This week I ran afoul of the gypsy fortuneteller Madame Pumpkinwrinkle. She crossed my path and gave me the eye.
I, of course, immediately gave it back, and she popped the glass eye back into her right eye socket.
“You shud be seeing wot I am seeing, you silly, seely man.”
“Why? What are you seeing?”
“Your future is weary grave. You needs to be gibbing me ein nickel, und I weel tell you ov it.”
Well, I don’t credit her prophesying ability any more than the Trojans credited Cassandra. But I had a nickel in my pocket. So, I thought, “What the heck! Why not?”
She took the nickel and handed me the eye again.
“Yeck! I don’t want this!”
“I will look into your mind. Hold it up to the ear so I can see in.”
I held it up to my ear.
“What do you see?”
“Light from the udder side.”
“Somehow I knew that is what you would say.”
“I see many grave tings.”
“Like what?”
“Trumpy is elected again 2020. You is gedding so mad that you is having a strobe.”
“You mean a stroke?”
:”No, you is flashing in and out of existence. Strobe!”
“Ah, yes. So, is that what kills me?”
“No, you is not gonna die until after dat.”
“So, will I die before I get out of bankruptcy?”
“No, Bank-o-Merica not gonna let you die until day after you pay off everting.”
“Oh, so I die with everybody else from global warming?”
“No. You is gonna die before that.”
“Oh? How?”
“You is gonna try to be a substie-toot teachum. You will forget to wear cloze one day, and you is dying of embarrassment.”
“Well, then, I guess I already got my nickel’s worth. That’s enough for today… and maybe for a lifetime.”
“You come back wit anudder nickel. I got lots more.”
Kyle Clarke came storming into the Zeffer house before
either the sheriff’s deputy or Mrs. Philips could arrive. He was angry to the point of curse words over
what apparently had happened to Valerie.
He made Mrs. Zeffer and Ray repeat the story of how Ray found her three
times before he even started calming down.
He made it clear he wanted the story from Ray, not Valerie. Once he had learned she had been unconscious,
he didn’t even want to hear her version of events. He told her she would not be able to make
sense of things until she was well rested and recovered. He wanted Mrs. Philips, a registered nurse,
to examine her before any other investigation took place. Valerie could only imagine in horror what he
suspected.
“Mrs. Philips! We
need you to examine little Valerie Clarke,” said Mrs. Zeffer as Mary’s mother
arrived at the Zeffer home. “She’s been
attacked by someone.”
Mrs. Philips was very pale, and also seemed shaken.
“What is the matter, Mrs. Philips?” Kyle asked. “You seem unwell.”
“My daughter Mary and her boyfriend Pidney Breslow are
missing. I’m afraid it has something to
do with what happened to Valerie.”
“Oh, no! We’ve phoned
the sheriff already and he’s sending Deputy Harper from Belle City to
investigate,” Kyle said in a concerned tone.
“Do you know what happened?” asked Mrs. Zeffer.
Ray was sitting on the bed in Bobby’s room next to Valerie
who was already wearing the clothes Kyle had brought her. Both of them looked at the adults standing
just outside the bedroom doorway.
Valerie’s fear for what might’ve happened to Mary and Pid was
overwhelming. She leaned against Ray’s
shoulder and began to cry softly.
“It was the strangest thing.
The three of them were all in our basement, reading some old book. Then, suddenly there was a purple fog in the
house. It smelled so sweet it made me
sick to my stomach. It apparently
knocked me out. When I came to, I found
my daughter Amy and her brother Jason were both sleeping on the floor. They had been knocked out too.”
“And the kids were taken from your house?” Kyle looked alarmed and upset.
“Yes, all we found were their clothes in the basement. I have never seen anything so strange. Whoever took them must have stripped them
naked first.”
“Oh, you poor dear,” said Mrs. Zeffer, taking hold of Lady
Philips’ shaking hands and guiding her to a chair in Bobby’s room. “Sit here.
