The Curse of Morgania

Jessica bounded down the stairs to see her friend, her long chestnut hair flying out behind her. Lucy her very best friend was at the door, like Jessica she is quite shy and quiet however they do not look anything alike. Lucy has blond straight quite short hair and icy blue eyes where as Jessica had wavy chestnut hair and glittering emerald eyes. They had just broken up for their summer holidays and they were both really excited for going into year six in September. Lucy had came to see the new house that Jessica and her parents had just moved into. It wasn’t actually a new house at all, it was Victorian, but it was new to them. Nobody had lived in the house for many years so it needed a massive clean. Excitedly Jessica showed her friend her new bedroom, she needed help unpacking all of the boxes and thought of Lucy immediately, as she is super organised!

“Oops!” they were nearly finished unpacking when Lucy dropped a tub of marbles and they rolled across the floor. They gathered most of them but there was one behind the old bookcase in the corner of the room.“Help me move this then!” Jessica was struggling to move the bookcase.“Ok, one, two, three!” the bookcase gave a deafening groan as the girls pushed it along the floor.“ Woah, what's that? Is it a door?” the girls were astounded to faintly see a, not very high but very wide door, under the wallpaper. It looked as though it were meant to be crawled through.“ Lets see if we can pull of the wallpaper, my dad’s going to repaper it soon anyway,” The two girls scrabbled at the faded floral pattern until the door was uncovered. There was a face engraved in the rotting wood, it had sad far off eyes and an open wailing mouth as if it were crying out for help.“ Scary, should we go in?” “Definitely, but how?”Cautiously they tried the door knob, to their disappointment and slight relief it was locked.“My mum found this drawer of keys downstairs but she said I’m not allowed to use any of them, she seemed really scared about it.”“ Lets go and see if we can find the right one.”

The girls crept downstairs, the coast was clear, the parents were in the garden. Carefully they tiptoed to the drawer and opened it slowly. They searched for one that looked like It would fit. Suddenly the two friends noticed one with the same face on it as the door.

“This has to be it,” Jessica got a fright when she thought she saw it blink but she told herself that it was just her imagination.

They had been stopped by Jessica’s parents halfway up the stairs to come down for lunch but luckily they hadn’t found the key. They ran upstairs an tried the key in the lock, it fitted perfectly! Gingerly they turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open . They found themselves falling in a multi-coloured tunnel , falling and falling and falling.

They landed in a strange colourful land, but something didn’t look right. Some things were fading and turning grey and everybody looked sad. They asked a boy that was passing by what had happened and where they were.

“ You’re in the village of Morgania, it’s named after the evil queen who took over a year ago. She was nice at the start for about a week, then she started taking everything from us . She takes money, our belongings, everything. I’m Jake by the way.”

“ That’s terrible, we’ll help you, until we go home” she paused,” if we do get home, I’m Jessica by the way and she’s Lucy”.

“Oh! You mean your from… the mortal world? Your mortals then, well I suppose we are now, she took all of our powers. You better not let anyone find out that your mortal, she’ll capture you and keep you in her dungeon , the only way to get out of this village is if you get her magic ruby, its the source of all of her powers. Whoever holds the ruby is the king or queen of JoyVille, and they can do whatever they like. She keeps the ruby on a staff in the palace dining room.”

“ Has nobody tried to steal it?”

“Nobody can get in to the palace, the only people that can get in are prisoners and they can’t get out. Come and meet my family, my parents will know what to do,”

About five minutes later they arrived at a small country cottage with three little children playing outside.

“This is my brother John, he’s three, and these are my twin sisters Rosie and Alex they’re six. If you can’t tell them apart just call them both ‘twin’!” Jake himself looked about fourteen, he led them into the house and his bother and sisters followed.

“These are my parents, Clare and David, mum and dad this is Jessica and Lucy, we came because I knew you would know what to do. They’re mortals. ”

“Hello girls, oh well of course you could hide here until we can get you back home,” Clare said worriedly. Suddenly there was a shout from outside.

“ It’s one of the queens servants! Hide!” Jake bustled the girls into a cramped cupboard. A moment later there was a crash as the door was flung open. The two friends were watching intently through the key hole, there was a knight poking everything around picking up anything he liked the look of and putting it in his sack. He sniffed the air.

“I can smell mortal!” he boomed, the girls were shaking with fear as he walked towards them and flung open the cupboard door.

“You!” He seized the girls” We’ll see what the queen thinks about this!”

Half an hour later the girls were locked in a damp underground dungeon, it seemed like years since they were at Jessica’s house but it had only been a few hours. Would they ever get home? They had just about given up hope when the guard left. The door was still locked and they knew he wouldn’t be long but it was still a chance. Suddenly Jessica noticed that the bars were only screwed onto the wall they weren’t drilled into the ground.

“ Could we use something to turn the screw?”

“ What have you got?” The girls began to empty their pockets.

“ A pen, a coin and the key to the door! It might be the same key to the lock!” Jessica’s hand was shaking as she slotted the key into the lock. It fit! They opened the door and crept out.

They remembered what Jake had said about the staff and they knew what they had to do. They silently found their way to the dining room. When everything was going well they found a guard outside the dining room.

“ I have a plan, I’ll go around the corner and distract him and when he leaves, go in and get the staff then run around and open the window for me to crawl out of,” Lucy instructed, as organised as ever. Jessica hid under a table whilst the guard ran past to see what the noise was. Jessica wen in grabbed the staff and ran as fast as she could to the outside of the window. She helped Lucy out and they ran back to the village as fast as they could. They went to Jake’s house to say goodbye and they together made he decision to smash the ruby as soon as the girls got home so that never again would JoyVille have a king or Queen. They said goodbye to their new friends and promised to visit often before they went home. They looked around and all of the colour was back!

They got home and locked the door to JoyVille and something strange happened, the sad face on the door had turned happy, the curse was lifted! The girls kept to their word and visited their friends almost everyday.