Today is my birthday, and as a special treat here's a chance to read the opening page of my newest project, a new book, 'Mabel Maybe and the Slow Children'. It is, well, a bit unusual - Blade Runner for the under 12s, with genies - would be a good description!
Happy birthday to me!
Tony Kerr
Mabel Maybe and the Slow Children
by Tony Kerr
Imagine one day you woke up on a train and you could not remember one single thing that happened to you a moment before you opened your eyes.
That is what happened to Mabel Maybe.
Then how, you might think, if she could not remember anything at all, could Mabel Maybe remember her own name? Did she have a suitcase with her name on it? No, Mabel Maybe had only the clothes she wore – a black dress, black stockings and black shoes. Did she, perhaps, have a letter, which told her that her name was Mabel Maybe and that exciting adventures lay ahead? No, not at all. Generally speaking exciting adventures tend to just happen, and people, generally, don’t send you a mysterious letter telling you they are going to happen.
This is what did happen.
She opened her eyes and looked around a rocking wooden train carriage, and before she knew she was going to do so she opened her mouth, and with a voice she had no memory of ever hearing before, said:
‘My name is Mabel.’
And a voice from the far side of the carriage replied, ‘Mabel? Maybe.’
It was then that Mabel Maybe noticed that in a seat opposite her sat a small and scruffy dog. The dog might have once been white, but had either been through the washing machine a few too many times, or (more likely) had been in the bath tub too few times. The dog was called Gene.
Mabel Maybe knew the dog was called Gene because the dog fixed her with a dirty stare and said, quite clearly in a deep and rough bark: “My name is Gene.”
After that things started to get a little strange.
No comments:
Post a Comment