Map of the Sky

Claire Wong

Description

'A lovely story of trying to understand the big wide world through a child's eyes. A Map of the Sky is so well written it made me feel young again! It captures the beauty and drama of the North Yorkshire coast as though you are there, allowing you to escape the hurry of modern life. Highly recommended.' CL Smith, author of the Kadogos trilogyKit doesn't understand why his family has been uprooted to a remote coastal village in the North. Why did they leave so suddenly, and why has his Dad not joined them? At Askfeld Farm Guesthouse, he meets an eclectic group of new neighbours and forms an unlikely friendship with Beth, who suffers from a chronic illness he does not understand. Kit learns that Beth, who cannot leave the guesthouse, is trying to draw a map from memory that shows all her favourite childhood haunts.Kit makes it his quest to help her remember by visiting places for her and hopes to solve the problems of the other guests along the way. But becoming a hero like the ones in his favourite books is trickier than it seems. Can Kit work out that the person who really needs his help is much closer to home?

Informations

• Publié par: Lion Hudson
• Date de parution: 20 septembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781782642701
• Langue: English

Extrait

A MAP OF THE SKY
A brilliant and sensitively written portrayal of the adult world through the eyes of a curious, loveable eleven-year-old boy. This book tackles adult issues but without the overanalysis that comes with adulthood. Very enjoyable.
Polly Courtney, novelist and screenwriter
A lovely story about the confusion of trying to understand the big wide world through a child s eyes. A Map of the Sky is so well written it made me feel young again! It captures the beauty and drama of the North Yorkshire coast as though you are there, allowing readers to escape the hurry of modern life. Highly recommended.
CL Smith, author of the Kadogos trilogy
Text copyright 2019 Claire Wong
This edition copyright 2019 Lion Hudson IP Limited
The right of Claire Wong to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval EBOOsystem, without permission in writing from the publisher.
All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Published by
Lion Hudson Limited
Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Business Park,
Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 8DR, England
www.lionhudson.com
ISBN 978 1 78264 269 5
e-ISBN 978 1 78264 270 1
First edition 2019
Cover image: kokoroyuki/iStock sny57295/Trevillion
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