Let me get you some tea.”
“Was there any indication who might have done this terrible
thing?” asked Kyle.
“I… I don’t know,” Mrs. Philips said as Mrs. Zeffer bustled
out of the room to make tea. “We found
the empty clothes… and then you called asking me to come here and examine
Valerie.”
“You should’ve said something then,” Kyle said.
“I… I just felt numb.
I told Jason to look after Amy and came right here to see what I could
find out.”
“All right… um, Mrs. Philips… I called you over here to
examine my daughter Valerie. I was
worried someone might have… well, she was found naked in the alley,
unconscious.”
Lady Philips made a small strangling sound in her
throat. Valerie knew immediately what
she must have thought had happened to Mary.
“I’m okay, Daddy. I
know for a fact that nobody did anything like that to me.”
“Valerie, princess, you were unconscious. Somebody drugged you and stripped you
naked. We need to be certain what
happened.” Daddy Kyle was trying to be
comforting and soothing, but there was a cold, desperate edge to his voice that
actually scared Valerie. She looked at
Ray. Ray’s eyes were frightened too.
“Your dad is right, Val.
You need to be checked. Mrs.
Philips is an RN, a professional nurse.
She’ll be able to tell.”
“Okay, Ray,” said Valerie’s dad coolly, “You should go help
your mother in the kitchen. Deputy
Harper will be here soon.”
Ray reluctantly let go of Valerie and stood up. “You know, sir, that I would never hurt your
daughter.”
Kyle’s angry glare softened a bit. “I… I do know that, son. And believe me, I am grateful for the way you
rescued her and brought her somewhere safe.
I’m on edge right now. I don’t
know what was done or who did it. You
know what I mean?”
“Of course. If I were
in your shoes, I’d be afraid for my daughter too.”
Ray nodded resolutely.
Then he went out of the room.
“I will examine her in private, Mr. Clarke. I will be able to tell. I have treated rape victims before. I don’t have a kit with me, but I will know
if one needs to be used… Only…”
“What?” Kyle asked.
“After we know, I am going to need you and Deputy Harper to find Mary.” Valerie’s dad was grim-faced, but he nodded his agreement.
I know this title sounds like a total bummer of a post written by a sixty-plus-year-old loser in poor health and totally obsessed with his own imminent mortality. And I know why you might think that based on the general trends you have observed in my reflections-on-life sorts of posts, especially if you actually do more than only look at the pictures in this goofy blog. But it is not the ending of me that I am obsessed about. It is the ending of a novel.
I wrote the first draft of When the Captain Came Calling in 1996, twenty-three years ago. And I knew then that it was not finished. And I thought, perhaps, that it would never be finished. It was a hard thing to write. And I knew from the writing of the novel Snow Babies that I could not write this book without writing directly about the suicide. Something like that can’t just happen to a major character in a series of novels in between what happens in novel one and the start of novel two. It has been a twenty-three-year struggle with a plot-knot that was almost impossible to untangle.
Valerie Clarke and her skateboard
You see, the most important character in the patchwork-quilt-book that is Snow Babies, is Valerie Clarke, a skateboarding thrasher of a girl from the 80’s based on a girl I taught in the 90’s and named after a classmate I had a hopeless crush on in the 60’s. And she could not have been the character I wrote about in that book without having survived the fact of the suicide in the previous book. But when I completed Snow Babies, the Captain still didn’t have the suicide in it. And believe me, writing about suicide is hard. It is something that has been a life-long hardship to explain and to deal with.
