Unit 13

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Unit 13 evaluation:

I honestly couldn’t/ still can’t believe how fast this year went despite it still somehow feeling like a million years long. I had been thinking of the final project for a while and was pretty confident about what I was going to do. We also did some mini projects along with that which was different and new in comparison to last year. I don’t really know how I’m going to make an overall evaluation for three separate projects but I’ll try my best, and just start from the beginning.

The Graphic Notation project, unfortunately, was one of my least favourite group projects I did this year. That just came down to lack of programs/communication, and not being able to properly experiment and make it my own/having to sacrifice my own aesthetic tendencies for the sake of the group ultimately resulting in something I was not happy with. In terms of development each of the team members, myself included, did do a lot of useful research and successful experimentation. I particularly enjoyed filling up a bucket with soap and capturing different coloured lights hitting the bubbles. Rahems also had fun filming his brother dancing around with glow sticks strapped to his body. All of these clips were used for the background of our final video and I liked them very much individually, however when we needed to add the patterns in it was very rushed and left all to the one person that had After Effects who was subsequently very inactive in the group chat. If I had had the correct program or even one similar I believe we’d be much more satisfied with the result. I wanted to make the squiggly shapes move more fluidly and less like an animation made in PowerPoint. I’m not saying its the worst thing in the world, just nothing like I wanted it to be.

Wonderland Studios was a breath of fresh air after the last project and also my favourite of this year. I really enjoyed being a lot more free to mess around and throw ideas in the air for our fantastical studio to come together. We were all buzzing with thoughts in our group chat straight away and making up strange studios that we’d like to work in. I think something that made this one more enjoyable was the addition of another group member, Emma. She made it more fun and evened out the effect the absence of one of the other team mates had on our work flow. Individually, we researched studios recommended to us such as fruit arts club and type haus. We all thought about and merged all of our ideas for the perfect studio together. We had fun. That was what our studio was all about, work doesn’t have to be a chore, it doesn’t have to be boring, we want to give colleges creative freedom and an enjoyable environment as well as cater for their particular working style whether that be early in the morning or really late at night. In the end we made 5 posters of our ethos, 6 A0 posters of the Paula Scher interview, 6 pages of brand guidelines, a flag, a website, an Instagram profile and 3 studio design concepts. I think (mostly) everything turned out great. That’s not to say that we didn’t have any problems because, like in the last project, we were let down by one individual who barely contributed and gave us a poorly put together Instagram on the day of our final presentation and didn’t even show up to be there and give it with us. That was a shame. Back to the good parts though, I really liked how our final presentation was designed, by yours truly of course, the rainbow theme has a very playful vibe to it which is perfect for our studio concept. The gif I made is probably the best thing I did for this project. I like the balloon like logo, the silly posters, the revamped guidelines, the t-Rex flag, and the amazing studio architecture designs.

Finally, my FMP. I had a couple ideas initially, as you’ll have seen but I was thinking of illustrating my mother’s book for a good while now. The additional idea of the dream aesthetic exhibition was not something I came up with myself, but I am excited to see that come together hopefully.

Starting with Amanda Apple, I had to first familiarise myself with the book again. It had been a long time since I read it and we also spent an exorbitant amount of time trying to find it. When We did, and I finished it, I had a lot of visuals in my head for it. Then I did a lot of research into other illustrators and book making, such as Anoosha Syed who made a detailed video explaining her process when making a book, as well as a few of my personal favourite artists that were constantly inspiring me to draw like Baomii, Radia Rahman and Ellespazz. I had my mother there to interview for primary research if ever I needed it. She also approved my designs before I finalised them. Then I typed up the book, it took forever and got to see it in more detail... which provoked an annoying need to change some stuff for improvement, with my mother’s approval of course I drew up the character designs and decided that it’d be easiest for me to produce a b5 book so both my computer and wallet could afford it. Unfortunately, I have not managed to actually illustrate any of the pages just yet. I had a couple of really bad weeks during the times I was at home which ended up dragging me down severely. I didn’t want to work, I just wanted to disappear. Things are a little better now so I’ve been working nicely and will continue to work over the next few weeks to get everything done hopefully but I cannot share that on the blog as it is too late. I’m really sorry about that. From what I have done I can say I’m quite please with. I think the character design is really nice so I know what I want it to look like now. If I re write the bits I listed then I’ll be able to also be really proud of the story.

For the surrealization project, I also did a lot of research into surrealist artists along the likes of Beeple Crap, Leaf and Petal Design, and also a really cool movie which has a dream like feel to it, Mirrormask. I also drew out a couple things as well as how I wanted my exhibition piece to look. I think if that all goes well I’ll be really happy. There wasn’t much else I could do for this one because I don’t have the money to start building it and buying all the plants and stuff so maybe it won’t even happen but I like the idea and I enjoyed recalling all the crazy dream memories I have.

I think I’m way over the word limit now but I did want to talk very briefly about something that happened this year, I am proud of, aside from my work. That is my social anxiety. I was diagnosed with it two years ago after dealing with very constant and painful panic attacks. I was pretty much mute and didn’t want anyone to perceive me. This year I have stepped out of my comfort zone, found my style, and started feeling much more comfortable in social situations. I think it was the group projects actually, that nudged me in this direction. When I saw that I wasn’t immediately rejected I eventually allowed myself to try. This is something that needed to happen for a long time and will hopefully help me have a better life in general. This year was great actuall, aside from the issues at home, and I may almost miss it :’)

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Re write plan.

Here are some of the things I’m going to be changing/ adding to my mom’s story in order of the stories progression.

1- The beginning is too abrupt and not very descriptive of Amanda so I’m going to build up a little more to her fall and also allow the readers to get a better visual of what she looks like by describing that in more detail.

2- I’m going to add crystals that glow into the caves so that it’ll be easier for me to draw and easier for the reader to understand how she could even see in the shrouding darkness that is described.

3- Just because I feel like it would just work with how confused everyone is about her, I’m going to make it clear that the vegetables have never seen a fruit or even know that there is an above ground area.

4- I think, with how clever Oliver’s character is set up to be, that he should know fruits exist but only thought of them as a myth or extinct species. I might even have him take out a map that would help them if it wasn’t burned and illegible.

5- I’ve talked about Percy Pumpkin previously, I will add him in there too and change how the trio meet Paddy Potato.

6- The machine in the witch’s hut is a little underrated and makes the witch seem like a mean old lady who just needs a hit from her energy chair every now and then rather than an cruel dictator. I think I might be a little evil and make the witch use the vegetables as her source of energy and that’s where the old vegetables have disappeared to. (which was never explained or resolved in the book lol.)

7- I’m going to touch more on Amanda’s awakening/ legend because that was criminally brushed over in the book.

8- I might further heighten the climax of the story by making it out that everything is fine but in the last second Amanda is captured and strapped to the chair but in the end that’s what kills the witch and unearths the village.

9- When everything is over, I’ll have Percy return to his parents that were taken by the with to be used for energy, along with all the other vegetables that went missing, so that there’s a sense of relief and closure.

I feel really bad about having such criticism about my mums book but she doesn’t mind and agrees she kinda got tired at the end and maybe rushed things to get it done. She said she wrote a second one  after this which was 100 times better the the original, which we do not have, so this is apparently not her best work. I still love the idea of it though. It’s a really cute story.

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A progress gif for the title slide in my final exhibition proposal presentation of my surrealization project. I was going to hand write it at first but then found a nice 3D font which I used instead. I switched the Z around to make it slightly out of place which was actually intended to represent what the word means and I feel a little silly about it but I should be confident in my creative decisions as my tutors always say. I added eyelashes in the U to show a closed eye (going to sleep) and made the O into an open eye (dreaming). Finally I made it have a glitchy look by making it pink and blue and adding another white one on top so it would look clear and stand out. This is probably the most I’ve thought about a title/ typography ever lol. I like it a lot. Would be 100 times more impressive if I made the font too of course.

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This was my progress when I drew out what I want my final exhibition to look like. I drew the box and basic outlines first, added grass, the computer, played with the lighting, added vines on top and little fireflies for an extra glow. Of course we can’t have fireflies but I felt the need to add them there. You’ll see in the final presentation that I also added flowers and a “night mode” version, for that I had to go to each layer and change the settings in the colours and make it a blue hue. I really like how this turned out, The final one probably wont be basked in a heavenly glow but anything like this would be okay. I have no idea how I’m going to be able to pull this off with like -£3 in my bank account but maybe I’ll just rampage into my back garden and, to my families dismay, completely destroy it/ steal all the grass and flowers and cart that all into college in a suspicious black bin bag. Of course it would rot before we’d actually hold the exhibition and it’ll all have been worthless, but that does sound kinda fun, plus perhaps the expired foliage would actually better represent the aesthetic of my dreams... hmmm.

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Here is another GIF for my second illustration based on my dreams. This is a reaaally frequent dream scene. Basically, it’s a broken, overgrown fountain at the centre of school/college (which is a mixture of every place of education I have been to since I was a child). It’s surrounded by windows but I think I have seen it without them too. There is usually some light coming from above which I assume is moonlight. It’s way more mossy and overgrown then this and I don’t think there is a checkerboard floor but I gave myself some creative allowances for aesthetic purposes. Like with the last one, I found an image to trace over, did that, and then created the rest of it myself because it’s a very specific scene. It was all blue originally because that’s actually what it looks like in the dream but it didn’t look as nice drawn so I changed it to green. Then I just added the moonlight and plants/moss and that’s pretty much it. I like this one a lot too. It is a pretty good representation of the dream scene but obviously also not like it at the same time. I have no idea where the fountain came from though because none of my schools had one. I did visit Trafalgar square though when I was living in London so maybe that’s it. I haven’t had any of my usual dreams since having this idea for FMP which is kinda really sad and I don’t know what happened. I miss them.

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I really wanted to illustrate a piece based on my dreams (which was my original final piece thought for this idea) so,,, I just did. In one of my dreams, I was in my room and the lighting was purple from my LED light bulb, but there was a yellow glow coming from somewhere. That colour combination has always made me feel very nostalgic and happy for some reason, so I thought I’d draw it. I didn’t want to use a picture of my actual room because it is pitifully cramped and not aesthetically pleasing in the slightest (I share a room with my two younger sisters, it barely fits two bunk beds, yup I’m almost 21 and I sleep on a bunk bed, nuthin wrong with that... top bunk if you were wondering lol). I found this nice bedroom with a desk in front of the window which is where mine is (under the bunk bed ahaha) and just outlined it quickly, removing a lot of the extra stuff because I wanted it to be minimal. I have done a lot of room studies so understanding perspective and furniture has gotten a lot easier for me so this didn't take too long. The I originally made the room pink just because the colour tool was set to red already and I wanted to get the base colours down. I changed them to purple and lowered the brightness so the window light would appear to glow, added the light in the window and a shadow for the chair which was surprisingly the hardest part. After that, a quick couple plants and the clouds + the stars and moon were sprinkled on there. Oh yeah also this style was inspired by the artist we looked at last year who I have forgotten the name of again,,, uhhhh George Greeves yeahhh! One of my favourite artists. Anyway, I really like how this came out, I think its pretty and also does remind me of my dream.

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Here is the final character design of my characters. These are all the main characters talked about in the book, plus another character I wanted to add to accompany Paddy Potato that isn’t much older than Amanda herself (which all the rest of them are) (he’s younger). I also added Amanda in there to show the height differences between them.

The first is Professor Pea, I first designed him on Emma’s Ipad in college which you can see up there. That was my first ever drawing on procreate. It was kinda hard to use because it doesn’t have a stabilizer on it, which I rely on to help my shaky hands. I redid him on Medibang and actually really like him. I think his is one of my favourite characters I drew. I like how vibrant the green is and also how comically large his head is in proportion to his body and his little hat. Everything really.

Next is Paddy Potato, who is my least favourite. I wanted him to look old and kind but he kinda looks one breath away from death and a little disheveled. I don’t really know how I could improve that though. Also I tried out a good few colours for his nose but none of them looked good at all.

