(Josie Sayz: This is the third story, from mine and my friends ‘AMSND’ series that we wrote when we was 13 years old. This story actually was not written by me, but by the girl in the stories who goes my “Shada”. Although this is not my story, it follows in the series of the ‘AMSND’ stories, soI felt like I should include it. This story was based off Cinderella and I am pretty sure a scene in the middle is act three scene one of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
Although each story is a stand alone piece, you can find the rest of the AMSND
series here:
1) A Magic School’s New Dream: https://josiesayz.blogspot.com/2025/01/ansnd-1-magic-schools-new-dream.html
2) The War of Crooked Burrow School: .)
Six Se’enarians go to sea
By Shada
“Oy!” yelled a voice down a corridor. It was Lyra, a Se’enarian. Gertrude stopped dead and turned around slowly.
“What do you want?” she asked Lyra spitefully.
“What’s with this stupid trip that everyone says they’re going on and I haven’t heard anything about?” Lyra asked furiously.
The Ninarian paused and stared down her nose at Lyra. “The reason why you’ve heard nothing about it is that you spend too much time with Year Eights and not enough with your own year group. Try hanging around with Lola, or Xanthe for a change. You might learn something from them.”
“Thanks,” said Lyra sarcastically. “Not! Why can’t I hang around with Robin and the others then? What’s so wrong about Year Sevens and Eights mixing?”
“Because you’re getting too close to my boyfriend,” Gertrude snapped. “Now push off!” And with that, Gertrude turned around and walked off, calling over her shoulder “Tell Shada she’ll NEVER go out with Caleb!”
Lyra looked puzzled. She didn’t know that Shada had a massive crush on Caleb, Gertrude’s boyfriend. Lyra didn’t really talk to Shada or her friends that much.
She decided to go to find Xanthe, who would probably be in the library, to see if she could tell her more about this mysterious trip that she had heard about.
“Hi Lyra!” came a shy but hyper voice. It was Lola, a totally hyper Year Seven.
“Oh hello,” sighed Lyra, sinking into a comfy chair in the library. Their library was called the “EF” or “Everything Found”.
Xanthe wandered over to them from behind a bookshelf and sat down in a neighbouring armchair. “Hi!” she smiled at the two so different yet similar girls. They both smiled back. Then Lyra frowned. “I’ve been told to hang around with you pair, instead of Robin and Ariel and the others.”
“Oh, why?” asked Xanthe. “Who told you that?”
“It was that Year Nine girl everyone’s scared of – Gertrude,” Lyra sighed.
“I’m not scared of her,” Lola began. “Well, not much…”
"Nor am I," said Lyra defensively. "But I'm still curious to know what this trip is all about. So far no one's given me a straight answer. Do you guys know?"
“It’s a trip to Paris, apparently,” Xanthe started to explain. “I don’t know for sure; all Mr. Flourfield would say was that we were going by ship to France. But we’ve heard rumours…”
“Mr. Flourfield!” Lyra exclaimed loudly. “I might have known!” The librarian turned her head to watch the potential troublemakers (it was meant to be quiet in the library at all times).
Gertrude and Mr. Flourfield surveyed the colourful map in front of them. Mr. Flourfield pointed to some red crosses marked on the map and muttered “That’s where it will all be – that’s where we can make our fortune!” Then he gave a deep chuckle and rubbed his hands together greedily. Gertrude giggled, seeing her History teacher in a new light. He would make those lazy, good-for-nothing Year Sevens work like they’d never worked before. It would be marvellous to stand over those shrimps, watching them work and she would get paid to do so as well. Mr. Flourfield was the best teacher ever.
Lyra, Lola and Xanthe stood outside the library, fuming. Well Lyra was fuming, anyway. Xanthe was probably just disappointed – the librarian had just kicked them out for being too noisy.
“I’m never going into a library again, so there!” Lyra shouted, glaring through the library window. Lola giggled; Lyra looked so funny!
“What are you laughing at?” shouted Lyra and stormed off to Mr. Flourfield’s room.
