Holmes Katherine of Carrick

The Way of the Warrior
1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9929819-1-4
Verlag: ProjectPublish Ltd
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, Band 1, 608 Seiten

Reihe: Katherine of Carrick

'This swashbuckling historical-fantasy adventure resonates with the charm and gumption of George from The Famous Five dropped into Horrible Histories, but with the story world glamour of Pirates of the Caribbean.'
 
Book 1 - The Way of the Warrior -Read by the award-winning Morwenna Banks (voice of Mummy Pig in Peppa Pig ).
 
Katherine's move to the famous castle town of Carrickfergus (Northern Ireland) promises a new beginning for an unconventional wanderlust family trying to salvage a life shattered by personal grief.
 
Home-schooled, socially awkward and a self-diagnosed worrier with only a teddy bear and a rabbit as companions, obsessively curious Katherine hides from the world in books because the worry beast doesn't lurk there. But when Sammy the Bull and his gang of Terribles, invade her garden demanding the return of his former hideout, all seems lost.
 
Desperate to re-establish sole command over her enchanted garden, Katherine accepts his 'easy peasy' challenge only to discover that finding girl pirates was more than she bargained for. Forced to navigate the world outside of her sanctuary Katherine must find a way to go back in time to discover girl pirates before Sammy the Bull can retake the garden.
 
As Katherine struggles to find her feet in a world peppered with deception, ruses, betrayal, loss and even a ghost ship, she discovers the emotional strength to face her worst fears.
 
With the help of her go-to bear, Bienkie, the desperate-to-be-a-superhero rabbit and the remarkable Harry Gold and the Pieces of 8, Katherine shows the world that bullies beware, girls can do anything and everything!
 
Boys are allowed as long as they can keep up!
The Katherine of Carrick Series - The world's youngest history detective sails the seas on a Viking ship discovering the heroines history has forgotten, to show the world, past or present, girls rock!

Autoren/Hrsg.

