Boy Between Worlds Book Two: The Novice Collector

By Cynthia C. Huijgens

In Boy Between Worlds: The Cabinet of Curiosities, twelve-year-old Max Mead discovered he could travel back in time with objects from his grandfather's cabinet of curiosities.  

• Language: English
• Publisher: Idle Time Press
• Release date: Feb 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781737262978

Cynthia C. Huijgens

Cynthia C. Huijgens writes for children of all ages, including children's picture books. She holds a BA in Art and Design, Masters in Education and is a certified K-12 Art Teacher. Cynthia graduated from Simon Fraser University's The Writer's Studio.

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Copyright© 2021 Idle Time Press

Bellaire, Texas, USA

www.idletimepress.com

None of the material contained herein may be reproduced or stored in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, without written permission of the publisher under International and Pan-America Copyright Conventions. Exceptions are made for reviewers who may quote brief passages in a review.

This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, objects, establishments, events, places, or governments are intended to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. All characters, incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real or historically accurate.

Cover art by Nazli Tahvili

Cover design by Ardi Wahyudi

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021914112

Publisher’s Cataloging-In-Publication Data

Names: Huijgens, Cynthia C., author.

Title: Boy between worlds. [Book 2], The novice collector / Cynthia C. Huijgens.

Other Titles: Novice collector

Description: Bellaire, Texas, USA : Idle Time Press, LLC, 2021. | Interest age level: 008-012. | Summary: In book one ..., Max discovered he could travel back in time with objects from his grandfather's cabinet of curiosities. As the story continues in book two, Max spends his days learning to master the cabinet's ancient magic, escaping at night with his new friend Youssef to explore the streets of Cairo. When the Lieutenant, leader of a local antiquities trafficking gang, resurfaces with a plan to steal treasure belonging to the Cairo Museum, Max must use what he's learned of the cabinet's magic to stop the Lieutenant before it's too late--Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: ISBN 9781732925847 (paperback) | ISBN: 978-1-7372629-7-8 (e-book)

Subjects: LCSH: Time travel--Juvenile fiction. | Cairo (Egypt)--Antiquities--Juvenile fiction. | Friendship--Juvenile fiction. | Magic--Juvenile fiction. | Theft from museums--Egypt--Cairo--Juvenile fiction. | CYAC: Time travel-Fiction. | Cairo (Egypt)--Antiquities--Fiction. | Friendship--Fiction. | Magic--Fiction. | Art thefts--Egypt--Cairo--Fiction.

Classification: LCC PZ7.1.H857 Bn 2021 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.H857 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]--dc23

CONTENTS

Book One Recap

The Chase

A Dog’s Prayer

The Novice’s Dilemma

Family Secrets

Card Trick

Cake and Tears

A Less Ordinary Gift

Farewell

The VIP Tour

Hiding in Plain Sight

Suspicious Minds

New Worries

Old Problems

Finding His Niche

Fawty is Born

Habibi

Back to the Cave

Please and Thank You

The Khan

Late, Again

No Escape

Mission Accomplished?

What to do About the

Acknowledgements

About The Book

About The Author

Objects, Myths & Places

Book Club Questions

BOOK ONE RECAP

In book one, Boy Between Worlds: The Cabinet of Curiosities, twelve-year-old Max Mead discovers he can travel back in time with objects from his grandfather’s cabinet of curiosities. He uses this ancient magic to locate his grandfather, a famous Egyptian antiquities expert who’s been kidnapped by the leader of a local antiquities trafficking gang, and in the process uncovers an underground cave full of stolen treasure. When the leader, a shadowy figure known as the Lieutenant, escapes arrest, Max commits himself and the cabinet’s magic powers to tracking him down.

Max is an immediately relatable character whose fantastical circumstances are offset by conventional preteen concerns. Eccentric adult characters are nicely played and provide additional depth and intrigue to the adventure. – BookLife Prize

Boy Between Worlds Book Two: The Novice Collector, picks-up Max’s story exactly where book one ended.

THE CHASE

The cabinet’s golden key, tied to a string around Max’s neck, bounces against his chest. Its weight is thumping with each stride. Thumping like a second heart. He wants to slip a hand into his pocket, to feel King Tutankhamen’s ring and draw guidance from its ancient magic, but there’s no time.

Max searches the darkness for a way out. He stumbles and nearly falls. Running has never been his strength, but it must be his strength now. He presses ahead, the heels of his feet barely touching the ground. The footsteps of the Lieutenant and his men echo off the stone walls.

Pearls of light stretch around a corner and Max runs for them. They float above his head, just out of reach. He sees his mother’s face and hears her voice, ‘Max darling, time to wake up’. But she’s not real. The footsteps of the Lieutenant and his men are real. And their rumble is growing louder. Max can’t lose the ring to the Lieutenant, not this time.

A dark shadow cuts across Max’s path. His feet skid to a pebbly stop. The Lieutenant’s footsteps fall silent. Max looks over his shoulder, his lungs wheeze. When he turns back around, his mother’s face is gone.

Out of the darkness comes the smell of a burning cigarette. A fiery ember grows and grows until the Lieutenant’s face pokes through a wall of smoke.

The Lieutenant does not look happy. But his unhappiness means nothing to Max. If Max does his job properly, the Lieutenant will never be happy again. Focus on the task, Max tells himself. Secure the ring, secure the cabinet. But in the inky gloom, he can’t see where to run. He slips his finger into the ring and turns to face the Lieutenant.

You want this? He asks, pulling the ring from his pocket. Come and get it. Max tosses the ring into his mouth. The Lieutenant strikes Max with the back of his hand, and everything goes black.

