It was a blue-grey day; no use to anyone. Joe lay on his mattress reading his Knockout and playing marbles against himself on the top of the cupboard. Sometimes he let the other Joe win, but he never let him take his dobber glass alley. Inside the glass were twists and fiery swirls of all colours. It was his biggest marble, and it had just beaten a blood alley. The blood alley was good. It was made of red and white glass, but Joe couldn’t see into it like he could the dobber.
Knockout was the best comic, better than The Beano or The Dandy, because it had daft ideas. And the best in it was Stonehenge Kit the Ancient Brit, who was always fighting Whizzy the Wicked Wizard and his chums the Brit Bashers. Whizzy wore a pointed hat.
This time, Kit was falling out of a tree, and he dropped thump woof bam crash on Whizzy, who was having forty-one winks in a hammock, which is a lot of holes tied with string, and Kit bundled him up in the hammock to take him as a prisoner for King Kongo and swap him for two cigarette-cards. He met a Brit Basher disguised as a milk maid. The Brit Basher was wearing a wig and carrying a big jar on his shoulder. Kit asked him the way to the palace, but the Brit Basher said TRY THIS WAY, MATEY! and dropped the jar over Kit, and then he set Whizzy free from the hammock. What would happen to our hero now?
Joe was so excited he put the dobber in his mouth and sucked it like a gobstopper.
The Brit Basher picked up a boulder and Whizzy said he was going to lift the jar, and the Brit Basher must plonk the boulder on Kit’s head. But when Whizzy did lift the jar there was only a round hole in the ground. Kit had been standing on the cover; and in the next picture he was sliding down a pole in a shaft, and there was a sign saying TO THE STONEHENGE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY.
Joe laughed; and Kit looked up and winked at him and put a hand out and got hold of the frame of the picture to stop himself. The line sank under the weight of his grip; and the other three sides opened to keep the square.
Kit let go of the pole and pressed the side of the picture to make it bigger. He pulled himself through onto the mattress. HOW DO, JOE? he said. The words came out of his mouth in a bubble, just as they did in the comic, and made no sound. He jumped down from the cupboard. Joe heard the clump of his feet. He sat up and saw Kit’s back reflected in the long mirror. In the mirror Kit was running towards the door next to the chimney. But in the room there was no one.
Joe felt a draught of cold air. He turned to the picture. He touched the square with his finger. His finger went in as if there was no paper, and his hand was on rock. He reached and held the pole. He twisted against the rock and saw a circle of daylight above, and the dark of two heads, one with a pointed hat.
Joe glanced under his arm into the room. The wall and chimney were at a slant. He felt the pole quiver in his hand. He looked up again. Two shapes were sliding down the pole towards him. He shouted, and the dobber glass alley fell from his mouth into the shaft. He heard it hitting the sides. The sound grew fainter, but he did not hear it hit the bottom. He jerked back onto his mattress, and a man with a pointed hat was on the pole and holding the frame. He hopped onto the cupboard. It was Whizzy and behind him came a Brit Basher. WOT ABOUT THIS ONE, GUV? he said. Whizzy said NAH. WE’LL COME BACK LATER AND BIFF HIM FOR THAT BRICK AND POT HE’S GOT. They jumped down into the room, and Joe saw their backs in the mirror as they disappeared through the reflection of the doorway by the chimney.
Joe lay on the mattress until the room was steady. He took his patch from his pocket and pulled it over his eye. The picture shrank to the page; and Kit was on the pole, a drawing in the comic, not looking at him. Joe put his finger out, and felt paper. There was sand on his shirt from the rock.