12

Ben And Jess Receive A Present

Ben and Jess followed Lox under the hedge. When they reached the spider gate it was wide open and Lox waved them in. They could hardly believe their eyes. There were glow worms all around the walls so it was easy to see what was happening. In the middle of the big entrance room was Queen Aranya. The wizard was next to her. Above their heads was a silver cobweb, and bouncing around in it was a tiny spider. It was the Spider Prince!

Lox called Ben and Jess over to his side. ‘You can meet the visitors first, and then the queen will speak to you.’

He turned around and Jess gasped. In front of her was the most beautiful fairy. She had golden hair, golden wings, a green and gold dress, and bright green shoes. Lox said that she was Tianna Rowan, the Fairy Queen of the Rowan clan. Next to her was another fairy who looked almost the same, but she had silver wings, a red dress, and red shoes. She was Shaylee Rowan, the Fairy Princess. The fairies touched fingers with Ben and Jess and fluttered their wings.

Lox moved on to the next group and Ben’s heart began to thump when he saw who it was. Two green dragons stood side by side and were staring at him. When he’d seen them before they’d been small, but they had still managed to bite him. Now he was small and they looked enormous. He stood behind Lox, who said that they were Lulong Zeewang, the Green Dragon King, and Lulong Tyzee, the Dragon Prince. The dragons nodded their heads. As Ben passed them he could feel the back of his neck tingling from their cold breath. He noticed that Jess didn’t stand near them for long either.

Then the wizard made a speech about how brave Ben had been, and Queen Aranya moved forward. She thanked Ben and Jess for helping to make the prince better and said that she had a gift for them. The wizard handed her a golden-coloured cobweb. It was the one that he had spun when Lox had brought him the three ingredients. The queen broke it and gave half to Ben and half to Jess. She told them to hold it out in front of them.

The wizard ran around in a circle three times then he held up his two front legs and waved them over the pieces of web. He said some words that Ben didn’t understand and the web began to glow. Jess was shaking as the web grew heavier and heavier. When the wizard stopped moving, Lox helped Ben and Jess to carry the pieces to the spider gate. They turned around and saw that everyone was waving to them, so they waved too.

Back at the tent, Lox told them to take care of their gifts. The wizard’s magic had turned the cobweb into gold. It would only be small in the human world, but it was still something precious. He told Ben that he would come to the window sill the next night, when it would be the full moon. He thanked Jess again, then he ran back under the hedge and out of sight.

Ben and Jess were very tired, so Ben said the growing bigger rhyme very quickly for both of them. They went back into the tent to look at their gifts.

‘It’s a bit like the spider gate piece,’ Jess said. ‘The one we found in the woods.’

Ben agreed. ‘Yes, but I don’t think that was gold. What will you do with yours?’

‘I don’t know yet,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll put it somewhere safe until I’m older.’

‘Me too,’ said Ben. ‘Come on, we’d better go back to the house.’

The next night Ben was in his bedroom at eight o’clock. Mum had said that he could look at his book for ten minutes, but instead he pulled back the curtain and looked for Lox. The spider was waiting in the corner, so Ben opened the window quietly.

‘Look up, Ben,’ Lox told him.

There, high in the sky, hung the moon. It looked like a big golden balloon floating over the tops of the trees.

‘Every time you see the moon like that,’ Lox said, ‘you’ll know that everyone in the spider kingdom is thinking of you – especially me. We hope you won’t forget us, and perhaps one day we can meet again. Goodbye, Ben. Goodbye.’

Lox ran out of the window, over the ledge, and was gone.

Ben didn’t have time to say anything, so he just whispered, ‘Goodbye.’

He looked up at the moon again, and just for a moment he was sure it was covered with a golden cobweb.