You see too, that suicide has been a thing I have had to deal with in real life. Ruben got himself killed in a car accident in a car-theft joy ride. Osvaldo took his own life with a gun after getting out of prison. J.J. got drunk and ran his pickup truck into a train. And they were kids I taught and learned about from talking to them about their lives. And two of them I loved like they were my own children because that’s how teachers do… And I have spent three whole days in emergency rooms and one terrible night in ERs with suicidal teens, two long conversations with kids over the telephone when I had to talk them out of hurting themselves, and I had no idea where they actually were. And I have talked to counselors at three different schools about suicidal things kids shared with me more times than I can count accurately. And some of those incidents I am listing are about family members. And my cousin’s son… Well, you can see how that kind of battle can make a suicide something hard to write about. Especially since all the scars it leaves makes you hyper-aware of how precious and fragile life really is.
But you see three, now that I have taken time out to cry a bit for having written that last horrible paragraph, that it is important, as a writer, to share your truth with the world in the best way you know how. And as the spirits of Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and Terry Pratchett nod knowingly from beyond, I can honestly say that the best way that I can deal with it is by writing comedy, making readers smile and laugh and feel good about enough good stuff to make up for the bad stuff that everybody faces… even suicide. And I have finally passed the test. I wrote the chapter about the suicide. I have written about Valerie’s recovery, and I am nearing the end of the book, my current Work In Progress, When the Captain Came Calling. A good story can heal the world, the way Oliver Twist did, or the way The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn did. And while the jury has not yet convened on this book of mine, and I can’t begin to compare my book to those, I don’t hate it now the way I did for the last twenty-two years. It is going to get finished. And then the whole world can ignore it the way they have all my other books.
While visiting in Iowa, I ran into an old high school friend at a local eatery. I remember how in high school and junior high, I played basketball on the same team with him, I listened to his exaggerations about a probably non-existent sex life, and helped him on one or two occasions to get answers on Math homework (even then the teacher in me wouldn’t let me just give him the answers, I always made him work out the answers step by step).
Now he is a judgmental and basically crabby old coot. He is a Trump supporter, hater of immigrants who take American jobs, and an unpleasant arguer of politics. And the sorest point about his intractable coot-i-ness is the fact that, as a classmate, he is the same age as me and I am, therefore, just as intractably coot-y as he is.
So, how exactly do you talk to a mean old coot?
Well, you have to begin by realizing that it is not like the dialogue in a novel or TV show. This is a real person I was talking to. So, I had to proceed by accepting that he thinks I am an idiot and anything I say and think is wrong. Not merely wrong, but “That’s un-American and will lead to a communist takeover of our beloved country!” sort of wrong. I can then laugh off numerous Neo-Nazi assertions by him, make snarky comments about his praises for the criminal president, and generally get along with him like old friends almost always do. I play my part just as furiously as he plays his, and we both enjoy the heck out of it.
We are both of us crazy old coots, likely to say just about anything to get the other one’s goat. Getting goats is apparently vital to the conversations of real people. But we have more in common than we have as differences. We don’t keep score in our world-shaking debates, nor do we count how many goats we get. And that is how you talk to real people.
When Valerie awoke, she was no longer on the ground. Someone was carrying her and she had
someone’s jacket wrapped tightly around her bare body. Someone was gently, tenderly lowering her
into a bed loaded with comforter and quilts.
“Be careful of her head, Ray,” said an older woman. Valerie vaguely became aware that a young man
or boy was holding her, and lowering her onto soft bedding. “How did you ever find her in such a condition?” The woman was Patricia Zeffer, Ray’s
Mom. Valerie looked groggily up into the
face of her rescuer. It was Ray.
“I found her in the alley behind Martin’s Bar and Grill,”
Ray said with deep concern in his voice.
“She was just lying there, completely nude and unconscious. Did you call someone?”
“I am going to in a minute.
I will call the hospital in Belle City for advice. Then I’ll call the poor dear’s parents. I just needed to get a look at what’s wrong
with her.”
“She’s awake,” said Ray, smiling down at her as he pulled a
quilt over her.
“Oh, my poor, sweet girl,” said Mrs. Zeffer, “whatever
happened to you?”
“I… I’m not entirely sure.”
