Lizard's Leap: Chapter Twenty Three: The First Puzzle

‘Where do we find the first puzzle?’ asked Mark, eager to begin the quest. They were all excited.

‘Should we tell them, Og?’ GC asked. Og nodded her head and grinned. ‘Okay, listen carefully because I’m too tired to be repeating myself. Ready?’

They nodded their heads. This was turning into a fantastic leap and they hadn’t even got into the castle.

‘Okay, combine the number of crocks to the rocks, add seasoning and remove flower. Yank the hank and if the number’s right, apply hope to the rope.’

‘What?’ Kerry said, annoyed. ‘That doesn’t make sense. ‘What do you mean?’

‘That’s the clue kid, take it or leave it.’ GC muttered, obviously bored with the interruption and keen to settle back into his slumber.

After some time, they were no closer to a solution than when they first sat on the drawbridge to ponder the problem. What made thinking even more difficult was the regular and monotonous snoring from GC. It sounded like an elephant in agony.

‘Oh, I’m fed up,’ Vicki said. She had very little patience. ‘This is stupid. What does it mean? Cooking pots and rocks and salt ‘n’ pepper and flour. And does he mean plain or self-raising flour? It makes all the difference if you want your cakes to rise, you know. I never was any good at cooking. How are we supposed to know the recipe, or what to do with it? It’s dumb.’

The talk of cakes distracted Mark from his thinking and he moaned about how starving he was. ‘Do you think they’ll have cakes inside the castle?’ The others ignored him.

‘Okay,’ Emma said. ‘Let's go through it again. Crocks and rocks, what do you think that means?’

‘Well crocs could be something to do with a dinner service or it might be crocodiles,’ Kerry offered.

‘Oh, at last,’ came a grumpy voice behind them. ‘I thought you were never going to get there.’ Og eyed GC to make sure that he really was asleep and then whispered to them, ‘I’m not supposed to give you any clues, but try calling the crocs by name.’

‘What are their names?’ Kerry asked, innocently.

‘Don’t you even know that?’ Og didn’t have a lot of patience, either. ‘Are all human children as slow as you lot or are you the exceptions of your species? Well, if it’s the only way to get rid of you and get some peace—’she lowered her voice. ‘Think about the noise a clock makes.’

‘Um, bing bong, bing bong,’ Mark said

Og groaned and shook her head.

‘Tick, tock,’ Kerry said.

‘Bravo,’ Og replied, beaming,’ knew you’d get there in the end, even if you are human. Yes, that’s the name of your two crocs. Though if it takes you as long to solve the rest of the puzzle the castle will have turned to dust, and me and the snoring rock with it.’

‘Well,’ said Emma, who thought she was very clever. ‘We only need to know how many there are so we don’t need to bother calling them, do we? Let’s go on to the next part. Combine crocks to roc…’

‘I want to see them,’ Mark yelled, excitedly. He ran over to the guard-rail and peered down into the moat. ‘Tick,’ he called, ‘Tock.’ Nothing happened and he was just about to turn away when there was an enormous splash directly behind them.

For the second time Mark almost fell into the moat; only this time the others nearly toppled over the guard-rail with him. They wheeled around and there, with their scaly grey snouts on the drawbridge, were the two vicious looking crocodiles.

‘Nice one, Mark. What do you do for an encore?’ Emma hissed.

Kerry, who had a passion for anything reptilian was enthralled and gasped in wonder. The other three gasped in sheer terror and pressed hard into the rail, shuffling their feet as far back and away from the protruding teeth as it was possible to get without landing in the moat with the crocodiles.

‘We’re going to die,’ Vicki whispered, theatrically.

‘Don’t be so stupid,’ Og said. ‘They’d have eaten you by now if they were going to. They want you to stroke their snouts.’

‘Hang on just one second,’ Emma said. ‘Now, I know you think we’re stupid, but there are differing degrees of stupidity, you know, and we are way down the ladder from stroking children-eating crocodiles.’

‘Wow,’ Mark said. ‘This is the best thing ever, stroking a real live croc. I can’t wait to have grandkids to tell them this one.’ He was already down on his knees and moving slowly towards the nearest croc.

‘Well, some of us are,’ Emma finished.

