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The Eighteenth Century -- Medicine
Tom's mother is recovering from cancer.
She takes him to London to stay for a while with his grandmother.
Tom remembers the last time he was there. If he goes down to the
basement he can step across a gap and go back in time. As soon
as he arrives at his grandmother's Tom hears voices calling to
him to help them.
Once again Tom crosses the gap and finds himself back in the eighteenth
century at the time of the Bartholomew's Fair. The people who
need his help are the freaks or 'monsters' -- like the Gorilla
Woman and the Bendy Man -- who are often exhibited at the Fair.
One of them is a huge man referred to as 'the Giant.' He is ill
and not expected to live long. His friends are afraid that the
graverobbers will take his body and sell it to the doctors for
dissection. This will mean that he will not get into Heaven as
he will not be entire. They call on Tom to help them to outwit
the graverobbers. He does so by going back to his own time and
visiting a joke shop for Halloween artefacts -- which he later
uses to terrorise the graverobbers.
But Tom himself is much more concerned about Astra, a tiny child.
Her keeper is tired of her. He is going to have her killed and
sell her body to the doctors. Astra worries more about the Giant
than herself, but Tom is determined to save her.
Does Tom succeed succeed? And what about his twenty-first century
problems? Do his mother and grandmother manage to put their differences
behind them?
An unusual book touching on a number of topics.
Young adult