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(Continued from page 10)
She joined her sister at the end of the beds.
"How do we get to this island?" Rachel asked, firmly establishing her authority. This would prove for once and for all if he really was a tooth fairy.
"Through the tunnel," Cire said simply.
He turned and jumped up to the windowsill. Then he seemed to step through the glass and stand in thin air.
"Come on!" he beckoned.
He held out a hand, and helped the sisters scramble to the ledge.
There they found that the glass of their window had somehow disappeared. When they cautiously felt the darkness, they discovered that instead of just air leading to their garden, they were in a rough stone tunnel that sloped sharply upwards towards the moon. Except it was not the moon but light shining through the end of the tunnel from another world. The girls could see blue sky, and the sound of birds and cascading water echoed down to them.
"Follow me. It is not far." Cire started to crawl up the tunnel.
Just before she followed, Alex remembered that she had been proved right about tooth fairies.
"I told you so!"
And she turned from her sister to disappear up into the darkness. Rachel seethed, desperately trying to think of something to say, but Alex had gone and it was too late. She began to plan her revenge when a thought suddenly struck her.
"I wonder if Santa Clause does exist?"
With a last look at their bedroom with its comfortable beds and familiar surroundings, Rachel too entered the tunnel. She caught up with her sister, climbing up behind the fairy towards the circle of light and into the biggest, most frightening adventure of their lives.
9th January 2000
Just before Christmas, I received my next rejection letter.
We thank you very much for giving us the opportunity of seeing your script T'Tenneb, but after careful consideration, regret we are unable to accept this for publication. The children's book market is growing increasingly competitive and very few titles are commercially successful. As a consequence of this, we have to be extremely selective.
We also regret that, because of the large number of manuscripts we receive, we cannot offer criticism of individual texts or enter into further correspondence.
We wish you success in placing your work elsewhere. You may already be aware of the fact that you can find a list of children's book publishers in The Writers' and Artisits' Yearbook, published annually by A & C Black and available from most public libraries.
Your manuscript is enclosed herewith.
It is a standard letter again, but it does look like the manuscript has been read. On to the next one.
I'm not quite sure what to write next. I have ideas for five more Treasure stories, of which two have a page written, but I don't know which one to concentrate on. Story writing is not something that can be forced I have found. At this moment, I want to write another piece of B5 fiction, so that is probably what I will do, though it will be created directly onto computer, so I might write something else during teabreaks. It all depends how the muse takes me.
25th March 2000
I got this on the 13th March. Short but nice, it is possibly my first rejection slip. I'm getting quite a collection now
Thank you for sending us a synopsis and sample chapters from T'TENNEB for consideration. I was interested to read this material but I'm sorry to say that we do not have room for this story on our list.
On ever onwards.
(Continued on page 12)
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