Holmes, Annie

Weitere Mitwirkende

Karbor, Shirin

Leseproben

CHAPTER 1 Katherine the Worrier Katherine cringed under the weight of her worries. A new morning, a new place. She burrowed down into her sleeping bag. She was afraid of what was to come, and she hated being scared. She hated being a worrier but at the end of the day she could not escape it. Katherine had BIG problems. The problems even had BIG names. She liked BIG words but she did not like BIG problems. She did not think some of the problems were that BIG but apparently others did. Some of her problems, she was told, were PHOBIAS. She liked the sound of the word across her tongue, but she did not like the look on everyone’s faces when they said it. It was hard for grown-ups to believe that someone that little could have that many problems, they said. Some grown-ups made her think she was faking it, others made her think there was something very wrong with her. Either way, it was not a good look. It was only grown-ups who seemed to think she was the problem. Children knew the problem had nothing to do with her but with the phobia itself. The problem was the spiders, snakes, frogs and toads, not Katherine. In the end the problems, the phobias, and the looks all made her worry. Her nana had told her that at least she did not have to worry about death and taxes, but she didn’t want to tell her nana that she did think about dying. She kept that one to herself. She knew that if she spoke of it, the grown-ups would get THAT look and make her go talk to strange people about it. Talking to people just made all the worry worse. She had a fear of strangers and now they wanted her to talk to more of them? Katherine did not think grown-ups were very sensible at all. Katherine’s mother was the only one who understood and did not make her talk to strangers. It got better when she got Bienkie the Bear. She only had the rabbit before that, and he was not much help. Katherine’s mother told her that one thing she could always count on was change, so maybe there was really nothing to fear? Maybe the buffaloes in her tummy were just hunger pains? She decided to be brave. She sat up. The room was empty except for the fireplace to the right and the camp bed she had slept on. A bird-like shape flickered on the far bedroom wall, the dancing light inviting Katherine to get up . . . but then something dark suddenly swooped past the window. She gasped and disappeared into her sleeping bag again. Curled up in her sleeping bag, Katherine felt the phobias creeping up on her. She was sure they were laughing at her. She pulled her knees tighter to her chest to protect herself from their relentless march towards her. All her phobias raced into her head, whether she wanted them there or not. The biggest and meanest was ARACHNOPHOBIA. As soon as she thought that, she felt the spiders of the house rally together and march in step towards her camp bed. She could hear their hairy legs scrape and scuff across the silky smoothness of her sleeping bag. Her silent screams were only interrupted by OPHIDIOPHOBIA. The snakes slid and slithered down the chimney flicking their forked tongues. Holding her head with her sweaty hands, she tried to push the bad thoughts from her mind. But as she endeavoured to escape the tight, scaly corridors of her fear she ran into a dead end: BUFONOPHOBIA. The toads squatted by the door and burped slimy bubbles from the corners of their lips, blocking her escape. She tried to close her eyes tighter, but all she saw was the bulging, blinking eyes of RANIDAPHOBIA staring back at her. The frogs croaked their way out of her open suitcase on the carpet, and vaulted onto her bed with their webbed toes and warty skin. Her skin crawled at the thought, and the ever familiar lump in her throat sat heavy, pinning her down to the camp bed, where she was unable to move because CLAUSTROPHOBIA had tampered with the sleeping bag zip. And no one would ever know because she had to face off against her greatest enemy, the glacial emptiness of AUTOPHOBIA: she was all alone. Bienkie had probably left her too. Where was Bienkie? Was mummy awake yet? thought Katherine, curled up in a tight, heart-thumping, sweaty ball. This was the first time she had hoped that her mother would come and tell her to get up. At least there would be a grown-up in the room. “I wish Maxie was here!” cried Katherine, finally dislodging the lump in her throat. They wouldn’t dare come after her if he was here. This was nonsense, she thought, trying to remember to breathe. She was a GIRL, which made her much more sensible than anyone else. Didn’t it? And she was seven years old! She was almost a grown-up! “I just need my mantra,” whispered Katherine to herself. “There is nothing to fear but fear itself. There is nothing to fear but fear itself! There is nothing to fear but fear itself . . .” Using all the courage she could steal from her sticky, prickly, anxious little body, she sat up again, with her eyes scrunched up. “Remain calm at all times,” said Katherine to herself. “I am NOT afraid!” declared Katherine to the retreating phantoms, with her one eye open and her other eye closed. The room stared back at her blankly, coal dust hissed down the fire place and the dancing bird sat still on the window ledge long enough for Katherine to realise that the shadowy culprits were really outside. She untangled herself from her sleeping bag and vaulted across to the window, just in time to see the house sparrows fly past in perfect formation. The light bouncing off the glassy lough flashed the sparrows’ flight path on her bedroom wall for a few seconds before it disappeared again. “Incredible!” shrieked Katherine as she looked from her wall to the window and back again, and saw the vastness of the lough that lay beyond the hedge. She opened the window and peered out into the garden. To the left was a dark wooden fence, with a really BIG tree towering over the double-storey house, on the other side. “It’s not just BIG, it’s bigger than BIG, it’s HU . . . MUN . . . GOUS!” announced Katherine. Pleased with her new BIG word, Katherine looked down the drive and noticed a small red wooden gate in the hedge. “Bienkie, there’s a gate to a beach!” Bienkie did not answer. Katherine looked around, wondering where he had got to. She looked back out of the window to follow the drive to the main gate and then, GASP! She saw it! “There’s a castle!” she squealed, bouncing up and down. “There’s a castle! There’s a castle! There’s a castle!” Such grand news had to be reported instantly. She ran out of her room onto the landing. “Mummy! There’s a castle! Mummy?” In the hallway Katherine discovered she did not know where her mother’s room was. They had arrived in the dark and she had gone straight to bed: she had been too tired to go exploring. Before she could yell “Mummy?” again, she heard her mother’s voice. “I’m in the bedroom at the end of the hall.” She stopped suddenly, looking left and right. “But which way?” thought Katherine to herself. “To your left,” said Katherine’s mother. Katherine always wondered how her mother had eyes in places that she wasn’t. She really was quite remarkable. Very relieved, Katherine skipped down the red-carpeted hall to her mother to share the good news. They were in the land of castles! Outside in the garden everyone was waiting for Katherine. The fairies had whispered of her coming. The creatures twittered. The creatures paced. Methuselah sighed, “How many times must I tell you, this is a new beginning for us all!” The creatures bowed to his wisdom but quietly they were still worried. Some of the creatures were fretters. “I know there will be fuzzies! There are always fuzzies!” said Ethel the Red. Katherine had come during the night, the lough wind whistling her arrival as the rain battered the old redbrick house. Wet and weary the creatures of the garden had remained on alert, waiting for the dawn, waiting for the storm to clear, waiting for Katherine. Methuselah peered at the creatures below, wondering how much longer they could bear to wait. This was going to be a long day, he sighed, as he welcomed the soothing breeze from across the lough, letting it bend and stretch the long night out of him. Keeping watch over her room, he wondered if Katherine would discover his secret and set him free at last. “When can we go to the castle? Can we go before breakfast?” asked Katherine, watching her mother lace her boots up. “I am afraid not,” replied Katherine’s...