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    The Adventures of Emily Finfeather
    The Adventures of Emily Finfeather
    The Adventures of Emily Finfeather
    Ebook176 pages1 hour

    The Adventures of Emily Finfeather

    By E E King

    ()

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    About this ebook

    "A feather not just for the birds! A magical, humorous tale of good, evil, vengeance, and forgiveness, The Feathernail is a delight for children and adults alike!"
    --- Ray Bradbury
    The Adventures of Emily Finfeather, Book: I The Feathernail and Other Gifts, is a tale of altruism and magic for mature children and immature adults.

    Emily Finfeather is an orphan who lives with her angry and silent Grandmother in a dark, windy, old house.
    On a field trip to the zoo, Emily is locked inside the aviary by evil classmates, led by the popular, nasty Dixy Yippet. During her long, lonely night in the cage, she sets free the birds. As a reward, she is given the feathernail, a bird feather where her little fingernail once was. The feather allows her to enter people's dreams, and change them.
    Added by three magically gifted friends and a sarcastic talking cat, Emily fights real monsters, school bullies, and evil magicians in her quest to find her parents.

    Emily was written many, many years ago in the long ago time of 2005 when books were made of paper and ink. The printed version of this book has humorous, illustrated footnotes, the Kindle and audio versions don't.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherE E King
    Release dateMar 9, 2018
    ISBN9781370292189
    The Adventures of Emily Finfeather
    Author

    E E King

    E.E. King is a performer, writer, biologist and painter. Ray Bradbury calls her stories “marvelously inventive, wildly funny and deeply thought provoking. I cannot recommend them highly enough.” Her books are;" Dirk Quigby’s Guide to the Afterlife," "Real Conversations with Imaginary Friends," "The Adventures of Emily Finfeather - The Feathernail and Other Gifts" and "Another Happy Ending." She has won numerous awards and been published widely. She has worked with children in Bosnia, crocodiles in Mexico, frogs in Puerto Rico, egrets in Bali, mushrooms in Montana, archaeologists in Spain and butterflies in South Central Los Angeles.

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      Book preview

      The Adventures of Emily Finfeather - E E King

      Chapter One

      (In which some long held ideas are questioned and we meet our heroine)

      The tale I am about to relate may seem fantastical. Still, I daresay you already believe many things much more fantastical just because your parents or teachers tell you they are true, even though you can clearly see that they are not .

      For instance, I imagine you believe that the sun is much bigger than the earth, even though you can clearly see it’s just about the size of a quarter. You probably think that the Earth contains more water than land, even though everyone you know lives on land. You might even have heard that time and spaces are relative, though none of my relatives look at all like time or space. So, if you believe any of these things, I don’t think you should have a lot of trouble accepting the story of Emily Finfeather.

      Emily lives with her grandmother on the outskirts of a city, a little smaller, and a little cleaner than yours.

      It is a misty city, so foggy it often feels as though tiny wet hands are pinching you, and sometimes as Emily knows, it seems like the whole world is weeping.

      Emily is small and pale. Her face is tiny and shaped like a valentine. She has thick, often messy dark hair that curls around her shoulders and a dusting of small brown freckles running over the bridge of her nose. One of her eyes is green, encircled by tiny flecks of hazel light, the other is hazel surrounded by tiny flecks of green.

      Dixie Yippet says that this means she must be a witch. She says: Only a witch would have different colored eyes.

      Dixie Yippet has oodles of blonde curly hair, blue eyes and a nose that turns so far up, you can see right into her nasty, little mind. She also has gobs of money and far too many toys for any one person.

      Although Dixie is almost twelve, her mother dresses her in pink frilly outfits with matching accessories. All the other girls, the popular girls that is, dress just like her, or at least as much like her as they can afford to.

      Emily on the other hand never wears pink or frills. Unlike Dixie she has almost no toys at all.

      Emily is an orphan. This meant that she had lost both parents. Now one might easily misplace one parent, but to lose two one must be very careless indeed. Maybe this was why Emily’s grandmother did not seem to like her. Or maybe, just maybe, there was a much darker, more dreadful reason, which we shall discover later.

      Emily’s grandmother was incredibly old. In fact, she was so old that if time is relative, perhaps she would be that relative.

      I have heard of father time and grandfather clocks, but if a clock has a grandfather, wouldn’t it need a grandmother too?

      Emily lived with Grandmother in a skinny, dark house that stood all alone at the end of a long winding street. The house was thin, mean, and dusty just like Grandmother.

      Grandmother’s House

      The living room was so worn and uncared for the floor had turned from brown to gray. Thick dark curtains covered dirty windows. I think they might have been red once, but time and neglect had time and grayed them also. The curtains shaded a threadbare velvet couch and many small dusty tables, on which stood dozens and dozens of fine porcelain china figurines.

