Burnett, Frances Hodgson:The Secret Garden
- Paperback 1987, ISBN: 9780451525819
Hardcover
Random House UK. Very Good. 140 x 200mm. Hardcover. 1987. First edition. 170 pages.<br> Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly When his father sends him to England to live with … More...
Random House UK. Very Good. 140 x 200mm. Hardcover. 1987. First edition. 170 pages.<br> Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly When his father sends him to England to live with a cousin, Cosmo faces t he usual problems of being a new kid in school. Then ghosts of lo ng-dead boys come to haunt him, and Cosmo learns the tragic secre t affecting his family. PW found that this book conveys the magic of Aiken's stylish writing and vigorous invention. Copyright 19 86 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out o f print or unavailable edition of this title. Review Writing see ms to be as natural to Joan Aiken as breathing; her imagination i s as untrammeled as ever, the precise construction of the astonis hing plot lends conviction, and her style is as witty and sparkli ng with images. -The Horn Book Through interactions between char acters, Aiken brings out the bittersweet ironies of friendships b oth otherworldly and in the here-and-now. Her sense of timing unf urls the mystery at just the right pace, giving the curse its rig htful aura of power. -Booklist --This text refers to an out of pr int or unavailable edition of this title. Excerpt. ® Reprinted b y permission. All rights reserved. The Shadow Guests 1MEETINGNobo dy was at the airport to meet him.One of the stewardesses had tol d him that there was a place called a Rendezvous Area where you c ould go and wait if your friends hadn't turned up when the plane landed. So that was where he went. It was next to the information desk, a place with a set of plush-covered benches striped in pin k and brown with a few anxious people sitting on them and gazing about in every direction. But Cosmo preferred to stand, leaning a gainst the trolley that held his luggage--two cases, a carry-on b ag, and a tennis racket.He stared at the mass of people, streamin g up and down the airport concourse, and wondered how he would ev er know which one was looking for him.Cousin Eunice will probably come to meet you herself, his father had said. But I suppose she might be giving alecture or tutoring somebody that day; then she 'd have to arrange for someone else to come.Could any of these wo men be Cousin Eunice? A fat blond one with pouches under her eyes : he hoped not. A thin dark one in a corduroy windcheater: she lo oked nice, but she walked straight past. A younger one--no, she h ad a girl of about six with her. Cousin Eunice was not married an d had no children.Have I met her? Was she there when we visited U ncle Ted that time?He remembered the place--most clearly and haun tingly he remembered it--not the house, but the way a fold of haz elwood ran down to the river, and a brook, where he and Mark had built a dam, and a deep dark millpond and a weir, and a footbridg e by which you went across to the island where the mill was. A hu ge field shaped like a half moon. If anything could cheer him at the moment--bat nothing could, really--it would be the prospect o f living at Courtoys Mill.No, Cousin Eunice wasn't there at that time, his father had said. She was away at Cambridge, studying. T here had been something bitten back about his voice--the way peop le talk when they are concealing things considered unsuitable for the young. His father had talked like that most of the time in t he last month or two. So--was there something peculiar about Cous in Eunice? Surely not; his father seemed to put a lot of trust in her. She'll look after you all right and get you all the stuff y ou need for school, he had said. And I'll come to England as soon as I can.But where was Cousin Eunice now? He shivered, feelingho rribly isolated all of a sudden. Thirty hours in the plane was no joke--and then to have nobody meet you--People were rushing up a nd down the concourse like lemmings, carrying their luggage or pu shing it on trolleys. The loudspeaker added to the frantic atmosp here by a constant stream of urgent appeals.This is your last cal l for Air France flight four-oh-three to Marseilles now at gate s even. Will Mr. Panizelos on Olympic flight nine-nine-two please g o at once to gate ten. Will Doctor Creasey, recently arrived from Los Angeles on Pan Am three-five-three, please go to the airport information desk. Will the driver meeting Captain Wang Tao Ping please go to the information desk.A gray-haired man hurried up to the plush benches, and the worried girl with the enormous blue r ucksack joyfully jumped up and ran to hug him. Many of the faces that had begun to seem familiar were gone, they were being replac ed by others. I have been waiting here longer than anybody else, Cosmo thought. The harried woman, the fat impatient bald man, the girl with the baby had all gone. A new series of waiting, expect ant people had replaced them.Cosmo longed for a huge drink of col d water. The last meal served on the plane had been a disgusting sweet, stale sticky bun and a half-cup of lukewarm coffee tasting like liquid that cardboard had been boiled in; it was far from t hirst-quenching. But there was no refreshment bar in this part of the airport. Presumably the people who built the place had thoug ht that anybody getting off a plane wouldn't want food or