Secret Heart Secret Heart

by David Almond

  “Come on,” said Hackenschmidt. “Come on, Joe Maloney. Bring the last day to an end.”

  “Do it, Joe,” whispered Corinna. “Refresh the world.”

  Joe lowered his head, so shy again. A pale moon appeared over the Black Bone Crags. First stars were out. The garden was like the tent. Joe closed his eyes and heard the tiger padding through the forest. It stepped from the forest's edge, as if in answer to his call. It quickened as it crossed the wasteland. He heard the breath, the heart. Joe stood, and he walked with the tiger inside him. He prowled, he clawed the air, he leaped. And the children laughed at this but then they quietened for they began to hear the tiger, here in this Helmouth garden. They heard its footsteps and its breath. They caught the sour scent of it. They felt the disturbance in the air around them. They saw it move across the edges of their vision, and they turned their heads in fear and fascination, trying to follow it, trying to catch sight again of the stripes, the glittering eyes, the curved teeth of the fearful thing that walked before them with Joe Maloney. Then Joe became still. He sat with his mum again.

  She started to sing:

  “If I were a little bird, high up in the sky,

  This is how I'd flap my wings and fly, fly, fly.

  If I were a cat …”

  She smiled.

  “We'll find a lovely life, Joe, you and me, tomorrow when the sun comes back.”

  “And all of us,” said Nanty Solo.

  Joe nodded.

  “Yes,” he said. “All of us.”

  He leaned on his mum. He gazed into Corinna's dark eyes. With everyone in the garden, he began to sleep. The world beneath them turned toward the day. The tiger crossed the wasteland. It padded back toward the forest through the night.

  QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

  Joe imagines a tiger coming for him; he imagines walking in the Silver Forest with a girl he does not know; he imagines becoming an animal—a lark, a bat, a weasel, a snake; and he imagines Joff and Stanny in the woods. David Almond describes these episodes in great detail. Read some of these descriptions aloud to get a sense of how real they are for Joe—and for the reader. Discuss the episodes. Which are like prophecies? Why?

  Nanty Solo tells Joe: “Words?… That's no matter. Words is babble and noise and nonsense, Joe Maloney. But you know that, don't you?… What is words beside a lark song, eh?”(p. 84)

  • In Secret Heart, words often carry angry and hurtful messages. Talk about the times in the novel when people use words as weapons.

  • Joe has a stutter that stops him from speaking comfortably. Yet he manages to communicate well with those who care about him. How? How important do you think words are to communication?

  Joe has never known his father, but he meets an odd assortment of men who could serve as role models, including Joff, Bleak Winters, and Hackenschmidt. What does each teach Joe about being a man? What do you think it means to be a man?

  It had gone on so long. Psychiatrists had pried into his brain. Social workers had pried into his home. Teachers had been gentle with him, stern with him, furious with him…. Nothing had tamed him. The choice was easy. The eerie wasteland or the gates and walls of school? … He chose the wilderness, the larks, the rats and rabbits and stoats. And he accepted the loneliness that went with this choice(p. 52). Do you know anyone like Joe? Someone who, for his or her own reasons, chooses to stay on the outside? What do you think those reasons are? Is there any part of you that shares the desire to be an outsider?

  Like Joe, the people in the circus—Lovely Wilfred, Charley Caruso, Nanty Solo, and Hackenschmidt—live outside the mainstream. What reasons do you think each one had for making that choice? What do they get from being a part of the circus? What do they get from each other? And what do they give to the people who come to see them?

  Compare the places in the novel: Helmuth, the waste-land, the Silver Forest, the Black Bone Crags, and the caravans and tent of the circus. Talk about how they look and the colors, smells, and sounds the author uses to describe them. What does each place symbolize to Joe? Where does Joe most feel at home?

  Corinna is Joe's guide to the world of the circus, and she teaches him to fly. She is calm and collected, and she is wise beyond her years. But when she and Joe find the panther dead, she wants revenge. Does her anger surprise you? What actions does she take that seem out of character? Why do you think she reacts this way, and how does Joe respond? How would you respond?

