The young oak tree 7/8

Neither Jennifer Jane nor her dad slept very well that night. She wanted to start looking long before breakfast time, but Abigail wouldn’t let her go without a good meal inside her.

“If your mum really is being kept hostage somewhere, then she’s not going to be hurt while she’s still useful to the kidnappers. We’ll all feel a lot better when we’ve had something to eat and tried to think of a plan to rescue her.”

The table had been cleared and Jennifer Jane was just going to ask Abigail to check that her mother was still somewhere in Lurbridge, when one of the guard witches from the castle side of the Home ran into the Refectory.

“I think you’d better all come to the other side,” she said, “the giant is heading this way with his carrying box and I think I can see Jennifer Jane’s mum inside waving to us.”

None of them wasted any time. They all jumped up from the table ran through the castle and out over the drawbridge. The witch was quite right; Mary had already climbed out of the box and was saying ‘thank you’ to Arthur.
Five minutes later the whole family were back at their table, while Mary told them her story in between mouthfuls of breakfast cereal.

“I realised something was wrong when they said you’d had an accident on your broom, so when the men landed the carpet to ask the way in the fog, I ran away and hid.”

“I’ve just had an idea,” said Jennifer Jane, “I’m just going to pop round to see Robert, I shan’t be too long.”

She ran as far as the workshop door, then stopped for a moment to get her breath back. Very quietly she went inside and crept up on a person bending over the works of a cloud that had come in for repair.

“Can you help me?” she asked loudly, “I’m wondering if any one from here used a flying carpet yesterday.”

Malcolm jumped up and turned to look at her with a very strange expression on his face. He quickly composed himself and gave her a weak smile.

“Good heavens miss, you did give me a start,” he said, “I never heard you come in! Er, did any one use a flying carpet yesterday I think you said. Let me see now, it should be booked out in our files if one was. I’ll just go and have a look.”

He walked off to the little office at the end of the workshop and began rummaging around in a heap of papers spread all over the desk. At that point a cloud slowly came into the workshop being pushed by Robert.

“This one tests out OK Malcolm,” he said, “oh hello Jennifer Jane I didn’t see you there. How can I help you?”