Valerie’s voice was shaky and soft, almost too quiet to hear.
“Did you see if she was bleeding anywhere?” Mrs. Zeffer
asked Ray.
“She had some bloody scratches on her shoulder and back,
maybe from an animal.”
“Are you in pain, dear?”
“No… I mean, only
where the cat clawed me. It stings.”
“Why were you in the alley naked? Did something terrible happen?” It was obvious from the look on her motherly
face that Mrs. Zeffer wasn’t too sure she should be asking this question.
“I… I don’t know. I
was with Mary Philips and Pidney Breslow.
I’m afraid they may be hurt worse than I am.”
“They didn’t hurt
you, did they?” asked Ray.
“Of course not.
Someone else…”
“Do you know who?”
“Mom, you better call the sheriff too. They will need to find Pid and Mary and make
sure they’re all right.”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
Mrs. Zeffer hustled out of the bedroom headed for the phone downstairs.
“Ray, um… you found me naked?”
“I’m sorry,” said Ray.
“I could see you needed help. I
put my jacket on you. I… um… didn’t look
too hard.”
“Ah… it’s okay. You
saved me. You and Barky Bill.”
“The Martins’ dog? He
fought off your attacker?”
“Well, yes… kinda. I
think he killed my attacker.”
“He did? I didn’t see
anybody lying there in the alley.”
“Well, you wouldn’t have.
It was a cat. I think the dog ate
him.”
“You were attacked by a cat?
Come on, you have to tell me the whole story.”
Valerie did. She
filled Ray in on everything he probably didn’t already know.
“Wow, that’s really messed up,” said Ray. “The witchdoctor wants you as a virgin to
sacrifice to the volcano, but the cat wanted to eat you?”
“That’s how I understood it.”
“I’m glad the cat didn’t eat you.”
“You… ah… Ray… can I ask you something?”
“Yes, Val. I can’t
promise I know the answer, but you may always ask.”
“Thanks… uh, Ray… you saw me naked in the alley?”
Ray blushed and looked away from Valerie’s face. “Yes, I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry… but… um… am I the first girl
you ever saw naked?”
“Well, I…”
“I know you never had any sisters…”
“No, I didn’t, but…”
“I mean, it’s okay if I’m your first.”
“You aren’t. Mary
didn’t tell you about me, huh?”
“Well, yes, but… I mean, no… well… what was she supposed to
tell me?”
“About why I need friends now? Why she thought I needed to be a Norwall
Pirate?”
“About why you are so sad all the time?”
“Yes.”
“No, not really.”
“Well, you see… um, I have a girlfriend already.”
“You do? And you’ve
seen her naked?”
“Um, yeah. You see,
she’s pregnant.”
“She is? Who is she?”
“Carla Sears from Belle City. She’s the prettiest girl in my class.”
“And she’s gonna have a baby?”
“Yes.”
“Your baby?”
“Yes.”
“So, you’re gonna get married, then?”
“No. Her parents
won’t allow it. They blame me for the
whole mess… and I suppose they’re right.”
“She’s going to have the baby all by herself?”
“Well, that’s one of the things they are talking about… I
mean…” Ray’s eyes were filled with
tears.
“You mean they might…?”
All Ray seemed to be able to do was nod.
“Oh.” Valerie’s eyes
began to gush tears too. “I’m so… sorry…
I mean…ah…”
She reached up and put her arms around Ray’s neck. When she did, the quilt and the jacket fell
away, revealing her naked self to him.
She was past mere embarrassment, but she held on. He cried against her neck.
As he struggled for control of his emotions, she knew they
had to talk about something else.
Anything else. The walls around
them were painted a warm, sunny yellow.
“This room is very pretty.
Is it your room?”
“No,” he said simply.
“It was my brother Bobby’s room.”
“Your brother?”
“The one that died before I was born.” Ray had enough control to pick up the fallen
jacket and put it back around the naked girl.
“I never knew him.”