She knocked on the door. “Come in!” came his terrifying voice. She pushed open the door reluctantly, and then hurried in as he said, “Hurry up, I haven’t got all day!” Lyra saw Gertrude vanish into the next room and wondered what she had been doing here. Probably planning this trip; Gertrude was going to be second-in-charge of everyone who was going on the trip.
“What can I do for you, young lady?” boomed Mr. Flourfield.
“Erm…I just want to know…what the trip is about!” stuttered Lyra.
“The trip? I presume you mean the train and ship journey to Paris, in France, lasting one week over the summer half term?”
“Er…yeah, probably. How many places are left?”
“Now let me see,” Mr. Flourfield paused to study a list in Gertrude’s neat precise script. “I would say…twenty minus nineteen – is one. One place left for a Year Seven pupil.”
“Oh. Is there a letter, or something? If so, could I have one please?”
“Certainly, certainly.” He went over to a filing cabinet and opened the second drawer down. He rummaged around in it, and then brought out a piece of paper stapled to another piece of paper. He handed the stapled pieces of paper to Lyra, and then stood back as if to examine her. “Bold, confident and don’t-carish,” he mused. “You could be just what we’re looking for.” Little did Lyra know that she had fallen into a trap. It would have been better for her if she’d never known about the trip.
Five days later, eighteen excited Year Sevens (six of which were Se’enarians) gathered outside Crooked Burrow School early in the morning. Then a Year Nine appeared, followed by a Year Eight. Finally Mr. Flourfield arrived. “Right, now, listen to me!” barked Mr. Flourfield, pulling a list out of his Victorian coat pocket. He began to call a register.
“Arwen; Gertrude… Dannie; Lannie; Drake; Tim; other Tim; Bonnie; Larissa; Samantha; Shada; Xanthe; Lola; Nicky; Drew; Jay; Phoebe; Lizzy; Treg; Lyra,” called Mr. Flourfield. “Good, you’re all here. Now we walk to the train station. Form an orderly crocodile, children, that’s right. And…left, right, left, right, left, right…” On and on called Mr. Flourfield, marching ahead, not realising that the Year Sevens were not following him but had snuck off the back way to the train station, leaving only Arwen and Gertrude to follow him. When Mr. Flourfield, Gertrude and Arwen arrived at the train station they were a bit surprised to see the Year Sevens already there.
A while later the train arrived, and they all got on. The Year Sevens sighed with relief and leant back in their seats as the train began to chug out of the station – and they began their journey.
Then Mr. Flourfield spoke. “Now we are on the train, everyone, it’s time for some ice breakers. Even if you already know each other, they’re still fun and you get to know each other better. For the first one, I have a pack of cards here and I will give you each a suit name for example ‘hearts’. You have to remember your suit name.” He proceeded to randomly give them a suit name each. “I will turn the pack of shuffled cards over, and call out whichever suit the first card is. Say it is hearts. Everyone who is a “heart” has to move one place to their left. This may mean sitting on the person on their left’s lap. The person underneath them now cannot move if their suit name is called. I warn you now, there may end up being four or more people sat on top of you. You’ll see that this game is quite fun as you get used to it. The winner is the person who gets round to their original seat first. This will be more difficult in a train, so we will forget the aisle in between rows and Shada, Samantha, Larissa and Bonnie will have to pass their original seat twice, to make it fair.” He turned the pack over, and the first card was three of clubs. “Clubs!” cried Mr. Flourfield. Everyone who was a club moved to sit on the person on their left’s lap.
This game continued, until there was a winner, who was ‘Annie, because he cheated. “Everyone go back to your original seats!” rumbled Mr. Flourfield. “Now for the next ice breaker! Here is a list of words:
Agony
Bonny
Destructive
Disaster
Dopey
Fun
Golden
Jumping
Lady
Lanky
Laughing
Lollipop
Little
Nice
Silly
Sunny
Tall
Tiny
Trim
Zealous.
