Sometimes It Takes an Outsider Quiz

Answer:

Sometimes it takes an outsider to stand up to evil, in this case the Black Thing. Meg Murry's worries for her missing father, a physicist, lead the scientifically inclined middle-schooler, along with her child-genius brother Charles Wallace and her friend Calvin O'Keefe (who is one of many, many siblings), to join their bizarre neighbors Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which on... a "tessering" trip to another planet inhabited by centaurs?

The three Mrs W's are in fact supernatural beings who teleport through the universe by means of a tesseract -- a wrinkle in time and space. It was they who at the novel's start "borrowed" the sheets from Mrs Buncombe, the constable's wife, for ghosts to frighten away trespassers. The youngsters and the Mrs W's see darkness (The Black Thing) attacking the centaur planet. With the help of the reluctant but Happy Medium, they next see the darkness attacking Earth.

Their next stop is planet Camazotz, now completely controlled by the darkness, ruled by the disembodied brain IT, who speaks through the Man with Red Glowing Eyes. Meg's father is there, but while trying to rescue him they lose Charles Wallace to IT's control. This means that Meg and Mr Murry must retreat to the care of blind, many-armed, wise, and nurturing Aunt Beast on the planet Ixchel. Once she's recovered, it's up to Meg to save her little brother from IT with the help of the three Mrs W's and the power of light and love. Will she save the day? What will her principal, the skeptical Mr Jenkins think?

"A Wrinkle in Time" would become the first of a series called the "The Time Quintet", part of a collection of books called "Kairos" that feature non-linear time. Meg's other siblings, the twins Sandy and Dennys, and her microbiologist mother, Mrs Murry, appear in a "Wrinkle in Time" but do not join Meg on her adventures. We see more of them, however, in later Kairos novels.

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Now for the non-starters. Mrs Danvers is the malevolent housekeeper in "Rebecca". Betsey Trotwood is the benevolent aunt in "David Copperfield". The Thread menace the "Dragonriders of Pern" in Anne McCaffery's science fiction series. Selina Kyle is the secret identity of the Catwoman, and Hedwig is the snowy owl in the "Harry Potter" franchise. There is no Mrs Why as far as I know.