The Land of Roar series

Just thinking about Crowky makes the excited tingle in my stomach turn into a knot of worry. I take a step back from the bed as if I’m expecting Crowky’s hand to appear and grab hold of me, or worse, grab hold of Grandad.

‘You all right, Arthur?’ says Grandad.

I force myself to smile. ‘Yeah . . . just excited.’

‘No he’s not,’ says Rose. ‘He’s worried about the T-shirt.’ My sister can read my mind. It’s a twin thing. She knows when I’m happy, sad, worried or lying. It’s really annoying.

Grandad pats my shoulder. ‘You don’t need to worry about that old thing, Arthur. It was falling to bits before Crowky got his hands on it. It was my painting T-shirt, remember?’

‘Plus Crowky hasn’t got a clue what it can do,’ adds Rose. ‘As far as he’s concerned it’s just an old T-shirt, not some key that will magically let him out of Roar and into this world!’

Her words don’t reassure me. If anything, they make me feel worse. ‘But there’s still a chance that Crowky could crawl into the tunnel wearing it, isn’t there?’

‘Arthur, it’s a tiny chance,’ says Grandad. ‘It’s not worth worrying about.’

‘Great!’ says Rose. ‘In that case, can we get going?’

Grandad laughs. ‘No way. You two aren’t going anywhere until I’ve given you a bit of advice.’

‘Seriously?’ says Rose, but he’s already pulling out an old blackboard and waving us towards the sofa.

Once we’re sitting down, he finds a yellow chalk and writes ‘Grandad’s Top Tips’ along the top of the blackboard. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says. ‘This won’t take long.’

He’s right. It doesn’t take long, because he only has three top tips to share:

1) No running on the dragons. Ride them SENSIBLY.

2) Be home by 3pm Sunday or I’ll come looking for you. (Seeing as Mum and Dad are supposed to be picking us up at four this is pretty relaxed.)

3) Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!!

Number three seems to be giving us permission to do absolutely anything we want because Grandad is a man with very poor risk-assessment skills. He once actively encouraged me to jump out of the cherry tree on to the trampoline, and he believes no hill is too steep to cycle down ‘if you’ve got the right attitude’.

‘Grandad, are you saying we can climb tall trees?’ I ask.

‘Yes,’ he says, nodding seriously.

‘Have bonfires?’

‘Of course! Have as many as you like.’ (Grandad loves bonfires.)

Rose sees where I’m going with this. ‘Can I gallop fast on Prosecco, swim in the mermaid lagoon and go to bed whenever I like, and possibly not at all?’

‘Yes, yes and YES!’ Grandad laughs. ‘Just don’t run on the dragons. That’s dangerous. Oh, there is one last rule.’ Grandad selects a new red chalk and writes:

4) Avoid all unnecessary winding up of Crowky – he’s unstable.

‘Well obviously,’ says Rose. ‘Now can we go to Roar?’

‘Yes!’ says Grandad, and Rose is so happy that she does something totally unexpected: she throws her arms round me and gives me a hug.

It doesn’t take us long to get ready. Grandad makes us eat some cheese and pickle sandwiches and then insists that we have a ‘journey wee’. Then Rose changes into her leopard-print onesie and I do my teeth because I know it’s going to be a while before I see a toothbrush again.

We meet back in Grandad’s kitchen.

‘Have you got the map, Arthur?’ says Rose.

I pull it out of my back pocket. I’ve put it in one of those waterproof plastic wallets because we always get soaked in Roar. ‘But this is all we’re taking, right?’ She nods and we start emptying our pockets into Grandad’s fruit bowl. Rose puts in her phone, some hairbands and a fluffy TicTac, and I add a stubby pencil and a twenty-pence piece. We’ve agreed to do this so we don’t leave any other ‘magical keys’ behind in Roar.

‘Please can you give this to Win,’ says Grandad, holding out a package wrapped in kitchen roll. ‘It’s rocky road. I told him about it when we were at his cave and he said he wanted to try some “so bad it hurt his brain”.’

‘Sorry, we can’t take it,’ I say.

But Grandad insists on tucking the package into the pocket of my jeans alongside the map. ‘It’s fine: totally consumable. After Win’s eaten it, you can burn the kitchen roll. I promise Crowky won’t be using my rocky road to get out of Roar!’ Grandad chuckles at his joke, but I only manage a weak smile. ‘Now are you two going to Roar or what?’

