Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker

16th September 2011

The cover of Miss Hargreaves

back side of the book

I bought this book from a book store in Petaling Jaya. Although the book cover was not that interesting, the synopsis seems quite interesting, plus this book was not expensive, the price was RM10.00. So, I grabbed this book. From the synopsis, we knew that young Norman Huntley and his friend Henry invented an impossible  old lady called Miss Hargreaves on the spur of the moment when they visited a church to impress the church people. I like the sentence "spur of the moment". 

After that, out of mischievousness thought, they actually sent a letter to this Miss Hargreaves to visit Norman's home. Imagined the horror Norman felt when a letter reached his home informing that Miss Hargreaves was to visit them. Although he was reluctant, he actually went to pick up Miss Hargreaves in the station. Firstly, his friend Henry suspected that Norman told him lies, however, after he saw something that Miss Hargreaves brought along and it was him that mentioned that, he believed that they have created a living creature out of middle of nowhere on the spur of the moment.

After some time, this Miss Hargreaves won over the town people hearts and Norman family members too. However, Norman started to feel uneasy and wanted to get rid of her. From his father, he knew that they had the talent to create something out of thought. So, he wanted to make her vanish. With the thinking of "destructive thought destroy", he was still unable to make her gone. Finally, Norman and Henry decided to go to the church again to see if there were any graves that bear the name "Hargreaves" and they had brought the dead back upon the advice of a priest. Before that, Norman went to the Miss Hargreaves (now Lady Hargreaves) concert with his father upon her invitation, in the concert, his father played a tune written by himself in the name of Lady Hargreaves and all the guests gave an enormous applause. However, Lady Hargreaves asked Norman father to play her piece in his name, the guests told the truth and it hurt her so much that she remembered she was a creation of Norman and Henry. They talked for one last time before Norman and Henry went to the place where the spur of the moment took place. 

This time around, they did the same thing, said the same thing, but they didn't utter the word "Miss Hargreaves" and Henry took a look around the graves, there were no Hargreaves. By this time, Norman father sent him a letter told him not to back because Miss Hargreaves vanished and the town's folk started to talk bad things about Norman. Norman did not go back. He married his childhood sweetheart and settled elsewhere and wrote the story. However, he still felt the presence of Miss Hargreaves!!!