Joe went into the next room. It was the wrong way. And the stairs turned wrong.
He went down to the chimney. Again the same, with the folded pyjamas and the Knockout on the other side of the fire basket. He looked at the Knockout. The letters and pictures were back to front. And the squares for Stonehenge Kit were blank.
Joe searched the house. It was empty. He opened the door hung wrong and looked across the wrong way yard. The step shone white. He shut the door and went upstairs again.
He stood before the mirror. The reflection showed the room as it should be. He lifted the donkey stone and held it at the glass and pressed gently. The donkey stone passed through, and he saw it and his hand on the other side, as if they had gone into the water of the brook. The cold clamped him.
Joe took a breath and slipped into the room. From the big window the yard and the fields were in their proper place. And there was the same box of dark, and in the corner a mirror.
He went down to the chimney and searched again. Nobody. But the letters of the Knockout were right. He went back to the room and the mirror.
He pressed the donkey stone to the glass and followed it. The cold made him shout, but he ran across the floor and into the next mirror; and on and on, glass after glass, and the rooms flickered and switched with each passing, and the cold grew worse. He went through eight rooms, but in the ninth the cold made him pause for the pain of his breath. He stood, gasping, before the mirror. The room was the right way, and there was banging in his ears.
He lifted his hand to go on. And stopped. The opposite hand in the mirror had not moved to match; the other had. He pressed the stone against the glass, but it was the other hand that had the donkey stone, and they did not meet. And the room reflected was the same as the one he was in.
He changed hands with the donkey stone. The other did the same. He could not get them to meet. He tapped the stone on the glass. The glass was hard.
He pulled back and hit. The glass shattered, and he was looking at emptiness. There was no further to go.
And the banging was not in his head. It was in the cupboard below his mattress. The door quivered under blows and the wood had splintered.
PSST!
He saw the letters in a bubble come from his blankets, and then a face bobbed out. It was Stonehenge Kit.
Kit threw off the blankets and jumped down.
THIS WAY, CHUM!
Kit pointed to the box of dark.
QUICK!
He grabbed Joe’s hand. Joe felt a sharp papery grip as he was dragged into the black.
He was running in a tunnel, pulled by a hand he could not see; a black tunnel, turning and lined with stars, so that he could not tell up from down; only the turning; but he ran.
Then light. He was in the room, but a wrong way room, and Kit was holding and running to the next dark.
Again the tunnel, the turning, the stars; and the room; but a right one. Kit let go of his hand and grinned.
FETCH KNOCKOUT AND JAMAS. DON’T DALLY.
Joe ran to the stairs, nearly falling, and to the chimney. He lifted the Knockout and the pyjamas and scrambled back to Kit. Kit took the pyjamas.
Kit said WHIZZY THOUGHT HE HAD US IN THE CUPBOARD, BUT I WAS ON TOP AND SHUT ’EM IN. THEY’LL BE THROUGH IN A JIFF. TAKE KNOCKOUT AND DO A BUNK.
‘Where?’
WHEN YOU SEE US, COP US. EH UP! THEY’RE OUT!
Kit took Joe’s hand.
RUN, CHUM!
He swung him into the next dark.
Joe was alone in the tunnel, running with the Knockout among the stars, turning, turning, back through flickering rooms, always turning; and he tripped.
He was on his knees, on a floor with pebbles and marbles and granite.
He looked up. In front of him was the chimney. He saw the doorway; he saw the cupboard. There was no box of dark. It was his own room. The Knockout was in his hand.
Joe got to his feet. He was standing in front of the mirror, but he did not see himself. He saw a nest of mirrors, going back and back, and in them Kit was running towards him, and behind were Whizzy and the Brit Basher. The Brit Basher caught up with Kit and lifted his club; but Kit dropped the pyjamas and ran on.
The Brit Basher said GOTCHA! And he started to wallop the pyjamas BIFF! BAM! THWACK!
OAF! LUMMOX! AND CLOD! THAT’S NOT HIM! said Whizzy.
IT IS, GUV! SNIFF THE WHIFF!
And the Brit Basher went on walloping the pyjamas. Of course, this let Kit off, and he ran.
He ran through mirrors and mirrors, growing bigger, getting nearer, until he was one mirror away and the Brit Basher and Whizzy were catching up right behind him. And Kit shouted KNOCKOUT!
Joe opened the Knockout and pressed it to the glass.
He felt the paper squirm under his palms. He leaned with all his force. The paper writhed, twitched. He kept his weight against the glass until pain made him drop the comic. He looked in the mirror and saw himself.
The Knockout lay splayed on the floor. He picked it up. It was open at the squares of Stonehenge Kit; but the squares were not empty. In the first was the room with the cupboard and the chimney. The cupboard door was smashed and Whizzy and the Brit Basher were coming out. Whizzy said AFTER ’EM! BIFF HIM FOR THAT BRICK! AND GET THAT POT HE’S GOT!
The next picture was Kit running through a wrong way room and being chased by Whizzy and the Brit Basher,
Next was Kit with his thumbs in his ears, wiggling his fingers and saying HA HA HA! HEE HEE HEE! CAN’T CATCH ME FOR A PENNY CUP OF TEA!
Next was a right way room, and Kit was opening the big window.
Next he was climbing out of the window, and the next he was swinging on a gutter and reaching for a drainpipe.
Next he was shinning down the drainpipe into the yard.
Next he was running across the yard and Whizzy was leaning out of the window and saying FUME! AND BAH!
Next Whizzy was on the drainpipe and the Brit Basher had his club between his teeth and was reaching for the gutter and Kit was running through the gateway.
Next the Brit Basher had hold of the drainpipe and let go of the gutter; but he was so heavy he pulled the drainpipe off the wall and fell OOF! ZONK! KER-POW! SPLAT! on Whizzy, and Kit was running down the track between Big Meadow and Barn Croft. And at the side it said PHEW! THAT WAS CLOSE! BUT WHIZZY’s OUT OF THE HOUSE AND HE CAN’T GET BACK IN! WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT, CHUMS?