There’s a Hole in the Wall. Why is there a Hole in the Wall? Who Made a Hole in the Wall?

Mavis was slowly climbing down the cliff. At first, her legs just wouldn’t hold onto a rock to lower her down, so her hands had to do most of the work. Then she figured out that she was wearing her rubber school shoes, which were soaked, making it very slippery. She wiggled her feet till her flimsy little shoes bounced off. She heard another crack. This time, much louder.

She couldn’t help noticing that the Tribes had given Walter a magic arrow and her a silver spider rope–but not proper boots.

After a bit more of climbing, Mavis suddenly felt she was getting closer to the bridge. She gingerly poked her left leg out to feel it, if it was there. Amazingly, she felt some kind of rotten wood. She peered down to see it. She saw a vague image of the bridge under her.

Praying it wouldn’t break, she lowered herself down onto the bridge. It shook silently under her weight. ‘I found it!’ she called out to Walter. ‘But it’s half in ruins. Come down one by one after I get to the other side!’ Then, assuming he had heard, she slowly made her across the creaking bridge.

Trembling with fright and excitement, Mavis reached the end of the bridge. She would have to climb up the rocky walls of the other side of the cliff to reach the other side. She slowly and gently stepped off the bridge, onto a rock jutting out of the wall of the cliff. The bridge creaked loudly.

She climbed up the wall, slowly and carefully, in case she accidentally pulled Walter down, who was still holding the other end of her silver spider rope. She climbed up the rocky wall. She felt this was much easier than climbing down: when going down, there was a much bigger chance of falling.

Finally, she climbed up to the top. She didn’t waste a second and called out to Walter to tell him she had reached. In barely a few seconds, she felt a tug at her waist. She realised Walter had begun his climb down to the bridge. As he climbed down, he clearly still had with him his end of the silver spider rope.

She quickly untied the rope off her waist and onto her wrist, so that she could pull Walter out if needed. It took Walter a while to get to the other side.

It actually took Mavis the same amount of time, but she hadn’t known. Now, she was feeling a bit frightened with all the rain and thunder. To calm herself down, she began singing something randomly, creating the lines as she went along:

She sang the lines several times and began to calm down. Eventually, Walter crawled up. He caught a few lines of Mavis’ little song.

‘You should be a songwriter,’ he remarked drily.

She glared at him, then looked around. ‘How will we get Star, Peanut Butter and Alpha to come here?’

Walter shook his head. ‘I have Alpha with me.’ Just then, Mavis noticed the black dog tied to Walter’s waist with her silver spider rope. He untied Alpha and handed the rope to Mavis.

Mavis peered over to the other side. ‘Maybe we can call them?’ Before Walter could even react, she was calling the horses. ‘STAAAAAR! PEEEANUT BUUUTER!’ The two saw two shadows of the horses appear on the other side. The shadows stood motionless for a moment, then spread out their wings and started to fly.

‘They’ll be blown away!’ cried Walter, horrified.

‘No, they won’t,’ said Mavis determinedly. ‘If so, then they’d fold up their wings and fall onto the bridge, which would break their fall. And since we’re not riding them, it should be easy.’ But Walter didn’t look too convinced.

The two watched with bated breath as the horses struggled to fly towards them, and at the same time, not be blown away by the wind.

Suddenly, the horses folded up their wings in mid-air. Now the wind wasn’t blowing them away. They fell a few feet down, then began flying again.

Finally, they reached Mavis and Walter.

‘Good horseys!’ grinned Mavis hugging their necks.

‘Okay, well, let’s go find some shelter,’ said Walter, glancing up at the thundery grey sky. The rain was beating hard on them.

Mavis nodded. ‘Yeah, let’s. Where was the Old Village of The Villagers again?’

Walter looked at their map. ‘Err . . . it’s not very far. Come on. We’ve got some walking to do!’

His cheerful voice made no difference to Mavis. She groaned. The horses and Alpha must have sensed there was more work to be done because they sadly whined.

‘It’s not so bad,’ reasoned Walter. ‘Just a bit to walk, then we can rest!’