      The kitchen had once been a cheery yellow, but it too had lost all its color and was now just a paler shade of gray. The room was lined with narrow shelves, each holding a miniature menagerie of china beasts.

      The whole house was so old and uncared for that it creaked and groaned every time Emily opened a door or took a step. If Grandmother hadn’t been so hard of hearing, I bet the noise would have bothered her. It was like the moaning of old bones.

      The room where Emily slept was at the very top of the house. I say, the room where Emily slept, not Emily’s bedroom, because the room wasn’t really a bedroom at all, it was an attic. It was always cold and gusty, dark and windy, even on a nice day. In fact, if anyone has ever seen the wind, I bet it was in Emily’s bedroom.

      Emily’s attic had a slanting roof with one small sloping window. It was lucky that she was small, because the roof was very low. Short as she was, she could only stand up straight in the corner by the door.

      On summer days, she’d lie in bed peering into the ragged green branches of the weeping willow tree that grew outside. She’d watch the birds nesting. Sometimes she’d leave breadcrumbs for them to eat, or bits of thread for them to weave into their nests. Once she left some of her hair on the ledge. She liked imagining part of herself lining some bird’s home. She hoped her hair would keep some nestling from catching cold.

      On cold dark nights Emily would lie in bed and gaze out at the stars and wish.

      "Star light

      Star bright.

      First star I see tonight

      Wish I may

      Wish I might

      Have the wish I wish tonight…"

      Then she’d close her eyes, hold her breath and wish so hard she thought her heart would burst…

      "Please let my parents be alive. Please make my parents come home to me."

      Or sometimes … "Please let my Grandma like me."

      Or occasionally… "Please let me have a cat."

      Emily didn’t know why her Grandmother didn’t like her.

      Maybe she was angry because her daughter had died.

      Maybe she was angry because she didn’t want to raise another child.

      Or maybe she had been born angry.

      Whatever the reason, she did not seem to like having Emily, in the house at all, not one little bit.

      She wouldn’t even tell Emily how her parents had died. Whenever she had asked, Grandmother would stare at her like a hawk eyeing a mouse.

      The only thing that Emily’s Grandmother seemed to care for was her collection of porcelain figurines. She had dozens of sheep and shepherdesses, cows and cow herders, graceful Japanese ladies and grinning cupids.

      When Emily was just a tiny girl she had accidentally broken one. Grandmother had slapped her so hard Emily’s face had swollen up and turned as purple as an eggplant. Then Grandmother had locked her up in the attic for two days with no food. After that, Emily always kept a candy bar under her pillow just in case.

      Usually though, Emily’s Grandmother just ignored her. Sometimes Emily almost wished she would get angry with her, anything was better than being ignored.

      For as long as she could remember, Emily had lived alone with her Grandmother in the old gray house at the end of the lane.

      For as long as she could remember, Emily had made her own dinner and put herself to bed. For as long as she could remember, she had washed and mended her own clothes, which were old and patched.

      Surely, Emily thought, I couldn’t have always washed my own clothes? After all, a baby doesn’t wash itself does it? But try as she might, she could not remember it ever being any other way.

      Emily had to make her own dinner, put herself to bed, tuck herself in and kiss herself goodnight, which was almost impossible.

      Emily’s grandmother never went up to her attic bedroom. She never went to see Emily's school plays. She never went to family nights at school. She never gave her a birthday party, or even a present, and worst of all, she never wouldn’t let her have a pet, which made Emily the saddest of all.

      Emily loved animals, small ones, big ones, furry ones, ones with scales, ones with fins, but most of all Emily loved birds, maybe because they were so colorful, maybe because they were so beautiful and free, or maybe for another more magical reason which we shall discover later.

      One thing Emily didn’t love was school. Her teacher, Miss. Fudidudi, was very boring and very strict. She could make all kinds of subjects that ought to be fun and interesting, dull and tedious.

      Another reason Emily didn’t like school was Dixie Yippet. Dixie was, as we have mentioned before, rich, spoiled, and just plain mean. Dixie, and her gang of friends (Bebie, Patsie, and Thelma) , made Emily’s life very miserable.

      Bebie was short and looked like a Pekinese in a wig. She used so much hair gel, her curls wouldn’t move even if she was in Emily’s windy attic bedroom, and we know windy that was!

      Patsie was tall and blond with empty blue eyes. She might have been pretty if she was nice, but she was not and her meaness made her face look hard. Thelma was the plainest of the popular girls. She had mousy brown limp hair and slightly buck teeth. She always looked as if she expected someone to jump out from behind a door and grab her, and maybe she did?

      Dixie, Bebie, Patsie, Patsie, and Thelma mocked Emily’s clothes, pulled her hair and made fun of her lunch.

      At recess Dixie was always team captain and Emily was always, always picked last.

      Emily’s school, Valley View, was on top of a hill,

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