‘We’ll rap,’ Shane whispered, settling the guitar strap over his shoulder. ‘You don’t need to sing for rap.’

‘Rap? I don’t know how to rap,’ I began.

‘I do,’ Shane whispered. ‘My mum sends CDs of rap to Gran. She listens to them all the time when she paints. Just say YO lots of times. And the words don’t have to make sense. Just go with the flow.’

Great. Our lives depended on the word ‘YO’!

‘Right,’ whispered Shane, strumming the guitar. ‘You beat that drum. Here goes.’ He cleared his throat and began.

Yep, that was typical of Shane. In spite of our serious predicament, his thoughts were on food. At first there was silence, and I could almost smell the dungeon already. But Roc stood up and clapped. Then the whole room exploded with clapping and shouting.

‘More! More!’ the soldiers were shouting and banging the tables.

Shane paused and strummed the guitar – totally out of tune.

‘Your turn, Milo,’ he whispered. ‘While I make up another rap.’

Me? I tried to swallow, but I’d run out of spit.

‘Just use your head,’ murmured Shane.

‘Or listen man, we’ll both be dead,’ he added softly as he strummed.

Well that kicked me into wake-up time. I beat the armpit drum and searched my mind for a starting word. I glanced at Shane, my best friend, trying to keep us both from a grim fate. We depended on each other, so I took a big breath and got going.

More clapping and shouting. Wow! Was this for real? Then Shane butted in with another finger-snapping rap:

The soldiers went wild. They got up, dancing to the beat and shouting for more. Shane’s face had the biggest grin I’d ever seen. We were the main cool dudes – real rap stars!

After a while, we were beginning to run dangerously out of wind and words.

‘We can’t go on much longer,’ I panted in Shane’s ear.

‘I know,’ he panted back. ‘We’ll have to do something else.’

‘What can we do?’ I went on. ‘My throat is like broken glass and Miss Lee’s shoes are killing me.’

‘Our bikes!’ Shane replied, still strumming his guitar. ‘I bet they’ve never seen bikes in action, Milo.’

Then he turned to Roc and bowed again.

‘And now, sire,’ he said, ‘me and my sister, Lady Magenta Knickers would like to demonstrate our …’ he paused and looked at me in desperation.

‘Our amazing magical wheels,’ I said, with quick thinking. ‘Invented by a man of genius, whose wealth is so huge he has twelve strong men to stand guard over him in case thieves try to steal his plans.’

‘Show me,’ said Roc, standing up. ‘Let me see how these strange things work.’

So we mounted our bikes and rode up and down the huge room. Then we got a bit braver and aimed at the soldiers’ feet, avoiding them skilfully at the last second. How they screeched and laughed. And then we got really brave and did a few wheelies. The soldiers whooped and shouted at our skills.

Shane turned and winked at me. Big mistake. He accidentally rammed into a tough soldier with a face like a bad-tempered bull. The soldier jumped up and grabbed Shane’s bike. ‘Step back, boy,’ he growled, pushing Shane away as if he was swatting a fly. ‘I shall master this apparatus.’

Then my bike was pulled away by another thug. All we could do was stand and watch as they all fought over our bikes. Roc just sat on his throne, drinking more wine and laughing at the chaos. He probably thought this was part of the act. This wasn’t meant to happen. If that lot got too pushy and knocked my pigtails off, I’d be exposed as a boy. Imagine trying to explain that! Up and down the Great Hall the soldiers took turns, veering into tables and knocking one another down. Shane and I tried to reach Roc and tell him this wasn’t a good way to treat important visitors from Afar, but he was chatting with his captains.

Just as we felt everything was falling apart, servants arrived, with steaming platters, through a door behind Roc’s throne. Our bikes were thrown down and the soldiers made a beeline for the tables.

‘Come, sit with us, you children of King Tayto of Africa,’ Roc called out to Shane and me.

Whew! This could be awkward. ‘Listen,’ I whispered in Shane’s ear as we went towards the table, ‘No matter how hungry you are, don’t eat the food. We’ll just kinda drop it on the floor. Got that?’

‘Gotcha,’ he hissed.

We watched as the soldiers grabbed the plates from the servants and dug into the meat and veg like snarling wolves.

The noise of soldiers slurping and guzzling echoed around the room, and the sweaty servants were running back and forth with second and third helpings.

‘They haven’t brought food here to Roc’s table,’ whispered Shane.

‘I know,’ I whispered back. At first I thought that this was some sort of strange ritual, but surely the Lord and his captains should be served first. I could see Shane’s eyebrows go up higher and higher whenever the servants passed our table.

‘Excuse me, Sir Roc,’ he finally piped up. ‘Have your servants forgotten this table?’

All the posh guys around the table laughed.

‘Oh no, my boy,’ said Roc. ‘We would not partake of such slop. This food is only for the common soldiers. I and my captains – and you two guests, will dine on wild boar, salted fish, boiled fowl and eels in my private quarters.’

Shane and I looked at one another. If Roc and his snooty captains didn’t eat Big Ella’s concoction, we were absolutely doomed!