Blat Magic: Part 6

By MICHAEL STEPHENS, Illustrator MICHAEL BUCHANAN

The window was open a hand's-breadth, and the shutters were pinned back. Unlike most of the blats who for centuries had made their homes in Deep Forest, Cliffkin relished storms. If a puddle of rain water gathered on his windowsill, and even if it overflowed to his floor, that was a small price to pay for the luxury of what he called 'cosying up', which meant lying warm and safe in bed while listening to the blast of a storm's music.

Because of this habit, Cliffkin was the only blat in the whole of Deep Forest to hear the wolves. As he sat up, he used his fingers to comb away the reddish hair, streaked with grey, that fell over his eyes and either side of his long, blat nose.

'Wolves...?' he wondered. Wolves only made noises like that when they were hunting, or fighting one another, and what rabbit or vole, what creature of any sort, let alone an invading army of wolves, would be out in a storm like this?

Publisher: HarperCollins

Price: $16.95

Age group: 9-12 years