Jennifer Jane and the Crown Jewels 1/6

Jennifer Jane was looking through a bundle of old drawings in the museum. Her Father had gone to visit his friend and had taken her to London with him. Jack had given her the drawings to look at while he and Dave studied some reference books.

She spotted an interesting looking sheet of parchment near the bottom of the pile and pulled it out carefully. To her amazement there was a drawing of Clarence flying over a long line of horse drawn carts.

She looked more closely. Some of the carts had fallen over and the horses had broken free and were running away. The men in the drawing were all old-fashioned soldiers with spears and bows and arrows. Some of them were shooting arrows at Clarence and the rest were chasing after the runaway horses. All of this seemed to be happening at the seaside. At the bottom was some very curly writing, which Jennifer Jane couldn't read: it didn't seem to be English, although she could just make out the word 'John'.

She took the drawing over to Dad and Jack. "Please could you tell me what this is about?" she asked.

"It looks like an artist's impression of King John losing the Crown Jewels in the Wash," said Dad.

Jack looked at the bottom of the page. "It's written in Latin but as far as I can make out, it says 'The treasure of John the King stolen by a fiery dragon whilst crossing the inland sea of Washe'. Very fanciful! The courtier, or knight in charge of moving the treasure, must have invented the dragon story as an excuse for losing it and had an artist draw this to show the King."

Jennifer Jane didn't say anything. She was certain that the artist knew exactly what a flying dragon looked like and that the drawing showed what had really happened. She made up her mind that she'd ask Clarence if he knew anything about it the next time she saw him.

Her opportunity came much quicker than she'd imagined. Mother met them at the door as they arrived home that night. "I don't know what I'm going to do," she said, "there's been a break-in at the village hall and all the costumes for tomorrow's play have been stolen. We can find a substitute for most of the things, but we have to have a king's crown and tomorrow is Sunday and the first performance."

"I expect we can knock up something out of cardboard and some gold paper," said Dad cheerfully.

"That won't do. During the play, the king renounces the throne. He throws the crown to the floor and it has to make a proper noise. The one we'd hired made a beautifully loud clang: a cardboard one would just flop."

"Don't worry, old girl," laughed Dave, "Jennifer Jane can pop into the woods and borrow a crown from one of her mysterious friends. Seriously though," he added, "I'll have to try and see if I can knock up something in my workshop."

‘Well, I know he was only joking,’ thought Jennifer Jane ‘but tomorrow I'll ask Clarence if it really is him in the picture and maybe he'd lend me a crown. I'm sure he must have at least one amongst all that treasure he sits on.’

The next morning everyone got up early. Dave went into his workshop and started cutting pieces of metal. Mary was sorting through the costume box to find suitable clothes for the play and just said "all right,” rather absent-mindedly when Jennifer Jane said that she was going to the woods.

Very soon she was at the Wish Warehouse, talking to Lieutenant Moonshine while her transport to Clarence was being arranged.

"Frosty would love the opportunity for an extra trip on that high speed cloud he's so proud of. No, I don't think the drawing is of Clarence - it's much too old. Yes, I expect he would lend you a crown if you ask him nicely. Abigail was very well when I last heard from her. Don't you ask a lot of questions!"

Lieutenant Moonshine stood with her hands on her hips and smiled as Jennifer Jane hopped onto Frosty's cloud and waved goodbye.

"Lieutenant Moonshine said it was very urgent," said Frosty, "the front of my cloud has been reshaped for extra speed and I've been looking forward to trying it out."

Jennifer Jane couldn't tell if his cloud was going faster than before but Frosty seemed very pleased and wasn't at all his usual grumpy self.

"That seemed to be very quick," she said politely as they landed just outside Clarence's cave.

"One and a half minutes off my best time," said Frosty proudly, "might even be quicker going back, if the wind's behind us."