The Gordians Are Good: The Rescue

By Katherine Grimes

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

Jostlethwaite the Gordian believes this with all of his heart. However, when his daughter runs away, he is forced to leave the security of his beloved bed to try to find her. It’s a dastardly dangerous mission that might just change his mind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: May 17, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728388496

Book preview

Just so You Know

For those of you who have yet to discover; Gordians are good, rather small, bedroom dwellers. Underneath the bed, to be precise. In some ways they are slightly similar to their human neighbours; they have families, they talk to each other (and sometimes argue) and they like to have a good time as much as anyone. In many other, quite significant ways, they are very different.

Do you like to live under the self-same bed for your whole life? They do.

Have you got two wonderful antennae on your head? They have.

Are you green? They are.

Can you take a bad dream from a human’s head and replace it with something nice? They can.

In fact, that’s why they live under our beds. It’s bad dream energy that keep them alive, like a burger and chips sustain you. Obviously, no human knows they are there and the Gordians make certain that it stays that way. They are quick as lightning and twice as crafty. For centuries their quiet, secret and generally happy way of life has remained quite undisturbed.

That is until a certain young Gordian girl, mostly quite obedient and helpful, the jewel of her mother’s eye, decides that the human occupant of the family bed is far more important than the actual bed. This dreadfully shocking idea takes her away from her family on an adventure quite unlike any Gordian has ever attempted before. Her exciting exploits you can read about in the book Gristlelina’s Adventure (imaginatively titled, for her name, as you’ve already guessed, is Gristlelina).

This, however, is the story of the sad and worried Gordian family Botham that she left behind. Her hard working and kind mother Raisher Botham. Her father Jostlethwaite Botham, whose detailed plans had to shamefully be abandoned. Her numpty brother Gromblefromp Botham, who secretly wasn’t that sad to misplace his annoying little sister. Other Gordians we will doubtless meet along the way and they will play their part as we go along.

For now, without further ado, let me begin…

The Beginning

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Jostlethwaite has found it very hard to sleep today. (Gordians sleep during the day so that they are awake every night ready to pull the bad dreams from our heads while we sleep. This is very hard on those poor Gordians living under the bed of humans who work at night, as I’m sure you can imagine.) His mind keeps going over every detail of his intricately crafted moving plan. He knows Raisher can be trusted to keep calm and do the right thing and that for all his silliness Gromblefromp does do as he’s told. Nanny is definitely going to be a problem; every step will be a grumble and quite possibly an argument. Will Grandad even manage to climb up the curtains? He has been having terrible trouble with his knees lately.

Why did that catting human family have to go and move? It’s ridiculous! Jostlethwaite’s family have lived under this bed for generations, taking away the bad dreams of human after human. They’ve never had to leave the bed and none of them thought they ever would. Of course, it probably won’t be long before another human family come and they can get back under these trusty slats where they belong.

The only upside is that Jostlelthwaite does like the company of cousin Armaduke who lives under the bed of the human next door. It’s a big bed with plenty of room to spread out and even keep away from Nanny. Okay, maybe this trip might be quite nice, thinks Jostlethwaite rather naughtily.

Finally getting bored of tossing and turning in his bed roll, Jostlethwaite gives in and gets up. The rest of his family are still sound asleep. That’s good, they need to have lots of energy for the tricky slink along the drainpipes. He takes the opportunity to check that the humans have actually left and it wasn’t all a big mistake. With any luck that human girl will still be up in bed and they won’t have to go anywhere after all.

He quickly scrambles up the bed leg and peeks over the mattress top. No such luck. Everything belonging to the small human has gone. Including all of her cuddlies. Jostlethwaite is shocked to realise that he will miss those toys, even that frightening sheep. He was always an exceedingly comfortable place to sit whenever