And here is my response:
Ch-ch-ch-changes!
I wrapped
the tooth in some leaves and pushed it right to the bottom of my rucksack. I
couldn’t wait to show everyone at school. It was undeniable proof that I’d
wrestled a croc and lived to tell the tale!
But then,
as I looked around to get my bearings, I began to wonder if I’d ever be going
to school again. Because I could see immediately that EVERYTHING had changed!
The
waterfall had tumbled me down over three hundred metres of sheer cliff, and
there was no way I could climb back up. And I couldn’t see any paths leading
away from the lake either. It was surrounded by trees that grew in a tangle
right up to the water’s edge. Trees so tall and thick and vine-covered that
they looked suspiciously like a jungle. A dark, steamy jungle!
This is the
moment Charlie Small finds himself marooned in a new and dangerous world and
realises that things are not as they should be – although finding that giant
crocodile in his local stream might have given him a clue! I don’t know what
caused this transformation. Perhaps it was the storm in the night that had
flooded the wasteland behind his home, or the bolt of lightning that passed
right through his body and fizzed away down the stream, but something had taken
Charlie away from his home, his mum and dad and everything he knew. Charlie was
right, everything had
changed, and his amazing four hundred year adventure was about to begin.
Stories that
contain transformations, secret worlds and hidden places always appealed to me
as a child. I loved the idea that countries or worlds such as Narnia could
exist somewhere. Reading about Rupert Bear crawling along a tunnel inside a
hollow tree trunk to discover a world of imps or miniature dragons or crazy
professors, enthralled me, and these changes and new worlds are important in
the stories I write now.
Ride The Black
Horse, a very old picture book of mine, was all about a child’s fear of the
night and how that fear transformed him into a minion of a dark magician who
stole children from their rooms and locked them in his vast, gloomy castle.
Only by overcoming his fear could the child defeat the shape-shifting magician,
free the stolen children of the night and make his way back home.
As for
a character that transforms a story, in Charlie’s case it is undoubtedly the
introduction of the Steam-powered Rhinoceros. Not so much for its role in the
book, as the rhino makes a relatively brief appearance, but because I then had
to find a backstory for this mechanical wonder. This led to the creation of
Jakeman the inventor, who became the main reason that Charlie ended up in his
strange world in the first place. The introduction of Jakeman led to the
creation of a host of other inventions, especially the wonderful Mechanimals
that help Charlie in so many of his adventures. It’s amazing that the
introduction of a relatively minor character can have such a huge effect on a
series of stories, stories that are still continuing and developing in the
wonderful comic, The Phoenix.