‘Yes!’ cries Rose, and I follow her as she bounds up the stairs two at a time. Grandad follows. The closer we get to the attic, the more my stomach squirms, and when I see the camp bed, I actually feel dizzy. Am I feeling excitement or fear? It’s really hard to tell.

‘Are you sure it will work?’ I ask Rose, eyeing the mattress. ‘It took me loads of goes to get to Roar last time.’

‘Course it will work,’ she says, confidently. ‘Just think of Roar and you’ll find your way there.’

‘What about pants?’ I blurt out. Suddenly, I want to delay the moment I put my head inside the bed.

‘What?’ says Rose.

‘Well, we can’t wear one pair of pants for the whole week, can we? It’s disgusting!’

Rose shakes her head. ‘Arthur, you do realise how bad it will look if Crowky escapes from Roar because you need clean pants?’

Grandad chuckles and draws a banner in the air. ‘Arthur Trout’s Fresh Pant Obsession Destroys Humanity! Don’t worry about your under-crackers, mate. You can wash them in the waterfall. Now who’s going first?’

‘Me!’ says Rose and then she gives Grandad a big hug before kneeling in front of the bed. We watch as she pushes her head and arms into the mattress, then starts wriggling forward. For a moment she looks like she’s stuck, but after a bit more twisting she manages to pull her legs and feet up behind her. Now her body is completely hidden inside the folded mattress.

Grandad and I stand next to each other and stare at the Rose-shaped bulge. At first nothing happens. Then the bed shudders, there’s a squeak of rusty springs . . . and Rose is gone.

‘Blimey,’ says Grandad, circling the bed. ‘I’ve never actually seen it happen. You must have got the shock of your life when I disappeared!’

‘Something like that,’ I say.

He looks at me. ‘Don’t you think you should get going, Arthur? I want you two to stick together in there. I don’t want Rose going into Roar on her own.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘Right. Here I go.’ Only I don’t go. I stand there, staring at the bed, my heart thudding.

‘Come here,’ says Grandad, pulling me to him.

I press my face into his slightly wheezy chest and smell coffee and his jumper. ‘I think I’m scared, Grandad.’

He squeezes me tight. ‘Good, because that’s how some of the very best adventures start.’ Then he turns me towards the bed. ‘Now go and have your adventure, Arthur Trout, Master of Roar!’

Taking a deep breath, and one last look at Grandad’s smiling face, I get down on my hands and knees and push my head inside the mattress.

The damp, dusty smell of the mattress hits me first, then the dark. It’s a thick, velvety darkness that

wraps itself tight around me. I pull the rest of my body inside the bed until I’m curled up in a ball. Then I think about Roar.

I try to picture the mountains and Win’s cave, but my mind keeps jumping back to the fact that Grandad and the attic are on the other side of the camp bed. So I focus on one thing that I’ve stared at for hours: Win’s campfire. I picture the flames and hear the crackle and pop of burning wood. I see sparks drifting up into the dark sky. Bright orange sparks . . . Sky the colour of the deepest water . . .

And then Roar washes over me like a wave from the Bottomless Ocean. I see trees and lakes so bright they could come from a cartoon, and a river that’s a rainbow ribbon. The smell is . . . sunshine . . . and woodsmoke and apples. I picture myself riding a bike through a forest, leaves snapping against my face. Cycling ahead of me is Win, his cloak flying out behind him. Wait for me, Win, I think. I’m coming! And I start to crawl.

I don’t notice when the mattress becomes rock, or when I start to breathe fresh, cold air, but I do notice the light. It begins as a spot of green, and it gets bigger as I crawl towards it.

Soon I reach the trailing leaves that cover the opening of the tunnel. I’m about to stick my head through them when I realise that the ledge outside is empty.

Where’s Rose? Has she gone into Roar and left me on my own? Then I have another thought . . . What if Crowky’s got her? I shrink back from the opening. He’s been in this tunnel before. It’s how he grabbed hold of Grandad!

I hold my breath and I listen. Silence . . . then something soft brushes against my ear. A feather! I scream, smacking my head on the roof of the tunnel.

Laughter rings out, and Rose wriggles out of a small hollow in the rock. ‘It’s me, you idiot,’ she says. ‘Well, me and a feather.’ She waves it in front of my face. It’s black and tatty and I know who it once belonged to.

