Perhaps we could teach him cards, or boy, girl, fruit, or something like that.” He frowned. “But he can’t read or write, so we’d better try him on cards, or snakes and ladders, I’m sure he can throw a dice.”

Jacob went up to Gran’s house to look for suitable old boxes of easy games while Jerry asked Hob a bit more about GoblinLand.

“Do you play games, Hob?” he said.

“Games, what is that?” responded the goblin.

“Well,” said Jerry slowly, “if you’re in the woods you can play hide-and-seek. One person, or goblin, counts to a hundred and everybody finds a good hiding place. I bet you goblins play that.”

“Oh yes, we play that game.” Hob grinned in his odd way. “We call it Bite You, Goblin, and when you find a goblin you can bite him.”

“And do you count to a hundred while all the goblins hide?” asked Jerry, interested.

Hob frowned at this question as if unsure, then said, “We shout a goblin shouting song – Get Away, Get Away, Get Away.”

“That figures.” Jerry gave up on the games. “What about special days? Do you have special days like we have birthdays, when you get presents and have parties and things?”

Hob shook his head and looked a bit miserable.

“What is this presents?” he asked.

Jerry felt a bit miserable too, and then he said, “We’ll give you a nice present before you go back, then you’ll see.”

Jerry felt better when he told Hob this, and even better when Jacob marched in with an armful of old games.

“I had to tell Gran we’d have a games night tomorrow and then she can join in. I told her we’re sorting out old games first, but I don’t think she believed me.”

Jerry rolled his eyes. “We’ll just have to hope she did. I love Gran, but she often seems to guess things, if you know what I mean.”

He began sorting through the games Jacob had brought.

Chapter 13 – A New Game

“Okay. Now, Hob, we’ll sit in a circle and try a few of these.” They made a start with Connect Four and Jerry encouraged the goblin along. “This game’s easy, Hob, just slot your yellow disc in and I’ll slot in my red ones. The first to get a row of four wins. Do you get it, Hob?” Jerry beamed.

But hope turned to despair as Hob ate all his yellow discs.

“These cakes are too hard!”

He spat out a mangled mess of yellow plastic and Jerry and Jacob just stared at the ruined pile of discs. Jerry swallowed hard.

“Let’s try snakes and ladders, Jacob, that’s really easy. But make sure he doesn’t eat his token.” Jerry turned to the goblin, holding up a small red disc. “Hob, this is not for eating. We are playing a game. Just watch us and then you can join in, okay?”

Hob stared at the board. Jerry and Jacob showed him how, and Hob loved rattling the dice, but that was it: he just kept on rattling and rolling the dice.

“Well, it’s a start, for a goblin,” Jacob laughed.

The only game that worked, well, with goblin rules, was snap! Hob yelled, ‘Snap’ all the time. His version was ‘yap’, though at least he learnt how to slap his card on top of the pile. Yap, yap, yap. Hob won every single time, yelling, ‘Yap’ and grabbing up all the cards.

“We’ll call it ‘Goblin Yap’ − the new version of snap,” Jerry grinned.

The boys spent some time at Gran’s house after their supper of chilli wraps – and managed to hide a pile of the leftover wraps and mince, which they hurriedly stuffed into a plastic bag for Hob – a goblin doesn’t worry at all about how food looks!

“Tomorrow night we can have a TV or a games evening, if you like,” Gran announced.

“Yeah, that’s great.” Jerry winked at his brother. “We’re practising new games this evening, Gran.”

As they walked back to the shed, Jerry turned to his brother.

“What if it doesn’t work, Jacob? What if we can’t get Hob transported back to Goblinland? What if we have to keep him here?”

“That’s a horrible thought.” Jacob shook his head. “Imagine if we had to introduce him to all our friends at school, never mind what Gran and Mum would say.”

“It’s got to work,” Jerry said in a growling voice. “Goblins are really hard work and having one as a kind of brother, no way!”

When they opened the door of the shed, they were not in the least surprised to find their pile of games in chaos, and what hadn’t been ripped up had been eaten!

“Enjoyed the Monopoly, I see, Hob. Do the notes taste good?” He dumped the bag of mangled chill wraps in front of the goblin, who did not hesitate to dive in.

“Good eat!” Hob slobbered over the wraps. “That not good eat.” He pointed at the half-chewed Monopoly money.

“You don’t say,” said Jerry. “Anyway we need to practise his midnight party piece before we go back to his tree. How’s the moonlight?”

Jerry looked out of the little window at the evening sky. “Hmm – it’s hard to tell, but perhaps moonlight isn’t so important. The elf shoe and Hob’s wish are more important.”

Chapter 14 – A Puff of Magic

Later that night, the moon was bright and Jerry and Jacob began to feel nervous.

“What if we’re stuck with him forever?” Jacob couldn’t help feeling worried.

“Don’t even think about it,” said Jerry, secretly worrying himself.

Soon after, they were standing in the moonlight under Hob’s tree.

“Here’s the elf shoe.” Jerry thrust it into Hob’s grubby hand. “Oh, and I nearly forgot,” Jerry grinned. “Here’s a present for you as well. You wanted a present, remember?”

Jerry pushed a small red parcel tied with a blue ribbon into the goblin’s other hand. Hob stared big-eyed at Jerry and then at Jacob

“A present for me?” The goblin had a tear in his eye. “That is a good thing,” the goblin stammered. Thanks was still an unknown goblin word.

“Yeah,” Jerry smiled. “It’s something for you to play with your brothers in Goblinland.”

Jacob ran his hand through his hair.

“It’s time, Hob.” He glanced at his watch. “Now hold that shoe tight and wish for Goblinland with all your might. Come on, Hob, think really hard.”

The goblin stood there quieter than he had never been before, his eyes bright with teardrops, his right hand clutching the elf shoe and his left hand grasping his tiny red present.

“Think it, Hob,” Jerry muttered under his breath. “Think about your family, please, Hob, please!”

The goblin stayed still, gazing up into the bright face of the moon. He blinked, looked at the boys, and then he was gone! There was no flash, or noise or magic smoke – one second he was there and then, in the blink of an eye, Hob the goblin was gone.

The boys said nothing for a few moments

“It worked,” Jerry said at last. “It actually worked. I wonder what he was thinking about?”

“Chasing elves, probably,” said Jacob. “I expect that elf wanted his shoe back.”

Jacob laughed a bit, but didn’t sound very happy. Then, more cheerfully, he asked, “Hey, Jerry, what was the present?”

Jerry grinned as they began to walk back along the path.

“Remember that tiny pack of Snap cards we got in a Christmas cracker? We all laughed because they were too small to play with. Gran said, Snap cards for little people. So I thought – perfect for Hob and his family!”

The boys looked up at the clear moonlight sky and glanced back at the dark shadows of the woodland trees.

“That’s one place we don’t need to visit for a while,” Jacob groaned as they turned into the path leading to their garden. “I could sleep for a week. Being a goblin minder is hard work.”

“But I suppose we’ll miss him, in a funny sort of way.” Jerry glanced down at the spot where Hob had been standing just moments ago. “Looks like he has left us a goodbye present too.”

Jacob smiled as he picked up the dirty green scrap of rag that Hob had used as a hanky.

Back in their shed, Jacob found a small bag and carefully placed the rag inside it. Jerry smiled at the empty hammock before he fell asleep. “Maybe we’ll even miss him.”

The boys slept and slept. It was very late when Gran bustled in with a breakfast basket of rolls, yoghurts and orange juice.

“What on earth do you two do at night that makes you so tired? Well, it’s breakfast time. If you sleep any later, it’ll be time for lunch!” She opened a window and sniffed. “At least that awful smell seems better today. I wonder what it could have been?”

Chapter 15 – Missing Hob?

Gran insisted they had a Games Evening at the house and slept in a proper bed for a change.

“You can overdo this camping adventure stuff, you know.” Gran declared. “I really can’t understand the attraction of camping out in a smelly old wooden hut.”

Gran’s treat was a scary Goosebumps film and homemade pizza.

“Let’s play something,” Gran said, when the film had finished.

“We’ve got a new snap game here, Gran. It’s called ‘Goblin Yap’. We’ll show you,” said Jerry.

Gran watched the boys play and then announced, “I’ve never seen such a silly game in all my life. It has no point at all, just yelling Yap yap yap and grabbing all the cards. Whoever thought of such nonsense?”

Jerry winked at his brother.

“Yeah, you’re right, Gran. ‘Goblin Yap’ really is nonsense. I can’t imagine it will ever catch on.”

Gran nodded. “I agree. I’ll make some cocoa and maybe we can play monopoly before bedtime. Or even better, I’ve got an idea, how about a late night walk in the woods? We might hear owls or see foxes. It’s another moonlit night and I need some fresh air. I must say I was a bit worried about your shed camping, I had a very strange idea that you had adopted a stray skunk!” Gran smiled at the twins. “What do you think, then, how about a night walk in the woods?”

In unison, Jerry and Jacob said firmly, “Monopoly, Gran!” Jerry added, “We’ll save the walk in the woods for another night.”

Later, as the boys snuggled down in their cosy beds, Jacob looked nervously at his brother and placed Hob’s ragged hanky under his pillow.

“He is gone, isn’t he? You know, biting elves and guzzling his favourite guzzle tonight back in good old GoblinLand? I wonder if he is telling his brothers about us? Mmm, sleeping in a proper bed is quite nice. It’s not that I didn’t like him, well apart from him biting, guzzling and chasing everything, but too much Hob can drive you nuts. And this hanky still pongs a bit …” Jerry coughed and glanced impatiently over at his brother, who had finally stopped his chatter and fallen asleep, clutching Hob’s hanky in his hand. Jerry had had quite enough of Hob, but he was gone now, and that was that!

Or was it …?

Chapter 16 – Jacob Has a Funny Feeling

Jacob woke up the next morning, feeling a bit funny; he looked at his hand, which was still holding Hob’s dirty green rag, but it had slipped out of its little bag.

“I had a very creepy dream.” He turned to his brother Jerry, who yawned and glared at the green rag, holding his nose.

” I’m not surprised, with that smelly old thing in bed with you.” Jerry yawned again and turned over in the soft bed. “A nightmare about Hob, was it, were we all drowning in a pot of spag bol?”

“Well, no.” Jacob sat up. “I dreamt that he was back here, but not quite his old self. Hard to explain really, a bit quieter and not quite so greedy.”

“But still smelly, I expect.” Jerry stretched out. “A reformed Hob, that I’d like to see, or maybe not.”

The boys remembered all the ripped-up games and Hob eating everything he could get hold of. “That was a nightmare, brother.” Jerry shook his head. “No more goblins, please, and Hob really was a bit of a slob.”

After breakfast they went back down to their hut. Gran had now filled it with air fresheners so it smelt flowery… Jerry sniffed.

“Not sure which is worse. Hardly a goblin pong, is it? Hob would probably eat those plastic air fresheners!”

Jerry and Jacob sprawled in the big floor cushions and wondered what Hob had told his brothers and one sister back in GoblinLand.

They would not have been at all surprised to know that his story was very, very different to what really happened, more of a Hob the Super Goblin story than the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Chapter 17 – Hob Tells His Story…

When Hob landed back home, it was right in the middle of a guzzle feast. All the other goblins had gathered around the crackling fire and goblin guzzle bubbled in the huge black pot, but not for long – goblins like their food fast, they invented fast food – and now they all listened wide-eyed to Hob the Hero telling his tale.

“That mean elf SilverToe put a curse on me and I flew spinning through long black tunnels. I was broken and battered when I landed in the Land of the Giants, and then they tied me up with ropes and beat me. The two Giant Kings never stopped beating me with big sticks and they threw me into a dark, cold prison, with no food or water for days and days!”

Hob’s sister Bob sat and listened to this long tale of beatings and hunger and asked,

“Well, how did you get away if they imprisoned you and tied you up? You never were any good at magic; you can never remember any spells.” She shook her green goblin head. “Not even the easy ones.”

Hob was not having this from his stupid sister, but he ignored her and turned to the other goblins, all still listening, wide-eyed in amazement.

“Well, I did my magic.” Hob looked around. “I waited till those two giants slept and then broke out of my heavy chains and stole the elf shoe and this present, that’s what they call it, present is a magic word for Giants.”

Bob smiled and walked away from the circle of goblins.

“Magic word for giants?” she smiled. “This story my brother is telling is a Hob sob story, first he is tied with ropes and then it is chains but, for brother Hob, it is much better than his usual guzzle stories.”

Hob’s storytelling went on late into the night, until all the other goblins had heard enough of beatings, starving and the great escape of Hob the Hero. They all yawned and found grassy sleeping places to sleep off the enormous feast of guzzle − and headaches from Hob’s endless tale.

When all the goblins were fast asleep, the snoring was so loud that the trees were shaking, Bob crept back to her sleeping brother and whispered,

“I don’t believe one single word,” as her hand slipped under the mossy pillow he had made. Then she quietly put the elf shoe and the present into her pocket before she crept off to where her other brothers were sleeping.

Bob thought long and hard. She knew that her magic was a million times better than her brother Hob’s and, in any case, Hob didn’t look even one tiny bit beaten or starved. Bob smiled. “In fact he looks a bit fatter than when he disappeared just a couple of days ago.” Bob turned over the elf shoe. “And his clothes are smudged with what looks a bit like red food, it smells like food, too.”

It was then that Bob decided that she would go there also, wherever it was. If Hob could get back unharmed, then so could she!

Bob slipped out of the goblin area to the place where Hob had told them that the ‘elf curse’ had happened.

“I don’t need an elf curse,” Bob said to herself. “I have got the shoe and the giant’s magic present and they will take me to that place.”

Chapter 18 – Bob Takes a Look at the Giants

And that is how, just minutes later, when the twins were sleeping in their beds, Bob landed in the garden shed, which had been Hob’s terrible prison.

“Is this the prison?” Bob laughed out loud. “It doesn’t look like a prison to me.”

Bob tried out the hammock and fell into the squashy cushions. “Mmm, nice prison!” she grinned. “Your prison, my goblin brother, is not like your story.”

Bob walked around the little hut and looked out of the window towards the big, dark house. “Now that looks a bit more exciting.” She smiled, tucked the elf shoe and the present deep into her pocket and, with a twitch of her floppy goblin ear, she made herself invisible. “Better be safe than sorry, if there are giants out there, ready to beat and starve me. Hob never did manage invisible at goblin school…” She laughed as she crept up through the garden to the kitchen door. “Hob spent most of his time at goblin school in the nitwit corner.”

Opening the kitchen door was no problem for Bob and she was in before you could say goblin guzzle.

Bob tried not to be too noisy and wake up those Giant Kings, but she giggled with delight as she opened the fridge and the light came on to show her amazing piles of strange food.

Bob was not quite as greedy as her brother, but she still tasted everything in the fridge with her long goblin finger. “Mmm,” she murmured as she sampled big finger dollops of strawberry jam, orange marmalade, chocolate spread, cream cheese, pickles, peanut butter, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, potted meat, fishy spreads. She unscrewed all the jars and, being a goblin, didn’t remember to put any of the tops back on. Well, a goblin is always a goblin. The only thing she spat out was the Marmite. “Ugh, don’t like.”

Exploring the kitchen was fun, so Bob decided to try some other rooms and crept upstairs where she stumbled into the bathroom. Bob loved the bathroom as soon as she saw it. Shiny and very different to anywhere she had ever seen, what a very strange place. The toilet flush she found by accident and pressed it again and again until it stopped working; switching the taps on and off was just as much fun, too, but tasting the pots of creams and powders wasn’t so enjoyable, and the soap made her spit and dance.

“Aargh, horrible, awful food,” she shouted, but then remembered to try to be quiet before the Giant Kings captured her and tied her up too.

The next room she crept into was the boys’ bedroom and she stared at the two sleeping boys and whispered, “The Giant Kings? Not so terrible and not so big!”

Then Bob spotted what Jacob was clutching in his hand. She crept up close and touched Hob’s raggy cloth. “They are the terrible giants.” She smiled a quick goblin smile and yawned. All that testing and tasting was tiring, so she curled up in small chair and pulled some of the twins scattered clothes over her and fell fast asleep.

Bob was still sleeping deep and quiet, for a goblin, when the boys went downstairs for breakfast to find Gran in a very bad mood and telling them how messy it was to leave the tops off jars.

“But we didn’t, Gran, truly,” Jacob began, but something stopped him as he looked at all those opened jars of jam. Did he spot a finger mark? No, of course not, but he looked around the kitchen for any new clues.

Chapter 19 – Is Hob Back?

Later, the boys sat in their den and wondered.

“Hob wouldn’t have just tasted the jams,” Jacob frowned, “he would have eaten them clean and swallowed the jars whole.”

Jerry laughed.

“Too right. Let’s stop thinking spooky thoughts about that smelly old goblin being back. No way, we would have smelt him by now, for sure.”

The boys decided to continue working on their huge unfinished roller coaster model in the garage; Gran wanted to take them to the shops later to buy some new clothes.

Gran was comfy in the kitchen before starting on lunch and she fell asleep watching Bake It-Cake It, her very favourite morning TV show, now that wasn’t unusual. But she woke up surrounded by empty crisp packets, sweet papers and watching CrazyKids Cartoons instead, with the remote control on the floor. Now that, she scratched her head, was very, very unusual. When the boys strolled into the kitchen, Gran was sitting at the kitchen table looking very worried.

“I think I am ill.” Gran shook her head. “Maybe I have got Sleep Eating, look at all those empty packets of crisps − and I can’t even remember eating them.”

The boys looked at each other and then, upstairs, they heard the toilet flush.

“Oh no!” said Gran “Not that again, that toilet has been flushing all the time, all on its own. Mr. Roper is coming to take a look, but he says he has never heard of toilets flushing themselves.”

This time Jerry and Jacob looked long and hard at their grandmother.

Jerry started.

“Gran, we have got something to tell you. Jacob, let’s make Gran a nice cup of tea …”

Chapter 20 – Explaining a Goblin to Gran

The boys made Gran a cup of tea, whispering, “It can’t be Hob, he’s got a water allergy.” Jacob was puzzled.

“Yes, but not a crisp allergy. I think it is time to tell Gran the truth. Whether we like it or not, there’s a goblin in the house!” It was Jerry’s turn.

And so the boys told Gran the story, starting at the very beginning with their midnight walk in the woods. This seemed to upset Gran the most.

“Boys, that’s dangerous, out in the wood on your own, you could have met some very odd types.”

Jerry sighed. “Yes, we know, Gran, we did, a very, very odd type.” He continued the story, describing finding Hob and then hiding and feeding him in their den.

“Are you really sure it was a goblin?” Gran shook her head for the hundredth time as they continued the story. “It could have been one of your friends, dressed up for a trick?”

Then the toilet upstairs flushed again and Gran shook her head for the hundredth-and-first time.

