KNOWLEDGE IS THE KEY

By Heidi Louise Williams

KNOWLEDGE IS THE KEY is the fifth book in THE LEAF'S KEY SERIES. This spine-tingling page-turning book carries readers off to Skinwalker ranch to face the Lockers and other demons, and to the scariest Island in the world, La Isla de las Munecas. Leaf and Lilly save their friend Apple when she meets a creep on the internet. Leaf bravely saves her

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gem-in-Eye Productions
• Release date: Jun 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9781649709493

Book preview

BOOK FIVE OF THE LEAF’S KEY SERIES

KNOWLEDGE IS THE KEY

small key with no background for promotional work.png

BY HEIDI LOUISE WILLIAMS

Gem-in Eye Publishing

All rights reserved: No part of this publication may be

transmitted or reproduced by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying

or otherwise without prior permission of the publisher.

First published 2021

Gem-in-Eye Publishing

Knowledge is the Key

Book Five of THE LEAF’S KEY SERIES

Text copyright © 2021 Heidi Louise Williams

Cover illustrations copyright © Heidi Louise Williams.

Leaf’s Key names, characters, and related indicia or Quikid World or

Leaf’s Key or Whiteash Key merchandise are copyright of Heidi Louise Williams.

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

A CIP catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9781649709486

www.leafskey.com

All Characters and events in this book, other than those clearly in the public domain,

are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, being alive or dead is purely coincidental.

Any opinions expressed are from researched materials or for dramatic license,

and do not necessarily reflect the views of the author.

To my beautiful daughter, the loveliest person I know, my heart,

And my inspiration for everything

Acknowledgments: Rab Caw for his continuous support and technical help, and to Jade for her help in graphics, and for being a great kid who bought me tremendous joy.

Titles in THE LEAF’S KEY SERIES:

The Whiteash Key

Guardians of the Keys

Key the World

Closing doors

Knowledge is the Key

Cutting Keys

Unlocked

The Key to the Future

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1- CREEPING IN 

CHAPTER 2 - RETURN TO WHITEASH

CHAPTER 3 - CARTOONS AND PINK BALOONS

CHAPTER 4 - CAVE OF IGNORANCE

CHAPTER 5 - CHANGES AND CHORES

CHAPTER 6 - JEALOUS INTUITION

CHAPTER 7 - DINÈ INDIANS

CHAPTER 8 - SKINWALKER RANCH

CHAPTER 9 - BABY BUMP

CHAPTER 10 - ISLA DE LAS MUÑECAS

CHAPTER 11 - NIGHT SPREE

CHAPTER 12 - SPRAY PAINT

CHAPTER 13 - RAINBOW FOREST

CHAPTER 14 - REFUGEES

CHAPTER 15 - A HAIRY SITUATION

CHAPTER 16 - FIERY VENGEANCE

CHAPTER 17 - THE SECRET RAINFOREST

CHAPTER 18 - PUSH

CHAPTER 19 - VISITORS DAY

CHAPTER 20 - APPLE GOES MISSING

CHAPTER 21 - RACISM

CHAPTER 22 - DIRECTOR’S LAW

CHAPTER 23 - SURVIVAL WEEKEND

CHAPTER 24 - THE SLAP

CHAPTER 25 - SAYING GOODBYE

PRELUDE

‘We have found another one!’ Detective Shiver announced, striding into the large office and placing three pages on Paul Locker’s mahogany desk. The commissioner adjusted his eye patch. He had to wear the eye patch since Flamous, the wizard of fire, had burnt his eye out at the Whiteash Camp. Commissioner Paul Locker had no recollection of the event. He had found himself and his men tied to trees in the Congo rainforest, held captive by little Pygmy warriors. The most disturbing part was that he and his men had no memory of how they had ended up in that situation, or how Paul Locker had lost an eye.

      Shiver pointed to the portrait of Lilly. They were looking at photocopies of the drawings Leaf had made of the cubs in 2015.

‘Her name is Lilly Fontaine. She has recently started a Vlog or a blog or a vine or whatever they call it these days, called Fontaine of Truth.’ Shiver tapped into his phone and showed the commissioner Lilly’s latest broadcast.

‘First it was the Jews, then it was the Muslims and now it is the Mexicans,’ Lilly announced on the screen. The commissioner set her image on pause.

‘Lilly,’ Paul Locker said, salivating through his smirking thin lips. ‘Where is she?’

‘She lives with her family in California. I have booked three flights for the morning. I thought it would be good to take Dixon with us and we will work out a plan when we get there,’ Shiver informed him, and the commissioner nodded his approval. His still working cold grey eye remained fixed on Lilly’s image.

‘Oh Lilly, I’m coming to get you!’ he sneered.

–––––––––––– Chapter One –––––––––––

CREEPING IN

Duncan often came to work in the garden after school, and he stayed to have supper on Tuesday’s and Friday’s. He always arrived on his bicycle with his iguana on his shoulder. It would sit in the willow tree while Duncan cut the grass and tended to the plants. Bubba was scared of the iguana but Wilbur the pig and skip the rabbit just sniffed at it.

