Alexander Woyte and the Goblins

Alexander Woyte and the Goblins (sample)

Privett is a sleepy village in Hampshire in Old England. It's a very traditional place and nothing exciting ever happens there. Or at least that's what most people think...

The people who live there keep quiet about what really goes on, because they don't want lots of reporters disturbing their peace.

If the TV news people knew what an exciting place it really was, they would probably keep a camera crew there all the time. Yet still they might see nothing. Because the most exciting things happen at night, when all the good people of Privett are tucked up in bed.

This is a story about Alexander Woyte, a young boy living in Jibb Cottage, in Privett. He didn't expect to have an adventure. And this is how it began…

Gunnar, king of the Old Wessex Division of the goblins, had a problem. His old slave, Eric, had died. That usually happened to humans once they became about seventy or eighty, and there was nothing you could do about it, except get a new one. The king had grown quite fond of Eric who had been captured by the goblins in 1925 as a young boy. It was best to catch them young. There had been a hue and cry. There always is, when a man child disappears. You can't hush these things up. Some people blamed the gypsies. Others said: perhaps he had wandered off to join the circus.

But no one ever thought of blaming the goblins... That's because 1925 was the twentieth century and people didn't believe in such things any more. Gunnar's great grandfather, Aleric the goblin had once met King Arthur, and now most people thought Arthur was just a legend.

Eric's parents had been very upset, but then after a few years they had another son. They never really gave up hope of finding Eric again, and just to be on the safe side, because they were country folk and remembered some of the old traditions, they used to leave presents like milk and chocolate outside the back door at night to keep on the good side of the fairies.

"You're mad" their neighbours used to say. "It's only being eaten by rats, or hedgehogs."

Something did used to come and take the chocolate every night. But even though Eric's parents took turns in watching to see what it was, they always fell asleep at the critical time. In fact it was Gunnar's minions who collected the offerings, and goblins are good at casting sleep waves when they don't want to be disturbed. But Gunnar always remembered to give Eric his fair share of the goodies. It wasn't such a bad life being the king's slave. Eric was happy, and soon forgot all about his first home.

In 1939 there was another war. Chocolate and milk were rationed. So Eric's parents stopped leaving these gifts outside. But sometimes food would go missing inside the house. And even vanish from inside a closed tin. They knew it wasn't mice. You can hear mice, or see where they've been. "Eric's had another biscuit," they would say. Sometimes Eric really did have the biscuit, courtesy of Gunnar's marauding goblins. But more often it was Eric's brother who realized he could get away with midnight pantry raids without getting the blame.

Now that Eric was dead, Gunnar needed to get a replacement. Having a human slave was one of the status symbols that went along with being the goblin king. It was traditional. This was similar to the fashion, in rich humans, of having a posy car like a BMW, or a trophy wife.

The headquarters of the Old Wessex Division of the goblins was in the tunnels beneath the old bookshop in Petersfield. If you went into the dark forgotten corners of the shop, and moved aside the dusty bookcase with the really old falling-apart books with no covers, which were hardly ever sold, you might, if you looked carefully, see the outline of a secret door which led into tunnels underground. The goblins liked living there because, if they got bored at night, they could sneak upstairs and "borrow" some of the old books. They didn't like modern writers. They even regarded Jane Austen as modern.

Gunnar's father had known Jane Austen. She was a local girl who lived in nearby Chawton. When she was writing a book called "Emma", he used to read over her shoulder. One day he complained about the picnic scene at Box Hill.

"Where are the goblins?" he asked. In those days you always saw goblins hanging around picnics, waiting to pounce and run off with the leftovers. If they were greedy little goblins they might not actually wait for you to finish, or even start your carefully planned picnic. And if you were very unlucky you might end up eating little more than a few crumbs yourself. That's why Gunnar's Goblin Hammers became such a popular method of picnic pest control. But they were invented a lot later and don't come into this story..

"Where are the goblins?" he asked again, thinking he had made a very good point by spotting a weakness in her picnic scene. It just wasn't realistic.

"Goblins? Schmoglins! This story is about people! Nice polite people, who aren't green and slimy. So... Sorry! NO goblins! It would be an altogether quite different book, if there were goblins at the picnic on Box Hill. It would be.." She hesitated and chose her words with the exquisite care and precision that only a great novelist in her prime can achieve. "It would be yucky!"

Gentle reader, Jane sometimes spoke somewhat differently to the way she wrote. Quite like an ordinary person in fact.

"Oh dear" thought Jane, who always reacted badly when anyone criticised her writing. "I've upset him now."

She didn't mean to do that. Jane liked Gunnar's dad a lot and thought he was a real cutie, for an ugly goblin. So to make up, she wrote him a special secret book which she called "Goblin Park." She also wrote a different version for humans. But "Goblin Park" became one of the old goblin's most favourite stories. He would read it out loud to anyone who cared to listen. Or to anyone who had heard it a hundred times before but didn't run away fast enough.

