Colin and the Magic Bookmark

by Merv Lambert

  “No. Because he thinks I am with my father.”

  “What do I listen for?”

  “He always listens to a defective walkman. You can hear the music, but it sounds like sausages frying.”

  “Oh,” said Colin brightly. “So I look out for a smiling face, glasses, beard, a walkman…”

  “And probably humming to himself.”

  Young Colin was always optimistic. “I don’t think I could miss spotting anyone like that.”

  Diana added a note of caution. “You never know. He’s a crafty devil. He’ll probably have twined some leaves in his beard and around the frames of his glasses for camouflage.”

  Already Colin, followed by Sammy, was creeping towards the trees. “The entrance is probably over there,” he breathed. Diana was right behind him, as he stepped round the bushes, but neither of them spotted a bearded face with glasses and a walkman entwined with leaves peering through the foliage behind them.

  The bookmark glowed and throbbed and Diana and Colin became aware of a voice down in a clearing in the jungle just beyond the building. They peered round the corner of it. Below they saw Arth Kirbi instructing his henchpeople. He towered above his followers, who were all shorter than Young Colin. They listened fearfully, as he spoke in a harsh stage-whisper.

  “Now listen, you cretinous earthlings. We must find and reach the Great Pyramid of Ptica Ptocl before that cursed, jammy-devil Jones and his daughter. He has the luck of the devil. Once again he has got away from me, and is probably even now making his way here.

  Hench One spoke up courageously. “I thought we…” only to be interrupted by Hench Two.

  “I thought you had captured him at San Salvatore?”

  “What has gone wrong, great lord?” asked Henchwench, who was always eager to help.

  Arth Kirbi did not like to be reminded of his failures.

  “No, no!” he cried. “He escaped. That’s all you need to know about it. No doubt at this very moment he and his annoyingly cheerful daughter are on their way here to find the pyramid. Your job is to stop my brother O.K. Kirbi from getting there ahead of us.”

  “Why, great master?” piped up Dimbo-Dimbo, the smallest and least intelligent of his henchmen.

  “Because he is evil. He only does good, and I can’t stand that. He would give the treasure to the poor people.”

  “Is there treasure?” asked Henchwench in surprise.

  “Of course there is treasure in the pyramid!” barked Arth Kirbi. “It will not be easy to get it. It is called the Monkey Stones and it is guarded by a fearsome creature, so I have heard.”

  Again Dimbo-Dimbo piped up. “How will we recognise your brother, high lord?”

  “He looks exactly like me. He is my twin, but he has an unmistakably posh voice just like this.” Putting on a very refined English accent, Arth Kirby said, “Oh, I say, chaps!”

  “We couldn’t fail to recognise him then,” said Dimbo-Dimbo confidently.

  Arth Kirbi curled his lip in contempt. “You miserable low-life specimens are capable of missing anything. Bright you are not, but that is the reason I picked you. However, I need a volunteer.”

  Eager to please their master, all of the henchmen stepped forward. Arth Kirbi scratched his beard. “In that case,” he said, “we need to carry out a little test. Henchwench, you climb onto that rock and observe. You others in turn will hurl yourselves off the rock, when I give the word.”

  In amazement Diana and Colin watched what was happening below. Arth Kirbi’s henchmen scrambled up onto the rock and formed a queue with Dimbo-Dimbo taking up the rear. Arth Kirbi drew himself up to his full height and bellowed, “Wait for it! Wait for it! Now!” One after the other all his henchmen hurled themselves gleefully from the rock, disappearing from sight and each giving a little cry on landing.

  “What can you see, Henchwench?” asked Arth Kirbi.

  “They are all stuck up to their knees in the mud of the river-bed,” she said, “except for Dimbo-Dimbo. He is stuck head first!”

  “Then he is the one,” decided Arth Kirbi with a grim smile. “Tell the others to haul him out.”

  Henchwench shouted from the top of the rock and soon Dimbo-Dimbo reappeared, looking absolutely ridiculous with the top of his head covered in mud. It was as if someone had held him upside down and dipped him up to his eyebrows in brown paint.

  “I like your new helmet!” giggled Henchwench.

