30 May
We went with Aunt Donna to take Grandpa Bailey to Uncle Stephan's grave. He fought in the Vietnam war and died. Dad has a picture of him in the den, he's Dad's younger brother. Grandpa Bailey was all sad. He let me put flowers on the grave. He asked me if I was going to enlist when I was older and I saluted him and said I was already a guard. He just laughed at me and said I was a good lad. He didn't really believe me. It's true. It is hard explaining the Labyrinth when they don't know about the Labyrinth.
I went to find Jareth to tell him. He was walking in the Labyrinth. I'm getting better at finding Jareth when he's not in the throne room. It's much easier with crystals. He's teaching me a bit of his language also; it has some good swear words. There's one that's like a ten dollar one. Sarah heard me say it and instead of yelling at me, yelled at Jareth. He only looked sorry but winked at me when she wasn't looking.
Jareth gave me a crystal with a picture of Uncle Stephan and his platoon. They all look really strong. I told him I wanted to be a proper guard, not just a pretend one. Jareth took the crystal back and sung some silly marching songs. We got a whole crowd of brownies and other folk to follow us around. We went three times around the Runner and they only noticed us when we left the chickens behind. I pretended to be Jareth's herald when we spoke to the Runner. I got to say all sorts of tricky clever things that I invented for Jareth to say and Jareth just let me. Jareth's fun when he's being silly.
Jareth said that I could only be a guard when I was older. He said I need to learn to fight first. I wanted to use a gun like Uncle Stephan, but Jareth said that guns were only for men and I was still a boy. I said that his goblins used guns all the time. He gave me a grin of all teeth and said that the youngest of his goblin guards was fifty years. That's not fair! Fifty is ages and ages away. After a whole ten minutes of my best clever wheedling, he said he would teach me the sword! I can't wait!