Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Determined to be as strong and powerful as the first Harleigh, who built the rambling Weatherby Hall, twelve-year-old Harleigh Fourth and an equally diminutive new friend try to foil the plans of a distant relative who is seeking the long-lost Weatherby fortune.

With her father's failing health and the family's shaky finances, twelve-year-old Audrey's dreams of becoming a writer seem very impractical until she is given a peculiar bronze pen that appears to have unusual powers.