Way up in the misty island mountains of Jamaica live eleven-year-old twins Pollyread and Jackson Gilmore. Pollyread is smart as a whip and tart as a lime. Jackson's sweet as a mango. Both of them know all the rules of their village -- and how to break them.
Then a young thug named Jammy sweeps in to stir up the twins' world. He even seems to be targeting their family. But are Pollyread's smart mouth and Jackson's steadiness enough to take him on -- or will Jammy and his secret change the Gilmore family forever?
Martin Mordecai
Martin Mordecai was born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica -- far from Top Valley, where this novel is set. Martin's professions have included television, radio, journalism, and the foreign service, but he has written all his life. Martin now lives in Ontario, Canada, with his wife, Pamela.
Blue Mountain Trouble is his first novel.
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- ! 'Rain at night when it wakes you in your bed under a zinc roof (as long as the
roof doesn''t leak) is the sweetest thought you can think, the warmest memory you
can own. When you sleep your whole life under open windows in a place so quiet you
can feel the night sky move, then rain when it wakes you is like God telling you
stories. While you''re listening to the crackling laughter of lightning and the
thunder clearing the sky''s throat, your feet search the bottom of the bed for the
sheet Mama always leaves there, even in the hot months, and your toes wriggle into
it so it becomes a second skin.
And through the boisterous rain-telling,
and the rumbling thunder, beneath the thumping of your own excited heart, you listen
for the sound you know will come: whining that is like a jagged knife tearing through
the hullabaloo. This is Cho-cho. Who, by strict parental edict, is not allowed inside
the house once the door has been closed for the night until first light next morning.
"Lightning not going kill him," Poppa said more than once when the twins pleaded
for the little mongrel. "He can stay under the house bottom like all the rest of
the dawg them."
Cho-cho does -- right under the twins'' window. It is there
that he begins his campaign, with a pitiful whine that comes through the heavy shroud
of rain as easily as a needle going through cloth. Then, sensing some movement or
interest above, no matter how faint, he scurries around to the door and starts scratching,
scratching. The door is nearer to the parents'' bedroom than to the twins'', and
Mama is a light sleeper. Like a strangely shaped creature joined by the darkness,
the twins tiptoe to the door, slide the bolt, lift the latch, and swing it open
to pull in the shivering dog, lock the door and carry the dog back to their rooms
and get back into their beds -- all in a few seconds and without a single word being
exchanged. Cho-cho plays his part too, unaccustomedly silent in gratitude.
His
coat being soaking wet most times, there is no question of the dog being allowed
further concession. To take his richly smelly body into either bed would be tantamount
to signing a confession. So Cho-cho is bundled under one or other bed, covered with
whatever can be found to keep him warm, and is shushed to sleep amid the stories
that the night leans over the windowsill and tells, spitting raindrops onto your
face.
Sometimes the rainstories become your dreams, and your dreams are a
bridge back to the morning...'