Tag Archives: novels

In which I read a New Yorker blog post about genre fiction so you don’t have to

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Well, if you really want to read it, here you go.  But let me just give you my quick summary: Anything the author thinks is really good isn’t genre fiction; so, obviously, if it’s genre fiction, it can’t be all that good.  Like so:

“All the Pretty Horses” is no more a western than “1984” is science fiction. