The Dark Blue 100 Ride Bus Ticket by Margaret Mahy

Carlo and his mother don't have much money. They really cannot afford extra things in the supermarket. Arriving in the car park Carlo sees a lady with a trolley full of shopping. Her name, he discovers,  is Mrs Christmas and she looks a little like a Christmas tree.

She was an "old woman in her dark green skirt, her dark green jerseys and her red velvet jacket. Not only that her hair was dyed dark blue, and she wore a golden star in the front, which glittered beautifully, even though it was tilted sideways."

Carlo moves close to Mrs Christmas. He is curious to discover if she smells like pine needles but he gets a little too close and the pair of them trip and her shopping trolley falls over. The eggs are broken but Jessica immediately offers to pay for new ones. Carlo is shocked because they hardly have enough money for their own food. As they chat about shopping and busy places Mrs Christmas explains she usually shops at the Supermarket at the end of the World.  It turns out she is leaving town soon:

"my son's coming for me. His wife, who is such a nice girl, has got a job sorting out international rainbows, and they need someone to be at home after school - they've got twenty-seven children and it keeps them utterly busy ... oh and the elephant as well, which is a big job, with elephants eating so much ...  "

This sentence is quintessentially Margaret Mahy.  Think of all the children in The Rattlebag Picnic, think of the work done by the mother in Jam (she is researching sun spots) and think of the beautiful language used in The Man whose Mother was a pirate.

Mrs Christmas pulls out a dark blue card - it is a bus ticket that takes you to the end of the world. Waiting at the end of the world, travelers lucky enough to have this special ticket, find a supermarket. Not just any supermarket - it's the supermarket of your dreams. Carlo and his mum are allowed on the bus but there are some other characters, the Dowlers, who are out to destroy the supermarket. It is vital to stop them catching the bus.

The bus driver began "studying their feet closely. ... 'I can't let just anybody onto the bus of course, or we'd have the bus filled with Dowlers in no time. They're good at disguising most of themselves but it hard to get away with forked feet, let alone claws, isn't it?"

In the supermarket you can buy:

• Optional Soup - tick the desired flavour - Tomato, Cockaleekie, Mixed Vegetable Turtle, Onion, Octopus, Gunpowder and so on.
• Exploding Porridge - very useful if you are being attacked by Dowlers
• There's a tearoom with "tongue-twisting tantalizingly tasty treats, tricked with tomato, toffee, tamarillo, treacle and tapioca, all tarted up with tender tapeworms."
• And there is everything you could possibly need for an Almost Party.

At its heart this is a story about good friends, team work, trust, fun and of course good versus evil as Carlo and his new friend Jessica battle against the dastardly Dowlers - and win!

I spied this book at a recent charity book sale. I adore the writing of Margaret Mahy. The story is quite simply a delicious romp from page 1 to page 159.  Sadly, though, it is out of print. Perhaps you will be lucky and find a copy in a library or at a book sale as I did. If you can find The Dark Blue 100 ride Bus ticket I think it would make the perfect class read aloud for Grade 3 or 4.

Listen here to an audio sample from page 16 - Chapter 2. An audio version of whole book can be found here - I highly recommend you listen  - what a treat! Scroll down to find part 1 of the 10 parts.