“So, I have caught up with you at last,” the man said.

CHAPTER 1Another Adventure 7CHAPTER 2A Strange Meeting 16CHAPTER 3Rupert, the Young Prince 21

CHAPTER 4Jonathan Keeps the Crown 32CHAPTER 5The Birthday Party 41CHAPTER 6Jonathan Opens His Presents 50CHAPTER 7The Test 61CHAPTER 8Rupert Passes the Test 71

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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He looked exactly like Jonathan Kippernickker.

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CHAPTER 1

Another Adventure

Jonathan Kippernickker swished hissword through the air. It was a thin sword.He had used a flat sword at first, made outof scrap wood, and he kept it in his belt,but the sword he had now was a rapier.That’s what his Granddad had called it onhis last visit.

It was made from a very thin strip ofwood which his dad had left over from aproject in the house. The wood was sothin it easily snapped, but Jonathan’sGranddad had taken two old wire coat-hangers, cut and bent the wire into twolong pieces, then hammered the piecesstraight. He had then placed one wire oneach side of the thin piece of wood and

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taped everything together using duct tape.Finally, he covered it all over with bright,aluminum foil. This made the sword lookvery real indeed, and also strong, and ithadn’t snapped yet.

Jonathan said it would be a goodidea to have a guard to protect his handwhile he was sword-fencing, so Granddadhad made a guard from the top half of anold plastic pop bottle, and fastened itsecurely in place. It worked very well.Then the handle of the sword was tapedup with black electrical tape until it was agood fit in Jonathan’s hand. He found thesword very easy to swish. And he swishedit back and forward and enjoyed the‘swish’ it made. Swish!

It was only natural of course, forNicolas Kippernickker to ask if he couldhave one the same. Then MatthewKippernickker wanted one. If Timothy hadbeen more than one year old and not al-ways asleep, he too would have wantedone. Sarah Kippernickker was not par-ticularly interested in swords. SoGranddad only made two more swords.

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After three days, Jonathan’s was theonly sword left. He was more restrainedthan the others, although the sword-fenc-ing duels had been very real. So real, thatafter several battles, the swords of Nicolasand Matthew were in several pieces. Bythat time Nicolas had a band-aid on hisleft arm, and Matthew a bandage on hisright wrist.

Jonathan, therefore, not having any-one left to sword-fence with, swished hissword through the air and pretended hewas fighting pirates, or enemies of theking in the book he was reading. Hewalked over to the long trailing ivy vineswhich covered the ground near the edgeof the garden, and which separated thegarden from the nearby golf course, andhe sat down on the little three-leggedwooden stool from the tree-house. Helooked at his sword. After three days ofbattles it still looked very real.

He thrust it forward with his arm out,like the picture in his book. Then he de-fended himself by pulling in his arm andwarding off the blows he pretended were

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falling upon him. He slashed at the broadgreen vine leaves spreading over theground beneath him, and cut off severalleaves with one blow. He did it again, thenstood up and waded into the middle of theleafy area, and struck again. This time hissword hit something hard. It was so hardhe thought his sword might have broken,but it hadn’t. He brushed aside the vineleaves with his foot to see what he’d hit,and saw it was the small wooden trapdoor through which they went to haveadventures.

Now, this trapdoor was the strangestthing. It was a real trapdoor hidden under-neath the vine leaves. They had discoveredit one day by accident when looking forgolf balls in the vines, and no one elseknew about it. They found the trapdoorjust after they’d found a key in an old boxwhich Jonathan had dug up in the garden.The Kippernickker’s called the key theAdventure Key since it had unlocked thetrapdoor. When they’d opened the trap-door they’d discovered stairs leading

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Now, this trapdoor was the strangest thing.

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down into an underground corridor, withmysterious doors along each side. Threetimes they’d gone along this corridor andthrough one of the many doors, and threetimes they’d had an exciting adventure.

But for the last while the trapdoorhad been closed, as if forever, for therehad been no sign of any keyhole, and theyneeded the keyhole so they could usetheir Adventure Key. Jonathan looked atthe door again and his heart missed a beat.There was the keyhole.

There it was!“Nicolas!” he shouted.Nicolas had been out bike riding

with Sarah and they’d just come back.Jonathan saw them in the driveway.

“Nicolas!” he shouted again. “Thekey-hole’s back!”

“The keyhole!” shouted Sarah, lettingher bike fall, and running through the gateinto the garden. “We can have anotheradventure! Matthew!” she shouted, andran off to find him. “Matthew!”

Nicolas came over. He had his bi-cycle helmet on and his new sun glasses.

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Sarah came running back with Matthewwho also had his bicycle helmet on, butonly because he hadn’t bothered to take itoff since the morning.

“All right, Jonathan,” said Sarah,“open the trapdoor!”

She loved adventures.Jonathan didn’t love them as much

as Sarah, because on the adventures sofar, he’d had too many frights and scarymoments, and had been put in jail twice.However, just then there was nothingmuch to do and he didn’t want to appeartimid. So when Nicolas asked him to getthe key, he bent down to get it from un-der his sock, where he kept it taped to hisleg with a band-aid. It wasn’t there.

“It’s not there.” he said.“Oh, Jonathan!” said Nicolas “Not

again. Why can’t you look after the key!Where did you put it this time?”

“Oh, yes . . . I forgot,” saidJonathan. “The band-aid kept coming offso I put the key in a safe place. Anyway,every time I had a bath I had to take it offthen stick it back on again, and the band-

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aid wouldn’t stick. So I hid the key in thecupboard in your room,” he said, nod-ding at Sarah.

“Where did you hide it?” said SarahKippernickker.

“In the old bicycle helmet,” saidJonathan. “The blue one.”

“The one that’s hanging up?” saidSarah.

“Yes,” he said. “The blue one.”“That’s Matthew’s,” said Sarah.They looked at Matthew who had a

blue bicycle helmet on his head.“That one?” said Nicolas Kipper-

nickker.“Eh . . . yes,” said Jonathan. “Yes. The

key’s inside, stuck on the inside top, withchewing gum.”

Nicolas untied the strap onMatthew’s helmet and lifted the helmet off.He turned it upside down. The chewinggum was still there and while they couldsee something had once been stuck in it,there was nothing stuck in it now.“Jonathan!” said Nicolas, “you need the

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Key tied round your neck!”Jonathan thought this was a good

idea and he wondered about it for a mo-ment. It would be like a medal on a rib-bon, and he could take it off and hang itup somewhere.

“Matthew,” Sarah said, “was there akey in there when you picked up the hel-met?”

“Yes,” said Matthew Kippernickker.“Well, where is it now?” asked Sarah

Kippernickker.“In my pocket,” said Matthew, taking

the key out of his pocket.“Then why didn’t you say so in the

first place!” said Nicolas Kippernickker,shaking his head.

But Matthew was bending down andfitting the key into the trapdoor keyhole.He turned it, and at once there was a ‘click’and the door was opened.

“Another adventure coming up!”said Sarah.