A Dark and Stormy Night

----A Wrinkle In Time begins "on a dark and stormy night", which is an opening I usually loathe, but there's enough originality in this story to pull off a cliche here or there. Meg is in her room, panicked because she thinks it might be a hurricane. She goes downstairs and sees little Charles Wallace sitting calmly at the kitchen table, eating a liverwurst and cream cheese sandwich. He says "I've been waiting for you," which is kind of creepy in itself, until he says he's put on water for cocoa for her too. Meg checks the kettle, points out that there's far too much there, Charles Wallace says he made extra for Mom, and the Mom, just that minute plods down the stairs and goes, "I think I want some cocoa." Yeah, this five-year-old is not normal.
----Skimming the next forty pages or so, Charles Wallace, Meg, and their new friend Calvin, a fourteen year old eleventh grader, meet these weird three old ladies living in an abandoned house. Their names are- no kidding- Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which, who refuses to materialize completely. They are at least a few billion years old, keep quoting random languages, and seem to read minds. Charles Wallace is perfectly okay with this and appears to already know and is friends with Mrs. Whatsit- stranger danger! Meg is creeped out and Calvin is skeptical of the whole thing.
----All of a sudden, Charles Wallace announces they are going to find his father. Like, right now. At night, when they are supposed to be getting home soon.
----So, the whole thing's pretty creepy so far, but as a sucker for scary stories, I'm totally eager to keep reading. Enough blabbering, now what page was I on?