Amaranta

By Ediciones Fortuna and Martha Faë

Amaranta is eight (and a half!) years old. Old enough to know that monsters don't exist. But the thing that jumps out and lands on her face every night when she sleeps... well, she knows that THAT is real!!

 

Amaranta needs all the help she can get to discover who or what the mysterious intruder is. With the support of her friends and a good dose of courage, she embarks on an adventure in which she soon finds out that what terrified her so much isn't really so fierce when seen up close. Now a unique and extraordinary creature needs her help to undo the terrible curse he's under. Only teamwork can break the spell.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ediciones Fortuna
• Release date: Sep 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393301813

Book preview

For my nephews and nieces – Ximena, Fabio, Ainara and Dante - for always reminding me how much fun it is to be young

Prologue

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At five in the afternoon light poured in through the horseshoe-shaped window of an old attic room in Madrid's San Andrés Street. It was that time of day when children go home from school. Joyful shouts, a parade of backpacks dancing across the worn cobblestones, and packets of crisps opening with that cheerful pop that soap bubbles would make if they were not so shy and dared to sing.

In the room, on a small bed with a shapeless headboard, slept a drawing book with a hot chocolate stain on one of its bottom corners from the last rainy day of autumn.

At 5:15 one of the sunbeams poking their noses through the window did one of those kinds of things that only happen when no one is looking. It opened its eyes very wide, looked one way and then the other, and then stealthily crept across the wall and deeper into the room. It worked its way up to the ceiling and then paused there, right above the book. Quiet, very quiet. A blink or two. A breath. The sunbeam swelled, filling itself with all the air it could, puffing out its cheeks and holding its breath. Then it whooshed downwards in a trail of sparks. Specks of dust twinkled like fireflies as the book surrendered, slowly opening its cover to show the first page.

Amaranta doesn’t know this, but that was the strange and magical way we learned all about her extraordinary tale.

1

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My Family And Me

(8½ Years Old)

We all have one relative who knows a lot about life and thinks that with just one simple thing we can learn to stay at home happily and without complaining when it won’t stop raining outside. I have my auntie Marita, and a long time ago she gave me my simple thing. It was a book without lines or margins, without anything in it at all - completely blank. She brought it wrapped in newspaper tied with a red ribbon (that’s how auntie Marita is). When she gave it to me and I looked up at her with my enormous eyes like big pools, she automatically answered my silent question:

The value isn’t in the object, she said, but in what you do with it. It’s a question of creativity and originality.

There are a lot of creative and original people in my family, and whoever doesn’t believe it can come and see for themselves. As my Gran says, ‘the proof is in the pudding’, and here is mine.

When I was five I wanted to be a princess – and I mean PRINCESS - in big letters, and with everything a princess should have, including (of course) a bed with a crown-shaped headboard. After watching the days go by and realising that my family were creative and original but not very bright when it comes to noticing the obvious, I decided to clearly draw what it was that I wanted. Then, with my blueprint in hand, I entered the kitchen. Dad was reading the newspaper, and holding a cup of coffee in his left hand. I left the picture there on the table and that was all it took – not long afterwards I had my headboard... And that was where all the trouble started.

But anyway, I’ll get to that soon enough. For now let’s go back to the present.

If at five years old I was capable of designing my own headboard, it was obvious that at eight years (and six months) old I would find something to do with the book that my auntie Marita had given me. After thinking about it for a while, I decided I’d make it an illustrated autobiography of myself, starting from the beginning (because Gran always says that’s where every story should start).

My head is like a large, round ball. But not round like children’s heads are normally, not at all. My head is absolutely, completely, definitely round, which I neither like nor dislike - it’s just the way it is. My hair... Ah! My hair is metamorphic. That’s a very strange word meaning it completely changes shape without anyone knowing why. At the time I started my autobiography I had an uncontrollable bush of anarchic curls shooting out in every possible direction. The metamorphic thing was explained to me one day by Mum, but the anarchic thing... Well I know my hair is that because that’s what Dad always says every time it’s his turn to brush it.

My eyes are like two enormous pools, and when I say enormous, I mean huge. I used to think it would be better if they weren’t so big, especially because underneath each eye I’ve always had bugs. Not bugs like the insect kind or the kind where you’re sick for a few days, but dark, round bugs from not sleeping. That’s the way it is, you can have bugs from not sleeping too. Every morning I used to wake up with big, dark panda eyes and my Dad would say Look at the size of those bugs!

The poor man always got an elbow in the ribs from Gran or Mum. Then the adults would start talking in that low tone of voice they think no one else can hear, about complexes and other strange things. I never bothered to ask what they meant because I was sure it would be something really boring.

2

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About Clothes And Democracy

After saying what I look like I should probably say where and when I was born. But in autobiographies people write about whatever they feel like writing about – I know this because I heard Mum say so one day. So now I’m going to talk about clothes and about what is and what is not democracy .

According to what Dad told me, democracy means that everyone is allowed to have an opinion and to choose. In my house this happens sometimes, but then other times it doesn’t. Here are some examples. We’ll begin with my favourite dress, which was a present from Mum, and which Gran improved. When Mum brought it home it was short, light blue, and had nothing special about it. Gran said it was much too boring for a girl like me, so she went to the shop to buy purple fabric, cut out an enormous X, and then sewed it onto the dress (clear example of democracy because they let her have an opinion and her opinion counted). I was delighted because, as always, Gran was right. The dress was much better with the X in the middle.

Then came the moment when I wanted to have an opinion as well. I asked for tights with multicoloured stripes – what better to go with my dress? Gran said I could wear them if I liked. Mum said that just because Amaranta is a child that doesn’t mean she should dress like a clown. Auntie Marita said that the best thing in life is a happy medium. Result? There was democracy for everyone except me. The adults began to talk non-stop and there was no room for my opinion, so now I wear black and white striped tights which are fun and elegant at the same time, according to Mum, and a happy medium according to my auntie Marita. What can I say? I still would have preferred them multicoloured.

3

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My Room

Dad did the best he could with the headboard, although you needed quite a bit of imagination to see that it was shaped like a crown. But it’s my room, anyway, and I liked my Princess headboard. I have a new headboard now, and next to it are some fantastic glittery stars I made when everything that happened