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The Key and the Fountain
Who were the young people whose voices Robin could hear, coming from a locked room in her aunt's ramshackle mansion? Why did the old crumbling ball she found in the latticework of the summerhouse stir such a rush of memories? And what possible explanation could there be for the astonishing photograph she saw in the library? Or for the letter that had been written and forgotten, and written again, a thousand times?
The beginning of the answers to Robin's questions lies in an ornate moonlit fountain at the bottom of the garden.
The beginning of the answers to Robin's questions lies in an ornate moonlit fountain at the bottom of the garden.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
37 people want to read
About the author
John Pinkney
34 books46 followersJOHN PINKNEY is a bestselling Australian author, screenwriter and journalist.
*His newest ebook is the novel Grave Injustice: An Afterlife Odyssey.
This dark, pacy science fiction thriller draws on John's career-long research into the paranormal - and the strange phenomena that may occur beyond the barriers of death.
Over the years, he has spoken to numerous people who clinically died and were then resuscitated - returning to describe landscapes and events of breathtaking beauty. The testimonies of these returnees from the brink inspired John to write Grave Injustice.
The narrative extends far beyond NDEs (near-death experiences.) It's set in Sydney and tropical Queensland; describing human love, courage and sacrifice, both earthly and transcendental.
Ranged against the young lovers are a corporate cell of scientifically accomplished soul-thieves,who draw their ideas from Dante's nine circles of Hell.
Terrifyingly, the novel portrays brutal conflict between good and evil. And it's hard, for a host of reasons, to predict which will prevail.
John Pinkney's other ebooks include Haunted: the Ghosts that Share Our World...Australia's Strangest Mysteries #1 and #2...A Paranormal File: An Australian Investigator's Casebook...The Mary Celeste Syndrome...Alien Airships Over Old America...Thirst: an Inheritance of Evil...The Girl Who Touched Infinity...The Key and the Fountain.
John's original screenplay Thirst, directed by Rod Hardy and produced by Anthony I. Ginnane won Best Horror
Film prize at the Asia-Pacific Film Festival. His 3-act drama, The Face in the Mirror, was co-awarded Best Stage Play in the General Motors/Elizabethan Theatre Trust competition.
He has written several hundred drama episodes for TV - and his paperbooks, including such titles as Great Australian Mysteries 1 & 2, Haunted, Unexplained and Unsolved have been numerously reprinted. His 3-volume Mazeworld series has appeared in USA and UK and in translation through Europe. His logic puzzle books Think!, Think Again! and Wordgames have also been published internationally.
For many years John was a prominent writer with Australia's Age newspaper, subsequently moving his column, Pinkney Place to Rupert Murdoch's national daily The Australian. Here he covered the century's most extraordinary UFO case: the disappearance without trace of young pilot Frederick Valentich, after radioing Flight Services that he was being 'orbited' by a gigantic craft. [full story and photographs are in A Paranormal File.]
John has had a lifelong interest in the unsolved and unexplained. His fascination with the unknown took its most practical form when, with lawyer-friend Peter Norris, he co-founded the organization known today as VUFORS - the Victorian UFO Research Society. John and Peter collaborated to host the weekly radio series The Truth Behind UFOs and Do You Believe in Ghosts?
Over the years John Pinkney's broadcasts and columns have attracted a large mail from listeners and readers describing their brushes with the bizarre. Readers of his books continue the input.
*His newest ebook is the novel Grave Injustice: An Afterlife Odyssey.
This dark, pacy science fiction thriller draws on John's career-long research into the paranormal - and the strange phenomena that may occur beyond the barriers of death.
Over the years, he has spoken to numerous people who clinically died and were then resuscitated - returning to describe landscapes and events of breathtaking beauty. The testimonies of these returnees from the brink inspired John to write Grave Injustice.
The narrative extends far beyond NDEs (near-death experiences.) It's set in Sydney and tropical Queensland; describing human love, courage and sacrifice, both earthly and transcendental.
Ranged against the young lovers are a corporate cell of scientifically accomplished soul-thieves,who draw their ideas from Dante's nine circles of Hell.
Terrifyingly, the novel portrays brutal conflict between good and evil. And it's hard, for a host of reasons, to predict which will prevail.
