The Great Upending - Beth Kephart
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The Great Upending - Beth Kephart Book
When a troubled childrens book author moves to their farm, two kids with troubles of their own hatch a scheme to swipe the ending of the final book in a bestselling series to get a reward from the books publisher in this gorgeously written novel in the tradition of Wonder and Out of My Mind.Twelve-year-old Sara and her brother Hawk are told that they are not to bother the manThe Misterwho just moved into the silo apartment on their farm. It doesnt matter that they know nothing about him and they think they ought to know something. It doesnt matter that hes always riding that unicycle around. Mama told them no way, no how are they to bother The Mister unless they want to be in a mess of trouble. Trouble is the last thing Sara and her brother need. Saras got a condition, you see. Marfan syndrome. And that Marfan syndrome is causing her heart to have problems, the kind of problems that require surgery. But the family already has problems: The drought has dried up their crops and their funds, which means they cant afford any more problems, let alone a surgery to fix those problems. Sara can feel the weight of her familys worry, and the weight of her time running out, but what can a pair of kids do? Well, it all starts withbothering The Mister.
P> Review *"[For] readers who love good storytelling and spirited heroines.... As refreshing as rainfall on a dry field." -- Booklist, starred review"Could accompany other novels...such as R.J. Palacios Wonder." -- School Library Connection"[A] gentle, lovely tale of a deeply bonded family, replete with a clever mystery." -- Kirkus Reviews About the Author: National Book Award finalist Beth Kephart is the critically acclaimed author of nearly two dozen books for both adults and young readers. Her recent, Wild Blues, was named an ALA Youth Editors Choice. Her other novelsincluding Undercover, Small Damages, and One Thing Stolenhave been also featured on numerous best book lists. She is an award-winning lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania where she teaches creative nonfiction and fiction. She lives in Devon, Pennsylvania. Excerpt. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Full of Shine Full of Shine Moons in bloom, Hawk says. Just hanging there. No strings. Big and fat? I ask. Through the wall that divides us. Biggest. Fattest. Im heading out. I hear the springs of Hawks mattress creak. I hear him creep across the floor. I hear the screen in his window go up and his one foot crump and his other foot crump down onto the roof that we call our pier. Shows on, he says. I push up to my elbows. See Hawk through my window, his pale face and his big eyes. He presses his face up against the screen, and then he turns and puts his arms out for balance. The moon pours its bucket of yellow down. Coming? he says, his voice on the edge, in the dark. I creak up. Put my feet on the floor. Crouch so my hair wont snag on the low rafters, so my head wont scrape. I cross the planked floor and push the screen up and away from the sill. Catch my breath. Swing my daddy long legs and my daddy long arms out into the night, sit down, butt-scoot forward, reach the edge, and throw my legs out into the air beside Hawks. Catch more breath. Fix my vision. Hawk kicks his bare feet. I kick mine. The air freckles up with fireflies. The trees wave their hands in the breeze. The baled hay we havent barned up yet looks like waves rushing in. Lighthouse is full of shine, Hawk says. I look where hes lookingtoward the old silo where The Mister lives. Its round and its tall and its silver. Its got a red front door and a band of windows around its top that blinks on and off. You think hes in there? I ask Hawk, feeling my heart flop around between the bones in my chest. Where else would he be? Hawk whispers, as if The Mister could hear us from all the way here, where we are, which he cant. Mom says I know Hawk pulls a stick of dried hay from his hair. He bends it between his fingers. Shhhh, he says, for no good reason, because Im already shhhh-ing. The farm noises up. There are cows in the cow barn, goats in the goat barn, cats in their cuddle, and the old horse Moe, who snorts like a warthog. Also theres Mom and Dad in the kitchen with their decaf, talking low, thinking we cant hear them. Thinking that I havent heard the latest news, but Ive heard it, Ive heard it plenty. Sky is zero clouds and star stuff. Its August 3 and has not rained for twenty-two days. Morning, noon, night, Dad drives his old Ford to the top of the forest hill to check the water in the cistern. The water that feeds the pipes in the house, the cows in the field, the pigs in the sunflower stalks, the goats and their milk, the seeds in the earth. The water that vanishes inch by inch. When it rains, we pull the pots and pans and buckets to the roof and watch the water in them rise. When it rains, Mom hangs the laundry on the old