Synopses & Reviews
He is one weird Christmas visitor -- his hair and moustache an unearthly white-blond, his voice a gruff rumble. He fills the apartment doorway. From two metal cases he produces what a boy would expect from an exterminator: Toxic roach powders and poisonous fog bombs.
But a crossbow?
Eric is fascinated at first. He's been bored this snowbound vacation, and has already zapped about a zillion Zergs. Antsy, he's even sneaked a look at the Christmas presents hidden beneath his parents' bed. Then Anje Gabrail, this exterminator, appears, talking a little madly about his war against rats -- about killing them.
"The worst," Anje says. And if Eric sees one in the Eden Apartments, he is to call Anje's twenty-four-hour cell phone immediately. Later that Monday, the fourth day before Christmas, a rat does appear in the building's basement -- and Eric finds himself suddenly, frighteningly swept into Anje's vengeful army.
As either partner...or victim.
With only a flashlight.
Synopsis
Alone in his apartment during Christmas vacation, 11-year-old Eric finds himself caught in a battle between a strange exterminator and the rat he wants to kill.
Synopsis
He is one weird Christmas visitor -- his hair and moustache an unearthly white-blond, his voice a gruff rumble. He fills the apartment doorway. From two metal cases he produces what a boy would expect from an exterminator: Toxic roach powders and poisonous fog bombs.
But a crossbow?
Eric is fascinated at first. He's been bored this snowbound vacation, and has already zapped about a zillion Zergs. Antsy, he's even sneaked a look at the Christmas presents hidden beneath his parents' bed. Then Anje Gabrail, this exterminator, appears, talking a little madly about his war against rats -- about killing them.
"The worst," Anje says. And if Eric sees one in the Eden Apartments, he is to call Anje's twenty-four-hour cell phone immediately. Later that Monday, the fourth day before Christmas, a rat does appear in the building's basement -- and Eric finds himself suddenly, frighteningly swept into Anje's vengeful army.
As either partner...or victim.
With only a flashlight.
About the Author
AVI's extraordinary range of books include fantasies, sports stories, tales of suspense and terror, historical adventures, and a graphic novel,
City of Light, City of Dark, a
Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year. Other titles among his forty-five books are
Poppy (Boston Globe-Horn Book Award),
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, (Newbery Honor and
Boston Globe-Horn Book Award), and
Nothing but the Truth (Newbery Honor). He is also the creator of the Breakfast Serials stories by well-known writers which appear, chapter by chapter, in hundreds of newspapers across America, and now have more than forty million devoted weekly readers.
He and his family live in Denver, Colorado.