Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kindlepitch) wrote2020-06-14 04:53 pm
kindlepitch) wrote2020-06-14 04:53 pm
Info from Fangirl
The Simon Snow Series
From Encyclowikia, the people’s encyclopedia
This article is about the children’s book series. For other uses, see Simon Snow (disambiguation).
Simon Snow is a series of seven fantasy books written by English philologist Gemma T. Leslie. The books tell the story of Simon Snow, an 11-year-old orphan from Lancashire who is recruited to attend the Watford School of Magicks to become a magician. As he grows older, Simon joins a group of magicians—the Mages—who are fighting the Insidious Humdrum, an evil being trying to rid the world of magic.
Since the publication of Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir in 2001, the books have been translated into 53 languages and, as of August 2011, have sold more than 380 million copies.
Leslie has been criticized for the violence in the series and for creating a hero who is sometimes selfish and bad tempered. An exorcism scene in the fourth book, Simon Snow and the Selkies Four, triggered boycotts among American Christian groups in 2008. But the books are widely considered modern classics, and in 2010, Time magazine called Simon “the greatest children’s literary character since Huckleberry Finn.”
An eighth book, the last in the series, is set to be released May 1, 2012.
Publishing history
Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, 2001
Simon Snow and the Second Serpent, 2003
Simon Snow and the Third Gate, 2004
Simon Snow and the Selkies Four, 2007
Simon Snow and the Five Blades, 2008
Simon Snow and the Six White Hares, 2009
Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, 2010
Simon Snow and the Eighth Dance, scheduled to be released May 1, 2012
---
There was a boy in Simon’s room.
A boy with slick, black hair and cold, grey eyes. He was spinning around, holding a cat high in the air while a girl jumped and clutched at it. “Give it back,” the girl said. “You’ll hurt him.”
The boy laughed and held the cat higher—then noticed Simon standing in the doorway and stopped, his face sharpening.
“Hullo,” the dark-haired boy said, letting the cat drop to the floor. It landed on all four feet and ran from the room. The girl ran after it.
The boy ignored them, tugging his school jacket neatly into place and smiling with the left side of his mouth. “I know you. You’re Simon Snow … the Mage’s Heir.” He held out his hand smugly. “I’m Tyrannus Basilton Pitch. But you can call me Baz—we’re going to be roommates.”
Simon scowled and ignored the boy’s pale hand. “What did you think you were doing with her cat?”
—from chapter 3, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
He was so focused—and frustrated—he didn’t even see the girl with the red hair sit down at his table. She had pigtails and old-fashioned pointy spectacles, the kind you’d wear to a fancy dress party if you were going as a witch.
“You’re going to tire yourself out,” the girl said.
“I’m just trying to do this right,” Simon grunted, tapping the two-pence coin again with his wand and furrowing his brow painfully. Nothing happened.
“Here,” she said, crisply waving her hand over the coin.
She didn’t have a wand, but she wore a large purple ring. There was yarn wound round it to keep it on her finger. “Fly away home.”
With a shiver, the coin grew six legs and a thorax and started to scuttle away. The girl swept it gently off the desk into a jar.
“How did you do that?” Simon asked. She was a first year, too, just like him; he could tell by the green shield on the front of her sweater.
“You don’t do magic,” she said, trying to smile modestly and mostly succeeding. “You are magic.”
Simon stared at the 2p ladybird.
“I’m Penelope Bunce,” the girl said, holding out her hand.
“I’m Simon Snow,” he said, taking it.
“I know,” Penelope said, and smiled.
—from chapter 8, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“But, sir,” Simon pushed, “do I have to be his roommate every year, every year until we leave Watford?”
The Mage smiled indulgently and ruffled Simon’s caramel brown hair. “Being matched with your roommate is a sacred tradition at Watford.” His voice was gentle but firm. “The Crucible cast you together. You’re to watch out for each other, to know each other as well as brothers.”
“Yeah, but, sir…” Simon shuffled in his chair. “The Crucible must have made a mistake. My roommate’s a complete git. He might even be evil. Last week, someone spelled my laptop closed, and I know it was him. He practically cackled.”
The Mage gave his beard a few solemn strokes. It was short and pointed and just covered his chin.
“The Crucible cast you together, Simon. You’re meant to watch out for him.”
—from chapter 3, Simon Snow and the Second Serpent, copyright © 2003 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“Words are very powerful,” Miss Possibelf said, stepping lightly between the rows of desks.
“And they take on more power the more that they’re spoken.…
“The more that they’re said and read and written, in specific, consistent combinations.”
She stopped in front of Simon’s desk and tapped it with a short, jeweled staff. “Up, up and away,” she said clearly.
Simon watched the floor move away from his feet. He grabbed at the edges of his desk, knocking over a pile of books and loose papers. Across the room, Basilton laughed.
Miss Possibelf nudged Simon’s trainer with her staff—“Hold your horses”—and his desk hovered three feet in the air.
“The key to casting a spell,” she said, “is tapping into that power. Not just saying the words, but summoning their meaning.…
“Now,” she said, “open your Magic Words books to page four. And Settle down there, Simon. Please.”
