by Kate Forsyth
At once a beautiful big balloon, with a red and white striped hot-air bag billowing above a big, square, wicker basket, materialised on top of the highest tower. It swayed gently in the breeze, which had sprung up from nowhere. Everyone stared up at it, utterly astounded.
Lach took a deep breath then pulled off the ring, which was glowing red-hot, and dropped it into Ben’s hand.
‘Yippee,’ Ben said. ‘My turn at last! I won’t waste any of my wishes!’
A loud bang from behind made them all jump.
Everyone spun round and saw an axe protruding from the wooden door behind them. It was wrenched free, and then there was another bang, and they saw the axe had been driven even deeper, opening up a big crack right down the door.
The knight whistled. ‘They’ll be through soon!’
‘What should we do?’ the priest whined.
The governess wept and wrung her hands.
‘Come on, let’s run,’ Ben said. ‘Let’s get back to the castle and get its front door locked, and then we’ll think what to do.’
So they all ran as fast as they could across the courtyard, Jessie bounding along behind them, dragging her rabbit in her mouth. Just as Ben raced inside the castle’s big front door, Jessie tripped over the rabbit and fell. Ben turned back to scoop her and the rabbit up in his arms.
That was when he realised that, firstly, the door of the gatehouse was in smithereens and Lord Dastardly and his men were clambering through and, secondly, that both Emmy and the countess were floundering along, only halfway across the courtyard, hampered by their huge skirts.
Ben turned and dropped Jessie safely inside the castle door and then said, very quietly, because he was so afraid that his voice hardly worked at all, ‘I wish I had a magic bow, with arrows of fire.’
A beautiful bow was suddenly in his hands, with a quiver of arrows hanging over his shoulder. Shakily, Ben put one of the arrows to the string, lifted the bow and shot it. Trailing a perfect curve of grey smoke, the flaming arrow soared up into the sky, over the heads of the two girls, and landed right at the black armoured feet of Lord Dastardly. At once a wall of roaring orange flame leapt up and Lord Dastardly stumbled back, raising one black gauntleted hand to shield his face.
Emmy and the countess scrambled up the steps and in through the door, their hands filled with their skirts. Ben slammed the door shut and locked it behind them.
‘What a stupid dress!’ Emmy cried. ‘I wish I’d never wished for it!’
Ben looked down at the bow in his hands, hardly able to believe his wish had worked.
‘That was so cool, Ben!’ Tim said.
‘Yeah,’ Nick said. ‘Good shooting, Ben.’
Jessie barked, wagged her tail and jumped up to put her paws on Ben’s knees.
‘It won’t hold them back for long,’ the knight frowned.
‘What shall we do, what shall we do?’ the priest moaned.
‘We’re doomed!’ the governess groaned.
‘Oh, I wish you’d all be quiet!’ Ben cried. ‘I’m trying to think!’
It took him a moment to realise how eerily silent everything was. Then he looked around and his mouth fell open in dismay.
Jessie was still jumping up and down and barking, but no sound came out of her mouth. The countess was red in the face with yelling, but could make no noise. The knight was waffling silently, the priest was wringing his hands and noiselessly whining, the governess was weeping inaudibly, Nick and Emmy were waving their hands and pointing at their mouths, Tim was experimenting, opening his mouth and trying to speak, then shutting it and trying again. None of them could make a single sound. Nor could any of the other hundreds of people crowded into the lower hall, their mouths gaping like goldfish.
‘Oh no,’ Ben said. ‘What have I done!’
‘I only have one wish left,’ Ben said. ‘And we need it to get home.’
He saw the horror on his cousins’ faces. Tim’s mouth stopped opening and shutting and hung gaping as he realised what that meant.
Then the door to the castle began to shake and shudder under the blows of many axes.
Everyone in the lower hall began to weep and pray and panic, all without a single sound. It was like watching mime artists, except this was all too horribly real.
Suddenly the countess grabbed Ben’s arm and shook it. She was trying to tell him something.
