A Monster Calls - Extract

1 The following extract has been taken from the opening chapter of Patrick Ness’s “A Monster
2 Calls”. The book opens with Connor waking up at 12.07am after having a nightmare.
1Then he heard a heavy creak of wood outside, as if something gigantic was stepping across a timber
2floor.
3He didn’t want to go and look. But at the same time, a part of him wanted to look more than anything.
4Wide awake now, he pushed back the covers, got out of bed, and went over to the window. In the pale
5half-light of the moon, he could clearly see the church tower up on the small hill behind his house, the
6one with the train tracks curving beside it, two hard steel lines glowing dully in the night. The moon
7shone, too, on the graveyard attached to the church, filled with tombstones you could hardly read any
8more.
9Conor could also see the great yew tree that rose from the centre of the graveyard, a tree so ancient it
10almost seemed to be made of the same stone as the church. He only knew it was a yew because his
11mother had told him, first when he was little to make sure he didn’t eat the berries, which were
12poisonous, and again this past year, when she’d started staring out of their kitchen window with a funny
13look on her face and saying, “That’s a yew tree, you know.”
14And then he heard his name again.
15Conor.
16Like it was being whispered in both his ears.
17“What?” Conor said, his heart thumping, suddenly impatient for whatever was going to happen.
18A cloud moved in front of the moon, covering the whole landscape in darkness, and a whoosh of wind
19rushed down the hill and into his room, billowing the curtains. He heard the creaking and cracking of
20wood again, groaning like a living thing, like the hungry stomach of the world growling for a meal.
21Then the cloud passed, and the moon shone again.
22On the yew tree.
23Which now stood firmly in the middle of his back garden.
24And here was the monster.
25As Conor watched, the uppermost branches of the tree gathered themselves into a great and terrible
26face, shimmering into a mouth and nose and even eyes, peering back at him. Other branches twisted
27around one another, always creaking, always groaning, until they formed two long arms and a second
28leg to set down beside the main trunk. The rest of the tree gathered itself into a spine and then a torso,
29the thin, needle-like leaves weaving together to make a green, furry skin that moved and breathed as if
30there were muscles and lungs underneath.
3 The following extract has been taken from the opening chapter of Patrick Ness’s “A Monster
4 Calls”. The book opens with Connor waking up at 12.07am after having a nightmare.
31Already taller than Conor’s window, the monster grew wider as it brought itself together, filling out to a
32powerful shape, one that looked somehow strong, somehow mighty. It stared at Conor the whole time,
33and he could hear the loud, windy breathing from its mouth. It set its giant hands on either side of his
34window, lowering its head until its huge eyes filled the frame, holding Conor with its glare. Conor’s
35house gave a little moan under its weight.
36And then the monster spoke.
37Conor O’Malley, it said, a huge gust of warm, compost-smelling breath rushing through Conor’s window,
38blowing his hair back. Its voice rumbled low and loud, with a vibration so deep Conor could feel it in his
39chest.
40I have come to get you, Conor O’Malley, the monster said, pushing against the house, shaking the
41pictures off Conor’s wall, sending books and electronic gadgets and an old stuffed toy rhino tumbling to
42the floor.
43A monster, Conor thought. A real, honest-to-goodness monster. In real, waking life. Not in a dream, but
44here, at his window.
45Come to get him.
46But Conor didn’t run.
47In fact, he found he wasn’t even frightened.
48All he could feel, all he had felt since the monster revealed itself, was a growing disappointment.
49Because this wasn’t the monster he was expecting.
50“So come and get me then,” he said.
51

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1 The following extract has been taken from the opening chapter of Patrick Ness’s “A Monster

14And then he heard his name again.

16Like it was being whispered in both his ears.

21Then the cloud passed, and the moon shone again.

22On the yew tree.

23Which now stood firmly in the middle of his back garden.

24And here was the monster.

36And then the monster spoke.

45Come to get him.

46But Conor didn’t run.

47In fact, he found he wasn’t even frightened.

49Because this wasn’t the monster he was expecting.

50“So come and get me then,” he said.

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