The Field Guide Read online

  “I thought—well—I thought that maybe the boggart was a little bit like us, because it’s stuck here too. I mean, maybe it doesn’t even want to be here. Maybe being here makes it mad.”

  “Okay, before I say I believe you,” Mallory said, holding the book in a less threatening position, “tell me exactly what you want us to do.”

  “I need you guys to work the dumbwaiter,” Jared said, “so I can bring the house up to the library. I thought it would be safe there.”

  “Let’s see this house,” Mallory said. She and Simon followed Jared into the hall, and he showed it to them.

  It was made from a wooden birdhouse large enough for a crow to roost in. Jared had found it among the ones hung in the attic. Sliding up the back, he showed them how he had arranged everything except the cockroaches neatly inside. On the walls, he had taped up the newspaper words and also a few small pictures from magazines.

  “Did you cut up Mom’s stuff to make that?” Simon asked.

  “Yeah,” Jared said, and shrugged.

  “You really did a lot of work,” Mallory said.

  “So you’ll help me?” Jared wanted to ask for the book back, but he didn’t want to make his sister mad all over again.

  Mallory looked at Simon and nodded.

  “I want to go first, though,” said Simon.

  Jared hesitated. “Sure,” he said.

  Walking quietly past the den where their mother was phoning construction people, they went into the kitchen.

  Simon hesitated in front of the dumbwaiter. “Do you think my mice are alive?”

  Jared didn’t know what to say. He thought about the tadpoles, frozen in ice. He wanted Simon to help but didn’t want to lie.

  Simon got down on his knees and climbed into the dumbwaiter. In a few moments, Mallory had wheeled him up inside the wall. Simon gave a small gasp as he started moving, but then they heard nothing, even after the dumbwaiter stopped.

  “You said there was a desk in there and papers,” Mallory said.

  “Yeah.” Jared wasn’t sure what she was driving at. If she didn’t believe him, she could ask Simon when he came back down.

  “Well, they needed to get it in there somehow. And it wasn’t little, right? So an adult worked in there—but how did an adult get in there?”

  Jared was puzzled for a moment, then he understood. “A secret door?”

  Mallory nodded. “Maybe.”

  The dumbwaiter came back down and Jared got inside, the little house cradled in his lap. Mallory winched him up inside the dark tunnel. The trip was fast, but he was still very, very glad to see the library.

  Simon was standing in the middle of the room, looking around in awe.

  Jared grinned. “See?”

  “It’s so cool in here,” said Simon. “Look at all these animal books.”

  Thinking about the secret door, Jared tried to picture where he must be in relation to the rest of the rooms upstairs. He figured which direction would head toward the hall.

  “Mallory thinks there’s a hidden door,” Jared said.

  Simon came over. There was a bookcase, a large picture, and a cabinet in front of the wall Jared was looking at.

  “Picture,” Simon said, and together they took down the large oil painting. It was of a thin man with glasses sitting stiffly on a green chair. Jared wondered if that was Arthur Spiderwick.

  Behind the picture was nothing but flat wall.

  “Maybe we could pull out some of the books?” Jared said, taking out one entitled Mysterious Mushrooms, Fabulous Fungi.

  “Its so cool in here.”

  Simon opened the cabinet doors. “Hey, look at this.” They opened into the upstairs linen closet.

  A few minutes later, Mallory was looking around the room too.

  “This place is creepy,” Mallory said.

  Simon grinned. “Yeah, and no one knows about it but us.”

  “And the boggart,” said Jared.

  He hung his birdhouse from a wall sconce. Mallory and Simon helped him make sure that the insides were arranged, and then each of them added something to the house. Jared put in one of his winter gloves, thinking that the boggart could use it as a sleeping bag. Simon added a small dish he’d once used to give his lizards water. And Mallory must have believed Jared a little, because she tucked her silver fencing medal with the blue ribbon neatly inside.

  When they were done, they looked it over. They all thought it was a fine house.

  “Let’s leave it a note,” Simon suggested.

  “A note?” Jared asked.

  “Yeah.” Simon pawed through the drawers of the desk and found some paper, a pen with a nib, and a bottle of ink.

  “Hey, I didn’t notice this,” Jared said. He pointed to the watercolor painting of a man and a little girl on the desk. Underneath it in faint pencil was the inscription “my darling daughter Lucinda, age 4.”

  “So Arthur was her dad?” Mallory asked.

  “I guess so,” said Simon, clearing space on the desk to write.

  “Let me do it,” Mallory said. “You guys will take forever. Just tell what to write.” She unstoppered the ink and dipped the pen. It made a scratchy but legible line on the paper.

  “Dear Boggart,” Simon started.

  “Do you think that’s polite?” Jared asked.

  “I already wrote it,” Mallory said.

  “Dear Boggart,” Simon said again. “We are writing you to say that we are sorry we messed up your first house. We hope you like what we made and that even if you don’t, that you’ll stop pinching us—and other things—and that if you have Jeffrey and Lemondrop to please take care of them because they are good mice.”

  “Got it,” Mallory said.

  “Okay, then,” said Jared.

  They put the note on the floor near the little house and left the library.

  Over the next week, none of them had time to visit the library, even through the linen closet. Construction people and movers were milling around the house during the day, and their mother was watching them closely at night, even going so far as to pace the hallways.