Then we have Percy Pumpkin, the youngest character in the book and also a new addition to it. Just to talk about him quickly, when the team goes further on in the caves and discovers the sunken village, I wanted them to see a little orange thing running around and they’ll think it was the old carrot but they’ll find this little child who doesn’t talk much hiding behind Paddy Potato. His story, told by Paddy, is that he lost his parents to the witch and has been hiding with Paddy because he is much too young to be working for the witch. This one is my favourite character design. I really love everything about him. I wanted him to be dressed like a little gentleman because I thought that Paddy would dress him like that. He also has no shoes on and just runs around barefoot as an extra unnecessary but cute detail.

Barney Bean is next, he’s the first character to be introduced other then Amanda herself. I went through a couple different designs for him actually because he ended up looking like a green stick and not like a bean at all. He was also the most described one in the book; I’ve had to kind of improvise for everyone else. I don’t know if I should have made the t-shirt longer but he’s kinda rocking the crop top. I like his design mostly, I’m just unsure about the eyes.

Last, and kinda least is Oliver Onion. I dont really like his design, I think he does look friendly and how I imagined him to look but there’s something strange about him and I don’t know how to fiix it. He’s just okay.

To list these characters going from favourite to least favourite, it’s Percy, Professor Pea, Amanda, Barney, Oliver and then Paddy. I really enjoyed drawing them though and experimenting with the style.

I also tried turning them into humans just because I was curious to see what that would look like. I drew Amanda, Barney, Professor Pea and Oliver Onion (who I made purple because onions can be purple). I like how they look, if I wanted to completely branch out and take the book in an entirely different direction it could work.

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Amanda Apple

CHAPTER 1: AMANDA DISCOVER VEGGY TOWN

One fine day, Amanda Apple was going for a walk. The sun was shining and she was singing to herself. As she was passing a field of buttercups, the sun shining on the golden yellow flowers caught her eye and she decided to go and pick a few to bring home to her mother. She had just begun to walk over to a specially nice clump of buttercups, when she suddenly slipped. Everything went black and she could feel herself falling and falling and falling...

After what seemed a long time, she landed with a bump on a pile of leaves. She sat there for some minutes trying to catch her breath. When she had recovered somewhat she stood up. Everywhere was dark, like the middle of the night. She looked around, she was in a sort of cave  which had a number of different tunnels leading out of it. Just over her head was a dark black hole which stretched on and on above her seemingly forever. She slumped back down on the leaves and thought for a while.

Finally she decided that she would have to go through one of the tunnels, she couldn't climb back up the hole so there was no other way out. She would have to try and find someone who could tell her where she was. Which tunnel would she go through though? She didn't know where any tunnel lead so she might as well take any one. She got up and without looking left or right, walked straight into the tunnel in front of her.

The tunnel was dark and scary and she had to feel her way along the cold damp wall. It wasn't a long tunnel however and she soon came out into an underground country. Much to her surprise, it was very like the countryside she had been walking in before she had fallen down the hole, except that it was much darker. On her left was a big cluster of trees with dark black trunks and twisting, waving branches and on her right was a long, colourful field of wild flowers. There was no sign of life to be seen. She started off down the road, gazing around her as she went. This was a strange country indeed. The sky was a muddy brown with no sun and no moon, in fact, Amanda wasn't sure if it was night or day. The air was very still, without a breath of wind and there were no birds to be seen. Amanda was just beginning to feel that this countryside wasn't at all like the one she had been walking in before, when she noticed a rather strange object coming toward her. She couldn't make out what it was, except that it looked like a long pole with arms and legs, it got closer and closer and would have ran right into her if she hadn't jumped out of the way. The thing ran on a few paces and then stopped and whirled around and stared, rather rudely, with his mouth open. Amanda started back at the pole which she could now see had eyes, a nose and a mouth and was wearing shorts, a stripy t-shirt and rather large running shoes.

"Eer, excuse me", she said at last, "could you tell me the way to Fruiterville."

Fruit...we...ville” it repeated, still gaping. Amanda was beginning to feel rather uneasy. “Yes” she said, “I’m a bit lost you see”. The pole like creature finally got a hold of himself and his green face grew rather red. “I’m so sorry”, he said, “ it’s just that well, you rather surprised me!”. “Never mind”, replied Amanda, “you surprised me too”. Feeling a bit more easy, Amanda again asked the pole if he knew how she could get to Fruiterville but he didn’t know of any such place and in the end she told him the whole story. He was rather fascinated and seemed to make up his mind almost immediately that he would just have to help. When she had finished her story the pole told her a bit about himself. His name was Barney Bean and he came from Veggy Town. He was a messenger and he ran several miles every day delivering messages to different towns around the countryside. He had never heard of Fruiterville however but he did have a friend who had done quite a lot of traveling in his day and just might be able to help. “His name is Professor Pea”, said Barney, “in fact, I was just on my way to deliver a message to him”. Amanda agreed to give it a try, so, Barney leading the way, they headed back up the road and cut off through the woods on a small path she hadn’t noticed before. Once in the woods Amanda noticed how strange the trees were. They weren’t like trees at all! Looking up, they seemed to be falling out of the sky and were thicker the higher up they went. They thinned out a lot before they thinned out a lot before they reached the ground and seemed to branch out in all different directions. Some of the younger trees stopped before they reached the ground at all and hung in mid air rather eerily. Amanda kept close to Barney, not liking the woods at all. When they finally came out Amanda got another surprise. On this side of the woods the sun was shining brightly and the sky was a much lighter brown. What a strange country this was! “It’s not far now”, said Barney. Amanda smiled up at him in appreciation. On they went and, just over the next rise, Amanda was able to look down on a small Village. She stared in astonishment, everywhere she looked there were strange creatures running or walking about. Some were like Barney, tall, green and skinny with shorts and runners on, others were Orange or Brown or Purple, and all sorts of shapes and sizes. It was like nothing she had ever seen before. They walked on, entering the village and walking up a long and narrow street. Amanda could feel many eyes staring at her as she went on, but before long they stopped in front of a small house. Barney knocked on the door and a few seconds later a little round man, with square glasses and a long mustache, opened the door. “Ah, Barney”, he greeted gaily, “how are you? It is lovely to see you again”. Barney smiled broadly at the Professor, returning his greeting. “I have a message for you from Collie Flower”, he said handing the Professor a small folded piece of paper, “and I have also brought a nice young lady to see you. Amanda, this is Professor Pea”. Amanda smiled shyly, shaking the Professor’s outstretched hand. “How lovely to meet you”, the Professor said charmingly, “do come in, do come in”. Professor Pea led the way down the hall and into a small room at the end. When they were all seated Barney told him all that had happened and all that Amanda had told him. Professor Pea didn’t say a word throughout the entire story, except an ‘Mm’ or ‘Oh’ here and there, he was very impressed, but also very puzzled. He had never heard of Fruiterville before and didn’t know where it was. “I’ll just have a look at some of my maps”, said the Professor at last, “maybe we can find something there”. Getting up, he took a few large naps out of a press at the back of the room routed them for a few minutes and then took one up in his hand and brought it over to show them. It was quite a large map so he spread it out on the floor and told them all to kneel down, which they did, and he began to go over it with them. “This is the only map I have of above ground”, he said, “it only goes as far as Tomatoe Grove, that’s it there, and there, Veglow and Turnip City, and there’s Scallion Town. I don’t see Fruiterville anywhere”. Amanda sat back on her heels dejectedly, “oh dear”, she said, “whatever am I going to do”. “Don’t worry”, said Barney cheerfully, I’m sure someone will have heard of Fruiterville”. Professor Pea folded up the map and got up to leave the room. “Now let me see”, he said to himself, closing the door behind him. Amanda looked at Barney but neither of them said a word until a few minutes later Professor Pea arrived back with a tray of tea and cakes. “I know”, he said, “why not go and visit Oliver Onion”. “Yes!”, said Barney brightly l, “good idea Professor, we’ll go and visit old Ollie, he’s sure to know”. CHAPTER 2: AMANDA MEETS OLLIE ONION It was late afternoon when Amanda and Barney left Professor Pea’s house. Saying goodbye and promising to visit him again soon they set off down the road once more, this time heading out of the village. They talked as they went and it didn’t seem long until they were cloning a steep hill. At the top of the hill Amanda could see a large, almost round house, with smooth white walls, round brown windows and a thatched roof. She stared up at the house as they climbed the path upwards. “It’s beautiful”, she breathed. “Yes, indeed”, said Barney a few paces ahead. Just when Amanda thought she could go no further, the path ended and they were standing at a little round gate just outside the house they had seen from below. Amanda gasped in amazement, it was even more beautiful from up here. Before Barney had time to unlatch the gate, a little oval man, with a long mustache and thin pointed beard came running out of the front door. “Barney, Barney”, he cried, “how lovely to see you”. He threw his arms around Barney and hugged him tightly. Barney hugged him also and slapped him on the back. He then stood aside and smiling broadly said, “Amanda, this is Oliver Onion, Ollie, Amanda Apple”. “Madame Apple”, said Ollie, beaming widely at Amanda and bowing lowly, “how lovely to meet you”. Amanda was enchanted and rather taken aback but she managed a greeting all the same. “Please come in and make yourselves at home”, said Ollie pushing them ahead of him up the path. He brought them into a large sitting room full to the brim with tables and chairs and huge cabinets overflowing with many strange objects. He pulled some chairs in front of the fire and when they were all seated comfortably asked, “well Barney, what makes you come to visit me at this late hour”. Barney sighed and, sat in his chair and told him the whole story. Ollie was just as enchanted as Professor pea had been. He leaned forward in his chair and listened intently to what Barney had to say. A few times he opened his mouth to ask a question but shut it again before saying anything. When Barney had finally finished Ollie’s eyes were shining excitedly and he looked as if he was about to burst with questions , however, all he could say was, “my oh my, how strange. Goodness me. How odd”. Barney and Amanda sat on the edge of their chairs waiting patiently. “Fuiterville, Fruiterville”, repeated Ollie to himself getting up and pacing the room, “my oh my, goodness me”. Back and forth he went, up and down, up and down, until finally he seemed to get tired and slumped back down in his chair again. “I am sorry Amanda”, he said sadly, “but I have never heard of Fruiterville, it does not ring any bells”. Amanda was terribly disappointed and tears sprang to her eyes, “I see”, she whispered quietly, “what ever am I going to do”. “Do not worry”, said Ollie softly, seeing the tears, “we’ll think of something”. “But my mother and father”, cried Amanda, “they will be so worried, they will think I have been captured by someone from the Black City “. “The black city?”, said Barney, he was about to ask what that was when Ollie interrupted him. Putting a finger to his lips to quieten Barney, Ollie said, “You both look very tired, I think it is time you had some rest, I have plenty of spare rooms and it is getting very late”. Barney looked at Ollie slyly, he was holding something back. There was a definite sparkle in his eye. However, he knew from experience that he would get no more out of him so he agreed that he was indeed rather tired and perhaps they could figure something out in the morning. Without protest, Amanda, who found she was suddenly very tired, followed Ollie and Barney out of the room. Ollie led them down a large hall, up a soft carpeted stairs, across a small landing and right up to a small round door in the middle of a short corridor. Ollie opened the door and Amanda in. It was a beautiful room, Amanda could hardly believe it, it was all shades of blue, from the ceiling down to the floor. The curtains, the carpet, the wallpaper, all were blue, reminding Amanda of a warm summers day. Smiling at Amanda’s obvious pleasure, Ollie and Barney said goodnight and left her to herself. Amanda hardly even noticed they had left. She went over to the four poster bed in the middle of the room and sat down on it. It was soft and springy and very comfortable. She lay on her back and stared once more around the room. Before she knew it she was fast asleep. She dreamt it was a lovely warm summers day and she was walking through the country side with her mother and father and her brother and sister. Suddenly the sky turned black and a strong wind blew out of nowhere. She turned around and saw that her father was heading towards the Black City. She called after him but he didn’t turn around. She began to run, calling “Father, Father”. Then, there was a hole at her feet and she ran right into it. She began to fall. Down and down she went. Was there no end to the hole she asked herself as she fell on and on. Bump. She stopped. Amanda opened her eyes. Where was she? She was lying on a carpet of blue bells, beside her was a four poster, blue, bed and behind her was a white dressing table. Now she remembered. She was in Ollies house, she must have fallen out of bed. Shaking, she sat up. It was still dark, she couldn’t have been asleep for long. She climbed back onto the bed and lay down but she couldn’t sleep. She wanted a drink but was afraid to go for one in case she fell down any more holes. However, after a long time she finally went to sleep and slept peacefully until the next morning. The sun shining through the curtains woke Amada quite early. She went over to the window and looked out onto a beautiful garden full of flowers and bushes of all shapes and sizes. She stared with awe in the sun-lit garden, she was beginning to think that Ollie was very lucky to live in such a beautiful place. Everything was beautiful, this house, this room, the garden, everything. She left the room and went downstairs one day more. She was just trying to decide which way to turn when Ollie came down the stairs behind her. Good morning Amanda”, he called cheerfully, “it is a beautiful morning is it not? I hope you slept well?”. “Quite well thank you”, replied Amanda smiling, “I was very comfortable”. She followed Ollie into the kitchen where Barney sat busily eating eggs and bacon. “Good morning!”, he cried on seeing them, “it is a beautiful morning, it’s a pity you weren’t up a little earlier, you could have joined me in a quick run, just the thing to clear the cobwebs”. Ollie groaned loudly and gave Barney a look of horror, “Getting out of bed is exercise enough for me thank you”, he said haughtily. Barney and Amanda laughed loudly. After Amanda and Ollie had finished their breakfast and were sitting back sipping tea, Amanda asked Barney if he had any idea of what they could do today, however, Barney shook his head and said he was clean out of ideas. “I don’t think anyone else in the village would know of Fruiterville if Ollie doesn’t”, he spoke sadly, “I just don’t know what else we can do, unless we go to another town”. “I think we should go back to the cave”, interrupted Ollie. “But what good would that do?”, asked Barney. “I do not know”, replied Ollie, “it is just that I feel that there is something strange going on and and I would like to see this cave for myself”. Amanda, who had remained silent until now, spoke up, “But what do we do when we get there”, she asked. “That we will decide when we get there”, replied Ollie and he got up to pack a picnic lunch for them to take with them. Amanda stared quietly into her empty cup, as if trying to read the tea leaves and Barney got up to go for another quick run before they left. CHAPTER 3: AMANDA GETS A SHOCK. It was a pleasant day, just right for a walk. Amanda, Barney and Ollie walked gaily along, chatting as they went. Amanda was excited and a little nervous at seeing the cave again and both Barney and Ollie were excited, curious and thrilled at what they might find. Barney led them back the way they had come the day before. Although Ollie knew the way to the village perfectly well, he wasn’t too sure after that and so Barney was left to be the guide. Amanda, of course, recognized lots of places here and there especially when they left the village and came to the little hill where they could gaze down on the village on one side and the dark woods on the other. Here they rested for a while. They had been walking for almost an hour and they had a long way to go yet. The sun was shining and there wasn’t a cloud in the dark brown sky as they started down the hill once more. They were silent now, each of them felt a sadness they couldn’t understand, it was almost as if they were leaving the village behind for a long long time. Everything was dark and quiet once they entered the wood they needed all their concentration in keeping each other in sight but Barney had passed through these woods many a time and he knows them like the back of his hand. Still, they were very much relieved when they finally reached the other side.

Once more they entered the countryside Amanda had been walking along the day before. On their left was the long field of wild flowers and on their right, the woods stretched along with them, following the path as far as they could see. But there was something strange about this countryside, something they couldn’t quite put their finger on at first. “It’s odd”, said Amanda suddenly as they walked along, “the sun doesn’t seem to shine on this side of the woods and the sky seems darker”. “Yes, you’re right”. Exclaimed Barney, “how odd, I never noticed it before”. They both looked at Ollie expectantly but Ollie was just as puzzled as they were. They went on, the excitement growing within them. The road seemed endless but soon enough the tunnel which Amanda had come through came into sight. “Goodness”, said Barney with amazement, “I don’t ever remember seeing that there before“. “Are you sure?”, asked Ollie “maybe you turned off before you came to here”. “No”, replied Barney, “I’m sure I always come this way. I mean, I’m nearly sure I do”. However, looking at the entrance to the tunnel, he wasn’t too sure at all, that is, how could a tunnel just appear in the middle of a road? As they made their way down the short dark tunnel, their stomachs began to churn with excitement. Amanda was silently praying that, somehow, she would find a way out, but something told her that it was not meant to be. At last they entered into the cave. It was the same as Amanda remembered it, tunnels surrounding it and a large pile of leaves in the centre. Amanda walked over to the leaves and looked up. Her mouth opened and she let out a cry. “What is it Amanda?”, asked Barney with concern. “It, it’s gone”, cried Amanda hoarsely, “the hole is gone”. She stood there looking up at the roof of the cave where the hole had once been. Barney and Ollie came over, they too looked up but, of course, saw nothing. None of them could understand it. “The leaves are still here”, said Ollie reassuringly “that proves that the hole must’ve been there, how else would these leaves get here” “But I don’t understand”, said Barney, “First a tunnel I have never seen before appears in the middle of the road and then a disappearing hole”. He continued to stare up at the roof of the cave as if expecting the hole to suddenly appear again. “It is as I expected all along” said Ollie. Amanda and Barney turn quickly to look at him. “There is some magic going on here somewhere”, Ollie continued much to their amazement, “Amanda I think, is very lucky to have been chosen to fall down the hole and find us”. “CHOSEN!”, cried Amanda and Barney together. Barney sat down heavily on the pile of leaves, it was all getting a little too much for him. “You don’t mean to say”, he said with a heavy sigh, “that Amanda was CHOSEN to fall down the hall and into the cave in to find me”. He gave Ollie and appealing look as if he hoped he would laugh and tell him it was all a big joke. But Ollie didn’t laugh, he didn’t even smile, he had that far away look on his face again and Barney could tell that he would get no more out of him. He turned to look appealingly at Amanda instead. Amanda was looking from Ollie to Barney and up to the ceiling. She too sat down heavily beside Barney. “So, I’m stuck here”, she said dejectedly, “magic or no magic, I’ve no way out”. Barney looked at her again, she was staring off into space and there were tears in her eyes. “I wouldn’t say that”, he said cheerfully, “don’t mind Ollie, he likes to be dramatic, I bet one of these tunnels leads out into Fruiterville.”

Amanda looked at Barney with a glimmer of hope in her eyes, then she turned to look at Ollie who was pacing around the cave and peering into all the tunnels.

"How do you fancy a bit of exploring", he said at last, "you are fast on your feet Barney, you could run down a few of these tunnels while Amanda and I explore one or two".

Barney jumped to his feet energetically, at last he could do something. "Good idea Ollie", he cried, "I bet I can do all the other tunnels while you do one".

Ollie laughed, "Sure you can", he said.

Amanda stood up also, feeling Barneys excitement.

"Barney must remember which tunnel we go into", she said, "then if he finds anything, he can come after us".

"ok", said Barney, who was already heading eagerly for one of the tunnels, "Which tunnel are you going down?".

Amanda looked at Ollie. "We will go down the tunnel to the left of the one we came through", Ollie said, "If you find nothing, we will meet you back here in an hour".

"Right", said Barney, entering into one of the tunnels at a run, "Good luck!" Already, his voice was far away.

Ollie left the picnic basket in the centre of the cave and, Amanda at his side, headed for the tunnel on the left of the one they had entered only half an hour before.

The tunnel was as dark and scary as the first one had been, but Amanda wasn't as afraid now that she had Ollie with her. They walked slowly along until their eyes got used to the dark and when they were able to make out the rounded walls and smooth floor of the tunnel, they were able to walk a little faster.

The tunnel was long and windy, changing directions suddenly so that one minute they were going in one direction and another they were doubling back again, there seemed to be no end to it. It got no taller or wider, nor did it slope upwards or downwards. After walking for nearly twenty minutes, they began to get a little disheartened, then suddenly, the tunnel ended and they came out only to discover themselves on a wide ledge halfway up the wall of an enormous cave.  The ledge went all the way around the cave walls but there was no other tunnel entrance anywhere along it and there was no way down the wall to the floor of the cave, which was a long way below.

"Oh dear", said Ollie, who didn't really like heights, "It makes me dizzy just looking at it".

Amanda looked around her once more.

"Well, that's it", she said, "There's no more tunnels up here, what now?".

"I'm afraid we'll just have to go back", replied Ollie.

"Oh", said Amanda disappointedly, but she had known Ollie was going to say that.

"We'll just rest here for a minute before we start back", Ollie said, "It's a lovely sight from up here".

Tiredly they both sat down on the ledge with their legs hanging over the side and their backs against the wall.

"I wonder if Barney found anything", Amanda was staring at a wide opening in the cave wall below when she saw a flicker of movement. She bolted upright, nearly falling off the ledge.

"What was that!" She cried.

Ollie too sat upright, "What?", he asked "Where?".

"Down there", Amanda replied, pointing to the opening, "I thought I saw something move".

Ollie stared at the opening for a few moments.

"I don't see anything", he said at last, "Whatever it was, it is gone".

"Let's go now", Amanda said, suddenly feeling afraid, "Barney will be back soon".

"okay", said Ollie and they both got up and entered the tunnel once more.

 CHAPTER 4: BARNEY UNCOVERS A MYSTERY

Amanda and Ollie arrived back in the cave half an hour later. Everything was as they had left it, the picnic basket was still in the middle of the floor in the centre by the pile of leaves and all was dark and quiet. There was no sign of barney yet.

They went over to the pile of leaves and sat down to wait for him to return. They were very tired and hungry by now and, try as they would to keep awake, they were soon fast asleep side by side, only to be awoken sometime later by the sound of running footsteps.

Amanda was the first to wake. She sat up and listened to the footsteps, they were unnaturally loud and they seemed to be coming from all the tunnels at once, as if a great army were running towards them. Ollie also woke up as the footsteps got louder and louder, he sat up straight beside Amanda and listened also.

"What is it!", "asked Amanda worriedly.

"I would say that that is Barney on his way back now", replied Ollie unconcernedly.

"But how can it be?", exclaimed Amanda, "The noise is coming from all the tunnels".

"It is probably just the echo of the cave", said Ollie, "you see, you are bound to get a lot of echo's in a cave like this".

"I hope you're right", said Amanda, Still feeling very afraid.

Suddenly the footsteps stopped and a moment later, Barney came walking out of one of the tunnels with a flushed, excited look on his face. Amanda and Ollie both jumped up.

"Barney!", they cried, "Where have you been? Did you find anything?"

Barney came over to where they were standing and fell, exhausted, onto the pile of leaves.

"Boy I'm worn out", he said, grinning up at them, "and starving". He looked sideways at the picnic basket and Amanda and Ollie could tell they would get nothing out of him until he had eaten. Hastily, they opened up the picnic basket and sat down to eat.

"Well", they said, when Barney had eaten a few sandwiches.

"It's a long story", Barney replied, picking up another sandwich and taking a bite.

Amanda and Ollie drew closer and stared at him expectantly.

"Well", he began, "the first two tunnels I went into were very short and I soon came to a dead end and had to come back, but then the third tunnel I went into was very long and had loads of tunnels and passages leading off of it in all directions. I went down a good way and discovered that the tunnel was going on and on forever and I knew I would never be able to explore all the different directions it was going in, so I started back. However, I hadn't gone far before I realized that I was lost. I tried to double back again but there were so many twists and turns and tunnels and passages that soon I didn't even know which direction I was going in".

He paused for another bite of his sandwich as Amanda and Ollie's eyes grew wider and they drew in their breath.

"I was going around in circles and I was soon exhausted. I got frightened then and didn't know what to do, so I sat down for a while to try and calm myself. I was beginning to think that I was going to be left inside the tunnel forever when suddenly this old Carrot just appeared out of nowhere".