“So, you see, Gran, we think Hob is back, that would explain all the crisp packets and the opened jars in the fridge.” Jerry spread his hands and shrugged.

Now it was Gran’s turn. “Well, if he is a friend of yours, as you say he is, why doesn’t he simply show himself and say hello, boys, I’m back for a visit?”

This seemed to make sense, but Jerry added, “If it is Hob, I can’t understand why he’s playing with water, it doesn’t seem quite right.”

Jacob had been thinking hard. “We’ll set a trap. What’s for lunch, Gran?”

Gran laughed. “Is that all you can think about? We’ve got a strange thing in the house determined to break the toilet flush and you are thinking about your lunch.”

Jacob explained his plan. “What is the one sure thing to bring Hob out into the open? Food! And what is one hundred percent the right food to put in our trap? Gran’s spaghetti bolognese. Gran, he loved it… you should have seen him get stuck into a bucket of spag bol, head first, it was awesome.”

And so the plan was worked out. A big steaming bowl of spag bol on the table, doors opened so that the delicious smell would waft right upstairs to the bathroom. Then the three would pretend to be sleeping and a giant beach towel was at the ready, to throw over the gobbling Hob! It all sounded so very simple.

Chapter 21 – The Spag Bol Trap

“I had planned macaroni cheese…” Gran grumbled as she stirred a tin of tomatoes into her special spicy recipe.

The three of them sat at the table with the big steaming bowl of spaghetti in the middle, the wide open door hopefully sending the delicious spicy smells up the stairs to the open bathroom door.

Jerry squinted through his half-closed eyes and saw a telltale tiny movement of the kitchen door. The others twitched: they had noticed it too.

Jacob waited until he saw a movement in the bowl of spaghetti, a bit like a careful finger test in the red sauce. He waited for a moment until he thought that the red sauce seemed to be disappearing as if being sucked up. He stumbled, but was quick enough to throw the bath towel over the bowl and whoever or whatever was tasting it.

The beach towel was moving now and something underneath it was wriggling like mad, squealing, “Aargh, don’t beat me… Aargh!”

Jerry began with a question as they all held down the corners of the beach towel so that the wriggling monster or goblin could not escape.

“Who are you? You are not Hob….so WHO are you?”

The voice under the towel blurted out, “Bob, I am Bob, don’t beat me like you beat my brother Hob.”

“Beat you?” Jacob shouted at the wriggling towel. “We never beat Hob, ever, we gave him food and helped him get back to GoblinLand. Are you really Bob? Hob’s horrible sister?”

The towel then stopped wriggling “I am not horrible, it is Hob who is horrible and he told us that you starved him and tied him up in chains, or was it ropes.”

Jacob and Jerry exchanged looks and Gran held the towel down with all her mighty strength. She was starting to believe in Hob, and she had no wish to see Bob, or whatever was wriggling like mad under the towel.

Jerry gulped. “Tied him up in chains?”

Jacob continued, “Starved him? We fed him pretty much non-stop. What an ungrateful, squirty little goblin he turned out to be.”

The muffled voice under the towel growled, “And a great big fibber…”

Jacob said slowly, “Look Bob, if that’s who you really really are, we can let you go, but don’t run away, please.”

Gran added, “And leave that toilet flush alone,” added Gran, as she kept the towel in a no escape hold.

After making Bob promise not to run away, Gran and the boys slowly let go of the beach towel, to reveal a not-quite-so-grubby, smaller version of Hob, although now splattered with red spaghetti sauce – which made her a bit more Hob-like.

“So Hob got back all right did he? He didn’t send a postcard,” Jerry began

“Yes.” Bob squinted around her “He escaped from your prison and used magic to get back, all by himself.”

Jacob shook his head. “Is that what the little squirt said? Did he say how long it took us to find that tiny little grass-green elf shoe and how he didn’t help us at all, not one little bit?”

“That was not Hob’s tale.” Bob licked some of the spaghetti sauce from her fingers. “This is really good. Are you the Giant Queen?” Bob turned to Gran who was staring rather rudely at the little visitor.

Bob then told the speechless boys Hob’s hero tale, as Gran served up four bowls of the cooling spaghetti. “Pity to waste it!” She did not take her eyes off the little goblin for one second. “You can have some ice cream if you promise not to touch the toilet flush or taps again.” Gran was feeling better now and Bob was so small she could hardly be dangerous.

Bob told the boys, and Gran, that she only came because she didn’t really believe her brother’s tale and that she liked it here in GiantLand, so maybe she would stay for a day or two. That wasn’t a question; the boys looked at each other – add bossy to the goblin list of messy, greedy and smelly!

“Hob never told us about goblins being able to work magic or to become invisible.” Jerry turned to Bob as she licked her ice cream bowl cleaner than clean.

“That’s because he can’t,” Bob explained with a huge grin. “Hob was never good at goblin school. He spent most of his time in the nitwit corner catching spiders and the only thing he was ever good at was chasing.”

Jerry smiled. “Ah yes, he is pretty good at chasing, we noticed that.”

As Bob now began to lick the ice cream carton clean, Jacob whispered to his brother, “Guess that brother and sister don’t get along too well.”

Chapter 22 – A Bit of Shopping With Bob

Gran came up with the suggestion after lunch. “Well, Bob, as you want to see a bit of GiantLand, ha ha, maybe we could take you around and you can see a few things. Only, of course, if you stay invisible, we don’t have many goblins around here, you see.”

And so it was decided to take the invisible Bob on their shopping trip after she had sworn goblin’s honour not to touch anything or give herself away, but Jacob whispered to Jerry as they climbed into Gran’s car, “And we know all about goblin’s honour, don’t we? It doesn’t exist.”

“I am sorry, Bob, I don’t have a goblin seat belt. Just hold tight, will you, dear?” Gran was quite enjoying herself.

Bob loved the car. “Faster than a fairy chariot,” she squealed, “but a lot noisier.”

Bob had great fun in the supermarket where they went first – Gran didn’t.

Bob loved the huge piles of fruit and vegetables. The boys heard her laugh and then they saw tiny bites marks appear in the rows of apples, pears, tomatoes, oranges, everything, in fact!

“Ooops, let’s leave.” Jacob told Bob to follow them quickly, but not before she had pulled out an apple from the bottom of the pile and the whole lot came crashing down.

Did any of the customers notice the two boys being followed by a bobbing apple? And an older lady muttering, “I knew this was a mistake – goblins just don’t know how to behave.”

