1st PRIME: NUMBER 2

The strange something

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In slightly more than 43 hours plus 5, today would be a twice-upon-a-time-day but no-one had any idea that this would happen.
       Holly and her brother Jack lived beside the canal in Rodley Bottoms. It was the school holidays and they longed for an adventure. But it hadn’t stopped raining for a week. They were stuck indoors and bored. Then, one morning, the clouds parted and the sun finally put in an appearance. 
       ‘Come on Holly!’ shouted Jack. ‘I’ll race you to the garden.’
       They rammed their feet into their wellies and dashed out of the house.
       ‘Hang on!’ cried Holly. ‘I’ll just get Podge.’
       She grabbed Podge and was back with Jack before he knew she had gone.
       Podge was an extremely well-loved bean-bag dog, black and brown all over with floppy ears, even floppier feet and a beautiful button nose.  She was rather scruffy and not any particular type of dog, but that didn’t matter to Holly.
       Holly loved Podge. They talked together, listened together, slept together. They cried together, laughed together, played together. They were what together meant. Holly and Podge had been best friends for years and Holly could simply not imagine a world without Podge.
       ‘OK! Let’s go!’ boomed Holly.
       She and Jack quickly ‘snail-hopped’ their way up the long path running by the side of their house, carefully avoiding stepping on any of the snails that had come out to say hello.
       ‘Let’s climb the Clock Tree,’ said Jack stopping for a moment. 
       The Clock Tree was a very old, gnarled tree, which stood in one corner of the garden. Fastened to its trunk was a clock. This was rather weather-beaten but it worked. They loved to climb the tree and watch the world go by over the high dry-stone wall that enclosed 3 sides of the garden.
       ‘Let’s go and see Zig and Zag’, came back Holly.
       Zig and Zag were Holly’s guinea pigs who lived in a shed just in front of the garden.
       ‘No, you can see them later. Let’s go up the tree!’ demanded Jack.
       Holly was determined.
       ‘No, Zig and Zag!’ she shouted.
       ‘Clock Tree!’ snapped Jack.
       ‘No, Zig and Zag!’ shouted Holly even louder.
       ‘OK,’ said Jack more quietly. ‘Let’s pick for it.’
       He stooped down and gently picked up a sleeping snail in one hand, put his arms behind his back, swapped the snail from hand to hand, and then held his closed hands out in front of him.
       ‘You choose,’ he said to Holly.
       Holly looked at the outstretched hands trying to see if any slime was oozing out between their fingers. There wasn’t. She waved her right hand backwards and forwards over Jack’s hands, paused for a moment then put her hand on Jack’s left hand.
       Grinning, Jack opened his left hand to reveal an empty palm, quickly followed by his right, which contained a snoozing snail sitting in a small pool of slime.
       ‘I win! The Clock Tree it is!’ he shouted triumphantly.
       Carefully returning the snail to a safe spot, he wiped his right hand on his shorts and sauntered along the path, past the shed and into the garden.
       Holly didn’t follow Jack immediately but just stood still muttering to herself.
       ‘Why do I never win? Jack always wins.’
       She sighed, took a deep breath and slowly set off after him clutching Podge tightly.
       It didn’t take long to catch him up. Jack was standing motionless in the garden pointing at something strange. Holly was just about to prod him to get out of the way when she saw what had made him stop.
       Before Holly knew it she too was motionless and began to point at the strange something. It was the most curious creature she had ever seen.