Introducing Prudence

Having written a few posts now about my experiences with self-publishing I thought now would be a good time to introduce Prudence to those of you who haven't read the book!  The best way to do this is with a little extract from the book, so here is the opening page or two of 'The Gatekeeper'.  Hope you enjoy and don't forget if you want to read more you can purchase the whole book on Kindle or in paperback through Amazon.

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Good News and Bad

Prudence sat on the chair outside the headmistress’s office and wondered what it was that she had done this time.  As far as she could remember she had completed all her homework, she had kept herself and her part of the dormitory tidy (well, most of the time) and she was absolutely sure that no one had seen her when she had crept out the night before to exercise her wings.  That was the problem with going to a school full of elves; elves just did not understand a fairy’s need to fly.  They may well have a rudimentary grasp of magic that fairies would never have, but elves did not have wings and Prudence knew exactly which option she preferred: nothing compared to flying, the exhilaration, the feeling of being free and having the wind rushing passed your face.  She really felt sorry for beings without wings.

Prudence knew, of course, that she was really lucky to be attending this particular school.  It was, without doubt the best school in the country – even the King of the elves sent his son here – and it wasn’t really the place a foundling like Prudence could have expected to attend.  Prudence had been left on the doorstep of an orphanage as a baby, and for eleven years she had lived there quite happily.  Naturally she had wondered about where she had come from, who her parents were and why they had abandoned her, but the orphanage had provided her with an extended family and she had grown up in a secure and caring environment.  Again, it was an elven orphanage, but with all the continued unrest within the fairy kingdom of Breena there were many refugees from that country seeking a new life with the elves of Ealdhun.

At the age of eleven, however, Prudence had been informed of the fact that her Guardian had been found.  He was the one who had placed her in the orphanage as a baby and now it seemed he intended to pay for her to go to the very prestigious King Leofric School.  Prudence had had little say in the matter although she had not been happy about it at all. After two years at the school she had settled into her life there quite well, although it had been difficult at first.  None of the other children there were orphans for one thing and they seemed to regard her as something of an oddity.  They were all the children of wealthy or famous elves and were curious about who Prudence was and where she came from.  Prudence soon got fed up with all the questions especially as she got the impression most of them did not believe her when she told them, quite truthfully, that she came from an orphanage.  Most of them just thought she was being rude or silly, which only made Prudence angry.  She eventually made a few close friends, but generally kept to herself.  She preferred the easy friendship she had with the children of the orphanage to all the pretention of King Leofric’s School.  And, she still had not met her mysterious Guardian.  He seemed quite happy to control her life from a distance, liaising with either the headmistress at the school or the matron at the orphanage.  He did not seem that concerned about actually meeting his charge, and for this reason Prudence had decided that she did not like him.  She was not expecting constant supervision from him, but the occasional visit would have been nice, and the fact that he could not even introduce himself just seemed rude.

Prudence pulled her thoughts back to the present and tried to consider what trouble she was in this time.  She concluded that it must be the flying thing; fairy law stated quite clearly that no fairy should be allowed to fly unsupervised until they were fifteen, which was, as far as Prudence was concerned, a stupid law.  Her wings, she knew were quite strong enough, and developed enough to carry her weight.  She was quite small for her age, and despite her appetite, quite thin also.  In all of her extra-curricular flying she had always been very careful – never flying too high or too fast – and so far she had not had even the slightest wobble.  So, that last detention she had received from Miss Rodenberry for ‘reckless use of her wings’ had really been quite unfair.

But, Prudence had been really careful lately, doing her best to behave and making sure all her homework was finished on time.  She had made an extra effort to make sure she was always clean and presentable and that her long red hair was brushed and tidy – well at least at the start of the day anyway.  It was, after all, nearly the end of term – school report time – and although she had no parents to report to, Prudence knew only too well that the matron at the orphanage had a habit of finding extra chores for those with bad, or not so good, reports.  So, if she was trying so hard to be good, why was the result of all her efforts to be sitting outside the headmistress’s office again?

Hope you have enjoyed this little snippet.

Kim