N Wilson Quotes

“While his widowed mother continues to search for him, eleven-year-old Tom, presumed dead after drifting away down a river, finds himself trapped in a series of underground caves with another survivor and a dog, and pursued by murderous treasure-hunters.”

“The night Tom’s schoolteacher comes to dinner and asks Tom’s mother to marry him, Tom slips out of the house and escapes down a nearby stream on a floating slab of packing foam.”

“Wilson sets the scene vividly, from Tom’s home to the labyrinth of tunnels and caverns under the mountain, and the central characters’ emotional lives develop both naturally and affectingly.”

“So,” Jeffrey said, “where do you want me to look?” Elizabeth sighed. She was trying very hard not to yell. Jeffrey had come when she’d called, and he’d nodded while she’d described her early morning search along the stream and up the hill behind the house. But he had yet to look anywhere himself.”

“Thomas Hammond has always lived next to Leepike Ridge, but he never imagined he might end up lost beneath it! ”

“The night and stars lull Tom to sleep, and when he wakes, he has ridden his foam raft all the way to the ridge, where the stream dives underground.”

“You’re a guy, you tell me,′ Elizabeth said. “Where would you have gone?′ ‘I hid in the basement once. But you don’t have a basement, do you?” ‘No, Jeffrey, we don’t,’ she said. ‘The house is on a rock. Most people don’t bother digging a basement into solid rock.”

“Jeffrey, why don’t you just start looking? I’ve already looked everywhere I could think of.′ “I think its important that we do this rationally.′ Elizabeth shut her eyes and took a long breath. ‘Jeffrey.”

“Jeffrey stared out over the small valley floor with its stream and willows. And then he looked at the ridge on the other side and up at the ridge on the other side and up at the ridge behind the house with its small peak.”

“Flung over rapids and tossed through chasms, Tom finally hits shore, sore but alive. What Tom finds under Leepike Ridge—a dog, a flashlight, a castaway, a tomb, and buried treasure.”