Philip was feeling very tired and he expected to be stopped in mid stride at any moment. Up ahead he saw a vast clump of dense trees. If he could only get there before Frank caught him, he would dash in between the trees and hopefully Frank would lose track of him, then he could find a place to catch a breather.
‘Ouch!’ Frank yelled; a sharp surging pain stabbed into his belly. ‘Blast it, how am I supposed to run now with this horrible cramp in my stomach?’
He slowed down to a walk, clutching at his stomach in pain. Philip pushed on; his heart burned in his chest and his legs complained from the effects of the punishing jog. Completely unaware of Frank’s little setback, he made his way through a clump of dense trees, zigzagging all the way. The pine needles and leaves crackled beneath his feet as he raced forward, and he hoped and prayed that he was finally free of the enemy.
He peeked back over his shoulder, but could see no trace of Frank. He decided to stop for a breather and listen for crushing leaves and pine needles.
The place was dead quiet, except for a gentle breeze blowing through the trees.
‘And I thought Frank was supposed to be a big deal boxing champion,’ Philip sniggered, standing quietly under an old oak tree, ‘now he’s nothing but a rotten loser.’
The anxious schoolboy listened carefully for the crackling of pine needles being crushed under Frank’s feet, but not a sound was heard.
‘I wonder how long I should wait before he decides to go home?’ Philip asked himself; peering at his watch every few seconds. He gazed up into the trees and jumped with fright at the slightest sound of a breaking twig. He thought of all the disturbing stories he had heard about the woods, and they started sending shivers down his spine.
‘Well, I won’t be sticking around here for very long,’ he mumbled, glancing from left to right. ‘Half an hour tops and I’m going home.’ A fresh layer of perspiration formed on his brow. There seemed to be something sinister about those woods, not something you could say for sure, but evil seemed to lurk there.
Fifteen minutes had passed. Smearing the sweat from his forehead into his scruffy red hair, Philip peered behind the old oak tree, checking once again to see if Frank was anywhere to be seen. Thock!! In an instant Philip came crashing to the ground like a bag of cement, knocked out stone cold.
Chapter 3
Mathias was a tall being with long straight jet-black hair, coloured in between with blue streaks. He resembled your average wizard with his long nails, thick pointy snout, bent slightly to the left side, and a fine black moustache. He had long ears, also pointed on the ends, and his bright green eyes were like those of a cat, with a dark piercing stare that turned the whole room to ice. He wore a fine black silk robe with a wide light blue edging, which almost matched the colour of the stripes in his hair. His shoes were made of thick black leather and came to a pointed end. The way you could distinguish him from other dark wizards was that he had a black “M” tattooed at an angle across his cheek, which had become slightly faded over time. Most importantly, he was rotten to the core.
He had a dark underground shaft for a home, which lay deep enough beneath the ground to accommodate fairly comfortable living quarters, although most would have called it a jail or a tomb rather than a home, for that matter. A rope ladder hung down from the entrance into a fairly large room, like the main lounge area, although not nearly as cosy as one should be. Instead this room was used to brew a variety of concoctions for some evil and destructive cause.
Further along the way, down the dark stagnant passage, stood a room on the left containing all sorts of strange wizardry contraptions: an empty hatstand with hooks that glowed a luminous shiny blue colour; next to that stood a small drum set with one stick softly tapping away at one of the drums all by itself. On the floor close to the entrance lay a pair of blue denim jeans, quite a large pair at that, which hovered slightly above the ground, and flapped about as if they were being blasted by a fan.
In the far corner stood a birdcage with three canaries frozen in mid flight; no doubt, just another one of his experiments that the animal anti-cruelty league might have had something to say about. Suspended from the ceiling were three large crystal balls, each filled with an array of colourful butterflies with wings that magically changed colour every time they were flapped.
Other than that, sitting in the opposite corner was a large box closed at the top with a zip – a very unusual collection of experiments that he had discarded for later scrutiny.
