Excerpt of The Night Tourist by Katherine Marsh
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The Night Tourist
I The Accident
It was just after dusk when the accident happened. As
usual, Jack Perdu was walking through theYale University
campus with his nose buried in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
Although he was only in the ninth grade, he had an afterschool
job helping the head of the university’s Classics
department on her new English translation. It was the day
after Christmas so there were no professors around, which
meant that there was no reason for Jack to look up out of
his book. But suddenly he heard a shout.
“Hey, Jack!”
Jack stopped walking and looked up. A girl in a
puffy blue parka was running toward him across the
brick walkway between the Yale library and Elm Street.
Her hair was in braids, and she was frantically waving
at him.
“It’s Tanya,” she panted when she reached him.“I’m in
your English class.”
“Oh,” said Jack. He knew who she was, but, like most
of the kids at Hyde Leadership High School, she’d never
spoken to him before.
“I was just going to the store to return this pair of
pants my mother got me for Christmas,” she explained,
pulling a pair of brown corduroys out of a plastic bag.
“They’re pretty awful, aren’t they?”
Jack, who was wearing a pair of pants very much like
them, didn’t say anything. Tanya didn’t seem to notice.
“Anyway, I can’t remember what book we’re supposed to
read over break.When I saw you, I knew you’d know.”
“Of Mice and Men,” said Jack.
Tanya grinned. “I bet you’ve read it already.”
Jack gave a noncommittal shrug. He’d actually read it
a few years earlier.
“You live here, right?” Tanya pointed vaguely at the
stone residential colleges, which surrounded the walkway
on either side.
Jack nodded.
“And let me guess, your dad’s a professor?”
“He’s the chair of the Archeology department.”
Tanya smiled. “That’s why you’re so smart.You know
every poem in class before we even read it.”
“Not really,” he murmured, though he usually did.
“Is your mom a professor too?”
Jack shivered and pulled his cap tighter over his unruly
thatch of hair.“No,” he said.“She’s dead.”
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” said Tanya.
“It’s okay. It happened a long time ago. I was six.”
Tanya’s eyes widened.“What happened?”
Jack looked around her for an escape route.“A scaffold
fell on her in New York City,” he murmured. “It was a
windy day.”
“That’s horrible!”
“It happened a long time ago,” he repeated. Eight years
ago this month, he thought, but didn’t say it. He looked
down at the book in his hands.
“What are you reading? It doesn’t look like the Mice
and Men book.”
Jack held up the book so she could see the spine.
“Metamorphoses.” Tanya wrinkled her nose. “Is that a
book about insects or something?”
“It’s a book of Greek myths.”
Tanya shook her head.“You’re too smart to be in high
school, Jack. You should be a professor or something
yourself.”
“I’ve got to go,” he said. And before she had a chance
to say anything else, he flipped open the Metamorphoses
and started walking toward Elm Street. He’d heard it all
before.
As he hurried away, Jack focused on how to properly
translate the Latin word occidit. He had just started Book
Ten of the Metamorphoses, which contained his favorite
myth, the story of the musician Orpheus. After a snakebite
kills his bride, Eurydice, Orpheus descends into the
underworld to bring her back. Jack had gotten as far as
the snake attack, after which Eurydice occidit. Occidit could
mean that the snake “killed her” or “cut her down,” but it
could also mean that she “perished.” Some people might
not think there’s much of a difference between these possibilities,
but Jack did. You could perish in an accident
and no one is to blame. But when you’re killed, a killer—
in Eurydice’s case, the snake—is at fault.
Copyright © 2007 by Katherine Marsh. All rights reserved. Published by Hyperion Books for Children, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