Gran hurried them out, but not before Bob had taken a bite out of a row of jam tarts in the baker’s shop.

“I’ll come back later, and shop on my own.” Gran mopped her brow as the woman next to her nudged her and said, “Look at that, there are mouse bites in those tarts, mouse bites, that’s disgusting.”

“Let’s go to Rainbirds and get your new sweatshirts.” Gran suggested. “There is no food there, so we should be safe. Now, Bob, we want to show you around, but you have to behave.” Gran had taken over. “Do you have shops in GoblinLand at all?”

Bob, now her visible self, smiled. “No shops, but I like shops a lot.”

Jacob helped Gran out. “Well, there are rules. You must not touch or take things. You need money to pay for things too. Do you have money in GoblinLand?” Jacob held out a handful of coins for her to see.

“Oooh, is that money?” Bob asked. “I like it, it is nice and shiny, like golden elf chariot wheels”

Gran pulled up outside Rainbirds and announced to Bob, “Please don’t touch anything and if you are a very, very good little goblin girl, I will buy you something nice.”

Bob behaved herself as the boys got their new GAP sweatshirts. “Maybe we can change GAP to GOB for goblin?” Jerry grinned as Bob seemed to tug at Gran’s hand and led her off to the small children’s department.

Gran returned carrying a pink glitter T-shirt with a princess crown on the front, a bright bead necklace and a cute Kitty Katty backpack. “They should all fit, they are for three to four-year-olds, pity we can’t try them on.” Gran had a wide grin: she loved the things that Bob had chosen.

The boys looked at each other and scratched their heads as Gran marched off to pay, with an apple still bobbing behind her as if by magic – invisible goblin magic.

“And now we’ll drive to the lake for a walk and an ice-cream, I am sure Bob has seen enough shops for one day.”

Bob said no, she liked shops, but maybe she’d like lakes, too!

The highlight of the afternoon was Bob falling in love with the swans; luckily, there were no people around, so Bob stayed visible and jumped onto the back of a swan. Maybe she used a bit of magic, because the swan swam off gracefully around the lake with Bob seated on his back, laughing, and all the other swans swimming behind.

Later they sat with their ice cream cones on a bench and Bob told them that there were no swans in GoblinLand, and maybe she would take one back.

Gran asked a lot of questions about GoblinLand and seemed keen to know the recipe for goblin guzzle – but there clearly wasn’t one.

Gran plucked up enough courage to ask a question that had been bothering her. “Bob, I know he is your brother, but can you tell me why your brother Hob is so smelly?

Bob politely asked for ice cream number five and began, “Well, he won’t ever have his birthday bath, but it isn’t so bad because we always find him first when we play hiding in the woods. We sniff him out, and he still doesn’t know why. We always get Woz, too, he won’t take his birthday bath either.”

Gran smiled. “Well, that clears that up. Birthday bath, that’s interesting, I’ve got lots of bubbles, if you’d like a birthday bath when we get back.”

Bob smiled and asked, “What’s this bubbles?”

Chapter 23 – Bob’s Goodbye

Gran was really enjoying herself – she had never had goblin visitors before and, now that Bob kept her fingers off the toilet flush, they were best friends.

Gran made up a bed for Bob from a big old washing basket and fluffy baby blankets which seemed to appear from an old cupboard. Bob had a birthday bubble bath, and it wasn’t even her birthday.

They all made pizza together, always a favourite with the boys, each putting lashings of favorite toppings on each quarter … Jerry hated salami, but loved extra tomatoes, Jacob hated onions, but loved extra salami. Gran loved extra cheese and lots of olives, Bob loved absolutely everything, so her quarter of the pizza was piled sky high. She even put jam, peanut butter and pickled onions on top of the salami and cheese!

They played snap…not Hob’s useless goblin yap version, but proper snap. Bob quickly understood the rules and won every single time; maybe she used a bit of magic, but she certainly ate all the chocolates Gran had put out!

“We gave Hob a pack of snap cards as a goodbye present.” Jerry told Bob. “Maybe he has still got it?”

Bob took slipped her hand into her pocket and pulled out the elf shoe and the present, still wrapped.

“Yes, that’s it.” Jerry looked a bit sad. “We hoped he’d play snap with his brothers.”

“Hob told us that it is a giant magic thing.” She looked a bit sad too. “I used it to come here. But now I know it is snap, I can teach my cousins Bab, Rab and Gab.”

“Your cousins?” Gran was curious “It always seems as if there are only brothers and boys back in GoblinLand. Are Bab, Rab and Gab girl goblins?”

“Yes, they are goblin girls” Bob replied. “And Hob always chases and bites them. Most of the girls don’t like Hob much.”

“Hob chases everybody, we did notice. Let’s play Uno now, snap is a bit too easy.” Jerry looked around but Jacob wasn’t there.

“More presents,” Jacob announced as he came back to the table. “Bob, these are throwaway cameras, we got them at a birthday party ages ago.” He held the small plastic box in his hand. “Maybe you could take some photos of GoblinLand for us as Gran won’t let us go back with you for a visit.” Jacob glared at Gran.

Gran repeated the talk they had had eating their pizza. “I only said that it is not a good idea. You two are certainly not magical and your mother would not allow it. Getting there is probably easy, but getting back?” She spread out her hands and shook her head. “Who knows what terrible things could happen.”

Bob quickly understood the idea of taking photos and she even managed a Goblin Selfie!

“There are 20 photos, we’ve taken a few now. Take the rest when you get back to GoblinLand and find a way to send it back to us by magic, we’ll find it somehow, don’t worry.”

Jerry smiled at Bob and they carried on with Uno. She won again, she was probably cheating.

Gran even allowed a bit of late TV before they went to bed, Bob kept looking at her Kitty Katty back pack, but there was no way the TV would fit in. Her little backpack was already full to bursting with chocolates, crisps, snap cards, the camera, a plastic swan that Gran had found, Bob’s beads and T-shirt, friendship bands, crayons, strips of ribbon, a small tube of bubble bath and almost every little thing that Bob picked up, smiled at, and then very quickly stuffed into her Kitty Katty backpack until it was bursting at the seams! Her tiny pockets were stuffed, too.

She even tried to put Gran’s Smartphone in, but Gran was too quick.” No, no, no, my little goblin girl. Not that, I am sure there is no Wi-Fi connection in GoblinLand, so that stays here, if you don’t mind.”

