The Labyrinth of Gar

THE LABYRINTH OF GAR

By

Sue Merry.

Illustrated by

Amy Merry-Sloman.

With additional illustrations by

the children of Educare Small School.

“Give us the wisdom to teach our children

to love, to respect and to be kind

to each other so that they may grow

with peace in mind.”

Native American Prayer for Peace

This book is dedicated to the Starfish
at Educare Small School
who loved this book so much

and encouraged me to publish it.

CHAPTER ONE.

Katie was bored and miserable. She was all scrunched up in a chair staring and
staring at the television and not seeing anything, not even Daffy Duck - who
was being very funny as it happens.
Mum marched in and switched off the TV. She meant business.
"Right!" She said in that way that adults talk when they are about to make
trouble. She stomped over to Katie and grabbed her hand.
" Out you go." Mum pulled a heavy, plodding Katie up to her feet and through
the house to the back door. Mum yanked the door open in a big dramatic sort
of way and shoved Katie out into the hot, sunny garden. The back door
slammed and Katie heard the bolt slide across.
That was it then.
Stuck in the garden.
Now there are probably many, many things much, much worse than being stuck
in a beautiful garden in the middle of the countryside on a lovely hot summer
day, but Katie couldn't think ofone. It was always winter for Katie and she was
always droopy and sad and sometimes Mum just couldn't stand it and threw her
out of the house. Being on holiday was horrible. At least when she had to go to
school there were always different things to feel miserable about, at home it was
just the same old stuff all the time.
Katie sat down on the step outside the back door. She heard her bedroom
window slide open followed by a fluttering noise. An empty exercise book hit
her on the head and really made her jump.
" If you're bored write about it! " Shouted Mum flinging down a pencil as well.
She slammed the bedroom window down hard.
Katie was suddenly really, amazingly, incredibly angry. She picked up the pencil
and threw it as hard as she could. It sailed through the air like a tiny spear and
landed right in the middle of the garden pond. It bounced off a large lily leaf,
flipped over and the end with the rubber on bonked down right on to the head
of a big sleepy frog. The frog was suddenly wide-awake.
" Oh no! " He shouted. " The sky is falling down! I must go and tell the King!"
"You've been reading those Fairy Tales again haven't you?" Said the frog's wife.
" Last time you did that you went off looking for a princess who might want to
kiss you. And what happened? You nearly got yourself killed on the main road
and by the time you got back to our pond you were almost completely dried up.
Now stop being a stupid old frog and go back to sleep."
The frog tried really, really hard to think of something nasty but very clever to
say back to his wife. But he was not a clever frog (as you might have guessed
already) and the effort of thinking so very, very hard made his tiny frog brain so
tired that his eyes slowly closed and he went back to sleep.
As for Katie, she was still really, amazingly, incredibly angry. She picked up the
empty exercise book and threw it as hard as she could. But the pages opened
and it fluttered again and only travelled a little way through the air before falling