“Let’s set fire to the place! We’ll smoke the beggars out!”
Although feeling uneasy for a couple of days, it wasn’t long before Miles forgot about the three-horned dragon and his conversation with Uncle Jeff. At 13 years old, he had enough to worry about, such as getting onto the school soccer team, staying the right side of Alice, whose gaze could wither at fifty paces, and trying to keep his cool with Joe. Not an easy task – that kid was always mithering!
Although feeling uneasy for a couple of days, it wasn’t long before Miles forgot about the three-horned dragon and his conversation with Uncle Jeff. At 13 years old, he had enough to worry about, such as getting onto the school soccer team, staying the right side of Alice, whose gaze could wither at fifty paces, and trying to keep his cool with Joe. Not an easy task – that kid was always mithering!
“Please let me play!” he’d beg. But invariably, Miles brushed off Joe’s pleas with the usual, “You’re too small!” as he set off to practice dribbling with his pals, leaving Joe to amuse himself.
True, Joe was small for his age and looked much younger than his 11 years. But he wasn’t entirely alone. When dejected, he could turn to Mr. Big. Now, a lot of children have imaginary friends, but Mr. Big was different. To Joe, Mr. Big was a real person, someone kind who would never shout at him, or turn him away, or say, “I told you so!” It was a friendship that his parents tried hard to discourage. Especially his Dad.
As a scientist, Richard Hadwin was opposed to fairy tales, magic, superheroes of all kinds, assorted legends and anything that couldn’t be measured by a 12-inch ruler. Including Mr. Big. “Believe in yourself,” was the Hadwin mantra, and that would be the end of it…until the next time Joe started whispering to himself.
“The boy needs a psychiatrist!” Mr. Hadwin grumbled.
Jennifer Hadwin was more tactful. “Just who IS this Mr. Big, Joe?”
“I don’t know his name. I call him Mr. Big because he’s very big and very strong and he looks after me.”
“How do you mean, he looks after you?”
“Well, sometimes, when I don’t know what to do about something, I ask Mr. Big and then he gives me the answer. And sometimes, he does things to make everything all right.”
“For pity’s sake!” yelled Mr. Hadwin, “he should have grown out of this by now! He’s 11 years old!”
Mrs. Hadwin sighed. “Look, Joe,” she sighed. “Once and for all, there’s no such person as Mr. Big!”
“There is! There is!” yelled Joe.
“So? Where is he?“ his father demanded, turning his head to search for the mysterious Mr. Big. “Where is he, Joe? Come on, point him out to us! If he’s your friend, we’d like to be introduced!“ But Joe pursed his lips and folded his arms stubbornly.
“He doesn’t exist, does he?” said Dad.
“Does yes!” This was one argument his parents were never going to win.
“Then why can’t we see him?!” Dad cried, his fists clenched with frustration.
“Because he’s invisible!” came the answer,
“Now, let’s try and be rational about this,” his Mum suggested. “Your father and I love you very, very much and there’s nothing we won’t do to make you happy. Whenever you have any problems, you can talk to us. Okay?”
Joe nodded, his Mum gave him a kiss, and his Dad ruffled his white-blonde hair affectionately. Yet, that night and every night before he went to sleep, Joe would talk to Mr. Big.
……………
“Get up Miles!” It was Alice, banging on his bedroom door. “Mum needs help with the shopping!”
It wasn’t like Miles to lie in bed, but he hadn’t slept terribly well the night before, owing to a dull ache in his stomach. Groaning, he pulled the covers over his head and cursed his rotten luck. “Couldn’t be on a school day, oh no!” he thought “like when there’s a geography test or anything. Has to be on a Saturday when it’s football practice!” And he swore never again to eat more than three mince pies at a sitting – at least not on a Friday. At the thought of food, he vaguely considered getting up for breakfast and was trying to decide between scrambled egg and corn flakes when he heard another bang.
“All right, I’m coming!” he yelled crossly. But then he realised it wasn’t Alice this time but someone at the front door, hammering so loudly, the house actually shook.
“They’ll break the door down in a minute!” Miles murmured to himself. From downstairs, he heard his mother’s angry voice. “Who on earth can that be!?”
“It’s probably those Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Mr. Hadwin said as he made towards the door. “They must have changed their methods!” But he stopped short as a huge crack, then a mighty thump, resounded from the hall and the front door burst open.
Pandemonium! Miles heard Joe and Alice shrieking, Mum and Dad protesting, and the sound of harsh male voices yelling: “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” over and over again.
Now fully awake, Miles leapt out of bed, pulled on his jeans and T-shirt from the day before floor and flew down the stairs to see one man standing in the now empty doorway barking orders while two other men in black trench coats manhandled his mother. Dad was being held face downwards on the floor by two other burly men, his hands manacled behind his back.
“Richard and Jennifer Hadwin! You’re under arrest!” the first man said.
“What for?!” cried Mrs. Hadwin.
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” came the reply.
But Jennifer Hadwin was not easily intimidated. “Our MP will hear about this…” she began. The first man laughed unpleasantly. “He can’t help you, we arrested him this morning…..”
“Shut up! Shut up…” his colleague continued.
“Not me, you idiot!” the boss snapped and whacked the offender across the face.
“Sorry, Mr. Mordant, got a bit carried away there.”
“As I was saying” continued Mordant, “there’s been a coup. You’re under a new regime now.” He laughed nastily and began toying with a large signet ring.
“Mum! Dad!”