"Jane Austen wrote this book for me!" He'd declare proudly. "Look at the dedication. - Goblin Park, inspired by, and dedicated to my favorite old goblin king. Lots of kisses (not real ones - just pretend). Love Jane."

He thought it was her best book. She really knew how to write about goblins in a wicked mischievous way. Shame it was never published in the human world. Also shame that she wasn't a boy. She would have made quite a good goblin slave, but that would have interfered with her career as a writer.

In the old days, when the goblins wanted to solve a difficult problem, they all used to assemble in a goblin meeting just outside the bookshop. Nowadays, the best place to go was over the road from the bookshop in the car park outside Waitrose. They usually held their meetings at about three o'clock in the morning. That way it was likely there would be less people strolling about to notice. The few people who did happen to stumble across a large group of goblins on a wild winter's night usually assumed they had been drinking too much at the pub before. The Salvation Army always got some new recruits after a goblin meet.

"It was seeing them wee green ugly devils in the Petersfield car park as made me sign the pledge" said an old Sally Army Captain (now retired). He hadn't touched anything stronger than a home made lemonade since. And he had moved to Basingstoke, just to be on the safe side.

Although, like many supermarkets, the Waitrose building in Petersfield was built in a horrible modern style, it did have one definite advantage. The smaller minion goblins could climb in through the air conditioning vents, and then pass out packets of ready made sandwiches, beer and crisps.

On those occasions when the security cameras in Waitrose did get good clear pictures of the goblin minions walking across the food shelves, the chief of security muttered

"If I ever get my hands on the practical jokers who tamper with these tapes, they're for it."

When all the goblins and the local mischievous animals were gathered together, the goblin king explained the situation. "Some of you are too young to remember what Eric looked like when he first came here, but my ideal candidate for a new slave would be someone similar to what he was when he started. A young boy, ideally no more than about four years old, with blonde hair. Preferably living in the countryside hereabouts. Not too close, or the police might discover our hide out. But not too far away either, because we've got to carry him back here in one night. Now does anyone know of any suitable candidates?"

There was a cockerel in the car park. He didn't have much of a brain, but he liked hanging out with the goblins at night because they had good parties. Neighbours in the area always assume when they hear a cock crowing in the middle of the night that it's got something to do with the full moon, or the light from a passing car. As if a cock can't tell the difference between those things and the rising of the dawn. Rubbish! When goblins have a party they always get to the stage in their proceedings when they start to sing. The older ones sing folk songs like "Greensleeves". Some of the younger ones like rock and roll. There's nothing like a bunch of drunken goblins at a karaoke night singing "Blue suede shoes" to get you in the mood. Unfortunately cocks have a limited range when it comes to singing, and whatever they sing always seems to come out more like "Cock a doodle do." Anyway, this cock hopped up and down until he got noticed. (He was under strict instructions not to crow while in the car park, because townsfolk who aren't used to hearing this sound might get suspicious and investigate.)

"And what have you got to say for yourself Mr Cock?" asked the chairman of the goblin meeting.

"Please, sir, I think I know just the sort of person you're looking for. I used to live in the garden of a cottage where they had a little fair haired boy. He should be just the right age by now."

"What do you mean? Used to live…"

"When they discovered" the cock blushed "My hidden talents, they sent me away to the farm."

"You mean when they discovered your singing talents, more like" commented one of the younger goblins.

"OK, let's not start that" said the chairman. "Where does this boy you're talking about live?"

"Privett" said the cock, giving the young goblin an evil look as if you say "Your singing's not much better."

"I know where that is," said Gunnar the goblin king. "I remember them building that pointy church when I was a young lad. "That's certainly in the right area. What's the name of this young boy?"

"Alexander" said the cock. "Alexander Woyte."

"OK" said the king. "I'll send one of my minions over there tomorrow to have a look. You can give him the address."

There were no more suggestions at the meeting, so all the goblins went back into the bookshop and the animals all went home. On his way back to the tunnels, as he was passing the shelves of rare old history books, Gunnar stopped to borrow a first edition copy of Robert Louis Stephenson's book called "Kidnapped".

"Might get a few useful ideas from this" he thought.

The next morning, one of the goblin king's minions went over to Privett to spy out the lie of the land. He waited outside the group of cottages which the cock had described to him. Several cars departed with their adult occupants, on their way to work or the shops. Then, finally in the middle cottage the back door opened to reveal… a tall woman holding a baby, followed by a small Jack Russell dog, and, last of all, a smiling fair haired boy.

"That will do nicely" said the minion to himself. "Very nicely indeed."