The Boy With The Cuckoo-Clock Heart

Table of Contents

Cover
Copyright
Dedication
The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock
Heart
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven

3/321

Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements

This eBook is copyright material and mustnot
be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed,
leased, licensed or publicly performed or used
in any way except as specifically permitted in
writing by the publishers, as allowed under the
terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable
copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or
use of this text may be a direct infringement of
the author’sand publisher’s rights and those
responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781409079156
www.randomhouse.co.uk

5/321

Published by Chatto & Windus 2009
First published in French as La Mécanique du Coeur by
Flammarion in 2007
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Copyright © Flammarion 2007
Translation copyright © Sarah Ardizzone 2009
Mathias Malzieu has asserted his rightunder the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author
of this work.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,
by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or
otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent
in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it
is published and without a similar condition, includingthis
condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
First published in Great Britain in 2009 by
Chatto & Windus
Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA
www.rbooks.co.uk

6/321

Addresses for companies within The Random House Group
Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm
The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record forthis book is available from the
British Library
Hardback ISBN 9780701183691
The Random House Group Limited supports The Forest
Stewardship Council (FSC), the leading international forest
certification organisation. All our titles that are printed on
Greenpeace approved FSC certified paper carry the FSC
logo.
Our paper procurement policy can be found at
www.rbooks.co.uk/environmentTypeset by Palimpsest Book Production Limited, Grangemouth, Stirlingshire
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

For you Acacita, who made this book grow in
my belly

Firstly: don’t touch the hands of your
cuckoo-clock heart. Secondly: master
your anger. Thirdly: never, ever fall in
love. For if you do, the hour hand will
poke through your skin, your bones willshatter, and your heart will break once
more.

THE BOY WITH THE
CUCKOO-CLOCK HEART

Mathias Malzieu
Translated from the French
by Sarah Ardizzone

Chatto & Windus
LONDON

CHAPTER ONE
In which Little Jack is born
on the coldest day on earth
and
miraculously
resuscitated
It’s snowing over Edinburgh on this 16th day of
April, 1874. An eerie, freezing cold gridlocks the
city. Oldpeople wonder whether this might be
the coldest day on earth. The sun seems to have
disappeared for good. There’s a biting wind,
snowflakes lighter than air. WHITE! WHITE!
WHITE! A muffled explosion. This is all we can
see. Houses resemble steam engines, as the
grey smoke exhaled by their chimneys sparkles
in the steel sky.

11/321

Edinburgh and its steep streets are being transformed.Fountains metamorphose, one by one,
into bouquets of ice. The old river, usually so
serious, is disguised as an icing sugar lake that
stretches all the way to the sea. The din of the
surf rings out like the sound of windows smashing. Miraculously, the hoarfrost stitches sequins on to cats’ bodies. The trees stretch their
arms, like fat fairies in white nightshirts yawning at the moon, as they...