‘I,’ Ben repeated, reading her lips as the countess pointed at herself, ‘will … wish …’ He suddenly stopped speaking, realising he was about to say her wish aloud. Instead he nodded his head fervently as she waved her hand at him and the other four children, and then waved it in the air, mouthing the word ‘home’ silently.
Ben nodded his head. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘Good idea. Promise?’
The countess nodded, then crossed her heart.
‘OK,’ Ben whispered. ‘Let’s all get out of here before they break the door down. We’ll have to try to trick them without using up any more wishes. The person they really want is the countess, so we’ll get them to chase after her. Maybe we can lure them into the great hall and then lock them in. It should be big enough to hold most or them.
The countess shrugged, and waggled her hand from side to side.
‘We’ll split them,’ Ben said, thinking aloud. ‘Emmy, you’ll have to pretend you’re the countess, you look a bit like her in that dress. Then we can get some to chase after Emmy, and some to chase after the real countess. Is there somewhere we can lock up the ones that chase after Emmy?’
The countess nodded, and pointed down a side hall.
‘OK, Emmy, you go and hide behind that door. When they chase you, get on your scooter and go as fast as you can. That way they won’t be able to catch you. Sir Knight, you go and hide down the corridor and make it all ready for her. Hey, Nick, maybe we could do something with your heelies too?’
As everyone nodded in silent agreement, Ben thought to himself that he quite enjoyed being the only one with a voice. It wasn’t often he got to give orders and have everyone do as he told them to.
‘OK, let’s go,’ Ben whispered, and everyone began to hurry up the stairs to the higher level. Once they were well away from the door, and hopefully out of Lord Dastardly’s hearing, Ben said, with a real pang at the loss of his last wish, ‘OK, I wish you could all talk again. But, please, try not to?’
When Lord Dastardly and his men smashed their way into the castle, the first thing they saw was the countess standing at the top of the stairs. ‘Yoo-hooh!’ she called. ‘Were you wanting me?’
Then she turned and ran away down the corridor, having already removed her shoes and most of her petticoats so she could run a little more easily. Lord Dastardly and his men dropped their axes, drew their swords and chased after her, all the way up the stairs and to the great hall. When they got there, it was to find the countess sitting on her throne, rather pink and breathless.
‘At last!’ Lord Dastardly cried. ‘Castle Lyonessa is mine!’
‘Not quite,’ the countess said as her knight suddenly dropped the candelabra down on its long chain to just near where she was sitting. The countess clambered on quickly, and the knight and the other guards hauled her up to the musicians’ gallery above while she waved in delight to the furious lord, who was practically frothing at the mouth in his rage. He swung around to go in pursuit, only to see the doors of the great hall slam shut, locking him and most of his men inside.
Meanwhile, Emmy had been hiding behind the door that led to the kitchen in another wing of the castle. She waited until most of the men had gone thundering up the stairs after the countess, making an incredible racket with their steel boots on the stone steps, then she popped out and waved at those in the rear.
‘Yoo-hooh!’ she called. ‘Were you wanting me?’
At once the men at the back veered and chased after her, convinced they were about to capture the real countess.
Emmy had been standing with her scooter concealed beneath her long skirts
. Now, with an impudent wave of her hand, she scooted away down the corridor at top speed. Weighed down with all their armour, the men could not catch her and she disappeared from sight around a corner. The knights rattled and banged along as fast as they could, ending up in a huge, dark, cavernous kitchen. Suddenly the door slammed shut behind them and was securely locked and bolted. Lord Dastardly’s men could do nothing but try not to breathe in the foul smell of the rat stew still bubbling on the fire.
There were quite a few men left on the steps, those who had not been fast enough to get locked in with Lord Dastardly or slow enough to be lured away by Emmy. Nick got most of them to chase after him down a corridor, skating along on his heelies. Some of the archers tried to shoot him, but Ben drew one of his magic arrows and shot it as fast as he could. It burst into flame and hit the enemies’ arrows mid-air, turning them all to ash.
‘Cool!’ Ben said, staring at his bow.