Amanda and Ollie gasped.

"I jumped up with fright, but he said, 'do not be afraid', his voice was very strange and it made me feel calm again and I knew I could trust him. 'I have come to show you the way out', he said then, I couldn't believe it. I just stood there with my mouth open. Next, he started to walk off and my legs just automatically walked after him. I knew then, he must be part of this magic Ollie's been talking about".

Ollie let out a satisfied sigh and gave them both an 'I told you so' look.

"what happened then?" Amanda asked impatiently.

"Well, he led me back to the straight part of the tunnel", Barney continued, "then he stopped and said, 'Third tunnel on the left, leads you to a village cleft, go there and you will find the mystery of the hole will unwind'. With that, he disappeared…into thin air".

Ollie let out a low whistle.

"Disappeared", whispered Amanda.

Barney sat back with a satisfied look on his face and took up another sandwich.

After a brief silence, Ollie got up and started walking around the cave and talking to himself again.

"Third tunnel on the left", he muttered, "Third tunnel on the left".

"Oh dear", said Amanda, "What does it all mean?"

"It must mean that we go down the third tunnel on the left", said Barney, "that must be the tunnel we were supposed to go into all along".

Ollie came over and sat down again.

"well Ollie", Barney asked cheerfully, "What do you think?".

"This cave is completely round", Ollie began, "What is left and what is right? No matter what way we turn, the Left is always in a different place."

Barney looked at him, puzzled. He hadn't thought of that. The cave was completely round alright and the number of tunnels in it even. In fact, now that he thought about it, he wasn't even sure he knew which tunnel they had come through in the first place. So what did the rhyme mean? Why had the Carrot said it?

"Oh dear", he said dejectedly, "This magic business is very strange".

"Well, at least we know there is magic involved and we are supposed to go down one of the tunnels", Ollie said, " I vote we keep on looking".

"Me too", cried Amanda.

Barney looked from one to the other and he was just about to speak when suddenly there was a loud whooshing noise in the cave and with a puff of smoke, and old, bent Carrot appeared out of nowhere.

"It's him! It's him!" Gasped Barney.

"Listen", said the carrot quietly, "now you must decide whether you will go on or go back. Once you are down the tunnel, there is no turning back, for there, there is magic also, evil magic, black magic. Once there, you are on your own, and you must fight the black magic in your own way. But remember this always, no harm will come to you in the good magic…we will…never…be far behind…".

Amanda, Barney and Ollie stood transfixed, each with their mouths open and a look of shock and awe on their faces. Barney was the first to snap out of it.

"But wait! Where must we go? What must we do?", he cried out as the Carrot began to fade and shimmer and then he was gone and all that was left was his voice, strong and clear…

"AMANDA IS THE KEY, Amanda, Amanda is the key!"

Ollie and Barney looked at Amanda, now they knew for sure she had been chosen for some special task. But what? Amanda didn't look magic. She looked the same sad, lost, Amanda they had grown to know so will.

They all sat down again.

"whatever will we do", Barney cried.

No one answered.

 CHAPTER 5: SETTING OUT ON AN ADVENTURE

The trio sat silently for a long time until finally Ollie stood up and cleared his throat.

"The old Carrot says we must decide and I have decided", he began quietly, "I will go on".

Amanda and Barney looked up at him as he stood there proudly, his head high. Barney stood up beside him.

"I'm no explorer", he said with a laugh, "but I'm always game for a bit of an adventure. Life was getting a bit dull anyway".

"Well I guess I really haven't much choice in the matter", Amanda said, "and anyway, who'd look after you two".

They all burst out laughing and hugged each other tightly, they then bent down to tidy up the picninc basket and see what food they had left. They hadn't much really, just a few sandwiches and a cake or two, so, rather they carry the heavy picnic basket, they tied them up in the table cloth and Barney tied the table cloth around his waist. Finally they were ready.

"Now all we have to do is figure out this rhyme", said Amanda at last. "What was it again?".

 "Third tunnel on the left,

leads you to a village cleft,

go there and you will find,

the mystery of the hole will unwind"

 Barney looked from one to the other as the rhyme sank in. And, as it did, so they all realized that it couldn't be the third tunnel on the left because there was no left and right in the cave, as Ollie had sad earlier, the cave was completely round. What could it mean?

"I guess we're back to square one", said Barney, I suppose I'd better explore a few more tunnels".

Amanda and Ollie could think of nothing better to do so they just nodded and Barney made for one of the tunnels behind him. However, when he reached the tunnel entrance, he stopped suddenly and fell backwards as if something had hit him. He got up and put out his foot to step forward but stopped again. Amanda and Ollie stared at him in amazement as he put out his hand but didn't reach into the tunnel, he moved his hand around as if he were cleaning a window, then, as if he changed his mind, he turned towards the next tunnel and once again stopped just as he reached the tunnel entrance. Soon he was running around the cave, stopping at each tunnel entrance, putting his hands up and feeling the air.

"What is it?", Amanda and Ollie called out urgently, "What is it? What's wrong". Still Barney ran around the cave.

"I can't get in", he shouted, "I can't get in!"

Amanda looked wildly about her. Had Barney gone mad? She ran to one of the tunnels, then stopped with a force  as if she had run up against a brick wall. She couldn't believe her eyes. She turned around quickly, just in time to see Barney fall head first into one of the tunnels. The both ran over to him and stood looking into the tunnel. Barney was panting and he leaned up against the wall.

"I guess this must be it", he puffed, "It's the only one I can get into".

They all knew it was pointless trying to understand it, time was passing by, they all knew they must hurry on. So, without further ado, they gathered themselves up and entered into the tunnel.

The light from the tunnel entrance for dimmer and dimmer as they walked on. Soon they rounded a corner and were hurled into pitch blackness so intense that they couldn’t see each other. They decided that Ollie should take the lead as he had the best eyesight, then Amanda would come next and Barney would bring up the rear. They walked very slowly, every now and then tripping up or hitting their toes off loose stones on the path which they couldn’t see in the darkness. They had been walking for almost fifteen minutes when they had to stop for the tunnel suddenly widened and grew somewhat lighter and they could see that it now branched off in three different directions. Barney let out a long groan, “Oh no, now what to we do”, he cried, “don’t tell me we’ll have to explore these ones as well”. Amanda leaned up against the wall of the tunnel dejectedly, “Maybe the old Carrot will appear again”, she said hopefully”. Suddenly, Ollie jumped, as if something had frightened him, and let out a yell, “so this is it, so this is it, Third tunnel on the left, third tunnel, don’t you see, the old Carrot didn’t let us down after all”. He was almost jumping up and down with excitement at this stage and finally it sunk in and Amanda and Barney almost shouted together “oh the rhyme, the old Carrot”. “Come on then, what are we waiting for”, Ollie cried as he darted off into the tunnel with Amanda and Barney on his heels. They noticed as they went in that the tunnel got bigger and bigger and the rock was shaped as if it had been carved out. The tunnel ran straight now and the three could see a good distance ahead. Fro here it looked as if the tunnel would never end, but still they went on and soon everyone was too tired to talk and they went on in silence. Some hours had past before at last they could see the end of the tunnel but what a shock they all got, for all they could see ahead of them was a dead end. But still they walked on, no one dared to stop, no one dared give up hope. They all reached the end of the tunnel together, but it wasn’t the end of their journey, for here they got another surprise, a much more pleasant one this time for they hadn’t come to a dead end at all, in fact, the tunnel turned sharply at this point, so sharply that they could only see it from when they reached what they had believed was the dead end. Now they were faced with another tunnel, much shorter, lit up with small lanterns that, although didn’t give off much light, hurt their eyes as they had become accustomed to the dark. At the end of this tunnel, there was a cave, of what size they didn’t know for they couldn’t see much of it from where they were standing. What they could see looked like a village, a small, deserted village. “That must be the village”, whispered Barney l, “the one in the rhyme”. “Mm”, Ollie agreed, “it seems to be deserted”. “I can’t see much from here”, Barney whispered back, “I’m going to get a closer look”. He sneaked down the tunnel as quietly as he could and Ollie and Amanda followed a little distance behind him. When he reached the end, Barney stopped and peered around the corner. On the left there were mostly houses, some were little square cottages with wooden or thatched roofs, others were round like Ollie’s, others were long and thin, starting with a wide base and getting thinner as they went up. Most of the houses were side by side with very little space between them so that the village looked kind of squashed up. There were no gardens or fences in front of any of the houses, everything seemed to be solid rock. Barney looked over to the other side of the cave. There wasn’t much to be seen here except for a huge wooden house with big double doors and what looked like two lamp posts outside of them. There wasn’t many windows in this house, Barney counted our in all, two on the top and two on the bottom. It had to be a meeting house of some sort for it was too big to be anything else and yet, the grey of the walls and roof gave it an evil look which sent shivers down Barneys spine. The only other thing on this side of the cave was a rather large well which was probably used by the whole village. “There’s no one about” Barney whispered back, “this place is deserted”. Amanda and Ollie came up beside Barney and looked around the cave. “Not a soul to be seen”, Ollie whispered in awe. “Isn’t that house just awful”, Amanda gasped, pointing to the big house Barney had just been looking at, “I wonder what it’s for”. “A meeting house of some sort I’d guess”, Barney replied, “well, what do we do now?”. “I think we should explore...” Ollie began. “Ahh”, Barney cut him off, “ I thought I saw something move down there”. “Where?”, cried Ollie. “In between those houses there”, Barney said urgently, “those round ones”. Ollie and Amanda stared at the place Barney was pointing to. “I don’t see anything”, Amanda said at last. “I’m going to find out”, Barney said impatiently and before anyone could stop him, he was crossing over to the village at a silent run. Amanda and Ollie followed cautiously behind. Ollie went up to one of the square cottages and knocked lightly on the door. There was no answer. Barney was standing with his face pressed against a window, staring inside. Both of them were thinking the same thought- ‘strange’. “Come here, look”, Barney beckoned to Ollie. Ollie went over and looked inside. There wasn’t much to be seen. It looked like a living room of a sort with a long bare wooden table and chairs in one corner and a press with cups and plates and cutlery in it in another. Barney went over to another window, inside he could see four small beds with one blanket on each of them. Who ever lived here must be very poor, that is if anyone lived here. Suddenly Barney and Ollie heard a scream and looked around to find Amanda missing. “Over here”, shouted Barney running in the direction of a small round house and disappearing behind it. When Ollie caught up with him, he was standing beside Amanda facing a rather wizened old Potato. “Ay, sure I don’t know what yer all so scared about”, he was saying, it’s me that should be scared for good reason n’ all, sneaking up on me like that, but quick, come quick before the guards find us”. The trio had no choice but to follow the strange old Potato as he scampered off into one of the cottages nearby.

CHAPTER 6: PADDY POTATO TELLS A STORY

They were all sitting around a long wooden table in a small bare room without wallpaper on the walls or carpet for the floor and they were listening intently to the story Paddy Potato was telling them in hushed tones.

He told them all about their little village as it had once been, quiet and peaceful and very prosperous. Every house had a little garden in the front and back. In the front, they grew beautiful flowers and in the back they worked or played in the bright sunshine. He told them how one day, there appeared a in the village, an old woman, she was very ugly and dirty but everyone took pity on her and tried to help her. She turned out to be a witch however and she cast a spell over the village which made the Earth open up and swallow them, their gardens found themselves encased in solid rock. Once underground, the witch showed her true colours, she appeared almost at once with a big army and told them that now they were all 'working' for her. Anyone that didn't want to 'work' for her just had to object and she would deal with them. No one dared object.

And so, everyone, even the little children, went off early every day, escorted by the guards and didn't come back until very late at night. Every week, they would have a meeting in the big house on the other side of the cave and the witch would come along and say if she was going to punish anyone or if she was going to take anyone to work in her kitchen. If she did this, everyone knew they'd never return.