You have to take the sound of the first letter of your first name, and find any other people who share that same sound of the first letter of their first name with you. If you find anyone, discuss who should have which word from the list before their name. For example, Gertrude here is the only person with the sound Guh, so her word is “golden” – so she is Golden Gertrude. Then report back to me. Off you go! You have five minutes, starting now.” He took out his pocket watch and noted the time. Then he sat down on an empty seat, as nearly everyone had got up to discuss with others which words they should have. In five minutes everyone was done, and they all reported back to Mr. Flourfield, who read out the results. “We have:
Agony Arwen;
Bonny Bonnie;
Destructive Dannie;
Disaster Drake;
Dopey Drew;
Fun Phoebe;
Golden Gertrude;
Jumping Jay;
Lady Lyra;
Lanky Lannie;
Laughing Lizzy;
Lollipop Lola;
Little Larissa;
Nice Nicky;
Silly Shada;
Sunny Samantha;
Tiny Tim;
Tall Tim;
Trim Treg and last but not least, Zealous Xanthe! While you are on this trip, you will be referred to by your word and then your real name, and not just your name, as there are two people with the same name, and it will make life less confusing. You have half an hour to try to write down from memory or otherwise remember other people’s new names. You have the rest of the journey to remember them. Thank you. You may now refer to me as the Captain.”
“Aye aye, Cap’n,” remarked Drew or rather Dopey Drew as he now was.
“We’re not aboard ship yet, young man!” bristled the Captain. Everyone got out pens and paper, and jotted down other people’s new names.
“Isn’t this fun!” enthused Little Larissa, getting mixed up and putting down “Nasty Nicky” instead of “Nice Nicky”.
“Look, Laz, you’ve done it wrong!” laughed Bonny Bonnie.
“I am Little Larissa to you! Not that I like being called little, but it was better than being a Lady,” giggled Little Laz.
Suddenly Shada had an idea. “Why don’t we do some magic?” she suggested. She had become bored of the ice breakers. She opened her backpack and took out a purple stitched ball.
“Hey, where did you get that?” Laz asked immediately. “Isn’t that Robin’s?”
“Maybe,” Shada replied carelessly, tossing it in the air and catching it a few times.
“Won’t you get into trouble?” asked Sam, concerned.
“Nobody has to know. I just borrowed it for the trip,” Shada explained. “I thought it would liven things up a bit.”
“What are you going to do with it?” Laz was getting worried. She didn’t want them to get into trouble, especially as Mr. Flourfield was in charge.
“Oh, nothing much. Just make people fall in love with other people who they normally wouldn’t,” Shada said, smiling mischievously. “Starting with you!” Laz flinched. “Only kidding,” Shada told her, and got up to talk to Phoebe and Lizzy. She sat down next to them and took out some small bottles of liquid. As Phoebe and Lizzy weren’t Arians they didn’t realise that she was mixing together a love potion to sprinkle on the purple stitched ball which would make the person she threw the ball at fall in love with the first thing they saw. Shada finished the potion, spread a little on the ball and put the remainder of the potion carefully away, making sure that she didn’t touch any of the potion. The last thing she wanted was for herself to fall in love with someone, or even something (the love potion acted strongly enough to make humans fall in love with inanimate objects, if they were the first thing the person saw after being hit by the potion).
Zealous Xanthe and Nice Nicky were sitting together, looking lonely because they didn’t really know each other. Nicky was only sitting there because he had fallen out with Drew and Jay and no one else that he knew well was going on the trip. He knew Treg, but Treg was sitting with the girls and had left Nicky to sit by Xanthe and the goody-goodies Golden Gertrude and Agony Arwen.
Sunny Sam sat down opposite Arwen, who smiled at her. They didn’t know each other at all; Arwen was a Year Eight who was quite quiet and shy and Sam was a Year Seven who was also quite quiet and shy. “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but why did you come on this trip?” Sam asked Arwen.
“Oh, I can do first aid,” replied Arwen. “The Captain wanted a first-aider in case anyone had an accident.”
