No Adults Allowed

Twelve

(oh yeah, Tilda is with us too. Not sure why)

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This is so cool. We're OUTSIDE CRAGSIDE. No-one has done this before! We're proper explorers. Adventurers. Never thought I'd so something like this. I WRITE about this stuff, I don't actually DO it. I always figured Harry would do this stuff, then come back and tell me all about it.But, actually, being here is special. It's more than I thought it would be. There's something really different about having real experiences, rather than just making up fake ones. Who'da thought it?

Still not sure where we're going. SHRUG. Eva seems confident.

Aah, Eva.

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Man, imagine if Ramin wasn't here. If it was just me, Eva, Erik and Robin. And I suppose Tilda (still not sure why she's here). Out in the wilds. No Ramin. Just me and Eva. Wow, that'd be something. Maybe she'd get into trouble, like fall down a hole or something, and I'd be the only one who could save her. Erik's too small. Tilda is, well, Tilda. Robin doesn't do anything if he's not told to do it. I'd fashion a rope out of vines, tie them round a rock and jump in to the rescue. I'd find her at the bottom of a deep cave, her fall broken by shallow water. Shivering and wet and cold, but happy to see me. She'd cling on to my neck as the others pulled us up and out, her body warming against mine.

ARGH NEED TO THINK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE

OK, so we're still not really sure where we're going. All we have is a six year old's random sketch. Eva says we're following the sun.

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Everything just got a whole lot weirder. We found an old building in some ruins. As in, surrounded by ruins, but the building itself was kind of sunken into the ground, and not really damaged at all except for mud and stuff. We got in, and it was all ultra dark, even with Robin's big torch.

Here's the crazy bit: there was a FLASHING BUTTON. Didn't work for anyone - until ERIK pressed it. Erik! What's that about? We think maybe it's because he's been here before.

OK, rewind. Yeah, so he thinks he's been here. But, because he's six, he can't tell us anything that's actually useful. Anyway, he got the lights on and unlocked one of the doors. The whole place had a totally different look to anything else I've ever seen, like it was built by aliens or something. Inside was some kind of nursery, and loads of kids toys, and Erik had DEFINITELY been there. It was all super creepy, but nothing bad actually happened.

We couldn't get any of the other doors open - even with Erik's Magic Finger - but we did find some cool stuff. These things we're calling Talkies, which we can use to talk to each other even when we're really far away. Only got two, but it means we can explore a lot more ground faster. Also magic torches, which Eva assures me are not actual magic, but it's more fun to think of them that way. You just press a button and on comes the light - a bit like when you're in Temple, except you can carry these things around. Eva doesn't get how they're powering themselves. They kept working even when we took them outside.

Also: a map. Not a scribble by a tiny squirt, but a real map. We could see where we were, we could see Cragside on it, and we could see a route marked out, taking us further south. A REALLY long way south, actually.

Eva even asked if any of us wanted to turn back, return to Cragside, but we're all way too into this now. We all want to know what's going on, and where the map's going to take us. Even Tilda!

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The Talkies are so fun! Actually played some hide and seek with Erik using them, and used the squawks from the devices to find each other. Eva told us off a bit for wasting the power, but even she had to admit that she didn't know whether that was even a thing. The Talkies and torches must have been lying around for ages, so if the power has lasted that long...?