Frog Read online

  The blue light blinked out and Sir Peacealot was drawn into dark oblivion.

  1

  The Orchard

  Present day ...

  Chris Casey was a very confident twelve-year-old and although being on the small side, what he lacked in stature he made up for in character. His mop of tousled mousy hair along with his long eyelashes and toothy grin ensured that he stood out amongst his peers.

  It was late on a warm Monday evening in July; the school holidays were barely a week old, but he was already bored. Today, three more of his school friends had left for their annual summer holidays with their families, three more friends who wouldn’t be around to play with him for a couple of weeks. He sighed as he leant on the window ledge and stared out through the glass at the moonlit orchard below and the fields beyond.

  The orchard was the size of a very big garden made up of half a dozen apple trees and a couple of old pear trees, what was left of a large area of fruit trees that had been split up and divided between his home and the two neighbouring properties when the land was built on in the late 1800s. The house that he lived in with his mum was a detached, three-storey Victorian building with high ceilings, large windows and creaky floorboards. Not long after they had moved into the house, Chris had been allowed to choose his own theme to decorate his bedroom with and in the end he selected a wallpaper with planets and astral landscapes, as this was the subject that intrigued him the most. He had become really interested in astronomy and how the planets and solar system worked. He had started to research information about the subject on the internet and a telescope was already on his birthday wish list.

  It was no surprise this evening, then, that Chris found his eyes straying to the clear starry sky above. Fortunately, there were no street lights at the back of the house and therefore no sodium glare to dim the clarity of the main constellations. With just a small bedside light on in his room, it was surprisingly easy to pick out some of the smaller formations tonight, even with a full moon hovering overhead. His eyes picked out the bluish-hued stars that formed the shape of the ‘Big Dipper’ which he knew was part of the Ursa Major constellation.

  His concentration was broken by his mum calling up the stairs.

  ‘Chris, it’s well past time for bed now, lights out.’

  ‘Okay Mum. Just a couple more minutes,’ he replied as he gazed at the distant shimmering diamonds of light.

  ‘Now,’ he wondered. ‘Where was Orion’s Belt?’

  From the corner of his eye he caught a bright flash from about halfway down the orchard and turned his focus to where he thought it had come from, but whatever it was had gone and so he resumed his stare to the heavens. A few moments later it was there again, a bright flash down by one of the apple trees. His eyes scoured the area, squinting into the silver-grey landscape. Nothing, just shapes and shadows outlining the trees and untidy clumps of grass left on the ground from where he had mowed the area earlier that day.

  ‘Probably a piece of silver foil or a sliver of broken glass turned over by the lawnmower,’ he thought to himself and continued his search for Orion’s Belt.

  Again he caught a flash in the corner of his eye but this time he did not allow his gaze to be distracted, he continued to look skyward. The light at the edge of his vision grew brighter as if trying to attract his attention but something told him not to look in its direction; instead his eyes were slowly drawn to the face of the full moon.

  ‘Wow!’ Chris mouthed to himself as he stared wideeyed at the moon’s cratered orb which was now surrounded by a growing, pulsing halo of light.

  ‘Double wow!’ he exclaimed as a silver stream of light stretched out from the moon’s surface and across the sky to connect to a small, shimmering shape lying in the grass of the orchard. As he gazed down, transfixed, a ray of clear white light snaked up towards him. It hovered against the window pane just centimetres from his face. He blinked; there was a blinding flash and he fell backwards onto the floor, black dots spinning across his eyes and a dizziness spreading through his head. He sat there for a while, watching the dots swirl and fade from his vision then, slowly, he got to his knees and cautiously crawled to the window. He peered out into the sky. The moon was looking bright and normal, hanging where it should be.

  He turned his attention to the orchard, squinted his eyes. Could it be? Yes, there was definitely something glinting in the grass, something real and permanent to his normal vision now. His imagination fed his mind, all sorts of questions crowded his head and all sorts of ready-made answers appeared.

  ‘Aliens! It’s the first landing of aliens! It’s going to be like War of the Worlds. But why here? Why in our orchard?’ Whatever it was, it was up to him to investigate and warn everyone. He would be a hero – he would save the world! But then, what if it did turn out to be nothing, just the moonlight playing tricks on his eyes? He’d be made to look a right twit!

  A plan. He needed a plan.

  He grabbed a couple of items from the corner of his room. First of all he needed to see exactly what he was dealing with and that meant going down there, going down to the orchard in the spooky dark and getting close to whatever it was. He looked at what he was holding in his hands – his wind-up rechargeable torch and a toy light sabre!

  ‘Is that the best I can do?’ he thought to himself. ‘Hmm. Perhaps I need to think this out; perhaps I need to think of a strategy. I’ll sleep on it and if we’re all still here in the morning, it’ll be a good sign.’

  Five minutes later he’d been to the toilet, brushed his teeth, washed his face, changed into his pyjamas, drawn his curtains (without looking into the orchard again) and settled himself comfortably under his duvet with his light out.

  ‘Yes, if it is aliens,’ he said to himself, ‘I’m sure they’d much rather meet someone after they’ve had a good breakfast.’

