Stars at Oktober Bend , livre ebook

Old Barn Books - Glenda Millard

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

288 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Alice is fifteen, with hair as red as fire and skin as pale as bone, but something inside her is broken. She has a brain injury, the result of an assault. Manny was once a child soldier. He is sixteen and has lost all his family. When Manny first sees Alice, she is sitting on the rusty roof of her river house, looking like a carving on an old-fashioned ship, sailing through the stars. He has a poem in his pocket and he knows the words by heart. And he is sure that girl has written them. When Manny and Alice meet they find the beginnings of love and healing.

Sujets

Children's

Informations

Publié par	Old Barn Books
Date de parution	03 mai 2016
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9781910646175
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	65 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

‘An absolute tour de force! So beautifully written and an unforgettable narrative “voice” this is deﬁnitely one of the outstanding reads of the year so far’ - Joy Court, School Librarian ‘It is incredibly powerful, haunting, spirited, joyous.Like all of Millard’s work, it is a story that makes you feel. Don’t let it pass you by.’ - Melanie McGilloway, Library Mice blog at www.librarymice.com urgent r - Zoe Toft, www

PRAISE FOR ‘The Stars at Oktober Bend is one of those all-too rare books, that reaches both hearts and minds, illuminating not just how we feel and who we are, but also shining light onto a pathway to how our lives can be lead. Truly extraordinary…’ Jake Hope, Book Consultant ‘Surprising, lyrical and beautiful, this book speaks of hope in the darkest of times, and of love in its many forms. The voices of Alice and Manny are distinctive and memorable, and their resilience will stay with me…’ Liz Flanagan, author of Eden Summer.‘Beautifully told through the eyes and words of the two protagonists, damaged emotionally and physically, I was willing Alice and Manny to ﬁnd a way to happiness through the small town bigotry of Oktober Bend. The writing is quirky, poetic and haunting. Surrounded by rising ﬂoodwaters, the ending had me on the edge of my seat. I am so glad Old Barn Books are publishingglenda Millard in the UK.’ Sarah Stufﬁns, Treasurer, Federation of Children’s Book Groups ‘It was absolutely luminous; I couldn’t stop reading it and when I ﬁnally forced myself to put it down I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Alice and Manny are so beautifully drawn, and their and he may run – but together they ﬂy.’ Maggie Harcourt, author of The Last Summer of Us and Unconventional.

First published in Australia and New Zealand in 2016 by Allen Unwin First published in the U.K. in 2016 by Old Barn Books Ltd This updated edition published in 2017 www.oldbarnbooks.com Copyright Glenda Millard 2016 All rights reserved ISBN 978 1 910646 15 1 Ebook ISBN 978 1 910646 17 5 Cover and text design by Ruth Grüner Title lettering by Joe Simmonds

FOR MUM G.M.

contents 1 about forsaking and not 2 plans a b and the bee-wing book 3 3 feathers for old charlie 4 alice’s book of flying 11 5 communication strategies 6 house of silence 16 7 kith and kin 20 14 8 on birthday number fifteen 25 9 Runaway 27 10 The First Poem 30 11 lamentation – an utterance of grief 12 the comeuppance of jack faulkner 13 dove amongst the pie-wrappers 50 14 ballerina on a bicycle 34 38 46 15 french knots and falling down 55

16 bargaining with the god of flying things 60 17 Finding that Girl who made Snow on the Roof 65 18 speaking to the dead 70 19 the legend of teddy english 74 82 24 lettinggo 20 down to the river 79 21 The Boy Who Loved Dares 22 Tilda and the Tarpit 87 23 Twelve Thoughts 91 95 25 Keeping Tilda Safe 26 between the cracks 27 The Sound of Anon 28 things i wrote 111 29 things i did not 112 30 old charlie’s table 114 31 A Fisherman’s Table 120 32 my grandmother’s chest 33 a question of colour 99 101 108 123 127 34 in a field of significant weeds 130 35 anthem 134 36 heroes and villains 138

37 Shame 141 38 troubled 147 39 forgotten thing 152 40 still alice, still 159 41 Running to Alice 164 42 a decent thing to be 166 43 river sonnet 174 44 letting manny in 181 45 Two Heads One Heart 191 195 46 july the game 47 200 48 A Little Reminder 49 mountain climbing 223 208 215 50 precious 51 in which manny has come to warn me and joey 227 52 the o’leary question 232 53 the traffic on tullamarine freeway 240 54 Sailing Away 246 55 submarines and sirens 56 shipwrecked 252 love letters to gram 258 after words 265 57 250

