John Bellairs Trivia

1. To which town does the main character, Lewis Barnavelt, end up moving?

From Quiz The House with a Clock in its Walls

Answer: New Zebedee

The story opens with ten-year-old Lewis Barnavelt taking the bus to New Zebedee. Having just lost his parents in a car accident, he has been sent to this tiny town to live with his Uncle Jonathan in Barnavelt's Folly, a large mansion at the top of a hill. Here, he meets the neighbour, Mrs. Zimmermann, and they play poker before Lewis is sent off to bed. During the night, Lewis recalls his odd first day in town and finds it odd that his uncle has a fascination with clocks; the house is full of them. Additionally, his uncle stops in silence every time a clock chimes, from the ones in the house to the large clocktower in the middle of town. In the middle of the night, while Lewis reads in his new bed, he hears his uncle walking down the hall with a flashlight. As he watches his uncle pacing up and down the corridor, the man oddly pounds on the wall with his flashlight, much to Lewis' confusion.

From Quiz The Bell, the Book and the Spellbinder

Answer: 7:45

Johnny told an unenthusiastic Fergie to meet him and the professor at the movie theater at seven-thirty, because the movie started at seven-forty-five, and he wanted to get there in time.

From Quiz The Specter From the Magician's Museum

Answer: The Mystical Marquis

It was actually 'The Mystic Marquis', not the Mystical Marquis. Also mentioned was 'The Great Candelini', who died shortly after WWI.

From Quiz The Drum, the Doll, and the Zombie

Answer: Piscataqua

They also passed the narrow mansions of Strawberry Banke, and finally stopped at a gas station to ask directions.

From Quiz The House with a Clock in its Walls

Answer: Issac Izard

Lewis takes his first three weeks in New Zebedee to explore and finds that it's hard to take it all in so quickly. Upon exploring certain parts of the Barnavelt house, he realizes that there are a few uncanny things including a mirror that depicts the image of a jungle and odd, changing stained glass windows. One night, Lewis sneaks out of his room to find Uncle Jonathan turning off all of the clocks in the house. Jonathan explains that the house was once owned by Issac Izard, a self-proclaimed warlock who knew magic and lived in the mansion with his wife. When Issac died and Jonathan bought the house, he discovered that a ticking noise could be heard in the walls. Jonathan eventually got annoyed by this and bought many other clocks so as to drown out the ticking sound. He also notes that he also knows a bit of parlor magic while Mrs. Zimmermann actually went to school to become a witch/warlock herself. As he mentions this, Mrs. Zimmermann enters the kitchen through a secret passage and ushers them both off to bed.

From Quiz The Bell, the Book and the Spellbinder

Answer: Near Ellisboro

His car broke down, he stopped at a station and met Bill Baxter, who gave him a job on the spot.

From Quiz The Specter From the Magician's Museum

Answer: 1848

Their names were Maggie and Kate, and then their older sister Leah joined them.

From Quiz The Drum, the Doll, and the Zombie

Answer: In a coffin

The zombie shambled out of the coffin and it and would have killed Father Higgins, but Johnny yelled a warning.

From Quiz The Specter From the Magician's Museum

Answer: The size of a collie

She grabbed a chair and held it in front of her and then opened the closet door slowly. The spider was gone.

From Quiz The Drum, the Doll, and the Zombie

Answer: 6 inches

It was wearing a blue gingham apron and a cotton dress, and it had a few wisps of white hair on its head.

From Quiz The Bell, the Book and the Spellbinder

Answer: 1805

He was a sick old man in his sixties, and nobody believed his story about an evil magician who locked him in a coffin. In fact, it was true.

From Quiz The Specter From the Magician's Museum

Answer: Susanna Seidler

Rose Rita told her an outrageous lie about her parents being deaf and dumb, and the woman BELIEVED it! How dumb can you get?

From Quiz The House with a Clock in its Walls

Answer: Selenna

At midnight, Lewis quickly rushes to the cemetery to meet Tarby who is already there. With a piece of chalk and a piece of paper, Lewis draws a circle within a circle and unknowingly begins chanting. When another force makes him spell out the name 'Selenna' on the page, the two are shocked to find the door to a nearby tomb breaking its lock and slowly opening. As the doors creak ajar, a grey light emanates from within and a black ooze slowly spreads from the entrance. The two quickly run from the graveyard and back home. Lewis falls down on the way back and accidentally loses the flashlight, but nonetheless, at three in the morning, he gets home. When he falls to sleep, he has cryptic dreams of bones and clocks. Upon waking up, he hears the ticking of the clock in the walls.

From Quiz The Bell, the Book and the Spellbinder

Answer: A triangle

It broke off with a 'clunk' and fell solidly to the ground, almost knocking Johnny off his feet.

From Quiz The Specter From the Magician's Museum

Answer: Green

It was a very thick file, Lewis noted.