to Benjamin
with a lifetime of adventures ahead
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Chapter One: Askfeld
Chapter Two: Adventures in Stillness
Chapter Three: The Unfinished Map
Chapter Four: Views and Villains
Chapter Five: North and South
Chapter Six: The Birdwatcher and the Pilgrim
Chapter Seven: Scar Bay
Chapter Eight: Exiles
Chapter Nine: The Search for the Albatross
Chapter Ten: Utterscar
Chapter Eleven: Lilies
Chapter Twelve: Skimming Stones
Chapter Thirteen: Driftwood
Chapter Fourteen: Between The Salt Shore and The Sea Strand
Chapter Fifteen: The Conspiracy
Chapter Sixteen: Under a Wide and Silent Sky
Chapter Seventeen: The Thing with Feathers
Chapter Eighteen: Nine Fathom Deep
Chapter Nineteen: The End of the Pilgrimage
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
T hank you to Jessica Gladwell, whose advice and discernment helped this story grow into what it is, to Rachel Ashley-Pain for her astute editing, to Joy Tibbs for guiding me through the manuscript s transformation into a book, and to everyone at Lion Hudson who worked on this project.
Writing is often a solitary pursuit, but it cannot be done alone. I am grateful to so many people, especially to Emma and Emily, for helping me better understand life with chronic illness. Thank you also to Hannah, whose knowledge helped me find Kit s voice, to Jenny for lending her thoughtful perspective, and to my Mum who is always willing to be one of my first readers.
Thanks also to Susanna for the French translations, to Joss for the lesson in Yorkshire history, and to my wordsmith colleagues, Marianne, Hayley, Gemma, Crispin, and Michelle, who humoured my last-minute vocabulary queries.
CHAPTER ONE
ASKFELD
THE INTREPID NORTHERN ADVENTURES OF CHRISTOPHER SHACKLETON FISHER, AGED ELEVEN.
A record of the places I will discover and the mysteries I am going to solve this summer. Not to be read by rival explorers or older sisters (that means you, Juliet).
T he North Sea heaved and rolled against the rocks far below. Without a moment s delay, Kit ran to the window of his new room and flung it wide open. You had to lean out into the cold air and crane your head round at an awkward, neck-aching angle, but it was just possible to see the waves from up here. He grinned at the feeling of mist-like rain on his face.
Stop that and get back inside. His mother did not look up from examining a scratch on one of the suitcases in the doorway, while her overloaded handbag balanced on top of another. You could fall out.
The land dropped sharply away from Askfeld Farm Guest House s crag-top perch to where the great grey water stretched out under a stony sky. Between sea and air was a space that was alive with darting shapes of the auks and gannets that skimmed the waves.
When Dad arrives, we can go to the beach, said Kit. He closed the window; the white curtains stopped billowing and settled back into place. The smell of the sea air lingered. Then, though he knew it would provoke a reaction, or perhaps precisely because of that, he added, When does Dad get here?
Not now! his mother snapped with a fierceness he had rarely heard her use. It was not the first time he had asked since they set out that morning, but he was pretty certain the question had not yet been answered properly. Each time the response had been sharper and shorter, which made no sense at all.
Your second room is just next door, Mrs Fisher. Sean Garsdale, who owned the guest house at Askfeld Farm, appeared behind them, saving Kit from any further reprimand. That was one of the Fisher family rules: no arguing or shouting in front of strangers. While his mother and sister followed Sean out, Kit stayed behind and assessed what he had seen of their host so far. He was quite a young sort of adult, if you looked past the smart shirt and polite conversation: the kind that might still be fun enough to want to play football or talk about games.
Kit opened his suitcase and pulled out a stack of comics. Sandwiched between the brightly coloured exploits of superpowered heroes was a red notebook, whose use he had been planning ever since he stumbled, bleary-eyed, into the car six hours ago. He yawned, sat down cross-legged on the bed, and wrote in black ink on the cover: The Intrepid Northern Adventures of Christopher Shackleton Fisher, aged eleven (it had been his birthday two weeks ago and he had finally caught up with the rest of his year group at school). Then he opened it to the first blank page.
Through the adjoining wall of their two rooms, the voices were half muffled, but Kit prided himself on his sharp ears, and he could make out most of what they were saying. Sean was apologizing for the weather.
You picked a grey day to arrive and I hope it doesn t put you off. We had bright July sunshine last week. There s beautiful walks to be had on the moors or the coastal path when it s warm.
Oh, that s not a problem; we can cope with a little rain, Kit s mother replied with the indomitable determination of someone who has resolved to be cheerful. Besides, we need to get used to all kinds of weather here. I mentioned to your wife on the phone when I booked that we re actually moving to the area. The house isn t quite ready for us yet, but we were so keen to come and explore our new home, weren t we?
Yes, of course; we ve heard so many lovely things about this place, Juliet agreed, in a tone that made Kit involuntarily roll his eyes. People always mistook his sister for much older than she was, because she knew how to talk like a grown-up.
At the top of the page, he wrote Day One: Mysteries and then paused, the pen still pressed down so that the ink at the foot of the s began to spread and bleed through the paper. Would a single sheet be enough to list all the questions racing around in his head? When he thought back over the past couple of weeks, it was one long saga of being on the wrong side of a closed door, sent outside or to a friend s house while urgent conversations were conducted. Even worse were the false smiles when he was allowed back into the room: the bright tone with which he was told Time to start packing! without explanation. Overnight, asking questions had become re-categorized as bad behaviour. It earned you only a frown and an evasive comment. But Kit would get to the bottom of it all. He knew he was clever: not as clever as Juliet, of course, but he was sure he could find out the truth.
The floorboards on the landing creaked a warning. Kit squirrelled the book away under his pillow as the others returned to the room. He smiled blankly at the three of them and hoped they could not guess what he had been thinking. As it happened, no one looked directly at him as Juliet and their mother collected luggage from where it lay on the threshold.
Just come and find me if there s anything else you need, Sean was saying to Kit s mother. This here s a key for the front door, in case you want to go out before seven or come in after ten. And here s a card with some useful phone numbers. Top one s for the house. See where it says Sean and Beth Garsdale? That s me and my wife. Breakfast is seven until nine-thirty. And although it says on the website we re a bed and breakfast, we do now serve hot meals throughout the day. You ll find the day s specials written up on the chalkboard in the dining room.
How long have you and your wife owned this place? his mother asked, taking the card but not looking at it. Kit noticed she was talking down to him. When he had addressed her as Mrs Fisher earlier, she had not told him to call her Catherine, as she usually did when meeting new people.
Been about four years now. We bought it just after we got married. Needed a lot of work done, but my wife Beth has a good eye for decorating. All this, he motioned around the white-painted room with its sturdy oak furnishings and a framed watercolour of seashells on the adjacent wall, is her design. We had to rename the place too. The last owner, he had a bit of a strange sense of humour, you see, and he thought, because of us being so near all the seaside resorts here, it d be funny to call this place The Last Resort! Doubt it did his bookings much good. So we took that sign down as soon as we moved in, and went back to the old name of Askfeld. That s what this house was called back when it was a