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    Jinxerypokery: The Beginning
    Jinxerypokery: The Beginning
    Jinxerypokery: The Beginning
    Ebook120 pages1 hour

    Jinxerypokery: The Beginning

    By J.M. Kelly

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    About this ebook

    Readers of Jinxerypokery 2 and Jinxerypokery 3 often ask how old Agatha Pandora Goodfellow is, since she often talks of people who lived hundreds of years ago as friends of hers. Unfortunately, she is not always completely truthful (and sometimes not truthful at all) and combined with her habit of changing her accent (she says it is more interesting than changing her clothes) and her name whenever she feels inclined, readers are a little unsure about believing anything she says. In fact, for once, Agatha is telling the truth; she was actually born a peasant girl in 1068, just after the Normans invaded England.

    This is how Agatha’s story began. Chosen as a recruit, alongside Edmund, the Baron’s son, the two are being trained to help the Arbiters defend Spirits whose powers regenerate the natural world each spring. Unfortunately, these powers are coveted by others, including Edmund’s uncle and his evil accomplice, Bishop Vermilus.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAustin Macauley
    Release dateNov 30, 2018
    ISBN9780463391099
    Jinxerypokery: The Beginning

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      Book preview

      Jinxerypokery - J.M. Kelly

      About the Author

      Janet Kelly was born in Canada but moved to England as a young girl. She qualified as a teacher in 1967 and spent the next 48 years in education, first as a primary school teacher and later as adviser and inspector for mathematics and special educational needs. The last ten years were as a consultant working with schools mainly in England but also Hong Kong and Gibraltar and publishing mathematical books and materials for infants. She began writing stories for her grandchildren and extra grandchildren when she retired.

      For Geoff

      Thanks to the grandchildren and extra grandchildren (Ruben, Edith Sam Abigail and Caitlin) for ideas and encouragement.

      J. M. Kelly

      Jinxerypokery,

      The Beginning

      Copyright © J. M. Kelly (2018)

      The right of J. M. Kelly to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

      Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

      A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

      ISBN 9781786939623 (Paperback)

      ISBN 9781786939630 (E-Book)

      www.austinmacauley.com

      First Published (2018)

      Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd™

      25 Canada Square

      Canary Wharf

      London

      E14 5LQ

      Preface

      The Guardians were excited and a little nervous. The Great Ones had decided it was time to create a new universe. The First Universe was coming to the end of its life. Clusters of galaxies had collided with other clusters and stars were exploding, illuminating dark space with magnificent pyrotechnic displays and leaving behind the cosmic dust that had existed at the beginning. Black holes were filling huge expanses of space, while across the universe, the light was fading and it was beginning to feel a colder, lonelier place. It would take many billions of years before it all became dust, but new universes took billions of years to develop, so the Great Ones judged that the time was right.

      There were several problems along the way. The Great One responsible for creating new universes was in disgrace, as he had inadvertently created an ever-expanding Fourth Universe, so the task was given to the most ancient Great One. Unfortunately, the Noble Celestial Orb that was always used to start what was later to be called the Big Bang (wrongly, because the Big Bang was silent and the sound arrived some time later) had been misplaced. Finally, one of the Guardians recalled seeing it in a far corner of the Third Universe and soon all was ready. The Great Ones and the Guardians gathered together to watch in wonder as the Noble Celestial Orb was ignited, and the cosmic dust, over the next billion or so years expanded into a myriad of different forms.

      The Guardian’s task was to spot perfect planets. These were few and far between. They had to be the right size, not too far or too near to their sun, protected from collisions with meteorites and made of just the right stuff. Spotting them was a real difficulty and many planets that looked as if they might be ‘just right’ (as the Goldilocks and the Three Bears story had it) were often found not to live up to their early promise.