John Pinkney's other ebooks include Haunted: the Ghosts that Share Our World...Australia's Strangest Mysteries #1 and #2...A Paranormal File: An Australian Investigator's Casebook...The Mary Celeste Syndrome...Alien Airships Over Old America...Thirst: an Inheritance of Evil...The Girl Who Touched Infinity...The Key and the Fountain.
John's original screenplay Thirst, directed by Rod Hardy and produced by Anthony I. Ginnane won Best Horror
Film prize at the Asia-Pacific Film Festival. His 3-act drama, The Face in the Mirror, was co-awarded Best Stage Play in the General Motors/Elizabethan Theatre Trust competition.
He has written several hundred drama episodes for TV - and his paperbooks, including such titles as Great Australian Mysteries 1 & 2, Haunted, Unexplained and Unsolved have been numerously reprinted. His 3-volume Mazeworld series has appeared in USA and UK and in translation through Europe. His logic puzzle books Think!, Think Again! and Wordgames have also been published internationally.
For many years John was a prominent writer with Australia's Age newspaper, subsequently moving his column, Pinkney Place to Rupert Murdoch's national daily The Australian. Here he covered the century's most extraordinary UFO case: the disappearance without trace of young pilot Frederick Valentich, after radioing Flight Services that he was being 'orbited' by a gigantic craft. [full story and photographs are in A Paranormal File.]
John has had a lifelong interest in the unsolved and unexplained. His fascination with the unknown took its most practical form when, with lawyer-friend Peter Norris, he co-founded the organization known today as VUFORS - the Victorian UFO Research Society. John and Peter collaborated to host the weekly radio series The Truth Behind UFOs and Do You Believe in Ghosts?
Over the years John Pinkney's broadcasts and columns have attracted a large mail from listeners and readers describing their brushes with the bizarre. Readers of his books continue the input.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
October 5, 2017
Our likeable young protagonist, Robin, is sent to stay with her great aunt in the countryside for the summer holidays during her mother’s convalescence. She’s bright, resourceful and adaptable and gets along quite well, but is lonely and pines for other children to play with. A few days into her stay, Robin discovers the single locked door in her aunt’s mansion, and through the keyhole can see it’s a nursery filled with delightfully old-school toys. Her mission to enter the nursery and uncover its secrets sets in motion a chain of events which sees Robin intimately connected to the history of the old house and its inhabitants.
I read and loved this book as a child, but over the years forgot the title and most of the plotline. All I could recall was a sense of mystery and pleasant melancholy, the red India-rubber ball and a character named Theobald. Following a conversation about favourite childhood books, my husband used these sparse details to track down the title and author and bought me the Kindle edition as part of my second wedding anniversary present. My idea of romantic.
This is a wonderful, literary but very readable children’s book. The tension and mystery are perfectly incorporated and kept me turning the pages. While fantastical, it’s not sugar-coated and inane like so many children’s stories are; there’s a real sense of loss and longing which pervades the book and I finished with a lump in my throat. Apart from all this, I’m a bit biased towards the story because it’s set in Northern NSW (one of my favourite places in the world) and revolves around awesome things like time travel, gothic mansions, dusty books and family history.
In conclusion: fabulous book. My eight-year-old self had great taste.
I read and loved this book as a child, but over the years forgot the title and most of the plotline. All I could recall was a sense of mystery and pleasant melancholy, the red India-rubber ball and a character named Theobald. Following a conversation about favourite childhood books, my husband used these sparse details to track down the title and author and bought me the Kindle edition as part of my second wedding anniversary present. My idea of romantic.
This is a wonderful, literary but very readable children’s book. The tension and mystery are perfectly incorporated and kept me turning the pages. While fantastical, it’s not sugar-coated and inane like so many children’s stories are; there’s a real sense of loss and longing which pervades the book and I finished with a lump in my throat. Apart from all this, I’m a bit biased towards the story because it’s set in Northern NSW (one of my favourite places in the world) and revolves around awesome things like time travel, gothic mansions, dusty books and family history.
In conclusion: fabulous book. My eight-year-old self had great taste.
January 4, 2023
I loved this time slip story set in Australia...The setting is lovely, with a beautiful old house set in tall shady trees, with a creek behind it and green pastures all around. The place used to be a working farm but is now in a state of overgrown elegance. There is something mysterious about the house and even the 2 old ladies and the caretaker who live there. Step by step our heroine finds clues and then comes to the point of actually slipping back in time to meet children who lived in the house long ago, even celebrating Christmas with them. A fun book full of the echo of beautiful times long past.
