Madeleine L'Engle - Wrinkle in Time

Madeleine L’Engle was born in New York City in 1918. She wrote her first story at the age of five — about a little ‘grul’. (No, it wasn’t science fiction — she was a poor speller.) She did poorly in most of her classes, she said, because she wrote reams of stories and poems when she should have been doing her schoolwork.

When she was twelve she moved to the French Alps with her parents and attended an English boarding school in Switzerland. She returned to the United States when she was fourteen, where she graduated from university with an honours degree in English. Still passionate about reading and writing, she wrote her first two published novels, and became an actress in order to improve her skills as a playwright.

Madeleine L’Engle wrote over sixty books, including A Wrinkle in Time , the first in her Time Quintet series and winner of the highly prestigious Newbery Medal.

She died in 2007, aged 88.

ILLUSTRATED BY KEITH SCAIFE

PUFFIN

Drawn in by the brilliantly atmospheric opening as the storm whirls and swirls around the house, this is an exceptional book that takes readers on a remarkable journey; it matches excitement and imagination with pathos in a story that fizzes with intelligence and energy. And it’s an energy that comes from a very proper source — a belief in the myriad opportunities that science can offer.

Meg needs to find her father. His disappearance is mysterious and inexplicable. Nasty teachers and school friends hint at him just taking off and leaving his family; but Meg knows better and she is determined that he’ll come home — even if it means she’ll have to travel through time and space to find him.

And that is just what she does. Accompanied by her new friend Calvin and her little brother Charles Wallace, both of whom have very unusual powers, Meg sets off with Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who and Mrs Which, three strange neighbours who promise to help. It’s a journey fraught with danger. Survival depends on relying both on intelligence — of the most questioning scientific kind — and love.

Written almost half a century ago, A Wrinkle in Time is a journey through time itself, and stands the test of time quite remarkably. Helped by adaptations for television and other media, it has sold over eight million copies worldwide, making Madeleine L’Engle, who died in 2007, one of the bestselling and best-loved American children’s authors.

It was a dark and stormy night.

In her attic bedroom Margaret Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind. Behind the trees clouds scudded frantically across the sky. Every few moments the moon ripped through them, creating wraith-like shadows that raced along the ground.

The house shook.

Wrapped in her quilt, Meg shook.

She wasn’t usually afraid of weather. — It’s not just the weather, she thought. — It’s the weather on top of everything else. On top of me. On top of Meg Murry doing everything wrong.

School. School was all wrong. She’d been dropped down to the lowest section in her grade. That morning one of her teachers had said crossly, ‘Really, Meg, I don’t understand how a child with parents as brilliant as yours are supposed to be can be such a poor student. If you don’t manage to do a little better you’ll have to stay back next year.’

During lunch she’d fooled around a little to try to make herself feel better, and one of the girls said scornfully,‘After all, Meg, we aren’t babies any more. Why do you always act like one?’

And on the way home from school, walking up the road with her arms full of books, one of the boys had said something about her ‘dumb baby brother’. At this she’d thrown the books on the side of the road and tackled him with every ounce of strength she had, and arrived home with her blouse torn and a big bruise under one eye.

Sandy and Dennys, her ten-year-old twin brothers, who got home from school an hour earlier than she did, were disgusted. ‘Let us do the fighting when it’s necessary,’ they told her.

— A delinquent, that’s what I am, she thought grimly. — That’s what they’ll be saying next. Not mother. But them. Everybody else. I wish father –

But it was still not possible to think about her father without the danger of tears. Only her mother could talk about him in a natural way, saying, ‘When your father gets back —’

Gets back from where? And when? Surely her mother must know what people were saying, must be aware of the smugly vicious gossip. Surely it must hurt her as it did Meg. But if it did she gave no outward sign. Nothing ruffled the serenity of her expression.

— Why can’t I hide it, too? Meg thought. — Why do I always have to show everything?

The window rattled madly in the wind, and she pulled the quilt close about her. Curled up on one of her pillows a grey fluff of kitten yawned, showing its pink tongue, tucked its head under again, and went back to sleep.

Everybody was asleep. Everybody except Meg. Even Charles Wallace, the ‘dumb baby brother’, who had an uncanny way of knowing when she was awake and unhappy, and who would come, so many nights, tiptoeing up the attic stairs to her — even Charles Wallace was asleep.

How could they sleep? All day on the radio there had been hurricane warnings. How could they leave her up in the attic in the rickety brass bed, knowing that the roof might be blown right off the house, and she tossed out into the wild night sky to land who knows where?

Her shivering grew uncontrollable.

— You asked to have the attic bedroom, she told herself savagely. — Mother let you have it because you’re the oldest. It’s a privilege, not a punishment.

‘Not during a hurricane, it isn’t a privilege,’ she said aloud. She tossed the quilt down on the foot of the bed, and stood up. The kitten stretched luxuriously, and looked up at her with huge, innocent eyes.

‘Go back to sleep,’ Meg said. ‘Just be glad you’re a kitten and not a monster like me.’ She looked at herself in the wardrobe mirror and made a horrible face, baring a mouthful of teeth covered with a brace. Automatically she pushed her glasses into position, ran her fingers through her mouse-brown hair, so that it stood wildly on end, and let out a sigh almost as noisy as the wind.

The wide wooden floorboards were cold against her feet. Wind blew in the crevices about the window frame, in spite of the protection the storm sash was supposed to offer. She could hear wind howling in the chimneys. From all the way downstairs she could hear Fortinbras, the big black dog, starting to bark. He must be frightened, too. What was he barking at? Fortinbras never barked without reason.

Suddenly she remembered that when she had gone to the post office to pick up the mail she’d heard about a tramp who was supposed to have stolen twelve sheets from Mrs Buncombe, the constable’s wife. They hadn’t caught him, and maybe he was heading for the Murrys’ house right now, isolated on a back road as it was; and this time maybe he’d be after more than sheets. Meg hadn’t paid much attention to the talk about the tramp at the time, because the postmistress, with a sugary smile, had asked if she’d heard from her father lately.