Acknowledgements
It seems very grand to have acknowledgements for such a short text, but I want to note that I have shamelessly stolen ideas from many friends, particularly Liz Chatterjee, Amia Srinivasan and Sophie Smith. I owe thanks to Imogen Russell Williams, for the Aurora Leigh poem, and to Nick Lake, for sharing his ideas about the stern brilliance of Mary Poppins. Colin Burrow commented on a draft of this essay; I owe him a great deal for his immense and ongoing kindness. Cornelius Medvei is a very wise though not old person who reads children’s books, and kick-started the idea. And Charles Collier sent me a late-night email about the bite and glory of children’s fiction from which I have made off, Aladdin-like, with many treasures.
An exciting adventure awaits!
Read on for a short extract
FLIGHT
Like a man-made magic wish, the aeroplane began to rise.
The boy sitting in the cockpit gripped his seat and held his breath as the plane climbed into the arms of the sky. Fred’s jaw was set with concentration, and his fingers twitched, following the movements of the pilot beside him: joystick, throttle.
The aeroplane vibrated as it flew faster into the setting sun, following the swerve of the Amazon River below them. Fred could see the reflection of the six-seater plane, a spot of black on the vast sweep of blue, as it sped towards Manaus, the city on the water. He brushed his hair out of his eyes and pressed his forehead against the window.
Behind Fred sat a girl and her little brother. They had the same slanted eyebrows and the same brown skin, the same long eyelashes. The girl had been shy, hugging her parents until the last possible moment at the airfield; now she was staring down at the water, singing under her breath, her brother trying to eat his seatbelt.
In the next row, on her own, sat a pale girl with blonde hair down to her waist. Her blouse had a neck-ruffle that came up to her chin, and she kept tugging it down and grimacing. She was determinedly not looking out of the window.
The airfield they had just left had been dusty and almost deserted, just a strip of tarmac under the ferocious Brazilian sun. Fred’s cousin had insisted that he wear his school uniform and cricket jumper, and now, inside the hot, airless cabin, he felt like he was being gently cooked inside his own skin.
The engine gave a whine, and the pilot frowned and tapped the joystick. He was old and soldierly, with brisk nostril hair and a grey waxed moustache which seemed to reject the usual laws of gravity. He touched the throttle and the plane soared upwards, higher into the clouds.
It was almost dark when Fred began to worry. The pilot began to belch, first quietly, then violently and repeatedly. His hand jerked, and the plane dipped suddenly to the left. Someone screamed behind Fred. The plane lurched away from the river and over the canopy. The pilot grunted, gasped and wound back the throttle, slowing the engine. He gave a cough that sounded like a choke.
Fred stared at the man – he was turning the same shade of grey as his moustache. ‘Are you all right, sir?’ he asked. ‘Is there something I can do?’
Fighting for breath, the pilot shook his head. He reached over to the control panel and cut the engine. The roar ceased. The nose of the plane dipped downwards. The trees rose up.
‘What’s happening?’ asked the blonde girl sharply. ‘What’s he doing? Make him stop!’
The little boy in the back began to shriek. The pilot grasped Fred’s wrist hard for a single moment, then his head slumped against the dashboard.
And the sky, which had seconds before seemed so reliable, gave way.
About the Author
Katherine Rundell is the bestselling author of five children’s novels and has won the Costa Children’s Book Award, the Blue Peter Book Award and the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize amongst many others. Her novels are now published in thirty countries. Katherine spent her childhood in Africa and Europe before taking her degree at the University of Oxford and becoming a Fellow of All Souls College. As well as writing, she studies Renaissance literature and is learning, very slowly, to fly a small aeroplane.
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First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © Katherine Rundell, 2019
Katherine Rundell has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work
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ISBN: HB: 978-1-5266-1007-2; eBook: 978-1-5266-1006-5
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Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise Page 3
