Oleg and Emma were part of a group of three friends but one day Sarah Tuppet moved away. The pair feel incomplete. After all there are three blind mice, three little pigs and three bears. So Oleg and Emma play a game where they invent a friend. When a substitute teacher arrives in their class it seems like the perfect time to introduce a new classmate. The teacher sets the usual writing task to "write a short report introducing themselves and detailing what they'd done during the sub-zero weekend that had just come to an end."
On a fresh piece of paper, Sebastian Cole, their new invented friend, writes his report. He describes his fabulous weekend travelling by boat to Australia, then on to China by plane. Sebastian explains he is very wealthy because his great grandfather was the inventor of the cheese grater. Finally Sebastian describes the snake that attacked his mother on the weekend and explains he was able to thwart the snake using a baguette. Surely no teacher could possibly believe all this nonsense?
Now that the teacher thinks there is a student called Sebastian Cole in the class, Oleg and Emma decide it's important to add his name to the class register. Then they fill out a history test in his name with utterly crazy answers but it is the next impossible thing that will stun you. Oleg and Emma have a hidden den in a remote part of the playground. They head there at the end of the school day and meet - have you guessed? Yes they meet Sebastian Cole!
"And out stepped a boy, dressed in a long coat with an even longer scarf wound around his neck. On his feet, he wore old boots splattered with mud and in his left hand he held a rucksack that looked as though it had once belonged to a painter. His socks were odd, his hair stood on end, and his cheeks were smeared with dirt. He smiled."
From here this tale takes so many twists and turns. Sebastian joins their class. The teacher praises his history test answers. Living snowmen (women) start appearing in odd places and live goats seem to be spreading around the school. The school groundsman warns the children the arrival of Sebastian is dangerous. He talks about falling dominoes. "One tiny change can trigger a thousand larger changes. One impossible thing can lead to an impossible world."
Then there are the sinister authority figures who are on the hunt for Sebastian. It seems they will stop at nothing to capture him. But why do they want Sebastian Cole?
There are supernatural aspects to this story such as Sebastian's rocket. It reminded me of the Doctor Who Tardis There are utterly hilarious moments. My favourite is when the groundskeeper mentions dominoes and the children think he means pizza! There are moments of chaos especially when the whole of class 6Y work together to protect Sebastian and they lock all the teachers in a giant cupboard. "It was agreed that for ten minutes they could make the most of it ... The lunch boxes of kids with notoriously generous parents were looted. Various unidentified powders and liquids were mixed in flasks held over Bunsen burners."
The best part of this whole story, though, is the way Ben Brooks weaves in the poignant back stories of Oleg and Emma.
Emma's mother is stuggling to pay her bills.
"The way they'd moved from poor to very poor was mum taking out a loan and then another loan to pay off that loan and then another loan to pay off that loan and by now you're probably starting to understand what happened."
Oleg lives with his dad and grandmother. His grandmother is a writer and she becomes a true hero of this story but his dad has retreated in to sleep. He no longer talks to Oleg. He no longer cooks. He is clearing suffering but Oleg has no idea how to help him.
"He still held out hope that one day his dad would blink awake and offer to walk him to school. Or he might even suggest that they skip school altogether and spend the day fishing at the carp pond or eating cereal out of the packet, like they used to. Oleg missed his old dad and was afraid of the new dad that had taken his place."
Reading The Impossible Boy I found myself marveling at the power of imagination. The imagination of the children in the story is terrific but more importantly I marvel at the imagination of Ben Brooks. I loved the wild adventure of this story and the way all the plot threads were neatly resolved at the end. This book will be available on 29th October.
One more thing - if you see two friends gently tapping each others foreheads you will know they have both read (and loved) The Impossible Boy.
No comments:
Post a Comment