  “Silence!” roared Arth Kirbi. Then turning to Dimbo-Dimbo, he said, “Dimbo-Dimbo, you will be my main man.”

  Dimbo-Dimbo seemed to swell with pride. His face lit up with a smile. “An honour, my lord,” he said, standing to attention like some demented toy soldier, as his leader gave him his instructions.

  “When we get to the pyramid, you will roll yourself in this small barrel down the sloping floor and capture the guardian of the jewels.”

  “How?” asked Henchwench doubtfully.

  “We will cover the barrel with this special impact glue that I have brought with me. The barrel will stick to the creature and it will be rooted to the spot, unable to move.”

  “Brilliant !” said Hench Four.

  “Brilliant!” echoed Hench Three.

  “A devious, cunning scheme,” said Henchwench, who knew a lot more words than all the rest of them, but did not want to seem less admiring than the others.

  “Of course,” remarked Arth Kirbi with a little bow. “Forward to the pyramid,” and he began to lead them towards the pointed structure that was just visible through the trees.

  “Quick! How do we get in?” asked Colin.

  “I don’t know,” replied Diana.

  Just then Sammy gave a little woof. He was sniffing excitedly at a vertical crack in the rock.

  “Good old Sammy!” breathed Colin. I think you’ve found the entrance.” He had.

  Quickly all three of them squeezed through the gap in the rock wall of the pyramid. A shaft of sunlight shone through a hole in the roof. It shone upon a single spider-thread, but a very thick one almost like a rope.

  “Wow!” gasped Diana. “That must be some spider!”

  It was. Suddenly they saw it right in the centre of the pyramid. The floor sloped down on all sides. The spider’s eight red eyes glared balefully at them. Its huge fangs made silent munching motions and dribbles of saliva seemed to drip from them. Its huge legs looked soft and furry and seemed to stretch halfway across the pyramid’s floor. For a spider it was gigantic, almost as tall as Colin, and it seemed to be standing over and guarding a pile of stones that gave off a weird green glow. It twitched menacingly. It looked as if it couldn’t quite decide whether Diana and Colin were tasty prey and was just beginning to saunter towards them, when the bookmark throbbed in Colin’s pocket. Sammy barked and dashed forward. His sharp little teeth sank into one of the spider’s legs. It wasn’t used to being challenged. Other creatures were always afraid of it, weren’t they? It was very scared and didn’t like this at all. It scuttled away. Sammy opened his mouth to bark again and tumbled to the floor. Barking angrily, he watched until the spider disappeared into a crack in the wall. Colin was very proud of Sammy. He ran to pick him up and gave him a hug. The little dog licked his face.

  Meanwhile Diana had stooped to pick up some of the small green stones that the spider had obviously been guarding.

  “They look like emeralds,” she said, handing one to Colin, who examined it carefully. It had what looked like a monkey’s face engraved on it.

  “Yes, they do,” he agreed.

  His cousin suddenly put her finger to her lips for him to be quiet. “Listen!” she whispered. “I can hear someone outside.”

  Colin slipped the emerald into his top pocket next to the bookmark.

  Diana had moved away from the gemstones. “Quick!” she hissed. “Take this rope and swing over to that ledge.”
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  “Why?” asked Colin.

  “Because it’s the sort of thing we’re supposed to do in this sort of adventure.”

  Neither of them was surprised to find a rope conveniently hanging down from a dark corner. Diana explained that it happened all the time.

  “Oh,” said Colin, “like when your Dad frayed the rope that let down the portcullis over the crocodile pool by rubbing his false teeth against it?”

  “Yeah. Absolutely. Maybe. Something like that.” Diana knew instinctively that that particular move was required at that point in the game, as Colin took hold of the rope with both hands and swung lithely across the chamber to land on a ledge opposite.

  Diana was just about to tell him to swing the rope back across to her, when their attention was drawn to a sudden noise. A fast rolling barrel came rushing out of a dark passageway and crashed to the floor below. Moans came from the wreck, which was lit by the shaft of sunlight, and then Dimbo-Dimbo stumbled into sight.

  “Ooh! Aargh! Ow!” he howled. “I have failed! Master will kill me!”

