The House with a Clock in Its Walls (Lewis Barnavelt, #1)

by John Bellairs

The frightened couple would not talk to Jonathan over the phone, and they seemed to blame him for whatever had made them leave.

saw a small moving van pull up in front of the empty Hanchett house. The big black letters on the side of the van said: TERMINUS MOVERS INC.

At least its not breakin and hope lol

he knew the driver. It was Hammerhandle.

Who dafuq is that

He was wearing his bathrobe, which was made in the shape of the robes professors wear at graduation ceremonies,

I do not care

It was a damp embrace, but it felt good to Lewis.

Ok we have him hugging thec kid whilec wearinjg onloy a bathrobe

He stood up, knotted his bathrobe tighter about him,

A loose bathrobe

That evening at supper, Lewis asked Jonathan why Hammerhandle had acted so mean. Jonathan threw down his fork and said angrily, “Because he’s mean, that’s why! Do you have to have explanations?

Dude

Lewis saw the gray aquarium-glow of one of those new television sets.

“I just wanted to know,” said Lewis shyly. Once again, he wondered what his uncle was angry about.

Lol no shit

“So you just wanted to know, eh? Well, Lewis, there are some things it would be better for you not to know. So if you’ll take my advice, you’ll just stop poking around where you’re not wanted.

Huh. Like you can just tell the kid Directly to stop askoing about the house

and I just didn’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

So uhhh tell him what to avoid?

“Don’t go over there,” he said

Ok fair

He had never seen his uncle acting like this. And he wondered, more than ever, about the new neighbor across the street.

Lolllll

There were strange lights playing over the blank windows and the rough sandstone walls. They wouldn’t have been strange lights at midday in the summer, but on a December night they were eerie. For they were leaf-lights, the shifting circles and crescents cast by sunlight falling through leaves.

There was a big tree in the study and the glass balls on it were magic. Sometimes they reflected the room, and sometimes they showed you ancient ruins on unknown planets.

Yeah id fuck with that

But it was not until he was a grown-up man, working as an astronomer at Mount Palomar,

Lol bgues he survives this book?

Jonathan did a lot of other things that Christmas.

Is he the mc now???

Somehow the mirror managed to pick up radio station WGN on its bevelled edges, so that when Lewis went out the door in the morning, he heard the Dow-Jones averages and livestock reports.

Lol

Walking from room to room, even in broad daylight, Lewis forgot what day it was, what he was after, and at times almost forgot who he was.

Hammerhandle had been carrying packages, odd little bundles wrapped in brown paper and twine. And both times they had collided because Hammerhandle kept looking behind him.

Lww?

Lewis pulled away from him, but he didn’t run. He faced Hammerhandle down.

Huh where did this come from

you rotten old bum.

Getting some classism in

Don’t you read your Bible like a good boy?

Religion

It was one of the few pieces of furniture that was left from the time Isaac Izard had lived in the house.

but he couldn’t see a thing in there. Darn it, he had forgotten to bring a flashlight! He reached in and felt around.

No genre savvy

Hadn’t Mrs. Zimmermann said that she had seen old Isaac taking notes on the sky?

Maybe?

Doomsday not come yet! I’ll draw it nearer by a perspective, or make a CLOCK that shall set all the world on fire upon an instant.

He was not scared any more. He was angry. Very angry.

Okk

This beautiful world. End it. Why?”

Lol of course!

I’d say the answer was scientific curiosity. Think of all that’s been written about the Last Day: graves opening, bodies rising up fresh and new. Some think there will be a whole new earth, much better than the present one. Wouldn’t you like to see it?

Usually once people get into sciemce they tend tp take a whole bunch of bible stories a lot less literally but thats just my opinion

Isaac and Selenna Izard didn’t enjoy this world very much. Why shouldn’t they try for the next one?”

Blinks. Evidence?

“I have to hand it to you. You were dead right. There is a real, literal clock in these walls.

Lol why is that such an impressive guess

“But there’s one thing I’d like to know,” she said, turning suddenly to Jonathan. “Why did he need a clock to bring about the End of the World?”

Plz exposit to me kind sir

Lewis gasped and put his hand over his mouth. Then it was going to be the end of the world, after all!

Lewis. Please try to keep up

That was what he was after. A mask of doom. A sky that would be right for his incantations.

he did miss his opportunity. That’s why he had to build the clock. To bring the time back.

How do you know this clock can do that

Didn’t you read that passage?”

As u know bob

‘She,’ of course, is our friend across the street.”

Lol a ghost just moving in across the streets with help from breakin and hope is somehow so much more terrifyinh than a ghost trying to end the world

But tell me one thing more, oh, sage, since it seems that you have been cast in the role of explicator and annotator of the testament of Isaac Izard.”

Z u are doing my job

Maybe he fixed it so the ticking sound would scare away anyone who might be foolish enough to come and live in this house. Isaac didn’t want his clock found by accident and destroyed, after all.

Lol so wtf wpuld he want anyone to hear it and notice it

He had to get hold of Tarby. Tarby would know what to do.

Blinks

She must have put it in my head. Then, behind those iron doors, she was never really dead. .

Lol doesnt follow

It was a bright, windy April day,

Oh wow way much time pased

She gave him a pleading look. “Please don’t tell Tarby any more stories about ghosts and graveyards. He had nightmares for a week after last Halloween.

Lewis had a hard time keeping from laughing right out loud.

What an absolute dick

The batter swung so hard that he fell down.

Ok carton logic

“Not now, Fatty. I’m in the middle of a game.” Tears filled Lewis’s eyes. Tarby had never called him “fatty” before. At least he couldn’t remember him doing it.

I do not care

At night the fountain was lit up and it turned from red to orange and from orange to yellow and from yellow to blue and from blue to green and back to red again.

The order is wrong idiot

All he could hear in his head was the old church hymn that ran

Religion!

It occurred to him that Jonathan was being very modest when he called himself a parlor magician.

Gotta get in some final fanboying