Mister Monday
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| Author | Garth Nix |
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| Cover artist | Chris Carlson, Don Farrall & Kamil Vojnar |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Keys to the Kingdom |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy, Young adult novel |
| Publisher | Scholastic Press |
| Released | 1 July 2003 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 445 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-439-55123-4 |
| Followed by | Grim Tuesday |
Mister Monday is the first novel in the Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix. Mister Monday deals with the deadly sin of sloth.
[edit] Plot introduction
Mister Monday details the adventure of a schoolboy, Arthur Penhaligon, who, during an asthma attack, is entrusted with a key by one Mister Monday, on the supposition that he is about to die and the key will pass straight back to Monday, ensuring his ownership of it. However, he survives, in possession of both the key and a strange notebook known as the Atlas, and soon he is being hounded by Monday's henchmen, who inadvertently bring a sleeping plague of some sort to Arthur's home town. He escapes quarantine and sets off into a mysterious house, which has appeared in the notebook, in search of a solution to all these problems.
[edit] Plot summary
The story begins with a prologue in which the first part of the Will of the Architect escapes from its prison on a dead star when an Inspector visits to ensure that the Will is secure.
Meanwhile on Earth, a boy named Arthur Penhaligon is struggling through his first Monday at a new school. He suffers from severe asthma, but despite his pleas to the coach, he is forced to run the cross-country course. He collapses due to an asthma attack. Only just clinging to life, two of his schoolmates stop to help him use his inhaler and then run to get help.
While waiting for help, Arthur notices two strange-looking men who materialise out of thin air. The first, known as Sneezer, is old, tall, gray-haired, untidily dressed. The other is in a three-wheeled bath-chair which is being pushed by Sneezer. This man is much younger, handsome, but still bizarrely dressed. He is known as Mister Monday. They come close to Arthur discussing the matter of whether or not to give 'the Key' to Arthur. Monday is disinclined, but Sneezer assures him that by giving the Key to Arthur, who is meant to die shortly, Monday will fulfill his part of the Will. After Arthur dies, he will once again regain control of the Key. Reluctantly, Monday drops the Key into Arthur's hand. The Key is a thin, metal spike like the blade of a knife, but appears to be like the minute hand of an old clock. Sneezer instructs Monday to give Arthur the other half, but Monday refuses, claiming that with the full Key, Arthur might live. Sneezer becomes angry, and his voice changes as he spits out both words and a line of type. Monday points a metallic spike at Sneezer, Arthur hears a scream and then both Monday and Sneezer are gone, however the swirling type remains. The type creates a small book which drops onto Arthur's head, and then the swirling words disappear. Arthur puts the book in his pocket, picks up the Key and suddenly regains his breath. He notices his coach and the school nurse rushing across the oval towards him. He buries the Key on the oval and immediately feel his lungs tighten, before he passes out.
Arthur wakes up in a hospital bed, tired and having just had an asthma attack. He is visited by the two schoolmates who helped him on the cross-country track. Their names are Ed and Leaf, brother and sister respectively. Leaf comments that she had seen an old man pushing a bathtub with a young man in it (they are of course, Sneezer and Mister Monday). Ed says he didn't see Monday and Sneezer, but claims he saw a bunch of men with dog faces digging up the oval. Leaf confirms this. Arthur, who desperately wanted it all to have been a dream asks Leaf to get the small book he placed in his school shirt pocket. She does, and Arthur is disappointed to discover that it was all real after all. Ed and Leaf are ushered out by a nurse who then proceeds to give Arthur a shot. In pain, Arthur pushes his hand under the pillow, only to have his fingers touch the Key, which had mysteriously appeared.
A week later, Arthur returns home. When he gets there, he uses the key's power to open the Atlas (the book Will gave him), and learns that the House (a giant, old-fashioned house that he passed when going home) has an entrance called the Monday's Postern. That night, he is visited by the dog faces (Fetchers). He is saved by the ceramic Komodo dragon in which he put the key. Apparently, the dog faces cannot enter unless they are invited. He finds himself being pursued by Monday's Noon, who proves to be more powerful than the Fetchers, which can be overcome with salt.
Somehow, he escapes and finds himself the House and discovers what Nothing is, meets the Old One, and makes an ill-tempered friend: Suzy Turquiose Blue. Traveling with the Will, he needs to save his hometown before the sleeping plague spreads into the world without being caught by Mister Monday's henchmen: Dawn, Dusk, and Noon; and before the plague reaches his family.
In his travels through the House, he finds that he is the Rightful Heir, a person to whom the Will was referred. If he fufills this Function, the Architect of the World's original intention will be enacted. He hands the responsibility over to the Will itself, manifest in the form of Dame Primus (almost literally "First Mother"), returns to Earth, and tries to regain the threads of his old life.
[edit] External links
| Novels by Garth Nix | |
|---|---|
| The Keys to the Kingdom: | Mister Monday • Grim Tuesday • Drowned Wednesday • Sir Thursday • Lady Friday • Superior Saturday • Lord Sunday |
| The Old Kingdom series: | Sabriel • Lirael • Abhorsen • Across the Wall: A Tale of the Abhorsen and Other Stories |
| The Seventh Tower: | The Fall • Castle • Aenir • Above the Veil • Into Battle • The Violet Keystone |
| Standalone novels: | The Ragwitch • Shade's Children |