—from chapter 5, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
Agatha Wellbelove was the loveliest witch at Watford. Everyone knew it—every boy, every girl, all the teachers … The bats in the belfry, the snakes in the cellars …
Agatha herself knew it. Which you might think would detract from her charm and her beauty. But Agatha, at fourteen, never used this knowledge to harm or hold over others.
She knew she was lovely, and she shared it like a gift. Every smile from Agatha was like waking up to a perfect sunny day. Agatha knew it. And she smiled at everyone who crossed her path, as if it were the most generous thing she could offer.
—from chapter 15, Simon Snow and the Selkies Four, copyright © 2007 Gemma T. Leslie
---
Sneaking around the castle, staying out all night, coming home in the morning with leaves in his hair …
Baz was up to something; Simon was sure of it. But he needed proof—Penelope and Agatha weren’t taking his suspicions seriously.
“He’s plotting,” Simon would say.
“He’s always plotting,” Penelope would answer.
“He’s looming,” Simon would say.
“He’s always looming,” Agatha would answer. “He is quite tall.”
“No taller than me.”
“Mmm … a bit.”
It wasn’t just the plotting and the looming; Baz was up to something. Something beyond his chronic gittishness. His pearl grey eyes were bloodshot and shadowed; his black hair had lost its luster. Usually cold and intimidating, lately Baz seemed chilled and cornered.
Simon had followed him around the catacombs last night for three hours, and still didn’t have a clue.
—from chapter 3, Simon Snow and the Five Blades, copyright © 2008 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“Maybe I’m not supposed to have a wand. Maybe I’m supposed to have a ring like you. Or a … a wrist thingy like mangy old Elspeth.”
“Oh, Simon.” Penelope frowned. “You shouldn’t call her that. She can’t help her fur—her father was the Witch King of Canus.”
“No, I know, I just…”
“It’s easier for the rest of us,” she said, soothing. “Magicians’ instruments stay in families. They’re passed from generation to generation.”
“Right,” he said, “just like magic. It doesn’t make sense, Penelope—my parents must have been magicians.”
He’d tried to talk to her about this before, and that time it had made her look just as sad.
“Simon … they couldn’t have been. Magicians would never abandon their own child. Never. Magic is too precious.”
Simon looked away from her and flicked his wand again. It felt like something dead in his hands.
“I think Elspeth’s fur is pretty,” Penelope said. “She looks soft.”
He shoved the wand into his pocket and stood up. “You just want a puppy.”
—from chapter 21, Simon Snow and the Third Gate, copyright © 2004 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“I’m sorry, Penelope.”
“Don’t waste my time with sorries, Simon. If we stop to apologize and forgive each other every time we step on each other’s toes, we’ll never have time to be friends.”
—from chapter 4, Simon Snow and the Second Serpent, copyright © 2003 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“But I don’t understand,” Simon stammered, “what is the Insidious Humdrum? Is he a man?”
“Perhaps.” The Mage wiped the grit from his eyes and swept his wand out in front of them. “Olly olly oxen free,” he whispered. Simon braced himself, but nothing happened.
“Perhaps he’s a man,” the Mage said, recovering his wry smile. “Perhaps he’s something else, something less, I should think.”
“Is he a magician? Like us?”
“No,” the Mage said severely. “Of that we can be certain. He—if indeed he is a he—is the enemy of magic. He destroys magic; some think he eats it. He wipes the world clean of magic, wherever he can.…
“You’re too young to hear this, Simon. Eleven is too young. But it isn’t fair to keep it from you any longer. The Insidious Humdrum is the greatest threat the World of Mages has ever faced. He’s powerful, he’s pervasive. Fighting him is like fighting off sleep when you’re long
past the edge of exhaustion.
“But fight him we must. You were recruited to Watford because we believe the Humdrum has taken a special interest in you. We want to protect you; I vow to do so with my life. But you must learn, Simon, as soon as possible, how best to protect yourself.”
—from chapter 23, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
The Humdrum wasn’t a man at all, or a monster. It was a boy.
Simon stepped closer, perhaps foolishly, wanting to see its face.… He felt the Humdrum’s power whipping around him like dry air, like hot sand, an aching fatigue in the very marrow of Simon’s bones.
The Humdrum—the boy—wore faded denims and a grotty T-shirt, and it probably took Simon far too long to recognize the child as himself. His years-ago self.
“Stop it,” Simon shouted. “Show yourself, you coward. Show yourself!”
The boy just laughed.
—from chapter 23, Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, copyright © 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“You’re the most powerful magician in a hundred ages.” The Humdrum’s face, Simon’s own boyhood face, looked dull and tired. Nothing glinted in its blue eyes.… “Do you think that much power comes without sacrifice? Did you think you could become you without leaving something, without leaving me, behind?”
—from chapter 23, Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, copyright © 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
Fried tomatoes at breakfast. Every lump in his bed. Being able to do magic without worrying whether anyone was watching. Agatha, of course. And Penelope. Getting to see the Mage—not often, but still. Simon’s uniform. His school tie. The football pitch, even when it was muddy. Fencing. Raisin scones every Sunday with real clotted cream … What didn’t Simon miss about Watford?
