The Clockwork Terror of Blackglass Island

by Malory Author, Jack Wylder Illustrator

Felix Jones is the kind of kid who builds a frequency scanner from broken library barcode readers and uses them to forge permission slips. He is not exactly the student teachers dream of sending on school trips. But when his Year 7 class arrives at the Museum of Time and Tides on fog-locked Blackglass Island, something is immediately wrong. The curator doesn't blink. Ever. The classmates who were throwing scotch eggs twenty minutes ago are now breathing in perfect synchronization. And beneath the volcanic rock, something is ticking — a deep pulse that keeps trying to sand away all of Felix's best ideas. Archibald Rook has been planning this visit for a very long time. Blackglass Island isn't a museum. It's a machine — a lighthouse built around a shard of alien crystal that broadcasts a frequency capable of rewriting human thought into clockwork obedience. All he needs is enough brains to run it at full power. Thirty-two Year 7 students will do nicely. Felix and his best friend William are the only ones the signal can't reach. So it's just two twelve-year-olds, a Victorian signal cannon, a swarm of clockwork crabs, and one very loud brain against a man who wants to silence the entire world. The Clockwork Terror of Blackglass Island is the second adventure in the Felix Jones series — smart, fast, and funny enough to get the book-hater in your life to read past page one. New to the series? Start with The Weird Map in Mr. Glimm's Skull.