Chapter One Starts Here


Chapter One

… Alex was bored. He was with his Mum and Dad by the swimming-pool of the Hotel they were staying at, in Shropshire. He didn’t feel like swimming. After all, he’d been in the pool almost all morning. There weren’t any other children to play with. All the other Hotel guests were grown-ups. He’d read all the books he’d brought with him. And now his mother was asking if he’d like her to read Alice in Wonderland to him again. Alice was his mother’s favourite book when she was a little girl.

Huh, he thought, girls, that’s for girls, and it’s stupid. About getting smaller. Then, bigger. And silly smiling cats and stupid songs. It’s old. Ancient history.

No thanks, he replied aloud, I’m going for a walk.

Don’t go far then Alex Mum said, Just up as far as the Dyke. No further. Promise! Dad didn’t say anything. He was asleep in the sun-lounger snoring quietly with his mouth open. He was tired as in the morning he had gone fishing down by the river.

O.K. Mum. See you later.

Alex wandered off down the track beside the Hotel garden that led to the Dyke that divided England from Wales. He’d been here several times already with his Dad. He liked walking beside it imagining all the battles that had happened here. Dad told him about some of them. He was a History teacher so he knew what he was talking about. Alex soon pictured the bows and arrows whizzing through the air, the charging horses. He Alex, would be on the English side.

Now, he kicked a clump of earth that was sticking out from the bank. On top of it there was a hole. A rabbit’s burrow, he thought. He kicked it again, still feeling a bit angry, because he was bored. Actually, he was missing his Dad’s company. There was no one to play with and no one to pick a fight with.



He kicked the earth once more, then sat down on the grass and peered into the hole ...

… Bloss Me!

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