George's hotel

The vast company of animals were tightly huddled around a centre-piece. From the cluster there came an odd collection of unearthly noises. These droning sounds were what George had the immense pleasure of waking up to. She searched high and low for her senses until she finally found them cowering in a corner of her mind. She soon discovered that she was lying in a crumpled heap at the bottom of a damp slope. She swallowed. Her mouth was so dry. How long had she been here? She bravely stretched out her trembling hand and touched what she thought was a wall.

‘Urghh!’ she squealed and recoiled her hand, now covered in a sticky, slimy substance, which she immediately wiped on her pyjama bottoms. She didn’t even want to think what that was.

George wondered if where she was now could be any worse than where she had been earlier. A picture of Tolita exterminating the Boffwunglers in broad daylight flashed through her mind. No, surely not, she concluded. There was something terrifying about the Judgess. She did indeed have a certain look about her that resembled the human species but George didn’t question what the Boffwunglers had told her. She had experienced, first-hand, the feeling that Tolita could appear as human or as inhuman she liked, depending on what mood she was in. She could see into your mind and control it, even turn it off at the flick of a switch, like she did to the Boffwunglers. She was exceedingly dangerous and George never wanted to lay eyes on her ever again.

‘Ung?’

‘Plg.’

‘Fnp?’

‘Skopwodfle!’

A selection of sounds slid down the slope on an invisible toboggan.

The Mumtwips could actually speak as well as anyone else yet most of the time they couldn’t be bothered and simply substituted short and abrupt sounds. What was even more amazing was that they could understand one another. Translated, the above went as follows,

‘What shall we do with her?’

‘Eating her would be my suggestion.’

‘Are you sat on my knapsack?’

‘Oh yes, sorry old chap.’

George anxiously studied the group of animals. She could not make them out too well as it was dark at her end of the hole, yet she could see several silhouetted shapes perched on a ledge, against the bright light pouring in from a small opening right at the top of the slope. A new day, thought George worriedly, she must have been here all night. The last memory she could recall was of losing her way in a forest of some kind. It had been night time and she had no longer been able to pick out the right way. She knew she hadn’t been far from Otherin because she had not long before crossed the old bridge over the River at Thorny Point. From then on it all went blank and now she found herself here, wherever here was.

There were a large number of these animals as far as George could tell. Her imagination decided, at this point in time, that it would be fun to form colourful and detailed pictures of all the evil-looking, flesh-eating beasts that it possibly could, before she snapped out of it and concentrated on decoding the animal’s motives. She would worry about the flesh-eating bit later. Much later, she hoped. They all appeared to be looking down at something in the centre of the group. They were discussing something, she was sure of it, she just hoped it wasn’t her.

The narrow opening at the top of the slime-ridden slope was the only visible exit. She closed her eyes in despair, boy was she in trouble.

Moloks

Dorus peered down from his high perch before glancing at his antique miniature pocket-watch, which hung on a thin silver chain around his neck. He impatiently drummed his fingers together. The sky was gradually beginning to darken, bringing with it the voices of creatures just beginning to awaken. An owl hooted from a neighbouring branch and still the frightened creature sat in silence, waiting.

The Moloks had decided that it was high time desperate measures were taken. Dorus had been elected for the job and it was safe to say he was more than a little worried. Never before had they disclosed themselves to outsiders. Well, not counting Tolita that is, the child they had raised as one of their own. She was the real reason that they were having to come out into the open now. She knew their weaknesses all too well and after the betrayal of their trust again last night, the Moloks realised that she would stop at nothing until she had stolen everything of any worth to them, including their deepest inner-most knowledge.

Dorus was not sure how an outsider would react to him. Being the descendants of the Great Wizards of Valdox, Moloks were what most folk would call unusual looking. Mainly because they did not share their ancestors tall stature. However, they had retained a certain Wizard-like appearance in terms of their slim and well-proportioned build and their honest, trustworthy faces. This conflicting mixture of genes was due to the Great Wizards closeness to the inhabitants of the Enchanted Wood. The two races, joined together, resulted in the Moloks odd but favourable looks.

There was a rustling below and Dorus hitched his round spectacles further up his nose and stuck his head through the camouflage of leaves. Sure enough, lolloping along the ground, heading towards Zlexis, was a giant creature, blessed with no less than five legs.

Dorus hesitated. He really wasn’t too sure about all this. If he got into trouble and things started to go drastically wrong, he could always utilise his outstanding magic skills, although he knew he must only stoop to that as a last resort. Moloks are wilfully opposed to using their gift of magic for any intent other than good. It is forbidden to use it negatively against any living being. Anyway, Dorus hoped it wouldn’t come to that. After all, he only wanted to talk to this....Monster.