  When Joe puts on the skin of the tiger and prepares for his journey to bring the tiger back to the forest, Hackenschmidt advises him, “Just breathe…. Just be yourself, Joe Maloney” (p. 149). At this point, Joe is beginning to understand himself. We have gotten to know him through the perceptions, descriptions, and actions of the other characters in the novel. Think about what each character has told us about Joe. Be sure to include Mum, Stanny, Joff, Corinna, Nanty, Hackenschmidt, Bleak Winters and his class, and Cody's Crew. If someone were writing the story of your life, what characters, major and minor, would need to weigh in to give a complete picture of you?

  What does Joe think of himself? How does that self-evaluation change over the course of Secret Heart? Did your feelings toward him change as you read?

  What is in your secret heart?

  This guide was prepared by Clifford Wohl, educational consultant

  A CONVERSATION WITH DAVID ALMOND

  Q. You've written that many of your stories come from your childhood, which for many people is a time when certain events seem mysterious and unexplainable.

  When you look back at these childhood events as an adult, do they still retain their mystery and awe? When you use these memories in your writing, do you return to your childhood perceptions of them?

  A. I think all events are pretty mysterious. One of a writer's jobs is to show that what is apparently ordinary and mundane is at the same time extraordinary. We can all think that our lives are mundane, that the places where we live are dull, that the people we know are boring, but once we start to look a little harder, we can see that the world we know is filled with strangeness. As a writer, when I began to reexplore the world of my childhood, and to draw on it for my fiction, it really was like exploring a foreign place. When I write directly about a particular memory, I'm aware that the memory is being reshaped by my desire to write convincing and enchanting fiction. So the childhood perception is the germ of the story, but that perception is extended and transformed. That's inevitable. I'm not a child anymore. And all memory consists of layers of reality and dreams, truth and lies. All memory is a kind of storytelling, and in the end all stories, if they're any good, retain a core of mystery, and they resist explanation.

  Q. For generations, children dreamed of running away to the circus. But today, the circus doesn't have the same standing or fantastical drawing power. Did you want to join the circus when you were a boy? What fantasy escape do you think today's kids have instead?

  A. I didn't want to escape to a circus, but I did fantasize about exploring wild places—the Himalayas, the desert, the Antarctic. As a kid, I loved the places just beyond the houses: playing fields, heather hills, abandoned coal mines, my grandfather's [garden] allotment. I used to camp out in gardens with my mates. And as teenagers we spent lots of time tramping around the wild and semiwild places of northern England: Northumbrian beaches and moorland. I think all kids want to go just beyond “civilization.” They need to know that they can get home again, but they need the experience of wilderness with its darkness and danger. I think it's a deep human need, so kids will find their wilderness in many surprising places. We think we have controlled and tamed the world, but kids will keep breaking free. And there's a connection with books and stories here. A book, with its neat lines of print and its well-organized pages, looks civilized, but if it's any good, a book will have a scent of wildness about it. It will have a wild heart. A good children's book is itself like a child who's been called home by his or her parents from the darkness outside. It sits in a well-lit l
iving room and looks all calm, but its eyes glow, its skin tingles, and its heart quickens at the memory of what it's seen and experienced out there in the wild and dark.

  Q. Children, whenever they appear in Secret Heart, are idealized. They have not lost touch with their own imaginations. They are able to genuinely enjoy things. Yet Joe's classmates from Hangar High are already cynical, and the older guys in Cody's Crew are downright mean. When do you think children turn this ugly corner? What do you believe can protect them from this change?

  A. We all grow in different ways. As kids, we can be cynical one moment, all innocence the next. The influence of our peers is massive. We all know how strong gang culture can be. And Stanny, for instance, is deeply influenced by Joff. Yes, some of the kids in Secret Heartseem very cynical, but that doesn't mean they'll always be so, or that they've really lost touch with their imaginations. I know that I could be pretty horrible when I was a kid, and I took part in some easy mockery of other kids. So I don't think we do really turn a corner that cuts off all other routes. Kids naturally experiment with all kinds of ways of being. In the process, of course, they can get a terrible reputation. I'm an optimist. All of us, adults and children, can change for the better. None of us is lost.

  Q. Tell us about Joe's stuttering. What does it tell readers about his character and personality? Are there other messages you hoped his stuttering would convey?