drink; they would just want to hurry away.Ma had said once that thinking about lemons would helpyou not to be thirsty. He tried it. But t he lemons refused to become real in his mind; instead, he heard M a's voice, laughing, persuasive; and that was unfortunate, becaus e a terrible, choking lump swelled in his throat, making the thir st even more of a torment.A plump woman scurried by, calling, Ber t, Percy, Oscar, come along. Hurry up--don't dawdle! She was push ing a trolley stacked high with massive cases and bundles and duf fel bags. How could she possibly manage it? And how could she pos sibly have called her children Bert, Percy, and Oscar--three of t he ugliest names in the English language?Cosmo was not particular ly fond of his own name, but he did feel it was infinitely better than any of those three. He turned to see if the straggling sons of the fat woman deserved their dismal names and was obliged to admit that she had chosen suitably. Bert--if Bert was the biggest --slouched sulkily along, the shock of sawdust-colored hair flopp ing over his acned face not at all concealing its disagreeable ex pression; he was drinking out of a can of lemonade and didn't off er to help his mother push the luggage trolley, although he was a t least a head taller than she. Oscar was a horrible little imp w ith tight yellow curls and fat cheeks covered in sticky grubbines s from the ice-lollipop he was sucking; in his other hand he held a spaceman's trident which he poked at the legs of anyone who ca me near him. Percy, the middle one, was not much better; he had g lasses and a peevish expression; he was eating out of a bag of po tato chips and was reading a motor magazine as he walked, taking no notice of his mother's anxiouscries. Poor thing, Cosmo thought , fancy having children like that; but it was probably her own fa ult for the way she'd brought them up.Will the driver meeting Mrs . Mohammed Ghazni please go to the information desk?The arrivals indicator clicked and whirred; his own plane, Sydney to London, w hich had been up at the top, marked ON TIME and LANDED had been r eplaced by the flight from San Francisco, sixty minutes late. How would Cousin Eunice know that his flight had arrived? Presumably she would ask at the desk. Then it occurred to him that he could have a message broadcast. What should it say? Will Cousin Eunice Doom, supposed to be meeting Cosmo Curtoys, please come to the i nformation desk? But if it were not Cousin Eunice who had come to meet him? Will the friends meeting Cosmo Curtoys ...Friends soun ded wrong. He had no friends over here; it seemed like presuming on people's good nature to call them his friends in advance.He ha d a sudden horrible vision of Percy, Bert, and Oscar, with malevo lent looks on their faces, charging up to the information desk wh ere he stood nervously waiting.You Cosmo Curtoys? Well, we're her e to meet you, but we ain't your friends, we can tell you that fr om the start!After a good deal of hesitation he put his problem t o the girl at the desk, and she solved it at once.Will Miss Eunic e Doom, or the person supposed to be meeting Cosmo Curtoys-- She pronounced it wrong, because he had showed her his passport, in s pite of the fact that he had clearly said Curtis--please come to the information desk.Having his name called out like that, even p ronounced wrongly, made him feel as if everybody must be staring at him, but of course they were not; they were all far too worrie d about catching their planes or finding whoever they were suppos ed to meet; and it did not produce Cousin Eunice either.Had she f ar to come? the information desk girl asked.I think about eighty miles-from near Oxford.Oh, well, I'd give her a while yet before you start to worry. And the girl went back to all the other peopl e who were fighting for her attention.Cosmo began thinking about Cousin Eunice again, trying to remember what he knew about her. Y ounger than Father, but still quite old, in her thirties. A profe ssor of mathematics--that was a bit daunting. Suppose, when he wa s living with her, that she kept pouncing on him. Hey, Cosmo, qui ck--the square root of ninety-three! Multiply eighteen by twenty- four! But Father said mathematicians didn't think in those terms at all anymore--it was all much more stretchy. And the dull jobs like square roots were all done by calculators. Rather a pity, in a way: Cosmo enjoyed, when he was in bed at night, letting numbe rs make patterns in his mind. Take the three-times table, for ins tance: It went three-six-nine-two-five-eight-one-four-seven zero before starting up again at three; much more interesting than dul l old five-times, which just went five-zero-five-zero. But why di d three-times have ten changes before coming back to base, what g overned these patterns? Seven-times had ten changes, six-times ha d five--but then four-times and eight-times both had five as well . It seemed odd that they weren't all different.Anyway, back to C ousin Eunice ... A mathematician really ought to be tall and skin ny with a long nose and glasses and gray hair scraped back in a k nob. Like a wicked governess. But Father had said she wasn't in t he least like that. He seemed to find it hard to describe her, th ough--and that was odd--because he had grown up with her at Court oys Place before it was sold to pay death duties. Death duties .. . you would think that once you had died, you had no more duties. To Cosmo, duties meant wash