I grab it and crumple it in my fist. ‘Rose, that is one of the scariest things you have ever done to me!’

‘Thank you,’ she says, grinning, ‘but, Arthur, you’re focusing on the wrong thing.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We’re here, in Roar!’ she says, ‘and I’ve got the best feeling about Mitch.’ Rose’s voice is bursting with excitement. ‘She’s back. I know she is!’ Her last words are drowned out by water from the On-Off Waterfall crashing past the opening of the tunnel. The leaves tremble and a fine mist drifts over us.

I smile. Rose is right. We’re here, in Roar, and I’m not going to waste a second worrying about Crowky. ‘Then let’s go and find Mitch,’ I say, and together we crawl out on to the ledge.

‘That has got to be the best view in the world,’ says Rose.

Late-afternoon light floods the valley and the Rainbow River slips between forests and lakes. It glows from the crystals that line its bed and leads all the way to the Bottomless Ocean which, right now, is a band of dark blue. My eyes jump greedily from the sea to the trees that hide Win’s cave to the Tangled Forest where the Lost Girls used to live.

‘Look at the Archie Playgo!’ says Rose, pointing at the horizon. Light is gleaming on the hundreds of islands making them glow pink and orange. Rose can’t take her eyes off them, and I know why. That’s where Mitch lives.

‘Shall we go and find Win?’ I say. Rose might be desperate to go looking for Mitch, but Win lives closest to the waterfall and he’d never forgive us if we didn’t see him straight away.

Rose nods, tearing her eyes away from the Archie Playgo.

‘Can you remember how we climb down?’ I say, looking at the rocks sticking out from the side of the cliff. They lead to the ground, only I don’t know which ones are safe to step on.

‘I say we jump,’ says Rose, getting to her feet. ‘It’s the quickest way.’

‘Really?’ I inch forward, eyeing the drop. ‘Or you could call a dragon?’

‘No,’ she says. ‘We made this world and we put that pool there for a reason: so we could jump into it. Let’s go!’ Then she takes a deep breath, pinches her nose and steps calmly off the ledge.

I watch as she drops through the air, her hair flying out behind her. Rose might be moody and bossy and occasionally mean, but she’s very brave. She shoots into the water, barely making a ripple, then bursts back up to the surface. She waves and shouts, ‘Come on, Arthur. It’s easy!’ Then she swims to the side and pulls herself out.

‘Rose!’ I call. ‘Wait for me!’ But she’s already wandered off into the trees.

I get to my feet and inch forward until I’m standing on the very edge. I take a nice deep breath and . . . I stay exactly where I am. I’ve never been good with heights, and this is a whopping big height. Dizziness sweeps through me, and I remind myself of Grandad’s words: that the best adventures start with feeling scared. My heart thuds as I hold my breath. If he’s right, I’m about to have the biggest adventure of my life.

I jump.

I don’t land with a neat plop like Rose. I land with an almighty splash that gives me a colossal wedgie and a stinging slap to my entire body. I tumble round and round under the water, then bob to the surface.

Rose has reappeared and watches as I clamber out. ‘That was one seriously big scream,’ she says. ‘I thought Crowky had got you!’

‘It was more a yell,’ I say, shaking my head to clear the water from my ears. ‘You know, from the adrenalin rush.’

‘Well, get ready for another one,’ she says, turning and walking into the forest. ‘There’s something you’ve got to see.’

I follow her until we reach a shadowy clearing. For a moment I can’t see anything, but then my eyes adjust, and, like magic, the forest bursts into life.

Furries drop from the trees then whizz between us, their tiny voices crying out, ‘ARTHUR, ARTHUR, ROSE, ROSE!’ Then birds start singing. Well, they shriek and squawk, and when I look up I see that the trees are full of them. There are some yellow ones with silver beaks, but most are bright red with black feathers around their eyes. They look like they’re wearing masks.

‘Superbirds!’ I say.

Rose laughs as butterflies settle on her arm. They’re bigger than the butterflies at Home and covered in velvety fur. She strokes one with her fingertip. ‘These were mine,’ she says.

So were the furries, I think as one of them divebombs towards me and starts to burrow into my hair. Everything in Roar began as something Rose or I loved or hated when we were little. Usually the things we loved appeared in the Good Side of Roar – where we are now – while the things we hated went to the Bad Side.

