Travel to Sockland

Chapter 31

The spiders moved towards them. Arnie was frozen in place, terror coursing through his veins. He glanced towards Isabelle and saw her usual, playful, fun face had completely disappeared. She looked transformed. Terror was etched into her face and sweat was visible on her forehead.

The pen and pencil soldiers, however, were not easily brought to terror. Magnus looked enthusiastic, as appeared to be usual for him, and it was an oddly out of place look when one is being approached by a huge pack of spiders.

The spiders were of many different sizes. Some of them were tiny - no more than the size of a five pence piece, others were considerably larger, some even as big as a football and, rarer still, some a lot taller than the pens and pencils and many times wider. All of them were black - jet black - like the midnight sky interspersed between stars.

Arnie snapped out of his terror when the pencil leader's voice shouted out instructions. "Soldiers, into defensive positions. Guards remain with the paintbrushes!" he sounded confident, no hesitation nor fear in his tone.

Pens and pencils moved. The guards around the paintbrushes stayed where they were. The remaining pens and pencils moved fast and got themselves into defensive positions surrounding the group. Some of them kneeled, while others fell back and were held like spears. Arnie decided it was time to move. The spiders were getting closer, charging purposefully across the village towards them. Arnie felt like time had slowed down. He grabbed Isabelle's hand and pulled her. "We need to move. We need to help."

"Hel... help?" She stammered, the fear was obvious in her trembling voice. He realised then that she was much more scared than he and he felt something surge through him. An urge to protect her and to keep her safe. It was an unfamiliar feeling but it seemed to take control and with it he felt his own fear dissipate.

"Come on" he said and pulled her by the hand. He didn't really know what to do with her. He knew he would have to help with the fight, but he didn't want to put her through that. He guided her a little way away from the centre of the village where the soldiers stood in preparation for the attack. "Stay here, don't move and I'll be back soon."

Just as he was turning to run back, a loud noise rang through the village. Arnie looked frantically around to see where it was coming from. It only took him a moment to spot the source. Magnus, who had been standing off to the side, was dancing around, his mouth open calling into the air. The sound that rang out sounded like clanging cuttlery combined with jangling keys. It was an incredibly discordant sound and yet somehow managed to have a musical ring to it.

His red body was flailing around, his arms moving wildly as he danced. The pens and pencils were gaping at him, and even the spiders had slowed their forward charge in apparent surprise. From all over the village, and in response to this strangeness the spoons were gathering around in the area, accompanied by the many flying needle birds. They were ready for battle.

The spoon music started up again, as it had when they were attacking the pencils, and the spoons charged forward towards the oncoming spiders. Arnie ran forward and joined the small group of pens and pencils who were braced, ready to fight.

He watched in astonishment as the mass of black collided with the gleaming silver. The flapping colours of the needle and thread birds swooping down from above. It wasn't until that moment that Arnie realised spiders made noise. A screaming noise rose up from the group as they were attacked by the needle birds. Although the spoons were dancing around to their music in a similar way as they had before, they took a different approach with the spiders than they had with the paintbrushes. In teams of two the spoons would find a spider and one of them would fall to the ground. The other spoon would use his companion as a catapault to cast the spider over the village wall and into the distance. Arnie looked and noticed these spiders would flee, scurrying off up the track and away.