  With that thought he drifted into a restless sleep where he dreamed he was ‘Enforcer of the Universe’ and saved worlds from destruction and alien invasions.

  Chris opened his eyes to the friendly purring of a cat, the gentle stroke of its whiskers tickling his nose and brushing across his cheek.

  ‘Tabby!’ he cried as he sat up and gave it a hug. Stroking the animal he wandered over to the window and drew the curtains apart as the events of the previous night unfolded in his head. He stared out into the orchard, wondering if it had all been one big dream, and then the hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he caught the glint of something in the grass.

  He got himself dressed in double-quick time, pausing only for a token splash of water on his face and a quick brush of his teeth. Dashing downstairs he crossed the kitchen and reached for the handle to the back door.

  ‘Where’s the fire?’ enquired his mum.

  ‘What fire?’ he asked.

  ‘The rush, what’s the rush?’ she continued. ‘Where do you think that you’re going?’

  ‘Got to save the planet,’ he replied.

  ‘Not until you’ve had some breakfast,’ she instructed, smiling.

  ‘Oh. But Mum ... ’ he protested.

  ‘Sit down and eat your cereal and drink your orange juice or you won’t be going anywhere.’

  He knew that he wouldn’t win and surrendered to the fact that the aliens would have to wait. However, he amazed his mum at the speed that he devoured his breakfast.

  ‘You’ll get indigestion,’ she said as he got up and opened the back door. ‘Where are you off to?’

  ‘Down to the orchard,’ he replied as he quickly made his escape.

  ‘Don’t wander off,’ his mother shouted after him.

  Chris was halfway down the path when he started to shorten his footsteps and slow down his pace.

  ‘Whoa, there boy,’ he said to himself. ‘Where do you think you’re going in such a hurry?’

  He hadn’t even thought of what he was going to do when he found the object, never mind what he would say if it really was aliens.

  Greetings, we come in peace,’
he thought. ‘No you idiot, that’s what they’re supposed to say. What about “Take me to your leader”?’

  Then he had another thought. What if they actually said, ‘Die, earthling die!’

  Ten minutes later he was still sitting in the grass by the side of the path with no idea of how he actually would save the world. Finally he decided that there was only one way forward – he would sneak up on them and spy out the situation.

  From where he was, he couldn’t see anything reflecting in the grass, although as far as he could recollect, it was near the fourth apple tree down from the end of the path and in the middle of the orchard. He decided to follow the side of the orchard down to where he would be opposite the tree and then crawl slowly towards it until he could see the object. He crept as low as he could and made his way forward until he thought that he was in the right place. Then, dropping onto his stomach, he crawled commando-style towards the tree.

  Everything was going well until he was a couple of metres from the tree, where he stopped, conscious that something was not quite right. He turned over and looked down at his legs. He had his baggy skateboard shorts on, which went down to his knees, but below that the skin on his legs seemed to be moving. Moving and red!

  ‘Ants!’he shouted. ‘Flipping ants!’

  He was on his feet instantly, brushing his legs with his hands, stamping his feet, twisting around in circles, picking up clumps of grass and rubbing them on his legs in an effort to wipe off the army of ants that was in danger of actually invading his pants.

  At this moment his mother looked out of the window to see her son dancing around like a hyperactive chimpanzee.

  ‘We’ve got to find that boy some new friends,’ she said to herself, shaking her head and turning back to her work.

  Meanwhile, Chris had managed to weave in and out of the apple trees in his efforts to repel the ants. So far, none had made it above his thighs, but he was fighting a losing battle. Fearing the consequences of a mass invasion of his private regions, he made a quick and desperate decision and with three rapid steps and a jump he splashed knee-deep into an old ornamental pond, that until this moment in time had enjoyed a rather quiet and uneventful existence. However, it now experienced a small boy splashing water, pond weed and the odd surprised goldfish up the ends of his baggy shorts.

  After a few minutes of sloshing around, Chris waded from the pond and following a brief inspection he was relieved that all ants had been repelled with only a few minor bites to himself. Looking into the pond he was also satisfied to see a brown scum of ants floating on the water with the occasional goldfish breaking the surface to feed on the unexpected but welcome delicacy. He sat down on a rock by the pond and removed his soggy trainers and socks along with his hooded top, as the sun had now burnt off the morning mist and the temperature was beginning to rise.

  He looked down at himself. What a state. So much for the element of surprise. He’d made enough commotion and noise to wake up the inhabitants of Pluto and beyond. If there were any aliens in the orchard there was no doubt that they knew he was around. In fact, if they weren’t friendly he would have been vaporised by now along with a couple of hundred ants!

  ‘Okay, let’s see what we’ve got,’ he said as he wandered slowly to where he thought the mystery object would be. Unfortunately, because of his dance with the ants, he had disturbed most of the newlymown area and he was now resigned to turning over the clods of grass in order to find anything. Getting down on all fours he started to brush the loose grass into piles. After ten minutes of searching he stood up and surveyed the scene. All he had succeeded in doing was to create a number of tidy piles of grass around the centre of the orchard. He looked at his hands. They were green. He looked down at his feet. Green. He looked at his knees. Green and covered in brown blotches. He bent down and on closer inspection discovered that the blotches were in fact rabbit droppings!