It was Joe crying, Alice holding him tightly, her face white with shock. Miles was standing on the bottom stair, frozen to the spot, his eyes fixed on Mordant‘s finger. He felt his spine tingle just as it had under the street lamp when Uncle Jeff showed it to him. “The dragon!” he gasped.
Up until then, the intruders had ignored the children, but now Mordant, his gloating temporarily interrupted, jerked his head towards them.
“Get the kids!” he snarled. “They’re going to the Babel Retreat. Sister Prism will take care of them!”
This brought Richard Hadwin to his senses. With superhuman effort, he raised his head from under the heavy black boots that nailed him to the floor and yelled to the children with all his might:
“Run!”
And then Miles remembered Jeff‘s warning. “When you see it, run! Run for your lives! Run! Run!”
Then his mother joined in, shouting at the top of her voice “Run children! Run!”
“Run!” cried Miles and flew from the stair and dashed towards the kitchen and the back door, Alice and Joe chasing after him, dodging the clutches of the sinister men.
“Skinner, Brown, Griswold – get after them!”
Hearts pounding, legs pumping, lungs bursting, the children fled – out the back door, across the yard and into the field behind where the local rugby team was practicing.
“If we can just make it to the woods….” thought Miles, his mind racing as he dodged the rugby players, intent on reaching the other side of the pitch. Fortunately, their pursuers were not so nimble and found themselves the objects of some rather fine tackles. After freeing themselves from the unseemly scrums that followed, the men resumed their chase, but Alice, Miles and Joe, now far in the distance, had disappeared over a hedge and were now heading, full-pelt into the woodland.
Then something awful happened. Joe let go of Alice’s hand. And he stopped running. He didn’t know what was happening. He didn’t know why Miles and Alice were running, or who the big men were. All he knew was he wanted to rescue his parents. He wasn’t scared of the horrible men. He was going back home.
In her panic, Alice didn’t notice at first. She and Miles kept running, not daring to look behind them, jumping over ditches, scrambling under barbed wire, panting until they felt their lungs begin to burst. At last they reached the trees and flung themselves into a mass of dense undergrowth until they could catch their breath.
Only then, did they realise that Joe was no longer with them. “Where’s Joe?” cried Alice, looking around frantically. “We’ve lost Joe!”
“They must have got him!” said Miles between gasps. Alice tried to stand up. “Joe!” she cried and would have gone on calling had Miles not put a hand over her mouth and dragged her down again into the bushes.
“There’s nothing we can do!” he reasoned. “There’s too many of them…..” But Alice wasn’t listening. Tears welled in her eyes and she started shaking with terror. “Joe, Joe…!” she whimpered.
Miles grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “Look, we know where they’ll take him, that Mordant man said. So we’ll wait until those men have gone and then we’ll find him and get him out! Please Alice, we have to stay calm, it’s our only chance. We’re going to find him Alice. And Mum and Dad too. Everything’s going to be all right! It‘s going to be all right.”
In the distance, they heard the men shouting to each other as they raced in pursuit.
“Which way did they go?” they were yelling. “Spread out” one of them said, and Miles and Alice could only freeze at the sound of shrubs being kicked and of twigs being broken underfoot. At one point, a man came within yards of their hiding place, and was just about to find them when one of his colleagues called out, “There’s a ditch to your left. Look down there!”
With the man out of earshot, Miles and Alice began crawling on their elbows, commando-style, through the prickly bushes to get deeper into the wood. Before long, they came upon a fallen hollow tree trunk which had just enough room for the two of them to curl up inside. Miles pulled a branch up behind them so as to conceal the entrance, and from their hiding place, the children squashed together, hardly able to move.
Before long, an enormous pair of feet could be heard approaching the old tree trunk. “Stay here, Skinner.” was the command. “I’ll station myself at the north end of the wood, Brown will guard the west side and the others can flush them out.”
“Okay, Griswold,” said his companion. Once his superior was out of sight, Skinner sat down on the trunk. He was easily the biggest of the men with an unbelievably wide bottom, and, as soon as he made contact with the fallen tree, it creaked ominously. All Miles and Alice could do was pray their hiding place would hold up under the strain. Moments later and to their great relief, they heard another shout.
“Oi! Skinner! Get off your fat behind and start searching! The boss ain’t moving ’til we catch those brats!”
Skinner leapt up, but in doing so, the weight of his bottom dislodged the tree which jolted into motion and began to roll downhill – slowly at first, then gathering speed, flattening everything in its path as the hill dropped perilously towards the river that gushed through the gully below. Miles and Alice held their breath, unable to scream, helpless and stiff with terror. Being so tightly packed into the trunk helped brace their bodies against much of the impact, but it was still the most terrifying white-knuckle ride they‘d ever experienced!
“This isn’t doing my stomach any good at all” Miles thought to himself, as the hollow log continued to roll faster and faster downhill, stopping only when eventually, it hit the river with a tremendous splash. Instead of being spun head over heels, the children now felt themselves being thrust from side to side as the current swept them along. Miles could hear Alice hyperventilating and instinctively reached out a hand. “It’s alright now,” he said. At least they were safe from the men who, convinced their prey were still hiding in the wood, found sticks to probe the foliage inch by inch. Sometime later, Griswold had another bright idea. “Let’s set fire to the place!” he yelled. “We’ll smoke the beggars out!” But by this time, Miles and Alice were speeding down the river.
‘Flight from Fernilee’ by Jacy Brean
Available from Amazon and Smashwords