The Girl in the Locked Room: A Ghost Story by Mary Downing Hahn (English) Paperb

Description: The Girl in the Locked Room by Mary Downing Hahn A family moves into an old, abandoned house. Juless parents love the house, but Jules is frightened and feels a sense of foreboding. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description A family moves into an old, abandoned house. Juless parents love the house, but Jules is frightened and feels a sense of foreboding. When she sees a pale face in an upstairs window, though, she cant stop wondering about the eerie presence on the top floor - in a room with a locked door. Could it be someone who lived in the house a century earlier? Her fear replaced by fascination, Jules is determined to make contact with the mysterious figure and help unlock the door. Past and present intersect as she and her ghostly friend discover - and change - the fate of the family who lived in the house all those many years ago. AGES: 10 to 12 AUTHOR: Mary Downing Hahn, a former childrens librarian, is the award-winning author of many popular ghost stories. An avid reader, traveler and all-around arts lover. Author Biography Mary Downing Hahns many acclaimed novels include such beloved ghost stories as Wait Till Helen Comes, Deep and Dark and Dangerous, and Took. A former librarian, she has received more than fifty child-voted state awards for her work. She lives in Columbia, Maryland, with a cat named Nixi. Review "An enthralling ghostly tale." — School Library Journal"This gentle paranormal mystery is perfect for young readers." — Booklist"Hahns mystery offers an atmospheric setting, a child ghost, and eerie circumstances." — Publishers Weekly Review Quote "An enthralling ghostly tale."-- School Library Journal "This gentle paranormal mystery is perfect for young readers."-- Booklist " Hahns mystery offers an atmospheric setting, a child ghost, and eerie circumstances."-- Publishers Weekly Excerpt from Book 1 The Girl The girl is alone in the locked room. At first, she writes the day of the week, the month, and the year on a wall. She means to keep a record of her time in the room, but after a while she begins skipping a day or several days. Soon, days, months, and years become a meaningless jumble. She forgets her birthday. And then her name. But what does it matter? No one comes to visit, no one asks her name, no one asks how old she is. At first, the room seems large, but soon it shrinks--or seems to. It becomes a prison. The key disappeared long ago. No matter--shes afraid to leave. Theyre waiting for her to open the door. She feels their presence, faint in the daytime but solid and loud at night. Their boots storm up the steps. They hammer on the door. They yell for her to come out. But how can she? The door is locked from the outside. Even if she wanted to, she could not obey their commands. She huddles in the shadows, her eyes closed, her fingers in her ears, and waits for them to leave. The trouble is, they always come back. Not every night, but often enough that she always waits to hear their horses gallop toward the house, to hear their boots on the stairs, to hear their fists on her door. She used to know who they were and why they came, but now she knows only that they are bad men who will hurt her if they find her. They say they wont, but she doesnt believe them. So she huddles in the wardrobe, under a pile of old dresses, and doesnt move until she hears their horses gallop away. Every morning, the girl looks at a date written on the wall--June 1, 1889. She doesnt remember why she wrote the date or what happened that day. Indeed, she isnt even sure she wrote it. Maybe someone else, some other girl, was here once. Maybe that girl wrote the date. Someone, perhaps that other girl, certainly not herself, drew pictures on the wall. They tell a story, a terrible story. The story frightens her. It makes her cry sometimes. In a strange way, she knows the story is true, the story is about her. Not the girl she is now, but perhaps the girl she used to be before they locked her in this room. But who was that girl? A girl should remember her own name, if nothing else. Why is her brain so fuzzy? Near the end of the picture story, men on horses gallop to the house. They must be the ones who come to her door at night. Did they draw the pictures to scare her? There are other paintings in the room, real paintings, beautiful paintings. A few hang on the walls, but most lean against the wall. The same people are in most of them. A pretty woman, a little girl with yellow hair, a bearded man--a family. She pretends shes the little girl. The woman is her mother. The man is her father. She must have had a mother and a father once. Doesnt everyone? She talks to them, and she talks for them. They have long, made-up conversations that she never remembers for more than a day. If only she could bring them to life. They look so real. Why cant they step out of the paintings and keep her company? * * * Years pass. The girl stops looking at the drawings on the wall. She wearies of the people in the paintings. What good are they to her? Theyre just faces on canvas. Flat. They cannot see her or hear her. They cannot talk to her. They cannot help her. They are useless. She turns their faces to the wall. She forgets they are there. * * * Seasons follow each other round and round like