by Angela Fish
‘Yes.’ Ben put his hand in his pocket and took out Scoot’s reed. He blew it and Scoot stopped pulling on the lead and sat down at Ben’s feet. ‘Look at that, it works out here as well. Come on, let’s go back to Gran. We can talk about all of this later.’
‘Are you going to tell your gran about the Wise Woman?’ Jess asked.
‘Don’t know,’ Ben answered. ‘Maybe not right away. She probably knows something already. She always does!’
They hurried back to Gran who asked if they’d had a good time. She didn’t say anything about how long they’d stayed at the rock castle, she just said how pretty Jess’s bracelet was. Then they packed up and went back to the cottage.
Ben and Jess talked and talked and talked about their adventure at the lake. They didn’t understand some of what had happened, but by now Ben wasn’t so surprised at unusual things going on. They decided not to tell Gran for a while, just in case she’d be cross with them for not listening to her. They knew it would soon be time to go home and they did lots of drawings so that they wouldn’t forget what they’d seen.
8
Bad News
The next Saturday, Ben’s dad came back to the cottage. They packed up the car and Gran sat in the front seat. Ben and Jess sat in the back with Scoot.
‘Have you had a good week?’ Dad asked.
‘It was brilliant!’ Ben said, and he told his dad about the picnic and the rock castle, but said nothing about the lake. Gran said that she thought everyone had enjoyed themselves and that maybe they could come again sometime. Ben looked at Jess and smiled.
‘Oh Jess,’ Dad said. ‘Your mother telephoned this morning. She said that you’ll be staying with your Auntie Rose for the next three weeks and that I can stop there on the way back instead of taking you all the way home. She’ll come and see you tomorrow. She’ll be having the last week of the school holidays off from work so you can come home then.’
Jess looked at Ben. He could see that she was upset but he didn’t know what to say.
Gran turned around. ‘Never mind, Jess,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you’ll have fun with your cousin Poppy.’
Jess nodded but didn’t say anything. She was afraid that she’d start crying if she tried to talk. Gran shook her head. ‘I’ll tell you what we can do. What if I ask your mum if you can come and stay with us again, for the week before her holiday? That means you’ll only be at your auntie’s for two weeks. Would you like that?’
‘Ooh, yes please!’ Jess grinned at Ben and he grinned back.
A few days later, Dad opened some letters at the breakfast table. ‘Look at this,’ he called to Mum. ‘The council are going to repair the back lane. It’s about time too. There are so many bumps and holes in it that I’m surprised no one has fallen over before now. The letter says that they should be here for about two weeks, and that they expect to start digging it up in the first week of September.’
Ben looked up. ‘What do you mean, Dad?’ he asked. Why do they have to dig up the lane? Can’t they just fill in the holes?’ Ben was thinking about Lox and the other spiders. What would happen to them? Where would they go if the council men destroyed the Spider Kingdom?
‘No,’ Dad said. ‘That wouldn’t last very long. They have to dig up all of the old lane, and then flatten it out and put a new top on it. You’ll be able to ride your bike then and use your skateboard if there’s no one walking out there. You’ll like that, won’t you?’
Ben nodded, but he thought that he’d rather have a bumpy lane and know that Lox was safe. He decided to ask Gran about it after Mum and Dad had gone to work. He wished that Jess was here, but it was still more than a week before she was coming to stay with him.
Later that morning, Ben climbed onto a chair and took down the kitchen calendar. He could see that it was now August but he didn’t know what the date was.
‘Gran,’ he called out. ‘Can you help me, please?’
Gran told him that it was the sixth of August, so he marked the day with a cross. Gran showed him that Jess would be coming on Saturday, the fifteenth, and that they would go back to school on the second day in September. Ben turned to the next page of the calendar. Dad had said that the workmen would be in the lane for the first two weeks of September, so he marked that as well.
