Jacob & Emily Discover Ancient Fantastikoland: First in the 'Jacob and Emily Adventure Series.'

By Bella Hart

Jacob and Emily are a brother and sister who like to get into adventures.

In part 1, they find clues that they hope will lead them to treasure. On their way, they meet interesting people and somehow manage to acquire some company. Will they solve the clues?

In part 2, theres a different kind of adventure with music, jewels, a robbery, and an unlikely hero.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jan 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491890851

Book preview

Contents

Foreword

Characters you will meet in this story

Part One

How It All Began

A Chinese Clue

Bad Bug Land

Back to Homeland

The Treasure is Found.

Part Two

The First Weeks

The Chickens!

The Dog Makes Some Friends (and an Enemy)

Rex Gets a Shower and a Death Threat

The Episode of the Dog

Rex Goes Too Far

All’s Well That Ends Well

Rex’s Redemption

The Performance at Last

Time To Get Ready

After the Performance

Two Weeks Later

About the Author

For my grandchildren, who were the inspiration to write the book, and my very long-suffering dear, sometimes starving, husband who helped out with ‘les mots perdus.’

Foreword

Part One

The story was totally based on the imagination of our grandchildren, who, after reading Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books and Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons, came on holiday with us, their grandparents, to a village near Kalamata in the Peloponnese, Greece.

They pictured the swimming pool to be a sea, and named the harbours and quays. The corner of the pool with graduated steps down into the pool was The Harbour of Comfort, and the corner with the metal ladder-like steps was Honkhonk. The furthest corner away was Homeland.

Along from Honkhonk was Bad Bug Land, because they found a beetle there.

Whilst there, their grandfather made up a treasure hunt, which the children enjoyed immensely.

The blue snake in one of Grandfather’s clues was based on the pool vacuum which was coiled round the base of an olive tree on the patio.

The Chinese washerwoman idea was from a clue which was pegged on the rotary clothes airer in the garden. The garden was in fact an olive grove.

The olive grove, with its olives, oil, herb fragrance, goats, and many other things were completely authentic.

Part Two

Apologies for the total lack of reality relating to the entire establishment of everything Greek. It was all totally a figment of my imagination. Royal Princesses and precious jewels are the stuff of childhood imagination.

Characters you will meet in this story

The Animal Characters

Part One

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How It All Began

Jacob and Emily woke up in a strange place.

Emily was the first one to wake up, immediately wide awake!

‘Where are we?’ she said excitedly, ‘I can see birds flying down like airplanes, just swooping over the water quickly and taking straight off again.’

Jacob came to, opened his eyes a little and said sleepily ‘Aha! We must be in Ancient Fantastikoland,’ and, looking out of the window, ‘Is that a lake or a sea?’

‘I think it’s a sea. Yes.’ Then, emphatically, ‘Definitely it’s a sea,’ Emily decided.

‘Well, I haven’t seen anything like this in my life. It absolutely wasn’t there yesterday,’ says Jacob. ‘I wonder what it’s called.’ Then, in a pondering way, ‘Mm, there isn’t anyone to ask. Maybe we should give it a name’.

‘Maybe we should call it the Emilanean Sea because I discovered it.’ answered Emily.

‘No! No! No! If we have to name it, I think we should call it something made from your name and mine. Jacobemilean sea sounds fine to me.’

‘No. I think it should be Emilanean sea,’ Emily insisted. ‘Don’t forget who saw it first.’

‘Well, let me see’ said Jacob in a very grown-up tone, ‘I’m the oldest, so I must be the Governor of Ancient Fantastikoland, and, after great deliberation, as I am a very generous governor,’ now standing to attention, ‘I name this sea the Emilanean Sea.’

They both gave a round of applause for the naming ceremony.

With that decided, they ate a delicious breakfast of scrambled egg. The most scrumptious scrambled egg in the whole world, made by the chief guardian of the land.

Jacob knew it wasn’t good to go in the water to swim until at least half an hour after eating, so he set the alarm on his watch for thirty minutes.

In the meantime, he got out the boat ‘Mary Ann’ and made it ready for sailing, while Emily busied herself with her flotation belt and arm bands, because although she could swim, she could only swim a little and she was hoping to have a long adventure. Jacob always thought of such fun things to do.

At the south east of the Emilanean sea was the Harbour of Comfort, a very good harbour because the water went from shallow, very gradually, to deeper water.

The ‘Mary Ann’ was a flat-bottomed boat so she could easily be launched by the pair.

They decided to find out why the birds were swooping down to the sea and taking off again so quickly, for all the world like the fire planes that came down to the Mediterranean sea to scoop up water to take to the mountains around Athens when there were fires there. Jacob had seen this when he lived in the city.

‘I think,’ said Jacob, studying the birds, ‘they are not picking up water, but must be catching insects that land on the top of the sea.’

The investigation into the bird activity was doomed to failure, however, because no sooner had the ‘Mary Ann’ set sail than the birds took fright and stopped coming. ‘We will have to try that some other time,’ said Jacob.

‘Let’s go back to the harbour and do some cannon balling,’ said Emily. ‘I like cannon balling.’

This is what the pair called it when they stood on the end of the cliff and said ‘one-two-three-jump,’ and jumped into the water with a terrific splash, accompanied by peals of laughter and shouts from any guardians receiving an unsolicited shower whilst trying to rest on the shores of the sea.

It should be noted at this point that the guardians must have worked extremely hard all night long, because all they wanted to do was lie around in the sun and sleep by the sea whenever there was an opportunity. You can imagine how they shouted in a most ill-humoured way when they got splashed.

Just then there were frantic shouts from the sea and a voice could be heard: ‘Help! Help! Save me!’

Governor Jacob quickly came to attention and shouted loudly, ‘I’m coming to rescue you. Don’t worry Emily,’ as he ran to the ‘Mary Ann.’

He quickly launched the boat and jumped aboard, paddling it up toward Emily.

‘Hurry, hurry! I’m drowning,’ she gasped.

‘I’m nearly there,’ he said as he drew alongside her. He wasn’t very worried because Emily was known to be a bit dramatic.

‘That’s it. Here I am,’ he said as he tried to pull her up from the sea. Sadly Emily was just out of his reach, so that when he leaned over to grasp her hand, the boat capsized. Now both of them were in the water.

What a to-do!

Jacob struggled to right the boat, which was easier said than done, but he succeeded eventually after much splashing and pulling, and got himself back aboard.

‘Hold on to the edge of the boat with one hand, and I’ll try to pull you along with the other,’ said Jacob breathlessly. So it went on until they managed to get themselves and the boat back to the Harbour of Comfort. They both came out of the sea for a time.

‘Time for a drink of squash,’ said the lesser guardian, and this was exceedingly welcome.

For the most part, the guardians were trying to smother you with sun oil and telling you to be careful and not to run, as well as other annoying things like that, but squash and scrambled eggs were some of the acceptable things that made putting up with them worthwhile.

‘What do you want to eat for lunch?’ asked lesser guardian.

‘Well,’ answered Jacob, ‘My Yiayia’ (pronounced Ya-ya—That means a Greek Granny) ‘says that if you have bread, olives, salt and olive oil, you couldn’t ask for a finer meal.

Better with a bit of feta,’ he rhymed. Emily giggled at the rhyme. ‘What more could you want?’ she echoed. Everything Jacob wanted was good enough for Emily.

Lesser guardian went in to fix this and a very pleasant lunch was had by all.

Everyone agreed that dining in an olive grove on the banks of the sea, in the shade of the trees was splendid.

The olives and olive oil were from the very trees in the grove and the salt was from the sea and the bread was from the village baker. The feta cheese came from the