It seemed to be clear, without words, that Bob wanted to go back to GoblinLand after breakfast. “But you are always very welcome to visit,” Gran promised, and didn’t mention the toilet flush or the Smartphone once. “Next time you come I’ll show you how to cook spaghetti, that guzzle sounds a bit boring.”

Chapter 24 – The Throwaway Camera is Back…

“Bob is more like Gran’s favourite goblin, we hardly got a look in,” Jerry complained as they carried on with their model in the garage.

“Maybe both of them will come for a visit one day and then we’ll see how Gran gets on with Hob!” Jacob laughed “That would be pretty awesome.”

Just three days later Gran rushed upstairs and woke the twins with a mighty yell. “The camera is on the kitchen table.” She was out of breath after taking two stairs at a time.

The boys didn’t need a second wake-up call and they bounded down the stairs three at a time.

And there it was – the throwaway camera, sitting in the middle of the kitchen table surrounded by empty crisp packets.

Jacob laughed. “She can’t write, but a few empty crisp packets are as good as any note.”

Jerry picked up the camera, turning it around. “All twenty photos are taken,” he said. “We’ll take it into the photo shop straight after breakfast.”

And that’s what they did; Gran even gave them a few extra pounds for express service photos. She was even more excited about the goblin pictures than they were.

“I wonder if she took a photo of that awful Hob?” Gran wondered. “Not that I want to see him, of course, but I’d like to see the other brothers too and maybe she took a snap of the goblin guzzle, that would be nice.”

The twins left Gran sorting out her kitchen cupboards as they sprinted at top speed to the photo shop to pick up their snaps.

Chapter 25 – Goblin Selfies

“Oh, hello boys!” Mr. Bailey looked serious as they entered the shop. “Your snaps are back, but I am afraid I’ve got bad news for you.” He picked up a piece of paper and read it. “This throwaway camera has probably been incorrectly stored. Extreme heat or cold can damage the film. As a result, the quality of these photographs is very poor.”

Mr. Bailey looked at them sadly. “When I read that, I took a look. Sorry boys, but your Halloween mask party photos are very poor quality indeed.” He handed the boys a packet with their photographs.

Jerry frowned and queried, “Halloween mask party?” as he took the envelope from Mr. Bailey.

“Well, that’s what it looks like,” Mr. Bailey explained “But really, really bad quality. There is no charge.”

Jacob swallowed hard as his shaky hand opened the photo envelope outside the shop.

Then the twins started laughing so loud that inside the shop Mr. Bailey shook his head and wondered what was so amusing about poor-quality photos.

“No wonder Mr. B thought it was a Halloween mask party.” Jerry pointed at the Bob selfie.

“And just look at these, that’s Hob, looking pretty scowly and dead angry.”

The boys went through the rather grey and very fuzzy pictures, most of them were really really bad, but the goblins were plain enough to see, if you knew they were goblins, of course!

“Bob has got a lot to learn about taking pictures.” Jerry laughed at one of just a goblin eye.

There was a very blurry selfie of Bob wearing her new T-shirt and beads, then one of what looked a bit like a group of girl goblins doing a kind of scary thumbs-up pose.

“Oh great, Gran will be pleased.” Jerry tried to make out what a strange photo might be, but then decided, “I think that great big black bucket with stains all over it is a pot of guzzle. One goblin seems to have his head stuck in it, must be Hob.”

“Let’s get these photos back to Gran,” Jacob laughed “She’ll need her glasses to make out what’s on them, but who else has snaps from GoblinLand? Nobody in the whole wide world.”

The twins laughed all the way back to the house, where Gran was waiting for her turn to see the Halloween mask party selfies. She smiled as she stuck a picture of Bob and the other girl goblins onto the fridge, next to the quick snap she had taken of Bob holding her very full Kitty Katty backpack.

“Now, young lady, you’ll see these straight away if you come back again one day, but don’t bring your brother, I haven’t got enough air freshener, or food.”

The boys laughed, and Jacob asked, “Have you got a soft spot for Bob, Gran?”

Gran looked at the boys. “I suppose so, yes, but it was quite nice to have a little girl around for a change, even a goblin girl.”

“Don’t worry, Gran, if she brings Hob next time, you’ll be off goblins for good, I promise you.”

Were they right?

The End

The post There’s A Stinky Goblin In The Shed first appeared on Bedtime Stories.

The following story is a sample of the chapter book Rosco the Rascal at the St Patrick’s Day Parade. You can read the first three chapters below.

If you like it, you can find out more about the rest of the story here.

CHAPTER 1 – BAD DOG, JACK

“Grrr…” the pint-sized Jack Russell terrier growled. “Ruff, ruff!”

Sparks, a polite young pug, wasn’t sure why this disagreeable dog was barking at him, but he didn’t like it. He hadn’t done a thing to upset him. And he hadn’t come all the way to the big city to march in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade just to be hassled by a bad-tempered pup.

“Arf arf!” Sparks barked back. Sparks tugged on his leash—he wanted to get away from this irritating dog.

Second grader Mandy McKendrick held onto Sparks’ leash tightly, trying to put some distance between Sparks and the unfriendly terrier.

“Ruff, ruff!” This time the little terrier lunged forward, sinking his sharp teeth into Sparks’ ear.

“Oh my goodness!” cried Mandy as Sparks yelped in pain. She squatted down to place a protective hand over Sparks’ head, glaring at the terrier’s owner, who hadn’t been paying attention to his dog. “Excuse me? Can you watch your dog, please? He just bit my dog’s ear!”

Taking the terrier by the collar, the boy began to holler at the dog. “Not again! Bad dog, Jack!”

Mandy reached down to examine Sparks’ ear, loosening her grip on his leash. The ear wasn’t bleeding, but Sparks wasn’t about to wait around for another attack. He tugged on his leash again. This time, it slipped from Mandy’s hands. Sparks broke into a run, leash trailing behind.

“Wait! Sparks, come back here!” Mandy cried, chasing after him.

But Sparks was afraid, and he was quick! Although he was just a little dog, he scurried around long legs and under other leashes faster than Mandy could hope to do. In a few seconds, she had lost sight of him completely.

Oh no!

Now what?

Mandy wasn’t too surprised that something had already gone wrong today. Things had not been going her way for the last several days. In fact, Mandy’s luck had been downright bad all week. Still, she never thought for a second that it would be this bad—that she’d lose Sparks!

