In which the Famous Five discover a musical cave and visit a ginger-pop shop
It was nearly the end of term and Julien had been sent to pick up his cousin, Bets, from her boarding school. Bets was pleased to see him as usual and gave him a great big hug. “How come you’re here to pick me up?” She asked. “Well, I was supposed to be meeting with my family, but the plans have all fallen through.” He replied. “Hey, how about if we go on an adventure tonight?” He exclaimed. “Oh no,” said Bets, “I’ve got a jolly lot of homework to catch up on. You go with your friends.” So Julien quickly wrote a message to his friends, tied it to the leg of a pigeon, and released the bird into the gathering winter evening.
It was about eight o’clock when Julien arrived outside of the cave, known to the locals as Fibbers. Venturing further in, he soon met up with his chums: Dick, Anne, George and Timmy. Dick thrust a bottle of lemonade into his hand, “This is a jolly wheeze,” he said. It was said that at certain times of the evening, when the wind and the waves were just right, the cave produced eerie sounds, almost musical, and tonight the conditions were just right. The first noise was remarkably like Ishtar, slowly building up into their 50 minute long work called “The World We Loved Shimmers In Flames”, except it only lasted for about 25/30 minutes so was probably the abridged version. This performance also had Dick Cheney doing a voice-over in one section, giving a speech about terrorism, but Julien couldn’t make out who was doing the talking. “Crikey. That was good”, uttered Timmy. There was a period of quiet in which the chums caught up with each other and then the cave starting making noises again, shorter bursts of noise, of a droning nature. It sounded remarkably like The Falling Spikes with their hypnotic drums/bass, shimmering guitar/keyboards, and vocals delivered as if heard whilst dreaming... “Oh blimey,” said Dick, “I almost nodded off then!” But there was no nodding off when the next noise started. It was the The Warlocks, with two drummers. They are currently touring their sixth album “Heavy Deavy Skull Lover” with its ominous acoustics and full-on fuzz melt-down. In fact the noise was so heavily distorted that it was difficult to tell if that’s was how it was meant to sound.
The Five staggered out of the cave. “Leaping lizards, I’m glad we’ve escaped from there,” said Dick. “I need a ginger-pop, let’s go and buy some,” said Anne. So the Five made their carefully up the cliff path and along the quiet lanes to village. “It’s awfully dark,” said Timmy, “did anyone remember to bring a torch?” “No need,” said George, “we’re here now.” And sure enough they had arrived outside the Old White Ginger Pop Shop. It was terribly crowded when they got inside, but the Five managed to find their friend, the Russian lady spy, Legs Elanavitch. Legs told them that Tom, the pop shop owner, had been forced out of business by a big lemonade factory, and this was his last night in the shop. “The rotters!” Exclaimed Dick. There were lots of Tom’s friends there, including a jolly country band called Hazzard County. As this was Tom’s last night lots of people who had played in the band came up and had a go. Tom even had a go on the drums himself! There was one chap, Joe Johnson (of Shed Seven) sporting a very nice haircut, just like Julien’s, but he seemed a bit distracted and didn’t really know the songs they were playing so he let Rockin’ Richard have a go instead. It was a fantastic night and Julien drank lots of strange drinks; mixtures of raspberries and apples, apples and oranges. Then everybody wished Tom “Good Luck” and the Five left to stand on their favourite corner street in the village. It was very late when Julien arrived home, nearly 2 o’clock in the morning, and he had to sneak in through the pantry window so that he didn’t wake his parents. “Crumbs that was a spiffing night out.” He thought as he drifted off to sleep. “I wonder if we will have such an exciting adventure next weekend!”
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