“Really?” asked Sam eagerly. “I can do first aid, too. It’s kind of a hobby.”
Sam and Arwen got talking about first aid and Nicky and Xanthe listened into their conversation, occasionally saying something. Gertrude sat staring out of the train window at boring buildings and fields going by. She wouldn’t ever be seen willingly talking to Year Sevens! She didn’t care if Arwen did; Arwen was only her sister and in Year Eight. Sam eventually finished talking to Arwen and joined Laz and Bonnie again.
Shada had noticed that Nicky looked lonely. She took aim with the purple stitched ball but just at the moment that she threw it, the train jolted and the ball hit Drake, who was just returning from the toilet. “Whose is this?” he asked, catching it. “Eww, it’s all sticky!”
“Oh, sorry, that’s mine,” Shada said quickly before Mr. Flourfield looked up. Drake handed it back to her, dropping it into a plastic bag that she held out to him. She couldn’t tell who it was that he had looked at first. It seemed that he had looked towards Laz, Sam and Bonnie, but he could possibly have been looking out the window. Shada amused herself for a moment, wondering if Drake had fallen in love with a passing sheep. Then she returned to her normal seat to see if anything interesting would happen involving Drake. Nothing did though.
About an hour and a half later, the train pulled up at their station. Now all they had to do was get out, get to the harbour and catch their ship.
They got to the harbour alright, and in plenty of time. The Year Sevens stared around at all the ships. Then… “Look!” Drake shouted. Everyone turned to see what he was pointing at…
They all gasped. In the harbour a broad ship floated, its black sails outstretched. The sails had the white marks of skull and crossbones. It was a pirate ship.
The Captain strode down the pier to where the plank of the pirate ship was leaning onto the pier. “Here’s our ship!” he cried. All of them apart from Gertrude stared at him in amazement. “Really?” asked Tall Tim in disbelief.
“Yes!” snapped the Captain. “Now everyone, will you please get on the ship!”
They all hurried on to the deck with their luggage. As soon as everyone was on (the Captain checked them off on his register) he ordered for the plank to be taken off and for them to haul up the anchor. Of course no one knew how to do what he had asked them so he had to show them himself. He warned them that next time they would have to remember by themselves.
“I’m gonna lurrrv being on this!” Nice Nicky muttered sarcastically to himself.
Unfortunately Gertrude heard him but instead of saying something nasty she just smiled.
They were sailing away, with hardly a cloud in the sky when the Captain suddenly stormed out of his special cabin and announced that they would be having lessons on how to steer, hoist the sails and scrub the deck. But first he had to tell them where they would be sleeping.
“Sleeping?” asked Zealous Xanthe. “But we’ll be in France before the end of the day, won’t we?”
“Don’t be silly!” laughed Golden Gertrude scornfully. “We’ve only just set off from Bristol. We still have to sail around Cornwall and down before we get anywhere near France!”
“What?” asked Disaster Drake in bewilderment.
“None of you obviously pay much attention in your Geography lessons, do you? Aren’t you learning about the slave trade at the moment? And didn’t you study the country of France last month? Pathetic!” roared the Captain.
Everyone began to talk about this in their friendship groups.
“Quiet!” the Captain bellowed. “I am sick and tired of raising my voice. In fact, I have a sore throat coming on. Will you all just shut up while I tell you some facts? Thank you. Now did you know there is a little island where we will stop over, on about the third day. It is called Frandadis. No map will have it printed on; it’s too small to bother about. There’s no one living there, but there have been rumours that ghosts and spirits live there. I’ll tell you more about this later, at supper. Now, back to business!” The Captain called out where people would be sleeping, and showed them their hammocks on the next floor down. It was a three-tier ship, and the lowest storey had the kitchens and extra storage space in it. After everyone was settled down, the Captain got them all to come up to top deck and gave them lessons on the work they would be required to do. It was much harder than in any lesson at school, because they had to remember everything precisely how the Captain told them.