Ben went up to his room to think about the spiders. He needed to speak to Lox but he wasn’t sure how he could find him. He wondered if he should say the magic rhyme to make himself small, and go through the spider gate to find Lox, but he wasn’t sure if the guards would let him in. He’d only ever gone through the gate with Lox. He decided that he’d go down to the gate and flash his torch beam a few times. Maybe the guards would tell Lox about it and the spider would understand. So Ben found his torch and went out into the garden with Scoot. They played ball for a while and then Ben knelt down near the hedge and wriggled a little way under the leaves. He shone his torch beam at the big stone at the back of the hedge. He knew that the spider gate was near the stone, and he soon saw it when the torchlight made it shine.
Ben switched the torch on and off three times. Then he waited for a few moments and did it again. Nothing happened. Nothing moved.
Scoot was chewing at the laces of Ben’s trainers. He thought this was a very good game! ‘Stop it, Scoot,’ Ben told him. ‘Leave my feet alone.’
Ben flashed the beam three more times. He thought he saw something behind the gate, but he wasn’t sure. He wriggled back into the garden. He’d have to try again the next day, and every day until Lox answered him. He didn’t know what else to do. He decided that if the spider had not come out by the time Jess came to stay, that he would have to make himself small and try to go inside the kingdom. He had no idea how long it would take to find a new home and to move all the spiders. Even if the Spider Wizard could use his magic, Ben thought he’d need as much time as possible to keep everyone safe.
Ben went down to the hedge every day but there was no sign of Lox. On the days when Gran, or Mum and Dad took him out, he tried before he left the house and again when he arrived home. On Friday, the day before Jess was coming, Gran was sitting in the garden reading the newspaper. Ben wanted to look under the hedge, but he didn’t want to do it while Gran was there.
‘What’s the matter with you today?’ Gran asked him. ‘Aren’t you going to play with Scoot? You seem to have some good games at the bottom of the garden, don’t you?’
She patted Scoot’s head and he barked. She threw his ball and it bounced down the path and rolled along the grass until it stopped at exactly the place where Ben had been searching under the hedge. Ben looked at it and then back at Gran. She winked at him and Ben thought, again that she really did know everything! He laughed and ran off down the path.
‘You can tell me all about it later,’ Gran called after him, and then she went back to her newspaper.
Ben tried to reach Lox again. This time he was sure that the guards were behind the spider gate, so he whispered to them, ‘Please tell Lox that I need to see him. It’s very important. I’ll come back again tomorrow.’ He couldn’t do any more right now. Perhaps he’d have better luck when Jess was with him.
That night, when Ben was in bed and ready for sleep, he thought that he could hear a tapping noise. He sat up in bed and looked around. At first he thought that Scoot had come upstairs and was scratching at the door. Ben climbed out of bed and opened the door but Scoot wasn’t there. He listened carefully and he heard the noise again. Tap, tap tap! Where was it coming from? He went to the window and opened the curtains.
He knew that it was too late for it to be the birds. They sometimes pecked at the window early in the mornings. Dad said they were trying to wake Ben so that he would fill up the bird feeders that were hanging on the garden shed, but Ben wasn’t sure about that.
Tap, tap, tap! There it was again. Ben found his torch and shone the beam through th
e window. He was so surprised at what he saw that he dropped the torch on the floor. It was Lox! He was there, on the windowsill.
Ben opened the window as quietly as he could and let the spider in. He hadn’t seen Lox for a few months and he felt a little bit shy at first.
‘Hello Lox.’ Ben whispered so that he wouldn’t frighten the spider. ‘I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been trying to send you a message for ages. I’ve been flashing my torch beam at the spider gate every day. Didn’t the guards tell you? I’m sure they were there.’
‘Hello Ben,’ Lox said. ‘I’m sorry I took so long to come to you, but I only had your message this morning. The guards didn’t say anything about the flashing lights. Maybe they thought it was just the sunlight.’
Ben shook his head. ‘But the sun doesn’t shine under the hedge!’
Lox laughed. ‘I know, but never mind that. What did you want to talk to me about?’