From Quiz The Drum, the Doll, and the Zombie

Answer: The hopeful hoplites of Hammurabi

'Tod' means 'death' in German, and 'la mort' means 'death' in French! The professor had put Johnny and Fergie in the care of a Mr. 'Death Death'!

From Quiz The House with a Clock in its Walls

Answer: They cross a bridge

Vandals are soon blamed for destroying the lock on the tomb in the graveyard, and while Jonathan and Mrs. Zimmermann don't suspect Lewis, they think about his detachment the previous day. After Lewis discovers that the tomb belongs to Issac Izard, Jonathan suggests that the three of them go out for a car ride in the country. They end up spending most of the day out and about and realize that it's getting quite late. As they turn around to return to New Zebedee, they find that a car is following them and gaining. Quickly, they speed back home, but upon crossing a bridge outside the town's limits, they find that the car following can not cross it due to the supernatural forces within. Mrs. Zimmermann explains that this old witch's trick saved them. When they return to Barnavelt's Folly, Jonathan notices that all the lights in the house have been opened and one of these contained a clock key which has now gone missing.

From Quiz The House with a Clock in its Walls

Answer: The Hanchetts

One day soon after the car chase ordeal, Jonathan and Lewis find that the neighbours across the street have put their house up for sale. When Jonathan speaks with them, they blame him for misusing magic and causing them to need to leave New Zebedee for good. A moving truck arrives one day and Lewis speaks with the driver, a homeless man in town known as Hammerhandle, who tells him to stay out of the new family's business. Frightened, Lewis rushes to his uncle to tell him, and Jonathan has a talk with the man. Later, he tells Lewis to stay away from them. That night, Lewis looks out his window to see the lights on in the house across the street. He watches as a man wearing spectacles walks in and out of the house and he wonders.

From Quiz The House with a Clock in its Walls

Answer: Mattie

One night, Lewis wakes up to hear the door being knocked upon. When he opens it, he is shocked to find that his deceased Aunt Mattie is standing there. He faints, and when he wakes up he finds that the eerie apparition has disappeared. Christmas comes and goes, and one day shortly after, Lewis decides to play a pipe organ in the parlor. Upon discovering that some of the blocks in the pipes can be removed, he reaches in and finds notes from Isaac Izard, one of which prophesies doomsday in the form of a clock. That night, Lewis hides in the secret passageway behind the china cupboard in the kitchen and listens to his uncle and Mrs. Zimmermann talk about the prophecy. They note that the Izards (specifically Isaac) watched the clouds and skies to predict doomsday. When he made the clock, he did not have the power to wind it, though his wife probably could have. Lewis realizes that the clock within the walls, the terrible ticking, could potentially bring about the end of the world, and they have all the reason to believe that the people across the street are, in fact, the Izards.

From Quiz The House with a Clock in its Walls

Answer: Mrs. Zimmermann

Worried about the future, Lewis tries to find Tarby, the only other person to know about the cemetery ordeal. When he comes across him playing baseball with the other boys, Tarby treats him badly and they nearly fight. Lewis walks home crying and realizes that he must be brave to help everyone. Taking Jonathan's magic cane from the front door, he walks across the street and enters the open door in the house across. Looking inside, he finds that everything is spotlessly clean and walking up the stairs, he finds a picture of Isaac Izard on the wall. Realizing that Mrs. O'Meagher is in fact Mrs. Izard, he turns to leave but finds that she is blocking his exit. Mrs. Zimmermann appears as well though, and using her magic she forces Selenna upstairs and, as she puts it, destroys her. Lewis runs outside into Uncle Jonathan's arms and Mrs. Zimmermann tells them that this is their opportunity to find the clock in the walls.

From Quiz The House with a Clock in its Walls

Answer: In a coal bin

Returning to the house, Mrs. Zimmermann and Jonathan realize that the only way to stop the Izards is to let Lewis create a crazy ritual that defies all rituals of dark magic. They send the boy on his way and he returns with a nonsensical list of tasks ranging from playing the pipe organ to playing poker until they get a magical, non-existent card, then reading a magic 8 ball to reveal the location of the clock. When Lewis reads it, they find that it is within the coal bin in the basement. Here, they clear out the coal and find a fake wall guarding a locked door. Before Jonathan can use a spell to open it, it opens on its own and they look inside to find the mysterious clock. Before they can reach it though, Selenna Izard, now regenerated, forces paralysis on Mrs. Zimmermann and Jonathan. Lewis, realizing this, stays facing away from Selenna, runs to the clock, and throws it onto the ground, breaking it and stopping the doomsday device. Selenna slowly disintegrates into ash and the spell is broken. In the coming days, Jonathan learns that it was Lewis who raised the dead in the cemetery (he left the flashlight there on Halloween), but the ashes were replaced and a magical lock was placed on the gate to the tomb. On the bright side, the ticking in the house has stopped.

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