—from chapter 1, Simon Snow and the Selkies Four, copyright © 2007 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“You’re finally going on a date with Agatha?” Penelope’s voice was soft, despite the surprise in her face. Neither of them wanted Sir Bleakly to hear—he was prone to giving ridiculous detentions; they could end up dusting the catacombs for hours or proofreading confiscated love notes.
“After dinner,” Simon whispered back. “We’re going to look for the sixth hare in the Veiled Forest.”
“Does Agatha know it’s a date? Because that just sounds like ‘Another Tuesday Night with Simon.’”
“I think so.” Simon tried not to turn and frown at Penelope, even though he wanted to.
“She said she’d wear her new dress.…”
“Another Tuesday Night with Agatha,” Penelope said.
“You don’t think she likes me?”
“Oh, Simon, I never said that. She’d have to be an idiot not to like you.”
Simon grinned.
“So I guess what I’m saying,” Penelope said, going back to her homework, “is we’ll just have to see.”
—from chapter 17, Simon Snow and the Six White Hares, copyright © 2009 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“That does it,” Simon said, charging forward, climbing right over the long dinner table.
Penelope grabbed the tail of his cape, and he nearly landed face-first on a bench. He recovered quickly—“Let go, Penny”—and ran hard at Basil, both fists raised and ready.
Basil didn’t move. “Good fences make good neighbors,” he whispered, just barely tipping his wand.
Simon’s fist slammed into a solid barrier just inches from the other boy’s unflinching jaw.
He pulled his hand back, yelping, still stumbling against the spell.
This made Dev and Niall and all the rest of Basil’s cronies cackle like drunk hyenas. But Basil himself stayed still. When he spoke, it was so softly, only Simon could hear him. “Is that how you’re going to do it, Snow? Is that how you’re going to best your Humdrum?” He dropped the spell with a twitch of his wand, just as Simon regained his balance. “Pathetic,” Basil said, and walked away.
—from chapter 4, Simon Snow and the Five Blades, copyright © 2008 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
The Humdrum bounced a small red ball in its hand.
Simon had carried that ball everywhere, for at least a year. He’d lost it when he came to Watford—he hadn’t needed it anymore.
“You’re lying,” Simon said. “You’re not me. You’re no part of me.”
“I’m what’s left of you,” the Humdrum said. And Simon would swear his own voice was never so high and so sweet.
—from chapter 23, Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, copyright © 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
He’d have to tell the Mage what he saw.
I’ve finally seen the Humdrum, sir. I know what we’re fighting—me.
“What’s left of you,” the monster had said.
What is left of me? Simon wondered. A ghost? A hole? An echo?
An angry little boy with nervous hands?
—from chapter 24, Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, copyright © 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
Agatha wrung her fingers in her cape miserably. (But still prettily. Even Agatha’s tear-stained face was a thing of beauty.) Simon wanted to tell her it was all right, to forget the whole scene with Baz in the forest.… Agatha standing in the moonlight, holding both of Baz’s pale
hands in her own …
“Just tell me,” Simon said, his voice shaking.
“I don’t know what to say,” she wept. “There’s you. And you’re good. And you’re right. And then there’s him.… And he’s different.”
“He’s a monster.” Simon clenched his square jaw.
Agatha just nodded. “Perhaps.”
—from chapter 18, Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, copyright © 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“Do you know what the most disappointing thing is about being a magician?”
Penelope shook her head and rolled her eyes, a combination she’d gotten terribly good at over the years. “Don’t be silly, Simon. There’s nothing disappointing about magic.”
“There is,” he argued, only partly just to tease her. “I always figured we’d learn a way to fly by now.”
“Oh, pish,” Penelope said. “Anyone can fly. Anyone with a friend.”
She held her ringed hand out to him and grinned—“Up, up and away!”
Simon felt the steps drift away from him and laughed his way through a slow somersault.
When he was upright again, he leveled his wand at Penelope.
—from chapter 11, Simon Snow and the Five Blades, copyright © 2008 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“Morgan’s grace, Simon—slow down.” Penelope held an arm out in front of his chest and glanced around the weirdly lit courtyard. “There’s more than one way through a flaming gate.”
—from chapter 11, Simon Snow and the Third Gate, copyright © 2004 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
Simon stepped toward the Humdrum. He’d never been this close. The heat and the pull were almost too much for him; he felt like the Humdrum would suck his heart through his chest, his thoughts from his head.
“I created you with my hunger,” Simon said. “With my need for magic.”
“With your capacity,” it said.
Simon shrugged, a Herculean effort in the presence and pressure of the Humdrum.
Simon had spent his whole life, well, the last eight years of it, trying to become more powerful, trying to live up to his destiny—trying to become the sort of magician, maybe the only magician, who could defeat the Insidious Humdrum.
And all he’d ever done was stoke the Humdrum’s need.
Simon took the last step forward.
“I’m not hungry anymore.”
—from chapter 27, Simon Snow and the Eighth Dance, copyright © 2012 by Gemma T. Leslie
From Encyclowikia, the people’s encyclopedia
This article is about the children’s book series. For other uses, see Simon Snow (disambiguation).
Simon Snow is a series of seven fantasy books written by English philologist Gemma T. Leslie. The books tell the story of Simon Snow, an 11-year-old orphan from Lancashire who is recruited to attend the Watford School of Magicks to become a magician. As he grows older, Simon joins a group of magicians—the Mages—who are fighting the Insidious Humdrum, an evil being trying to rid the world of magic.
