Lizard's Leap: Chapter Thirty One: How To Halve An Apple

They were letting the reality of this crazy world sink in when they reached the drawbridge. King Luke peered into the murky water looking for the golden key. The crocs appeared and weren’t going to let anybody get near. They’d learned that whenever anybody tried to get the key, lunch followed.

‘Right,’ Kerry said, getting down to business. ‘Mark, I need you to leap home and get some stuff.’ She reeled off a list. ‘And look in on Nana and Granddad to buy us more time.’

No sooner had he disappeared than he leaped back again, time was a funny thing. He landed right in front of them on the drawbridge and nearly knocked Good King Luke off balance. Mark laid out the things that he’d brought from home and Luke’s eyes widened with curiosity; he hadn’t seen any of these odd things before.

Kerry, who enjoyed being in charge, started work on the challenge. ‘Mark and Vicki, you go and call the crocs to the other side of the moat and stroke them for five minutes. If they swim off, whistle to let us know.’

The two crocodiles—who minutes before had been hungry predators—turned into lap-crocs as they were called out of the water for some petting time. As before, they twisted their heads so that Mark and Vicki could reach behind their head. It didn’t seem to occur to the crocodiles that these were the same beings that tasted good if they landed in the water.

At the other side of the moat, Kerry got to work. She didn’t have a lot of time before Tick and Tock got bored with their new friends. She assembled Mark’s fishing rod working out which section fitted into which. The reel gave her some trouble, as she’d never used one before; but soon the rod was threaded and ready for use. Instead of hooking the line and baiting it, she attached a nine-inch magnet to the line.

She was ready to fish.

King Luke was mesmerised as Kerry fed the line into the water, watching the magnet sink lower and lower until it became lost in silt and mud at the bottom of the moat. They waited for the water to clear, and then she very slowly moved the magnet towards the large iron key. Kerry felt a tug as the key attached itself to the magnet and she began to reel in the line, slowly at first, and then faster. Suddenly, the line went slack and she groaned as she realised that the key had fallen back to the bottom of the moat.

‘Oh, me. Me!’ gasped King Luke, jumping up and down. ‘My turn. I demand a turn, by order of the King. I decree a turn at fooshing.’

‘Fishing,’ Kerry shouted, exasperated. ‘You are rude. No, you can’t have a go because I’ve caught the key again.’ She reeled the line in more carefully.

Very, very slowly, she turned the reel handle as gently as possible so that the key didn’t jolt off the magnet. Luke was sulking again, but brightened as the slimy green key appeared out of the water. He jumped up and down and clapped his hands just as a shrill whistle came to them from the other side of the moat. Five seconds later the two ferocious crocodiles were snapping at the hands that were just out of reach.

‘We’ve got it, we’ve got it,’ shouted Kerry excitedly as the others ran up to them. ‘We’ve got the golden key,’

King Luke had lost interest in treasure was fired up with the concept of fooshing. Mark said that Luke could borrow his fishing rod for a couple of weeks so that the castle Maker could craft something similar. He also promised that before they left he would show the King how to bait the line with fresh juicy worms so that they could catch some fresh fish for supper. King Luke was delighted. King Luke was also easily distracted and was far more interested in fooshing than continuing with the final puzzle.

They were riding high on their success and were keen to see if Mark’s idea would be successful for the second part. They had to force King Luke to put the fishing rod down and virtually dragged him back into the castle. But their enthusiasm was to be short-lived.

King Luke unlocked a security door that kept hapless explorers away from the Hall of a Thousand Spikes, or the Hall of Death, as it was also known. They stood at the threshold of the perfectly ordinary, though extremely long corridor.

‘Doesn’t look so scary to me,’ Mark said, scornfully.

‘No? King Luke asked.

‘Uh-uh. There’s no spikes, look, it’s just a stupid story to keep people way from the treasure. I’m not scared I’ll just walk down there right now.’ He went to step over the threshold but Vicki pulled him back. It looked ordinary enough, but this place was crazy. She was worried about it.

Luke took a red apple out of his pocket. He very slowly polished it on his tunic, confiding that ermine fur makes a wonderful apple polisher.

Emma was about to say that fur belongs on beautiful animals and not ugly Kings, but, knowing how King Luke was prone to both sulking and throwing people willy-nilly into the dungeons, she thought better of it.

King Luke took a bite out of the apple and chewed it slowly, enjoying being the centre of attention and taking his time to make his point. Mark was just about to ask for a bite when Luke took a step back, then using forward momentum he bowled the apple over-arm down the hall.

It sailed through the air for several seconds before coming to land about halfway down the long corridor. The children giggled when nothing happened.

‘Maybe the spikes seized up,’ laughed Mark.

King Luke just shrugged his shoulders and stood with his hands in his royal pockets.

Suddenly, an earth-cracking blast came from the ground beneath their feet and froze the laughter on their lips. One thousand, ten-inch spikes rose in a split second, littering the hall floor and gleaming in pointed splendour. The apple was impaled on a spike halfway down the corridor. After a minute, during which nobody said a word, the mechanism below them cranked into action and the spikes lowered back beneath the ground.

The apple plonked onto the smooth floor, cut into two perfectly symmetrical halves, minus one bite.