Ben and the Spider Gate Read online

  BEN

  AND THE

  SPIDER GATE

  Angela Fish

  Copyright © 2019 Angela Fish

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Matador®

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  ISBN 9781838599560

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  Contents

  1 Ben Meets Lox

  2 Gran Tells Ben About Autumn

  3 The Birthday Wish

  4 The Adventure Game

  5 Following The Magpies

  6 The Woods

  7 Scoot’s Search

  8 The Final Piece

  9 The Spider Wizard’s Magic

  1

  Ben Meets Lox

  There was once a boy called Ben, who lived in a little house with his mum, dad and grandmother, and a dog called Scoot. Ben liked his house. He had his own bedroom and out of the window he could see the back garden. Ben loved the garden. It was his favourite place in the whole world.

  The garden had a path right down the middle and a shed near the back door. Dad grew vegetables on one side of the path, and on the other side there was a lawn and two big trees at the far end. There was a tall hedge all the way around the outside of the garden, with a little gate into the back lane. Each spring the robins would come and build their nest in the hedge. Ben used to listen to them chirping to each other. He was so excited when their eggs were hatched. The baby birds made such a lot of noise and he really wanted to see them.

  ‘They’ll be frightened, Ben,’ his dad told him. ‘They’re so tiny and you’d look like a giant to them.’ So Ben waited and it wasn’t long before he could see mum and dad robin flying in and out of the hedge looking for food for the chicks. Every evening Ben used to help his dad to fill up the bird feeders which hung on the side of the shed. From his bedroom window he could watch the robins, sparrows and lots of other birds pecking for the seeds. His mother was teaching him the names of the birds but he couldn’t always remember all of them. When the little robins started to fly, Ben was sad because he knew they’d soon move away.

  ‘Never mind, Ben,’ his mum told him, ‘they’ll be back next year.’ He knew she was right but a whole year seemed like such a long time.

  One day, near the end of the summer holidays, Ben was playing in the garden with Scoot. Scoot was a black and white dog and he was very clever. Ben’s dad had a special whistle and he’d trained Scoot to come to him whenever the dog heard it. At the start of the holidays Ben’s dad had taught Ben how to use the whistle and he tried it now.

  ‘Good boy, Scoot! You’re so smart. Let’s play ball now.’

  Even though Scoot was little, he could run very fast. Ben threw the ball high in the air and Scoot jumped up after it and then chased it down the garden path. Ben laughed, then he sat down on the grass and watched Scoot pushing the ball around with his nose. The sun was hot and after a while Scoot lay down in the shade of the garden shed and rested his head on his paws. Ben began to feel sleepy as well and his eyes started to close.

  When he opened them again he thought he was still asleep and dreaming. He wasn’t a big boy any more, he was a very little boy. He wasn’t much bigger than one of the daisies that were growing in the grass! He looked around. Everything looked the same only now it was huge, even Scoot, who was looking at Ben as if he was one of his toys.

  Very carefully, Ben crawled towards the path but he stopped when he heard a strange noise. It sounded like someone was crying.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Ben called out. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m over here, on top of the box next to the tree,’ came the answer.

  Ben jumped and turned around. He rubbed his eyes and stared at the box. That morning it had been just an ordinary shoe box that he kept his toy cars in, but now it looked as big as a garage. On top of the box sat a big spider, but Ben wasn’t frightened because the spider looked so sad, and big fat tears were dropping down from his eyes.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Ben asked. ‘Why are you crying?’

  ‘I’ve lost something,’ the spider sobbed. ‘Well, someone stole it, really.’

  ‘Oh no.’ Ben moved a little closer. ‘Can I help you find it?’

  The spider crawled down from the box and looked at Ben. ‘Well, maybe. Come and sit over here and I’ll tell you about it.’ So Ben sat down and the spider began his story.

  ‘I am called Lox and I am the guardian of the spider kingdom’s gate. It was made many years ago to stop anything coming in to our land. Spiders can pass in and out but only through the gate. I have to make sure that it’s guarded at all times but this morning, when I came to check, the night guard was missing and a huge bird was breaking up the gate.’

  ‘A bird?’ Ben looked worried. He hoped it wasn’t the robins. He hadn’t seen them for a while but that didn’t mean that they weren’t around. ‘What kind of bird?’

  ‘What do you mean, what kind?’ the spider asked. ‘Birds are birds. It looked like that.’ He waved one of his legs towards the house and Ben could see an enormous magpie perched on the roof.

  ‘Anyway, I tried to save the gate but he pecked at me so I hid in the grass. I saw him break the gate into three pieces, and then he picked them up in his beak and flew off. I saw one piece fall somewhere near the box but I don’t know where he took the others.’ Lox began to cry again. Ben patted the leg nearest to him.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ he said. ‘I’ll help you. What does the gate look like?’

  The spider dried his eyes with his two front legs, then ran through the grass to the back of the box. ‘Come on,’ he shouted to Ben, ‘see if we can find the first piece, then you’ll know. It’s here somewhere.’