Since the publication of Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir in 2001, the books have been translated into 53 languages and, as of August 2011, have sold more than 380 million copies.
Leslie has been criticized for the violence in the series and for creating a hero who is sometimes selfish and bad tempered. An exorcism scene in the fourth book, Simon Snow and the Selkies Four, triggered boycotts among American Christian groups in 2008. But the books are widely considered modern classics, and in 2010, Time magazine called Simon “the greatest children’s literary character since Huckleberry Finn.”
An eighth book, the last in the series, is set to be released May 1, 2012.
Publishing history
Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, 2001
Simon Snow and the Second Serpent, 2003
Simon Snow and the Third Gate, 2004
Simon Snow and the Selkies Four, 2007
Simon Snow and the Five Blades, 2008
Simon Snow and the Six White Hares, 2009
Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, 2010
Simon Snow and the Eighth Dance, scheduled to be released May 1, 2012
---
There was a boy in Simon’s room.
A boy with slick, black hair and cold, grey eyes. He was spinning around, holding a cat high in the air while a girl jumped and clutched at it. “Give it back,” the girl said. “You’ll hurt him.”
The boy laughed and held the cat higher—then noticed Simon standing in the doorway and stopped, his face sharpening.
“Hullo,” the dark-haired boy said, letting the cat drop to the floor. It landed on all four feet and ran from the room. The girl ran after it.
The boy ignored them, tugging his school jacket neatly into place and smiling with the left side of his mouth. “I know you. You’re Simon Snow … the Mage’s Heir.” He held out his hand smugly. “I’m Tyrannus Basilton Pitch. But you can call me Baz—we’re going to be roommates.”
Simon scowled and ignored the boy’s pale hand. “What did you think you were doing with her cat?”
—from chapter 3, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
He was so focused—and frustrated—he didn’t even see the girl with the red hair sit down at his table. She had pigtails and old-fashioned pointy spectacles, the kind you’d wear to a fancy dress party if you were going as a witch.
“You’re going to tire yourself out,” the girl said.
“I’m just trying to do this right,” Simon grunted, tapping the two-pence coin again with his wand and furrowing his brow painfully. Nothing happened.
“Here,” she said, crisply waving her hand over the coin.
She didn’t have a wand, but she wore a large purple ring. There was yarn wound round it to keep it on her finger. “Fly away home.”
With a shiver, the coin grew six legs and a thorax and started to scuttle away. The girl swept it gently off the desk into a jar.
“How did you do that?” Simon asked. She was a first year, too, just like him; he could tell by the green shield on the front of her sweater.
“You don’t do magic,” she said, trying to smile modestly and mostly succeeding. “You are magic.”
Simon stared at the 2p ladybird.
“I’m Penelope Bunce,” the girl said, holding out her hand.
“I’m Simon Snow,” he said, taking it.
“I know,” Penelope said, and smiled.
—from chapter 8, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“But, sir,” Simon pushed, “do I have to be his roommate every year, every year until we leave Watford?”
The Mage smiled indulgently and ruffled Simon’s caramel brown hair. “Being matched with your roommate is a sacred tradition at Watford.” His voice was gentle but firm. “The Crucible cast you together. You’re to watch out for each other, to know each other as well as brothers.”
“Yeah, but, sir…” Simon shuffled in his chair. “The Crucible must have made a mistake. My roommate’s a complete git. He might even be evil. Last week, someone spelled my laptop closed, and I know it was him. He practically cackled.”
The Mage gave his beard a few solemn strokes. It was short and pointed and just covered his chin.
“The Crucible cast you together, Simon. You’re meant to watch out for him.”
—from chapter 3, Simon Snow and the Second Serpent, copyright © 2003 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“Words are very powerful,” Miss Possibelf said, stepping lightly between the rows of desks.
“And they take on more power the more that they’re spoken.…
“The more that they’re said and read and written, in specific, consistent combinations.”
She stopped in front of Simon’s desk and tapped it with a short, jeweled staff. “Up, up and away,” she said clearly.
Simon watched the floor move away from his feet. He grabbed at the edges of his desk, knocking over a pile of books and loose papers. Across the room, Basilton laughed.
Miss Possibelf nudged Simon’s trainer with her staff—“Hold your horses”—and his desk hovered three feet in the air.
“The key to casting a spell,” she said, “is tapping into that power. Not just saying the words, but summoning their meaning.…
“Now,” she said, “open your Magic Words books to page four. And Settle down there, Simon. Please.”
—from chapter 5, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
Agatha Wellbelove was the loveliest witch at Watford. Everyone knew it—every boy, every girl, all the teachers … The bats in the belfry, the snakes in the cellars …
Agatha herself knew it. Which you might think would detract from her charm and her beauty. But Agatha, at fourteen, never used this knowledge to harm or hold over others.
She knew she was lovely, and she shared it like a gift. Every smile from Agatha was like waking up to a perfect sunny day. Agatha knew it. And she smiled at everyone who crossed her path, as if it were the most generous thing she could offer.
