Mister Max: The Book of Lost Things: Mister Max 1 by Cynthia Voigt & Iacopo Bruno

Author:Cynthia Voigt & Iacopo Bruno
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Arts, Mysteries & Detectives, Music & Photography, Children's Books, Social Skills & School Life, Growing Up & Facts of Life, Performing Arts, Drama & Theater, Friendship, Children's eBooks
ISBN: 0307976815
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Published: 2013-09-10T00:00:00+00:00

Max might have had his own plan, but that evening, standing at the stove, her back turned to her two guests so they couldn’t see her face, Grammie announced, “I had disturbing news today. And a very odd visitor. At the library.” She turned around then and came to sit at the table. Looking at Max, she said, “I think we ought to tell him. If he’s going to live in your house, I think we have to.”

Max stood up. He walked to the kitchen door and looked out. Now he was the one with his back turned, concealing his face.

“Tell me what?” Ari asked. “What’s wrong? What news?”

“Tell you about …,” Grammie began. “About the … the situation. My daughter and her husband … They’re actors, the Starling Theatrical Company.”

“The Starling … Your daughter? They’re Max’s parents? Which explains the posters,” Ari said.

Max went to the stove and pretended that the dinner needed his attention. He picked up a long-handled wooden spoon and stirred at a pot of boiling noodles. Behind him, Grammie told Ari about the letter from a nonexistent Maharajah, the strange note left for Max when they sailed without him, the possibility that the unpleasant Madame Olenka was somehow connected, and how she and Max had decided that they had to wait, for a few weeks at least, to see if they heard anything from William and Mary Starling. “When you don’t know anything, it’s often better to stay still, stay put, and find out what you can,” she explained.

Max took down three dinner plates.

Ari protested, “But anything could be—” and fell abruptly silent. It was as if his thoughts were so dark and unpleasant that he didn’t want Grammie and Max to even know he was thinking them.

Max carried the noodle pot over to the sink and drained it, listening.

“I never guessed,” Ari said to him. “I never even thought of anything like this. How old are you, Max?”

“Old enough,” Max answered, and quickly returned to the stove, carrying the colander of noodles.

Ari looked from one to the other of them. “You must—both of you … You must feel …” He couldn’t find the word. Max didn’t want to hear the word, whatever it might have been. “No wonder you look so tired, Mrs. Nives.”

“We do,” Grammie assured their friend. “I am. Max?”

Max was serving noodles onto the plates and didn’t turn around, but Grammie knew he was listening.

“I heard from Cape Town,” she said. “I cabled city librarians around the world about the ships,” she explained to Ari, “and today I got my first answer. Storms at sea have delayed shipping and the Miss Koala is two days overdue. They assume she was driven off course, and he’ll cable me when …” Her words faded off. Shipwreck was always a possibility, even with the larger, safer, steam-powered ocean liners.

Max spooned the goulash over the noodles and set the three plates on the table, along with a bowl of buttered brussels sprouts. All three ate

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