9780345413369: The Subtle Knife
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0345413369 ISBN 13: 9780345413369
Verlag: Del Rey, 1998

Inhaltsangabe

Here is the highly anticipated second installment of Philip Pullman's epic fantasy trilogy, begun with the critically acclaimed The Golden Compass. Lyra and Will, her newfound friend, tumble separately into the strange tropical otherworld of Cittàgazze, "the city of magpies," where adults are curiously absent and children run wild. Here their lives become inextricably entwined when Lyra's alethiometer gives her a simple command:  find Will's father. Their search is plagued with obstacles--some familiar and some horribly new and unfathomable--but it eventually brings them closer to Will's father and to the Subtle Knife, a deadly, magical, ancient tool that cuts windows between worlds. Through it all, Will and Lyra find themselves hurtling toward the center of a fierce battle against a force so awesome that leagues of mortals, witches, beasts, and spirits from every world are uniting in fear and anger against it. This breathtaking sequel will leave readers eager for the third and final volume of His Dark Materials.  

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Philip Pullman is the author of The Golden Compass as well as the highly acclaimed trilogy of Victorian thrillers featuring heroine Sally Lockhart: The Ruby in the Smoke, Shadow in the North, and The Tiger in the Well. A graduate of Oxford University with a degree in English, he teaches literature at Westminster College and has written novels, plays, and picture books for readers of all ages. He lives with his family in England.

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Will tugged at his mother's hand and said, "Come on, come
on  ..."

But his mother hung back. She was still afraid. Will looked up and down
the narrow street in the evening light, along the little terrace of
houses, each behind its tiny garden and its box hedge, with the sun
glaring off the windows of one side and leaving the other in shadow. There
wasn't much time. People would be having their meal about now, and soon
there would be other children around, to stare and comment and notice. It
was dangerous to wait, but all he could do was persuade her, as usual.

"Mum, let's go in and see Mrs. Cooper," he said. "Look, we're nearly
there."

"Mrs. Cooper?" she said doubtfully.

But he was already ringing the bell. He had to put down the bag to do it,
because his other hand still held his mother's. It might have bothered him
at twelve years of age to be seen holding his mother's hand, but he knew
what would happen to her if he didn't.

The door opened, and there was the stooped elderly figure of the piano
teacher, with the scent of lavender water about her as he remembered.

"Who's that? Is that William?" the old lady said. "I haven't seen you for
over a year. What do you want, dear?"

"I want to come in, please, and bring my mother," he said firmly.

Mrs. Cooper looked at the woman with the untidy hair and the distracted
half-smile, and at the boy with the fierce, unhappy glare in his eyes, the
tight-set lips, the jutting jaw. And then she saw that Mrs. Parry, Will's
mother, had put makeup on one eye but not on the other. And she hadn't
noticed. And neither had Will. Something was wrong.

"Well ..." she said, and stepped aside to make room in the narrow hall.

Will looked up and down the road before closing the door, and Mrs. Cooper
saw how tightly Mrs. Parry was clinging to her son's hand, and how
tenderly he guided her into the sitting room where the piano was (of
course, that was the only room he knew); and she noticed that Mrs. Parry's
clothes smelled slightly musty, as if they'd been too long in the washing
machine before drying; and how similar the two of them looked as they sat
on the sofa with the evening sun full on their faces, their broad
cheekbones, their wide eyes, their straight black brows.

"What is it, William?" the old lady said. "What's the matter?"

"My mother needs somewhere to stay for a few days," he said. "It's too
difficult to look after her at home just now. I don't mean she's ill.
She's just kind of confused and muddled, and she gets a bit worried. She
won't be hard to look after. She just needs someone to be kind to her, and
I think you could do that quite easily, probably."

The woman was looking at her son without seeming to understand, and Mrs.
Cooper saw a bruise on her cheek. Will hadn't taken his eyes off Mrs.
Cooper, and his expression was desperate.

"She won't be expensive," he went on. "I've brought some packets of food,
enough to last, I should think. You could have some of it too. She won't
mind sharing."

"But ...I don't know if I should ...Doesn't she need a doctor?"

"No! She's not ill."

"But there must be someone who can ...I mean, isn't there a neighbor or
someone in the family--"

"We haven't got any family. Only us. And the neighbors are too busy."

"What about the social services? I don't mean to put you off, dear, but--"

"No! No. She just needs a bit of help. I can't do it myself for a little
while, but I won't be long. I'm going to ...I've got things to do. But
I'll be back soon, and I'll take her home again, I promise. You won't have
to do it for long."

The mother was looking at her son with such trust, and he turned and
smiled at her with such love and reassurance, that Mrs. Cooper couldn't
say no.