—from chapter 15, Simon Snow and the Selkies Four, copyright © 2007 Gemma T. Leslie
---
Sneaking around the castle, staying out all night, coming home in the morning with leaves in his hair …
Baz was up to something; Simon was sure of it. But he needed proof—Penelope and Agatha weren’t taking his suspicions seriously.
“He’s plotting,” Simon would say.
“He’s always plotting,” Penelope would answer.
“He’s looming,” Simon would say.
“He’s always looming,” Agatha would answer. “He is quite tall.”
“No taller than me.”
“Mmm … a bit.”
It wasn’t just the plotting and the looming; Baz was up to something. Something beyond his chronic gittishness. His pearl grey eyes were bloodshot and shadowed; his black hair had lost its luster. Usually cold and intimidating, lately Baz seemed chilled and cornered.
Simon had followed him around the catacombs last night for three hours, and still didn’t have a clue.
—from chapter 3, Simon Snow and the Five Blades, copyright © 2008 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“Maybe I’m not supposed to have a wand. Maybe I’m supposed to have a ring like you. Or a … a wrist thingy like mangy old Elspeth.”
“Oh, Simon.” Penelope frowned. “You shouldn’t call her that. She can’t help her fur—her father was the Witch King of Canus.”
“No, I know, I just…”
“It’s easier for the rest of us,” she said, soothing. “Magicians’ instruments stay in families. They’re passed from generation to generation.”
“Right,” he said, “just like magic. It doesn’t make sense, Penelope—my parents must have been magicians.”
He’d tried to talk to her about this before, and that time it had made her look just as sad.
“Simon … they couldn’t have been. Magicians would never abandon their own child. Never. Magic is too precious.”
Simon looked away from her and flicked his wand again. It felt like something dead in his hands.
“I think Elspeth’s fur is pretty,” Penelope said. “She looks soft.”
He shoved the wand into his pocket and stood up. “You just want a puppy.”
—from chapter 21, Simon Snow and the Third Gate, copyright © 2004 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“I’m sorry, Penelope.”
“Don’t waste my time with sorries, Simon. If we stop to apologize and forgive each other every time we step on each other’s toes, we’ll never have time to be friends.”
—from chapter 4, Simon Snow and the Second Serpent, copyright © 2003 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“But I don’t understand,” Simon stammered, “what is the Insidious Humdrum? Is he a man?”
“Perhaps.” The Mage wiped the grit from his eyes and swept his wand out in front of them. “Olly olly oxen free,” he whispered. Simon braced himself, but nothing happened.
“Perhaps he’s a man,” the Mage said, recovering his wry smile. “Perhaps he’s something else, something less, I should think.”
“Is he a magician? Like us?”
“No,” the Mage said severely. “Of that we can be certain. He—if indeed he is a he—is the enemy of magic. He destroys magic; some think he eats it. He wipes the world clean of magic, wherever he can.…
“You’re too young to hear this, Simon. Eleven is too young. But it isn’t fair to keep it from you any longer. The Insidious Humdrum is the greatest threat the World of Mages has ever faced. He’s powerful, he’s pervasive. Fighting him is like fighting off sleep when you’re long
past the edge of exhaustion.
“But fight him we must. You were recruited to Watford because we believe the Humdrum has taken a special interest in you. We want to protect you; I vow to do so with my life. But you must learn, Simon, as soon as possible, how best to protect yourself.”
—from chapter 23, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
The Humdrum wasn’t a man at all, or a monster. It was a boy.
Simon stepped closer, perhaps foolishly, wanting to see its face.… He felt the Humdrum’s power whipping around him like dry air, like hot sand, an aching fatigue in the very marrow of Simon’s bones.
The Humdrum—the boy—wore faded denims and a grotty T-shirt, and it probably took Simon far too long to recognize the child as himself. His years-ago self.
“Stop it,” Simon shouted. “Show yourself, you coward. Show yourself!”
The boy just laughed.
—from chapter 23, Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, copyright © 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“You’re the most powerful magician in a hundred ages.” The Humdrum’s face, Simon’s own boyhood face, looked dull and tired. Nothing glinted in its blue eyes.… “Do you think that much power comes without sacrifice? Did you think you could become you without leaving something, without leaving me, behind?”
—from chapter 23, Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, copyright © 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
Fried tomatoes at breakfast. Every lump in his bed. Being able to do magic without worrying whether anyone was watching. Agatha, of course. And Penelope. Getting to see the Mage—not often, but still. Simon’s uniform. His school tie. The football pitch, even when it was muddy. Fencing. Raisin scones every Sunday with real clotted cream … What didn’t Simon miss about Watford?
—from chapter 1, Simon Snow and the Selkies Four, copyright © 2007 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“You’re finally going on a date with Agatha?” Penelope’s voice was soft, despite the surprise in her face. Neither of them wanted Sir Bleakly to hear—he was prone to giving ridiculous detentions; they could end up dusting the catacombs for hours or proofreading confiscated love notes.
“After dinner,” Simon whispered back. “We’re going to look for the sixth hare in the Veiled Forest.”
“Does Agatha know it’s a date? Because that just sounds like ‘Another Tuesday Night with Simon.’”
“I think so.” Simon tried not to turn and frown at Penelope, even though he wanted to.
“She said she’d wear her new dress.…”
“Another Tuesday Night with Agatha,” Penelope said.
