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

by John Bellairs

Doughnut-shaped Arabian coins with Boy Scout knots all over them; a heap of dark-brown copper coins, all of which were stamped with the picture of a bald man who wore a handlebar moustache. There were big heavy English pennies that showed Queen Victoria in various states of chinniness, and there were tiny silver coins no thicker than your fingernail. There was an egg-shaped Mexican silver dollar and a genuine Roman coin, covered with green rust. But most of all, in shiny golden stacks, were brass coins with Bon Pour Un Franc printed on them. Lewis liked the phrase, and since he didn’t know any French, it got twisted around in his mind till it came out Bon Sour One Frank.

The last clock to strike was the grandfather clock in the study. It made a noise like a steamer trunk full of tin plates falling slowly and solemnly down a flight of stairs.

It might have been the way the sun caught her spectacles, but I remember two freezing circles of gray light burning into me. I turned away and closed my eyes, but those two cold spots stayed there. I had nightmares for a week after that.”

The grass glowed a phosphorescent green, and red worms wriggled through the tall blades with a hushing sound.

He heard the noise that earthworms make as they slowly inch along, breaking hard black clods with their blunt heads. He heard the secret inwound conversations of bulbs and roots, and the breathing of flowers.

So was the large surrealistic painting of a dragon that hung in her living room. It had been done for her specially by the French painter Odilon Redon.

“Ooh-waah!” he screamed. “Greenwich Mean Time! Very mean time! I want to go home now!”

They drove past barns with big blue signs on their sides that said: CHEW MAIL POUCH.