      Leaf would go out into the garden to see what Duncan was working on. Sometimes she stuck around to help him. She enjoyed his company and they had great conversations about all kinds of things. Apart from Sam, Duncan was the only other boy that Leaf felt completely comfortable with.

      Duncan had bought over his spare boxing bag, and had put up a secure bar on the terrace to hang it from. On the days that Leaf did not have singing lessons or Kickboxing, she and Duncan would train on the bag and practice Kung fu on the lawn. Leaf knew a lot of Kung Fu from camp but Duncan taught her new things he had learnt from his older brothers, both of whom had practiced Kung Fu for six years.

      Mum liked having Duncan around too. He was polite and ever so helpful. Their meals together were fun and happy. He gave the house more life. He came over for Christmas dinner and New Year. It was nice to have his energy in the house to distract them from missing Grammy.

      The New Year of 2020 started quite normally but by March the world had turned up-side-down and gone completely crazy. The world governments had ordered global lockdowns due to a pandemic caused by a virus called Covid-19. No one was allowed out of their houses unless it was to walk the dog or to buy essentials or go to jobs that could not be performed from home. People were scared. They cancelled doctors and dentist appointments, or any non essential appointment and sometimes even essential ones. People stopped socialising. The streets were eerily quiet. Even central London was empty. Everything was on pause, waiting. Leaf’s school had closed. No one went to a hospital unless they were dying because the fear of catching Covid there was enormous. Every day, the news reported higher numbers of fatalities and everyone was paranoid. There was fear that supplies would run out as very few people could go to work or had lost their jobs. So people started panic buying, stocking up with supplies, fighting over the last packets of toilet paper. Mum used what little savings she had to stock up with tins, dried food, bottled water, soap and toilet paper. She locked it way in the corner cupboard, only to be opened in an emergency. It felt like they were preparing for Armageddon.

With Leaf’s help, Mum started a full vegetable garden out the back. Until lockdown was over, they would have to tend to it themselves, but after lockdown they would need Duncan’s help because he was the one with the green fingers. Both Mum and Leaf worried about Duncan and his family during this time of crisis. Mum would leave food parcels on their doorstep.

Mum was doing better than ever work-wise. Lots of writers had time to finish their books during the lockdown and they were ringing Mum to ask her to do the illustrations. So Mum said the least she could do was help out Duncan’s family a little.

      Every day it was getting harder for others. Businesses, restaurants, and shops were closing. The cost of products rose, especially alcohol, hand sanitizer, disposable gloves, masks, and toilet paper.

There were new laws and fines imposed globally. Everyone had to wear masks to cover their nose and mouth, and disposable gloves, and walk two metres apart. The highest threat the virus posed was to the elderly and those with low immune systems. Families were torn apart and living separately. Children were forbidden from visiting grandparents. Those that caught the disease would lie alone in hospital rooms unable to be with their families in their final moments. People who showed symptoms had to isolate in quarantine for fourteen days. This also included small children. All around the world children were locked in rooms alone for two weeks. There was a two metre social distancing that would have long term effects on all of humanity in terms of social contact, physical expressions of affection, etiquette, and customs, giving comfort and giving thanks. People no longer touched, except to bump elbows in greeting. Yet at the same time, strangers smiled at each other behind their masks, offered neighbours help, and unified like in a time of war.

      Honey said it was a silent war. She said that people were blind to see that the powers of the world had led us quietly into our time of culling and World War Three. She said the whole point was for mass control through fear. Honey said the world governments were purposely trying to make us afraid using the media to highlight propaganda: terrorists threatening our safety, refugees threatening our livelihoods, inciting racism to cause riots on the streets, and a virus poisoning our air, so that we become so afraid that we beg for the governments to send in military control and microchip us for our own protection, and inevitably to stop the monetary system so that we can only pay for things digitally and thereby the government will know exactly how much money everyone has, and they can seize it or freeze it by the push of a button.

‘Once they have made everyone’s money digital they will own and control every single person on the planet,’ Honey told her. Leaf did not know if what Honey said was true or not. It scared the life out of her. She would have to research it further before she would believe it. She hoped something sinister wasn’t going on but Leaf decided the best thing to do was to keep her head down, stay under the radar, follows the rules but not to get chipped, and wait for it all to blow over.

      The year passed slowly. The world was depressed. Leaf was off school again from May onwards. She wasn’t allowed to visit Sarah, and she couldn’t use the Key to visit her Whiteash friends. At least she had had an email from the Whiteash Board of Directors saying that camp was not cancelled that summer. There would be minimal changes but enough to ensure their safety.

      On the evening of Saturday the 20th of June 2020, while Mum was busy painting a commission for a book cover, Leaf slipped off to the decade before to visit Grammy outside the gym.