So, led by Walter, the company slumped off into the thick forest. They walked and walked till they could walk no more. Finally, Walter stopped. ‘I think it’s here somewhere.’

Suddenly Mavis jumped up. She pointed to the top of a hedge. There was some kind of a white stone wall jutting out from the top. ‘We made it!’ cried Walter, though he could hardly believe it. ‘Come on!’

They dashed into the hedge and found themselves in front of the wall. ‘Oh, but how do we get into the village?’ asked Mavis suddenly.

‘There should be a gate,’ said Walter determinedly.

They walked at the edge of the wall for a long time, till they came across a large hole.

‘Oh,’ said Walter, surprised.

Mavis jumped up in horror. This was no ordinary hole. The trolls had clearly broken the wall open to get in and wreak havoc, causing the Villagers to flee.

‘Well, we’ve found our way in,’ said Walter weakly.

The two, followed by the horses and Alpha reluctantly crawled into the hole. They hated the fact that they were getting into the village the same way the trolls did, before causing all the citizens to flee. The walls were very thick, so it was hard for them to believe that even the trolls could break through it.

Eventually, they crawled out into the village. The whole place was in ruins: half the houses had no doors or roofs. Trees and plants had broken through their walls and crept into them. They stared open-mouthed at how amazingly they were crumbling. Just then, a great bolt of lightning brought them back to their senses.

‘We need to find shelter!’ shouted Mavis over the bangs of thunder.

Walter, much too tired to shout back, pointed to a cottage not far from them. It didn’t have any trees poking out of it and had a roof too. Mavis nodded her head in agreement, and they made their way towards the cottage.

The cottage looked a lot worse up close. The door had been banged down and was lying outside it. A few slugs and snails had made their home under it and were enjoying the rain. It had wet the grass, making it damp and cool, just how they liked!

Why don’t you shelter under here? one of the snails shouted up to Mavis and Walter.

Don’t call them! cried another of them, horrified. They’ll crush us when they crawl under our door!

Walter, who could hardly hear the snails talking, glanced nervously at their chosen cottage. It was crumbling and looked like it could collapse any moment.

‘What are you waiting for?’ shouted Mavis over the annoying roars of thunder.

‘This cottage could just collapse–' began Walter.

But Mavis interrupted him. ‘Listen, we’ll die anyway in this storm. We’ll be struck by lightning or something. So what’s the big difference if we’re crushed by a roof?’

Walter assumed Mavis was right and slowly walked into the opening of the cottage, which once had a door. He was followed in by Mavis, Alpha, and the horses.

The inside of the cottage was very warm and dry. Mavis managed to cover up the entrance with the door that had fallen outside.

This was a nasty shock for the slugs and snails living under it, but thankfully, they found a large leaf to crawl under.

Now that the entrance was sealed, no wind came inside, allowing them to stay warm. Alpha shook his coat of fur hard, sending water flying everywhere. But no one minded because he cared to do this in a corner.

The horses fell asleep at once. Though Alpha stood in the middle of the cottage and began chasing his tail, he eventually fell asleep too.

Only Walter and Mavis weren’t asleep yet.

They tried to sleep, but they were more hungry than tired. They didn’t dare complain though, because they felt they had to be happy that they had at least found themselves a shelter.

Finally, Walter’s stomach gave such a tremendous rumble that he groaned.

Taking this as an excuse, Mavis proposed for a meal. ‘Oh, you must be hungry, shall we eat?’

‘I’m not that hungry, still, if you insist . . .’ said Walter in a controlled voice.

He fumbled about with their sack of food. To his disgust, he found that their bread was already hard. ‘Seriously, when are they going to invent refrigerators?’ he said in disbelief.

‘In a couple a’ hundred years,’ said Mavis drily. ‘Which is exactly why we need to eat now.’

Walter nodded quickly and tossed away the small cotton bag which held their three loaves of bread.

Then he tried lighting a fire. He gathered together some dried leaves, dashing together stones above them, but nothing much happened. Then he noticed Mavis was frowning at him.

