Kids into books: Under the Mountain

This weeks title: Under the Mountain

Author: Maurice Gee

Illustrator: v8

Publisher: Puffin, $12.95

Age Group: 8-13 years


'You will know who I am one day. Ten years. Maybe sooner. I will call you when you have to do your task.'

They did not understand. They smiled at him.

'I'm hungry,' Rachel said.

'Yes, yes, of course. I'll send someone. Now go to sleep. And remember me.'

Obediently, they lay back in the ferns and closed their eyes. They slept.

The man watched them for a moment longer. He touched them again on the brow. 'Poor things. Poor chosen ones. You must be brave.' He stood up, bowed his head; and vanished.

A moment later one of the farmers searching along a stream bed noticed his dog stop dead, as though it had walked into an invisible wall. It turned at right angles, quivered, gave an odd yelp. Then it dashed away up the hill. 'Come back,' the farmer yelled, 'I'll take your hide off.' He thought the dog must have scented a pig. He ploughed up the hill after it, falling behind. then he heard excited barking. 'He's baled something up.' Two other men joined him. But it was not a pig. The dog had stopped beside a patch of fern. In that wet frozen bush it was oddly dry. They peered into it. And there, sleeping, warm and safe, their hands still clasped together, were the red-headed twins, Rachel and Theo Matheson.

Continued on P12 of Under the Mountain