Magic Signs
The Smuggler’s Secret
Samuel doesn’t know very much about his parents, just that his mother left him with his Aunt Emma when he was four years old. Through all three books he seeks clues to his origins. One November day Samuel finds a telescope in the mud. Looking through it is an amazing experience, one can see things that are not visible to the naked eye! The telescope provides some important pieces of the puzzle in the mystery of Samuel’s father and may even be instrumental in Samuel finally getting a letter from his mother.
The Smuggler’s Secret is about sadness and longing. Everyone can be affected. That is why the Master Tailor is depressed every autumn and why the Smuggler hides something secret in his deepest cave.
Rabén&Sjögren 2007
ISBN 978-91-29-6630-4
The light from the city’s lamps could already be seen. Small pinpricks of flame in the twilight. Neither of them said anything for a long time. Then August asked about the ‘tenth’ thing. What did it mean? And Samuel explained that it was tax that would go to help the poor. If such a thing applies to a smuggler…
Anyway before they parted they made a plan to return to the cave some time when there was no-one around.
“I want to see what’s in that inner cavern,” said August, and you could hear by his voice that his eyes were gleaming.
It is autumn and a letter arrives summoning Samuel to school. What will happen now? What if he can’t stay on with the Master Tailor? Samuel is torn between school and the tailor’s workshop, he has to work hard to cope with both. Half the week he lives with his Aunt Emma in Stigberget and the other half at the workshop in the old moat area. In school he meets August, a friend from the Orphanage, who is bullied by the older boys. By luck they get to know the Smuggler. But who is he really? What is he hiding in the cave? And why does he give away so much to the poor?
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