April 29, 2009
Oh boy, was I nuts about this one as a kid! It had a different cover though, which I can't for the life of me find on google. Sadness. Anyway, I wonder if the book would hold up as well now? I haven't touched it since I left primary school, and thus the only library with a copy. I don't remember it terribly well now, but I always think of it in the same vein as Tom's Midnight Garden.
ETA 24/04/12 - thanks to the absolutely lovely Mr. John Pinkney, I finally own my own copy of this - with that tantalisingly half-remembered cover ! Why yes I am now the happiest girl in the world :D
ETA 24/04/12 - thanks to the absolutely lovely Mr. John Pinkney, I finally own my own copy of this - with that tantalisingly half-remembered cover ! Why yes I am now the happiest girl in the world :D
April 14, 2012
(Before anyone points it out, yes I'm aware that I have two editions of this book shelved and reviewed.)
This was one of my absolute favourite books when I was in primary school. I was first attracted to it by the cover - which I absolutely can not find anywhere on the internet to upload :( It showed a young girl with long blonde hair standing in front of a fountain, a key in her hand. Pretty sure it was sepia-toned as well. I must have read the book a hundred times between the ages of about 7 or 8 and 11, until I went to high school and the library there didn't have it.
So I haven't read it in almost twenty years, but something about it just stayed with me all that time. And every so often I'd have a little hunt around to see if I could find another copy, but always to no avail - sometimes a copy'd pop up on ebay, but understandably I was a little cautious about spending $30 on a little nostalgia!
A couple of weeks ago I was hunting around again, and I suddenly had the brilliant idea to try inter-library-loan. Ping! One result in the entire state. MINE MINE MINE :D
I picked it up yesterday. Sadly, it didn't have "my" cover as I'd been hoping. But still, I started reading it on the walk home.
It's always a little risky to revisit a childhood favourite, especially one that was an OMG ALL-TIME FAVOURITE BOOK EVERRRR and not just hey, I really liked that. The last couple I went back to after 20+ years away had mixed results. Better For Everyone was every bit as awesome as I'd remembered. The Bailey Game was still okay, but made me wonder how I'd ever been so obsessed with it. So mixed in with my glee at fiiiinally getting to read this book again, was the worry that I was about to ruin my childhood memories or something. Maybe the book would read too young for me to still enjoy it. Maybe I'd look at it and go, wtf was I on to think this was soooo amazing?
Or maybe I'd re-read it and go OH MY GOD THIS REALLY IS THE BEST BOOK IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE EVER!!!!
This book is perfect. It was perfect when I was eight or nine, and it's still every bit as perfect now. I didn't feel like a grown-up returning to her long-lost favourite book. (Okay, not that I ever feel like a grown-up, but you get the idea.) I felt like I was exactly the right age to be reading this book. It was absolutely, 100% meant for me.
THIS was the book that made me go, I want to be a writer. I'd always enjoyed writing little stories beforehand, but this is the book that made me want to write a whole, proper length story of my own. This is the book that really sparked my love of light fantasy, of the Australian countryside, and of historical settings. This book is just beautiful and I kind of want to steal the library copy and keep it for myself.
The setting is just gorgeous, so richly described and inviting. It's a hot Australian summer in outback NSW and you can see the land so clearly. I want to go on that train journey, sit on that coach, explore that house and its grounds. I want the attic bedroom.
Robin is all alone in her great Aunt Alicia's house, sent there to be out of the way while her mother convalesces. She explores the place and finds only one door locked. When she puts her eye to the keyhole, an eye peers back at her! The room turns out to be the old nursery, and the key has been lost for ages. Robin, of course, becomes determined to find it.
There's a little bit of The Secret Garden in here, and a little bit of Tom's Midnight Garden. But this one's my favourite of the three. (And not just because it's Australian, it's already leader of the pack without those bonus points.)
Happy, happy sigh :) And already, I want to read it again!
This was one of my absolute favourite books when I was in primary school. I was first attracted to it by the cover - which I absolutely can not find anywhere on the internet to upload :( It showed a young girl with long blonde hair standing in front of a fountain, a key in her hand. Pretty sure it was sepia-toned as well. I must have read the book a hundred times between the ages of about 7 or 8 and 11, until I went to high school and the library there didn't have it.