“Really,” grumbled Jumping Jay. “You would have thought he should be called Captain Evil, the way he’s treating us!” He said this to Little Laz, who was his friend and had known him for a long, long time. She laughed and nodded, and then went back to Bonny Bonnie and Silly Shada who were talking to Sunny Sam.
The next morning Destructive ‘Annie and Lanky Lannie awoke early; they decided to pace along the top deck for a breath of fresh sea air. They were both Arts, and Arts and Musics were still fighting each other, from when Shada had started it all off by refusing to have Arian meetings in Music. “Oh, look, here come some Musics!” commented Lannie.
“Great, let’s fight them,” was ‘Annie’s reply.
“Follow me, but don’t say anything,” warned Nice Nicky to the other Musics who were with him. “Hi!” he said to ‘Annie and Lannie. “I need to have a word with one of you.”
‘Annie didn’t like the Musics at all. “Do something else, as well, then, let’s talk and fight,” he suggested.
“Fine, any minute now!” was Nicky’s reply. “‘Annie, you hang around with Drake –”
“Yeah, I hang around with him! But he’s not here! You’ve got me to fight, or no one. Are you a coward, or will you fight me?”
“I came to talk to you, not fight you!” said Nicky disgustedly. Then Drake appeared.
“Okay, this is the person I wanna fight!” said Nicky happily.
Drake looked shocked. “I’m not going to fight anyone!” he exclaimed. “Nicky, I know we’re enemies being that you’re a Music and I’m an Art and all that, but… I like a girl who’s a Music and so we’re kind of friends, if you get what I mean.”
“That’s my point!” shouted Nicky. “You like a Music, one of us!” By us of course he meant him and other Musics, who on the ship were Little Laz, Bonny Bonnie, Sunny Sam, Lollipop Lola, Lady Lyra, Trim Treg and Golden Gertrude. “So,” continued Nicky. “I’ll fight you, and if I win then you will have to find some Art girl to like instead, but if you win you can still like the Music.”
“Hey, Nicky!” shouted ‘Annie, furious that Nicky still wanted to fight Drake. “Will you fight me or not?”
“Get lost!” laughed Nicky. “All right, you can be Drake’s second. Treg; you’re mine.” And with that, the fight started. Drake was the first one on the ground, but then he sprang up and hit Nicky so hard that Nicky flew up in the air and over the side of the ship, into the water. Fortunately, Nicky could swim. The other Musics threw him a rope and he climbed up the ship with the help of the rope. “Okay,” he panted, shivering, when he had come back over onto the deck of the ship. “You win. You get to ask out the Music you like with my permission. So hurry up. Or I’ll go back on my word!”
“Thanks Nicky!” said Drake, patting Nicky on the back. Then he went off to talk to…Sunny Sam, while the other three were busy talking about the fight.
‘Annie was still grumpy that he couldn’t fight Nicky. He wanted to have been the one to push his enemy over the ship into the sea. ‘Annie thought it was a great shame that Nicky could swim.
Two days later, after much hard work they reached a tiny island. The tired children could see nearly all of it from the ship, it was that small. It was the island of Frandadis, that strange place that the Captain had told ghost stories about on their first night on the ship at supper.
By now almost everyone (apart from Gertrude and some others that the Captain had set as his special spies) hated the Captain and called him Captain Evil. He wasn’t very nice at all now. He made them all work hard and scrub the deck even if they had backache or a headache, and all he did was sit in his cabin, eating cream cakes and doing Su Dokus. Gertrude was his specialist spy, and he had made himself some other spies, next in command to Gertrude. They were Trim Treg, Nasty Nicky (as he was now called by everyone, even other Musics) and Lanky Lannie, who didn’t like his other friends who were Arts much anyway. Also Lady Lyra. She liked the power that she could feel when she was in charge of her friends. Mr. Flourfield, when giving her the letter for the trip, had said she was just what they needed. By that he had meant that Lyra had just the right sort of character to be one of his spies.
On the island, the children could see that it was all sandy and mountainous. There wasn’t much grass and there were only a few trees, enough for basic shelter. These trees had strange green, orange and yellow luminous fruits on them. There was no available fresh water on the island (Mr. Flourfield had sent out a search party, to make sure, because their fresh water supply aboard ship was running low) and no animals or birds lived there. It was about midday, and so it was coming up to the hottest part of the day. Mr. Flourfield ordered them to fetch baskets from the storage area in the third deck of the ship and gather all the fruits on the three trees. “Split yourselves into two groups of six and one group of five and pick the fruits off whichever tree your group decides to pick from! You have until sunset, when we will come out and survey what you have managed to do,” he commanded.
“So how long now until we get to France, Captain?” asked Jay, jumping up and down as it had become a little chilly as a cloud briefly covered the sun.
“You will never be going to France! That was simply the bait to make you come here, to work for me,” Captain Evil explained, before withdrawing to the ship with Gertrude, Treg, Nicky, Lyra and Lannie to keep out of the sun.
The Year Sevens and Arwen were already exhausted from their work on the ship. Instead of getting to work, they all gathered together to talk. They sat in a large circle. Some of the Se’enarians had realised that the fruits they had been ordered to pick were the legendary Frandadis fruits that they used in after-school magic sessions to create potions. They told the rest of the Year Sevens, who weren’t sure what to make of it.
“Well everyone,” began Dopey Drew. “We’ve heard that Captain Evil is just using us to steal these magic fruits. He lied to us about the trip to France, he’s been really mean to all of us and now he’s trying to make us steal stuff. But there are more of us than Captain Evil and his spies. Are we agreed that us lot are all friends now, despite our preference of either Music or Art? Because we need to get rid of him!”
“Yeah!” everyone agreed.
“But how?” asked Disaster Drake, sitting next to Sunny Sam, who kept blushing whenever he looked at her.
“I have an idea,” said Arwen nervously, scared that the Year Sevens might laugh at her carefully thought-out plan. She had known what Mr. Flourfield was up to because as she was Gertrude’s sister she had been able to find out information secretly, from Gertrude’s planner when she was asleep. And so Arwen, shocked at what Mr. Flourfield had planned (which was to use the Year Sevens as slaves to gather all the Frandadis fruits and keep the fruits for an evil plan) had thought up her own little plan to defeat him and get safely to France. But she needed the help of the others.
“What I need first is for someone brave enough to tell a good, convincing lie to Mr. Flourfield,” she began.
“I’ll do it,” called Drake, anxious to be admired.
“You need to knock on Mr. Flourfield’s cabin door, and tell him that you and the others have found fresh water. Be really excited. And then when he’s come down here, hopefully with the spies, we’ll tie them up with the anchor rope to the trees. Then some others should go into the Captain’s cabin, and find all his maps and especially his compass. That’s most important, because this island in an oval shape.” Everybody looked confused.
“Why does that matter?” asked Jay.
“You’ll soon see…” replied Arwen mysteriously. “Does anybody know if Mr. Flourfield can swim?” she added. People caught onto the idea that he might not be able to. “Let’s make him walk the plank!” ‘Annie suggested.
“I don’t think he can swim,” agreed Xanthe.
“Yippee!” cried Laz in delight.
While everyone carried on discussing the plan, no one noticed a baby octopus sneak into one of the baskets that they were meant to be using to collect the fruits. Now, normally an octopus can only survive up to about an hour out of water, but a magic fruit had fallen on this octopus and covered it, protecting it and making it able to survive for forever out of water.
Eventually it was all settled. Drake would tell Mr. Flourfield the lie, and Tim, Tiny Tim, Jay and Drew would make sure all spies followed Mr. Flourfield. ‘Annie would hit any of the spies over the head if they didn’t do what they should.
Drake knocked hard on Mr. Flourfield’s cabin door. Out flew the Captain. “What do you mean by this?” he thundered.
“Please, Sir, we found some water,” began Drake excitedly.
“Water? We are at sea – of course there is water, stupid boy!” Mr. Flourfield boomed.
“No, no, what I mean is we found some fresh water!”
“Fresh water? Now, why didn’t you say?” The Captain strode out onto the deck and got his telescope out. Drake had never seen him use his telescope before. It was a rather magnificent telescope, all covered in gold. “Wow!” breathed Drake. Then the Captain put it back in his enormous pockets and hurried down the gangplank onto the island. Drake hurried down after him, to pretend to show him where it was. Hopefully the other spies were coming after him, but Drake couldn’t risk turning his head round to look. He had to watch the sneaky, planning, thieving Captain in case he realised he had been put in a trap. They reached the place and suddenly a net descended from between two trees and fell around Mr. Flourfield. It tightened so he couldn’t get out. (The Year Sevens and Arwen had found a net and decided to put it to good use).
“Oy! Let me out!” the Captain roared. But the other spies had been tied up to a tree with the anchor rope. All except Lyra. They had forgotten to count her as a spy, and she had stayed by the Captain’s cabin while the others raided it for maps and the compass. They came out with three maps, an old telescope and the compass. As soon as they had come out of the cabin, Lyra said smoothly, “Let me hold this for you,” and took the compass. She knew why it was so valuable. It would tell them in which direction to sail. As Lyra stepped onto the gangplank, she suddenly pretended to lose her footing and she rolled down the plank onto the island, and the compass slipped out of her fingers into the sea.
“I’m sorry!” she cried to everyone who was staring at her in shock. She was still pretending to be good.
“Well, it doesn’t matter too much I expect,” said ‘Annie roughly. “Arwen was probably exaggerating. Girls often do.”
“Yeah,” agreed all the boys.
“Humph!” retorted the girls.
They all went back to Arwen who had stayed onshore to watch the prisoners with some others, carrying the maps and the telescope. They told her the bad news. “Oh no!” she said. “Who did this?”
“Lyra,” said ‘Annie.
“Lyra? But she’s a spy! Why didn’t you tie her up? Tie her up at once!” ordered Silly Shada.
“But…but…I’m good now!” Lyra lied.
“Not good enough!” retorted Shada.
“Shut up Shada,” snapped Arwen. “Now, Lyra, if you’ll be good, you can stay. But don’t go talking to the prisoners; they’re not a good influence.”
“Certainly,” said Lyra.
As soon as they had built up a big campfire because it was beginning to get dark, they all settled around it. The prisoners were almost asleep, either tied to a tree or captured in a net. Mr. Flourfield fortunately didn’t have a knife.
Arwen described to them what they must do, and before bedtime, or rather hammock time, they all knew what job they had to do in the morning. They were going to leave the island, but take the prisoners with them. Lots of the Year Sevens had wanted to leave the prisoners there, but Arwen had her mother to think about, and the telling off that she would get if she came home without Gertrude. But one problem still faced them. Which way should they go?
The island was here, but which way was North, and which way was South? Nobody could tell for sure. Only a compass would have made sure for them, but the compass was now lost due to them forgetting Lyra was a spy and her being so clever.
In the morning, Arwen decided that they should take the direction that they were already almost facing in. Everyone got the ship ready, and within an hour or two they were ready to sail. The prisoners were safely locked in the cabin.
A few minutes later the lookout saw from the crow’s nest that a boat was approaching them. “Wow,” said Tiny Tim who was lookout for the day. “That is a pretty boat!” It was pearly pink, with baby blue sails. Eventually the boat was in shouting distance, so Drew shouted out over the waves “Hello!”
The reply came back “Who are you?”
“I’m a pirate!” shouted Drew.
“I can see that. What’s your name?”
“Dopey Drew!”
“It’s me, Bert,” said Bert. He stepped out from in his little cabin in his boat, and they could see that it was indeed Bert, a Ninarian whom they all liked. “Where are you trying to go?” he asked them.
“Home,” came the reply.
“Oh, were you on that trip to France?” Bert enquired curiously.
“Yeah. Flourfield’s gone bad though. He tried to make us all slaves!” ‘Annie protested.