clockwork figures. Leaves fall, snow falls, rain falls. Flowers bloom, flowers wilt, flowers die. Snow falls again. And again. And again. Birds nest under the eaves and sometimes find their way into the room. Trees grow taller. Their branches spread. Young trees surround the house. They push against its walls. In the summer, their leaves press against the only window and block the sunlight. The room is a dim green cave. Brambles and vines climb the stone walls. Their roots burrow into cracks and crevices, and they cling tight. Tendrils manage to find their way inside. Every year, their leaves fall on the floor of her room. Gradually the house blends into the woods, and people forget its there. The girl stays in the locked room and waits. She no longer knows who or what she is waiting for. Something, someone . . . She is lonelier than you can imagine. 2 The Girl One morning, the girl hears loud noises from somewhere outside. It sounds as if an army has invaded the woods, bent on attacking and destroying everything in its path. Confused and frightened, the girl hides in her nest. Buried completely under the rags of dresses, she hears sounds she cant identify, louder even than thunder. They come closer. The trees surrounding the house crash to the ground. Sunlight pours through the window. She squints and shields her eyes with her hand. Outside, near the house, men shout. Who are they? Where have they come from? Why are they here? Have they come for her? She smells smoke. They must be burning something. Suppose the fire spreads to the house? She trembles. Shell have no place to hide. Men enter the house. They tramp about downstairs. They speak in loud voices. They come to the second floor and then the third. Their footsteps stop at her door. The doorknob turns, but without the key, the men cant come in. The girl burrows deeper into the rags. She doesnt think theyre the ones who come on horseback at night. They dont pound on the door or shout at her, but she doesnt want them to know shes here--just in case. So she remains absolutely still. Just outside her door, she hears a man say, "This is the only room in the house thats locked. Should we bust it open and take a look?" The girl cringes in her hiding place. Shes sure the men will find her. "Nah," says another. "Nothing in there but trash and broken stuff." The men shuffle past the door and go downstairs, laughing about something as they go. When shes sure they wont come back, she tiptoes to the window and looks out. A huge yellow machine with long, jointed arms lifts and lowers, lifts and lowers, scooping up things from one place and dumping them somewhere else. Its jaws have sharp teeth. Not far from the yellow machine are red machines with scrapers attached to their fronts. They push mounds of grassy earth into piles of red clay. Other machines have rollers that flatten everything, even hills. Shes never seen anything like these contraptions. Theyre bigger than steam locomotives and much scarier. Trains stay on tracks; they cant hurt you if you stay off the tracks. But these machines can go anywhere. Nothing is safe from them. While they work, the machines roar and snort and make beeping sounds. They puff clouds of smoke into the air. The girl covers her ears, but she can still hear the noise they make. A flash of movement catches her eye. A rabbit runs across the muddy ground. She holds her breath and prays the machines wont kill him. He disappears behind a pile of tree stumps, and she lets out her breath in a long sigh. But where will the rabbit live? The fields have been destroyed, the woods chopped down. The men and their machines are everywhere. She wishes she could go outside and bring the rabbit to her room. * * * Day after day, the girl watches the wreckage spread. The men and their machines cut down more trees and destroy barns and sheds. They haul furniture from the house. Sofas and chairs, their velvet upholstery stained, faded, and torn. Stuffing hangs out of holes. She sees a bed missing a leg, a bureau without drawers, a large broken mirror, fancy tables with cracked marble tops. Did she once sit on that sofa, curl up in those chairs, sleep in that bed, look at herself in that mirror? Now everything is ruined. Its of no use to her or anyone else. The men pile up the broken furniture and set fire to it. The smoke drifts up to her window and stings her eyes. She feels as if shes watching her life turn to ashes along with the sofas and chairs. The men dont stop with the furniture. They burn tree stumps, carts, wagons, fences, and stacks of boards. The fire smolders for days. After dark, the embers glow and the night wind teases flic Details ISBN035809755X Author Mary Downing Hahn Pages 208 Year 2019 ISBN-10 035809755X ISBN-13 9780358097556 Format Paperback Place of Publication Boston Country of Publication United States DEWEY FIC Audience Age 10-12 Subtitle A Ghost Story DOI 9780358097556 Short Title The Girl in the Locked Room Language English Publication Date 2019-09-09 AU Release Date 2019-09-09 NZ Release Date 2019-09-09 US Release Date 2019-09-09 UK Release Date 2019-09-09 Publisher HarperCollins Publishers Inc Imprint Clarion Books Audience Children / Juvenile Imprint US Clarion Books Publisher US HarperCollins We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:125297373;

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