‘What?’ he snapped. ‘It’s not that easy, you know.’

‘So why are you doing it?’

‘To make a fire.’

‘I know that . . .’

‘Why don’t you try.’ Walter offered her the two rocks. Mavis accepted them and chucked them away.

‘Gimme your arrow,’ she ordered.

‘Uh, why?’

‘Gimme.’

Walter handed it to her and she stabbed the leaves with it. Immediately, they caught fire and began crackling and shot out a few sparks as they slowly came to life.

Walter was horror-struck. ‘My bow can do that?’

‘It does have a Mrindawian carving that says “Flima ni Nidra”, meaning “Bow of Fire”,’ shrugged Mavis.

Walter gingerly took his arrow as if it could kill him. Which it could.

They chomped up a slice of bread each and woke up Alpha for his share. They decided to take the horses for grazing the next day because they were a little short on food.

Walter glanced at Mavis’ staff. ‘That’s got a carving on it too. What does it say?’

Mavis winced. ‘You sure you want to know?’

Walter nodded.

Mavis sighed. ‘All right, you asked for it. It says The Stick.’

Walter gaped. ‘You’re kidding.’

‘Not really. Well, at least we have an explanation for its uselessness.’

Mavis woke up to some talking. At first, she thought she was back at school. Hannah the prefect was busy waking everyone up. Lauren moaned as she shook her shoulder.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Hannah reassuringly, ‘they’re definitely here. Master Godge said so, and Master Godge is always right!’

‘Master Godge is always right!’ chanted the others. ‘Master Godge is always right!’

Mavis leapt to her feet. Godge! Why was Godge at school? More importantly, why was she in a crumbling cottage?

Then it all came back to her. She was in Mrindawa, sheltering here. The school had just been in her dream.

‘Master Godge is always right! Master Godge is always right!’

Only, she could still hear those voices.

‘Master Godge is always right!’

They were starting to get on her nerves now.

She decided she was being delirious. But then, those voices were not misty, like in all those ordinary dreams. They sounded real. She cautiously walked up to the window and quietly peeped out. What she saw made her step back in shock.

The storm was over and the golden sun was gleaming brightly. Outside stood a couple of dudes. Their hair was tied up in thin long plaits. They were dressed in clanging metal armour. They each wore small metal helmets with horns poking out on either side.

Mavis recognized them from her history textbook–they were Vikings!

They weren’t exactly Vikings. This clan had a Mrindawian name, but since they so closely resembled actual Vikings, the humans called them that. They behaved like them too–meaning, they were very violent. And if Godge was their master, it was worse! Mavis slammed the window shut and frantically bolted it.

‘Walter, wake up!’ she shouted and shook him hard.

‘Aargh! No one steals my intestine!’ he shouted springing to his feet. He turned red with embarrassment when he saw Mavis standing there.

Ignoring the fact that it would be a good time to tease him, Mavis shouted: ‘There are Vikings here, sent by Godge, we need to hide!’

‘Vikings in Mrindawa?’

‘Apparently!’

Just then, Alpha caught a whiff of the smell of the smelly armpits of the Vikings. He was startled and began to bark loudly. Mavis grabbed him and covered his mouth with her hands to stop him from alerting the Vikings.

Unfortunately, Alpha’s barks had already woken up the horses. They jumped to their hooves and began to swish their tails around and neigh loudly.

‘Shut them up!’ Walter shouted to Mavis.

‘First, you shut up!’ Mavis shouted back.

The two hadn’t realised what a racket they were making. The Vikings outside paused their chanting to figure out where the sound was coming from. It was clearly coming from the cottage nearest to them–Mavis and Walter’s.

But they were so stupid that they couldn’t figure that out. Each of them had different ideas of where the sound was coming from.

‘It’s coming from there!’

‘No, from there!’

Mavis and Walter had popped a bunch of horse treats into the horses’ mouths to quieten them. They didn’t have dog biscuits for Alpha, so they gave him some too.