"Well," she said, turning to Mrs. Parry, "I'm sure it won't matter for a
day or so. You can have my daughter's room, dear. She's in Australia. She
won't be needing it again."

"Thank you," said Will, and stood up as if he were in a hurry to leave.

"But where are you going to be?" said Mrs. Cooper.

"I'm going to be staying with a friend," he said. "I'll phone up as often
as I can. I've got your number. It'll be all right."

His mother was looking at him, bewildered. He bent over and kissed her
clumsily.

"Don't worry," he said. "Mrs. Cooper will look after you better than me,
honest. And I'll phone up and talk to you tomorrow."

They hugged tightly, and then Will kissed her again and gently unfastened
her arms from his neck before going to the front door. Mrs. Cooper could
see he was upset, because his eyes were glistening, but he turned,
remembering his manners, and held out his hand.

"Good-bye," he said, "and thank you very much."

"William," she said, "I wish you'd tell me what the matter is--"

"It's a bit complicated," he said, "but she won't be any trouble,
honestly."

That wasn't what she meant, and both of them knew it; but somehow Will was
in charge of this business, whatever it was. The old lady thought she'd
never seen a child so implacable.

He turned away, already thinking about the empty house.




The close where Will and his mother lived was a loop of road in a modern
estate with a dozen identical houses, of which theirs was by far the
shabbiest. The front garden was just a patch of weedy grass; his mother
had planted some shrubs earlier in the year, but they'd shriveled and died
for lack of watering. As Will came around the corner, his cat, Moxie, rose
up from her favorite spot under the still-living hydrangea and stretched
before greeting him with a soft meow and butting her head against his leg.

He picked her up and whispered, "Have they come back, Moxie? Have you seen
them?"

The house was silent. In the last of the evening light the man across the
road was washing his car, but he took no notice of Will, and Will didn't
look at him. The less notice people took, the better.

Holding Moxie against his chest, he unlocked the door and went in quickly.
Then he listened very carefully before putting her down. There was nothing
to hear; the house was empty.

He opened a tin for Moxie and left her to eat in the kitchen. How long
before the men came back? There was no way of telling, so he'd better move
quickly. He went upstairs and began to search.

He was looking for a battered green leather writing case. There are a
surprising number of places to hide something that size even in any
ordinary modern house; you don't need secret panels and extensive cellars
in order to make something hard to find. Will searched his mother's
bedroom first, ashamed to be looking through the drawers where she kept
her underclothes, and then he worked systematically through the rest of
the rooms upstairs, even his own. Moxie came to see what he was doing and
sat and cleaned herself nearby, for company.

But he didn't find it.

By that time it was dark, and he was hungry. He made himself baked beans
on toast and sat at the kitchen table wondering about the best order to
look through the downstairs rooms.

As he was finishing his meal, the phone rang.

He sat absolutely still, his heart thumping. He counted: twenty-six rings,
and then it stopped. He put his plate in the sink and started to search
again.




Four hours later he still hadn't found the green leather case. It was half
past one, and he was exhausted. He lay on his bed fully clothed and fell
asleep at once, his dreams tense and crowded, his mother's unhappy,
frightened face always there just out of reach.

And almost at once, it seemed (though he'd been asleep for nearly three
hours), he woke up knowing two things simultaneously.

First, he knew where the case was. And second, he knew that the men were
downstairs, opening the kitchen door.

He lifted Moxie out of the way and softly hushed her sleepy protest. Then
he swung his legs over the side of the bed and put on his shoes, straining
every nerve to hear the sounds from downstairs. They were very quiet
sounds: a chair being lifted and replaced, a short whisper, the creak of a
floorboard.

Moving more silently than the men were, he left his bedroom and tiptoed to
the spare room at the top of the stairs. It wasn't quite pitch-dark, and
in the ghostly gray predawn light he could see the old treadle sewing
machine. He'd been through the room thoroughly only hours before, but he'd
forgotten the compartment at the side of the sewing machine, where all the
patterns and bobbins were kept.

He felt for it delicately, listening all the while. The men were moving
about downstairs, and Will could see a dim flicker of light that might
have been a flashlight at the edge of the door.

Then he found the catch of the compartment and clicked it open, and there,
just as he'd known it would be, was the leather writing case.

And now what could he do? He crouched in the dimness, heart pounding,
listening hard.

The two men were in the hall downstairs. He heard one of them say quietly,
"Come on. I can hear the milkman down the road."

"It's not here, though," said the other voice. "We'll have to look
upstairs."

"Go on, then. Don't hang about."

Will braced himself as he heard the quiet creak of the top...

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Verlag
Del Rey
Erscheinungsdatum
1998
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0345413369
ISBN 13 
9780345413369
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
304
Kontakt zum Hersteller
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Verantwortliche Person
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