The Crying Pennant

Part 20

  The others grabbed him and pulled, With looking for his hand. There was no hand at the end, “Oh my Lord,” he cried, “he’s lost his hand.”

  “Only fooling,” laughed Alf as he punched his fist out of his armhole.

  The others started to punch him because they cared about him until he yelled, “Enough, you’re hurting me.”

  As they stopped they realised that a secret door had indeed opened in the wall, “Come on then, seeing as you found it, pansy you can go in first,” ordered Sid.

  Alf took the lamp and entered followed by the others, Sid closed the secret door and they all walked down the passageway not knowing what was ahead.

“Tell me if Joe turns up,” said Joella, “he’s got to come in for his tea.” Joella disappeared under the stage.

  Joe appeared “Hello.” The children went wild, “He’s there, he’s there,” they shouted.

  Joella popped up again, “Where is he children?”

  They all shouted, “Behind you, behind you.”

  The puppets moved around each other, Joella unable to see Joe.

  “He’s there, he’s there,” they shouted again.

A tall goblin child shouted, “Are you stupid? He’s on your head.” He walked over to the puppets and pulled Joe off Lee’s hand then pushed Joe into Joella. 

  Lee shouted, “If you’re not going to be good, the puppet theatre will stop, now give me back my puppet.”

  The tall goblin child threw the puppet into the puppet theatre, the other children also started to throw food into it and they ended up charging up to and tearing the cloth covering of the puppet theatre. Lee stood there still trying to wriggle the Joe puppet onto his left hand. “Helllllp!”

  “Right,” righted Ugbash, as he chased children around with his stick until they had settled down.

They were poring over the map, and the map did not like it at all, “Make up your mind you lot, and try not to poke me.”

  “Because this is a secret passage, we don’t know where it will come out unless the map tells us, and he’s being funny because he doesn’t have a leather cover,” commented Sid.

  With pointed to the map, “We will probably come out near the throne room, because this is probably an escape passage for the Dark Lord.”

  “It might be guarded,” said Arthur, who wasn’t supposed to be there and just as quickly vanished.

  “That’s true,” thought Alf. “We will have to wait till night so that we can be sure that nobody is there, but how can we tell it’s night?”

  “I’ll tell you,” said the author. And they all seemed pleased with that so they waited.

  “I think that was a really well entertained party,” said Ugbash, trying to be enthusiastic.

  “Oh, I thought it didn’t go too well, Biggs has a few bruises and my puppet theatre needs a major repair.”

  “As I said it was good. You can rest now, then eat with the Dark Lord tonight, a bit of light entertainment would be delightful. You may go back to your room or you can use the facilities for guests on the ground floor, the pool, snooker or the