A L I C E about forsaking and not i am the girl manny loves. the girl who writes our story in the book of ﬂying. i am alice.they sewed me up when i was twelve. mended my broken head with ﬁshbone stitches. tucked my frayed edges in. tucked everything in. things meant to be and things not. do it quick. stem the ﬂow. stop life leaking out of alice. that’s all that they wanted. so gram said.broken alice. and forsaken. there was always forsaking in our family. ﬁrst our father. then our mother, april – and after the stitching, our papa, old charlie, went too. only gram – grandma glorious – and joey stayed. brother joey, who said that love was at the bottom of all that forsaking. wrong love.love that hurt. he was ten when he said it. but older, much older. promised he’d never forsake me. and i believed him.joey would have bled us both. nicked our ﬁnger-skins with old charlie’s pocket-knife. smudged our blood together like we used to when we were little. when we made promises we thought we could keep. but joey couldn’t cut

me when i was number twelve. not even a little bit. not after what happened. he didn’t have the guts to. instead he took tools from the shed. chisel, rasp and hammer. sharp he ﬁled the chisel’s blade. sharp enough to slit a lamb’s throat. for weeks of afternoons he disappeared. chipped and chiselled in secret. showed me what he’d done when it was ﬁnished.wrote his promise for all the world to see. scraped it on the red gum that held up the bridge down on oktober bend.joey and alice forever between him and me he’d scratched a crooked heart.then came bear and it was like the beginning of something new. no one ever came before. dear bear, constant com panion, maremma, shepherd dog. strong, swift, silent bear.teeth and hearing sharp. wiring perfect. could have torn a man’s throat out in seconds. would have. for me.

2 A L I C E plans a b and the bee-wing book him when i was mended. but there was too much noise and my electrics went haywire. there was no plan b. so i went home. was sent home. stayed home.i remembered words, struggled to speak them. forgot how to arrange them. how to join them on a page. to begin with i wrote short things. lists and notes to self. some lines ﬁnished with a word that reminded me of what i wanted to say next.school is loud too many people joey brings me books teaches me things looks after me.before manny came, before i saw his face or knew his name, before i touched his skin, i spent my days indoors. then bear

beguiled me. waved her feathered tail and smiled and led me down sunlit paths. through our paradise garden. i tried to write about the things i saw. simple things.ghost dog sage spears rosemary blue and new-minted green leaves then gram thought of plan b. joey took me to the bus and i went to day centre. for two weeks i went. it was like school but worse and i came home. again.we had books at home. quiet books that did not short circuit my electricals. our dictionary lived on the mantel piece. squeezed between the chimney bricks and canisters, tea-leaves, rice and sugar. gram’s bible hid in her under wear drawer, holy pages thin as bee-wings. joey said the little-lettered stories on them were only make-believe. like make-believe didn’t count. but i loved gram’s holy book for its gold-edged pages, strange words and mysteries. when joey forgot to bring proper books home from the library, i read the dictionary. or sometimes stole gram’s bible from its tangled nest of petticoats and underpants. sneaked under the house with it and read aloud to bear.once-upon-a-time there were two kings. one called david, the other solomon. the kings wrote poems. they were

poet kings and the poems they wrote were called psalms.their poems were recorded on the bee-wing pages. i used them to remind me of how to arrange my own words together. the poet kings wrote of wars and sheep and goats, lovers with nice teeth and red cheeks and someone called the lord. i wrote mostly about joey and bear. strange, old joey leads me beside the river lets* me lie down in green paddocks and brings library books home for me.though i walk through charlotte’s pass i will fear no evil for bear is with me papa’s gun is in the wash-house to protect me.joey and bear will stay beside me and we will live at oktober bend forever.‘lets’. but some words happen my heart to thunder in my chest. my electrics to hiss and ﬁzz like wetted sherbet in my head. ‘makes’ is one of them. ‘makes’ and ‘make’ and ‘made’. they remind me of when someone forces you to do something. in green paddocks or under the stars at oktober bend. or anywhere else. ‘lets’ gives you a choice.

3 A L I C E feathers for old charlie joey’s skinned knuckles gnarled over. his hammered ﬁnger nails purpled and peeled. new ones grew pale as scalded almonds. other sores didn’t heal. joey wouldn’t let them.picked at the scabs. kept them raw so he wouldn’t forget.scars to remind him like the message on the bridge.my scars hid under hair grown long and curly as old mattress springs. strangers looked at my wild red locks and weed-green eyes. stared at my colours and curves.didn’t know about invisible stitches or crazy circuits. didn’t understand that my slow, unjoined speech began as perfect thoughts. hadn’t heard of the curse cast upon me. the spell of twelveness.only nearest and dearest knew that. it was family business. like the calm pills that snuffed out joy and sad ness equally. balanced moods. made life ﬂat. gram and joey saw the sideways shift of stranger’s eyes when i spoke.watched blood rush to their cheeks when they ﬁgured out

i was not what they expected. i didn’t care what strangers thought. but i cared about gram and joey. so me and bear stayed mostly home.when i grew braver, bear walked me to the river. under the swing bridge at charlotte’s pass we went. out over the small bald hills through the black ironbark forest to places only me and bear, joey and old charlie knew about.there i gathered the wild ﬂowers bright billy buttons bread and butter bush and creeping purple sarsaparilla arranged them into jam jar posies for the sill above the sink.but mostly i took