“You don’t think she likes me?”
“Oh, Simon, I never said that. She’d have to be an idiot not to like you.”
Simon grinned.
“So I guess what I’m saying,” Penelope said, going back to her homework, “is we’ll just have to see.”
—from chapter 17, Simon Snow and the Six White Hares, copyright © 2009 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“That does it,” Simon said, charging forward, climbing right over the long dinner table.
Penelope grabbed the tail of his cape, and he nearly landed face-first on a bench. He recovered quickly—“Let go, Penny”—and ran hard at Basil, both fists raised and ready.
Basil didn’t move. “Good fences make good neighbors,” he whispered, just barely tipping his wand.
Simon’s fist slammed into a solid barrier just inches from the other boy’s unflinching jaw.
He pulled his hand back, yelping, still stumbling against the spell.
This made Dev and Niall and all the rest of Basil’s cronies cackle like drunk hyenas. But Basil himself stayed still. When he spoke, it was so softly, only Simon could hear him. “Is that how you’re going to do it, Snow? Is that how you’re going to best your Humdrum?” He dropped the spell with a twitch of his wand, just as Simon regained his balance. “Pathetic,” Basil said, and walked away.
—from chapter 4, Simon Snow and the Five Blades, copyright © 2008 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
The Humdrum bounced a small red ball in its hand.
Simon had carried that ball everywhere, for at least a year. He’d lost it when he came to Watford—he hadn’t needed it anymore.
“You’re lying,” Simon said. “You’re not me. You’re no part of me.”
“I’m what’s left of you,” the Humdrum said. And Simon would swear his own voice was never so high and so sweet.
—from chapter 23, Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, copyright © 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
He’d have to tell the Mage what he saw.
I’ve finally seen the Humdrum, sir. I know what we’re fighting—me.
“What’s left of you,” the monster had said.
What is left of me? Simon wondered. A ghost? A hole? An echo?
An angry little boy with nervous hands?
—from chapter 24, Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, copyright © 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
Agatha wrung her fingers in her cape miserably. (But still prettily. Even Agatha’s tear-stained face was a thing of beauty.) Simon wanted to tell her it was all right, to forget the whole scene with Baz in the forest.… Agatha standing in the moonlight, holding both of Baz’s pale
hands in her own …
“Just tell me,” Simon said, his voice shaking.
“I don’t know what to say,” she wept. “There’s you. And you’re good. And you’re right. And then there’s him.… And he’s different.”
“He’s a monster.” Simon clenched his square jaw.
Agatha just nodded. “Perhaps.”
—from chapter 18, Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak, copyright © 2010 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“Do you know what the most disappointing thing is about being a magician?”
Penelope shook her head and rolled her eyes, a combination she’d gotten terribly good at over the years. “Don’t be silly, Simon. There’s nothing disappointing about magic.”
“There is,” he argued, only partly just to tease her. “I always figured we’d learn a way to fly by now.”
“Oh, pish,” Penelope said. “Anyone can fly. Anyone with a friend.”
She held her ringed hand out to him and grinned—“Up, up and away!”
Simon felt the steps drift away from him and laughed his way through a slow somersault.
When he was upright again, he leveled his wand at Penelope.
—from chapter 11, Simon Snow and the Five Blades, copyright © 2008 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
“Morgan’s grace, Simon—slow down.” Penelope held an arm out in front of his chest and glanced around the weirdly lit courtyard. “There’s more than one way through a flaming gate.”
—from chapter 11, Simon Snow and the Third Gate, copyright © 2004 by Gemma T. Leslie
---
Simon stepped toward the Humdrum. He’d never been this close. The heat and the pull were almost too much for him; he felt like the Humdrum would suck his heart through his chest, his thoughts from his head.
“I created you with my hunger,” Simon said. “With my need for magic.”
“With your capacity,” it said.
Simon shrugged, a Herculean effort in the presence and pressure of the Humdrum.
Simon had spent his whole life, well, the last eight years of it, trying to become more powerful, trying to live up to his destiny—trying to become the sort of magician, maybe the only magician, who could defeat the Insidious Humdrum.
And all he’d ever done was stoke the Humdrum’s need.
Simon took the last step forward.
“I’m not hungry anymore.”
—from chapter 27, Simon Snow and the Eighth Dance, copyright © 2012 by Gemma T. Leslie
Re: Fanfiction
Simon, washed blue by his own conjured fire, his teeth bared and his face thick with decision
and disgust.…
Baz held the pole just over Simon’s face, and before Simon could reach his wand or
whisper a spell, Baz was driving the pole forward over Simon’s shoulder. The boat shook,
and there was a gurgling howl—a frenzied splash—from the water. Baz raised the pole and
drove it down again, his face as cold and cruel as Simon had ever seen it. His wide lips were
shining, and he was practically growling.
Simon held himself still while the boat rocked. When Baz stepped back again, Simon
slowly sat up. “Did you kill it?” he asked quietly.
“No,” Baz said. “I should have. It should know better than to bother the boats—and you
should know better than to lean into the moat.”
“Why are there merwolves in the moat anyway?” Simon flushed. “This is a school.”
“A school run by a madman. Something I’ve been trying to explain to you for six years.”