Paddy went on to tell them that when the witch cast a spell over the village and they had been swallowed up by the ground, all the old people in the village had disappeared. He wasn't sure if they had been left behind or taken somewhere else, or worse!...but he had been swallowed up with the rest of the village and somehow escaped the notice of the witch or the guards and had stayed hidden in the village ever since, trying to think up a plan to help them. Often he sneaked into the place where the witch made the villagers work but he had never been able to get very close because there were always too many guards around. The only time he had ever seen the witch actually, was about three weeks ago when he had been spying around the place the villagers were working and, having managed to get a bit further than usual, he came upon a long, shaft like square building with only a door but no windows in it.

The building reached up to the roof of the cave and seemed to continue on into the rock. He had been so fascinated by the whole structure that he didn't hear anyone coming until it was nearly too late and then he only just managed to get behind a big rock when the witch appeared. She looked very ill and was being helped along by two of her followers. They brought her into the building and then came out and stood guard behind the door. The witch came out sometime later looking fully refreshed and younger somehow, much stronger. He couldn't believe his eyes, at first he thought it was someone else. He had never gone as far as that again and hadn't seen the witch since, as he had to hide every time she came into the village.

When Paddy had finally finished, there was a silence around the table. Everyone wanted to ask a hundred questions, but didn't know where to start. One thing was for sure, they seemed to have come to the right place, but what next? What could they do? What could Amanda do?

"Well now we know", said Amanda at last, "But somehow, I don't see things any clearer. How do I fit into all of this?".

Paddy looked around at all the confused faces. "Somehow I knew you's'd come", he said, "you're going to help us aren't you?".

"If we can figure out a way", Ollie replied, "If we can, we will".

"Well maybe you's could fight the witch", Paddy said hopefully.

"I don't think so somehow ", Amanda laughed, "we don't have any magic you see, all she'd have to do is  cast one spell".

"Well it looks as if we'll have to fight her sooner or later by the looks of things", Barney put in, "I don't see what else we can do. This business with the building really puzzles me though. What could she do in there?".

Everyone's curiosity was aroused but they couldn't think of anything that she could possibly do in there to make herself better. Well, she was a witch after all, maybe she cast a spell. Somehow they knew this wasn't true, they also knew that before long they'd have to find out.

"Did anyone ever try getting out the way we came in?", asked Barney suddenly.

"Nope", replied Paddy, "The witch places guards outside the tunnel every night and only leaves it unguarded during the day as she thinks no one's here. I tried goin' down there meself one day but I'm old n tired n getting weak from lack of food. I didn't make it very far n I had to come back".

Everyone sighed. They knew it would be no good going for help, not with a witch as powerful as this one and anyway if that was all that was needed the Old Carrot would have done it already. No, the whole situation seemed hopeless, what could they do? There seemed no way out. What they needed was time, time to think.

Suddenly there was a loud shrieking, wailing noise that seemed to make the whole house shake and made their ears ring. They all jumped with fright.

“What was that!?”, Amanda exclaimed.

“That’s the horn for the end of the shift”, Paddy said jumping up, “ come quick, we must hide”.

He led them to a small round house at the back of the cave, they went in and straight to a trap door in one of the rooms. The trap door was hidden by a large mat that almost covered the floor and they had to roll it back before going down. They climb down a long stepladder and finally ended up in a large dark cave that seemed cold and damp after the warmth of the house. In the cave there was a small round table, a chair and one bed, obviously for Paddy’s use.

“What about the mat?”, Barney asked.

“Oh, someone will roll it back the minute they come in”, Paddy replied, “don’t worry”.

They all sat down on the bed. Only now they were beginning to realize just how tired they were. It had been a long day. A long adventurous day.

They didn’t even hear the movement above them as the villagers stumbled home after their hard days work and crawled exhausted into their beds with no idea of what lay below them. They didn’t hear the guards above them checking all the houses to make sure everyone was safely in their beds and no one was wondering about. In fact they heard nothing more until they were woken with a start the next morning to the sound of another loud shrill bell that was only slightly muffled by the house above them. They all sat up sore and stiff from the positions they had been lying in and looked around them in puzzlement trying to remember where they were. It was only when Paddy spoke that they remembered all that happened the day before and it didn’t make them feel any better.

“That’s the bell to waken everyone up so that they can eat something before they go to work”, Paddy said sleepily, “I had better go and speak to them”.

Ollie sat up suddenly, “Wait”, he whispered urgently, “you must not tell them we are down here, word will get around that we have come to save them and the witch will notice how excited everyone is, besides there may be spies”.

“Spies!”, cried Paddy indignantly, “ there are no spies in this village”.

“Yes, yes”, Soothed Ollie, “ but you must remember that the witch is magic, she could cast a spell on anyone”.

“Oh, well”, Paddy said, “Ok, I agree that word would get around and people would get excited, I won’t tell anyone”.

“Thank you”, Ollie said with relief.

Paddy climbed the steps quietly and soon disappeared from view.

They were all left alone in the dark and they tried to be as quiet as possible as there was movement above them, however, they could hear no voices so they assumed that no one would hear them if they talked very quietly.

“What about some breakfast”, Barney whispered.

“Barney, you would!” Amanda replied with a muffled laugh.

“We had better wait until everyone leaves”, Ollie said, “ we should make as little noise as possible. When they are gone we can eat the rest of our food”.

“Great”, said Barney, “I’m starved”.

“ That’s all very well”, said Amanda crossly, “but what then? Where do we go from here, we can’t sit here eating all the time. I can’t see anything we can possibly do to help these people.”

“Do you think we can trust them?”, Barney said seriously.

“I don’t really know”, replied Ollie, “ but I don’t think we have much choice in the matter. I don’t like the feel of this place though,there is definitely evil here”.

“It gives me the creeps”, said Amanda, “What I’d give to be able to just get up and go home”.

“Ah, but we can’t”, Said Barney cheerfully, “we’ve got this far, we might as well go the whole way”.

Just then, there was a noise above them and footsteps on the ladder. They all held their breath until finally Paddy appeared before them and told them the villagers had all gone and they were on their own again.

“What do you say we go upstairs into the light?”, Paddy said, “ It should be safe enough now”.

They all jumped up, delighted at the thought of getting out of this cold, dark room.

Once above, Barney unwrapped his little parcel of food and they all attacked it hungrily.

Paddy couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the sandwiches and the cake, he hadn’t seen such food in a long, long time. It wasn’t long before it was gone however and it was down to business once more and this time they would just have to think of a plan.

“I’ve been thinking”, Ollie said, “ The best thing for us to do would be to get up in the middle of the night to do a little exploring and see what we can find”.

“But wouldn’t it be better to snoop around in the day seeing as there’s no one here?”, Barney interrupted.

“Ah yes”, said Ollie, “ we could ‘snoop’ around here during the day, but we couldn’t snoop around where the villagers are working during the day, around where the magical hut is!”.

“Ahh, I see”, Barney said.

“I don’t”, said Amanda, “What’s the point in going out at night time when they’re are guards all over the place? We are bound to get caught”.

“Not if we’re careful”, said Ollie, “Anyway, We’ll have no other chance of looking around there and I doubt if we’ll find any useful information in this cave”.

“I guess you’re right”, Amanda sighed, “But what about today?”.

“Paddy might show us around the cave this morning”, Ollie replied, “and then we must rest this afternoon so that we will be fully alert tonight”.

Paddy agreed to show them around and they all decided that it was the best plan, after all, no one could think of another.

So, all that morning Paddy showed them around the cave. There was nothing of interest around where the houses were so they went on to the other side of the cave where the meeting house was. The big grey building loomed above them and seem 10 times bigger and more evil once they were actually beside it. Although no one really wanted to, they decided to go in.

Directly inside there was a big hole which Paddy said was the meeting place. At the far end of the hall there was a door but Paddy said that the witch had threatened to cast a spell over anyone entering that door and refused to go near it. There was nothing else in the hall except a large stage to one side on which there sat a large comfortable armchair. They decided to try their luck going through the forbidden door. Paddy stayed outside while the trio entered into a long corridor with lots of doors on either side. They went down the corridor in silence, opening a few doors here and there only to find large, well furnished bedrooms, probably belonging to the witches guards. At the end of the corridor was another door. They went in. What is sight met their eyes. It was an extremely large hall, or what seem to be a hall, only carved out of rock. it was filled with cushions laid in neat rows all down it. The hall itself was lit up with lights like they had never seen before, large round balls hanging out of the ceiling on thin chains, each ball cast in a different colour, red, yellow orange, blue, purple, magenta, every colour you could think of which, when mixed together as they were, made the most peculiar shade in the room. It seemed almost as if they were walking in a mist of colours. This wasn’t the sight that amazed them the most, however, for at the very far end of the hall was a large altar and hanging on the wall behind it was a huge colourful picture. At first they weren’t sure if they were seeing things, after all, even the air about them seem to be playing tricks with colours and shapes. Amanda ran up to the altar, stood looking at the picture before crumbling to the floor. Barney and Ollie ran up to her and bent down to comfort her, but they couldn’t take their eyes off the picture, it was so real, so lifelike.

Amanda suddenly started to cry loudly. Barney and Ollie didn’t know what to do but all they wanted now was to get out of this place, get back to safety. They picked Amanda up and half carried, half guided her out of the hall, along the corridor and back to the meeting hall and a shocked, bewildered Paddy who said nothing but followed them out.

It didn’t take them long to get back to the safety of the house where they all sat in shock to silence for some time. Paddy couldn’t think of what had happened behind the door and at first he didn’t really want to know but soon the curiosity got the better of him and he began to ask them questions. Eventually Ollie told him what had happened and what they had seen.

“It was a huge portrait”, Ollie began, “ A portrait of Amanda, well it looked like Amanda except she was all done up in a long gold dress, a long silver cape and they were jewels of every colour in her hair”.

“Why that’s their God”, Paddy exclaimed excitedly, “It must be. They have an idle you see, the villagers told me about it a long time ago but I have never seen it. It is a big statue, dressed in a golden dress with a silver cape crown of jewels. They must all be out to it when they pass it and the guards are always coming up and kneeling down before it”.

“I see, I see”, said Ollie, “ things are starting to fall into place, at least now we know we have a weapon to use against them.”

“You mean Amanda?”, Barney asked.

“Yes, don’t you see”, Ollie replied, “ A golden dress, a cape, and a crown and we have our own little God”.

They all laughed, except for Amanda who was still sitting there in shock, not able to take it all in.

“It’s getting late”, Ollie said looking at Amanda, “We had better get a rest if we are to go exploring tonight, we want to be fully awake”.

“Does that mean we still have to go to that hut, or whatever it is?”, Barney asked worriedly, “ I was hoping we wouldn’t have to somehow”.

“I’m afraid so”, said Ollie cheerfully.

“I thought as much”, sighed Barney, “Oh well”.

They all got up, rolled back the mat and descended into darkness once more to sleep until that night.

CHAPTER 7: THE MAGICAL HUT.

Amanda woke with a start, she could hear movement above. She got up off the bed and looked around her. Ollie and Barney were still asleep but Paddy was gone. She woke the other two and they sat up with a start.

“Where’s Paddy?”, whispered Barney tiredly.

“I don’t know”, Amanda replied quietly, “I’m just after waking up, I’d say he’s gone to see his friends.”

Just then Paddy appeared down the steps. He was carrying a small sack on his back. He told them that he had told the villagers that he had decided to do some exploring that night, which they didn’t really like the idea of, but they eventually agreed to roll back the mat after the guards had done their rounds. He had also collected some food, a rope, a knife and a few other things he thought might come in handy. He wouldn’t tell them where he had found the rope or the knife.

All they had to do now was wait. They sat down on the bed and ate some bread-and-butter which Paddy gave them. They were all starving and their stomachs still felt empty when they had finished but they didn’t say anything.

