My name’s MINT and I’m a faerie that comes from the OTHER. The reason I’m here is that LESLIE was reading about King Richard being dug up, like, in a car park and thought if JK ROWLING can make a fortune out of MAGICKE – magic works much better if you write in OLDE English – then maybe he could too. So where was I? Oh yes, I’m here to have a word in the shell-like of a boring old teacher called John PERRY.
“Do you know about the OTHER?” I says to him.
“Nah,” he replies.
“Well, let me tell you about it. That KING RICHARD III …”
“The cabby that got whacked in the NCP …”
“That’s the ONE. Anyway, what people said about him being a bit of a bastard ain’t quite true. Do you remember one of your pupils called JACK BATES?”
“Vaguely. Quiet type.”
“Well, he weren’t so quiet like back in the OTHER in 1483.”
It was back in 1483 which is, like, when you think about it, over 500 years ago, and the two Princes were going through a forest which was quite dark as no one had invented street lights then, which is a bit of a shame.
Out of the Forest comes the Duke of GLOUCESTER, which is now an old pub but back then was a LIVING bloke who would go on to become King RICHARD III.
“Hello Princess,” he says.
“We’re Princes,” they reply.
“If I call you Princess, you stay Princess. OK, Princess?”
Just then something like magickal happened and Jack Bates popped up out of nowhere.
“Oi, Leslie,” says JACK. “That twat Harry POTTER has an owl. Can I have an OWL?”
“Don’t see why not, son.”
“Hello OWL.”
“Hello JACK,” says the OWL.
Anyway it was back in 1483, which is still, like, over 500 years ago and Jack Bates was with his mum who was a bit of a hippy called Willow, because she was into homeopathy and that sort of shit.
“What are you doing, Jack?” WILLOW says.
“I’m chatting to a couple of CYCLOPES. Do you think it’s possible that the Princes could have died twice?”
“It happened to Dirty Den, so I don’t see why not,” says Leslie. “Now you bugger off and do some MAGICKE. I’m hoping for a movie deal to go with the seven-book franchise.”
Digested read, digested: “Hello Princess in the tower.”
Jack Bates and the Wizard’s Spell by Leslie Grantham is out now (Mambi Books, £7.99).