Ben told Lox all about the workmen who were going to dig up the lane. Lox looked very frightened. Even though the spider gate was under Ben’s hedge, the Spider Kingdom was underneath the lane. When the diggers came, it would be completely broken and the spiders would have nowhere to live. They could even be hurt if they didn’t move in time. Lox said he would have to tell the Spider Queen, and asked Ben if he could think of anywhere that the spiders could build a new home.
Ben said that Jess would be there the next day and that they’d both try to think of something. He knew that they only had two weeks to find a place and move the spiders so he thought that he might ask his gran as well. She had good ideas, and she’d helped before when Ben had to find the ingredients for the magic potion.
‘Send for me when you have some news,’ Lox told Ben. ‘I’ll tell the guards what the flashing lights mean and I’ll come right away.’ Ben opened the window again and Lox ran out.
9
Gran Gives Ben An Idea
Jess arrived at eleven o’clock on Saturday morning and Ben’s dad took them to the swimming pool and then to the park. Ben didn’t have a chance to tell Jess that Lox had come to see him the night before. He had to wait until they were back in the garden.
They both tried really hard to think of a good place to build a new home for the spiders but everywhere they thought of just wasn’t safe enough.
‘What are you two up to now?’ Gran asked.
Ben jumped. He hadn’t noticed her coming down the garden path. ‘Nothing. We’re just talking about what will happen when the lane is dug up.’
‘Ah,’ Gran shook her head. ‘Worried about your little friends, are you? I thought it must be something like that. What’s the problem?’
Ben told his gran everything. He said that he and Jess had been thinking for ages but they didn’t have any good ideas. ‘Can you think of anywhere?’ Ben asked her.
Gran fetched a chair from the garden shed and sat down. Ben and Jess sat on the grass and Scoot stretched out next to the big tree.
‘Well, now,’ Gran said, ‘let me think. It has to be somewhere big enough for all the spiders. It has to be somewhere safe, so that means not too many people about. It has to be somewhere that will keep them warm in winter and cool in summer, and where they can find plenty of food. Mmmm, maybe you need more help than I can give you.’
‘But, Gran,’ Ben said, ‘I can’t tell anyone else. They wouldn’t believe me about Lox and the others, and I have to keep the secret, don’t I?’
‘That’s true,’ Gran nodded, ‘but there is someone who already knows, isn’t there? You have a think about it while I make a cup of tea.’
Gran went back up the path and into the kitchen. Ben and Jess looked at each other. They didn’t know what Gran was talking about.
‘I haven’t told anyone else.’ Jess frowned. ‘Honestly, Ben. I promise.’
‘I know,’ Ben said. ‘I believe you, and I haven’t told anyone except you, so who is Gran talking about?’
They thought and thought and thought. Ben closed his eyes tight and tried to think even harder but it was no good.
Then Jess shouted out loud. ‘I know. I know who it is!’
Ben opened his eyes. ‘Well come on, then. TELL ME!’ he shouted back.
Jess laughed. ‘It’s the Wise Woman. It’s Amara. That’s who your gran means. You told her about the magpies and the Spider Prince and Spindra and everything. She said you could ask her for help any time. Remember?’
Ben opened his eyes even wider. He did remember now. ‘But how did Gran know?’ he asked. ‘I didn’t tell her about the cave or the lake.’
‘Maybe your gran saw Amara before we did,’ Jess said. ‘But that doesn’t matter now. You need to call her. Use the adder stone, like she told you.’
Ben looked around the garden to make sure that no one else was around. He turned towards the Dark Mountains and put the adder stone against his lips. He whispered, ‘Amara! Amara! Amara!’ Then he said the calling rhyme that the Wise Woman had taught him. He’d read it every night in his notebook and he knew all the words now.
Mountain spirit, wild and free,
Carry my voice to the wizard’s tree.
I call to Amara, send Hiboo to me,
Swift as an arrow but silently.