Further down the passage to the right were two padlocked steel doors. These rooms were used to store his deadly potions. At the far left hand corner of this underground dwelling were two large cages positioned next to each other in an “L” shape.
In the cage on the left Philip lay unconscious on a prickly bed of straw. It was pitch dark and reeked with an unpleasant pungent musty underground odour. A few hours had passed since school, and Philip’s mother would most surely be worrying about him by then, having no idea of the mess her beloved son had got himself into.
* * * * * * * *
Philip stirred. ‘Snort, huh what!’ he exclaimed, blinking his eyes rapidly in an effort to adjust to the frightening darkness. ‘Ouch, my head hurts! Where the hell am I? Have I gone blind?’
The confused boy held his throbbing head, having absolutely no idea why it hurt the way it did, and desperately hoped someone would answer him soon.
‘Frank, is that you? Have you got me locked in your garage or something?’
Several seconds passed…
‘Frank, this is not a joke, where are you?’ Philip called, sounding almost frantic.
‘Birch, is that you?’ Frank piped from nowhere, sounding half dazed. ‘How did you lock me up like this Birch? Where the hell are we? And why did you beat me over the head?’
The hairs on Philip’s neck stood on end at the sound of Frank’s voice, frightened yet relieved at the same time, thinking he was at Frank’s house and not taken hostage somewhere.
‘What do you mean, where are we? We are at your house, of course.’
‘Birch, if this is some kind of joke I’ll bash your brains in, you twit; now let me out of here,’ Frank barked in rage, clutching his aching head. ‘How dare you beat me over the head. When I catch you I’m going to beat the crap out of you!’
After a brief session of fruitless squabbling, the boys finally came to the realization that they had both been knocked unconscious in the woods, and taken captive by someone.
The cages were dark and uncomfortable and the sound of scuttling rats could be heard nearby. Frank and Philip felt sick to the stomach at the thought of being abandoned in a dark dingy hole like caged animals. There was a constant dripping sound coming from somewhere nearby, and the air was filled with the odour of something that had been dead for quite some time.
After a short while the boys grew tolerant of the recurring stink, and their eyes adjusted slightly to the dense blackness. After a lengthy silence they eventually started talking about the things that had gone on in the classroom earlier that day. Frank was rather surprised when he found out that the eraser thrown in the classroom wasn’t actually intended for him in the first place.
‘Well I guess that was my temper getting the better of me,’ he said sheepishly. ‘If I had only stopped to listen to you for a moment, we would never have been in this mess in the first place.’
‘Never mind,’ Philip said, tapping his head dismally on the steel bars of his cage. ‘You had every right to be angry; I would have most probably reacted the same way myself.’
A few hours had passed, and faint sobbing could be heard coming from Frank’s cage. Philip, although rather shaky himself, was surprised to hear the school boxing champion crying his eyes out in the corner. He groped about in the dark fumbling for Frank’s hand through his cage. He reached forwards slowly and stroked his fingers. ‘Frank, are you okay? There is no need to cry; we will get out of this mess, I promise!’
Feeling terribly embarras
sed, Frank sniffed and wiped the tears from his cheek.
‘Do you really think so?’ he croaked, trying his best to keep it together.
‘I am quite certain that everything is going to be just fine,’ Philip lied, patting Frank reassuringly on his arm.
* * * * * * * *
A jingling noise could be heard coming down the passage as someone approached them, sounding unpleasantly jolly.
‘Mara kekatra, la vinta ketreat!,
‘There’s a smell in the air of schoolboy meat!
‘Let’s stop with the twisted poetry for a moment,’ Mathias rambled in his sickening voice, ‘it’s important for me to meet my guests first.’
The boys shook in fright, and their knees rattled together like a jackhammer. Who on earth could this dreadful creature be? He sounded like nothing the boys had ever heard before.
The next moment a tall, bold character stood before them, with a dreadful face and eyes that could bore holes into your very being. The wizard held up a large bright kerosene lamp, and shone it into their faces to take a closer look.
‘Well, well, what have we here?’ he asked, examining them carefully. ‘Schoolchildren, soft, succulent schoolboys!