“That’s sad too.”
“Yeah. And hard. I was the replacement child for Mom and Dad.”
“Replacement child?”
“They knew if they had another child, especially a boy, that
he could be a hemophiliac too, just like Bobby.
But they took the chance anyway.
They were heartbroken by his death, and well…”
“So, they had you.”
“They did. And now
I’m…”
“You would be a great dad, Ray… if they… um…
“Yeah… but they won’t.”
Valerie squeezed him tightly. She was beginning to see things in a way she never had before. Ray was worthy of love.
Of the people in the school picture from Rowan Rural School #4 (a one-room schoolhouse from Midwestern history and lore) all the ones who survive are octogenarians. Three of the survivors were at our family reunion for Great Grandma Hinckley’s descendants. My mother and uncle were there. Their cousin was also there. The school house stood on the Aldrich corner, near the house where my Grandpa and Grandma Aldrich lived, the farm house of a farm that’s been in the family for over a hundred years. My mother and Uncle Don and Uncle Larry could easily walk there. The rest came from country miles around by horse-drawn wagon.
This is not a school-bus wagon, but rather, an oat-seed spreader. So, almost the same.
Uncle Larry is now gone, but they have survived from the time of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the time of Criminal President Doofenschmertz Jehosephat Trumpennoodle. Things have changed. The house I now sit in was, back then, a place with a windmill and hand-pump for water, an outhouse for bathroom chores, and a radio for entertainment.
If they hadn’t endured through World War Two, and Joe McCarthy’s Red Scare, and the assassination of JFK, we wouldn’t even be here. We are the children of hardship, endurance, and conviction of the rightness of life on Earth.
We saw progress through the creation of Disneyland, landing the first man on the surface of the moon, Bugs Bunny cartoons, Scooby Doo, and the Pink Panther… Nixon and his Watergate break-in, Hee Haw and Lawrence Welk, Laugh-in… President Ford falling down stairs, Saturday Night Live, the Peanut-farmer President, Reaganomics… the Iranian hostage crisis… Saved by the Bell, Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones… The invasion of Panama… Operation Desert Storm… the second war in Iraq… the downfall of Saddam Hussein… Thundercats, Jerry Seinfeld, Friends, the Wonder Years…
I am especially impressed that they lived through all those Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethons. And Leisure Suits… Aagh!
Mother’s entryway table with pictures of Grandpa and Grandma Aldrich in the back
And their time is not completely up. Mother and Dad and Uncle Don still move on and go to reunions and bury loved ones… and tend to the needs of grandkids and great-grandkids… And pass on the good things to the next generation… and the next. So it goes, towards times not yet dreamed of.
Valerie-squirrel hustled out towards the alley once
more. How do you find your focus and
take back your own mind? Could it
possibly have something to do with not listening to nonsense from the mouth of
a witch? But things that were affecting
her now were things that came in clouds of purple gas from the mouth of the
Tiki idol called Oojie Magoober. Maybe
she had to not listen to him… or it… or whatever the hell it was. She scampered back towards the end of the alley
where she had first crossed paths with the little wooden man.
The alley was unnaturally quiet. She looked all around for Skaggs the cat, or
the dog Barky Bill. Not only could she
not see them with her little squirrel eyes, she couldn’t smell them with her
little squirrel nose. Well, that wasn’t
entirely true. She could smell the
poo-poo smells from the area where she knew the dog had to be because it was
chained up. But Barky Bill was not
boofing out cat warnings, or prowling around.
He was apparently in his little lean-to doghouse by the back door of
Martin’s Bar and Grill.
There were no other squirrels chittering. Valerie-squirrel was also deeply concerned
about what may have happened to Mary-squirrel and Pidney-squirrel. Did Oojie and the cats catch them? Maybe eat them? She shuddered to think such a thought.
So, she crept forward ever more wary and ever more
alert. Her little pointed ears were
perked straight up and listening intently.
