The Boundless - Softcover

Oppel, Kenneth

 
9781442472891: The Boundless
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1442472898 ISBN 13: 9781442472891
Verlag: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

The Boundless, the greatest train ever built, is on its maiden voyage across the country, and first-class passenger Will Everett is about to embark on the adventure of his life!

When Will ends up in possession of the key to a train car containing priceless treasures, he becomes the target of sinister figures from his past.

In order to survive, Will must join a traveling circus, enlisting the aid of Mr. Dorian, the ringmaster and leader of the troupe, and Maren, a girl his age who is an expert escape artist. With villains fast on their heels, can Will and Maren reach Will’s father and save The Boundless before someone winds up dead?

“Canadian railway history, fantasy, a flutter of romance—and a thoughtful examination of social injustice—collide in this entertaining swashbuckler from the author of Printz Honor–winning Airborne” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Kenneth Oppel is the author of numerous books for young readers. His award-winning Silverwing trilogy has sold over a million copies worldwide and been adapted as an animated TV series and stage play. Airborn won a Michael L. Printz Honor Book Award and the Canadian Governor General’s Literary Award for children’s literature; its sequel, Skybreaker, was a New York Times bestseller and was named Children’s Novel of the Year by the London Times. He is also the author of Half Brother, This Dark Endeavor, Such Wicked Intent, and The Boundless. Born on Canada’s Vancouver Island, he has lived in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, Canada; in England and Ireland; and now resides in Toronto with his wife and children. Visit him at KennethOppel.ca.

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Boundless
Chapter 1: The Last Spike

THE LAST SPIKE

Three hours before the avalanche hits, William Everett is sitting on an upturned crate, waiting for his father.

The town doesn’t even have a name yet. Nailed to a crooked post at the side of the train track is a messy hand-painted sign that says only: Mile 2553. Paint has dribbled down from the bottom of each number and letter. Yesterday when Will and his mother stepped off the train, the conductor shouted, “End of the line! Farewell Station!” But Will wasn’t sure if Farewell was the town’s name or if the fellow was just in a hurry to say “Good riddance.”

The station is an uncovered wooden platform. There is a water tower and coal shed to fuel the trains. A telegraph pole slings a wire to a shack, where the station master dozes on his stool, his crooked door shut against the November chill.

The town feels like it’s just been carved from the forest. Behind Will is a halfhearted jumble of wooden houses set back from a street of churned mud and snow. There is a general store, a church, and a large rooming house, where his mother waits. She’s tired out after their five-day journey from Winnipeg, and so is Will. But he’s had his fill of small spaces, and people everywhere, and he wants to be alone and breathe fresh air.

He’s grubby. His hair needs a wash. He’s not sure, but he might have lice again; it’s itchy back behind his ears. In their rooming house the single bath was in high demand last night, and Will didn’t get a turn.

On the wooden planks beneath his boots someone has carved the initials of two lovers inside a clumsy heart. He wonders if he’ll ever put his initials inside a heart. He pulls his collar closer about his neck. The cold seeps through the worn patch under his right armpit. He’s too thin, his mother says. But right now his body doesn’t want to be any other way.

At least his feet are warm. The boots are the newest things he owns. The laces keep coming undone, though, even when he double knots them.

He looks at the track, gleaming as though it has just been set down. Will imagines his father helping lay those long measures of steel. He follows the track west, where it’s quickly swallowed up by dense, snow-cloaked forest. His eyes lift to the towering mountains—like the very world has raised its gnarled fists to keep you out. How could you cut a road through such wilds? Clouds graze the icy peaks, painting restless shadows across the furrowed slopes of rock and snow.

That’s the direction his father will come from. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow. And Will’s going to be here to greet him.

From his coat pocket he takes his sketchbook and pencil. The sketchbook is homemade from the pieces of packing paper his mother brings home from the textile factory. Will has learned to fold the pieces in a special way and slit the edges to make a booklet of sixteen pages. A few quick stitches bind them together. He peels off his threadbare glove so he can get a good grip on the pencil stub.

