The Gordians Are Good: Gristlelina’s Adventure

By Katherine Grimes

“It doesn’t matter what human we have, as long as we have a human.”

A Gordian’s bed is their castle, and they will not leave it without a jolly good reason. However, when faced with the horrible possibility of losing her human forever, young Gristlelina must go where no Gordian has gone before.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Mar 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728385471

Book preview

Bed Jumping

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Have you ever heard a rustle under your bed at night?

Have you ever been convinced there’s someone else in the room?

Have you ever taken a really big jump from across the room to land safely in the middle of your bed before anything could grab you from underneath it?

Rosie has.

In fact, Rosie does all three every night.

After her mum finally forces her to go upstairs and her teeth have been nicely brushed, she stands in her bedroom doorway and prepares. If she misjudges the jump, she might hurt her ankle on the bed frame again, like she did last week. Or, even worse, her foot might slip off the edge and become vulnerable to whatever is underneath. It’s a tricky sport, bed jumping.

When safely in bed, her mum tucks her in and turns off the lamp, leaving the door open just enough to let a sliver of light in from the hallway. Now alone, Rosie can feel, really feel, that there is someone, something, under her bed. She can almost, if she strains her ears, hear a chatter, a squeaky mouse like patter of conversation. When she was young this frightened Rosie. Now she has grown so used to it that if it wasn’t there, she would be scared. She likes to imagine little mice whispering about their day as she drifts off to sleep. Every now and again she takes a cautious peek through the gap she makes between the wall and the mattress, but she has never seen anything. Nevertheless, this is no reason to stop leaping into bed like a long jumping maniac every night. It’s only tucked into bed that she’s safe, anything could happen before she gets there.

Now comes a rustle. An impertinent shuffle that starts Rosie back to wakefulness. Sometimes, she thinks, it would be nice to just go to sleep like a normal child in a normal bedroom with only silent toys for company.

What Rosie doesn’t realise though, is that quite a few ‘normal’ children have exactly the same bedtime kafuffle. Because under all these beds in all these bedrooms live different colonies of Gordians. There’s the McGrock clan of 42 Chicken Road, the Petrids of Holly Farm and of course the Bothams of Sally’s bed on Side Street.

‘What on Earth is a Gordian?’ I hear you cry. Well, maybe not cry, but definitely ask politely.

The answer is; Gordians are sleep guardians. Small parasitic, but polite creatures that have been under the beds of humanity for centuries, keeping watch over our dreams. (Obviously this has been a lot easier for them since we got off the floor and started to sleep in proper beds.) They wait for us to have bad dreams, or even better a nightmare, as this is their life force, their food if you will. They take the badness from the dream, pull it out of our heads, and absorb it like a flower absorbs the sun. Lucky one for us as we are left with peaceful nights of pleasant dreams.

So, you see, even though Rosie has to risk breaking an ankle, she is one of the fortunate humans. She hasn’t ever had a bad dream, and never will while the Bothams are under her bed.

The Bothams

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Let me introduce you to the Rosie’s bed Botham family.

There are six of them. Of course, there are other distant relation Bothams under beds up and down the street. Also, there are some closer relatives under Rosie’s parent’s bed across the hall. However, they don’t see each other very often. A Gordians bed is his castle and he won’t stray far from it without a very good reason.

So, the Bothams of Rosie’s bed are: Gristlelina (10), a presumptuous, adventurous girl with long blonde tangles that her antennae are always getting caught in and a cheeky smile. Gromblefromp (13), the usual annoying big brother type, all bravado, lack-lustre bullying but sometimes fairly decent. Their father Jostlethwaite (32), cheesy jokes, dad dancing and a distressing tendency to organise everyone. The mother Raisher (never-you-mind how old), a very lovely, if somewhat put-upon lady, good at making clothes and soothing arguments. Then there’s Nanny and Grandad (too old), the elders, and Nanny would say betters, of the family. Ignore Nanny at your peril. Grandma used to live with them, however after the unfortunate kaleidoscope incident it was thought wiser to send her off to the parent’s bed where there wasn’t so much temptation. Of course, they are all green with two thumbs on each hand and noble antennae sticking proudly up from their foreheads, but you knew that already.

As hinted earlier, the Gordians are a night time people, awake whilst we sleep to sift our dreams. During the day they sleep, maybe having the odd late morning or early evening, but not often. Their lives are mainly peaceful and calm, as long as there are no exceptionally big spiders or creepily gruesome beetles. They are hardworking and generally kind to each other. Very little can be said to disturb them.

That was until last Thursday.

The Catastrophe

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Last Thursday Grandad couldn’t sleep.