MICE - Hardcover

Reece, Gordon

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0230755984 ISBN 13: 9780230755987

Publisher: Macmillan

Synopsis

Shelley und ihre Mutter waren zu lange einfach zu nett. Klassische Opfer, die sich nach massivem Mobbing wie Mäuse fühlen. Sie verkriechen sich in einem abgelegenen Haus auf dem Land, um ihre Probleme hinter sich zu lassen. Sie sind glücklich in ihrer kleinen Welt mit Büchern, Musik und häuslichen Ritualen. Doch eines Nachts werden sie in ihrem neu gefundenen Frieden Ein Mann dringt in ihr Haus ein. Und bei Shelley reißt der Faden. Was dann passiert, zerstört alle Gewissheiten.

About this title

About the Author

Originally from the United Kingdom, Gordon Reece studied English literature at Keble College, Oxford, before emigrating to Spain and then Australia, where he has lived since 2005. In the UK and Spain, he has published several illustrated children’s books and graphic novels. Mice is his American debut and first novel.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

My eyes snapped open and I was instantly wide awake. Even though I’d been sunk in the depths of a deep, deep sleep, the unmistakable pig squeal of the fourth stair had reached that part of the brain that never sleeps. I had no doubt what I’d heard, and I had no doubt what it meant: someone was in the house.

The fluorescent display of the alarm clock on my bedside table said 3:33.

I could feel my heart throbbing in my chest like something with a life of its own, like a rabbit writhing and twisting in a snare that grew tighter the more it struggled. I strained to hear above the booming roar in my temples. My ears probed outside my bedroom door—the landing, the staircase—like invisible guard dogs, constantly sending back information: silence, silence, silence, there’s only silence, we can find nothing. Could I have been mistaken? But I knew I wasn’t. I’d heard the fourth stair scream under a person’s weight.

Sure enough, after what seemed like an eternity of waiting there came the groan of another stair, a higher stair: someone was in the house.

I was paralysed with fear. Since my eyes had opened I hadn’t moved a muscle. It was as if a primitive instinct—to keep absolutely still and not make a sound until the danger had passed—had taken control of me. Even my breathing had become so slow, so shallow that it made no sound, and didn’t move the quilt the tiniest fraction. I thought about the rounders bat I kept under the bed “in case of burglars”, but I was powerless to reach down to grasp it. Something stronger held me frozen and immobile. Keep still, it ordered, don’t make a sound until the danger’s passed.

Edition details

• Publisher: Macmillan
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0230755984
• ISBN 13: 9780230755987
• Binding: Hardcover