The Burying Beetle [Paperback]

Gussie fairly fizzles with vitality, radiating fun and enjoyment into everything that comes her way.

Acutely observed, tender, funny and very moving.

I am going to get this book no matter what. I will have this book.

Atmospheric and beguiling

I hope Gussie’s story sells a trillion, zillion copies. It deserves to.

It was after I ate King that everything started to go wrong in our entire family, as if someone had put an evil spell onto us, a hex - like a bad fairy godmother had said at my birth, when you are eleven you are going to be struck by a sorrow so big it will be like a lightning bolt. There will be grief like a sharp rock in your throat. Twelve-year-old Gussie was born with a rare, life-threatening heart disease, but it hasn't hampered her curiosity. When she reads about the Burying Beetle, which has the unusual habit of burying dead birds, mice, and other small animals by digging away the earth beneath them, it becomes her mission to find one. As she searches the Cornish coast for the elusive insect, Gussie learns be like the Burying Beetle, to bury things past and to live.

Meet Gussie. Twelve years old and settling into her new ramshackle home
on a cliff top above St Ives, she has an irrepressible zest for life. She also has a life-threatening heart condition. But it's not in her nature to give up. Perhaps because she knows her time might be short, she values every passing moment, experiencing each day with humour and extraordinary courage.

Spirited and imaginative, Gussie has a passionate interest in everything around her and her vivid stream of thoughts and observations will draw you into a renewed sense of wonder.

Gussie's story of inspiration and hope is both heartwarming and heartrending. Once you've met her, you'll not forget her. And you'll never take life for granted again.

Ann Kelley is a photographer and prize-winning poet who once nearly played cricket for Cornwall. She has previously published a collection of poetry and photographs, a book of photos of St Ives families, an audio book of cat stories, and six novels under a pseudonym. She lives with her husband and cats on the edge of a cliff in Cornwall where they have survived a flood, a landslip, a lightning strike and the roof blowing off.

chapter 2

THIS HOUSE HAS got really ancient Ladybird books with learn to read stories for kids where boys do butch activities with their fathers – like camping and building things and girls get to help the mother in the kitchen or knit a tea cosy. Can you believe it? It must have been terrible in the olden days, having to wear a skirt all the time and remembering to keep your knees together so you don't show your knickers. Mum says ‘They're a piece of Valuable Social History of Life since the Second World War.' (Ladybird books, not knickers. Though I expect they are too.)
‘Get the door, Gussie, I'm in the bath.'
She's always in the bath. Don't know what she does to herself in there. She always looks just the same as she did before she went in, except that her hair is wetter when she gets out and her face is shiny.
‘Hello, Postie.'
‘The name's Eugene.'
‘Eugene? I thought that was a girl's name.'
‘What sort of name 'ave you got then? Gussie? What's that short for – Angus?'
‘No, it isn't actually. It's short for Augusta.'
‘Augusta! Huh!'
‘Gussie, what are you doing being rude to the postman? He's come all this way down the cliff to deliver our letters and you're rude to him. He'll throw our mail over the cliff if we aren't careful.'
‘Nah, she's all right, she's all right. We're just getting to know each other.'
Mum is standing there in her dressing gown with a towel on her head. She has no shame.
‘You must keep very fit running up and down this hill every day,' says Mum, eyeing him up and down.
‘Training for the London Marathon,' said Eugene and ran back up the steps.
He delivered a Birthday card from Daddy – Sorry this is late, Babe, hope you liked the flowers – buy yourself a pretty dress . A dress? No way! Fifty pounds! Riches beyond my wildest dreams!
Mum says she'll take me to Dorothy Perkins tomorrow in Truro. Today I'm wearing the cool jeans and the sky-blue T-shirt Mum bought me for my birthday.
Summer sent me a card too, from Italy. At least she remembered. Mum says the Postal Service here is Lousy. Summer says she won't be coming to stay before the autumn term starts. And she promised me, the cow. She'd probably hate it anyway - no designer shops, no stars to bump into in the streets of St Ives. She'd hate this house, I know, it's not sophisticated enough for her taste. It's got odd dining chairs and odd crockery and holes in the wooden walls where draughts come through. She'd probably refuse to sleep on the sofa bed too. She can be a bit Princess and the Pea sometimes, Summer.