  “Why?” asked Colin swinging back down from the ledge.

  “You must be the guardians of the treasure. Arth Kirbi told me to capture you by rolling down the slope and sticking to you with the special glue that he put on the barrel. He will be here any minute.” He looked round nervously as if expecting his leader to explode furiously out of the darkness any second.

  Diana stayed calm. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We can save you and your friends.

  Listen. If we stand next to you, we can pretend you have caught us, but run, when I tell you to.”

  “Perhaps he will come close enough for us to capture him,” explained Colin to Dimbo-Dimbo, who was looking puzzled.

  “Oh, all right,” he said.

  “Shush!” hissed Diana. “I think I can hear him coming.”

  Immediately the two children went and stood next to Dimbo-Dimbo, being careful not to touch the remains of the barrel. They were just in time. Colin snatched up Sammy and gripped him firmly.

  “Aha!” roared Arth Kirbi triumphantly, striding up to them with a nasty, gleeful smile on his face. “You did it, Dimbo-Dimbo,” he cried. “You caught the kids. Well done! Well done!”

  Diana spoke up in a pleading voice. “Please let Colin go!”

  Colin pleaded equally urgently. “Please let Diana go!”

  Diana spoke even more urgently. “Let us go and we will give you this emerald.”

  She held up her right fist, which was in fact empty.

  “What emerald?” demanded Arth Kirbi, overcome by a compelling greed. He stepped closer threateningly. “I say, what emerald? Answer me!” He thrust his face at the children, but they were too quick for him. Stepping nimbly aside and avoiding the patches of glue, they shoved him against the broken planks of the barrel, which seemed to be stuck fast to the floor of the pyramid.

  “Run!” shouted Diana. She and Colin sprinted away, closely followed by Dimbo-Dimbo.

  “Come back! Come back!” roared Arth Kirbi, but they took no notice of him.

  Soon they were out of the pyramid. Diana smiled at little Dimbo-Dimbo. “Tell your friends that they are all free now.”

  “Free?” said Dimbo-Dimbo. “Yippee!” Then he leaped in the air and ran off shouting, “Thank you. Thank you. Freeeeeeeeee!”

  “What do we do now?” asked young Colin.

  “We go this way,” said Diana, and they came out from under the trees into the bright sunlight.

  “Hey, you kids!” A posh voice seemed to be addressing them from over the hedge on their right. The voice belonged to a man with a cheerful round face surrounded by brown curly hair and a brown curly beard. He was wearing glasses, which had bits of leaves and twigs twined round them. He had allowed the leads of the walkman clipped to his belt to slip down round his neck. They gave out a slight hissing sound. “I’ll have finished weeding Grandma Kirby’s garden in a few minutes. Be ready to come in for lunch. It’s just about ready,” and pointing back behind them at the pointed roof, he continued. “And don’t forget to shut the shed door this time, and, Diana, leave your overactive imagination behind. Don’t go scaring Great Aunt Lizzie again by telling her we are eating snake and chips!”

  He disappeared behind the hedge.

  “Yes, Dad!”

  “Yes, Uncle Olly!” chorused Diana and Colin.

  “They never understand!” sighed Diana. “We can’t both have imagined all that, can we?”

  “That’s because they’re adults. They don’t know what’s out there,” said Colin, touching the emerald from the pyramid with the tips of his fingers to make sure it was still nestling next to the bookmark in his pocket.

  The emerald was still there, when Colin woke up in his armchair. He was wearing the jeans he had changed into after work. Sammy was there too.

  “Hmm, that was another strange, exciting adventure,” Colin said to the little dog. “I wonder where we’ll go next.”

  But that’s another story.

  Colin Meets the Emperor of China

  Colin was looking forward to another new adventure and so was Sammy. It was a Friday evening, when, as they settled once more into the armchair, the bookmark seemed to glow more powerfully than usual. Colin did not know what that meant. He knew that he was in for a surprise, but the book’s surprises were always beyond what he could ever expect or imagine. Consequently, when he glanced at his clothes, he was slightly disappointed. He was wearing rough blue trousers, a white smock and a straw hat with a wide brim. Once again he had been transported from a dark winter’s evening to a bright summer’s day. It was very hot outside in the sunshine, but his outfit was very cool and comfortable and so were the sandals on his feet. Sammy was sniffing happily round a bush that was covered in orange flowers. They were in a beautiful garden with tall trees, flowering shrubs and bushes and behind the nearest trees the curved, pointed shapes of the roofs of a large red building could be seen.