Then he realised a couple of archers were chasing after him, so he jumped on his scooter and zoomed away, his bow and quiver banging on his back. The archers almost caught him but he did a spin and knocked their legs out from under them. Together the governess and priest dragged them into a spare room and locked them in. The other men were all knocked over by squires, tied up in sheets by laundry women, or blinded by the contents of chamber-pots flung at them by scullery maids. Lach and Tim together downed one by holding out their scooters at ankle height, tripping him over with a big bang so he was unable to get up again, while both boys sat on his back and bounced up and down until the knight came to take their prisoner away.
Even Jessie played her part, leaving her pink rabbit lying in the corridor for another one to fall over, while she dragged off one of the countess’s shoes to chew on in a quiet corner.
It was not long until every single one of Lord Dastardly’s men was locked up or tied up somewhere, and everyone was able to dance around and shriek with joy.
‘They’ll not be bothering us again,’ the knight exulted.
‘We showed them!’ cried the priest.
‘We’re saved!’ the governess sang.
‘And it’s all because of the five of you,’ the countess said. ‘I cannot thank you enough.’
Ben took the burning-hot ring off his hand and gave it to her, very reluctantly. ‘We’ve used up all our wishes,’ he said. ‘You can have it now.’
‘Don’t forget you promised to send us home,’ Emmy said anxiously.
‘I haven’t forgotten,’ the countess said. ‘You wasted all your wishes on my behalf, I can waste one on you. Firstly, though, I would like to express my gratitude. Will you all kneel?’
Looking at each other in surprise, the five children did as they were told. The countess took the knight’s sword and went along the row of them, tapping them all on the shoulder and saying, ‘Arise, sir knight!’ When she got to Emmy, she said, ‘Arise, lady knight!’
They were all very pleased at this, and bowed to each other, saying, ‘Greetings, Sir Benjamin! Sir Timothy! Lady Emily!’
Then the countess, the priest and the governess all climbed up to the hot-air balloon, which was still bobbing at the end of its ropes on the castle battlement. Ben showed them how lifting the lever that made the flame shoot higher sent the balloon up into the air, and then showed them the cord pull to bring the balloon down again.
He and Tim had gone hot-air ballooning one holiday, and the pilot had shown him how it was done.
‘Farewell, and thank you!’ the countess cried over the roar of the flame.
‘It’s been fun,’ the children replied. Jessie barked and then went back to gnawing on the countess’s shoe.
As the priest fussed about with the ropes, the countess leant over the edge of the basket and said, very carefully, the wish that the children had made her learn off by heart.
‘I wish that Ben, Tim, Nick, Emmy, Lach and Jessie would return to their own time safely, and without being late for dinner, or getting into any other kind of trouble, and that this will not be the last of their magical adventures.’
At once the world began to spin around them. The last thing the children heard as the balloon rose high into the air was the countess crying out, ‘Cool!’
The five children and Jessie got back just in time to hide Ben’s magic bow and arrows and Emmy’s dress in the playroom before Ben and Tim’s mother called them for dinner. Emmy was still somehow, magically, wearing her bikini and sundress underneath, or else she would really have got into trouble.
They did not want their sausage sandwiches at all, being full of ham and pineapple pizza. Luckily Jessie was always happy to eat again, and they fed her the lot under the table.
‘Mar!’ Ella said.
‘Yes, darling? Did you hear her say “Ma”? Isn’t she clever? What do you want, darling?’ Mum said.
‘Mar!’ Ella said.
‘More? Do you want more? Of course you can have more,’ Mum said, giving her another sausage.
Ella accepted it, but used it to point at Jessie. ‘Mar!’
‘Yes, darling? Oh, you want me to look at Jessie. Why, what has Jessie got?’
The five cousins looked at each other in sudden worry, in case anyone noticed that Jessie had eaten all of their sausage sandwiches. But Mum only bent and picked up the countess’s shoe, which Jessie was resting her head on as she slept.
‘Look at this!’ Mum said, holding up the shoe. ‘It’s quite extraordinary, I’ve never seen a shoe like it!’
‘It looks very uncomfortable,’ Emmy said, and none of them could help laughing.
‘The question is,’ Mum said, ‘where’s Jessie’s pink rabbit?’
And she could not understand why that made them laugh even harder.