“When I was a child, I was walking to school with my brother and a friend when we saw a fire engine go by. Our friend decided to run after it and find the fire. Of course he couldn’t keep up with the fire engine and was soon out of breath. He gave up and we all went on our way to school. But the boy in The Lost doesn’t give up. He keeps running.” -Alex Shearer.
The title of the book instantly makes you think that a character in the book will be lost somehow. It was like any other morning, walking to school, chatting with some old mates, when all of a sudden, a fire engine went roaring past them, its siren blaring, and Jonah, desperate to see the fire, ran after it. Joe could not even keep up with him and Jonah made him promise not to tell anyone where he had wandered off to, so that he would avoid getting in trouble.
Joe kept his promise for about a week before spilling every bit of information he knew about Jonah to the police. The police tried everything they could to find Jonah. They questioned people on the streets and even traced back Jonah’s steps. Unfortunately, they were not able to find anything useful.
Time had passed and people were forgetting all about Jonah. Everyone except Joe who could never forget. He still believed that somewhere, somehow, his friend was still alive. Everyone else thought otherwise. They all believed Jonah to be dead.
When spring started, Joe started cycling again. It was hard for him to go the first few times as he and Jonah would always go cycling together, but soon enough, Joe started to get used to the prospect of cycling without his best friend. As Joe was cycling, he came across a lamb that had fallen through a cattle grid, struggling to get out. The grid was at the entrance to a yard. Once Joe had rescued the poor, skinny lamb, he headed for a door to one of the barns where he met a woman named Anna. She was around Joe’s mother’s age.
Joe kept visiting her in the following weeks to see the lambs. But one day, everything changed. As Joe crossed the field to go and visit the lamb that he had rescued previously, he noticed that the lamb had dragged something out from the field. All he saw at first was a strap. He tugged at it until it finally came out. It was from Jonah’s backpack.
Surprisingly, Anna was not pleased to hear about what Joe had to say about the backpack. Instead she looked angry.
SPOILER ALERT:
[Turns out, she was a total psychopath. She had kidnapped Jonah- and kidnapped Joe too. Joe decided the only thing left to do was to set fire to the house and wait for the police to arrive.]
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in mystery, suspense or horror genres. As you read The Lost, it almost simulates the experience of the story so you can feel and understand everything the story is trying to convey. It also helps teach younger people not to go wandering off by themselves as they could end up in serious danger. I literally could not put the book down until I finished it.