‘Go hide in the last room,’ Mavis ordered Walter. ‘I’ll get the Vikings to look in the wrong cottage. When I say: The potato is fried! you slip out the door, okay?’

Walter nodded.

‘Oh, and another thing, if the animals make any noise, you owe me a pizza,’ she added.

Before Walter could react, she dived out of the window.

She slowly crawled across the green grass. Not far from her, the Vikings were still arguing. Mavis needed to get them away from their cottage. So, she picked up a small stone lying near her (she prayed it wasn’t dried poop; that would be gross) and flung it away so that it rolled up to another cottage. The Vikings stopped arguing and looked down blankly at the stone.

They slowly walked towards it. ‘Hey,’ said one of them, surprised, ‘it’s a magic stone!’

Then they all began to fight over who got to keep it. Mavis was taken aback. This was not what she had planned. Anyway, that didn’t matter now, the Vikings were not near their cottage anymore.

She was just about to give the signal to Walter when suddenly one of the Vikings spotted her. ‘Who are you?’ they demanded.

Mavis was at a loss for words. She knew she was going to meet her doom once and for all. Then suddenly an idea popped into her head. ‘Me? Oh, I’m just here to train for the contest and win my Viking helmet!’ she said brightly.

The Vikings looked at her gravely. ‘That’s nice, but we’re here on a mission. We need you to leave.’

Mavis was startled. She did want to leave the village, but she couldn’t leave her friends behind! Then suddenly another idea: ‘But I’m at the top of the Academy of Vikings. The King said so himself. I can help, and I’d say whoever you’re looking for is in –’

‘Oh, what a genius!’ cried one of the Vikings. ‘Why didn’t we check there?’ He was pointing to the cottage Walter and the animals were in.

Mavis was startled. ‘No! No! They’re not there!’

But the Vikings weren’t listening.

One of them walked up to the door and kicked it down. Then all the Vikings walked in. Suddenly, Star, Peanut Butter and Alpha came running out.

The Vikings didn’t care to go after them. They were not of any use to them! Mavis decided it was time for her to run. When the Vikings realised there was only one person inside, they’d definitely suspect her to be the other.

So, feeling slightly guilty about leaving Walter behind, she turned and fled. She caught up with the horses and leapt onto Star’s back. Then she bent down and scooped up Alpha. Taking this as a cue, the horses spread out their wings and took off.

They zoomed past the flock of ducks, over the clouds gleaming with pink and orange light. They slowly flew above the clouds, feeling sorry for themselves. Mavis let out a small sob. Walter was being kidnapped, and there was nothing she could do.

She looked down gloomily at the clouds below when suddenly she saw something strange. There was some kind of cottage perched on one of the clouds.

It was made of rock and mud. Its roof was made of tiles of baked clay, and it had a wooden door. Mavis narrowed her eyes at it and wondered if she had gone mad. But she only had this thought for a moment. After coming to Mrindawa, she was ready to believe anything.

She gently tugged Star’s reins and the horse softly landed on the cloud. His hooves sank into it and it felt like snow, only warmer. Mavis hopped off his back and landed on it. She was surprised to find that the cloud was actually a wooden platform. It had mist floating around it, making it look exactly like a cloud. It appeared to be some kind of flying machine.

She was followed by Alpha. Peanut Butter was circling the cloud, unsure whether to land or not. ‘Here girl,’ beckoned Mavis. The horse paused for a moment, then swooped down and landed on the cloud.

Mavis looked at the cottage on the cloud. Then, purely out of curiosity, she walked up to it and knocked on the door.

‘Squa pai,’ she heard a tiny squeak from inside. Mavis knew this was Mrindawian, meaning ‘come in.’

So, she went ahead and opened the door and walked inside. It was very dusty inside. There were tons of bookshelves inside, filled with books the size of matchboxes.

‘Heve rye,’ she heard a voice. This meant ‘good morning’ in Mrindawian. She tore her eyes off the strange books to figure out where the voice came from.

It seemed to be coming from a wooden table in the middle of the room. On top of the table was a tiny chair and table that must have been from a dollhouse. A small brown mouse was perched on the chair.