Ruskin Bond's Rusty makes a comeback

Veteran author Ruskin Bond returns with a brand new Rusty adventure after more than a decade in which the orphaned Anglo-Indian boy sets out with his friends to explore a mysterious mountain.
From the time he was a boy living with his grandparents in Dehradun, surrounded by an assortment of odd animals, people and relatives, to when he gets sent away to school, then makes his way to London and becomes a writer, Rusty had more adventures than one can count.
In "Rusty and the Magic Mountain," published by Puffin Books, Rusty and his friends Pitambar and Popat find adventure in no small measure when they set out to climb a mysterious mountain around which legend and superstition have grown over the years.

On the way they shelter in a haunted rest house, encounter a tiger, and experience a hilarious mule ride which takes them to the palace of a mad Rani who presides over a murder of crows. There are other surprises in store for the boys - a beautiful but mysterious princess, a colony of dwarfs and a wonderful musical stone.
For several decades now, Bond's inimitable stories about Rusty have enthralled and entertained children.
Bond conceived Rusty as a quiet, imaginative and sensitive boy who lives in his grandparents' custody in pre-Independence Dehradun. Though he is not the adventurous sort himself, the strangest and most extraordinary things keep happening around him, and so the stories he has to tell are simply fascinating.

The house in Dehra is full of strange creatures. Rusty has to deal with his grandfather's pet python, who looks into a mirror one day, falls in love with his own reflection, and subsequently spends its days curled up in a narcissistic haze with a dreamy look in its eyes.