Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
1605

1605

Scott, T. D.
Harvey, Carrie

Paperback

Early Readers

ISBN13: 9798858164821
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: May 6 2024
Pages: 140
Weight: 0.35
Height: 0.33 Width: 5.00 Depth: 8.00
Language: English
To every child in Middleton Primary, the old castle ruins atop Castle Mount on the edge of the village was their only entertainment. There were no youth clubs, no swimming pools, and no sign of a single football pitch or netball court. So, it was no surprise that routine, secret excursions up the hill were planned by at least four or five children a week. Most were caught half way up the farmer's hill. Some lost the bottle before even reaching the steep field. And when a pair of friends had managed to get to the haloed site, they soon questioned why such a place had such an infamous reputation; it was a dull grey mass of crumbling stone surrounded by litter and the odd deceased field mouse. Yet, the ruins remained as a location which could instantly ascend one's status in class. Especially if visited after dark.

Jake Fry moved to Middleton in the summer of 2015. It was the 14-year-old's third home in a year, and, just like the other places he had lived, it was boring with little to do. He spent time gawking vacantly out the window towards the ruins - often closing his eyes to visualise knights on horseback charging up to the castle gates and bowmen letting off their arrows at the incoming armies; in the depths of his mind the bellowing cries of battle and pained wails of fallen soldiers.

Jake kept to himself around the village, and at school. An only child from what many villagers immediately started calling a dysfunctional family, he struggled to attract any friends. However, on one November day during a history class, Ellie Carter - arguably the most popular girl in school - asked Jake if he wanted to go up to the ruins after school with her. He thought about it for all of three seconds before concluding there wasn't much else to do around there and said yes.

It was something they would both regret.

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