Gran Tells Ben About Autumn
Ben opened the kitchen door but he could see that Scoot was pawing and licking at something that was caught in the doormat. ‘What have you got there, boy? Let me see.’ Scoot wagged his tail but he didn’t want to give up his prize and he kept his paw over it. ‘Come on, Scoot, show me. You can have a biscuit if you do.’ Ben reached inside the kitchen door and took a biscuit from Scoot’s bowl. ‘Here, Scoot. Here.’ Ben offered the treat to Scoot. The dog jumped for it and moved off the mat. Ben poked his fingers through the back of the mat and tried to push out what was stuck there. All of a sudden something popped out onto the floor and Ben picked it up.
‘Yuk, Scoot. You slobbered all over it.’ Ben made a face and wiped the thing on his trousers and then put it on the palm of his hand. It was small and hard, and looked like a piece of chain or something like that. Once it was dry it began to shine in the sunlight and Ben prodded it with his finger. His eyes opened wide and he sat down suddenly on the doorstep.
‘Oh, Scoot! Look what you found. Look.’ Scoot pushed his wet nose against Ben’s hand and wagged his tail hard. ‘It’s another piece, Scoot. Another piece of the spider gate.’
Ben ran back down the garden path with Scoot right behind him. When he was near the hedge he lay flat on the ground and crawled towards the spider cave. Now that he was normal size it looked very small. There was no sign of Lox – just two ordinary-looking garden spiders who scuttled away when they saw Ben. He tried calling out quietly, ‘Lox, Lox, it’s me, Ben. I found another piece. Look!’ After a few minutes he knew Lox wasn’t coming out, so he put the piece of gate very carefully next to the cave and wriggled away.
‘Come on Scoot. Time to go in.’ They both ran up the path and into the kitchen where Ben’s grandmother was having a cup of tea and reading the newspaper.
‘Hello, Ben. What have you been up to? You look as though you could do with a bath.’ Gran smiled at him and Ben wondered if he should tell her about Lox and the gate. He thought he would, but maybe later when she read him his bedtime story. Now he wanted to find out more about autumn.
‘Gran?’
‘Yes, Ben? What is it?’
‘When does autumn start?’
‘Oh dear, that’s a hard question. People usually say that autumn begins near the end of September but there’s no exact date, really. Why do you want to know?’ Gran smiled at him again.
‘I just wanted to know when the leaves change colour and fall off. That is in autumn, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, that’s right, Ben, but they don’t all change colour and fall at the same time. Some change quite quickly and others take a lot longer, and then they fall off. There are some that don’t change at all. They don’t drop their leaves either. They’re called evergreens.’
Ben frowned. He didn’t know that. He thought that perhaps Lox didn’t know either. If some leaves stayed green all year, did that mean they had more time to find the other piece of the gate? Ben didn’t know, so he thought he had better try to find the missing piece as soon as possible, just to make sure that the wizard’s magic would work.
He knew he had to do it, although it was only a week until school started.
Later, after the family had eaten and Ben had had his bath, his grandmother sat beside him to read him a story.
‘What would you like tonight, Ben?’ she asked.
Ben thought for a moment then said, ‘Can I tell you a story tonight, Gran? A made-up one?’
‘Oh, that’s a good idea,’ Gran nodded, ‘but don’t make it too long otherwise I shall fall asleep, just like you do when I read to you!’
Ben laughed. Gran was funny but she did know a lot and he liked talking to her. He said that the story was about a boy called Jake and his adventure in a garden. Then he told her all about the things that had happened to him that day. When he had finished, Gran said, ‘Well, Ben. That was amazing. What an excellent story. Are you going to tell me the rest of it tomorrow?’
Ben wrinkled his nose. ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure how it will end yet. I’ll tell you when I know.’
‘All right. You do that. Now, it’s time for sleep.’ Gran kissed him goodnight and put out the light. Ben was so tired that he was asleep in minutes.
Every day Ben searched. He looked on the paths, the front lawn, in the flower beds, the vegetable garden and under the hedge. He poked a stick into the drains, under the shed and into the little holes in the trees – but he found nothing. Scoot thought it was great fun and ran around, wagging his tail.
On the night before school started, Ben asked his grandmother to show him on the kitchen calendar when autumn might start. She took a pencil and put a cross on the twenty-first of September.
‘About then, I think,’ she said, ‘but that’s only the start, remember. The leaves don’t change colour overnight.’
Ben settled down in bed and he tried to sleep, but he kept thinking about Lox and the gate. He’d made a promise to the spider and he really wanted to keep it, but he knew that he wouldn’t have much time to search after tomorrow as he didn’t come home from school until four o’clock. He would have the weekends, though. He could look all day Saturday and Sunday if his mum or dad didn’t need any help with anything. He felt better about that and soon fell asleep.
The next day Ben’s mum took him to school in the car. On the way they picked up his best friend, Jess. Sometimes Jess came over to play with Ben but she had been staying at her cousin Poppy’s house this summer and so Ben hadn’t seen her very often.
‘Hi, Ben,’ Jess grinned at Ben. ‘Had a good holiday?’
‘Hi, Jess,’ Ben grinned back. ‘It was all right. What about you?’
They chatted all the way to school and then played in the yard before the bell rang. Inside, they sat together and were soon busy with their sums and drawings. The day seemed to go by very quickly. Ben thought he might tell Jess about Lox, but then he changed his mind. He knew that Jess would want to come and look at the cave but Lox might be afraid or even cross if Ben brought someone else there. After all, it was a kind of secret place, wasn’t it? So he decided to keep the secret to himself for a while. If he ever saw Lox again, he could ask him if Jess could come to see the cave door.
That evening, when Ben was ready for bed, he took a pencil and put a cross on the calendar where Gran showed him. That was today. After that he did the same every night. He was allowed to play in the garden for a little while after school but it wasn’t really long enough to do much searching. He was also running out of places to look. He wanted to go out into the lane but he knew he wasn’t allowed to go there on his own. He would have to wait for his dad to take him, maybe at the weekend.
But when the weekend came it was raining, so all Ben could do was look out of his window. The weather was bad for a whole week and the calendar page was filling up with crosses. When he reached the number twenty-one, Ben rushed outside to look at the leaves. Most of them were still green, but he was worried now that he wasn’t going to find the last piece of the gate in time.