hair, teeth, face, make bed, put paj amas away, help with the breakfast dishes ... Have you boys done your morning duties? Ma would call, putting on a severe tone. All right, then you can go out.But suppose nobody was sure if you ha d died? Did you have to pay death duties then?Lost in thought, he took several minutes to realize that somebody was standing in fr ont of him. She was surveying him doubtfully.Would you--by any ch ance--be Cosmo Curtoys? She gave it the right pronunciation, Curt is.Yes--yes, I am.My goodness, you're much larger than I expected . I'm sorry I'm late; I had to give a lecture. People will ask qu estions ... Is this all your luggage? No more? Oh, good, then we can be off right away. I don't like to keep Lob waiting; he gets miserable.She spun the trolley round with a strong hand, thrustin g it along in the direction that said SHORT TERM CAR PARK. What a bout me? Cosmo thought somewhat indignantly, following her, Doesn 't it matter if I'm kept waiting at the endof a thirty-hour fligh t? But, as if she had heard him thinking, she went on in the same tone, Humans have resources. They don't ever need to be bored if they learn to use their minds sensibly, but dogs are different.O h, so Lob is a dog? Then Cosmo remembered his father saying, I wo nder if the dog is still alive? Old Uncle Ted Doom--Eunice's fath er--had this St. Bernard who was about as big as a pony.The lugga ge trolley had an infernal habit of skidding off sideways, refusi ng to run straight, which was particularly awkward on the steep r amp they now had to descend. Cosmo grabbed the side to push it st raight and so got his first good look at his Cousin Eunice--he su pposed she must be his Cousin Eunice, though she had not said so. Only about one percent of his guesses about her had been right. S he was tall, with big hands and feet, and her hair pulled back in some kind of elaborate bun at the back of her head. But there wa s a lot of the hair, a bright, fair color, almost lemony, like ev ening primroses, and more of it hung over her eyes in a fringe. N or did she look very old; it was hard to believe that she was eve n as much as thirty. He supposed her face was rather plain--a big , wide mouth, straight nose, and gray eyes that at the moment hel d an impatient expression. Why do these blasted things never go s traight--ah, that's better-- as they came to ground level, a rath er dismal out-of-doors with a long stretch of pavement, a concret e canopy, and signs saying COURTESY BUSES STOP HERE.Now, said Cou sin Eunice, you hang on there and I'll go and get the car. Shan't be a minute; I managed to narkon the ground level. A sniff. Foun d a slot that said AIRPORT MANAGER; he wasn't there, so I took it . That's one thing ...She disappeared in midsentence. This, he so on discovered, was a frequent occurrence with Cousin Eunice. Gene rally it meant that she had had an idea that needed to be worked out on paper immediately. But when she saw you next, no matter ho w long an interval had elapsed in the meantime, she would go righ t on with what she had started to say, assuming that you, too, wo uld remember where she had stopped. Which was comforting, on the whole. Now she was as good as her word, returning almost at once in a huge, stately, battered car. ... One thing about having a Ro lls, she went on, you can put it almost anywhere and nobody makes a fuss. Now I'll introduce you to Lob--that's the first thing. Y ou didn't meet him before because he was staying with me in colle ge. He was very fond of your father, so I expect he will be prepa red to make friends.Lob had the slightly mournful expression that St. Bernards wear. He was sitting in the back of the car, where the ample floor space was just enough to accommodate him comforta bly. Cousin Eunice opened the rear door, and he extended a front paw, which Cosmo took. It was as thick as a table leg. Lob was bl ack and white and shaggy; he had a sweetish musty smell, and, aft er a polite moment, removed his paw from Cosmo's grasp with an ab sent-minded air, as i, Random House UK, 1987, 3, New York. 1987. Signet/New American Library. Reprinted Signet Classic Paperback Edition. Very Good in Wrappers. 0451525817. Afterword by Faith McNulty. Movie tie-in edition. 285 pages. paperback. CE2581. Cover art courtesy of Warner Brothers. keywords: Signet Classic Literature Children England Women Paperback. FROM THE PUBLISHER - When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle, everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen.' So begins the famous opening of one of the best-loved children's stories in the world. The tale of the lonely little girl, orphaned and sent to a Yorkshire mansion at the edge of a vast lonely moor, is a story that touches on the feelings of children everywhere. Mary's initial fear of this gloomy place is finally overcome by what she calls ‘magic': the mystery of life itself - its birth and renewal, its love and joy. Focusing on Mary and her relationship with the sturdy local boy Dickon, who earns even the trust of the moor's wild animals with his honesty and love, and the invalid Colin, the spoiled, unhappy boy rejected by his father and terrified of life, THE SECRET GARDEN opens the door not only into a real hidden garden, but into the innermost places of the heart. It is a truly classic work that has left generations of readers with warm, lifelong memories of its very special charms. inventory #35677 ISBN: 0451525817., 0<