I shake the furry from my hair, and Rose lifts her arms and the butterflies take off. ‘Come on,’ she says, ‘let’s find Win.’ And we set off for Win’s cave, a chattering group of furries zooming alongside us.

It turns out that since we were last in Roar, Win has booby-trapped his cave. Luckily for us, he’s done it really badly.

I’m so keen to see Win that I run ahead of Rose, shouting out, ‘Win, we’re back!’ As I dash across the rock outside his cave, something pulls tight across my legs, knocking me to my knees. Too late I realise I’ve run into a trip wire. I look up and see a bucket tip upside down. A single apple rolls out of the bucket and bounces off my head.

There is a cry from the cave and Win shoots out on a rusty bike. He does a wheelie through the embers of his fire, jumps off the bike and rugby-tackles me to the ground. ‘AAAARRGHH!’ he screams.

‘Win, it’s me, Arthur,’ I say, gasping, as he squeezes me tighter and tighter. ‘Stop fighting me!’

‘I’m not fighting you: I’m hugging you. I really missed you, mate!’

After a final rib-crushing squeeze he jumps to his feet and throws his arms round Rose. She disappears inside his cloak. ‘Rose Trout, Master of Roar!’ he says. ‘I thought you’d never come back!’

She wriggles away from him. ‘It’s only been two months, Win.’

‘I know but last time you went away you didn’t come back for more than three years.’

‘Well we’re here now,’ she says, ‘just like we promised.’

‘And it’s so good to be back,’ I say, looking around. Everything about Win’s cave makes me happy: the smell of the fire, the mess of toys and weapons, the wheel that’s still spinning on his rusty bike. I feel like I’ve come home.

‘Where did you get the bike?’ I say. ‘I thought both the bikes were washed out to sea.’

‘Well this one got washed back in again,’ he says, laughing at his good luck. ‘I found it on the beach last week.’

‘On the beach?’ says Rose, looking up. ‘Did you see any mermaids down there?’

‘Loads,’ says Win. ‘They were all lying around sunbathing. I was practically tripping over them.’

Rose’s eyes light up. ‘Did you see Mitch?’

Win shakes his head. ‘No, I’ve not seen her anywhere. I’ve been to her hut a few times, but it’s always deserted. Sorry, Rose.’

Rose’s shoulders sag a little, but she does a determined smile. ‘You haven’t been to her hut today, have you? She could be arriving back this very minute!’

‘Yeah, I guess so,’ says Win, although he doesn’t sound convinced. Then he turns his attention to his booby trap, twanging the trip wire with his foot, making the bucket tip over again. ‘So what do you think of this bad boy?’ he asks proudly. ‘I rigged it up in case Crowky found my cave. If you’d come a couple of weeks ago, Arthur would be dead by apples right now. There were hundreds in there!’

I pick up the lone apple that hit me on the head. ‘You ate the rest, didn’t you?’

‘Yep,’ he says with a grin. ‘Waiting, and doing an intensive daily regime of kicks, punches and awesome magic made me hungry.’

And I have to laugh, because I’m so happy to be back in Roar looking at Win’s wonky wizard’s hat and wonky smile and listening to him boast.

‘What do you want to do first?’ asks Win. ‘It’s going to be dark soon, but if we’re quick we could go down to the river and have a swim. Loads of tadpoles have hatched and they glow in the dark.’ Suddenly his eyes light up. ‘Or we could find a unicorn! There aren’t many around, but if we go to the Tangled Forest we might be able to persuade one to give us a ride.’

I look beyond the forest and across Roar. The setting sun is giving everything a golden glow, and I feel giddy with the thought of all the time we’ve got in Roar and the amazing things we can do . . . But there is one thing stopping me from running off to hunt for tadpoles and unicorns.

‘What about Crowky and his scarecrow army?’ I say. ‘Is it really safe to go wandering about in the dark?’

Win strides to the edge of the rock and throws his arms out wide. ‘CROWKY’S GONE, MATE!’ he shouts, making a furry fall out of a tree. It bounces to the ground where it stares up at us, wings trembling.

‘Told you,’ says Rose, giving me a smug look.

‘Win, are you sure?’ I say. ‘Crowky’s definitely gone?’

‘No one has seen him, the Raven or his scarecrows since you left,’ says Win.

‘But he could be hiding in the Archie Playgo,’ I say. ‘There are hundreds of islands out there.’