She continually looked behind her for stalking cats.
It was eerie how quiet the alley was. Not only were the squirrels quiet, but no
birds were singing. No insects were
buzzing. It was as if Mother Nature was
holding her breath… worried about… something evil about to take place.
Valerie-squirrel timidly put her little nose to the spot in
the alley where the wooden Tiki idol had first appeared. Anyway, she was pretty sure it was the right
spot. But the smells were mostly
unfamiliar. She had not been a squirrel
long enough to really know what the smells all stood for.
Skaggs was on top of her before she could even look up from
sniffing the dirt. Cruel cat claws
pricked deeply into squirrel muscles and her squirrel heart practically
exploded with instant terror.
“Well, well, pretty little one. I wonder how beautifully you are going to
taste.”
“No! You cannot eat
me!”
“Let’s see now… are you not a squirrel and significantly
smaller than me?”
“Yes… but…”
“And do I not have you pinned down helplessly under my
claws?”
“Yes… but…”
“BOOF! Boof! Boof! Boof! Yipe!”
Barky Bill came rocketing out from hiding, leaping for the
terrible, awful, wicked cat. With full
force he reached the end of his chain and practically tore his own head off
straining against the chain-enforced back flip that came next.
“Ah, very clever, stupid dog. You thought if I couldn’t see you hiding
under that old piece of carpet I would never know you were there. But you forgot, that you are chained there,
and you never go anywhere else. And I
never forget where the maximum chain reach is.”
“You can’t eat her, cat!”
“You surprise me, stupid dog. I didn’t know you could animal-talk.”
“I can’t. I’m just a
stupid dog. But you can’t eat her. She’s not really a squirrel. You can tell by the smell. She’s really a human girl. You must leave her alone!”
“Ah, but the point is, she thinks she’s a squirrel. If she thinks she’s a squirrel, then I think
I can eat her. I also think she will be
delicious.”
Valerie-squirrel was suddenly aware of the real meaning
behind the cat’s words. “She thinks
she’s a squirrel…,” the cat said. But
what had Mazie said? Something about her
focus… Yes. Someone had definitely used magic to convince
her that she was a squirrel. But she
wasn’t a squirrel. Barky Bill knew she
was a real girl because of her smell.
And if she still smelled like a human…
Suddenly Valerie Clarke was lying there in the dirt in the
middle of the alley by the Main Street water tower, as naked as the day that
she was born. She was a human girl… all
girl… and definitely too large to be eaten by a cat.
Shocked, Skaggs leaped splay-footed into the air. He was totally taken by surprise by his
prey’s sudden change of form. He came
down awkwardly and nearly didn’t land on his feet.
“You… you can’t do that!
Only witches have the power to see through spells!”
Valerie, now herself again, was feeling very woozy and
uncoordinated. She tried to get up from
the ground and failed, only managing to sit up in the alley dirt.
“The laws of magic cannot be broken by such as you… such a
weak-willed…”
“BOOF! Boof! Boof!”
Barky Bill lunged out to the fullest possible stretch of the chain, and
then the chain snapped. The dog had the
ugly white cat with the mismatched eyes neck-first in his jaws. The jaws tightened and you could hear Skaggs’
neck-bones snap. The cat went limp.
“I told you I would kill and eat this cat.”
“Yes, you did. Thank
you, Barky Bill. But how are you talking
with a cat in your mouth?”
“Oh, dogs can’t talk, miss. You know that.” “Yes, I suppose you are right.” Valerie was drained in every fiber of her bare body. She smiled weakly at the dog, and then everything went black.
*********************************Remember, this is promotion week for Recipes for Gingerbread Children********************
109 degree Heat Index in the Dallas area for the second straight day. It is hot. It is humid. But I can work outside because the heat causes the West-Nile Virus-carrying mosquitoes to burst into flame before they can fly far enough through the Texas air to drink all your blood.