Soon everything was quiet once more above and Paddy was leading them up the ladder and out of the house. They sneaked around the houses being careful not to be seen by the guards watching the tunnel. Do you needn’t have worried however because two guards were busy talking to each other and looking at a book. Luckily the entrance to the tunnel leading off from the cave was near the houses and they didn’t have much difficulty darting around it, one by one, out of sight. Once they were all around, Paddy lead the way. He brought them through long tunnels and short ones, through large caves and smaller ones, which the villagers had been digging out for the witch but didn’t seem to be leading anywhere. It was all very confusing to them. Finally they came to the last cave. Everywhere, there were large rocks and rock pillars reaching from ground to roof. They ran from behind one large rock to another, making sure not to be seen. A little way into this cave, on the right hand side, was a long, shaft-like square building with one wooden door but no windows. This was the house Paddy had seen. It was the very same as he had described it, but now that they were actually outside it, looking at it, no one wanted to go in. They stood for a long time behind a large rock that covered them all and wondered what to do next. No one spoke. There was complete silence in the cave which only made them more uneasy. Once they heard footsteps and a guard passed by on the other side of the cave but other than that no one came near where they were.

Ollie, as usual, was the first to make a move.

“Well we can’t stand here all night”, he said, “I’ll go first to make sure it’s safe, and you can follow me.”

Before anyone could object he went over to the hut, tried the door, it was open. And disappeared inside.

“I ain’t goin’ in there”, whispered Paddy, “No way”.

“I wonder what’s in there”, whispered back Amanda.

“I don’t really care”, said paddy under his breath, “but I ain’t goin’ to find out”.

Before long, the door behind opened and Ollie looked out. He beckoned for them to come in. They went quickly and quietly inside while Paddy stayed behind the rock saying he would whistle if anyone came near the hut.

Barney was the last to enter and he shut the door tightly after him before looking around the small room. On the left side of the room, reaching from one wall to the next, was a long wooden table. On this table were bottles and tubes of every shape and size, round and square, long and skinny. Some were filled with brightly coloured liquids, some with dullish powders. It was like a maze with tubes coming from the neck of one bottle to the base of another and leading off again to more and more bottles until you lost track of where you were going and where were you were coming from. It was an amazing site and it took Barney quite a while to take his eyes off of it.

On the right hand side of the room there was not much to be seen. A large rectangular box fitted into the wall with various buttons and levers on one side of it and thick wires leading out of another side and away from the box. Barney followed these wires with his eyes, they lead to a large black armchair in the middle of the room, ran up the back of it, branching off to the arms and legs, and stopped in a thick mass at a large iron helmet suspended in the air directly over it. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He stood there looking at it, not able to say a word.

Ollie was examining the bottles and tubes on the table and Amanda was staring at the chair. Now that they had seen what was in the room they felt more confused than ever. We couldn’t think what it could be for, except maybe torture, or how it could make the witch better. It looks like they were back to square one again. Ollie went from The table to the chair and began examining the buttons and wires on the arms and the thick wires leading to the helmet. Then he followed the wires from the chair to the box in the wall and examined it. Suddenly he stopped, as if in thought, then he said urgently, “Come, we had better go before someone comes”.

Bernie and Amanda looked at him in amazement but didn’t object. Ollie went over to the door, opened it slightly and peered out. There was no sign of life to be seen, he listened for a moment but could hear nothing.

“Ok”, he whispered, “it’s safe”.

They went out one by one and sneaked over to the rock where Paddy was waiting for them. Then they all followed Paddy and within half an hour they were safely back in their hiding place. Once there, they told Paddy what they had seen. Paddy listened dumbfoundedly but could not think what it could all mean.

“Well, it’s the only thing in that room that the witch could use to make herself better so that must be what it’s for”. Barney said tiredly.

“Yes”, said Amanda, “But what about all those tubes and things, she could make up a Magic potion for herself”.

“That’s true”, said Barney, “I never thought of that”.

“I know”, said Paddy excitedly, “there is a professor here in the village, Professor Parnsip, now let me see, I think he lives in the round house, yes, that’s right. He might be able to help. He likes all this electrical stuff, at least he did before the witch came. Why don’t I bring him over here and we can ask him.”.

“That’s great”, said Ollie, his eyes bright, “You’ll have to get him to come when everyone else is asleep, we don’t want anyone to know we’re here just yet”.

“Ok”, said Paddy “I’ll get him to come over tomorrow night”.

There was nothing more that they could do that night so they decided to go to bed. They were all soon fast asleep, except for Amanda couldn’t sleep at all at first. She kept thinking about that chair and about the picture of herself, or what looked like herself in that big room. It all scared her, she would have loved to sneak out of the cave and back along the tunnel, as far away from this place as possible, even if it meant never getting home, she didn’t care anymore. However, she found that she did not want to desert her friends who helped her so much and she couldn’t just leave these poor people to the mercy of this witch. They would find a way out of this somehow. On this thought, she fell into a fitful sleep and didn’t wake up until the next morning.

It was very early and everyone was still asleep. Amanda lay very still on the bed and looked around her. She thought to herself how funny it was to be lying in a dark basement on a hard bed and to be looking at such strange people who are now her friends instead of lying in her comfortable bright room on a soft bed looking at her mother who had just come to call her. She looked around the cave. There wasn’t much to be seen, earthen walls and floor, The cave stretched back so that in the darkness she could not see its end. She wondered why none of them had ventured to explore into the back, she supposed it had just never occurred to them. Something inside her told her that there was more to this cave than met the eye and she felt a longing to search it. She got up as quietly as she could and started through the cave. Soon she could not see the others lying asleep behind her. She felt scared but something told her to keep going so she went on.

Before long Amanda found that the cave was narrowing and soon it became a single passage, still she went on. The passage was very dark and Amanda had to walk carefully in case she tripped over some unseen stone. She had been walking for a long time when she suddenly became tired and sat down for a rest. She wondered how much time had passed since she had left and with the others be up wondering where she was? This was the first time since she had met Barney that she had gone anywhere alone and she suddenly felt very lonely. She was about to get up and go back when she saw something ahead of her in the passageway. She got up and ran to it. It was a thin Rockfall which had blocked the passageway from roof to ceiling. However, it wasn’t much of a rockfall and Amanda was sure that with a little help the rocks could be removed. This wasn’t what excited her though. What excited her the most was seeing through the rocks something that she hadn’t seen for a long time. DAYLIGHT. Amanda had never been so happy in all her life. She had found a way out. Glorious, simple way out and all she had to do was remove the rocks. She was so shocked, so amazed and excited that she ran up to the rocks and started trying to pull them away. She got a few small rocks and hurled them behind her but she could get nothing of any use out of her way. She forgot all about Barney and Ollie and Paddy and the villagers in her desperation to move the rocks. She also forgot to be careful and she didn’t notice that she had loosened a lot of small rocks in her haste and she had also taken some small rocks from beneath a larger rock which was now beginning to roll straight for her.

At the last moment Amanda looked up and saw the rock. She only just had time to jump out of its way as it came hurtling towards her. In doing this however she slipped on some of the smaller rocks and gravel she had loosened and she fell. She could feel herself falling onto the hard rocks and everything went black.

CHAPTER 8: AMANDA IS MISSING

Just as Amanda went silently out of sight down the cave, Paddy woke up. He did not see her going and so he just lay there for a while, waiting. Then, hearing sounds above, he got up quietly and crept upstairs. He didn’t notice that Amanda had gone from her bed.

Some moments later Barney also woke up. He lay still for a while to see if he could hear any sounds from the others. He couldn’t hear anything except shuffling above and a slight snore from Ollie. He lay still on the hard, cold floor for some time, deciding whether to get up or not. Finally, hearing a noise from Ollie, he sat up. The first thing he noticed was that Paddy had gone, but that was not unusual so he didn’t say anything. He looked over at Ollie, he was also sitting up.

“Is Amanda awake?”, Ollie whispered sleepily.

“I don’t think so”, replied Barney, “At least I haven’t heard any sound from that direction”.

“We might as well leave her for a while”, Ollie whispered, “at least until Paddy comes back, it’s going to be a long day”.

They both laid back to wait for Paddy. Neither of them thought to look over to the bed where Amanda should have been lying. Neither of them thought that she might not be there.

After a while, when all the movement had ceased upstairs, already heard the carpet being rolled back, The trap door opening and Paddy coming down the stairs.

“Ah, so ye’s are all awake”, Paddy said cheerfully, “I managed to sneak us some breakfast and I arranged a meetin’ with Professor Parsnip”.

“Oh good”, said Ollie sitting up again, “Let’s hope he can tell us something useful”.

“Wheres Amanda?”, Paddy said suddenly, noticing at last that Amanda wasn’t in her bed.

Barney and Ollie jumped up.

“What!?”, they both cried. Then looking to where Amanda should’ve been lying fast asleep in her bed, they both let out loud groans, “where is she, where can she have gone?”, Barney began to shout in panic, “she wouldn’t go out alone, she wouldn’t go off without telling us!”.

“Shh, stop”, Ollie cried at him, “don’t panic, she must be somewhere, we’d have heard it if someone had come in”.

“But, but” Barney stammered in frustration then fell silent. He didn’t know where Amanda had gone, or how, if anything bad happened to her...!

Ollie sat down heavily on the bed.

“Was she here when you left?”, he asked Paddy.

“Yes, no, I don’t really know”, Paddy replied, “I don’t think I even looked in that direction, I thought ye’s were all asleep”.

“Could she have gone upstairs?”, Ollie asked quietly.

“I suppose so”, Paddy said, “the Matt was still rolled back from last night when we came in so she could have gotten out”.

Barney groaned again and began to pace the floor. “I’m going to go look for her”, he said at last and made his way towards the ladder.

“Wait”, said Ollie, “it would be better if we waited here, Amanda may have gone out for some fresh air and found herself still outside when the bell went. She is probably hiding somewhere until everyone is gone.”

“But what if she gets caught”, Barney cried.

“She won’t get caught”, Ollie said sternly, “If she doesn’t come back in half an hour we’ll go and look for her”.

Barney turned away from the ladder and sat dejectedly on the bed beside Ollie, his face in hands. Ollie patted him on his back. “Don’t worry”, he said, “She’ll be alright. Come, we’ll go upstairs and have some breakfast while we’re waiting.”

No one thought to search the cave. No one noticed that it stretched back further than they thought. No one looked back as they mounted the steps into the room above, they were too worried, they were too sure that she could only be above.

Half an hour past very slowly. Barney paced up and down the room sighing and groaning. Ollie drummed his fingers on the table. Paddy sat looking worried and frustrated, following Barney up and down the room with his eyes. Finally none of them could wait any longer. They split up and went to search different parts of the cave. They searched the whole cave, as well as the guards quarters and the meeting place. That even went a little way along both passageways but there was no Amanda. Around noon they all went dejectedly back to the cottage. All they could think of now was that she had been caught, but why wasn’t there guards everywhere? Why had they heard nothing, no commotion, no noise, nothing?

They would have to free Amanda of course. But there was no point in rushing out and tackling the guards, they wouldn’t stand a chance. No, they would have to find out where she was being kept and how they could free her without being caught themselves.

There was nothing they could do for the moment except stick to the original plan. They would meet Professor Parsnip that night and once they found out what the chair was for they would know where they stood. So, deciding to rest for the remainder of the afternoon they all descended once more into the cave which they were now beginning to hate and slept restlessly until early in the evening.

The bell hadn’t long gone when the villagers began returning. The trio sat silently on the bed waiting for things to die down again. Time seemed to go so slowly and it was like in an eternity later that they heard the mat being rolled back and footsteps descending on the stairs. Their hearts were in their mouths for a few moments before they saw a long funnily shaped creature creeping nervously towards them. He was not at all what Barney or Ollie had expected. He was very tall but he had a very fat body that grew thinner at the bottom, he wore a purple jumper and a dirty white trousers. He had small green eyes that almost matched his hair and indeed he looked quite jolly once he realised he was safe. Paddy introduced them all.

“I thought there was three of you”, Professor Parsnip said.

“Yes there was”, said Barney tensely, “Something happened to Amanda. We don’t know what, she just disappeared.”

“Oh”, said Professor Parsnip, “she couldn’t have been captured or we would’ve heard about it and no one said anything today about someone being found in the cave”.

Barney and Ollie looked at each other worriedly.

“What could have happened to her?”, Barney cried, tears in his eyes.