  Ben ran after him and together they pushed through the grass and daisies until Lox called out, ‘Here. Here it is. Please help me pull it out.’ Ben stared. Just at the bottom of one of the trees was a large dandelion and poking out from under its leaves was something that looked very much like part of a spider’s web. This wasn’t soft and squashy though, it was hard and shiny. It was just like the gates he’d seen at the front of the castle in his story book.

  ‘Pull!’ said Lox, and Ben helped him to drag the piece of gate along the path and under the hedge. It was hard work as the piece was nearly as big as Ben. ‘Over here.’ Lox pointed and Ben could see a cave at the back of the hedge near the fence.

  ‘But who made this gate?’ Ben scratched his head. ‘Why does it look like a cobweb but it isn’t?’

  Lox smiled. ‘It is a web but it was made here long, long ago by the Spider Queen’s
workmen. When it was finished and it covered the entrance, the queen’s wizard sang a magic song and the web became hard and strong. It’s never been broken until now and it’s all my fault.’

  Ben thought Lox was going to cry again so he said quickly, ‘No, it’s not. It was the magpie. My gran says that magpies love shiny things. Can’t the wizard make a new gate?’

  ‘No,’ Lox said. ‘The gate-making song only works twice and there’s another gate at the far end of the kingdom, so the song can’t be sung again.’

  ‘If I help you find the other pieces, can it be fixed together again?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ Lox said, ‘but the wizard’s magic will only work until the leaves on the trees fall off.’

  Ben thought for a moment. Lox meant autumn, when all the leaves turned red, or orange, or brown before they fell off the trees, but Ben wasn’t quite sure when that would be. He’d have to ask Gran. She knew everything, but how would she be able to see or hear him now that he was so small? He turned to Lox.

  ‘All right. I’ll help you but I have to go back to my house now. Call your guards and make them stay here. I’ll come back to let you know if I find anything. If I’m bigger than this next time, will you be afraid of me?’

  Lox looked at Ben. ‘What do you mean – bigger?’

  Ben put his hands in his pockets and hopped from foot to foot. ‘Well, I’m not usually this small,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what happened to me but if I go back to being big, I promise I won’t hurt you when I come back.’

  Lox looked a little bit worried but nodded his head. ‘All right, but please hurry.’

  Ben ran as quickly as he could through the grass. It seemed such a long way now that he was so tiny. When he reached the edge of the grass he had to climb up onto the path. This made him very tired so he sat down for a rest. He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep. When he woke up, Scoot was licking his hand. Ben stared at Scoot. He wasn’t huge at all. Then Ben looked at his own hands and feet and saw that he was back to his normal size.

  ‘Oh, Scoot. I must have been dreaming all the time. Silly me!’ he said. ‘Come on, time for tea.’ Then he threw Scoot’s ball towards the back door of the house and they both chased after it.

  2

  Gran Tells Ben About Autumn

  Ben opened the kitchen door but he could see that Scoot was pawing and licking at something that was caught in the doormat. ‘What have you got there, boy? Let me see.’ Scoot wagged his tail but he didn’t want to give up his prize and he kept his paw over it. ‘Come on, Scoot, show me. You can have a biscuit if you do.’ Ben reached inside the kitchen door and took a biscuit from Scoot’s bowl. ‘Here, Scoot. Here.’ Ben offered the treat to Scoot. The dog jumped for it and moved off the mat. Ben poked his fingers through the back of the mat and tried to push out what was stuck there. All of a sudden something popped out onto the floor and Ben picked it up.

  ‘Yuk, Scoot. You slobbered all over it.’ Ben made a face and wiped the thing on his trousers and then put it on the palm of his hand. It was small and hard, and looked like a piece of chain or something like that. Once it was dry it began to shine in the sunlight and Ben prodded it with his finger. His eyes opened wide and he sat down suddenly on the doorstep.

  ‘Oh, Scoot! Look what you found. Look.’ Scoot pushed his wet nose against Ben’s hand and wagged his tail hard. ‘It’s another piece, Scoot. Another piece of the spider gate.’

  Ben ran back down the garden path with Scoot right behind him. When he was near the hedge he lay flat on the ground and crawled towards the spider cave. Now that he was normal size it looked very small. There was no sign of Lox – just two ordinary-looking garden spiders who scuttled away when they saw Ben. He tried calling out quietly, ‘Lox, Lox, it’s me, Ben. I found another piece. Look!’ After a few minutes he knew Lox wasn’t coming out, so he put the piece of gate very carefully next to the cave and wriggled away.

  ‘Come on Scoot. Time to go in.’ They both ran up the path and into the kitchen where Ben’s grandmother was having a cup of tea and reading the newspaper.

  ‘Hello, Ben. What have you been up to? You look as though you could do with a bath.’ Gran smiled at him and Ben wondered if he should tell her about Lox and the gate. He thought he would, but maybe later when she read him his bedtime story. Now he wanted to find out more about autumn.