And I have work to do. We are planning to go to Iowa this month. So, I had hoped to have more of the work mending the retaining wall done before we go. You can see that I took Ian Malcolm’s advice from the movie Jurassic Park to heart. I dressed all in black to radiate the heat more efficiently. And I will never do that again. Black is also a color that absorbs heat. The movie-based advice was COMPLETELY AND IGNORANTLY WRONG!!!’
Of course, the dirt that was to be dug out was mostly clay. It was recently moistened by excessive rain in June, and then baked at inside-a-kiln temperatures just long enough to get baked hard as the bricks it needed to be separated from. I almost broke the danged shovel.
And, naturally enough, because I had chosen a time when there was supposed to be morning shade from the live oak trees to work in, there had to be an opening to the sun right above the spot where I was to work and sweat for at least an hour.
And number two son had a dentist’s appointment. I had to work alone.
There was no one besides passers-by and squirrels to complain to. And those squirrels have shorter tempers than I do.
But an old man on a bicycle wobbled by with what had to be either his granddaughter or his daughter, if he was like me and waited until there was gray in the hair on top before he mistakenly decided he was mature enough to have kids. Make no mistake, the girl, about ten years old, was a real mistress of the two-wheel velocipede. Her riding style bespoke grace and mastery and loads of practice. The old man… not so much. He spent most of his time wobbling, stopped, or coasting with his legs splayed out. It looked like she was teaching him how to ride. She even stopped him to ask if he was all right, then let him take the lead so that she could keep an eye on him and make sure he was not going to hurt himself. It was cute. I laughed. But only because they were too busy to look at me and notice how horribly things were going for me and laugh at my expense.
But all is not Laurel and Hardy slapstick comedy with our efforts. All the bricks between the two gaps we are working on have been put back in their proper places by me and number two son working continually since last November. I look at the extent of what we have already done to chill myself out over the literal hot mess this job has become.
Valerie-squirrel scurried through the cat door in the back
of Mazie Haire’s Gingerbread House. Once
inside the house, she searched all around the downstairs for Miss Haire. Not finding her anywhere around the kitchen
cauldron and fireplace, or the sitting room and reading area, or even the
bathroom, the little blond squirrel finally found the witch upstairs, watching
something through the telescope.
“So, you still aren’t practicing your natural skills of
seeing and knowing, I see,” Miss Haire said to the squirrel at the top of the
stairs.
“Chit Chitter Chit-it-it!” said Valerie-squirrel angrily,
even though she meant to say, “I need help, I’ve been changed into a squirrel!”
“You don’t have to talk like that, you know. Just say it in regular people words.”
“Chit-chitter… do I use regular people words?”
“Just like that, girl.
You have to use the acuity of your own intelligent mind to see through
the fog the spell put on your brain.”
“Spell?”
“Well, that’s what a witch calls it, of course. But it is more like a bit of chemistry in
gaseous form, I believe. Did you not
come in contact with a cloud of purple smoke at one point or another?”
“Yes. The Tiki idol
filled Mary’s basement with purple smoke right before Mary, Pidney, and I all
turned into squirrels.”
“Yes, and somehow you were given some sort of powerful
suggestion right before that, I believe.”
“Suggestion?”
“Ideas were placed in your head prior to inhaling the gas, I
believe. Someone talking, or chanting,
or telling a story perhaps.”
“There was… some chanting… yes.”
“So, that was the trick of it.”
“Can you…? Can you
cure me? Or reverse the spell? I don’t want to be a squirrel, Miss Haire.”
“You are not a squirrel, child. You are a rather stupid and completely naked
girl. I can’t cure stupid, but you can.”
“What do you mean?”
“You will continue to think you are a squirrel until you
take control of your own mind and convince yourself that you are not.”
Valerie-squirrel looked down at her own paws and
golden-blond fur. How exactly was that
done? Everything she saw, heard, and
smelled told her that she was really a squirrel. A human girl in her mind, but definitely a
squirrel in all her body parts.
