The Exchange Trip

Alison Wainwright, MA 1999

Thirteen-year-old Luke Silvester is on an exchange trip with his Italian language class from Micklemarsh High School. They're staying in Caravalla, normally a small wine-producing town in the north of Italy, but now all the vineyards are blighted. Except one. The one owned by Riccardo and Serena Valli and their 11-year-old daughter, Marcy, with whom Luke is staying. There are rumours in the superstitious town that Riccardo has cast a spell to ruin everyone else's crops.

Luke's firm belief that magic doesn't exist is called increasingly into question as strange things keep happening around him. He finally has to accept magic is real when he witnesses a human being become an owl and fly off into the night. He too wants to soar off into the night, and gulps down leftover magic potion. But it's not just Luke who gets transformed; his entire exchange trip - in fact, his entire life - changes. Just when it seems to Luke and his new friend, Marcy, that all hope of changing him back is lost, Marcy spots one last chance to put things right.

ISBN: 9781838069308