Mister Monday

Mister Monday is the first novel in the Keys to the Kingdom series by Australian author Garth Nix. It follows Arthur Penhaligon as he enters a mysterious House that no one else in his family can see.

Plot Teaser
" On the first day, there was mystery.

Arthur Penhaligon  is not supposed to be a hero. He is, in fact, supposed to die an early death. But then his life is saved by a key shaped like the minute hand of a clock.

Arthur is safe - but his world is not. Along with the key comes a plague brought by bizarre creatures from another realm. A stranger named Mister Monday, his avenging messengers with bloodstained wings, and an army of dog-faced Fetchers will stop at nothing to get the key back - even if it means destroying Arthur and everything around him.

Desperate, Arthur ventures into a mysterious house - a house that only he can see. It is in this house that Arthur must unravel the secrets of the key - and discover his true fate."

(source: Goodreads)

Characters

 * Arthur Penhaligon, Rightful Heir to the House
 * Suzy Turquoise Blue, one of the Piper's children
 * The Will of the Architect
 * Mister Monday, Trustee of the Lower House
 * Monday's Noon
 * Monday's Dusk
 * Sneezer, butler to Mister Monday
 * Leaf, one of Arthur's school friends

Awards and Honors
Mister Monday won the Aurealis Award to honor Australian science fiction and fantasy in 2003.

Plot Synopsis
This section contains spoilers regarding the content and ending of the novel. Arthur Penhaligon arrives at his first day at a new school and is instructed to participate in a cross-country run. Without a doctor's note to excuse him, he runs, but he suffers a devastating asthma attack and collapses. A girl helps him to his inhaler and runs for help. While he is gone, a young man called Monday and an old man called Sneezer materialize. Citing Arthur's imminent death, Sneezer instructs Monday to give Arthur "the Key." Arthur is given a piece of metal shaped like a minute hand; with it appears a small green book. Sneezer and Monday vanish as the girl returns with help. Arthur keeps the book but leaves the Key behind. The girl who helped him visits Arthur in the hospital with her brother; she introduces them as Leaf and Ed. They look at the book, which is called  A Compleat Atlas of the House and Immediate Environs, but they can't open it. Leaf mentions that they saw a bunch of men with dog-like faces sniffing around where they had left the key, but no one seems able to see them. As Leaf and Ed leave the hospital, the Key materializes in Arthur's bed. When Arthur is released from the hospital, he sees a large House that his father cannot see.

The dog-faced men follow him to school when he returns a week later. He looks for Leaf, but she is out sick, along with a huge chunk of the student body. He seeks shelter in the library, where he realizes that if he holds both the Key and the Atlas, the book will open. It gives him a picture of the House with an entrance labeled and tells him that the dog-faced creatures are called Fetchers; they are made from Nothing and can be dispelled with salt. A more normal-looking man, who turns out to be Monday's Noon, enters the library, knocks out the librarian, and sets the place on fire in search of Arthur and the Key. Arthur flees and throws salt at the Fetchers, but one of them has stolen the Atlas and it vanishes as well. He is pulled from the burning building and put on an ambulance bound for a quarantine zone; it seems that the missing students have fallen ill with a bizarre new epidemic.

Arthur frees himself from the ambulance and runs for the House, where he uses the Key to enter through the door labeled in the Atlas. After a bizarre trip through empty space, he lands on a grassy hill, where the Lieutenant Keeper of the Front Door gives him a change of clothes and sends him on his way. In the town, he is saved from mysterious creatures by Suzy Turquoise Blue. She and Arthur flee, but when they are stopped by an official, a strange deep voice emanating from Suzy talks them out of it. She then coughs up a jade frog, who, in that deep voice, introduces itself as Paragraphs Three through Seven of the Will of the Architect. The Will begins to lead the children to Monday's Dayroom, but they are set upon by Mister Monday and his Dawn, Noon, and Dusk.

They try to take the Key from Arthur by force, but the Key acts of its own accord and protects him. Instead, they decide to throw him into the coal mines with the Old One, where he will remain in the cold and damp until he elects to give up the Key of his own free will. He is dropped into the Deep Coal Cellar with a pair of paper wings to guide him to the bottom. On the way, he is met by Monday's Dusk, who claims to be on his side but can do nothing to free him. In the Cellar, a coal-cutter called Pravuil directs him to the Old One.

The Old One, the nemesis of the Architect who created the House, is chained to a clock face in the Cellar. He offers Arthur food and wine, and after a harrowing attack by clockwork creatures which Arthur flees with Pravuil, the Old One decides to help Arthur. He instructs him to use the Improbable Stair, a pathway made from Nothing that can take him to Monday's chambers. Suzy arrives with a pair of stolen wings and joins Arthur on the Improbable Stair. After a few landings in the Secondary Realms, the pair find the Will in Monday's Antechamber. After disguising themselves, they meet Monday's Dusk, who shows them a weirdway into Monday's Dayroom.

After stripping themselves of anything with text, Arthur and Suzy cross a pit of text-eating snakes called bibliophages and enter Monday's main dwelling. Pravuil is waiting there and attacks them. Suzy keeps him busy while Arthur tracks down Mister Monday and claims the other half of the key, the hour hand to match his minute hand. Monday transforms himself into a snake to attack Arthur, but Suzy writes on him and the bibliophages attack the text. Arthur is able to fully claim both halves of the Key, and he is named Master of the Lower House.

Arthur names the previous Dusk as the new Noon and the previous Noon as the new Dusk; he lets Dawn keep her position and names Suzy as the new Noon's assistant, or Monday's Tierce. He also names the embodiment of the Will as his steward and returns to Earth with a cure for the mysterious plague.

Sequels
Mister Monday is the first of seven novels in the Keys to the Kingdom series; it is followed immediately by Grim Tuesday.