rope to wash. When it rains, Dad checks the cistern so many times Mom sometimes makes him walk so hell save the gas in the truck. But now were on water rations, and here is Hawk and here is me, sitting at the edge of the pier, waiting for our ship to come in. Interesting, Hawk says. He gets to his feet, sets himself up into a crouching rock, and watches. I think about Dad and Hawk and sometimes me, with my helpful height, building those three rooms into that old silo, a Dad scheme to save the farmanother Dad scheme; hes had lots. Each round room sits ten feet above the next round room. A spiral staircase dials through the cutout middle of each floor. Sun pours through the top window band and down the spiral steps and ends in a pretty yellow pool on the first floor. The table and the benches and the bed were built round to fit the round. The last time I was there, the place still smelled like sawdust. It smelled like the refrigerator motor, too, and the lavender wreath Mom had hung. It was Mom who advertised the place. Mom who wrote the words, and they worked: Come. Stay. Sixteen days ago, The Mister drove up the dusty back road in a Cadillac limo so wide and long Hawk gave it a name, and that name is Silver Whale. Id been down in the garden with my basket and Hawk had been out with the pigs in the stalks and Dad had been up on the hill with the Ford. Id heard the puttering car, didnt think much of it. I didnt stand up until I heard Hawk running. To the pier! he said, flying past. By the time I got in the house and up the stairs and out of my window and onto the pier beside Hawk, The Mister had arrived. He wore a blue coat, Hawk said, narrating, on account of my eyes. He carted his things from the trunk of the limo through the red of the door by way of the rusty wheelbarrow Dad had left there once the work on the lighthouse was done. He opened the door with the key Mom had left hanging the night before from a little outdoor hook. He was a small man with a hunched back, Hawk said, or maybe he was just hunching under the weight of things. How many things? I asked. Lots, Hawk said. Come. Stay. That was two weeks and two days agoand all weve figured out since is that The Mister came from far away. He wants his privacy, Mom says. No fresh tomatoes, no slice of pie, no two kids named Hawk and Sara showing up at his front door. No prying eyes, Mom said. Okay? Nobody spying on The Mister. Cant help what I see, Hawk said. Mom shook her head. Now, past the bales of hay that Dad cut and raked and bound, the bales he hasnt loaded yet into the old hay shed, I squint. All I can see through the windows of the lighthouse is a white streak, like a cloud tied to a string. Cant figure this, Hawk says, rocking and rocking. Cant figure what? Hawk rocks. Keeps his figuring to himself, which drives me just about nuts. Whoa, he finally whispers. Like a circus act. The guys wheeling around on a unicycle! Rounder and faster by the minute. Unicycle? Serious. The old man? Give me a sec. I wait. Across the dark, under the stars, all I see is that puff of cloud being yanked around by a string. The Misters hair, its got to be. You rock any harder, youll fall, I say, because Hawk has stopped reporting again and sometimes its just too lousy to get your news secondhand, to not see what you want to see, to be relying on your best friend who is your brother. Sometimes I just cant stand that what I see best is my own imagination and not whats out there, in front of me. So that right now Im seeing with my minds eye, and what Im seeing is a figment of thought, by which I mean I half see, half imagine Hawk spying so hard that he tips and he falls into the crunch of apple trees. I half see and half imagine me scrambling through the window and down the stairs and running and Dad calling after me and Mom crying and two kids out of two kids in the Scholl family needing doctors the Scholls cant afford. Thats what I see, while Hawk gets to see the actual unicycling Mister. I catch Hawks arm in the hook of my own. I yank him back. He falls flat on the roof and looks up and I lie back and something blinks. He knows were here, Hawk whispers, even quieter now. The Mister. You got proof? I say, my heart flopping hard. He turned off the light. Just this second, now. It was on and now its off and that means that hes seen us. Seen you, maybe. Not seen me. Like youre not here? Hawk says. Like you wouldnt be the easiest of us to see? Stop it, I whisper, louder than him. Just Mom cant know, right? Hawk says. Mom cant know, and were not telling. You dont tell, I wont tell, I say, and breathe. More trouble is the last thing we Scholls need.(BK-9781481491563)
| SKU | BK-9781481491563 |
| Barcode # | 9781481491563 |
| Brand | Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books |
| Artist / Author | Beth Kephart |
| Shipping Weight | 0.3560kg |
| Shipping Width | 0.140m |
| Shipping Height | 0.030m |
| Shipping Length | 0.210m |
| Type | Hardcover |
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