In Competition No. 2437 you were invited to supply an incident from a children’s adventure story featuring a mythical beast and a magic device.
Perhaps someone who doesn’t dig Robinson Crusoe, Swallows and Amazons or The Hobbit and feels no inclination to read a Harry Potter book isn’t the ideal judge for this competition, but I did my best and enjoyed it. Especially enjoyable was the amazing array of monsters you summoned from the vasty deep — the Plagerypuss, gruntilopes, the samaker, ‘a huge fish with whirling wings’, Diplorus the Dinodidacticus, Nobbin the Gobb, ‘a cross between a piglet and a sharpei dog’, and of course the Jasbeastos, ‘green-bearded, glasses strapped on with an eye-patch’. The prizewinners, printed below, take £25 each, and the bonus fiver goes to Bill Greenwell.
‘What d’you call that thing?’ said Jasmine to the Mandelkin. The Mandelkin puffed up its feathers, expanded its cheek, and began to exhale rapidly, the hot air making the grass bristle and the water curdle. ‘It’s a Winspingler 97,’ proclaimed the Mandelkin. ‘All my own doing. All my own idea. All my own invention.’
‘And what,’ asked Jasmine, tentatively, ‘does it do?’
‘Do!’ snorted the Mandelkin. His scarlet rump began to swell. ‘Why, it predicts what will happen. Suppose you wished to know whether the building is about to come crashing round your ears, taking with it your life, you soul, your reputation….’ He paused. ‘You do want to know, don’t you?’
‘Try me,’ replied Jasmine.
‘Why, then you wind the thing up and, hocus-focus, it gives you a number between 23 and 112.’
‘And what do the numbers mean?’
‘That,’ replied the Mandelkin, ‘is where interpretation comes in.’
Bill Greenwell
‘Come on!’ said Tim, when they were sure Uncle Corduroy was safely ensconced in his study. The others followed him silently out of the house, over the moonlit lawn and into the summer-house where the Summonstone lay hidden.
‘Listen,’ said Lucy, ‘Uncle Corduroy said we must never return to the land of Effluvia.’
‘Why shouldn’t we?’ harrumphed Oscar.
‘We gave our word,’ Tim said, gravely.
‘Yes,’ Lucy agreed. ‘But we can use the Summonstone to bring someone from Effluvia to us! The stone works randomly, meaning we don’t know who’ll come, but whoever it is will be sure to know how to help free dear Mister Pentateuch! Here goes!’ Before Oscar could run or Tim advise caution, Lucy rapped the Summonstone on the ground, the way she’d seen in Uncle Corduroy’s book. There was no bang or flash, just a bloodcurdling roar as the dragon Gorgamanchider materialised on the lawn.
Adrian Fry
Once they were sure Daddy and Mummy were asleep, Joshua and Emma crept towards the darkest corner of the garden where Woollyblair was waiting, dreaming his wonderful dreams and drawing enchanting pictures of a magical future world. Joshua lovingly cradled the spinometer in his arms. Woollyblair was a splendid beast and Emma was plucking up courage to stroke his sleek golden fur, being very careful, of course, to stroke in the right direction, so that no sparks would fly. Joshua, however, was anxious to put another question to Woollyblair. Tonight’s question was, ‘Is our school really going to close?’ Joshua knew that, despite his mythical powers, Woollyblair could not always be relied upon to distinguish between fact and fable. That was why Joshua had brought along the miraculous spinometer and now, as they approached Woollyblair, Joshua turned the golden key and carefully set the truth-detecting dials.
Shirley Curran
‘That’s that,’ Mrs Smart said. ‘It’s on the TV news. Nothing can halt bird bronchitis now.’
William put down his computer joystick. ‘Does that mean all the birds will die?’ Mrs Smart nodded. ‘Yes, and….’ She bit her lip. William guessed she didn’t want to scare him. As if! How could his mother know his Hearing Hood (which had got him banned from the shopping centre) had deciphered a conversation in Russian between two cranes heading for Norfolk? They, and only they, were carrying the deadly virus to Britain. ‘Going to see Chaz,’ he muttered, slipping on his Hood. Just as he thought! They’d reached Norfolk, and were touching down in Blakeney. Ten miles away! A job for fleacat: only his secret pet, hidden from grown-ups behind the compost heap, could get there, pounce and kill.
‘Get them, Rantipole,’ William whispered. And the fleacat purred, clacked its feet, and jumped.
D.A. Prince
‘Drink!’ says the hockney, holding out a glass, his head wreathed in the acrid smoke that constantly hangs about him. ‘Brewed from blood, sputum, pus. Drink!’ He squints at me through thick specs as I take a sip. ‘Ughhh! I squeal. ‘There’s no sugar! And …and it tastes like what you said. Horrid!’
The hockney gives a toss of his blond mane, laughing. ‘Again!’ he commands, thrusting into my hand what looks like a digital camera. ‘First photograph the glass.’ Putting the glass down, I photograph it, then sip the liquid a second time. I gasp. It tastes like all the lollipops ever invented, only a hundred times nicer. ‘The best drink in the world!’ I announce, downing the entire contents.
Then I take up again the wonderful box, intending to examine it more closely. The hockney looks tired. ‘Keep it,’ he says. ‘It clashes with my shirt.’
Richard Ellis
When the Wizard saw that Teresa’s mind was made up, he said, ‘Very well, if you are set on a life of crime, I cannot stop you. But to learn to get away with it, you must see the Mandiblunk.’
‘Where does he live?’ asked Teresa.
‘He has many houses. But you will find him here.’
The Wizard wrote the address down, adding, ‘Take this. It’s a history eraser, good for unhappening one bad mistake.’
Teresa took the little black box with the red button and went to the address the Wizard had given her, where lots of grown-ups were drinking and dancing. She found the Mandiblunk at a packed table, but instead of advising her he confiscated her history eraser, saying, ‘Now I can afford another booboo!’
Teresa complained to the Wizard, but all he said was, ‘That was your lesson in getting away with it.’
Basil Ransome-Davies
No. 2440: Macspaunday time
This was the portmanteau name given by Roy Campbell to the group of young left-wing poets (MacNeice, Spender, Auden, Day Lewis) writing in the early 1930s. You are invited to offer a poem which is a pastiche of one or all of them. Entries to ‘Competition No. 2440’ by 20 April.
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