Jack in the Wallows

By Shalbey Bellaman

Twelve year old Jack and his cousin Katie are snatched by Hero, a grumpy leprechaun, shrunk and whisked off to the magical kingdom of Kindling on a mission to save it from fierce invaders called Gangrals. On their journey they discover extraordinary creatures; some friendly, some hostile. Stranger still, the cousins have been there before in another lifetime and are hailed as returning heroes, but Jack has no recollection of this. Now, as the kingdom’s last hope, they are expected to fight the invaders and outwit a dangerous traitor with a deep-seated grudge against the queen. Can Jack and Katie do what is expected of them or will the kingdom fall?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shalbey Bellaman
• Release date: Mar 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9780993527920

Shalbey Bellaman

Shalbey Bellaman was born and raised in Africa, spending most of her time outdoors with her brothers and sister whilst watching out for snakes or monkeys. When she wasn’t doing that, she was reading everything she could get her hands on or entertaining her siblings with ghost stories. She still feels like the girl who ran barefoot and climbed trees in the African sun or escaped to far-away places through the stories she read, and this is why she writes for children. Her favourite books are about family, animals, dragons, magic and the supernatural, and her writing reflects this. She lives near London with her husband and their three sons live nearby with their families.

Book preview

C

Jack In the Wallows

Shalbey Bellaman

Published by Crystal Pear Publishing

Copyright © 2016 Shalbey Bellaman

Interior Illustrations © 2016 Sharon Edwards

The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise without prior permission.

ISBN: 978-0-9935279-0-6

ISBN- 13:978-0-9935279-0-6

For the children I know and love and those I’ve yet to meet.

To my husband and my family for much needed inspiration and support, to team Edwards for the interior illustrations - a delight, to my writing friends - always honest and supportive, to my editors for invaluable insights and comments, to Trevor for technical support and to Lauren at The Cover Collection for the fab cover - huge thanks.

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DRAGONS IN THE LOOKING GLASS

Chapter One

Every night that week Jack’s dreams were filled with glimpses of strangely beautiful creatures in a surreal landscape, but at the end of each dream there was a terrible feeling of dread. He woke up trembling and often heard the sound of his mother’s weeping from the next room. He couldn’t sleep after that.

***

Jack kicked a rusted can, hard. It flew into a patch of dandelions. His foot hurt but he didn’t care. He trudged on down the path with his hands in his pockets, heading for the old oak tree at the bottom of the garden – the one his cousin Katie called her Magical Tree. They were both twelve, with just a week separating their birthdays, but she sometimes talked rubbish.

Three months ago his life had been turned upside down. He knew his mum was struggling too, although she tried to hide her tears from him. Katie going on about tiny folk who lived nearby didn’t help. Besides, he’d never seen anyone or anything but the farm animals, Katie, her family and his mum.

Except, today, as he walked he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye, but when he looked properly there was nothing there. He’d never experienced that before. His skin rose in goosebumps. What if she was right? No. He shook himself. She had to stop filling his head with nonsense; he had enough to worry about.

He thought about his parents and all that had happened. No! He wasn’t going to go down that road again, it just made his stomach twist and his heart ache. He shoved the ball of rotten unwanted thoughts into the back of his mind, then pulled a rumpled sweet bag from his pocket and dug into it. Only two super sours left.

‘Jack!’ a familiar voice called.

He looked up to see Katie heading down the path, her fair hair swinging. When she reached him he held out the bag.

‘Want one?' he said, hoping she didn’t.

She smiled and shook her head so he ate both, then screwed up the bag and tossed it into a flower bed. He slumped against the tree then slid down until he was sitting at the bottom. Katie sat beside him with her arms looped around her knees. She gazed at him, her face concerned. He looked away. He didn’t mind her being there; he just didn’t want her to feel sorry for him, and he didn’t want any more of her weird stories.

