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