He was beginning to think about giving the whole thing a miss when the creature below stopped dead in his tracks. He was actually wondering why lots of leaves kept falling on and around him. The Monster suddenly looked up and Dorus gasped and jerked his head back, sending his spectacles hurtling to the ground. He could have sworn the thing had three eyes. Dorus thought he might be in need of a new pair of spectacles.

Umpwiffle bent down, picked up the glasses and offered them back to the curious fellow in the tree.

PART TWO: Under the Shadow

George gradually began to regain consciousness. She felt groggy yet struggled to try to make sense of the events now taking place. Her sluggish eye-lids were too heavy to drag open, so heavy it felt like they had been permanently sealed. She could feel the alien air passing her by at great speed. The temperature was low and she could feel the goose-bumps tingling all over her body. Her senses were reeling. She flinched as something wet brushed across her face. She listened carefully. She could hear the harsh sound of twigs breaking underfoot and beyond that, faint whisperings which, no matter how hard she strained to hear, she could not make out.

George shuddered. Without even so much as a warning, a dreaded creature known as fear leaped out from amongst the bushes and encompassed her whole being. She suddenly remembered what had happened to her and she began to feel very afraid. She had been kidnapped and was now being carried somewhere. Where, she had no idea. By whom, she dare not contemplate and how she had ended up like this was anyone’s guess. Her heightened sense of unease told her to open her weary eyes. She thought perhaps she would rather not but after some time she truly concentrated on forcing her eye-lids open and allowed herself a quick peek. It was dark yet it was not the comforting darkness which nightfall brings. Now and then a sprinkle of light hit her from various directions, causing her to screw her eyes tightly together. It was a dazzling green light.

There came a rustling sound from behind her and she felt the pace of whatever was carrying her quicken. She heard the unrecognisable whisperings again, yet this time louder and more urgent. She nervously lifted her head and squinted in an attempt to gain a more telling view of the situation. As she did so, a high-pitched voice, shrill enough to shatter the toughest glass, raised the alarm and a tube was aggressively thrust under her nose. George’s mind shut its eyes and pulled up the covers.

The Mumtwips are shrewd and cunning animals. They have been roaming the land for many centuries due to their incredibly well-developed survival techniques. These survival instincts are unfortunately getting to be a teeny bit of a setback as hardly any of them ever actually die. This might seem like a wonderful ability....but you try telling that to a frustrated Mumtwip trying to find a quiet, peaceful spot to contemplate the big theoretical questions in life, amongst hundreds of other irritated Mumtwips trying to do exactly the same thing, in an area only just big enough to accommodate a small family of rabbits.

Capturing the child had been remarkably easy. She had been fighting a losing battle with the undergrowth, near to the border of the Deep Forest, just west of the Otherin Valley. She did not appear to know in which direction she was headed and seemed almost ready to collapse with exhaustion. As they were watching her, she came to a standstill with an expressionless expression on her face, as if she simply did not have the energy, or the will, to think anymore.

The Mumtwips had accidentally spotted her on their return home from their evening’s outing and had gone to take a closer look at this strange new addition to the population. She was a most uncommon find and was clothed in the most ridiculous uniform they had ever seen. They had quietly sneaked up behind her (Mumtwips are not flat-footed like Boffwunglers, nor clumsy like Trunglers, indeed, they are very small, clever creatures who are extremely nifty and sharp-witted), swiped the ‘Ob’ under her nose, hauled her over their heads and headed, in a state of raw excitement, back to the Forest. Easy when you know how.

From the author

Hello everyone and thanks for reading!

So we are at the end of Part One. Just to remind you if you would like to send any ideas, photos or pictures that you think might fit with the story so far or drawings of the characters, maybe even short stories of what the characters are doing when we don't see them, you are more than welcome, we may include your contributions on the site and possibly in a published book at the end of the project.

I will take a short break before beginning with Part 2 of the story and will be starting the next step of the journey at the beginning of June. Look forward to seeing you then!

Jill.

End of Part One

George, who had just witnessed the two helpless Boffwunglers evaporate into thin air, figured that she must do something quick before the same fate befell herself. Tolita had her eyes closed and a strange look of intense concentration on her face. The Trungler creature was still staring at her but she knew she must take the chance. She bent down and began to wriggle her feet out of her socks. She promptly succeeded in the task and before long her bare feet came into contact with the ground. She looked pleadingly at the Trungler, who simply continued to gawp at her. He then did something very odd indeed. He pointed away to her right and then winked at her with one of his three eyes. She felt as if he was giving her a chance to escape, she didn’t know why and she wasn’t going to wait to find out. She took one last look at Tolita who was swaying from side to side, hypnotised by her previous spell, before heading into a cluster of bushes to her right, leaving behind nothing but a pair of her favourite socks.

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