Bees hummed nearby, echoing the buzzing thoughts in his head. He swallowed, but his throat felt as if it had been blocked by a lump. He didn’t want to be here in the country; he wanted his old life in the city back. He watched a white butterfly flutter past and gazed glumly at it.

Suddenly he sat upright and yelled. ‘Ow! What was that?’ He rubbed his arm.

A crow searching for worms nearby took fright and flew off, flapping its wings noisily.

Katie jumped up. ‘What happened, did a bee sting you?’

A dark red mark had appeared above his elbow. He spotted an acorn rolling away and then heard a voice above him.

‘Pick that litter up!’

‘What’s going on?’ Katie said. ‘Are you practising to be a ventriloquist?’

‘You know I can’t throw my voice. You’re the one always imitating people.’

‘Well, I’m good at it. Everyone says so.’ Katie peered upwards. ‘Look! There, in the tree.’

Jack tilted his head up and gasped. A small man about the size of Katie’s new baby brother Daniel stood on a branch. He had his hands on his hips and his legs planted wide, and was glaring down at Jack.

‘What is that?’ Jack shot a look at Katie.

‘Rude, and a litterbug. I am Hieronymus Seamus O’Kneedle.’ The man jumped down onto Jack’s knee.

THUMP.

It felt as if the joint had been bent the wrong way. Jack’s eyes watered and he sucked in a breath. ‘Aaargh!’

He gawked at the man, not believing his eyes. Katie leant against the tree, her mouth open.

‘One bit of rubbish becomes two, then three, and before you can blink there is a mountain of garbage in the rivers and the ocean. The earth is crying out for help and you still litter?’ the man said.

His mind in a whirl, Jack looked closer. Grey haired, with a neat beard, the man wore a bright yellow-and-red checked suit. Shiny metal buttons ran down the front of the jacket, a red hat with a feather sat on his head and a frilled red shirt and yellow waistcoat completed his outfit.

The man jumped to the ground. ‘We little people, as your lot put it, do our best, but you don’t help! Now pick up that rubbish.’ His bushy grey eyebrows danced up and down like caterpillars on a puppeteer’s strings.

Jack stared.

‘Well, come along, tidy up.’

Jack didn’t move.

‘I think you’d better do it,’ Katie said.

Frowning, Jack rose and trudged off in the direction he had flung the sweet bag. It was lying crumpled under a foxglove. He stuffed it back into his pocket.

‘I should think so.’ The man’s face was grim. He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his trousers and puffed his chest out. His red shirt stuck out from the bottom of his waistcoat, revealing a pale band of skin. ‘Right, now let’s get down to business; I am here to guide you.’

Jack took a breath. ‘What business? Wait a minute, you said little people, do you mean …?’

‘Yes, I come from a long and distinguished line of the ancient race.’

‘… leprechauns? That’s what you look like. But they are supposed to wear green.’ Jack couldn’t believe he was talking to the little man.

‘I can wear any colour I like.’ The leprechaun lifted his chin and pursed his lips.

‘And this is England, you belong in Ireland.’ Jack stopped and grabbed Katie’s arm. ‘This isn’t real.’ His cheeks burned. With everything that had been going on in his life, his mind was now playing tricks on him.

‘Stuff and nonsense. Do you think you are the only ones allowed to travel? I can go wherever I want. And I am most definitely real. Now, if you don’t mind, address me by my name. I can’t abide bad manners.’

Jack took a breath. He’d play along, he thought. Perhaps the man would go away. ‘Which one: Hieronymus, Seamus, O’Kneedle, or all three?’

Katie smothered a giggle.

The leprechaun puffed his chest out. ‘For reasons of brevity you may use my nickname, Hero.’

Katie laughed out loud.

In a flash he was on her shoulder. ‘Stop that, you insolent girl. How dare you?’

She stuck her finger in her ear and jiggled it. ‘Ow, you shouted, and now my ear hurts.’

Hero disappeared from her shoulder. ‘Enough, it is time to go.’ His voice drifted down from the tree again. ‘But I have no idea how I am going to work with you ill-mannered creatures!’