  School had finally started, which wasn’t as bad as Jared had feared. The new school was small, but it had a fencing team for Mallory, and no one was too mean to them their first couple of days there. So far, Jared had managed to behave.

  Best of all, there were no more night attacks, no more scuttling in the walls—nothing other than Mallory’s shorter hair to make it seem like the whole thing had really happened.

  Except that Simon and Mallory were as eager to visit the room again as Jared was.

  They got their chance one Sunday, when their mother went out shopping and left Mallory in charge. As soon as their mom’s car pulled out of the driveway, they rushed up to the closet.

  Inside the library, very little had changed. The painting leaned up against the wall, the birdhouse hung from the sconce, everything appeared to be just the way they’d left it.

  “The note’s gone!” announced Simon.

  “Did you take it?” Mallory asked Jared.

  “No!” Jared insisted.

  There was the loud sound of a throat being cleared, and the three turned toward the desk. Standing on it, in worn overalls and a wide-brimmed hat, was a little man about the size of a pencil. His eyes were as black as beetles, his nose was large and red, and he looked very like the illustration from the Guide. He was holding a pair of leashes that attached to two gray mice that were sniffing the edge of the desk.

  “Jeffrey! Lemondrop!” Jared squealed.

  “Thimbletack likes his new house well,” the little man said, “but that’s not what he’s come to tell.”

  Jared nodded, not sure what to say. Mallory looked like someone had smacked her in the face but she hadn’t figured it out yet.

  The mannikin went on. “Arthur Spiderwick’s book is not for your kind. Too much about Fey for a mortal to find. All who have kept it have come to harm. Be it through violence or through charm. Throw th
e book away, toss it in a fire. If you do not heed, you will draw their ire.”

  “They? Who are they?” Jared asked, but the little man just tipped his cap and jumped off the side of the desk. He landed in the bright flood of sunlight in the open window and disappeared.

  Mallory seemed to break out of her trance. “Can I see the book?” she asked.

  Jared nodded. He’d taken to keeping it with him wherever he went.

  Mallory knelt down and flipped through the pages with her fingers, quicker than Jared could read.

  “Hey,” Jared said. “What are you doing?”

  About the size of a pencil

  “Throw the book away.”

  Mallory’s voice was weird. “I was just looking. I mean—this is a big book.”

  It wasn’t a small book. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “And all these entries . . . all these things are real? Jared, that’s a lot of real.”

  And then, suddenly, Jared understood what she was saying. If you looked at it that way, it was a big book, an absolutely huge book, too large to even comprehend. And worst of all, they were only at the beginning.

  About TONY DiTERLIZZI . . .

  New York Times bestselling author and illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi has been creating books with Simon and Schuster for over a decade. From fanciful picture books such as Jimmy Zangwow’s Out-of-This-World Moon-Pie Adventure, The Spider & The Fly (a Caldecott Honor book), and those in the Adventure of Meno series (with his wife, Angela) to middle-grade fiction like Kenny and the Dragon and The Search for WondLa, Tony has always imbued his stories with a rich imagination. His middle-grade series the Spiderwick Chronicles (with Holly Black) has sold millions of copies, been adapted into a feature film, and been translated in over thirty countries. You can visit him at diterlizzi.com.

  and HOLLY BLACK

  Holly Black is the author of bestselling contemporary fantasy books for kids and teens. She is the co-creator and writer of the Spiderwick Chronicles and the author of the Modern Faerie Tale series, the Good Neighbors graphic novel trilogy (with Ted Naifeh), the Curse Workers series, and her newest novel, Doll Bones. She has been a finalist for the Mythopoeic Award, a finalist for an Eisner Award, and the recipient of the Andre Norton Award. She currently lives in New England with her husband, Theo, in a house with a secret door. You can visit her at blackholly.com.

  You may know

  the Grace kids well,

  but there is still

  much tale to tell. . . .

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Tony and Holly would like to thank

  Steve and Dianna for their insight,

  Starr for her honesty,

  Myles and Liza for sharing the journey,

  Ellen and Julie for helping make this our reality,

  Kevin for his tireless enthusiasm and faith in us,

  and especially Angela and Theo—

  there are not enough superlatives

  to describe your patience

  in enduring endless nights

  of Spiderwick discussion.

  The text type for this book is set in Cochin.

  The display types are set in Nevins Hand and Rackham.

  The illustrations are rendered in pen and ink.

  Production editor: Dorothy Gribbin

  Art director: Dan Potash

  Production manager: Chava Wolin

  SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2003 by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

  Book design by Tony DiTerlizzi and Dan Potash

  This Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers hardcover edition May 2013

  The Library of Congress has cataloged a previous edition as follows:

  Black, Holly.

  The field guide / Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi.

  p. cm.— (The Spiderwick chronicles ; 1)

  Sequel: The seeing stone.

  Summary: When the Grace children go to stay at their great-aunt Lucinda’s worn Victorian house, they discover a field guide to fairies and other creatures and begin to have some unusual experiences.

  ISBN 978-0-689-85936-6 (hc)

  [1. Fairies—Fiction. 2. Brothers and sisters—Fiction.]

  I. DiTerlizzi, Tony. II. Title.

  PZ7.B52878 War 2003

  [Fic]—dc21

  2002013524

  ISBN 978-1-4424-8693-5 (jacketed hc)

  ISBN 978-1-4424-8692-8 (pbk)

  ISBN 978-1-4424-9619-4 (eBook)