  ‘Oh, paleese!’ he exclaimed.

  He grabbed another handful of grass and quickly wiped his knees free of the offending lumps.

  ‘This is ridiculous. Stupid grass!’ he shouted as he kicked out at the closest pile. His foot connected with a hard concealed object and a sharp pain exploded up through his big toe and into his ankle. Chris grabbed his foot with both hands, rubbing it to numb the pain.

  ‘Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!’ he shouted as he hopped around in circles.

  His mum looked out of the window for the second time that morning only to see her son hugging his foot and hopping around, whooping like an American Indian on the warpath. He then proceeded to sit down and tried to put his foot in his mouth!

  ‘We’ve got to get that boy out more often‚’ she said to herself.

  Thankfully, his mum did not see him hop back to the pond and immerse his foot in the cool water. This, at least, gave Chris some relief and the pain gradually faded. As he sat there wondering if it would have been better to have been vaporised, he noticed that a large clump of ants was floating towards him. He also noticed that they were in fact wriggling frantically, their many legs moving desperately and, in his opinion, intent on renewing their acquaintance with his legs. Suddenly any pain receded, he was healed and to prove it he was out of the pond and back under the shade of the apple tree in one athletic bound.

  As he stood there and took stock of the situation, Chris realised that there was a good chance that the object which had connected with his foot was in fact what he had been searching for and he made his way to the demolished clump of grass. After satisfying himself that there were neither ants nor rabbit poo in the area, he knelt down and slowly cleared away the remains of the grass. He held his breath as he was finally faced with a curved metal object rising just a few centimetres out of the ground. He cautiously ran his fingers over it. It was shiny and smooth to the touch and looked not too dissimilar to a section of a large steel football.

  ‘It doesn’t look like a spaceship,’ he thought. ‘It must be recent whatever it is; otherwise if it had been in the ground for a long time, it would be rusty. ’

  All fear now disappeared to be replaced with the excitement of adventure.

  He knew that he would need to uncover more of the object to see if he could free it from the ground and inspect it further, so he carefully started to pull away the grass surrounding it. He then tried to scrape away the earth with his fingers, but as it had been quite a while since there had been any rain, the ground was too hard and compact and would not give way.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘This is going to be a major excavation. I need tools.’

  Chris ran to the garden shed which had doubled up as his father’s workshop, opened the door and went to an old workbench where he excitedly pulled open a drawer and retrieved a rolled-up bundle. He unrolled the cloth and stared at the contents. It was a spare set of his father’s archaeology tools. Suddenly he realised again how much he missed his dad and his mind drifted back to the day, over a year ago, when his mother had received the fateful telephone call.

  His dad was an archaeologist who specialised in ancient languages and symbols and had been away working on an exciting project with the Global Archaeological Society at a site in the western Sahara.

  A Bedouin robber had been caught trying to sell some strange artefacts on the black market and on inspection they had turned out to be small pieces of animal skin inscribed with hieroglyphics the style of which had never before been encountered. Such was the interest and importance of the find that his father had been contacted late one evening and arrangements were made to fly him out to the site the very next day.

  Under police questioning the robber had disclosed that he had ‘acquired’ the items from a friend who worked at the massive Bou Craa phosphate mine. Further investigations directed the authorities to a rock formation some five kilometres west of the mine, and it was here that a small cave had led them to what turned out to be a simple burial tomb. The sarcophagus had been broken into by grave robbers and all that remained were the disturbed bones of its occupier. A
Moroccan historian from the city of El Ayun had been sent out to inspect the site, and confirmed that the hieroglyphics that were carved into the shattered stone lid of the sarcophagus were much the same as those that were etched into the animal skins. Photographs of the lid samples and the animal skins were emailed to the Global Archaeological Society headquarters and this was when things started to escalate very quickly.

  A team (including his dad) were contacted from all over the world and in a few days they were all assembled at a field camp constructed at the site of the tomb. Three days later, a secret passage was discovered behind a sliding stone wall and an exploratory party led by his dad had set off down the torchlit passageway. Within minutes, there was a loud rumbling and the roof to the tomb and the cave collapsed. The only survivors were those outside who watched in disbelief and horror as the entrance was sealed in a landslide of dust, sand and impenetrable rock. The tomb had lived up to its purpose and his father had not been seen or heard of since that day.

  Chris could feel the warm tears welling up and he wiped his eyes with the palms of his hands. He took a deep breath.

  ‘Okay Dad,’ he said, picking up the bundle of tools. ‘It looks like you’re not the only archaeologist in the family.’

  Twenty minutes later he was staring and slightly trembling at what he had uncovered so far. It was a helmet, the type that usually accompanied a suit of armour, and as far as he could make out there was indeed the beginnings of a breastplate. The helmet was turned at an angle, which was why only the curved side of it had been originally visible above the grass and earth. One exposed eye-slit stared darkly back at him and there was also a pointed, ventilated grill that appeared to have a hinge mechanism so that it could be raised. However, because of the sideways position of the helmet, it was not possible to open it at this moment, even if Chris could summon up the courage to look inside.