Midnighters: The Secret Hour
Scott Westerfield
Page 1-page 98 = 98 pages
Moving to Bixby, Oklahoma was a big change for Jessica Day, and her new school, Bixby High, was very welcoming. However, when Jess meets Dess, a strange, dressed-in-all-black girl, she starts to wonder how wonderful Bixby really is. Later that night, she awakes to find that time is frozen around her. Thinking it’s a dream, she goes back to sleep. Jessica soon finds that she isn’t the only one that experiences the time change.
I can relate to Jessica because she is the new girl at new school, in a new town, and I have also been the new girl. Jessica has a weird dream about a storm. She walks outside to find the raindrops, frozen in mid-air. She gets soaked by the rain, and goes back to sleep. However, when she wakes up, the sweater she wore in her dream is soaking wet. I have also had weird dreams, but I’ve never had something I did in my dream happen in real life. A girl at school, Dess, keeps asking her if she is having weird dreams, and Jessica is wondering what she knows. Dess talks to Jessica about Bixby, Oklahoma and she shows her that each home, building, and entrance, has a star with 13 point on it. She shows her that Bixby, Oklahoma has 13 letters and almost every flight of stairs have 13 steps. I am very interested in why everything includes the number 13, and why it is considered a lucky number. Jessica has the dream again and is attacked by a panther. Barley escaping, she finds Dess and a few others that tell her about the blue time, an extra hour of the day that only a few can live in. Melissa, another midnighter, doesn’t think that Jessica belongs in the blue time. I am anxious to know more and I wonder why they don’t think she belongs.