Arthur and Me Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  About

  1. School trip accidents are not always my fault

  2. School trips are usually not as much fun as much fun as the teachers say they will be

  3. Lying to ancient kings might not be a good thing

  4. It’s not always like they say it is in the history books

  5. Turns out my room is full of magic!

  6. Even heroes get bullied

  7. Don’t take ancient kings to school, it just causes trouble

  8. Poetry can get you into trouble

  9. It turns out my sister is NOT the worst poet in the world

  10. There is only one thing worse than having one knight in your house

  11. Knights cannot be kept as pets

  12. Blindfold jelly juggling is probably easier than jousting

  13. It’s easier with the right stuff

  14. What is a hero?

  15. The Joust

  16. Crowns are unnecessary

  Copyright

  Arthur and Me

  Sarah Todd Taylor

  illustrated by

  Peter Stevenson

  For Mum– Sarah

  Sarah Todd Taylor was brought up in Yorkshire and moved to Wales aged eight. She has had short stories published in several collections but Arthur and Me is her first book. Sarah loves to sing and when not writing she can be found singing opera around Mid Wales. She lives in Aberystwyth with her husband and keeps very cute hamsters. Arthur and Me won the Firefly Children’s Book Prize 2014.

  Peter Stevenson studied illustration at Manchester Art College, and went on to research folk drama and folk tale at Leeds University. He has illustrated, written and compiled children’s books and fairy tales. As a storyteller he has told tales in church crypts, village halls, the hulls of trawlers, Greek tavernas, grand theatres, inglenooks, underground sewers, cafes, art galleries, working men’s clubs, kitchen tables, leaking tents in hailstorms, and most recently in an inspiring allotment. Peter lives in Aberystwyth.

  Chapter One

  School trip accidents are not always my fault

  One day I will go on a school trip without getting ‘the talk’ from Mrs Wendell-Jones. Not the one about turning up on time and bringing a packed lunch. The ‘don’t ruin this for everyone’ talk.

  ‘I don’t want another accident, like the petting zoo, Tomos…’ Mrs Wendell-Jones said, looking at me the way Mum does when she knows I’ve been up to no good.

  ‘That rabbit could have bitten anyone,’ I said.

  ‘The soup factory?’

  ‘I only leaned over the rail a little. They got me out of the soup very quickly.’

  She breathed in really hard through her nose so that she made a ‘phneeeeeee’ sound.

  ‘And WHAT about the safari park, Tomos?’

  Ah.

  Now the safari park was possibly my fault, but I didn’t know what could happen. If I had known, I would most definitely not have fed my peanut butter chocolate spread sandwich to that giraffe.

  ‘It cleaned off really easily, miss,’ I said. Mrs Wendell-Jones wrinkled her nose at the memory.

  Trust me. Giraffe sick smells utterly gross!

  I knew Mrs Wendell-Jones was particularly keen I would behave on this trip, because we were going to the place where everyone thinks King Arthur is buried.

  Mrs Wendell-Jones loves King Arthur. I mean loves him. She doesn’t talk about anything else in class. She told us loads of stories about the Round Table and Camelot. She got us to cook old recipes that Arthur might have eaten (they were not nice). She even got us to learn some really weird old music that he might have sung. We don’t get to do anything unless it’s about Arthur.

  Some of the stuff Mrs Wendell-Jones tells us is quite fun. I mean, the armour and the stories about all his fights with swords and big axes are ACE! She goes on and on about the Round Table though, as if furniture is super-dooper exciting. We have to build models of Camelot and draw the knights and their ladies, which is super-boring-dullsome-pants. So with Arthur being so dull, I thought nothing awful could possibly happen on this trip.

  Nothing at all…

  ‘Class,’ Mrs Wendell-Jones said, beaming from ear to ear, ‘you all know about our special trip next week. Now I have an even bigger surprise. This year our little school is in charge of the Harlech Schools’ Eisteddfod and Mr Jenkins has agreed that we can have a special theme. Now, let me see if you can guess what that theme will b…’

  ‘King Arthur,’ everyone chanted.

  Mrs Wendell-Jones clapped her hands. ‘CLEVER children!’ she cooed. ‘There will be a poster about it in the hallway after class, so make sure you take a good look. Don’t forget, there will be lots of bigger schools there, so let’s make sure we make a special effort. We want a good turn out,’ she paused, ‘for Arthur.’

  The Gruffudd twins laughed. Sharon leaned over to Bethan and made kissing noises. ‘Ooh, Arthur, Kissy Kissy snooglecheeks,’ she giggled.

  Mrs Wendell-Jones heard her and looked very cross.

  She thinks everyone loves Arthur as much as she does.

  That would not be possible.

  As we all went out for morning break I tried to imagine what awful competitions Mrs Wendell-Jones would dream up for an Arthur Eisteddfod. Pin the crown on the sleeping king perhaps, or best Arthur costume or…

  ‘What’s a juicing competition?’

  Mair Gruffudd and her awful twin, Gwion, were crowding with the rest of the class round a poster that Mr Jenkins had put up on the wall.

  ‘Jousting, you idiot, not juicing,’ snapped Gwion. ‘It’s an Arthur thing. The knights would sit on their horses and clobber each other with long poles till one of them fell off.’

  ‘You’d be good at that, Gwion. You like clobbering people,’ said Mair. ‘I bet you’ll win.’

  ‘I don’t have a horse, though,’ said Gwion.

  ‘It says bicycle jousting,’ Mair pointed out. ‘You’ve got a bicycle. Nain bought you one for Christmas.’

  Gwion looked really pleased. I knew he was already imagining himself winning. I didn’t care. I bet it was a dull prize. Like a shelf full of books about Arthur or an Arthur dress-up costume or an Arthur action figure (if they made them) or…

  ‘Tickets to see PowerUp!’ shrieked Bethan.

  ‘And meet the band!’ yelled Mair.

  What????

  I pushed my way through the crowd. Everyone was getting excited about the poster now. I looked at Mr Jenkins’ drawing of a knight in armour, looking really uncomfortable, and fighting what looked like a giant squirrel, but was probably meant to be a dragon (Mr Jenkins is NOT good at drawing). Above the squirrel-dragon’s tail, in bright red, were the words, ‘First prize – Meet Harlech’s famous band PowerUp!’

  Wow!

  PowerUp are the coolest, most amazing band ever. I really needed to win that prize! Just for once I thought that Mrs Wendell-Jones was brilliant for liking King Arthur so much.

  Then we went on the school trip.

  There weren’t any giraffes or vicious rabbits.

  I could have coped with those.

  Chapter Two

  School trips are usually not as much fun as the teachers say they will be

  ‘Caerleon is a wondrous, magical place, children,’ Mrs Wendell-Jones gushed, waving her guidebook around in the air. She said there was an amphitheatre, and we thought she meant a huge one, like the gladiators used to fight in. There wasn’t. There was a mound of earth that went round in a circle like a massive green doughnut, with a few steps and a bit of wall here and there.

  Mrs Wendell-Jones stood in the centre of the doughnut, going on and on about Arthur and how he was meant to be fast
asleep somewhere nearby. Everyone else just ran about, climbing on the doughnut or stabbing each other with pretend swords.

  ‘Listen very carefully, class,’ she called. ‘You may hear the voice of Arthur on the wind.’

  We all quietened down, even though we thought this was a bit dumb.

  Then Gwion Gruffudd made a loud noise like a pig snoring and everyone laughed.

  Everyone except Mrs Wendell-Jones. She looked a bit upset and told us we could have our lunch.

  Mum had made my favourite sandwiches – peanut butter chocolate spread – and I sat down on the grass to eat them. I was about to take a huge bite when someone kicked me hard on the leg. Gwion Gruffudd stood over me with his mean face on. Gwion only has two faces – mean face and stupid face. If he has his mean face on, it means trouble.

  ‘I forgot my lunch,’ he said. ‘So you’ll have to give me yours.’

  Uh-oh.

  ‘And it had better be a good one,’ he said. ‘Hand it over!’

  I really wanted to say, ‘No.’ Mum’s peanut butter chocolate spread sandwiches are so good (unless you’re a giraffe). But I didn’t want to spend the rest of the year looking out for spiders in my gym shoes so I handed my lunch over. Gwion looked at it, sniffed and stomped off.

  I felt like everyone was watching. I wanted to go away and be on my own, where no one but me would be thinking what a sissy I was. I walked to the side of the earth doughnut and slipped out through one of the passages. Then I ran as fast as I could, putting awful Gwion Gruffudd far behind me.

  Half an hour later I was lost.

  In a wood.

  Fairy tales get it wrong about woods. Woods are not magical, special places full of elves and helpful wood folk. They are just big clumps of trees. The most important thing to remember about trees is this – they all look the same. When you put lots of them together it’s very easy to get lost.

  This is what I told myself. I was rehearsing what I’d tell Mrs Wendell-Jones, now she would be able to add ‘got lost in wood’ to my ‘savaged by rabbit/fell into vat of soup/made a giraffe sick’ list of reasons why I couldn’t be trusted on a school trip.

  ‘You see, Miss,’ I said out loud, ‘it’s easy to get lost in a wood, because trees all look the

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             a….’

  The last word came out as a long shriek, because the ground underneath me had stopped, well, being underneath me. I had fallen into a huge hole in the ground and was slipping down a long slope.

  A really long slope.

  Very very fast!

  I tried to grab at the sides of the hole to stop myself from falling, but I just ended up with mud all over my hands as I fell deeper and deeper down.

  Great.

  Rabbit bites, soupy coat, giraffe sick and now stuck in a hole in the ground. This was definitely going on my end of term report.

  Chapter Three

  Lying to ancient kings might not be a good thing

  ‘ZZZZzzzzzz … ngnnf … ngfff.’

  I had landed on something, or rather someone, soft and furry.

  Wherever I was, it smelled horrible, all cold and damp and dusty. It was also really dark. I squinted and could make out a few large mounds. They were snoring. Had I fallen into a bear cave? Did bears snore?

  ‘ZzzzzZZZZ … nnngfft … my sword, mine! … give … zzzzzz.’

  OK, bears might snore but they didn’t talk in their sleep!

  The mound that I was sitting on suddenly rolled itself over and I fell onto the floor.

  ‘Zzz … zz … nfg.’ The mound shook its head, the way my cat does when he’s waking up. I looked around for an escape. The only way was to climb back up the hole and I wasn’t sure that I could climb fast enough if the mound turned out to be non-friendly.

  The mound opened its eyes and looked straight at me. It was an old man with a long beard and very bushy eyebrows. He stared at me.

  ‘Is it time?’ he asked. ‘Do my people need me?’

  Now where had I heard those words before? They seemed familiar. Were they in my favourite TV programme Legend of Ulla, or did Aramort Grout shout them as he conquered the universe in Worldbuilders of Za’ark?

  Then I remembered. Mrs Wendell-Jones had told us about them. When she told us about Arthur being asleep, she said that when he woke up he would say to whoever woke him … oh!

  ‘Are you Arthur?’ I asked.

  The old man nodded.

  ‘Arthur Pendragon is my name,’ he said, ‘but some do call me Arthur, King of the Britons.’

  I think that meant ‘yes’.

  ‘So these are…’

  ‘My noble knights.’ He sat up and looked around him. ‘Why do they not wake?’

  I shrugged. I had a brilliant idea. A really brilliant idea. Much better than any other idea I had ever had before.

  ‘Did you ask if your people needed you?’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘If I my people need me, then I am bound to protect them.’

  Oh this was awesome!!!!

  ‘I need you,’ I said.

  My super brilliant idea was – if Arthur taught me to joust, I’d be bound to win! Mrs Wendell-Jones had always been on about how Arthur was the best person at jousting ever. I could get him to teach me and then I’d beat the awful Gruffudd twins and win the joust and meet PowerUp.

  Perfect!

  I just had to get him home.

  Arthur was still looking around at the other knights.

  ‘They should wake too,’ he said. ‘When the great wizard, Merlin, sent us to sleep, he said that we would all wake when we were needed.’

  ‘Urm…’ I thought fast. My sister often sleeps through her alarm, but Mum always makes me get up, which is mega-unfair. How come she gets to sleep on? Mum once told me she needed her beauty sleep. I said that no one could sleep that long and Mum got cross with me.

  ‘Maybe they will get up later,’ I said.

  ‘Ah,’ said Arthur, ‘the magic rests more deeply on them.’

  I nodded. He spoke in such an odd way. Not even Mrs Wendell-Jones was this posh.

  Arthur heaved himself to his feet. It was like watching a mountain move – he was HUGE!

  ‘So, young squire, what is your name?’ he asked.

  ‘Tomos.’

  ‘And what do you ask of me?’

  ‘I need to learn to joust!’ I said.

  ‘Ah,’ said Arthur. ‘Are you threatened by an evil foe?’

  Hmm – foe? Ah yes, that meant enemy. I thought of the Gruffudd twins and nodded. Boy, was I threatened by an evil foe! They were the most … urm … foe-like people I’d ever met!

  ‘Then lead on, young squire!’ Arthur cried. ‘We will defeat them!’

  Fantastic!!!!

  I couldn’t believe my luck. Arthur, actual Arthur, King of the Britons, was going to help me to joust. I was going to be the best jouster in the whole school.

  This plan could not fail.

  Chapter Four

  It’s not always like they say it is in the history books

  ‘Whatever you do, don’t let anyone see you!’ I warned Arthur.

  We were standing by the school bus and I was keeping an eye out for the rest of the class. I didn’t know how I was going to sneak him on board. Mrs Wendell-Jones was loopy, but even she would be able to tell the difference between a 10-year-old school kid and a bearded man wearing several layers of what looked like bearskin.

  I’d just have to hope I was lucky.

  I am hardly ever lucky.

  ‘If you could tuck that beard in, it might help a bit,’ I said.

  Arthur looked at me. His eyes were as big as saucers. He pointed
towards the bus.

  ‘What is that?’ His voice sounded like my mum’s does when she’s spotted something weird at the zoo. Of course! He’d never seen a bus before.

  ‘It’s a bus,’ I said.

  Arthur still looked confused. I tried again.

  ‘Urm … it’s like a … a…’ I tried to think of something that Arthur would remember. ‘A chariot! Yes, it’s like a chariot.’

  Arthur shook his head. ‘But it has no horses.’

  ‘It doesn’t need horses,’ I said. Arthur took a step backwards.

  ‘Is it magical?’ he gasped. ‘You have magicians. Can they really make this move on its own without a horse? Merlin couldn’t do it!’

  That didn’t sound right. Mrs Wendell-Jones told me Merlin could do anything.

  ‘I heard he could teleport himself across the country instantly,’ I said.

  Arthur shook his head. ‘Not at all, young squire, he was just a really fast runner.’

  ‘He could change his shape into a bird or an animal.’

  ‘He had a lot of pets,’ said Arthur. ‘He used to shoo them out in front of him when he left the castle. Sir Galahad laughed at him when he found out it wasn’t magic. Let me tell you…’

  ‘He fought a dragon!’

  Arthur looked a bit embarrassed.

  ‘What did you call this again?’ he said, pointing to the bus.

  ‘He did fight a dragon?’ I insisted.

  ‘A “bus”?’ he asked, stroking one of the wheels.

  ‘Well, did he?’ I was getting really peeved now. He was definitely hiding something.

  Arthur looked at his feet. ‘It wasn’t a dragon.’

  Not a dragon?

  ‘But Mrs Wendell-Jones told us…’

  ‘It was a chicken,’ he muttered.

  No. Way!

  ‘It didn’t like him very much,’ Arthur went on, ‘and every time he came to Camelot it would attack him, so one day he…’

  ‘Fought the mighty chicken.’

  Arthur nodded.