“So, what do I do?”
“Obviously, me telling you that you are not a squirrel is
not enough. So, you are going to have to
go back out there and find for yourself the proof you need to turn yourself
back into a beautiful young lady, and not a silly, naked squirrel.
“Go back… out there?
Where the cat is? And that dog,
Barky Bill?”
“Yes. Go back out
there and find the focus, find the part of your brain that reminds you that are
not what somebody else says you are. Go
out and find the part of Valerie Clarke that is not a squirrel.”
Valerie-squirrel
swallowed hard and looked back down the staircase. This was going to be hard.
I recently got my very first unsolicited review on a book I had written when Mr. Ted Bun, one of the leaders of the nudist writer group on Twitter gave me a five star review on Recipes for Gingerbread Children.
I was grateful and reviewed one of his books on Twitter in return.
But it was totally unsolicited. I didn’t even know any of my book promotions had penetrated such an odd corner of the internet. The story does have nudists in it, but that is not what the book is really about. Mr. Bun acknowledged that much in his review, and still liked it and called it well-written.
My first Amazon book promotion, offering the Kindle version of Snow Babies for free, produced the same kind of fruit. I started by sending a paperback copy to the girl I grew up with that I named the main character after. Valerie read the book to her grandchildren and then sent me this message;
Valerie– Hi Michael! I wanted to let you know that I finished reading your book a couple of days ago, and that I thought it was really good! You used so many colorful descriptions of the characters, that I felt like I could really picture the whole scene! I also enjoyed how you used several people’s names and surrounding towns from our past that brought back good memories. It kept my interest and made me excited to keep reading to see how things turned out! I appreciated how you ended it, too! Thanks again, so much for sharing it with me. I plan to share it with a friend of mine to read and then return to me! Do the Rowan and Belmond libraries have copies of your books? I would be happy to talk to the Belmond library about it, if you haven’t already! I will spread the word, and keep writing! Val
Me– I donated a couple of books to Rowan and one to Belmond. But I have written a lot more since
They don’t have Snow Babies. I am so glad you liked the book. It is one of the best things I have ever written.
Valerie– You can be proud of your hard work! Next time I’m in the library, I will take Snow Babies with me and show them. I know they like to support local authors! 🙂
Me– Thank you for the help. I really appreciate it.
Then I find this tweet on Twitter from a fellow author who responded to my book promotion week.
She read Snow Babies and loved it and shared this review with me before she posted it on Amazon.
Headline: This book has a potential to become a classic
The story takes you to Norwall, a secluded midwestern town
where people are expecting a snow blizzard to arrive in couple of hours. Among
strangers coming to the town during the blizzard are four very special boys, a
hobo, a bus driver, a drunken old lady, a stupid salesman, a couple of
newly-weds and a lady following the four boys. Each of them, as well as the
local people, has their own interesting story and their stories start to intertwine
while the town gets buried in snow.
Some from the locals and the newcomers start to see white
naked kids in the snow. In the course of events, they learn that those white
kids are so called “snow babies”. According to what people say, those who see
snow babies, are supposed to die during the blizzard.
The author has a talent for depicting situations in an
impressive manner, so they can be humorous and touching at the same time. His mature narrative style enables you to learn
deeply but in a light way about individual characters and understand their
motives. Interesting are the hobo´s droppings of philosophical reflections and
life wisdoms from Walt Whitman’s book. Simultaneously, in connection with snow
babies, the author keeps you in suspense until the end. The story is not
predictable, and the ending left me smiling and absorbed in thought.
I honestly fell in love with this book from the first page. It is like a fresh breeze compared to a number of today’s books written in similar patterns.
*****
I am amazed that people are beginning to read my books and like them… even love them. I wasn’t expecting that to happen until after I was dead. It is a good feeling that took me by surprise.
Catch a Falling Star 