This is Chapter 1 of The Forgotten War. Make sure you check out the Prologue first. Enjoy!
Chapter I The Last Will and Testament “Letter for Mr. Scrunch.”
“Oh…erm…why thank you…wait a minute! I’m not Mr.… Oh bother. I suppose I’m going to have to take it over myself then.”
Let me introduce you to Mr. Didley, known as Dama to his friends and family. This seemed to Dama as just the beginning of an ordinary day for a gnome. Yes, a gnome. I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that Mr. Didley is one of these little chaps who walks around a garden wearing a pointy hat and holding a fishing rod. Well you couldn’t be more wrong. Mr. Didley is about four foot ten and is a very messy little fellow. All gnomes are. He wears green dungarees, like a garden gnome you may think but these aren’t nice tidy dungarees, they are caked in mud and are very smelly, it’s also very hard to make out that they were once green! Mainly because they have never been washed. However gnomes don’t see this as dirty. They see it as a fashion. Gnomes think that they are the tidiest creatures around. They think that being messy is to be tidy. Or is it the other way round. Any way what I’m trying to get at is that they may have a point. That in actual fact we (as humans) are messy and that they are in fact how the “Gods” would class as tidy. It’s one of those mysteries we will never know. Like what came first the chicken or the egg or do I see the colour blue how you see your green, is my hot your cold or am I just a brain in a jar dreaming about my life?
Anyway back to the story. Where were we? Ah yes the letter. So Mr. Didley has just received a letter addressed to Mr. Scrunch.
“I suppose I’d better get ready then” Mr. Didley said to himself. “I think I will put my nice red wellies for this trip.”
“And where do you think your off to! Come back when I’m talking to you!” screamed Dama’s mother in that usual whiny tone of voice mothers usually have. Dama was so used to his mother moaning on at him that he had almost became immune to it and seemed to know at what points when he should add a “yes mother” or “no mother”.
“Yes mother” Dama said unaware of what his mother was on about.
“The place is messy enough as it is without you leaving your shoes on the shoe rack! Should they be on the shoe rack Dama?”
“No mother” replied Dama in a completely uninterested voice.
“Where should they go Dama?” asked his mother. Dama knew that she had got him good and proper now.
“Erm…what?” Dama said in a weak voice. Now he knew exactly what was coming next. He stood back braced himself and…
“YOU HAVE NOT BEEN LISTENING TO A WORD I’VE BEEN SAYING! HAVE YOU?”
“No mother…I mean… Yes mother… I mean” stuttered Dama “Erm, I’ve got a letter to deliver… Looks important… Better get ready before it gets dark!”
“IT’S TEN THIRTY IN THE MORNING!” yelled his mother.
“Well, you know…” started Dama as he made his way up the crooked spiral stairs. “Never can be too careful. Dark times and all that.”
“DAMA COME BACK DOWN HERE AT ONCE!”
Dama reached the landing ran, into his room and slammed the door.
Now Dama Didley was no child. However it was tradition for gnome families to live with each other until both of the parents die. Therefore the parents never fully understand that their children have grown up, and still treat them as if they were gnomelings. This meant that gnomes never particularly grew fond of their parents, as all through their life they have been treated like gnomelings and aren’t shown much respect. Each generation the gnomes would say “I’m never going to treat my gnomes like that!” however surprise, surprise they do exactly the same as their parents did and their parent’s parents did and their parent’s parent’s parents did and so on and so forth.
Dama through himself on to his bed and screamed into his pillow, the vein in his temple quivering with fury. His mouth was foaming as his lips were itching to shout a load of words out at his mother. Every day he gets this. His parents start off all nice and chirpy, then gradually get more and more moody as the day goes on, then eventually snap at him for no apparent reason. Dama was at the stage where he made sure he had done everything just so his parents wouldn’t have anything to moan at him about. Miraculously they still found something.
“I’m twenty-five for Pete’s sake!” Dama thought. He then remembered the letter he had been given that morning. He sat back up in his bed and took the brown envelope out of his dirty dungaree pocket. On the back it had been sealed by a red waxy seal which had a picture of a precious stone stamped into it. He turned it over and on the front was incredibly neat handwriting written in blue ink which read:
Mr Scrunch,
The Bungalow,
Mariendale,
Westbridge,
HA9 2K9
This puzzled Dama as how could a postman confuse his house for Mr Scrunch’s house, when Mr Scrunch lived on the other side of Mariendale? What also confused Dama was that there was no stamp on the front of the envelope. Why would the postman have delivered it if it didn’t have a stamp on it? Come to think about it Dama couldn’t be a hundred percent that it was a postman. The Didley’s post had already been delivered earlier that morning, and it all happened so fast that he couldn’t remember what the man actually looked like, or if it was even a man. Something seemed extremely peculiar about this letter, or maybe Dama was just looking too much into it.
“Oh well,” he thought “might as well go and deliver it.” Dama jumped off of his untidy bed and ran back downstairs, his mother’s voice still whining on about something. He popped on his boots and made his way to the front door.
“Boot’s without any mud on them!” his mother cried in disbelief.
Mr. Didley left his “tidy” little house and made his way across the village to Mr. Scrunch’s bungalow. He took a deep breath and let the crisp dewy morning smell rush around his nostrils. He felt calm and peaceful but had absolutely no idea of what he was about to face. As he walked along he sung along to the birds whistling. At last after about an hours walk through Mariendale he decided to take a short cut through Farmer Rodgkins’ field. This was considered to be trespassing; however the old farmer really didn’t mind, as long as he didn’t catch you doing so! As he walked through the field memories flooded back to him of how he and the other gnomes at Mariendale used to raid Farmer Rodgkins’ crops when they were gnomelings. Their main mission used to be to steal the giant strawberries the old farmer used to grow in the summer. No one else knew how he managed to make the strawberries grow so big and juicy, so they were a prime target. The buzz they used to get when the farmer used to chase them was tremendous. The closer he would get to catch them, the more exciting it was for the gnomes. Then as all the mothers would be assuring the farmer that their children would never steal, the gnomelings would all be lying by the lake eating the strawberries with freshly whipped cream. The best time to indulge in this fine suite was on a warm summer’s evening, with the cool lake water trickling in between your toes.
Eventually, after walking through the field unseen, Dama got to the end and was now at the other end of Mariendale and almost at Mr. Scrunch’s house. Well, it wasn’t really a house. It was a bungalow and a funny little bungalow at that. It had grey-green moss growing all over the walls with vines crawling up the sides, a couple of flower beds full of very peculiar plants and flowers in the front garden which had obviously had a lot of attention paid to it. The oddest part about this bungalow though was its roof. The roof was a hard black stone, which is very rare and expensive, found in the ancient part of Mount Christie in the land Hirons. It was very long and tall and spiralled round into a sharp point at the top where the chimney was.
This was when Mr. Didley realised that he has never actually spoken to Mr. Scrunch before. In actual fact he can’t remember seeing anybody ever have a conversation with Mr. Scrunch. And the reason for this was that Mr. Scrunch is a Scrout. You may have never heard of a Scrout before and that is because they pretty much keep themselves to themselves. Scrouts are smaller than gnomes at an average height of four foot. They have curly head and facial hair, which is thick and black. A Scrout also considers himself to be “tidy” however their “tidy” is more like the “tidy” we imagine. They tend to wear dark green blazers with matching trousers, a white shirt and a big maroon bow tie (which is usually hidden under their beards, which they comb at least five times a day).
Mr. Didley clutched the big brown letter in his hand and opened the front gate. It squeaked open and he made his way down the long windy path and knocked on the door three times firmly. There was no answer. Mr. Didley knocked three more times, this time a little louder. Still no answer.
“Well, I’m not coming all this way for nothing” he said to himself. “I’ll try round the back”.
So he made himself round the back of the bungalow and saw that the back door was open. “Ah, luck at last!” He made himself round to the door where he froze as still as a statue. There standing in front of him were three ferocious dogs. They had long heads that seemed sunk into their brown and black body, big heavy chains tied to a pole in the ground around their short fat necks, long sharp teeth with saliva dripping from them. The dogs stared at Dama and growled in a very low gruff tone. Dama slowly took two steps backwards when the dogs began to bark. Dama started to run backwards. The dogs pounced for him. The chains snapped Dama turned and ran. Faster, faster and…
“Could you explain why you are prancing around my neat and tidy garden like a maniac?” asked Mr. Scrunch in a very quiet yet angry tone of voice.
“Oh, erm…sorry” replied Mr. Didley still conscious of the dogs. He slowly turned around and noticed that they were fast asleep in their kennel.
“Is that all you have to say for yourself, sorry? Anyway your folk don’t belong in this side of the village what are you doing?”
“Erm…oh…well” Mr. Didley stammered out completely forgetting about the letter.
“Good day to you!” snapped Mr. Scrunch as he walked into his bungalow and slammed the door.
“Ah, yes the letter!” blurted out Mr. Didley ignoring completely what had just happened.
“Mr. Scrunch? Where have you gone?”
Mr. Didley walked up to the front door again flustered and knocked again.
“I thought I made it quite clear that I don’t want your folk hanging around my property!” came Mr. Scrunches voice from inside the bungalow.
“I’ve got a letter for you Sir”.
“We Scrouts aren’t sent letters!”
“Well you have been. It clearly says: Mr Scrunch,
The Bungalow,
Mariendale,
Westbridge,
HA9 2K9
on the front of the letter”.
“I have said once and I don’t like repeating myself! We Scrouts aren’t sent letters! Now good day to you!”
“It must be very important then if you don’t usually receive a letter then.”
There was no reply.
“Fine then I suppose I will have to read it out to you then! I’m not coming all this way to just go home again without achieving something.”
The gnome tore open the thick brown envelope with his dirty stubby fingers and began to read.
“This is the last will and testament of
Mr. Aron Scrunch…”
As quick as a flash the door of the bungalow swung open and the hairy hands of the scrout pulled Mr. Didley inside.
“Give that to me!” cried Mr. Scrunch.
He then flicked through the letter with his eyes very quickly, screwed up the letter and threw it on the fire.
“I wouldn’t do that if I was you. That’s somebody’s will. You could be receiving a great deal of money or something like that!” said Mr. Didley in a confused voice running over to the fire ready to pull it out.
“Leave it!” shouted the scrout.
“But I was going to…”
“Leave it!” he repeated.
“But aren’t you going to…”
“LEAVE IT!” shouted Mr. Scrunch at the top of his voice. “I tell you to leave it for a reason!”
“But there doesn’t seem to be a…”
“Because my brother is not dead!”
“Well I think he is. That’s his last will and testament.”
At that moment Mr. Scrunch pulled up a cosy red chair sat down in it and pushed the gnome into another chair behind him using his walking stick. He pulled out a long wooden pipe and sprinkled some tobacco into the end of it. He then pulled out a twig lit it from the fire and lit his pipe with it. He proceeded to take long deep breaths from the pipe and blew out smoke rings, which floated all over the small dark living room.
“Let me tell you a little story master gnome. But first get changed out of those mucky garments you will ruin my furniture.”
“I beg you’re pardon. What are you talking about? Muck garments indeed! You can hardly talk! This is the filthiest place I’ve been to!” exclaimed Dama Didley in a very exasperated voice.
Remember that both of these creatures think that they are both tidy where in actual fact gnomes are a complete mess!
“Look, when you are in my home you go by my rules and my rules are that you do what I say! And I have said that you need to get changed!”
“Okay fine! I’ll wear your silly dirty clothes!” snapped Dama sulkily.
After a long time of arguing about what he should wear Dama finally was dressed in a maroon suite with a dark blue bow tie.
“Now sit down. I know we don’t know each other and we may not see eye to eye but you have the persistent attitude I have been looking for all this time” grunted the scrout.
“I’m sorry I don’t understand.”
“Twelve years ago my brother set off on an adventure. He was heading to the great Ice Cave at the other side of Mount Christy in the land of Hirons. There he was searching for the great Emerald of Eizendeal that was stolen from our great grandfather over one hundred years ago. I have not seen my brother since. Every so many months I have been sent his last will and testament but I know he is not dead. I just have a feeling. So I decided I would begin to send these to random addresses. A couple of scrouts, men and skrints have all came to deliver the letter but my dogs or I have always turned them away. Then you come along, the most unlikely of creatures and will not quit in giving me this letter. You are the person to help me. You have proven yourself worthy. You are the one to journey with me to the Ice Palace beyond Mount Christy to rescue my brother.”
“Erm…well…I’m speechless! Why me?” stuttered Dama.
“Because I need a companion and you have been my best offer so far! If not I will have to go on my own and probably suffer the same fate that my brother did.”
“But you said you didn’t think he is dead but now you do. Is it worth risking yours and my life to try to save someone who may already be dead” asked Dama in a trembly voice.
“The fact is young gnome is that if this emerald is destroyed the whole scrout race will be destroyed, wiped out, extinct! I am going no matter what!” growled Mr. Scrunch.
The gnome took a deep breath in and the colour had completely drained from his skin. He then stood up from his armchair took another deep breath and declared “Then I am going with you!”
“Really?” said Scrunch “You must go now! Go home get your stuff and be ready to leave at midnight tonight!” the scrout declared in a different tone “The Old Nag, be there! Midnight. Go!”
R.I.P. Shannon, I will love you for always and forever!
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