Max wakes to the sound of an object soaring out from the darkness. It’s a bird made of stone, but it moves with grace, as light as a feather. The bird is Horus, the falcon god. It resembles a statue from the Lieutenant’s underground cave. But unlike the statue, this bird is alive, and its piercing red eyes are searching for something.

With no place to hide, Max rolls onto his back and lies perfectly still. Each slow breath he takes is synced with the movements of Horus’ long, powerful wings. But his heart stops beating when Horus drops like a bullet from the sky. Max watches in horror as the fierce bird circles him once, then twice, its curved blade-shaped beak clicking like hungry hands of a pocket watch. Has time run out for Max?

Max pulls the ring from his mouth; its golden luminescence draws the falcon’s gaze. The ground beneath him vibrates as the hovering bird, just inches from his face, calls out with the most horrible screech. Max, as if in a trance, raises his quivering hand. Horus takes the ring and flies towards the light.

There is a man pacing in front of a window. Horus’ talons sink into the man’s neck and his outstretched wings wrap the man’s shoulders like a winter cloak. The man takes the ring and places it on his finger. Man, and bird become one.

A DOG’S PRAYER

Max, open your eyes. Horus himself has cast darkness from the sky. A rattle came from the window, like impatient fingers tapping glass.

Rraain? Max asked. His voice was unsteady, his eyes not fully opened. Max looked around, expecting to find himself in Grandad’s cabinet with an ancient statue of Horus in his hand. That might explain the vision he’d just had. But when his father’s old desk came into view, Max realized where he was.

Max wiggled his head and felt a sharp pain. Aahh… He pulled back the sheet and lifted his t-shirt. Coloured spots the size of golf balls dotted his stomach, hip, and across his chest. To say these bruises were fifty shades of purple would be wrong because there were loads of blues and greens in the mix.

I know. It hurts like hell. The doctor says there’s not much we can do about that. Rest is the best medicine. Grandad walked over to the bed and pulled the sheet back up around Max’s neck.

One thing I will say, the Lieutenant makes no exception for old collectors like me and exceptionally heroic boys like you. Grandad’s right eye was about the same purple as the spots on Max’s chest and a cut on his opposite cheek was bound with an H-shaped plaster.

The last thing I remember after I pulled you from the cave, is you asking me if I’d like to be a novice collector. Max hesitated, No wait, I remember coming back to the villa with Mum, Dad and Maggie, and all of us sitting down to a fancy meal.

Yes, Grandad chuckled, it was at the table, just a few minutes into Maggie’s retelling of the laborious measures she’d undertaken to perfect a very difficult fencing move, that your head dropped into your plate of chicken and rice.

Max had no recollection of the chicken or rice, but he often faked snoring whenever Maggie’s stories went on too long, which happened most every time his sister opened her mouth. But he’d never actually fallen asleep at the table before. Was it the frantic race to find Grandad that lasted all day and into the night that made him so tired? Or was it the beating by the Lieutenant and his men that punched the energy out of him? Could it be Grandad’s cabinet of curiosities and his travels into the past had somehow sucked life from his body, robbing him of future years?

How do I look; do I look older? Max asked, his voice quivering.

Why, because today is your birthday? Grandad smiled.

Max was slow to grasp what was being said. Nothing seemed entirely real, not even his grandfather who moments ago was standing like a statue beside the window with a falcon on his back.

Today is not my birthday. It’s tomorrow, or- Max scratched his ear, the day after?

Max was pretty sure he knew what day it was. Today was the day after the biggest night of his life, the day after he discovered he could travel back in time using objects from his grandfather’s cabinet of curiosities. He’d harnessed the cabinet’s ancient magic to find his kidnapped grandfather, and along the way he’d stumbled into an underground cave used to store stolen treasure. And Youssef was there, and Theo, at least for part of it. The details were slowly coming back. Max’s eyes fixed on the window as ashy droplets squiggled down the glass like freshly hatched fish larvae.

Is that rain, that black goo?

Indeed. It never rains in this part of Egypt, but when it does, it brings down a lot of unpleasantness. Be warned, it’s quite gritty, and it leaves a nasty mark.

The night before Max had come to Egypt, as he’d packed his suitcase for the trip, his mum said it never rained in Egypt. Like many things Max had been told in recent days, her words weren’t exactly true. Max supposed she meant, like Grandad, that it rarely rained in Egypt. Rarely never, Max thought. Like the odds of travelling back in time or finding truckloads of stolen treasure in an underground cave in the middle of Cairo or making a new friend. And yet, these things happened.

How can today be my birthday, how long have I been asleep? Max rubbed his sore eyes.

Grandad pulled a gold watch from his pocket. Just coming up to thirty-six hours.

What? Max gasped, you’re lying!

Tisk, tisk, tisk, tisk, Grandad’s watch said, one ‘tisk’ for every second Max wished he’d used a word other than lying.

I assure you my time counting skills are entirely accurate. As I said, you fell asleep at the table. Your father carried you upstairs. When Maggie couldn’t wake you the next morning, we had the doctor round. He examined all your scrapes and bruises, even pulled the lids back and shined a light into your eyes. He advised us to leave you to sleep. That was yesterday about twenty-four hours ago. Grandad snapped the watch closed and slipped it into his pocket.

I’ve never slept so much in my life. Max scratched his head, his fingers becoming stuck in a tangle of hair. There had been plenty of times Max wished he could sleep thirty-six hours, but Mum and Dad had never let him. You said today is my birthday?

So far, nothing about the day aligned with Max’s grand ideas for his 13th birthday. His heart was set on a party with cake and pizza. But since he was still in Egypt, that looked