CHAPTER 2 – JAMES, WE HAVE A PROBLEM

Sparks was the Bentons’ pet pug. Mr. and Mrs. Benton, a retired couple who had moved in next door to the McKendricks, had generously allowed Sparks to join them for this special occasion, so that Mandy and James would each have a dog to walk in the parade.

The dressed up dogs were always a big favorite of the downtown St. Patrick’s Day Parade crowd, and before the run-in with the nasty terrier, Mandy had been enjoying the festive atmosphere. People had smiled and waved at her, exclaiming at the adorable costumed dogs.

Mandy wore her green Pinch Me, I’m Irish T- shirt. Her long, brown hair was held back with a green ponytail holder, and a headband with sparkly green shamrocks clung to her head.

Mandy’s ten-year-old brother, James, wore a green and white button-up shirt and a goofy top hat. A fifth-grader with red hair and freckles, James was about as Irish-looking as any American-born boy could be. He enjoyed watching the St. Patrick’s Day Parade every year and thought it would be fun to march in it this year.

James held the leash of their large, friendly German shepherd, Rosco, and grinned at the attention from the crowd as he and Rosco walked the parade route.

Because of the large number of people and dogs in the parade, James and Mandy had become slightly separated from one another. Mandy slowed down to let Rosco and her brother catch up.

“Oh, my gosh! James, did you see what just happened?”

“No. What happened? Where’s Sparks?”

“Uh, we have a problem—a big problem.” Mandy explained the run-in with the terrier and Sparks’ disappearance.

“Are you serious?” James’s eyes grew wide as he slowed down to take in her news.

A few other dog-walkers quickly overtook them, so he picked up his pace again, rather than trip over a tangle of leashes.

“Yes, I’m serious. He’s gone!” Mandy said. “He was really scared of that dog, and, I guess…I don’t know—he just ran away! I went after him, but…well, I lost him!”

James looked up at the tall buildings and the crowds of people everywhere. “Oh, man. This is not good.”

Mandy bit her lip. “I know! And this is just my luck. I knew something like this would happen. If only I would’ve just done the school project, then all this bad stuff might not have happened.”

“Don’t start that again. This has nothing to do with you refusing to make a leprechaun trap.”

“You don’t know that,” Mandy said. “I’ve had so much bad luck since I decided not to make one. I’m sure the leprechauns jinxed me—it’s been like this all week!”

“Well, who knows? Maybe. But you’ve got to stop blaming all of this on that project.”

“Alright, James. Fine,” Mandy said. “But what are we going to do about Sparks? Can you just help me? We’ve got to start looking for him.”

CHAPTER 3 – THE LEPRECHAUN TRAP

Mandy was afraid something bad might happen today. Ever since she had decided not to make a leprechaun trap for school, bad luck seemed to be affecting everything in her life. It was like the leprechauns knew that she had turned her back on them and were out to get her.

First, it was only little things that went wrong—like when her pencil broke in half for no reason, and when she tore a hole in one of her new socks, and when she got in trouble because she forgot to feed Rosco one evening.

Then, bigger things started happening. Her dad’s car got a flat tire when he drove home from work one night. She left all of her library books at home on school library day, so she couldn’t check out any new books for two whole weeks. And then it rained on the day of her school picnic at the park this week, so the picnic had been canceled.

She was worried that the bad luck would get even worse. And now it seemed it had.

Even though Mom said these bad things weren’t related to one another—that bad things just happened sometimes—Mandy was sure that the bad luck was all because she refused to make a leprechaun trap.

Every March the children had a bonus assignment—to make a leprechaun trap at home and bring it in the day before the holiday. To be fair, it was optional. She didn’t have to make one.

A leprechaun trap was any kind of contraption that a student could dream up that would trick a leprechaun into climbing inside. Some students made traps that looked like top hats with ladders made of sticks. The little leprechauns could climb up and hop in.

Other traps resembled pirate treasure chests or magical looking fairy beds—with real moss, pebbles and sticks to remind them of their homes. The key was to offer a bit of treasure—perhaps some fake gold coins or chocolate candy—anything that would trick a leprechaun into climbing inside.

The teachers at school said the leprechauns would enter their classrooms on the night before St. Patrick’s Day in search of treasure. The kids would have left out their traps that night, and the hope was that one of the leprechauns would try to steal some of the treasure and become trapped.

Because if he were trapped inside, the kids would actually be able to see—see a real leprechaun! They wouldn’t have held him captive for more than a few minutes. No one wanted to hurt the little guy. The kids only wanted to see one in person, ask him a few questions—about magical things or gold, or maybe some riddles or legends, or where the end of the rainbow is—and then send him on his way, no harm done.

So every year Mandy’s teachers would ask each of the kids to make a leprechaun trap and bring it into school the day before St. Patrick’s Day. Then, all they had to do was wait for the leprechauns to sneak into their classrooms overnight.

But Mandy had been getting tired of the whole thing. Every single year since kindergarten, Mandy had built a trap, often staying up late with Mom the night before it was due, working hard to do her very best. Almost all the kids made one, in fact. But the problem was—no leprechauns ever became trapped.

Now she was in second grade, and she was sure it would be the same story all over again. The only thing the leprechauns ever did was leave a big mess all over the classroom—tiny, green footprints and overturned desks, piles of paper thrown about the room, green smudges on the windows. But there was never a leprechaun anywhere to be seen.

Sometimes they left treats, too. But the whole class shared those, so Mandy wouldn’t miss out on treats just because she didn’t make a trap. Nevertheless, no one ever seemed to catch one.

So Mandy wasn’t going to do it, not this time. She wasn’t about to pour her heart and soul into her work and wish as hard as she could to see a leprechaun, just to be disappointed again. She would skip it this year. She was done with it.

But ever since she had made that decision, the bad luck had started. St. Patrick’s Day was Monday. Today was Saturday—Saturday at the parade.

Yesterday, when the leprechaun traps were due at school, another bad thing had happened. Mandy’s best friend Trisha had gotten sick. Trisha had left school early, right before lunch, because she threw up. And now, Sparks—that sweet little pug that Mandy was supposed to look after—was missing.

M-I-S-S-I-N-G!

Everywhere Mandy went it seemed like a black cloud was following her around. It seemed like the leprechauns thought that she didn’t believe in their magical powers, and now, she, herself, seemed to be trapped in an endless string of bad luck. The worst thing was: she had no idea how to make it end…

Kids Story Sample written by Shana Gorian

Interior Illustrations by Ros Webb

Cover Art by Josh Addessi & Victoria March

Cover Design by Kim Killion

If you enjoyed reading this sample of Rosco the Rascal and the St Patrick’s Day Parade, click below to read more about Rosco and his author Shana here.

