"I am ten, and they call me Brat. "Of course that isn't my right name, nobody could be christened with a name like that.

"All our lousy first names are birds' names. Don't ask me why.

I imagine our mother was keen on birds and flying, though I don't know much about her. She flew off some years ago with this character called Peregrine.

She lives in South Africa, on a different kind of farm, and once awhile we get a Christmas card--which is quite useful, as we keep the stamp"So begins the story of Brat (officially Brambling), her twelve-year-old sister Swallow (who acted as mother for the crew), her cigarette-smoking seven-year-old brother, Poor Baby (christened Merlin), and the extraordinary secret they vowed to keep. The three lived on as farm in England with their father and their special friend, a Pekingese called Bette Davis.

The adventure began one day when a strange, terribly ill man knocked at the manger door and was admitted by Swallow. She asked him his name and heard him say "Jesus" soon after he entered.

Besides, he had used a Biblical quotation and, most important, he had nail holes through both his feet. That was the way children first knew that Jesus had returned to earth and had come to their farm for shelter.

It was up to them to nurse him back to health so that he could receive the shepherds and wise men would be coming to see him. They knew, too, that they would have to keep the Big Secret to themselves.

Experience had taught them that grownups could not be trusted with such vital information. Anyway, the grownups were all stirred up about some strange man already.

There is a mythical quality in the story of three children who banded together to protect the man they believed was Christ returned to earth, Yet, with slangy, down-to-earth Brat as narrator, this modern fable is more sprightly than sentimental, more provocative than pious. Mary Hayley Bell has written a strikingly original novel, filled with a kind of tenderness and charm all too rare in today's fiction.

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