Mark stretched out his hand and the crocodile blinked. Mark’s hand shot back to his side a lot faster than it had reached out. ‘Maybe I won’t bother just now, after all. Not that I’m scared, or anything. I just don’t want to get my hand wet.’

He put his trembling hand back into his pocket and tried to appear unconcerned. But, despite whistling and swaying from side to side, he fooled nobody.

Kerry knelt down beside him and put her hand firmly on the animal’s long nose and rubbed it. The crocodile tilted his head into her hand. Soon, all four of them—even Mark the Brave and Emma the Not-stupid—were stroking Tick and Tock. They were convinced the crocodiles were grinning from ear to ear and they would have been if they’d had any ears.

Eventually the crocs grew bored with the game and, as if there had been some sign, flipped back into the water. They sped away, swimming fast and they did a furious lap of the huge moat. Half a minute later they approached from the other side of the bridge and in perfect synchronisation flipped their strong tails in the water sending a huge wave of spray over the cousins. It was just like being at Seaworld; but with crocodiles instead of dolphins. They laughed and waved goodbye to the crocodiles as they swam away into the deep water of the moat.

‘Okay,’ Emma said, going back to the puzzle. ‘Add the crocs to the rocks. Rocks? Rocks? What can that mean? Can you see any rocks anywhere?’

‘Ahem,’ Og, coughed.

‘Shush, please, Og,’ Vicki said. ‘We’re trying to think.’

‘Of course,’ Kerry shrieked. ‘It’s Og. It’s the gargoyles. Add the crocks to the rocks. So we’ve got two crocks and two gargoyles. That makes four. What’s next?’

‘Add seasoning,’ Emma remembered. ‘Something to do with salt and pepper?’

‘Not necessarily. What if it’s something to do with the seasons?’ Kerry said.

‘The four seasons,’ yelled Mark. ‘Four and four is eight. Remove flour. Remove could be minus. Minus flour? What do you think it means? Any ideas?’

‘Dunno,’ Vicki shrugged. They sat down again and continued to think. This wasn’t as easy as they’d hoped.

‘Psst.’ said a voice from above. ‘Whistle up at the windows.’

‘What do you mean, whistle to the windows?’
Mark asked. But Og just looked smug and refused to say anymore.

They whistled as loudly as they could and they saw movement in some of the narrow castle windows. As they looked more closely, they saw three plastic flowers in three different windows. They danced when you made a noise. As the children whistled, the little plastic flowers, in their little plastic pots, did their little plastic dance with big yellow smiles painted on their little brown faces.

‘Three flowers!’ they yelled.

‘Eight minus three is five,’ Kerry said. ‘We’ve got the answer. It’s five. We have to ring the bell-pull five times. Combine the number of crocks to the rocks, add seasoning and remove flower. Yank the hank and if the number’s right, apply hope to the rope.’

They jumped up and down and hugged each other with excitement.

But all the noise had woken up GC.

‘Now, what’s going on? Is it one of them there new-fangled football matches where you kick a pig’s stomach round the place? We never had hooligans in the days of the gladiators, you know. Twenty-three winks, if only I could reach twenty-four,’ he sighed, wistfully. ‘Are you lot still here? You make more noise than a battalion of Scots charging the castle in kilts.’

‘I’m sorry we woke you again, GC,’ Vicki said. ‘We’ve solved the clue and we’re going to ring the bell five times.’

‘And what do you want me to do about it, give you a medal?’

Mark thought that he’d like a medal but one look at GC’s angry face made him think twice about replying. He pulled the rope. Somewhere far away a cockerel crowed five times. The portcullis lowered on its chains and the huge castle door opened, leading onto a cobbled courtyard.

‘Bye, GC. Bye, Og,’ they shouted as they went through the massive oak door. ‘It was nice meeting you. Hope to see you again soon.’

The gargoyles laughed loudly. ‘Hah, GC, they think they are going to come out again. Do you know, in eight hundred and twenty years nobody has ever come back out of that door?’

They turned around nervously but it was too late. The door was almost shut behind them.

‘Hold your tongue, Woma…’ GC tailed off, falling asleep on the last word. The last thing they heard from outside the castle was a loud snore.