The Forbidden Library: Ausgezeichnet: Michigan Reading Association Great Lakes Book Award, 2016 - Softcover

Wexler, Django

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0142426814 ISBN 13: 9780142426814

Verlag: Puffin Books, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

The Forbidden Library kicks off a brand new classic fantasy series perfect for fans of Coraline, Inkheart, and The Books of Elsewhere!

Alice always thought fairy tales had happy endings. That—along with everything else—changed the day she met her first fairy.

When Alice's father disappears in a shipwreck, she is sent to live with her uncle Geryon—an uncle she's never heard of and knows nothing about. He lives in an enormous manor with a massive library that is off-limits to Alice. But then she meets a talking cat. And, even for a rule-follower, when a talking cat sneaks you into a forbidden library and introduces you to an arrogant boy who dares you to open a book, it's hard to resist. Especially if you're a reader to begin with. Soon Alice finds herself INSIDE the book, and the only way out is to defeat the creature imprisoned within.

It seems Uncle Geryon is more than he says he is. But then, so is Alice.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Django Wexler (www.djangowexler.com) is a self-proclaimed computer/fantasy/sci-fi geek and fulltime fantasy writer. Django’s first book, an epic fantasy novel for adults, was published by Roc in Summer 2013. The Forbidden Library is his first novel for children.

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Chapter One: The Fairy

Much later, Alice would wonder what might have happened if she’d gone to bed when she was supposed to.

It was a fluke, really, because she was the sort of girl who almost always followed the rules. But she’d been doing schoolwork and she’d lost track of time.

It was a Saturday night, and her tutor, Miss Juniper, had assigned her another chunk of algebra for Monday morning. Alice excelled in all her subjects—she never would have allowed it to be otherwise—but in algebra her excellence was born of hard work and long hours rather than natural talent, so she’d determined to make an early start. She wouldn’t be bothering anyone, either. Her room had its own little writing desk and even its own electric lamp, which her father had had installed three years before with the boast that no daughter of his was going to ruin her eyes scribbling by gaslight.

Her father had been working late again. When Alice heard the telltale creak of the front door, she weighed the odds and decided he’d probably be happier to see her than angry that she was still up. She shrugged into her robe and padded into the hall and down the stairs.

The late-night silence was a little unnerving. Alice had grown up in a house that had practically bustled with servants and guests, even in the middle of the night, and she was used to seeing strangers about. But the servants had departed one by one as times had grown mean, until only Cook, Miss Juniper, and her father’s man were left, and the visitors were less common than they used to be. The guest rooms that lined the hallway were all shut up now, with sheets draped over the furniture.

She passed the doors quickly, tugging her robe a little tighter, and ducked into the servants’ stairs that led to the kitchen. Her father would probably be there, fixing himself something hot to drink.

Sure enough, the swinging door at the bottom of the steps was outlined in yellow light. Alice put her hand out to push it open, but as her fingers brushed the wood she heard the voices, and realized her father wasn’t alone.

“. . . you have to know what we can do for you, Mr. Creighton,” said someone who wasn’t her father. “Someone is going to take advantage of it sooner or later.”

Alice turned away at once. Being up late was one thing, but eavesdropping on her father’s business conversations was quite another. She’d put her foot on the first step when the sound of her father’s voice brought her up short.

“Don’t you dare!” he shouted. “Don’t you dare threaten my family.”

The words hung in the air for long seconds, like a fading firework.

Her father never shouted, at least not in her hearing. He was a quiet, honest man who dealt fairly with everyone, put flowers on her mother’s grave once a month, and went to church every Sunday. Hearing him talk like that was like watching a teddy bear yawn and reveal a mouth full of fangs. Alice stood perfectly still, not daring to move even her eyes. She wanted to run, knew she ought to—whatever was being said was obviously not for her ears—but her feet felt like lead weights.

“Mr. Creighton,” said the other man. “Nobody’s threatening. I’m just stating a fact. Nothing wrong with stating a fact, is there? No law against it.”

His voice was odd, high and nasal. Alice could hear a strange sound as well, a kind of urgent thrum-thrum-thrum.

“Don’t mess me around,” her father said, not shouting now but still angrier than she’d ever heard him. “We both know what you’re here to say, and I’m sure you know what my answer’s going to be.”

“I strongly recommend you reconsider your position, Mr. Creighton.” The thrumming grew louder. “For the sake of everyone involved.”

“By God,” Alice’s father said. “So help me, I ought to break your ugly head against the wall.”

“You could do that,” the other man said. “You could do that, Mr. Creighton. But you won’t. You know it would be unwise.” His voice dropped a fraction. “For the girl, most of all.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, Alice turned around. Her heart was still beating so hard, it seemed a wonder that her father couldn’t hear it. She stepped back down to the door, carefully avoiding the creaky step, and pressed her fingers into the crack of light. It was wrong, possibly the most wrong thing she had ever done in her entire life, but she had to see. She gave the swinging door the lightest touch, and the crack widened into a gap big enough for a garter snake, to which she applied her eye.

The light made her squint. On one side of the room was her father, still in his suit, looking rumpled. His hair was damp with sweat. One of his hands was curled around the handle of a cast-iron frying pan sitting on the range, as though he meant to swing it and make good on his threat.

Across from him, hanging in the air, was a fairy.

When Alice had been a little girl, her father had given her a book called The Enchanted Forest. It was a big book made with thick paper, and had large type with pen-and-ink illustrations on each facing page. She’d probably been a bit too old for it, truth be told, but she’d read it anyway, as she read every piece of printed material that fell within her reach. It was the story of a rather stupid little girl who wandered into an enchanted forest, and caused a good deal of havoc among the creatures who lived there.

One of those creatures had been a fairy. It was a slim, child-like figure with wide eyes and a button nose wearing flowing robes, held aloft by gauzy insect wings—Alice had always imagined the wings in translucent greens and blues, like a butterfly’s—and it had looked down at the little girl with an air of amused benevolence while it stood daintily in her raised palm.

At that age, Alice had grasped the idea that some things in books were real, and others were not. Questioning her father had revealed that there were such things as lions, tigers, and elephants (he’d promised a visit to the zoo, which had yet to happen), while trolls, centaurs, and dragons were the figments of writers’ overactive imaginations. Alice remembered feeling vaguely annoyed at the author of The Enchanted Forest, who had clearly intended to deceive little girls possessing less penetrating intellects than her own.

There was, her father had told her, no such thing as fairies, either.

The thing hovering in the air in Alice’s kitchen was similar enough to the picture in the book to be instantly recognizable, but he was larger, for one thing. The creature in the book had been insectile, six inches high at most, while this creature was a good two feet from head to heel. His wings were enormous, considerably bigger than his slender body, and beat the air so fast, they were a blur, like a hummingbird’s. They were colored, not in greens and blues, but yellow and black, which put Alice in mind of something nasty and poisonous.

The fairy’s skin was off-white and gnarled with warty growths sprouting clusters of thick, black hair. His scalp was bare and bald as an egg, gleaming wetly in the electric light. He had no nose at all, and his eyes were wide but black from edge to edge. When he spoke, she could see a mouth full of needle-like teeth, and a long red tongue like a snake’s.

Alice closed her eyes. This, she thought, is ridiculous. There are no such things as fairies. She gave herself a pinch on the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Puffin Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0142426814
• ISBN 13: 9780142426814
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 400
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Buchpark GmbH; gpsr@buchpark.de; ; Krügerweg 1; Trebbin; Brandenburg; 14959; Deutschland