“But you’re going the wrong way, guys,” said Bert. “You should be going North West, and you’re going South East.”
“Oh, that STUPID compass!” cried Arwen. “Lyra dropped it in the sea.”
“Well you could have tried sailing by the stars,” Bert suggested.
“I never thought of that!” Arwen exclaimed. “Anyway, can you help us?”
“Yeah, take us back by magic,” Jay demanded.
“Okay,” Bert agreed. He was about to cast a spell when he realised something. “Before I send you back, I need a certain purple stitched ball from a certain Se’enarian. Shada, I know you’ve got it,” he called. She appeared and sulkily threw it to him. He conjured up a glove on his left hand (just in case there was some potion left on it) and caught it as it speeded towards him. “And Shada, I won’t forget this. It’s not nice to steal from your friends.” Shada looked ashamed and turned away. “Goodbye then, people, and I hope you have a safe journey,” Bert called. Suddenly there was a rushing sound and they saw the water speeding beneath them. Within minutes they were back in the Bristol harbour.
“Wow!” exclaimed the non-Arians. The Arians weren’t impressed much by this and were busy wondering what Bert was doing in a pink boat near Frandadis Island. But they didn’t have much time to contemplate this as they all had to pack. No one noticed the baby octopus sneak into Samantha’s suitcase while her back was turned. Sam added a pile of clothes to the suitcase and shut the lid, zipping and locking the suitcase…with the octopus still inside.
They all went back to school by train with all their luggage, and Mr. Flourfield led the way back to school, a bit upset because he realised his plan of using the Year Sevens as slaves to pick all the magic fruits from Frandadis that could be used to make powerful magic potions would never work, because the children he taught were too clever for him.
Mr. Flourfield told the Head teacher that they hadn’t been able to go to France, because of the war, and he reminded Mr. Flourfield to make sure everyone who went on the trip got half of the money back that they paid for the trip, because they hadn’t been able to go to France.
Drake sat in the library, waiting for Sam, Bonnie, Larissa and Shada to come. He had told them to meet him there, but they didn’t know why. Suddenly they all burst through the door, and the librarian looked at them in shock.
“Sorry!” whispered Bonnie, laughing. They all went over to sit by Drake. Sam looked at him expectantly and he looked a bit ashamed.
“I’m sorry Sam,” said Drake. “I don’t like you; I like Bonnie.”
Sam’s face crumpled. “But I thought you liked me!” she wailed quietly.
Drake put an arm around her. “I didn’t mean you to think I liked you,” he explained. “But I was just trying to get to know Bonnie a bit better.”
“That’s mean!” said Shada.
“I’m glad you think so too, Shada,” Sam said, then brightened up. “Well Drake, you weren’t called Disaster Drake for nothing! You pushed Nicky into the sea, you told the lie that made us stop the trip that was meant to be to France, and you ended up liking Bonnie… what a disaster!”
Bonnie stood up and began to chase Sam out of the library, just as someone else came through the library door. This person was new, and her name was Orora. Sam bumped straight into her, almost knocking her over. “I’m sorry!” Sam apologised. Then Bonnie caught Sam and was about to tickle her as they did when they had a disagreement over something, when Orora said “Excuse me, is this the library?”
“Yep,” sighed Bonnie. “This is the EF.”
“The WHAT?”
“The ‘Everything Found’. It’s a bit of a strange name, but it’s true – you can find almost anything here,” Bonnie replied.
“Oh wow! Who thought up the name?” Orora puzzled.
“I don’t know who thought of it, actually, I wonder if I can find out…?” Bonnie asked to herself. She was so preoccupied with thinking that she forgot that she was meant to be punishing Sam for being cheeky to her. Sam saw Orora secretly wink at her, and slipped away, before Bonnie could remember. From then on Orora was friends with Bonnie, Larissa, Shada… and Samantha (who still didn’t know that an octopus had illegally immigrated inside her suitcase and had escaped into the school when everyone had returned back…).
The End
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