Carter and the Curious Maze by Philippa Dowding

This Part Is (Mostly) True

    Y ou should know, before you even start this book, that it’s a little scary. And parts of it are even a bit weird and strange. I wish I could make the story less scary and strange, but this is the way I heard it, so I really have no choice.
    It starts like this:
    A long time ago, a little old man planted a garden maze. It was a special walking path through bushes, and it was very peaceful. The man invited his neighbours to come and walk through the maze any time of day or night. The neighbours enjoyed it.
    For a while.
    The maze grew and grew at an astonishing, even unnatural pace. It was whispered that the old man had a magical connection to the soil. Some thought he had an enchanted water supply or perhaps bewitched garden implements. It was true that he carried a pair of red-handled garden shears with him wherever he went, and he guarded them closely. Whatever the case, the man could make anything grow.
    He had what people call a “green thumb.”
    Which was unfortunate, since it also happened that his REAL thumb was terribly deformed and crooked. It was huge and stuck out at a strange angle from his hand. The man hid his horrible thumb. Some people said his thumb was a curse, others said it was just an unfortunate birth defect, and not to be cruel.
    And some people said if you looked too closely you could see … leaves growing out of it.
    Whatever people said, the truth was that everything the man planted turned green, leafy, and lush. But soon the maze became too green and leafy and lush. It was overgrown and wild, and people started to see and hear strange … things … in there.
    The bushes in the maze grew and grew.
    Here’s the weird and scary part. One sunny summer day, a child wandered into the maze … and was never the same. When she came back out, she told a mysterious story about strange lands and travelling through time. Which no one believed, of course, since she was only in the maze for about ten minutes. But then more children went into the maze, and when they came back out … a few of them told strange stories, too. After a while, the authorities came to have a serious talk to the old man with the green thumb, and … there was no sign of him. Or his maze. The old man and the maze had simply vanished, and no one heard or saw him ever again.
    You don’t have to believe this story. But just because things are odd or a little strange or unbelievable doesn’t always make them untrue. Truth is an odd thing; one person’s truth can be another person’s lie. That’s the most important thing to remember about this story: sometimes things that seem like lies are actually true. And sometimes you never can tell.
    That’s the spookiest thing of all.

Chapter 1
    So NOT Scary

    T he mummy howled.
    Carter yawned.
    The skeleton rattled.
    Carter sneezed.
    The ghost flapped in his face.
    Carter rolled his eyes.
    He had to face it: the haunted house at the fair just wasn’t scary anymore.
    It used to be scary when he was a little kid. Even last year, when he was eleven, it was still a little creepy. But this year?
    No chills, no goosebumps, no shrieks, nothing. The only thing Carter noticed was that the pop-up crypt keeper had a broken spring sticking out of his head, and the floating ghost was covered in a thick layer of dust. Plus, there was a bored-looking man standing behind the curtain near the end of the ride, beside a red button that said, “In Case of Emergency, Push to STOP.”
    What emergency? Carter thought. Not even a little kid would be scared by this boring ride!
    The haunted house ride ended, and Carter climbed out of the rolling car. He pushed past the bored fair worker and shoved his way through the crowd into the bright sunshine. It was weird out in the noisy midway after the dark of the haunted house.
    Carter scanned the crowd and found his older sister, Sydney, but frankly, she would have been hard to miss.