“We will just have to assume that she has been captured and the witch now knows that we are here and that is why she has said nothing”, Ollie said, “We will have to be twice as careful now”.

Ollie told Professor Parsnip about what they had found the previous night as Paddy led them through the caves once more. He also told him what Paddy had seen and how it had helped the witch in some way. Professor Parsnip was delighted to come across something scientific at last, it was so long since he had done anything but dig with a shovel and a pick. Finally they reached the little hut and hid cautiously behind their faithful old rock. Once more Ollie went up to check that everything was okay and when the others saw his hand signal they followed him in. Paddy stayed behind once more.

Professor Parsnip was amazed at what he found and every few minutes would cry out “Ooh”, or “Ahh”, or “By gum!”. He examined the chair from top to bottom, looking at wires and buttons and even sitting in it as if to get the feel of it. Eventually he stopped and looked at the others.

“Well now”, he said excitedly, “By gum I think I know what it is”.

“What?”, said Ollie and Barney together.

“Well now”, he said again, “I would say that it is an energiser. You see, this wire here leads from the powerpack to the headpiece and it contains 1000 Volts of electricity...”.

“What does that mean”, Barney said impatiently, not understanding all this technical jargon at all, “Does it mean it can make her better?”.

“Yes”, said Professor Parsnip, looking a little disappointed , “The witch obviously uses up a lot of energy trying to hold the spell that keeps us under here and she has to top it up the false energy from this chair”.

“I see”, said Barney.

“That’s great, that’s great”, said Ollie excitedly, “But do you think you could break it or reverse the process in some way?”.

“Well, I don’t know”, replied Professor Parsnip thoughtfully.

However, he didn’t have time to think much further for the door of the hut suddenly flew open and there stood two of the witches guards holding Paddy’s inert body between them. Everyone stood still in shock as Paddy was dragged in.

“Do not move”, said one of the guards, pointing a gun at Barney who was the nearest to him.

They flung Paddy down on the floor, he didn’t move.

“What have you done to him?”, said Barney.

“Out cold”, said the second guard shortly, with a grin on his face.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?”, asked the first guard.

“What have you done with Amanda!?”, shouted Barney taking a step forward, but the guard saw him and pushed him back.

“Against the wall, all of you”, he commanded.

They all obeyed quickly and stood nervously with their backs to the wall. Paddy was still lying on the floor where the guards had dropped him, he gave a slight groan but didn’t move.

“Who is this Amanda?”, the guard asked, “Is there more of you?”.

“No”, said Barney, “Only Amanda, you captured her!”.

“What makes you so sure?”, the guard barked at him, “We haven’t captured anyone but yourselves”.

Barney was stunned into silence.

“Enough of this nonsense”, The first guard snapped, “As soon as he wakes up we will take them to the witch”. He pointed at Paddy and then at the others, “Watch them”, he said.

After a few minutes Paddy woke up. He sat up, rubbing the back of his head and looked around. The guard told him not to move, which he had no intention of doing anyway. When Paddy had fully recovered and was standing beside the others, the first guard told them to form a line, that they were going to see the witch. He then made for the door while the other guard stayed at the rear. Just as they were at the door, it flew open once again and this time everyone, even the guards gasped with shock. The guards dropped their guns and fell to the floor on their hands and knees. Ollie and Barney couldn’t believe their eyes, for there was Amanda, yes, it was Amanda alright. But she was dressed in a long golden dress with a silver cape over her shoulders and a crown of jewels in her hair. They stood there with their mouths open, not sure whether to run and hug her or bow down before her. However, they didn’t have time to do either for Amanda began to issue orders.

“Professor Parsnip, can you fix this chair?”, She asked.

“Err, mm, I don’t know... I think I can reverse the process”, The professor replied nervously. He was shocked by all that was happening but even more so at seeing the guards goddess come to life and proving to be on their side.

“Right”, said Amanda “You must be quick. We have to get the villagers out. Barney, you and Paddy go on ahead and tell the villagers what is happening. Get them all to meet at the well in the middle of the cave. I will stay with Ollie and Professor parsnip and we will meet you there as soon as we can.

“But, what, how-“ Barney stammered, “How can we get the villagers out?”

“There’s no time to explain”, Amanda said sternly, “We haven’t much time, the witch comes here early in the morning before she starts her days work. It’s almost dawn now”.

Barney said no more, himself and Paddy set off quickly through the caves towards the village, they had a lot of explaining to do.

Amanda now turn to the guards who were standing with their heads bowed. “We must help these people”, she said authority “they are my friends, the witch is bad and I will not let her hurt my friends any longer. Go get all the other guards secretly together, tell them I have come and they too must come to the well in the middle of the cave”.

The two guards ran off without a word. Professor parsnip was working away at the wires on the wall, getting Ollie to give him a hand. Finally, he stood up and, rubbing his hands together, he said, “Well now, that’s done. Let’s hope it works”.

“Let’s hope so”, said Amanda, “Come, we better get back to the cave.”

CHAPTER 9: ESCAPE

By the time they reach the cave, a big crowd had gathered and there was a lot of commotion going on. Paddy and Barney were standing up on the wall of the well in the centre of the cave trying to keep everyone quiet without much success. However, as soon as Amanda entered the cave there was complete silence and everyone turned to stare at her some with their mouths open, some with shock on their faces, some with fear. Amanda went quickly to the well and stood up beside Paddy and Barney.

“I haven’t got much time to explain everything to you”, she began, “It is a long story, however, what I will tell you is the witch uses a machine to give her energy to keep her spells working. We have broken this machine so that the next time she uses it, it will take all her energy away instead of giving it to her. When the witch loses all her energy, she won’t be able to keep the spell that brought you all here. The spell will be broken and the village will burst out into the open air once again”.

Amanda was interrupted by a loud cheer of joy.

“Wait”, she called, “The force of the explosion when the village bursts out could kill us all and therefore we must get out before this happens”.

They were loud cries in the crowd and people began to shout- “But how, there is no way out, we will all die!”

“Stop, stop, wait!”, Amanda cried, “There is a way out”.

Everyone stop talking and listened as Amanda went on.

“You all know Paddy very well and you all know where he has been hiding for so long, well, at the back of his cave there is a passage that goes up and up and near the end of it is a rock fall, beyond that Rockfall is daylight- FREEDOM!”.

Again there was a cheer in the crowd. Amanda turned to Barney and Paddy and told them to pick a dozen very strong men from the crowd to help to move the rocks. She then turned to the crowd once more and called out of silence.

“We will need to move the rocks from the passageway”, she called, “Then I want you to form into groups of about fifteen and gather outside Paddy’s house, we haven’t much time, everyone must be ready to go as quickly as possible”.

Amanda now turned to Ollie and Professor Parsnip. They still don’t know what to make of her nor were they quite sure how to act. Amanda could see this and she said with a smile, “It’s along story, I’ll tell you all about it when we get out of here. Professor Parsnip, you stay here and supervise everyone into groups of fifteen. Ollie let’s go down to the cave and show Paddy and Barney the way”.

Barney and Paddy had been twelve strong man and we are waiting outside Paddy’s house. They all went in and down into the cave. Amanda let them along the passageway to the place where the rocks had fallen and when the villagers saw the sunlight seeping through the rocks they attacked them with a frenzy nearly as bad as Amanda’s had been.

It wasn’t long of course before they had a large gap made at the top of the rockfall and Amanda told one of the workmen to go and bring down the first group but to wait until she came back. She was going to see what was out there. She climbed up the rocks and down the other side. Ollie and Barney were close behind her. The sunlight got brighter and brighter as they went and soon they had to cover their eyes because the brightness hurt them. They walked quickly up the passageway and soon they could see the end. They run the rest of the way.

They came out on the ledge high up on the side of a large, sloping mountain. From where they were, they could see for miles around them. They were in a valley, surrounded on four sides by tall, graceful mountains. Green fields stretched away before them, patterning the ground below like in uneven chequerboard. Trees and bushes and flowers grew everywhere, making the valley look healthy and welcoming so that they wanted to run down the hill and leave all their worries behind.

“It’s so beautiful”, Amanda exclaimed, staring out over the whole valley.

“Look, up there”, Barney cried, pointing to the sky, “What is it!? It’s so far away, it’s so blue!”.

Amanda laughed loudly. She had forgotten Barney had never seen the sky before. Ollie had seen above ground before, however, and although he was as taken aback by the beauty of the valley as the others were, his practical mind was working overtime as usual and now pointed over to the right,

“Look over there”, he said.

Amanda and Barney looked over to where he was pointing. They both exclaimed in dismay, for right at the back of the valley, at the base of the hills, was what looked like a long field that had been burnt so that no grass or trees or flowers grew in it. There were dark black patches here and there and the ground looked sunken in as if something was missing. This sight brought them all back to reality and they realised that they must get back to the villagers, time was passing.

When they got back down the passageway, all the rocks to be cleared and there were people just beginning to arrive. When the first 15 were all together in the passageway, Barney set off with them to show them the way, while Ollie went above to tell Paddy to send down another 15. There was great excitement now as people realised that there was indeed a way out and soon they would be able to breathe in clean fresh air and feel the hot sun on their faces.

“Everyone’s nearly out now”, Barney said almost half an hour later as he came back for another 15, “We’ll soon be-“.

Before he could finish his sentence, however, two guards came running up, looking very frightened.

“The, the witch”, one of them cried, “She’s back, she’s headed for the hut”.

“Oh no”, Amanda exclaimed, “We’ll never make it, there’s another 30 people to come down”.

“I’ll try to delay her!”, said Ollie running off.

“I’ll help you”, said Barney following behind him.

Amanda told the others to get out as quickly as possible but that there was no need to panic, they would be alright. She then set off after the others.

Ollie and Barney ran through the cave and along the passages. As they came out into the other cave they could see the witch heading for the hut.

“Stop!” Shouted Ollie.

The witch stopped short and turned slowly towards them. “What do you think you are doing?”, she said in a loud cackling voice, pointing her finger at them. She ordered some words that neither Ollie or Barney could understand but they had a fair idea of what they probably meant. As they ducked behind a large rock they saw a long finger of light zoom past them and explode in a pillar of rock behind them.

“That was close”, whispered Barney, “What now?”

Before they had a chance to do anything else they heard a loud cry and, looking out they saw the witch, a horrible expression on her face, looking towards the hut. In the doorway, they saw Amanda. The witch pointed her finger at her, nothing happened. Amanda took a step forward, staring at the witch all the time. The witch shrink back.

“Leave me alone!” She screamed.

Amanda took another step. The witch started making her way round a large rock. Amanda knew she was heading for the hut but she let her go on. For each step Amanda took, The witch inched her way further around the rock. At last, she decided that all the villagers should be out and, taking another few steps forward, let the witch make a dash for the hut. Amanda swung round, pretending to be shocked. The witch stood at the hut door smiling wickedly.

“I win!”, she screeched, “Now we will see who is the most powerful”.

She swiftly opened the door and went inside, slamming it behind her.

“Now!”, cried Amanda, “Run!”.

Shocked though they were, barney and Ollie obeyed. They ran like they had never run before. They run through the passages which seemed miles long now, into the cave and up to the cottages, they ran to Paddy’s cottage and inside. There was no one left now, the place was deserted. Just as they were beginning to feel safe they heard a tremendous, terrifying scream and the ground beneath them began to shake. They half ran, half fell down the steps into the cave below and, gasping for breath now, raced to the passageway. Suddenly Amanda tripped and fell. She lay still, not moving. Barney and Ollie ran back to her.

“I, I can’t go any further”, she sobbed.

Barney and Ollie picked her up.

“Come on, you can do it”, they gasped.

