Wishing for Trouble

Kate Forsyth lives with a black cat called Shadow, her husband Greg and her three beautiful children in a seaside suburb of Sydney.
Wishing for Trouble
is the sequel to Ben and Tim's first misadventure,
Dragon Gold.

Mitch Vane grew up in an artistic household in Melbourne. Humour plays a big part in Mitch's work, and she much prefers to draw funny, crazy pictures – the crazier the better. All of her work is wonky and messy: she can't draw a straight line, even with a ruler.

ALSO BY KATE FORSYTH

Dragon Gold

The Starthorn Tree

ALSO BY MITCH VANE

Dragon Gold

Little Lunch
(series)

Fairy Bread

Wednesday Was Even Worse

The Amazing Adventures of Dr Harry and Scarlet: The Possum Thief

The Amazing Adventures of Dr Harry and Scarlet: The Pig Circus

The Amazing Adventures of Dr Harry and Scarlet: Fly, Shadow, Fly!

Kev & Borax

Big Bad Bunnies

The Patch

First published 2006 in Pan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney

Text copyright © Kate Forsyth 2006
Illustrations copyright © Mitch Vane 2006

The moral rights of the creators have been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Forsyth, Kate, 1966–.
Wishing for trouble.

For children aged 6-11 years.

ISBN-13: 9780330422611.
ISBN-10: 0330422618
EPUB format: 9781743346259

I. Vane, Mitch. II. Title.

A823.3

Typeset in 12/15 Janson Text by Liz Seymour, Seymour Designs
Printed in Australia by McPherson's Printing Group

Macmillan Digital Australia
www.macmillandigital.com.au

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www.panmacmillan.com.au
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Contents

Cover

About the author

Also by Kate Forsyth

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

To the kids of the Forsyth and Murrell families – who, of course, never get into any trouble! –
KF

For Jack M – may life be full of magical adventures –
MV

Ben and Tim had always been told to ‘be careful what you wish for', but they didn't know what that meant until, one hot summer's day, they got into a bit of trouble – or, rather, a lot of trouble – with a magic wishing ring.

The summer before, the boys thought they had everything anyone could ever wish for, thanks to a talking cat, a lonely dragon and a pile of treasure. They had moved to a big house with a big garden by the sea, and Ben had got the dog he'd always wanted, a clumsy, wrinkly puppy with huge feet that he called Jessie. Best of all, and most unexpectedly, Ben and Tim had also got a new baby sister named Ella.

It had been such a busy year, what with the new baby, the new dog, the new house, the new school and all their new friends, that their magical misadventure of the previous summer seemed an awfully long time ago. If it had not been for the swords hanging up in their parents' study that Ben and Tim were hardly ever allowed to touch, and a few other bits of old dragon treasure lying around the house, the boys would have thought they had imagined it all.

This particular Sunday afternoon, Ben and Tim had gone for a long bushwalk with their three cousins to a secret beach near their house. In the warm dusk, tired, damp, sandy and rather scratched from pushing through the bush, they all came back to Ben and Tim's house for an early barbeque.

‘Hey, Lach!' Tim said. ‘Wanna play knights?'

‘Yeah,' Lach said. ‘Bags the red cloak.'

‘OK,' Tim said. ‘I like the blue one anyway. You wanna play too, Ben?'

‘Nah. I'll ride my scooter,' Ben said.

Having their cousins living so close was one of the best things about Ben and Tim's new house. Nick was the eldest, being two years older than Ben, but he didn't try to boss them around too much. Emmy and Ben were only three weeks apart in age, while Lach was six months older than Tim.

Their cousins were all brown-skinned and brown-eyed, with curly, honey-coloured hair, while Ben, Tim and Ella were blue-eyed with brown hair and skin that never, ever tanned, no matter how much time they spent in the sun.

Down in the garage, Tim and Lach dragged out the castle and then rummaged around in the dress-up chest for their cloaks and swords. Ben and Emmy, meanwhile, were riding their scooters up and down the driveway with Jessie chasing after them, barking and wagging her tail furiously. Nick was lying on the old couch, reading.

‘Hey, look what I found,' Tim said, pulling out a big old ring from the very bottom of the chest. ‘Remember? We got it from the dragon.'

The ring had a red square on top with a lion carved into it. It was one of the things Tim had grabbed from the dragon's hoard. Tim had always loved lions. He wanted one as a pet, to sleep on the end of his bed and guard him from scary monsters and goblins. His plastic shield and sword both had lions on them, and so Tim put the ring on too. He had not worn it before, having been too busy swimming, bushwalking, tree-climbing and playing in the park that summer.

If he had known it was a magic ring he would have worn it every day – and thought a bit more before making his first wish.

But Tim had not known.

‘And then the goodies shot a ball of fire at the baddies!' Tim shouted, letting go of the catapult's elastic band so a silver-foil ball went whizzing straight at one of the knights. ‘Bang! Crash! Whoosh! They're all on fire! Help!'

Lach galloped another knight towards the castle. ‘But the baddies' boss man won't be beaten. “Give up!” he shouts. “It's time to die!”'

Just then Ben came racing down the driveway on his scooter, through the open door of the garage, over the top of Jessie's giant pink rabbit and banged right into the castle, knocking over all the knights.

‘Stop it, Ben!' Tim yelled.

‘Sorry,' Ben said, and spun around on his front wheel.

Jessie barked loudly, wagging her tail so energetically she knocked over a cup of paintbrushes and dirty water, then grabbed her toy rabbit and shook it violently so stuffing flew everywhere. The rabbit was pink with goggly eyes, and was bigger than she was.

‘Kids, five minutes till dinner!' Their mum leant over the railing, Ella on her hip. ‘Gracious, what a mess! Can you get it all cleaned up?'

‘Yes, Mum,' Ben and Tim said in long-suffering tones.

‘Gar!' Ella said, pointing at the car parked at the end of the driveway.

‘That's right, “car”,' Mum said, squeezing her close. ‘Clever girl, she said “car”, did you hear her?'

Then their cat came sauntering out from under the car, tail held high.

‘Gar!' Ella said, pointing at the cat.

‘Cat, yes, that's right, cat. Clever girl!' Kissing Ella, their mum went back into the house and Ben grabbed his scooter and began trying to do jumps and wheelies.

‘Five minutes, better pack up,' Nick said, not looking away from his book. ‘Ben, you made all the mess, you'd better pick it up.'

‘I didn't make it, Tim did,' Ben said, almost crashing into the box of buckets and spades.

‘Did not!'

‘Did too!'

‘Did not!'

‘Then Jessie did, make her clean it up.'

Nick sighed, put his bookmark into his book, and shut it. ‘Come on, I'll help. Emmy, you come and help too.' He got up and glided effortlessly over the floor on the wheels hidden in the heels of his shoes and began picking up the paintbrushes.

Ben stared enviously. ‘I wish Mum'd let me have heelies,' he said, and spun round on his scooter, almost crashing into the bookshelf.

‘When we're eight,' Emmy said as she came flying down the driveway on her scooter with one leg lifted high behind her in an arabesque. Emmy was the star of her ballet class.

‘I wish we were real knights in a real castle,' Tim said, picking up the fallen knights.

Which was when the magic suddenly and most unexpectedly began to happen.