“Don’t talk that way about the Mage.”
“Where’s your Mage now, Simon?” Baz asked softly, looking up at the old fortress. He
looked tired again, his face blue and shadowed in the moonlight, his eyes practically ringed
in black. “And what are you looking for anyway?” he asked waspishly, rubbing his eyes.
“Maybe if you told me, I could help you find it, and then we could both go inside and avoid
death by drowning, freezing, or torn jugular.”
“It’s…” Simon weighed the risks.
Usually when Simon was this far along on a quest, Baz had already sniffed out his
purpose and was setting a trap to foil him. But this time Simon hadn’t told anyone what he
was doing. Not even Agatha. Not even Penelope.
The anonymous letter had told Simon to seek out help; it said that the mission was too
dangerous to carry out on his own—and that’s exactly why Simon hadn’t wanted to involve
his friends.
But putting Baz at risk … Well, that wasn’t so distasteful.
“It’s dangerous,” Simon said sternly.
“Oh, I’m sure—danger is your middle name, etc. Simon Oliver Danger Snow.”
“How do you know my middle name?” Simon asked warily.
“Great Crimea, what part of ‘six years’ is lost on you? I know which shoe you put on first.
I know that your shampoo smells like apples. My mind is fairly bursting with worthless
Simon Snow trivia.… Don’t you know mine?”
“Your what?”
“My middle name,” Baz said.
Morgan’s tooth, he was stroppy. “It’s … it’s Basilton, right?”
“Quite right, you great thumping idiot.”
“That was a trick question.” Simon turned back to the mosaic.
“What are you looking for!” Baz demanded again, snarling through his teeth like an
animal.
This was something Simon had learned about Baz in six years: He could turn from
peevish to dangerous in half a heartbeat.
But Simon still hadn’t learned not to rise to the bait. “Rabbits!” he blurted out. “I’m
looking for rabbits.”
“Rabbits?” Baz looked confused, caught mid-snarl.
“Six white hares.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know!” Simon shouted. “I just am. I got a letter. There are six white hares on
school grounds, and they lead to something—”
“To what?”
“I. Don’t. Know. Something dangerous.”
“And I don’t suppose,” Baz said, leaning against the pole, resting his forehead on the
wood, “that you know who sent it.”
“No.”
“It could be a trap.”
“There’s only one way to find out.” Simon wished he could stand and face Baz without
tipping the boat; he hated the way Baz was talking down to him.
“You really think that,” Baz scoffed, “don’t you? You really think that the only way to sort
out whether something is dangerous it to barrel right into it.”
“What else would you suggest?”
“You could ask your precious Mage, for starters. You could run it past your swotty friend.
Her brain is so enormous, it pushes her ears out like a monkey’s—maybe she could shed
some light.”
Simon yanked on Baz’s cloak and made him lose his balance. “Don’t talk about Penelope
like that.”
The punt wobbled, and Baz recovered his cool stance. “Have you talked to her? Have you
talked to anyone?”
“No,” Simon said.
“Six hares, is it?”
“Yes.”
“How many have you found so far?”
“Four.”
“So you’ve got the one in the cathedral and the one on the drawbridge—”
“You know about the hare on the drawbridge?” Simon sat back, startled. “That took me
three weeks to find.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Baz said. “You’re not very observant. Do you even know my
first name?” He started pushing them through the water again—pushing them toward the
dock, Simon hoped.
“It’s … it begins with a T.”
“It’s Tyrannus,” Baz said. “Honestly. So the cathedral, the drawbridge, and the nursery—”
Simon clambered to his feet, pulling himself up by Baz’s cloak. The punt bobbed. “The
nursery?”
Baz lowered an eyebrow. “Of course.”
This close, Simon could see the purple bruises under Baz’s eyes, the web of dark blood
vessels in his eyelids. “Show me.”
Baz shrugged—practically shuddered—away from Simon and out of the boat. Simon
jerked forward and grabbed a post on the dock to keep the boat from floating away.
“Come on,” Baz said.
It took longer to put the boat away than it had to get it out, and by the time it was tied up,
Simon’s hands were wet and freezing.
They hurried back into the fortress, side by side, both of them pushing their fists into their
pockets.
Baz was taller, but their strides matched exactly.
Simon wondered whether they’d ever walked like this before. In six years—six years of
always walking in the same direction—had they ever once fallen into step?
“Here,” Baz said, catching Simon’s arm and stopping at a closed door. Simon would have
walked right past this door. He must have a thousand times—it was on the main floor, near
the professors’ offices.
Baz tried the handle. It was locked. He pulled his wand out of his pocket and started
murmuring. The door came open suddenly, almost as if the knob were reaching for Baz’s
pale hand.
“How did you do that?” Simon asked.
Baz just sneered and strode forward. Simon followed. The room was dark, but he could
see that it was a place for children. There were toys and pillows, and train tracks that wound
around the room in every direction.
“What is this place?”
“It’s the nursery,” Baz said in a hushed voice. As if children might be sleeping in the room
right now.
“Why does Watford need a nursery?”
“It doesn’t,” Baz said. “Not anymore. It’s too dangerous here now for children. But this
used to be the place where the faculty brought their children while they worked. And other
magical children could come, too, if they wanted to get an early start on their development.”
