Feather Boy

Feather Boy
Nicky Singer

Robert Nobel, the school pariah, triumphs over his own fears and the school bully, in this extraordinary tale of self-empowerment, legend and death.Robert is a boy who can do anything – or so old Edith Sorrel at the nursing home tells him. Robert doesn’t think so, knowing as he does that he is the school geek.But something compels him to do what Edith asks – to visit old Chance House, where a boy once fell to his death from the top floor flat, to confront his fears and find some answers.Niker the bully thinks this is a great laugh. He challenges Robert to spend the night at Chance House with him – but there the balance of power changes, and it is Robert who proves to be the stronger.Niker feels threatened by the change – and when he finds out Robert’s secret obsession, to make the dying Edith Sorrel a coat of feathers like in the old legend of the Firebird, he knows just how to wrest his old power back. But just how important is the coat of feathers? Could it really save Edith’s life?

Feather Boy

NICKY SINGER

Dedication (#ulink_6f0f1614-f7d2-56f8-b5cf-7734b824b114)

For Roland

– inspiration, accomplice, son

– with my love

Contents

Cover (#u2608f7bd-f038-51e9-b013-3f653a20a3c4)

Title Page (#u373bb1ed-142a-508d-8fb3-9f681ef3dcff)

Dedication (#u39dcd919-7654-5775-9674-c032e135b0ba)

Why You’ll Love This Book (#u3e53b5a0-c1fc-59ea-8561-47945043859d)

Part One: Chance House (#u1b7e1575-4cf7-5f7f-8577-5c7f54b0292c)

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3 (#u9034d58a-fa6a-563a-bdf4-d74b38d7b471)

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9 (#litres_trial_promo)

10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Part Two: The Coat of Feathers (#litres_trial_promo)

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Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Praise (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Why You’ll Love This Book (#ulink_bc89155b-72f3-5386-82e0-e2b412884c69)

Why You’ll Love This BookBy David Almond

Like all the best books, Feather Boy can’t be pinned down. You have to read it, to be caught in its spell as thousands of readers have been before.

What’s it about? Robert Nobel is the class squit. He’s trying to deal with Niker, a scary and complex bully. He’s lamenting his departed father and falling in love with Kate. Then Edith, a stern and secretive old woman, picks him out from the crowd, tells him he’s the sort of boy who can fly, and sends him on a perilous quest that will change his whole life.

The story’s set in a very realistic and believable world, and it’s wonderfully fluent and readable and engrossing, but it often feels very strange indeed. It’s about secrets, the search for truth, the dangerous places that exist in the world and in the human heart.

It leads us into the dark and scary Chance House, through the sinister Dog Leg, into a feather-strewn graveyard. It contains one of the most weird and beautiful articles of clothing you’ll ever read about.

It is beautifully written: concise, rhythmical, dramatic, with hardly a wasted word. It’s a book that engages the mind and touches the heart. Read on.

David Almond

David Almond is the author of Skellig, The Savage, Jackdaw Summer, and many other novels, stories and plays. His awards include The Carnegie Medal, two Whitbreads and the Michael L Printz Award.

part one Chance House (#ulink_17588c88-f310-59f3-8ed4-1de314a1b6b7)

1 (#ulink_9e655a6c-21d1-5d93-8639-2715e35ec5c6)

It all began when Catherine came to talk about the Elders’ Project. Of course that’s not what Catherine would say. She’d say it began in a time that is yesterday and tomorrow and eternally present. But then Catherine’s a storyteller. I’m not a storyteller. I’m just the guy it happened to.