Jake’s Fantastic Journey

By Linda Hunt

Jake’s Fantastic Journey is a fantasy novel about a young boy’s adventures, which start when he goes exploring another part of the garden. He comes across a gate with a strange stone head over it. Once he goes through that gate, his journey begins.

On this journey, he meets many strange beings—some human, some fantastical, and many alien beings. He eventually meets up with an alien being—Lok—who is of a similar age from a far-off planet, and their journey together begins.

Along the way, he loses his sister, Molly, when he visits his friend’s planet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Mar 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728385976

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© 2019 Linda Hunt. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse   03/22/2019

ISBN: 978-1-7283-8598-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-8597-6 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Dedication

Chapter 1     Home

Chapter 2     Into the garden & the stone head

Chapter 3     A Land beyond the Garden & Meeting Archie

Chapter 4     Tunnel of trees & The Dragon

Chapter 5     Jake Meets A Unicorn and Learns About The Guardians

Chapter 6     Bellator & the Green Rocks

Chapter 7     Jake, the Witch and Estelle

Chapter 8     Back to the Green Walls and Nasimo

Chapter 9     A New Land

Chapter 10   A Wormhole

Chapter 11   Lok

Chapter 12   Jake and Lok Come To Blows

Chapter 13   Another Fight Starts

Chapter 14   Mrs. Twiddy’s Shop

Chapter 15   Jake Falls & Encounters A Shapeshifter

Chapter 16   Lok Gets Taken

Chapter 17   The Forest

Chapter 18   The Tadivars

Chapter 19   Molly’s story

Chapter 20   Lok Explains More about His Planet

Chapter 21   Molly Gets Left Behind And Jake Sees Some Amazing Sights

Chapter 22   Security Alert!

Chapter 23   Lok and Jake Go Outside

Dedication

To my beloved late husband Stewart who always believed in me.

To Jenna Louise who inspired me to write this book, thank you.

jake’s

Fantastic

journey

Chapter 1

Home

T he house at Highcroft was in a peculiar position - on one side was a massive lake of water, the local people called it the lodge and children were told not to go near it in case they fell in and were dragged down by the thick weeds and debris, old bicycles and scooters, which lurked at the bottom.

Inside the house wasn’t much better, mum and dad didn’t own the house but paid rent to the family who owned the big house. Their part of the house which only had two bedrooms was not very nice and had two rats which used to play around in the small living room. There was a coal fire which dad used to poke with an iron poker and it was easy to tell when the rats were awake, because they could be heard chewing on the poker. Jake didn’t much mind them but his sister Molly was terrified and used to cry when they were there.

‘Their teeth are long and look horrible’, she would say, and they have two at the bottom, yellow and sharp looking.’

On the other side of the house was a graveyard, probably where the rats had come from even though Jake’s parents told them, that ‘it was only a memorial garden.’ That didn’t help at all when Jake and Molly had to get home after school, passed the large, dark gravestones that were streaked in horrid green slime and looked like they might fall over and crush one of them at any time. They would tease each other and end up being terrified.

One particular Friday, Jake had run all the way home without waiting for Molly (something his parents had distinctly told him not to do!)

His intention was to hide behind one of the large stones and then jump out at her as she was going passed. It was winter and went dark much earlier so he shouldn’t have much time to wait.

It was quite cold and he was worried that she would see his warm breath in the cold air, though that would make a much more eerie effect.

As he stood there with his head to one side trying to hear voices and footsteps or signs of movement, he began to feel very cold and started shivering quite violently.

To pass the time he decided to do some exploring in the big garden at the front of the house. It wasn’t much of a garden, just lots of bushes, rhododendrons – that’s what mum called them anyway. They were very thick and when the wind blew they rustled loudly and the dark green leaves shone in the moonlight.

You had to be careful because there were so many of them and the roots often criss-crossed above the ground making it difficult to run in case you tripped up and fell in a heap on the hard ground. That had happened to him lots of times. Sometimes the buds would squash as he fell and he would get sticky where the buds had opened and let some sort of liquid out.

Chapter 2

Into the garden & the stone head

H e wandered further than ever before and when he reached the bottom of the garden he noticed a thick wooden door. Above the door was a stone head, an old man, wearing a sort of helmet.

His face was chipped and rough and looked quite fierce, not at all friendly. Looking closer he saw that he had a moustache and a short, untidy beard. Jake had never seen it before, well not that he could remember anyway. Perhaps it was something that the owners of the big house had put there, but looking at it even more closely it he saw that the nose was chipped and the eyes seemed to follow him wherever he moved, quite scary really, though he couldn’t think why this should surprise him as the whole garden was strangely scary at times

Timidly, he turned the large circular handle and, creaking eerily the door moved slightly. A strong push and it opened far enough for him to squeeze through. Once on the other side he realised he could see that he was in a completely different part of the garden. Gone had the thick bushes with their glossy leaves and instead he was surrounded by strange looking rocks and mountains.

In the distance, he could see tall peaks, dark, shiny and wet, standing like long fingers reaching for the orange sky behind. Mist rolled down the hills as if waiting to trap unsuspecting walkers in its midst.

Chapter 3

A Land beyond the Garden & Meeting Archie

R ibbons of mist stretched across the sky, catching on the jagged structures and curling round them like snakes. The whole scene reminded Jake of a foreign planet, the sort of picture he had seen often in comic books.

He viewed the scene with wonderment as everything unfolded right there before his very eyes; he spied all sorts of different creatures – most of them he knew the names of and where they came from, but there were many that he’d never set eyes on before. One in particular was a small, so small that he could have easily been mistaken for a tussock of grass in the middle of the lane. Until that is, he was approached and spoken to. Then he would jump high in the air with a loud shrieking, uttering words that didn’t seem very pleasant!

Once the ‘tantrum’ had subsided and he had wiped the streams of sweat from his face, he bowed, took his hat in one hand as a sort of salute to anyone he had accosted and announced his presence to be Archie, chief goblin of the clan McGoblin if you please!

Jake was beginning to think that he had eaten or drunk something that was making him see things that weren’t actually there.

Suddenly there was a loud ‘wooshing’ sound and a bird-like creature appeared high in the misty sky. Jake had never seen anything like it and had no idea what it was called or what it could do.

The next minute answered any doubts he was having. The creature reared its massive head, stretched its wings wide, then let out the loudest roar Jake had ever heard, (not that he had heard many roars before) and swooped down towards Jake and Archie, Jake had no time to run, just wait and hope that the monster meant him no harm.

As the bird-like monster hovered above them both Jake saw that it had great plates of armour attached to its belly. It was a fearsome looking creature the like of which Jake had never seen before and hoped he would never see again.