Rose does an exasperated sigh. ‘Yeah, he could be, Arthur, but the important thing is, Roar is ours again so stop being such a funge and let’s start enjoying ourselves.’

‘What’s a funge?’ says Win.

‘A fun sponge,’ says Rose. ‘Someone who sucks the fun out of a situation. Basically a funge is Arthur.’

‘Yeah, stop being such a FUNGE, Arthur!’ cries Win.

‘I’m not a funge. I’m just sensible.’

Rose grins. ‘Said the funge.’

And then they’re both laughing at me, and even the furry seems to be laughing because it’s thrown itself back on the ground and is rolling around from side to side.

‘Fine, Crowky’s gone.’ Just saying the words out loud makes me feel good. ‘Let’s go to the river. We can find a unicorn tomorrow.’

‘You two can do whatever you like,’ says Rose. ‘I’m going to Mitch’s hut.’

‘We’ll come with you,’ I say, remembering that Grandad wants us to stick together.

Rose shakes her head. ‘No thanks. If Mitch is there, we’re going to have loads to talk about. We won’t want you two annoying us.’

‘But what if something happens to you?’

Rose rolls her eyes. ‘Arthur, relax. I’m either going to bechatting to my best mer-friend in the world or lying in her hammock. I’m not going to do anything dangerous.’ Then she stands on the edge of the rock, puts two fingers to her lips and does a long, low whistle.

Except riding a dragon, I think.

The sound slips through the trees, and fades away. I can’t hear it, but I know it’s floating across Roar, and it won’t stop until it finds the ears of a dragon. Perhaps even now a huge, scaly body is heaving itself to its feet and its hot heart is beating a little bit faster because it knows that Rose Trout, Master of Roar, is back.

Together, the three of us stand on the rock, staring towards the Bottomless Ocean.

‘There!’ cries Rose, pointing at a black dot on the horizon.

The shape moves towards us, growing bigger and bigger until we can see two huge wings silhouetted against the orange sky.

‘Bad Dragon,’ whispers Rose.

She’s bigger than I remember, and even from this distance I can see smoke rolling from her gaping mouth and her glowing eyes.

Rose turns to me and grins. She’s standing tall with her shoulders back and her head held high. ‘I’ll probably see you tomorrow,’ she says, ‘or the day after.’

It’s obvious that Rose is getting on that dragon and there’s nothing I can do to stop her.

‘Be careful,’ I say, but already she’s jumping off the rock and running into the forest.

Win and I watch as Bad Dragon glides closer, her mighty head swinging from side to side as she looks for Rose. Each flap of her wings sends air rushing towards us, flattening the tops of the trees. I fight the instinct to run and hide, and soon she’s soaring over our heads and I’m staring at the strange sight of her belly. Her scales are paler and smoother here and fire glimmers between the cracks.

‘Look out!’ Win shoves me to the ground just as Bad Dragon’s tail slices past my face. We huddle together, as she turns and flies back over the forest before swooping out of sight below the trees. Next there is a colossal thud that makes the rock beneath us tremble. She’s landed.

Win laughs as he helps me to my feet. ‘I saved your life!’

And the scary thing is, I think he might be right.

Soon Bad Dragon is lifting back up in the air and Rose is a tiny figure on her back. I shade my eyes and see Rose wave. Then Bad Dragon thrusts her wings down and they fly towards the setting sun.

‘So . . .’ says Win, turning to me with a grin, ‘ready to swim with glow-in-the-dark tadpoles?’

It must be past midnight when we get back to Win’s cave and curl up in sleeping bags by the fire.

I’m so exhausted that I fall asleep straight away and I barely think about Rose and what she’s doing on Mitch’s island. But the next morning, as we’re getting ready to go to the Tangled Forest, I wish that she was with us. I know that she’d love what we’re about to do – go looking for unicorns – so I write her a note telling her where we’re going and I leave it under a stone by the entrance to Win’s cave.

If she comes back, she’ll know where to find us.

Win and I walk along past the river then through a meadow. I use the map to trace our route while Win dashes ahead of me, pushing flowers out of our way and surprising furries and the odd monkey. I can’t wait to see my first unicorn, but I still find myself hanging back to look at things. I breathe in the minty smell of a Roar sunflower and let a ladybird crawl over my arm. Its spots are a dazzling gold one moment, pink the next.