Saturday, October 13, 2012

The Thief of Always pages 51-122

By this point in the story you know that the Holiday house changes seasons during the day. Every night after Thanksgiving it's Christamas and the kids all get one present a day. The first night Harvey wishes for a model ark like the one his father built for him. When he gets it he takes it to the dark lake to float it, a fish scares him and he falls in, losing the ark and all the lead figurines inside it. A week or two pass and everyday is the same, but then one night Harvey meets Rictus's brother Jive. He is extremely persuasive and evil. He tells Harvey a plan to get Wendell back for the prank he pulled a  week before. He takes Harvey up onto the roof and introduces him to Marr, one of the four keepers of the house(the other three being Rictus, Jive, and Carna who we'll meet later). She is extremely obese and lives in the chimney. She changes Harvey into a vampire using a strange sort of magic. Harvey uses his new form to swoop in on Wendell and scare him, but the prank gets taken too far when Jive tells Harvey to drink Wendell's blood. Harvey does the right thing by not doing it, but this dissapoints Jive and Marr turns him back into a human. The next day when Harvey wakes up Lulu is missing and Wendell is running around like a madman. Wendell is trying to escape, but no matter which way he tries to walk through the mist wall he ends up back at the house. Harvey goes inside to interrogate Mrs. Griffin and he finds out that this place is haunted and that everybody is being watched 24/7 by the four keepers of the house. Even Mrs. Griffin is a slave. This makes Harvey want to escape even more. So he goes to meet Wendell outside at midnight to make their escape. Before he sees Wendell he finds out the fate of Lulu. When she comes out of the brush she is scaled, slimy, and has fins, she is turning into one of the fishes. She hands him three lead figures from his sunken ark and jumps into the lake. Then Harvey tries to make his escape. Him and Wendell decide that if they hold hands, one on each side of the wall then maybe they can find the way out. Just a couple of minutes into their plan they hear Mrs. Griffin yelling for them to return to the house, Carna is approaching. Carna is a 100 eyed, 1000 toothed monster who is told to dispose of the children who misbehave. Mrs. Griffin throws a blue cat into the mist just as Harvey has to go in. The cat leads the two boys out of the maze, but it also leads Carna out too, but the beast begins to die because it cannot survive in the real world. When Harvey finds his way home he finds out that each day that passed in the Holiday House was a year in the real world so his parents are old and are astonished to see their son who's been missing for thirty years. The search to find and stop the Holiday House is now on.
Important Quote: "For every day he spent in there, a year had gone by here in the real world." Pg. 112. This quote is found in the text after Harvey escapes from the Holiday House. However his return is bittered when he finds out that 31 years had passed while he was there. This quote is where the reader first realizes what kind of magic the House is using. This is also where he meets his parents for the first time in "thirty one" years.
Connection: This part of the story kind of reminds me of the Chilean miners. The miners were in a mine shaft for 69 days without seeing their family. While that might not be 31 years it is a long time to go without seeing sunlight or family. This is what Harvey experienced in this section. He didn't have any contact with the outside world for 31 years, just like the Chilean miners.

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