Across the tracks two big tents and several smaller ones are set up in an otherwise vacant lot. Amongst the tents are carts, some still loaded with luggage and crates. Horses nose the scraggly earth. Across the biggest tent is written: klack bros. circus. Several shabby men set up booths. The sound of their hammers echoes, lonely off the hills.

Will chews at his pencil for a few moments, then tentatively roughs in the scene. Next he begins to capture the texture and folds of the canvas tents, the fitful light on the foothills.

“What are you drawing?”

He looks up to see a girl about his age standing before him. Why didn’t he see her coming? She wears a drab gray dress, her straight, fair hair parted in the middle and pulled back into two braids.

“Nothing much.” He closes his sketchbook.

With dismay he watches as she steps closer. Talking to people isn’t something he’s very good at, especially strangers. Especially girls.

Beneath thick eyebrows her eyes are grayish blue and lively. When she smiles, he sees a slight gap between her front teeth. She isn’t all perfect and pretty like Theresa O’Malley, but there’s something striking about her that makes him want to keep looking. Maybe if he drew her, he could figure out what it is. But he’s better at things than people. People are very tricky.

“Can I see?” she asks.

He doesn’t like showing people his drawings. It’s something he mostly keeps hidden, especially from other boys, because they think it’s girly. This particular girl just waits patiently. Her face is awfully bright.

He shows her.

Her eyes widen. “Dang! I wish I could draw so well! Who taught you?”

“No one. Just me, I guess.”

A couple years ago he was ill, and bedridden for weeks. As a trick to distract himself, he invented a drawing game. It didn’t matter what he drew: a chair, a shirt on a peg, a shoe. He pretended his eyes were the point of his pencil against the paper. And as he moved his eyes very slowly over the outline of the object, he moved his pencil, too—without ever looking at the paper. He got so lost in it that he forgot about his burning ember eyes and aching limbs. Time disappeared. And he was often surprised at how accurate these blind contour drawings were—better than anything he could have done while looking at the paper. And when he recovered, he kept drawing, so that now he took a hand-stitched sketchbook everywhere.

Without asking, the girl takes the book from his hands and starts turning pages.

“Hey!” Will says.

“And these, too! Where’s this?” She points to a picture of a trestle bridge under construction across a deep gorge.

“The Rockies.” She seems so friendly and interested, he can’t really be angry with her.

“Do you work on the railroad?” she asks.

He laughs at the idea, though he’s pleased she thinks he’s old and strong enough. “My father does. He’s building the Canadian Pacific Railway.” He feels proud when he says it. “I draw the things he describes in his letters.”

“They’re so good, it’s like you’ve really been there.”

“No, I ain’t been anywhere really.”

He doesn’t tell her that this particular sketchbook is a present for his father. He hopes Pa will like it, as a keepsake of all his adventures on the railroad.

The girl turns a page and pauses. “Is that a sasquatch?”

He nods.

“Your father’s seen one?”

“Look at this.” From his pocket Will pulls his most prized possession: a tooth, yellow and curving to a sharp point, that his father sent back months ago. “This one’s from a big male they had to shoot.”

She examines it with great attention. “A lot of people think they’re not real. This could be a bear tooth.”

Will’s indignant. “It’s no bear tooth! They’re real. They’re awful trouble up in the mountains.”

“How long’s he been away, your pa?”

“Three years. But he’s done now. We’re here to meet him. We’re moving west.”

She follows his gaze up into the mountains and is silent for a moment.

“You live here?” he asks.
...

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Verlag
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Erscheinungsdatum
2015
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1442472898
ISBN 13 
9781442472891
Einband
Taschenbuch
Zeichner
Tierney Jim
Anzahl der Seiten
352
Kontakt zum Hersteller
webstar
casetta@mondadori.it

Via Mondadori 1,
Segrate Milano
20090
Italien

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