Book 1 – Max meets a Friend

Max liked to drive his little tractor to the bottom of Grandad’s garden. Max called this part of the garden ‘The Woods’.

He would gather pine cones and put them in his little trailer and then take them to his pine cone store. He also liked to gather twigs to put in his trailer and drive them back up to the house to give to Grandad for his fire.

One day, Max took his tractor to the ‘woods’ at the bottom of Grandad’s garden. He got off his tractor and started to wander in between the trees, when he heard something. A little voice said ‘Who goes there?’ Max looked around carefully to see where the voice was coming from, when suddenly, he saw a peculiar looking grey face, with a pointy nose and beady eyes hiding behind a pair of very round spectacles.

‘I go there’ said Max, ‘who are you?’ The little creature shouted back ‘I’m MOLE and I’m the keeper of the gate.’ ‘What do you mean, the keeper of the gate, what gate?’ said Max. ‘The keeper of the gate. The gate at the bottom of the garden’ said Mole. Max had never seen a gate at the bottom of the garden. ‘I can’t see a gate, Mole. Where is it, will you show me? And what is behind the gate?’ asked Max. ‘Oh, I don’t know about that’ said Mole ‘It’s a secret gate and I don’t know if I can tell you where it is.’ ‘Oh please, please Mole’ said Max. ‘Please tell me. I can keep a secret now that you are my friend, Ipromise I won’t tell anybody, not even Nani.’ Mole thought about it for a minute without saying anything. ‘Well, alright, but you have to promise.’ said Mole. ‘I promise, I promise’ said Max, and what he heard next was the most exciting ever. He was so excited that he couldn’t say a word.

Mole told Max ‘The gate at the bottom of Grandad’s garden is in that old oak tree, hidden by the ivy. The gate is the entrance to Dinosaur Island and nobody has ever been there before, except me, of course.’ ‘You mean real Dinosaurs, Mole?’ ‘Yes, for sure, real Dinosaurs.’ ‘Wow’ said Max, ‘can we go through the gate, Mole?’ Mole thought about it for a second or two and then said ‘Do you really want to be my friend, Max?’ ‘Yes of course I do, you can be my best friend and I’ll be yours.’ ‘Okay,’ said Mole ‘If you truly will be my best friend, I’ll take you through the gate and we can go on an adventure.’

Book 2 – Planning an Adventure

On Sunday morning, Max drove his little tractor to the woods at the bottom of Grandad’s garden. He had promised Nani that he would be back at lunch time. Max was going to find his new best friend, Mole.