Katie went red. ‘If we have to be polite to you, it should work both ways. You can speak nicely to us,’ she said.

Hero’s head jerked back, ‘Well, I never!’

Katie waited, a determined look on her face. Although her cheeks were still flushed and she looked a little scared, she reminded Jack of his mother when she insisted he tidy his room. Something she hadn’t cared about for a long time.

Hero faltered. ‘Very well, I’ll try,’ he said at last with a black look.

‘You don’t sound like you mean it.’

‘I said I’ll try. Now, can we go?’ He glared at her. ‘Hmm, of course, you silly creatures are too big …’

Jack knew Katie wouldn’t give up. He was right.

She put her hands on her hips. ‘Hero …’

His mouth twisted. Thrusting his hand into his pocket he withdrew a wooden stick as long as his forearm. A purple jewel set in gold decorated the end.

‘Meet Beribis.’ He pointed the stick at them and then waved it in a circle.

Jack immediately felt dizzy. His legs wobbled, his head fell back and his eyes closed. When he opened them again everything had changed. The oak tree loomed like a giant. The grass beyond the tree seemed to have sprung up high and foxgloves towered. He looked round desperately, his heart beating wildly. He’d been shrunk! He was now the same size as Hero. He forced himself to breathe slowly to get his heart rhythm back to normal, and looked for Katie. Shakily, he called out to her. She came clambering over a root to join him. She was pale; all the red in her complexion had been sucked out when she’d been shrunk.

‘Wh … what happened?’ she stammered.

He took her hand and steadied her. ‘He’s done something terrible to us.’

‘Right, let’s get on with it.’ Hero’s voice seemed to come from far away.

Jack peered up; from his perch on the tree, the little man was waving Beribis once more. Before Jack had a chance to say anything he felt himself lifting off the ground and flying upward. He looked down for a moment, gasped and then squeezed his eyes shut as he whizzed up. He landed beside Katie on a forked branch then stumbled and sent the leprechaun flying into the trunk.

‘Watch what you’re doing, clumsy oaf.’ Hero straightened up, tucked his shirt into his trousers, neatened his waistcoat and brushed bits of bark off with the back of his fingers.

‘Well, what do you expect?’ Jack said. ‘You shrank us! Then you flung us into a tree! Make us big again, right now. We have to get down.’

‘I regret that I can’t.’ Hero sniggered. ‘You have an appointment with someone important. But lower your voice. You’ll frighten the squirrels.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Speak quietly and I might tell you. You’re giving me a headache and we’ve a long way to go. I can’t be expected to travel if my head hurts.’

Katie gripped Jack’s arm. ‘Do as he says, maybe then he’ll change us back again. But you’re giving me a headache too.’

Jack squirmed and bit his lip. ‘Sorry, Katie, okay I will, for you. But it’s not my fault. I didn’t shrink us and fling us about.’

‘I’ll ignore that. You’re in a bad mood as usual, and have been for some time. I’ve been keeping an eye on you.’ Hero turned his back on them and walked away. ‘Come! We haven’t got all day.’

Jack felt his cheeks redden. He clenched his fist and shook it behind Hero’s back.

‘Stop that!’ Hero spun round and glared at him.

‘We’re supposed to be polite to each other, remember.’ Katie stepped between them.

Hero’s face purpled.

‘I’m waiting,’ she said, trembling, but frowning at both of them. Jack unclenched his fist.

The little man nodded. ‘It delays us, so yes, if I must. Now follow me. There are many different folk to meet and an unspeakable situation to resolve.’ He disappeared into a shadowy part of the tree, leaving them staring after him.

‘Where’s he gone? Is there a hole?’ Heart pounding after his outburst, Jack stepped forward, stretched and prodded the trunk. His fingers went right through into nothingness. The outline of an open arched doorway jumped into sight. He couldn’t see the leprechaun. ‘Now what? Do we go after him?’ He stared at Katie. ‘I don’t like this at