Ben Meets Lox
There was once a boy called Ben, who lived in a little house with his mum, dad and grandmother, and a dog called Scoot. Ben liked his house. He had his own bedroom and out of the window he could see the back garden. Ben loved the garden. It was his favourite place in the whole world.
The garden had a path right down the middle and a shed near the back door. Dad grew vegetables on one side of the path, and on the other side there was a lawn and two big trees at the far end. There was a tall hedge all the way around the outside of the garden, with a little gate into the back lane. Each spring the robins would come and build their nest in the hedge. Ben used to listen to them chirping to each other. He was so excited when their eggs were hatched. The baby birds made such a lot of noise and he really wanted to see them.
‘They’ll be frightened, Ben,’ his dad told him. ‘They’re so tiny and you’d look like a giant to them.’ So Ben waited and it wasn’t long before he could see mum and dad robin flying in and out of the hedge looking for food for the chicks. Every evening Ben used to help his dad to fill up the bird feeders which hung on the side of the shed. From his bedroom window he could watch the robins, sparrows and lots of other birds pecking for the seeds. His mother was teaching him the names of the birds but he couldn’t always remember all of them. When the little robins started to fly, Ben was sad because he knew they’d soon move away.
‘Never mind, Ben,’ his mum told him, ‘they’ll be back next year.’ He knew she was right but a whole year seemed like such a long time.
One day, near the end of the summer holidays, Ben was playing in the garden with Scoot. Scoot was a black and white dog and he was very clever. Ben’s dad had a special whistle and he’d trained Scoot to come to him whenever the dog heard it. At the start of the holidays Ben’s dad had taught Ben how to use the whistle and he tried it now.
‘Good boy, Scoot! You’re so smart. Let’s play ball now.’
Even though Scoot was little, he could run very fast. Ben threw the ball high in the air and Scoot jumped up after it and then chased it down the garden path. Ben laughed, then he sat down on the grass and watched Scoot pushing the ball around with his nose. The sun was hot and after a while Scoot lay down in the shade of the garden shed and rested his head on his paws. Ben began to feel sleepy as well and his eyes started to close.
When he opened them again he thought he was still asleep and dreaming. He wasn’t a big boy any more, he was a very little boy. He wasn’t much bigger than one of the daisies that were growing in the grass! He looked around. Everything looked the same only now it was huge, even Scoot, who was looking at Ben as if he was one of his toys.
Very carefully, Ben crawled towards the path but he stopped when he heard a strange noise. It sounded like someone was crying.
‘Who’s there?’ Ben called out. ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m over here, on top of the box next to the tree,’ came the answer.
Ben jumped and turned around. He rubbed his eyes and stared at the box. That morning it had been just an ordinary shoe box that he kept his toy cars in, but now it looked as big as a garage. On top of the box sat a big spider, but Ben wasn’t frightened because the spider looked so sad, and big fat tears were dropping down from his eyes.
‘What’s the matter?’ Ben asked. ‘Why are you crying?’
‘I’ve lost something,’ the spider sobbed. ‘Well, someone stole it, really.’
‘Oh no.’ Ben moved a little closer. ‘Can I help you find it?’
The spider crawled down from the box and looked at Ben. ‘Well, maybe. Come and sit over here and I’ll tell you about it.’ So Ben sat down and the spider began his story.
‘I am called Lox and I am the guardian of the spider kingdom’s gate. It was made many years ago to stop anything coming in to our land. Spiders can pass in and out but only through the gate. I have to make sure that it’s guarded at all times but this morning, when I came to check, the night guard was missing and a huge bird was breaking up the gate.’
‘A bird?’ Ben looked worried. He hoped it wasn’t the robins. He hadn’t seen them for a while but that didn’t mean that they weren’t around. ‘What kind of bird?’
‘What do you mean, what kind?’ the spider asked. ‘Birds are birds. It looked like that.’ He waved one of his legs towards the house and Ben could see an enormous magpie perched on the roof.
‘Anyway, I tried to save the gate but he pecked at me so I hid in the grass. I saw him break the gate into three pieces, and then he picked them up in his beak and flew off. I saw one piece fall somewhere near the box but I don’t know where he took the others.’ Lox began to cry again. Ben patted the leg nearest to him.
‘Don’t cry,’ he said. ‘I’ll help you. What does the gate look like?’
The spider dried his eyes with his two front legs, then ran through the grass to the back of the box. ‘Come on,’ he shouted to Ben, ‘see if we can find the first piece, then you’ll know. It’s here somewhere.’
Ben ran after him and together they pushed through the grass and daisies until Lox called out, ‘Here. Here it is. Please help me pull it out.’ Ben stared. Just at the bottom of one of the trees was a large dandelion and poking out from under its leaves was something that looked very much like part of a spider’s web. This wasn’t soft and squashy though, it was hard and shiny. It was just like the gates he’d seen at the front of the castle in his story book.
‘Pull!’ said Lox, and Ben helped him to drag the piece of gate along the path and under the hedge. It was hard work as the piece was nearly as big as Ben. ‘Over here.’ Lox pointed and Ben could see a cave at the back of the hedge near the fence.
‘But who made this gate?’ Ben scratched his head. ‘Why does it look like a cobweb but it isn’t?’
Lox smiled. ‘It is a web but it was made here long, long ago by the Spider Queen’s workmen. When it was finished and it covered the entrance, the queen’s wizard sang a magic song and the web became hard and strong. It’s never been broken until now and it’s all my fault.’
Ben thought Lox was going to cry again so he said quickly, ‘No, it’s not. It was the magpie. My gran says that magpies love shiny things. Can’t the wizard make a new gate?’
‘No,’ Lox said. ‘The gate-making song only works twice and there’s another gate at the far end of the kingdom, so the song can’t be sung again.’
‘If I help you find the other pieces, can it be fixed together again?’ Ben asked.
‘Yes, I think so,’ Lox said, ‘but the wizard’s magic will only work until the leaves on the trees fall off.’
Ben thought for a moment. Lox meant autumn, when all the leaves turned red, or orange, or brown before they fell off the trees, but Ben wasn’t quite sure when that would be. He’d have to ask Gran. She knew everything, but how would she be able to see or hear him now that he was so small? He turned to Lox.
‘All right. I’ll help you but I have to go back to my house now. Call your guards and make them stay here. I’ll come back to let you know if I find anything. If I’m bigger than this next time, will you be afraid of me?’
Lox looked at Ben. ‘What do you mean – bigger?’
Ben put his hands in his pockets and hopped from foot to foot. ‘Well, I’m not usually this small,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what happened to me but if I go back to being big, I promise I won’t hurt you when I come back.’
Lox looked a little bit worried but nodded his head. ‘All right, but please hurry.’
Ben ran as quickly as he could through the grass. It seemed such a long way now that he was so tiny. When he reached the edge of the grass he had to climb up onto the path. This made him very tired so he sat down for a rest. He closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep. When he woke up, Scoot was licking his hand. Ben stared at Scoot. He wasn’t huge at all. Then Ben looked at his own hands and feet and saw that he was back to his normal size.
‘Oh, Scoot. I must have been dreaming all the time. Silly me!’ he said. ‘Come on, time for tea.’ Then he threw Scoot’s ball towards the back door of the house and they both chased after it.