Grammy had just finished her Kickboxing class and was starving, so they walked around the corner to a fish ‘n’ chip shop. They chatted non-stop. Leaf told Grammy all about the pandemic. Grammy said she was glad not to have to live through it. She had been born at the end of World War Two, and had died at the start of another world disaster, she had missed the worst of both and that’s how she preferred it.

Leaf had been visiting Grammy regularly, but they both knew that these trips were not good for themselves or for the universe as a whole. History was being changed by these reunions because they were not just visits, they were interactions, and it was not advisable to visit the same person or time zone more than a handful of times, and even then only sporadically over a period of years.

      Leaf tried to convince herself that because she had not previously had this experience, and as Grammy was also experiencing it for the first time, that it did not matter because she was not changing their memories, but she was changing things by talking about the future. Leaf had forgotten that time exists simultaneously and therefore she was subsequently changing the past, present and the future all in one go.

      It was okay to visit Grammy maybe once a year if she watched what she said and did, but after Grammy’s funeral Leaf had been visiting her grandmother once a week, and she could feel changes taking place in their memories and things had started to go missing. It was all getting inexplicably weird.

      As they were walking back to the car stinking of vinegar, a whole tree just disappeared in front of their eyes.

‘Let’s get you home to your own time,’ Grammy said, and quickened her step.

For about thirty seconds during the drive home, the floor of Grammy’s car disappeared. They had to pull their feet up onto the seats. Leaf screamed. Grammy tried to stay calm but was terrified too. They could see the road under the seats as Grammy drove at forty miles an hour wondering where to pull over. It was as if this moment in time, starting with the car, had started to disintegrate.

      Then all of a sudden, Sally’s floor returned, and they sighed with relief as Grammy put her foot down hard on the accelerator. Neither of them could explain what had happened exactly but Grammy said it had to do with interfering in time. Grammy told Leaf that they should not see each other again for a long while. They had a long hug goodbye. They both cried.

      At times, Leaf wondered if the Lockers were right that the Keys were bad because with every Jump things were changed ever so slightly. The risks of Guardians making a major mistake were high. When Guardians made big mistakes, there was the probability of unspeakable destruction.

      Grammy dropped Leaf off in front of the house and Leaf opened the door to a decade later, waved goodbye and tried not think more about it.

On Sunday, Leaf, Bubba, and Wilbur woke around nine, as was usual for the weekend. Leaf plodded downstairs in her pyjamas and found Mum going frantic by the front door.

‘I was just about to wake you!  I can’t handle this alone!’ Mum said. Her eyebrows were raised too high and seemed to be stuck, giving Mum an odd look of bewilderment or shock.

‘Handle what?  What’s the matter?’

‘Just open the front door and tell me what you see,’ Mum insisted. Leaf walked to the door and pulled it open.

‘Holy Moses!’  Leaf could not believe her eyes. Mum stepped into the doorway behind her to make sure Moses was not actually on the doorstep because she would have believed anything was possible that morning. Nothing was the same as it had been yesterday. If yesterday the world had been slightly crazy, today the world was absolutely bonkers!

      The outside world had gone wild and was completely overgrown, like a mad scientist had fed a radioactive super-grow fertilizer to the plants during the night, and the plants had decided to take over the world. Leaf shut the door. Her eyebrows were really high and they felt a bit stuck.

      The front door started to groan, plaster around the door frame started to crumble and large vines, like a sea monster’s tentacles, burst through the wall. Bubba ran back up the stairs. Wilbur followed, and they both hid under Leaf’s bed. Leaf went to get them but Mum said they were safer where they were.

      Mum looked at her mobile phone but there was no service. There was no electricity or running water in the house either. The vines crept through the holes and grew up the stairs, winding themselves around the ornate balustrade. It would have been pretty if it had not been so horrifying.

‘Let’s go outside, find out what is going on and get some help,’ Mum suggested. They put their shoes and masks on, and both still in pyjamas, they opened the door.

Climbing over the humongous roots, they fought their way through the large green leaves that were blocking the doorway and stepped into a green forest with huge exotic plants.

      Mum looked back at the Victorian town house to see it was now an overgrown wooden shack. The road in front of the house was gone. It was still possible to tell they were in the same area of Hampstead because the line of trees that had been beside the road was still there, but they were surrounded by more trees and tropical foliage. It felt very hot and confusing.

    The house belonging to the nosey Parker’s had gone, and Mrs. Lee’s at number ten, and all the other houses, cars, and lampposts were gone too. There was just the rundown old shack and the Jurassic plants. Leaf was thinking to herself: Please universe, please make this go away. I know this is my fault and I’m very sorry.

‘What the hell is going on?’  Mum cried. Then, in an instant, everything changed back to normal, except Mum and Leaf were standing beside the road in front of the house wearing their pyjamas. Mrs. Parker’s curtains twitched.

‘Am I going mad?’ Mum asked Leaf.

‘No Mum, but let’s go in and I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

        Later that afternoon, Leaf received an official e-mail from the Whiteash Board of Directors. Her hands shook as she clicked on it.

To Leaf Golden

We were informed about the glitch that occurred this morning over the entire Hampstead