‘You do realize of course that these are my woods?’ he barked, flashing his filthy teeth like a snarling dog. ‘Don’t you?’ He leaned towards Philip in a threatening manner, and poked the poor boy on the chin with his index fingernail.
Philip fell over backwards onto his harsh straw bedding, clutching his face in shock. The sting was terrible; blood oozed from his chin and drizzled down his neck.
‘Come on, sit up straight, feeble schoolboy, I’m talking to you!’ the evil wizard snapped, making his presence all the more unbearable. Philip obeyed his orders and sat upright as straight as a post. Mathias was pleased with his fearfully obedient response to his command, and continued to lecture the two. ‘Stepping into my woods is trespassing, and for trespassing there is a rather unfortunate price to pay. It looks like the two of you have kindly volunteered for experimentation,’ he hissed; then his face transformed into a wicked grin.
The boys could not believe what they had just seen and heard. This was far worse than they could ever have imagined. This man was on a par with some kind of a sick psychopath you only heard about on the evening news. A vision from your darkest nightmare.
He then produced a fairly large bag of peanuts from his coat, and poured a few handfuls into the containers provided at the side of the cages. ‘How on earth am I supposed to survive on these rations?’ Philip wondered. ‘I am absolutely starving. Imagine how poor Frank is going to suffer, with the enormous appetite he has.’
‘You see, I’m not really such a monster, my friends,’ the wizard chuckled, enjoying their puzzled expressions. ‘I will see to it that you both have adequate food to eat, not to worry.
‘Ke bo brika la set rot hent vi lange!’ He began muttering to himself in a foreign language.
‘The pair of you are about to experience a change!
‘Lest tra mentok see mut ke lun keys!
‘Two schoolboys transformed into a pair of monkeys!’
As Mathias completed his weird rhyme, he produced a bottle of steaming pink liquid, and sprayed it evenly over the two boys. They gasped in fright, trying their best to remove the disgusting pink stuff from their faces by wiping their cheeks with handfuls of smelly straw.
It was unfortunately too late for that; Philip was already sprouting hair all over his body. Frank looked horrified at Philip, then he also began to sprout thick tufts of monkey hair. The boys soon shrank down to size; monkey ears and noses became evident, until finally they each grew a soft sleek furry tail. The school clothes they were wearing disappeared, and they both sat completely naked.
They stared at each other in horror, not quite believing what they had just seen. They sat clutching their hairy bodies, feeling miserable and uncomfortable in their nakedness.
Mathias leaned against the wall and bellowed with laughter. ‘Don’t worry, you boys aren’t really nuts, but you will as sure as hell enjoy eating them. Now the pair of you are proper animals in cages, so taking care of you shouldn’t be too much of a problem, if you know what I mean?’ The evil wizard returned to the main room, and left them in the darkness to dwell in their misery.
They breathed a sigh of relief as he departed, and patted their soft hairy bodies all over in disbelief.
‘This has to be a nightmare Frank; there is just no way that this could possibly be real.’
‘Wizards are fairy stories!’ Frank blurted, ‘this can’t be real, it’s impossible.’
‘Don’t worry, Frank, we’ll wake up soon, then all this nonsense will be over with.’
Time passed very slowly, and they were finding it more and more difficult to distinguish between day and night.
‘Frank, don’t you think our parents will send a search party out to look for us?’
‘That’s all very well Philip, and what are they going to be looking for? Certainly not a pair of monkeys.’
‘You do have a point. At least we are talking monkeys though. Like our parents would ever believe something so ridiculous.’
‘Right, we’ve got no chance.’
‘Tell me Frank, why don’t you call me Birch anymore?’
‘Well, I guess I’m calling you by your first name ‘cause I think that we are kind of friends now; what do you say?’
‘Definitely, I’m your man. Paws up!’ Philip replied, and gave Frank a furry high five.
‘Philip, why don’t we join the circus when we get out of here? Think of all the money we will make! The two talking monkeys, how does that sound?’