  ‘Gran?’

  ‘Yes, Ben? What is it?’

  ‘When does autumn start?’

  ‘Oh dear, that’s a hard question. People usually say that autumn begins near the end of September but there’s no exact date, really. Why do you want to know?’ Gran smiled at him again.

  ‘I just wanted to know when the leaves change colour and fall off. That is in autumn, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right, Ben, but they don’t all change colour and fall at the same time. Some change quite quickly and others take a lot longer, and then they fall off. There are some that don’t change at all. They don’t drop their leaves either. They’re called evergreens.’

  Ben frowned. He didn’t know that. He thought that perhaps Lox didn’t know either. If some leaves stayed green all year, did that mean they had more time to find the other piece of the gate? Ben didn’t know, so he thought he had better try to find the missing piece as soon as possible, just to make sure that the wizard’s magic would work.

  He knew he had to do it, although it was only a week until school started.

  Later, after the family had eaten and Ben had had his bath, his grandmother sat beside him to read him a story.

  ‘What would you like tonight, Ben?’ she asked.

  Ben thought for a moment then said, ‘Can I tell you a story tonight, Gran? A made-up one?’

  ‘Oh, that’s a good idea,’ Gran nodded, ‘but don’t make it too long otherwise I shall fall asleep, just like you do when I read to you!’

  Ben laughed. Gran was funny but she did know a lot and he liked talking to her. He said that the story was about a boy called Jake and his adventure in a garden. Then he told her all about the things that had happened to him that day. When he had finished, Gran said, ‘Well, Ben. That was amazing. What an excellent story. Are you going to tell me the rest of it tomorrow?’

  Ben wrinkled his nose. ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure how it will end yet. I’ll tell you when I know.’

  ‘All right. You do that. Now, it’s time for sleep.’ Gran kissed him goodnight and put out the light. Ben was so tired that he was asleep in minutes.

  Every day Ben searched. He looked on the paths, the front lawn, in the flower beds, the vegetable garden and under the hedge. He poked a stick into the drains, under the shed and into the little holes in the trees – but he found nothing. Scoot thought it was great fun and ran around, wagging his tail.

  On the night before school started, Ben asked his grandmother to show him on the kitchen calendar when autumn might start. She took a pencil and put a cross on the twenty-first of September.

  ‘About then, I think,’ she said, ‘but that’s only the start, remember. The leaves don’t change colour overnight.’

  Ben settled down in bed and he tried to sleep, but he kept thinking about Lox and the gate. He’d made a promise to the spider and he really wanted to keep it, but he knew that he wouldn’t have much time to search after tomorrow as he didn’t come home from school until four o’clock. He would have the weekends, though. He could look all day Saturday and Sunday if his mum or dad didn’t need any help with anything. He felt better about that and soon fell asleep.

  The next day Ben’s mum took him to school in the car. On the way they picked up his best friend, Jess. Sometimes Jess came over to play with Ben but she had been staying at her cousin Poppy’s house this summer and so Ben hadn’t seen her very often.

  ‘Hi, Ben,’ Jess grinned at Ben. ‘Had a good holiday?’

  ‘Hi, Jess,’ Ben grinned back. ‘It was all right. What about you?’

  They chatted all the way to school and then pl
ayed in the yard before the bell rang. Inside, they sat together and were soon busy with their sums and drawings. The day seemed to go by very quickly. Ben thought he might tell Jess about Lox, but then he changed his mind. He knew that Jess would want to come and look at the cave but Lox might be afraid or even cross if Ben brought someone else there. After all, it was a kind of secret place, wasn’t it? So he decided to keep the secret to himself for a while. If he ever saw Lox again, he could ask him if Jess could come to see the cave door.

  That evening, when Ben was ready for bed, he took a pencil and put a cross on the calendar where Gran showed him. That was today. After that he did the same every night. He was allowed to play in the garden for a little while after school but it wasn’t really long enough to do much searching. He was also running out of places to look. He wanted to go out into the lane but he knew he wasn’t allowed to go there on his own. He would have to wait for his dad to take him, maybe at the weekend.

  But when the weekend came it was raining, so all Ben could do was look out of his window. The weather was bad for a whole week and the calendar page was filling up with crosses. When he reached the number twenty-one, Ben rushed outside to look at the leaves. Most of them were still green, but he was worried now that he wasn’t going to find the last piece of the gate in time.

  3

  The Birthday Wish

  Two weeks later, on a Friday when Ben came home from school, he could see that the leaves on the big trees in his garden were turning yellow. He started to cry, but then remembered that it was his birthday the next day and that he’d be having a party with a birthday cake. The weather looked as if it was going to be fine, so he thought he’d still have time to search some more.

  That night, Gran told him about the words that he had to say before he blew all the candles out and made a wish.

  ‘Remember, Ben, your wish won’t come true unless you say the magic words. Come on, one more try.’