Kids into books - The Fat Man

This week's title: The Fat Man

Author: Maurice Gee

Publisher: Penguin Books, $15.95

Illustrator: Chris Mousdale

Age Group: 11+ years


When he went into her place after school along the old verandah where the beer names still glowed on the windows, although Loomis was a dry town now, and down the hall past the staircase and the empty rooms to the kitchen at the back she might give him a biscuit or a piece of cake. She might send him to the baker's for the bread and slice him off the kiss-crust when he got back.

Colin decided to call on her even though it was school holidays.

He started by way of Flynn's orchard, where the Gravensteins were still not ripe, and the swamp and creek, but he never got there because he stole a bar of chocolate on the way and Herbert Muskie, who owned it, trapped him and forced him to be an accomplice in his crimes.

Herbert Muskie was a burglar, among other things. Ah, those other things to hear Muskie talk, he had been everywhere and tried everything. But leave him for the moment, we'll get to Herbert Muskie before long.

Colin ran through the orchard, keeping an eye peeled for old Flynn with his shotgun, and climbed the fence at the back and ploughed knee-deep through the swamp, round the rushy islands and drowned willows.