‘Great idea, we will make millions.’
* * * * * * * *
The boys lay spread out over the coarse straw, feeling rather depressed at the thought of being circus animals. Philip gave a small monkey yawn.
‘What time do you think it is Frank? I’m feeling awfully tired, and if this is all supposed to be a dream, I’m definitely not waking from it, unless you can fall asleep in your sleep.’
‘It must be night-time. I’m also a bit dozy. Forget about the dream theory Philip; as ridiculous as it may seem, this is reality, my friend.’
The boys, or should I say monkeys, lay awake chatting and eating nuts, and soon afterwards they were both sound asleep, with no idea of what the future had in store.
Chapter 4
It was eight in the evening and the hunting dogs were barking frantically up ahead. There was a search party of about twenty fathers of Senton High School pupils out that night. They were frantically searching for Philip and Frank, who were last seen running towards the woods earlier that day.
Robert had told his mother about the disagreement between Philip and Frank during school, and explained to her which way they had run. Later on that evening, Philip’s mother called Robert’s mother to find out where on earth her son was. After a thoroughly unsuccessful neighbourhood search, it was concluded that they must have gone off into the woods somewhere.
Searchlights combed the trees and wild vegetation, and the dogs howled, searching desperately for fresh human scent. As the search party moved deeper into the woods, the faint sounds of excited dogs and shouting people could be heard inside Mathias’s shaft. He stood by his entrance, and squirted a magical pine forest spray over the entrance flap.
‘These foolish people, do they really think there is any chance of finding what they are looking for in these woods?’ Mathias rattled, after having cleverly disguised the scent of his home.
Philip stirred, grabbing his tail with a startled jump.
‘Frank!’ he called, standing firmly pressed against his cage. Frank jumped up, alarmed by the noise outside.
‘I think we are saved,’ Philip announced in excitement. ‘That must be our families coming to look for us.’
‘No need to get excited!’ a voice boomed down the passage. ‘After all, they a
ren’t looking for a pair of monkeys, remember, they are looking for two young boys!’
Mathias gave off a spine-chilling cackle, leaving the two boys startled and dismayed. They realized then that they truly were doomed.
After a long period of excited barking and loud talking, things went dismally quiet.
The boys sat down feeling frustrated and unsure of ever returning home safely as two normal human beings. They both lay back on the straw with their paws behind their heads, surrounded by silence and smothering darkness. Philip started crying; this couldn’t possibly be happening to them. Frank lay still, not uttering a word. His eyes were also tear-stained, and he had very little encouragement left to offer. After an exhausting day, the two of them soon fell sound asleep once again.
Chapter 5
Buzzzzz was the sound zipping in and out of the trees. ‘He-he,’ Zen chuckled in a squeaky dotty pitch, ripping the bark off the side of a tree as he zapped past. ‘Bounce, bounce, bounce,’ Zet went, zipping up and down, dissolving his way through a pile of leaves as he flew. Zip cruised straight forward swaying gently from side to side, resembling a ball of liquid mercury, transforming into a variation of zooty colours – a sneaky fun trio mastering in colour intelligence, pure and true in their creation. Yes, these masters of magical tricks were none other than the Malco trio, who carried a good solid reputation amongst the creatures of the wood.
The Malco trio were made from the finest magical ingredients, each with their own bubbling personality. They appeared quite plain when seen from a distance, having no facial features or dangling legs and arms. They were quite simply living balls of energy, loaded with lots of life and fun, never spotted by a person before. Even if they were analysed in a laboratory, very little was there to actually discover; the underlying factor was quite simply magic!
Zip flung herself towards a nearby tree, ricocheting straight back onto another at an incredible speed. Very soon, Zen and Zet joined in on the fun, bouncing after her at an amazing speed. ‘Bing bong bang bing bing bing.’ Squeaky voices of laughter and excitement could be heard as the three balls bounced from tree to tree. Watching them from a distance, they looked something like a pinball machine gone wrong, with the three balls slamming against objects in the woods as if they were about to strike a jackpot at any minute.
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