Philippa Pearce

Sid has been given a pair of gerbils, Bubble and Squeak, but his mother doesn't want them in the house! The battle to keep them is on.

The story of Tom, Laura, Hugh and Margaret, who live in the great house Charlecote before the outbreak of the First World War. Their parents are stern and Tom is sent away to boarding school but during the holidays the four of them have many adventures in the grounds of the house.

When Tom is sent to stay at his aunt and uncle's house for the summer, he resigns himself to endless weeks of boredom. As he lies awake in his bed he hears the grandfather clock downstairs strike... eleven... twelve... thirteen... Thirteen!

Tom races down the stairs and out the back door, into a garden everyone told him wasn't there. In this enchanted thirteenth hour, the garden comes alive - but Tom is never sure whether the children he meets there are real or ghosts...

Clopinet longs for the sea, and dreams of one day becoming a sailor. But Clopinet is lame and his bully of a father sneers at his dreams, sending him away to work as a tailor's apprentice. Miserable and desperate, Clopinet escapes his cruel master to find the sea.