“Did you come here?”
“Yes, from the time I was born.”
“Your parents must have thought you needed a lot of extra help.”
“My mother was the headmaster, you idiot.”
Simon turned to look at Baz, but he couldn’t quite see the other boy’s face in the dark. “I
didn’t know that.”
He could hear Baz roll his eyes. “Shocking.”
“But I’ve met your mother.”
“You’ve met my stepmother,” Baz said. He stood very still.
Simon matched his stillness. “The last headmaster,” he said, watching Baz’s profile.
“Before the Mage came, the one who was killed by vampires.”
Baz’s head fell forward like it was weighted with stones. “Come on. The hare is this way.”
The next room was wide and round. Cribs lined the walls on each side, with small, low
futons placed in a circle in the middle. At the far end was a huge fireplace—half as tall as the
high, curved ceiling. Baz whispered into his hand and sent a ball of fire blazing through the
grate. He whispered again, twisting his hand in the air, and the blue flames turned orange and
hot. The room came to life a bit around them.
Baz walked toward the fireplace, holding his hands up to the heat. Simon followed.
“There it is,” Baz said.
“Where?” Simon looked into the fire.
“Above you.”
Simon looked up, then turned back to face the room. On the ceiling above him was a
richly painted mural of the night sky. The sky was deep blue and dominated by the moon—a
white rabbit curled tightly in on itself, eyes pressed closed, fat and full and fast asleep.
Simon walked out into the middle of the room, his chin raised high. “The fifth hare…,” he
whispered. “The Moon Rabbit.”
“Now what?” Baz asked, just behind him.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, now what?”
“I don’t know,” Simon said.
“Well, what did you do when you found the others?”
“Nothing. I just found them. The letter just said to find them.”
Baz brought his hands to his face and growled, dropping into a frustrated heap on the
floor. “Is this how you and your dream team normally operate? It’s no wonder it’s always so
easy to get in your way.”
“But not so easy to stop us, I’ve noticed.”
“Oh, shut up,” Baz said, his face hidden in his knees. “Just—no more. No more of your
drippy voice until you’ve got something worth saying. It’s like a drill you’re cranking
between my eyes.”
Simon sat down on the floor near Baz, near the fire, looking up at the sleeping rabbit.
When his neck started to cramp, he leaned back on the rug.
“I slept in a room like this,” Simon said. “In the orphanage. Nowhere near this nice. There
was no fireplace. No Moon Rabbit. But we all slept together like this, in one room.”
“Crowley, Snow, was that when you joined the cast of Annie?”
“There are still places like that. Orphanages. You wouldn’t know.”
“Quite right,” Baz said. “My mother didn’t choose to leave me.”
“If your family is so grand, why are you celebrating Christmas with me?”
“I wouldn’t call this a celebration.”
Simon focused again on the rabbit. Maybe there was something hidden in it. Maybe if he
squinted. Or if he looked at it in a mirror. Agatha had a magic mirror; it would tell you if
something was amiss. Like if you had spinach in your teeth or something hanging from your
nose. When Simon looked at it, it always asked him who he was kidding. “It’s just jealous,”
Agatha would say. “It thinks I give you too much attention.”
“It was my choice,” Baz said, breaking the silence. “I didn’t want to go home for
Christmas.” He leaned back onto the floor, an arm’s length from Simon. When Simon
glanced over, Baz was staring up at the painted stars.
“Were you here?” Simon asked, watching the light from the fire play across Baz’s strong
features. His nose was all wrong, Simon had always thought. It started too high, with a soft
bump between Baz’s eyebrows. If Simon looked at Baz’s face for too long, he always wanted
to reach up and tug his nose down. Not that that would work. It was just a feeling.
“Was I here when?” Baz asked.
“When they attacked your mother.”
“They attacked the nursery,” Baz said, as if he were explaining it to the moon. “Vampires
can’t have children, you know—they have to turn them. They thought if they turned magical
children, they’d be twice as dangerous.”
They would be, Simon thought, his stomach flopping fearfully. Vampires were already
nearly invulnerable; a vampire who could do magic …
“My mother came to protect us.”
“To protect you,” Simon said.
“She threw fire at the vampires,” Baz said. “They went up like flash paper.”
“How did she die?”
“There were just too many of them.” He was still talking to the sky, but his eyes were
closed.
“Did the vampires turn any of the children?”
“Yes.” It was like a puff of smoke escaping from Baz’s lips.
Simon didn’t know what to say. He thought it might be worse, in a way, to have had a
mother, a powerful, loving mother, and then to lose her—than to grow up like Simon had.
With nothing.
He knew what happened next in Baz’s story: After the headmaster, Baz’s mother, was
killed, the Mage took over. The school changed; it had to. They weren’t just students now.
They were warriors. Of course the nursery had closed. When you came to Watford, you left
your childhood behind.
All right for Simon. He had nothing to lose.
But for Baz …
He lost his mother, Simon thought, and he got me instead. In a hiccup of tenderness or
perhaps pity, Simon reached for Baz’s hand, fully expecting Baz to yank his arm from its
socket.
But Baz’s hand was cold and limp. When Simon looked closer, he realized that the other
boy was asleep.