Let’s Chat About The Stories ~ Ideas for Talking With Kids

Conversation

1. Have you ever felt like you had a run of bad luck? What happened?

Optimism

1. Do you think there are ways to stop bad luck happening to you?

2. How might you be able to change your luck, if your luck was bad?

The post Rosco the Rascal at the St Patrick’s Day Parade first appeared on Bedtime Stories.

“Bye, Rosco!” Mandy called to her large German shepherd as she and James climbed out of the minivan in the chilly morning air, both eager to see their friends again.

“Bye, Mom!” James smiled and waved.

Inside the car, Rosco the rascally dog frowned. The kids had been home for three whole weeks over the holiday break. Rosco had enjoyed the busy house and all of the fun he’d had with them.

But now they would be gone again, and Rosco was already lonely. From Monday through Friday, the kids were gone to school. After school, they often had sports practices, instrument lessons, or play dates with friends. It would take some serious readjusting, spending his days in such an empty house.

Rosco tried looking on the bright side as Mom pulled out of the school parking lot. At least Mom would be home. She often took him for morning walks and kept him entertained as she sped about the house all day, cleaning this and organizing that. She usually brought him along to drop off the kids at school. But she was too busy to play most of the time.

He sighed heavily. What am I going to do all day without the kids?

Soon, Rosco and Mom arrived home. Rosco was surprised to see a very large, long, yellow truck parked on the street outside the house next door. The house had been empty for several months now. Someone had placed a sign on the lawn that said For Sale.

Rosco wasn’t sure what that meant, but he guessed it was something sad, because Mandy had cried when she saw it. James and Mandy had been friends with the kids who lived there, and had played with them for as long as Rosco could remember. The four kids had spent many afternoons riding bikes and kicking a ball around in the yard. Rosco missed those kids.

So, why was this giant truck here, and why was the sign missing?

Mom pulled into the garage and parked the car. “Wonder what’s going on next door?” she said. “What do you think, boy, new neighbors?”

Rosco clambered out as she opened the side door for him. Inside the house, Rosco skipped to the window by the front porch so he could watch.

Two men dressed in brown pants and white shirts climbed out of the front of the truck. One was holding a clipboard as the other climbed a small ladder on the back of the truck. This man raised the enormous back door and lowered a long, steel ramp to the ground.

Inside the truck, a mountain of cardboard boxes and furniture sat piled high. Rosco gazed, wide-eyed, as the men began to unload the boxes and carry them toward the house. They placed the boxes on the driveway.

Mom walked over and stood next to Rosco at the window. “Yes, it looks like we’re getting some new neighbors, Rosco,” Mom said. “Someone’s finally moving in. Won’t the kids be excited?” She left him and began tidying up the house.

New people? We’re going to have new people next door? Rosco thought, panting a doggie smile. Wow, the kids sure will be excited. I wonder who it will be?

Rosco watched as a car pulled up next to the house and a man and woman carefully stepped out. They had gray hair and kind faces and reminded Rosco of James’ and Mandy’s grandparents.

The woman opened the backseat passenger door of the car. She reached in and carefully pulled out a plastic, gray box that had windows and a door, and a handle on the top. It looked like a miniature version of Rosco’s kennel.

A kennel? There must be an animal inside! Rosco thought, wagging his tail. This family has a pet!

The woman carried the kennel to the front door and set it down on the porch, then joined her husband on the sidewalk. Rosco still couldn’t see what was inside of the small kennel. It was too far away.

The man and the woman greeted the movers. Then, with the click of a button, the gray-haired man opened the garage door, and the four of them disappeared into the house.

But the kennel still sat on the front porch.

I wonder what’s inside that kennel? Rosco thought. He just had to know. The anticipation was becoming more than he could take. He would have to take action.

He could sneak over to the porch, take a peek, and get back home before any of the neighbor people or the movers or even Mom would see him. He raced to his doggie door at the back of the house and slipped out.

The morning air was still brisk and the lawn still wet with frosty dew. Rosco padded cautiously through his back yard, around his house, and toward the neighbor’s front porch.

He would smile and wag his tail just in case anyone saw him. He was a very big dog after all, and sometimes strangers got nervous when he showed up off-leash. He didn’t want to alarm anyone. He wanted to make friends of the new people, after all.

Rosco trotted up to the porch, barely able to control his excitement. He sniffed at the kennel and peered inside. A startled little face stared back at him.

It’s a dog!

The dog had a smooth, light, coat, and a short, wrinkled, dark snout. His ears were as dark as his snout. He was easily less than half of Rosco’s size.

The little dog’s eyes grew huge at the sight of this great big, unexpected visitor staring at him through the silver bars of his cage. He sank back on his haunches inside the kennel. Who was this visitor?

Hello there, Rosco woofed. I didn’t mean to scare you. I live next door, he said in doggie language. Welcome to the neighborhood! I’m Rosco.

The little dog barked in reply, wagging his curly tail. With a few short, peppy barks, he told Rosco that his name was Sparks.

Just then they heard voices inside the front door.

Gotta go, Sparks! I’m not supposed to leave my yard when I’m alone outside! I don’t want them to see me! Rosco woofed quietly. Nice meeting you! I’ll come and play when I see you out in the back yard!

Arf Arf! Sparks called cheerfully.

Rosco raced back through the yard to his doggie door and returned to his spot at the window. Mom was heading downstairs with a pile of laundry.

“Wow, Rosco. You haven’t even moved? Must be pretty interesting out there, hah, boy?” she said.

Rosco smiled at Mom, panted and sat down, returning his gaze to the moving truck.

I guess it won’t be so bad that the kids are back to school, he thought, now that I’ll have someone to play with! Suddenly, the days ahead didn’t seem so long.

Short story for kids written by Shana Gorian

Let’s Chat About The Stories ~ Ideas for Talking With Kids

Friendship

1. Rosco went to welcome the new dog to the neighbourhood. How do you think welcoming someone to the neighbourhood can help you make new friends?

2. The dog in the kennel seemed friendly. Why do you think he would have been happy to make a new friend in Rosco?

3. What do you like about having friends?

The post New Friends in January first appeared on Bedtime Stories.