So I haven't read it in almost twenty years, but something about it just stayed with me all that time. And every so often I'd have a little hunt around to see if I could find another copy, but always to no avail - sometimes a copy'd pop up on ebay, but understandably I was a little cautious about spending $30 on a little nostalgia!
A couple of weeks ago I was hunting around again, and I suddenly had the brilliant idea to try inter-library-loan. Ping! One result in the entire state. MINE MINE MINE :D
I picked it up yesterday. Sadly, it didn't have "my" cover as I'd been hoping. But still, I started reading it on the walk home.
It's always a little risky to revisit a childhood favourite, especially one that was an OMG ALL-TIME FAVOURITE BOOK EVERRRR and not just hey, I really liked that. The last couple I went back to after 20+ years away had mixed results. Better For Everyone was every bit as awesome as I'd remembered. The Bailey Game was still okay, but made me wonder how I'd ever been so obsessed with it. So mixed in with my glee at fiiiinally getting to read this book again, was the worry that I was about to ruin my childhood memories or something. Maybe the book would read too young for me to still enjoy it. Maybe I'd look at it and go, wtf was I on to think this was soooo amazing?
Or maybe I'd re-read it and go OH MY GOD THIS REALLY IS THE BEST BOOK IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE EVER!!!!
This book is perfect. It was perfect when I was eight or nine, and it's still every bit as perfect now. I didn't feel like a grown-up returning to her long-lost favourite book. (Okay, not that I ever feel like a grown-up, but you get the idea.) I felt like I was exactly the right age to be reading this book. It was absolutely, 100% meant for me.
THIS was the book that made me go, I want to be a writer. I'd always enjoyed writing little stories beforehand, but this is the book that made me want to write a whole, proper length story of my own. This is the book that really sparked my love of light fantasy, of the Australian countryside, and of historical settings. This book is just beautiful and I kind of want to steal the library copy and keep it for myself.
The setting is just gorgeous, so richly described and inviting. It's a hot Australian summer in outback NSW and you can see the land so clearly. I want to go on that train journey, sit on that coach, explore that house and its grounds. I want the attic bedroom.
Robin is all alone in her great Aunt Alicia's house, sent there to be out of the way while her mother convalesces. She explores the place and finds only one door locked. When she puts her eye to the keyhole, an eye peers back at her! The room turns out to be the old nursery, and the key has been lost for ages. Robin, of course, becomes determined to find it.
There's a little bit of The Secret Garden in here, and a little bit of Tom's Midnight Garden. But this one's my favourite of the three. (And not just because it's Australian, it's already leader of the pack without those bonus points.)
Happy, happy sigh :) And already, I want to read it again!
February 12, 2016
A poignant time slip book, short and finely written with an emotional wallop towards the end. Robin, a socially isolated child is sent to live with her aunt out in the remote outback and her intense desire to find other children to play with coincides with the loneliness of other children in the house many years ago. Their paths collide....
The point at which Robin departs her world and enters the world of yesteryear is somewhat jolting and left me wondering what the catalyst is: Simon taking her out on his jinkey? The discovery of the key in the fountain?
Puzzlement aside...there's an aching loneliness that pervades this book: a yearning melancholy that lingers on afterwards. Beautiful descriptions of Christmas time, with the unwrapping of the presents, sumptuous feasts, really transport the reader back in time. A touching observation by Theobald, one of the children:
"When I'm outside, in the evening, I like to pretend I'm a fish at the bottom of a deep well. And the stars are lights, held by people at the top of the well, all searching for me."
The point at which Robin departs her world and enters the world of yesteryear is somewhat jolting and left me wondering what the catalyst is: Simon taking her out on his jinkey? The discovery of the key in the fountain?
Puzzlement aside...there's an aching loneliness that pervades this book: a yearning melancholy that lingers on afterwards. Beautiful descriptions of Christmas time, with the unwrapping of the presents, sumptuous feasts, really transport the reader back in time. A touching observation by Theobald, one of the children:
"When I'm outside, in the evening, I like to pretend I'm a fish at the bottom of a deep well. And the stars are lights, held by people at the top of the well, all searching for me."
July 24, 2012
Very charming story for kids. Most of all it seemed like an Australian version of "The Secret Garden" with a bit of magic tossed in for good measure. I think I would most possibly have adored it if I had read it as a kid. As it was, I was definitely taken in by its charm, but did find the ending a tiny bit lacking.
January 23, 2015
I read this when I was about 13 years old and absolutely adored it.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews