Saunders Five Children on the Western Front

Main
ISBN: 978-0-571-31096-8
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 240 Seiten

An epic, heart-wrenching follow-on from E. Nesbit's Five Children and It stories. The five children have grown up and World War I has begun in earnest. Cyril is off to fight, Anthea is at art college, Robert is a Cambridge scholar and Jane is at high school. The Lamb is the grown up age of 11, and he has a little sister, Edith, in tow. The sand fairy has become a creature of stories ... until, for the first time in 10 years, he suddenly reappears. The siblings are pleased to have something to take their minds off the war, but this time the Psammead is here for a reason, and his magic might have a more serious purpose. Before this last adventure ends, all will be changed, and the two younger children will have seen the Great War from every possible viewpoint - factory-workers, soldiers and sailors, nurses and ambulance drivers, and the people left at home, and the war's impact will be felt right at the heart of their family.

Kate Saunders (1960 - 2023) began her career as a professional actor but moved into journalism following the publication of her first novel, The Prodigal Father, in 1986, for which she won the Betty Trask Award. Since then, Kate has written many books for adults and children. Saunders won the Costa Children's Book Award for Five Children on the Western Front, a highly acclaimed contribution to the classic fantasy series by E. Nesbit. Kate was twice shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal with Five Children on the Western Front and The Land of Neverendings. Kate's other novels include Storm in the Citadel, Catholics and Sex (co-authored with Peter Stanford), Wild Young Bohemians, Beswitched, The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop, Magicalamity and many more. Kate wrote and reviewed for newspapers and magazines including The Sunday Times, Sunday Express, Daily Telegraph and Cosmopolitan. She was also a regular contributor to radio and television, including appearances on BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour and Start the Week. She was a guest on the first episode of the long-running news quiz programme, Have I Got News For You, and her acting work includes an appearance in Only Fools and Horses. The BBC children's series Belfry Witches was based on Kate's children's books about two mischief-making witches. Kate lived in London with her family. Her final children's book, A Drop of Golden Sun, edited in the months before she died, will be published by Faber Children's in March 2024.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Saunders, Kate

Leseproben

PROLOGUE

LONDON, 1905

‘I TURN MY BACK FOR ONE MINUTE, and you’re pulling my house apart at the seams! For pity’s sake, find quiet to do – something that doesn’t break your necks!’ Old Nurse looked crossly at the maid, who was giggling. ‘Come on, Ivy. Don’t encourage them.’

The trouble started when it was too wet for the children to go out. Cyril said that the alcoves on the large, dingy staircase looked as if they were supposed to have statues in them, so he and his brother stripped down to their long, white underwear and stood in the alcoves pretending to be statues, and Anthea and Jane laughed so hard they had to cling to the banisters. But then Robert started doing fancy poses and fell out of his alcove onto the stairs with a terrifying crash, which brought Old Nurse and Ivy the maid rushing up from the basement kitchen.

‘So now we’ll have to think of something else,’ Robert said, buttoning his shirt in the wrong holes. ‘Let’s wake up you-know-who.’

‘He’ll be cross,’ Anthea warned. ‘He’ll say we haven’t let him sleep long enough.’ You-know-who was technically an ‘it’, but the children had fallen into the habit of calling it ‘him’ – as Jane said, ‘it’ sounded too much like a thing instead of a creature.

‘I don’t care – he should be grateful to us for saving him from that horrible pet shop.’

The four brothers and sisters were staying at Old Nurse’s while their parents and baby brother were abroad. Old Nurse (who had once been Father’s nanny) lived in a big, sooty slab of a house in the middle of London, near the British Museum. It was a lodging house, but the only other lodger was a grey-haired professor, who never minded about the noise they made – he’d even let them drag him into the game they had with you-know-who.

Cyril was a handsome, adventurous boy of twelve. Anthea, aged eleven, was kind, and liked looking after people. Robert, aged nine, was serious but with flashes of silliness, and seven-year-old Jane was a thoughtful, sharp-eyed little girl who worked hard at keeping up with the others. They were all thin and wiry, with light brown hair and brown eyes. Robert and Jane had freckles. The boys wore suits of heavy tweed; the girls wore white pinafores over their dresses. They were all fond of Old Nurse, but it was sad without Mother and Father and the Lamb (their name for the baby because his first word had been ‘baaa’), and that was why they were playing with magic again. You-know-who had a way of finding them when things were sad, or upset in any way.

He had first appeared two summers ago, in the garden of a house in Kent, where they were staying. After that they had moved to Camden Town in London, and briefly met him during another magical adventure with a phoenix. This time they’d found the creature on sale in a pet shop, and smuggled him back to Old Nurse’s, where he lived under Anthea’s bed in a tin bath full of fine sand.

The four of them squeezed into the girls’ small attic bedroom, and Anthea dragged the heavy tin bath out onto the rug. After carefully checking that her hands were perfectly dry (the smallest hint of damp made him feel ill), she gently dug into the sand to wake him.

His eyes came out first. They were on long stalks, like a snail’s, and he could move them in and out like telescopes.

‘What is it now?’ His mouth appeared next, like a little furry funnel sticking out of a pie crust. ‘Why can’t you leave me in peace?’

He – or ‘it’ – was called a Psammead (you pronounced it ‘Sammy-ad’) and he was an ancient sand fairy. The really amazing thing was that he had the power to grant wishes. These wishes only lasted until sunset, which was probably a good thing since they had wished themselves into some very awkward situations. But the hair-raising moments hadn’t put them off – as Cyril said, practically anything was better than hanging about before tea on a rainy afternoon.

‘We’re so sorry if we woke you,’ Anthea said, in her politest voice, because you had to take such care not to offend him. ‘But we’ve got a bit of time before tea, and we wondered if we could have another trip into the future – only not so far this time.’

The smooth sand heaved and shifted, and out came the whole Psammead. His ears were large and soft, like a bat’s, his round body was like a little fat cushion of fur, and he had long, skinny arms and legs.

‘Oh, all right.’ When in a reasonable mood the Psammead enjoyed an adventure as much as anyone. ‘Bring my carrier.’

Anthea and Jane had spent days making a special Psammead-carrier – by cutting up their party dresses, which Old Nurse didn’t yet know about. They were not very good at sewing, but their untidy stitches were strong. Anthea helped the Psammead into his bag and slung it over her shoulder. He weighed about three and a half pounds, and his sandy-brown fur smelled distantly of the hot desert, where he had been born thousands of years ago.

‘We wish we could go to the future,’ Cyril said, ‘but somewhere quite near, please.’

‘Very well, as long as you don’t complain about it later,’ the Psammead said in his peevish, dusty-sounding voice. ‘And as long as you leave me alone for at least two days afterwards.’

He held his breath and his plump body swelled up, as it did whenever he granted a wish, until the bag strained at the seams.

And suddenly they were in another place.

The Psammead had taken them to some very strange places. This was quite an ordinary-looking room, however, crammed with old books and statues, and photographs in silver frames. A very old man with white hair dozed at a mahogany desk heaped with papers.

‘Well, I don’t think much of this,’ Cyril said disgustedly. ‘I was hoping for an adventure.’ Cyril was going to be a famous explorer when he grew up – the sort you saw pictures of in magazines, hacking through jungles and hunting rare beasts. His favourite book was called

‘Look!’ Anthea went closer to the dozing old man. ‘It’s our Professor – only he’s years and years older!’

They all gathered round his chair.

‘He’s so – so crinkled,’ whispered Jane.

‘No wonder,’ said the Psammead. ‘I’ve brought you forward twenty-five years. This is 1930.’

‘Crikey,’ Cyril said. ‘I know we’ve been in the distant future before – but this is OUR future. If it’s 1930, that means I’m thirty-seven years old. Maybe we should go and find ourselves, to see what we look like now.’

‘I wonder if I married a vet, like I wanted,’ Jane said. She loved nursing injured animals, though she wasn’t very good at accepting when they were dead, and had been in trouble for digging them up again.

‘Shh,’ Anthea said, ‘he’s waking up.’ She patted the old professor’s arm. ‘Don’t worry, Jimmy – it’s only us.’ ‘Jimmy’ was the name they had made up for the Professor when he was first swept into the magic. ‘We’re on a visit from twenty-five years ago.’

He opened his eyes and his wrinkled face creased into a delighted smile. ‘More dreams – old age is full of dreams. Hello, my dears. How charming, to dream about those happy days.’ He stared into their faces for a long time. ‘What a difference you made to that dull old house! The noise and the laughter!’ Very gently, with a shaking hand, he stroked Anthea’s hair. ‘And here’s kind little Anthea, who made me eat my dinner!’

‘I hope you’re better at looking after yourself these days,’ Anthea said.

‘I wish I could dream you more often. You’re grown up now, and it’s not the same.’

Jane had started looking curiously at the swarm of photographs. Most were of dull adults in odd hats. ‘Oh – I’ve found a picture of us, but when was this taken?’

It was a picture of the five of them, with the Lamb sitting on Anthea’s knee.

‘You sent it to me in the Christmas of 1905,’ said the Professor.

‘Next Christmas – so it hasn’t been taken yet.’ Cyril frowned at it. ‘I look stupid. When it does get taken I must remember not to make that face.’

‘It means we’ll get the Lamb back, safe and sound,’ Anthea said, beaming. ‘Just the happy ending we wanted.’

‘Happy ending?’ the Professor echoed dreamily, as if talking to himself. ‘Yes, there were still happy endings in those days.’

‘Are there any more pictures of us?’ Jane asked.

‘They’re all pictures of you, my dear – you became my family.’

‘I say!’ Robert called from the window. ‘The street’s full of motor cars! Does everyone have a motor car in 1930?’

Cyril hurried over to look; both boys were fascinated by motor cars, and dreamed of driving them. The cars down in the street were long and sleek and moved like the wind.

‘I’m cold,’ the Psammead announced. ‘And the sensors at the extreme ends of my whiskers are simply screaming damp. Take me back to my sand.’

‘Don’t!’ the Professor sighed. ‘Don’t let me undream you just yet!’

‘It’s been a lovely visit, but I suppose we’d better go,’ Anthea said. ‘Old Nurse will get even crosser if we’re late.’ She kissed the Professor’s papery cheek. ‘Bye, Jimmy.’

And then they were back in the girls’ bedroom in 1905, and the bell was ringing for tea.

‘My hat!’ said Cyril. ‘Did you see the blue one with the open top? That’s the one I mean to drive in...