  A. I think that Joe's stuttering obviously shows his social difficulties: apparent shyness, lack of confidence, unsureness. To some in the outside world, it's a sign of weakness. But it also shows that what is inside him is incredibly difficult to put into words, so it maybe indicates that Joe is much more complex and potentially strong than he's given credit for. In many ways, he reflects what it's like to be a writer: you have a notion of what you want to say, but finding the right words can be fiendishly difficult. As a teacher, I worked with a number of children who had similar difficulties to Joe's, and many of these kids showed great courage and resilience in their dealings with an often hostile world.

  Q. You write in a variety of genres. Do you prefer writing short stories or novels? How do you decide what form a particular story will take?

  A. My primary interest is in writing fiction, particularly novels, so these days my subject matter tends to seek a novelistic shape. Stories grow organically, like living things, and I try to give them space and freedom to do that. Writing novels allows me to do that. It hasn't always been so. For years, I wrote nothing but short stories, but now I find that particular form a bit unsatisfying. Things could change again, of course. I write plays and scripts under commission, so then the decision is made for me. All forms flow into each other, of course. One of the great things about writing for young people is that they don't have the adult need to classify. So a young child who's heard, say, “Cinderella” for the first time pretty quickly wants to start acting it out, often with accompanying song and dance. So fiction very naturally becomes drama/musical/dance. For me, all good fiction retains its “primitive” roots in oral storytelling, poetry, music, drama, dance.

  Q. Your novels live in reality and fantasy and raise questions about perception. How thin is the line between the two?

  A. I think my main intention when I write is to create/ construct a world that can be seen/heard/smelled/ tasted/touched by the reader, so that reading is almost a physical experience. The world of the story has to seem real. Having said that, it often seems that the line between the real and the imagined is hardly there at all. We each have our own vision of the world around us, and it's colored by our own memories, upbringing, hopes, dreams, etc., and affected by our mood, physical condition, etc. So what we call “reality” is a myriad of realities. And as soon as we begin to write, the slippery nature of reality only increases. I don't set out deliberately to do it, but I find that my characters and their stories exist in a very real world (and they're all located in pretty specific geographical locations), but they always stray beyond the borders of what we take to be real.

  Q. Joe's secret heart might be a tiger's, but he also is connected to skylarks. Did you choose these creatures for particular reasons? Did the poems by Blake and Shelley play any part in these choices?

  A. I've always loved skylarks—tiny birds that nest on the ground, that fly almost out of sight, then hang there and fill the sky with their passionate song. They were very common in the fields around me when I was a kid. A bright morning with skylarks singing is pretty breathtaking. It's very English, I suppose, and larks have inspired many English artists. Shelley, yes, but also Ted Hughes, for instance, in his fine poem “Skylarks,” and the composer Vaughan Williams in “Lark Ascending.” Blake's been a big influence since I wrote Skellig, and I think his presence is there again in Secret Heart. The idea of the tiger came from circuses, and from a story an Anglo Indian friend told me about a tiger entering someone's tent one night and licking the flesh from his arm. Tigers are wild, beautiful, part of the world, like skylarks are, but (again like skylarks) almost otherworldly. As I began to write the book, it was like a tiger was prowling about inside my head seeking a way out. When I let it prowl onto the page, that's when the story started to grow.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  “Igrew up in a big extended Catholic family [in the north of England]. I listened to the stories and songs at family parties. I listened to the gossip that filled Dragone's coffee shop. I ran with my friends through the open spaces and the narrow lanes. We scared each other with ghost stories told in fragile tents on dark nights. We promised never-ending friendships and whispered of the amazing journeys we'd take together.

  “I sat with my grandfather in his allotment, held tiny Easter chicks in my hands while he smoked his pipe and the factory sirens wailed and larks yelled high above. I trembled at the images presented to us in church, at the awful threats and glorious promises made by black-clad priests with Irish voices. I scribbled stories and stitched them into little books. I disliked school and loved the library, a little square building in which I dreamed that books with my name on them would stand one day on the shelves.

  “Skellig, my first children's novel, came out of the blue, as if it had been waiting a long time to be told. It seemed to write itself. It took six months, was rapidly taken by Hodder Children's Books, and has changed my life. By the time Skellig came out, I'd written my next children's novel, Kit's Wilderness. These books are suffused with the landscape and spirit of my own childhood. By looking back into the past, by reimagining it and blending it with what I see around me now, I found a way to move forward and to become something that I am intensely happy to be: a writer for children.”

  David Almond lives with his family in Newcastle, England.

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