He turned to Jess. ‘Now what? How long will it take for Hiboo to come?’
Jess shrugged her shoulders. ‘Don’t know. Do you think he’ll come in the daytime or wait until it’s dark?’
Ben puffed out his cheeks. ‘Don’t know. The Wise Woman said he liked the sunlight so perhaps he’ll come soon. We’d better stay in the garden as long as we can. Let’s play ball with Scoot.’
Scoot heard his name and he ran to Ben. Jess clapped her hands and Scoot ran to her. She threw his ball high in the air and laughed as the little dog tried to jump up after it. When he’d caught it he wouldn’t give it back, so Ben and Jess chased him all around the garden.
They didn’t notice the white owl in the tree at first, but Scoot did! He put his paws up on the trunk of the tree and started barking.
‘Stop that, Scoot,’ Ben told him. ‘You’ll frighten Hiboo. Can you hold onto him please, Jess?’
Jess sat down with Scoot, and Ben stood under the tree. Hiboo looked at him with his big round eyes and Ben felt a little bit afraid. The owl fluttered down from the tree and onto the ground. Ben sat down and Hiboo put his beak next to Ben’s ear and began talking! Ben wondered if all the animals and creatures could do this, or was it just the ones that he met?
Ben told Hiboo about the lane and the spiders and asked him if the wise woman could help. The owl said that he’d come to Ben again the next day to tell him what Amara had decided.
The next day, and the one after, it rained very heavily. Ben and Jess kept looking out of the window but there was no sign of Hiboo. Gran said that the weather would be better by Thursday, so they played games on the computer. Then they played cards and did some drawings, and read their story books.
On Thursday morning, after breakfast, Ben and Jess went into the garden. The rain had stopped and it was a very sunny day. They ran down the garden path and they could see that Hiboo was already sitting in the tree.
‘Hello Ben,’ the owl said. ‘Amara will help you. If the spiders are willing, she says they can come and live at the lake. There’s a place under the wizard’s tree that would be just right. If you can make yourself small, I can carry you there to see it. Amara says you should bring Lox as well.’
Ben gulped. The Wise Woman wanted him to fly on the back of the owl and take Lox as well! He looked at Jess but she didn’t know what Hiboo had said. He told the owl that he would try to call Lox, but that he didn’t know how long it would take for the spider to come out. Hiboo said that he would come back the next day at the same time, and then he flew back to the Dark Mountains.
That night, Ben heard the tapping at
his window again. He let Lox in and told him what the Wise Woman had said.
Lox was pleased that there was somewhere for the spiders to go, but he told Ben that he was also a bit afraid of the owl. ‘What if he wants to eat me?’ he asked.
Ben laughed. ‘I don’t think he’d do that. Amara wouldn’t have told me to bring you if she thought he’d hurt you. Will you come?’
Lox said that he would talk to Spider Queen again, and that if she agreed, he’d be waiting in the garden the next morning.
10
All Aboard!
Ben and Jess were awake early the next morning. As soon as they could, they went to wait under the tree in the garden. Hiboo was already there, but they couldn’t see Lox so they sat down under the tree and waited. After half an hour Ben saw something moving in the grass near his feet.
‘Hello Ben,’ Lox said, ‘I’m ready to go.’
Jess held onto Scoot’s collar and Ben said the magic rhyme to make himself small.
Hold my breath and count to four,
Breathe out slow and count four more.
Turn three circles, count to ten,
Touch the floor, turn once again.
Close my eyes and touch my nose,
Now make me small from head to toes!
He knew that he would feel dizzy for a few moments so he waited until he was steady, then he opened his eyes. Even though he had used the rhyme before, he was still amazed to see that he was only as tall as a daisy.
Hiboo flew down to the ground and Ben and Lox climbed up behind his head. Hiboo told Ben how to hold on to his feathers. Lox made a cobweb on the bird’s back and he clung onto it tightly. Jess watched as Hiboo took off and she hoped that Ben would be safe. Ben was hoping the same thing!