  “Hey, you there!”

  Colin found that he was being addressed by a large, fierce, oriental man carrying a curved sword. This was obviously some kind of guard. The bookmark glowed in his pocket. To his surprise Colin realised that he understood the man, who was continuing to shout at him in what sounded like Chinese.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Again to his own amazement Colin found himself answering in Chinese.

  “I am new here. I think I am to help with the gardens.”

  The big man frowned. “Oh. What is your name?”

  “Colin.”

  “Koh-Lin?” The guard pronounced it differently. “Then you need to go to the hut at the end of this path. Ask for Glo-Bagg. And don’t let the Emperor see your little dog. He will probably want to eat it!”

  Colin gave a little bow, said, “Thank you,” to the guard and hurried off down the path with Sammy. He had a strong feeling that he had been transported hundreds of years back in time. As he rounded a bend in the path, he saw a small wooden hut with a thatched roof. Beside it and hidden by a large bush was a small, square wooden platform raised off the ground. Somehow Colin knew it was called a kang. A short, wide man with a drooping black moustache was lying on his back on it and appeared to be asleep.

  Colin coughed politely. “Excuse me. I’m looking for Glo-Bagg,” he said.

  The man stirred. “Go away!” he grumbled. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  Colin was not so easily put off. “Are you Glo-Bagg?” he said.

  “No, no, no, yes. What do you want?”

  “I’ve been sent to help you. The guard said I would find you here.”

  “Oh, he did, did he? Well, I suppose I could do with some help. You know I’m very busy indeed. Rushed off my feet.”

  “Oh, yeah?” thought Colin. Glo-Bagg had been really busy a couple of minutes ago, hadn’t he? C
olin kept his thoughts to himself.

  “You can start on the vegetable patch behind this hut. Weed it and dig it over. There’s a digging tool just behind the door.”

  Colin slipped into the hut and picked up a pole with a sharp, curved piece of iron attached to one end of it. The flat blade was fairly wide, but one side of it ended in a sharp point. To Colin it looked like a pickaxe with a flattened head. Soon he was quite happily digging with it in the vegetable garden. The sharp point broke the soft soil easily and the pile of uprooted weeds grew rapidly. Sammy was snoozing in the shade cast by a small orange-tree.

  Once during the morning Glo-Bagg came by to see what Colin was doing.

  “Humph!” he grunted, but he handed Colin a bowl of fruit-juice to drink. There was only one wasp floating in it.

  “Thank you,” Colin said.

  “Humph!” repeated Glo-Bagg, turned his back and walked away to lie down again on his sleeping-platform.

  Colin flipped the dead wasp out of the fruit-juice, which he drank gratefully. He left half of it for Sammy, who quickly lapped it up and went to sit in the shade. It really was very hot. Colin had more or less finished clearing the vegetable plot, when he heard quite loud snores coming from the kang. Obviously Glo-Bagg was once again very, very busy!

  By now Colin was feeling hungry, so he reached up and picked a ripe orange from the small tree, peeled it and began to eat it.

  “Oi!” came a loud shout. “What are you doing? That is forbidden! You may not eat the Emperor’s fruit!”

  Three large guards, all carrying curved swords and wearing strange iron helmets, were glaring at Colin.

  “Take him!” ordered the leader, the largest of the three.

  The other two dashed forward intent on seizing Colin by the arms. The bookmark throbbed. Colin merely pushed his head forward and butted both of them gently between the eyes. They slumped to the ground, as if pole-axed. The leader stared at his unconscious men in amazement. “You can’t do that!” he roared. “We are the Imperial Guard!” and raising his sword high, he rushed at Colin. When he slashed it down, Colin was no longer standing on that spot. He was behind him and with a swift push of his right sandal he sent the man flying into a bush covered in extremely sharp thorns.