      It was the Guardian, Tonatia, who when wandering through the Milky Way Galaxy, noticed a small planet, just the right distance from its sun. There were no large planets nearby that might cause it problems. It seemed reasonably well protected from the multitude of asteroids, meteorites and comets that drifted through space, but disaster struck when an enormous celestial body hit the small planet with such force that the two merged together, and a massive amount of debris went shooting off into space. Tonitia thought that all was lost but on the next visit (several million years later), Tonitia was surprised and delighted to find that the debris had turned into a beautiful spherical moon. This was the final perfect piece needed for the perfect planet. This was to be a planet for the Guardians to protect and safeguard.

      As with all planets, the surface had to cool before life began to appear, and then it took a few billion more years for plants and animals to take over the land. The Guardians looked on with interest because perfect planets don’t always develop in the same ways, but finally they decided it was time to introduce the Spirits to the earth. The Spirits’ responsibility was to ensure regeneration. When earthquakes and floods devastated and volcanoes erupted and destroyed the land, the Spirits would gradually make it possible for plants to grow and for animals to return. Even when a giant meteorite struck the earth causing such devastation that many animals and plants including dinosaurs simply disappeared, the Spirits were there to restore the land and help new animals find places to live. The people who moved out of Africa and spread across the earth, changed the natural world, sometimes for the better but often for the worse, so the Spirits had more and more to do. The Guardians met and decided that the Spirits needed helpers, human helpers who would try and persuade people to look after their world and who would work against evil. These people were to be called Arbiters, and the Guardians would give them special powers to protect the world and to fight injustice.

      Chapter 1

      A faint shaft of light from a crack in the shutters and the sound of a cock crowing woke Agatha earlier than usual. As she lazily stretched, she could hear the old sow’s satisfied grunts as her four piglets began suckling in the barn below. The sound woke the cow who shuffled in the deep straw, impatient to be milked and be taken up to the pasture above the town. Suddenly, Agatha sat up, rolled off the hay mattress she shared with her older sister and younger brother, crawled across the low attic floor and threw open the shutters. The steep wooded side of the valley was still in shade but the rising sun was beginning to light up the gentle slope of the opposite hillside where the animals were pastured and the Baron’s crops grew. Agatha gazed over the thatched rooftops to the newly built stone castle sitting halfway up the hillside, dwarfing the small cottages below.

      Wake up, you two, she shouted. It’s May Day at last.

      The year was 1079. The winter had been long and cold, and the late spring meant that every man, woman and child had had to work from sunrise to sunset, to ensure that the crops were sown by April. Baron Guille de Morte, their new Norman lord, insisted that his fields were sown first and only then could the townspeople work on their own small plots. Even five-year-old Gareth was expected to help and the two girls, Agatha who was ten and eleven-year-old Mary, were considered old enough to work in the fields all morning. Their afternoons were spent either in the house cooking, weaving or spinning, or outside collecting firewood or food when it was in season.

      Agatha’s attention was drawn to the town green. Near the stocks, a pig was slowly roasting over a fire that had been kept burning all night and the smell drifted up to the attic, making her mouth water. A few men with axes had gathered near the shallow river that meandered through the town. They would soon be on their way to the woods. The men had marked out the perfect tree for the maypole, tall, straight and strong. The ropes the women had been making over the past few weeks were piled neatly on one side of the green and Agatha knew that the younger children would soon be following their fathers into the woods to collect flowers and leaves to weave into the ropes. Agatha intended to join them, although she would have to get past her mother first.

      Her mother would expect her to help prepare the food for the feast and that was not at all what Agatha wanted to be doing. She was going to slip away and visit Meg whose house was deep in the woods and who would be more than pleased to see her. Not everyone liked Meg. Some thought she was a witch and most were a little afraid of her. The priest would often scold the townspeople if he found they had visited her, but it was whispered that last winter, when his gout was particularly painful, he was seen coming from the woods late one evening and after that he never again complained about his painful foot. Some folk wanted Meg thrown out of her house but most of them were more than pleased that she was around when they had a troubling cough or a wound that would not heal. She could set broken bones and pull out teeth without it being too painful and payment was always something a peasant could afford – a loaf of bread or some leather for a new pair of shoes. Agatha had asked her once whether she was a witch and although Meg laughed and said it was all nonsense, Agatha knew that there

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