Amanda didn’t have time to answer, A great explosion suddenly ran through the passage and again the ground began to shake. There was a great sound like thunder which seem to get closer and closer, louder and louder. Amanda put her hands over her ears and ran. She ran blindly, not caring where she was going just as long as she was getting away from that awful sound. Rocks were beginning to fall from the roof and the ground was shaking violently when they finally saw light up ahead and burst out into the brilliant sunlight. They had to stand for some time for their eyes to adjust to the light. Out here the ground was also shaking violently. Only saw that the villagers were lying flat on the ground towards the bottom of the slope. They began to climb down to them, afraid that they would topple over the ledge any minute. At last they joined Paddy and the professor. Just then there was another loud explosion, louder even then the first and a great crack appeared in the field at the back of the valley. As the ground shook the crack grew wider and wider and then there was a brilliant flash of light which blinded them all for a few moments. When they could see again, what a sight met their eyes. The ground has stopped shaking and the thundering noise had ceased and before them, in the field that had once been empty, stood- THE VILLAGE... at first Amanda and Barney and Ollie wondered if it was the same village for in front of every house had a little garden full of beautiful flowers of every colour of the rainbow.

All the villages stood up and started to call and shout for joy. Then everyone ran across the field and up to their individual houses and shouts and cries could be heard for some time.

The witches guards had mysteriously disappeared and Paddy and the professor were also gone, only Amanda, barney and Ollie were left.

“So, this is what the village was like before”, said Ollie, “The villagers are glad to have it back I think”.

“I dare say they are”, said Amanda, “It’s beautiful, and so is this countryside. I’m so glad to have gotten out at last”.

“Let’s go down to the village and join Paddy”, said Barney, “I have a few questions to ask you Amanda”.

CHAPTER 10: THE END... OR THE BEGINNING?

soon they were all sitting in comfortable chairs around a roaring fire, sipping tea. It was great to feel safe again and to be able to talk normally without fear of being overheard.

“Sure tis great to be free again”, Paddy sighed, sinking back in his chair and stretching his feet out towards the fire, “I don’t know how we’ll ever be able to thank ye for all what ye’ve done“.

“We are just as glad to be free as you are“, said Amanda happily.

“Well, I think you owe us all a explanation“, said Barney, “We were all very worried about you you know“.

“Yes, I know“, said Amanda quietly, “it’s a long story!“.

“We’re all ears “, Barney replied.

Amanda relented. She began by telling them how she had woken up and found yourself almost drawn to the passageway at the back of the cave. How she had walked for a long time before she came across the rocks that blocked her away. How was she had seen the sunlight that had made her tear away the rocks until she had fallen and knocked herself out. She told them that when she finally came to again she could no longer see sunlight through the rocks so she guessed she must’ve been knocked out for a long time. She sat up and rubbed her head only to find that she was wearing a diamond tiara and looking down she found that she was also wearing a long golden dress. It was then that she noticed someone else in the passage with her. She couldn’t see very well but whoever it was came over.

“Are you alright?“, he asked, it was the old Carrot.

He helped her up and put a silver cloak around her shoulders, then, as they walked back along the passage together he told her many things about the picture they had seen in the meeting house. The picture was of the goddess of the guards but to the witch she was the most powerful of all good witches and she was powerless against her, however, she had to let her guards worship this witch or they wouldn’t work for her. Therefore, Amanda had nothing to fear from the witch or her guards. He then went on to tell her that the witch was not a powerful one and needed to use an energiser- the chair- to give her enough power to fast response. She had in fact captured the villagers and made them her slaves because she was hunting for a special jewel that would make her more powerful, probably the most powerful of the bad witches. She knew that the jewel was somewhere around where she was making the villagers day but not exactly where. Tonight was the night that Amanda must help the villagers escape, the witch was out with her other witch friends and they had been casting spells all night, she would be very tired when she got back so if Amanda could fix the chair so that it wouldn’t give her any energy she would not be able to keep the spell that was holding them all underground. However, she had told her what would happen when the spell was broken and that she must get all the villagers down the passageway and out. When they had reached the steps leading up into the house and the Old Carrot was going, he had told her that she must go quickly to the hut and help her friends because they had been captured.

When Amanda finally finished telling her story there was silence in the room for a long time. It was hard to believe it was all over and they were free and above ground again.

“Well, you should be able to get home at last Amanda“, Barney said finally, breaking the silence.

“I don’t really know the countryside around here“, Amanda replied, “but someone should be able to point me in the right direction“.

“ I wonder will anyone be able to point US in the right direction“, Ollie said with a sigh.

Everyone looked at him questioningly.

“What I mean is”, Ollie went on with a slight grin on his face, “The passageway we came through is all blocked by falling rocks, I looked at it before we came down, there’s no way we’ll get through that way“.

“Oh dear”, said Barney in alarm, “Does anyone know the way to Veggytown?”.

Ollie and Amanda laughed joyfully at Barney‘s expression, it looks like he was now stuck above ground instead of Amanda being lost below. It seemed quite funny really.

“Don’t worry Barney”, Amanda said through sobs of laughter, “I’ll look after you”.

“Well”, said Ollie gravely, “It looks like we’re going to have a few more exciting adventures with Amanda Apple yet.”

THE END

This is the book all typed up! I’ve just copied it from the word file I used. This literally took me a week to type up which I did not realize would happen. I tried many different ways to transfer this without physically typing, such as picture to text (which was horrible) and also voice to text (I ended up correcting it enough to have just typed it up in the first place) I might link the actual word document because I think it’ll be easier to navigate but I’m sorry for all the scrolling you have to do for this. Interestingly, when I was typing this up I found a lot of grammar and spelling mistakes which I had to fix. I also found the ending to be a little too anticlimactic and a little weak so I think I wanna change that (I told my mom this and she just laughed and said she wasn’t surprised because she didn’t particularly rate herself as a professional author back then). Also, usually, I post things in order from bottom to top so it’s easier to go through my post chronologically just by scrolling up but I can’t really do that here.

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Here are some storybooks I used to read (and a computer game) when I was a kid. I wanted to document these because I started to remember them when I was thinking about making my own. The intended audience for my book might be a little older but the fact that I can recall these stories so well means that the design was that impactful; I want to take elements from them.

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On this terribly pictured sketchbook page, I quickly jotted down some of my most reoccurring dreams.

I’m just going to briefly type out what I’ve written above and explain things.

Places I often visit in my dreams:

1- Mixture of all my schools with a fountain in the middle. This is the one I visited the most in my dreams, and it has progressed as I grew and went to different schools. Right now, the layout is like my primary school on the outside, my secondary school on the inside and the people that are there are usually from college although old classmates will randomly pop in there sometimes. In the middle there is an overgrown old fountain that doesn’t work surrounded by big windows that you can walk through. It’s pretty cool and I wish I could just take the image out of my head and paste it here.

2- Road to primary school with a hole in front of it. A very vague description there, me. On the way to my primary school, in London, there was a church we’d have to go past to get there. Just outside of it, there was a little area where we walked to get through and it was not closed off completely but just had walls around it to show it was the outside of the church. For some reason that scene has stayed the exact same in my head, except! The is a big hole sowing the pavement crumbled and the earth underneath just in front of it. I think that’s really random but super cool.

3- Mall with 10000 escalators. Mostly it is a mall but it has been an airport a few times, however there are always loads of zigzagging, overlapping escalators and I can literally never get to where I want to go. Some of them are dangerously fast and others will just not let me off of them and I keep going up and up on to the next one. It’s so weird.

4- Hospital with 10,000 elevator floors, behind a clothes shop. This one is interesting. Most elevators in my dreams have a ridiculous amount of floors to choose from but whats funny about this particular hospital is that you have to go through a clothing shop to get to it. I’ve drove through there in a car which is weird and funny. Seriously what does all of this stuff mean.

5- Park behind a line of trees on the far end of a field. Sometimes I can just see the trees because I’m further down the field and sometimes I’m walking down a path to get to the park. I’ve hung there a few times, sometimes with my sisters.

6- Funfair. (daytime and nighttime) (horror house) This one is crazy are you ready for this. This has been a reoccurring dream since i was a child. Sometimes I’d see it in the distance from my window all lit up on the horizon, sometimes I’d be walking through the actual funfair (been there in the night with the lights on and on a separate occasion in the day time with the lights off). But there used to be a place in there which was a kind of horror house thing that I’d dream of when I was really small, it would scare the crap out of me and I didn’t dream about it for a good few years until more recently I went there again and it was closed off with cobwebs and stuff like it had been abandoned for a really long time, and didn’t look so scary anymore! Mad.

&- Road with a roller coaster at the end of it. This is the only one that I have gotten from living in Birmingham I’m pretty sure. There was a road we’d go down, when I visited here from London, as a kid that would pass Star City. That turned into a road with a scary glowing roller coaster at the end of it that I would just have to deal with going through every time. It would tickle and I didn’t like it.

Thinking about all of these things is actually kinda insane. How did my mind do that? I’ve mentioned this before I think but I’ll say it again just briefly. I unfortunately have not had any dreams like this for a really long time, a couple months. I don’t know why or what happened but I really miss them. I’m just grateful that at least I have my memories of them if I never visit them again. Most days now, I wake up and can’t remember what I dreamed about at all. And if I do, they’re not as cool or nostalgic as these. Sad...

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pt 2 :)

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Then here are some surrealist artists I’ve looked into for my dreams exploration project. Also in no particular order. Also to make it easier to discern the two projects, I’m going to be annotating anything about my “dream” project with a black background because it’s like the night mode version of the other one... yea

[hafsa-zaman-unit13]

This is my project proposal(s) presentation. We all had to do this to present our top three Ideas to the class. I haven’t added much text because I just explained them in person. The first Idea being Amanda Apple of course. The actual name for the book is Amanda Apple’s Exciting Underground Adventure, but I’m shortening it for convenience. For this slide I put the character design I did for Amanda herself and also a new character I’m planning on adding to the book, Percy Pumpkin who I will explain later. I also added a quick Illustration to show the two areas the book is set in, above ground being Fruits with the yellow sun, and underground being the Vegetables who also have their own dull orange sun and trees that come out of the ceiling rather then the ground. The next Idea was the clothing brand and dream exploration idea merged together. I just quickly doodled some clothes and the computer pretty much on one layer. The final Idea was Purrlock Holmes which I drew Purrlock and a mouse character who would come to him in need of help. I was thinking the mouse could ask to find his missing cheese but then it’d turn into a murder mystery. I gave the presentation and everyone seemed to like my ideas, although they were a bit confused by the clothing brand one so it seems that Amanda Apple is probably the winner.

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pt 2

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Here is some research I did into Illustrators I’ve found/been interested in lately that are inspiring me to create my final piece. These are in no particular order by the way. pt 1

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When we were actually trying to find the book, we searched all over the house for it, It took a whole day and the LAST place we looked, we finally found it. To sum it up, It’s about a girl (who is also an apple) called Amanda Apple from Fruiterville, who falls down a hole into the peculiar land of the Vegetables. There she has to go through some trials and make friends to get back home. I’m going to write it up because there is no digital file. I drew this character design for her because I wanted to try out a new, line art- less style with a digital pen I downloaded. I kinda wanted her to have human features because it does mention in the book that she has hair so I didn’t really know how to incorporate that on an actual apple, I’m going to be trying a few different things though. I’ve put a gif that shows exactly what I did. A strange thing about my drawing process is that my sketches usually look nothing like the final piece. I literally just started straight away with shapes and started building over them. It kinda looked like a cherry so I added some green shading in there too and I think that worked a little to help her look more like an apple. It does just look like a little girl wearing an apple costume but I think it’s cute, and my mum really likes it so.

[hafsa-zaman-unit13]

This is my mom’s actual book. She wrote it in 1989 which seems crazy to me. Thinking about my mom being around my age, which she was when she wrote this, is kinda bizarre. I’ve only ever known her as my mom but there was a time before me or my siblings where she wanted to write books I guess. Also this book is a whole decade older then me. It’s stayed very white and preserved so that’s impressive too, not that I’d expect it to fall apart that badly after only 30 years, but I have notes from like tenth grade (which was almost five years ago now what) that are one breath away from disintegrating. Oh yeah, she also typed this on a typewriter which makes it extra cool. She ended up sending it to a publisher who revised the story and gave feed back but my mom never got around to remaking it. It’s funny how she probably thought this would never be revisited again but now her daughter wants to illustrate it. Crazy how life pans out sometimes eh?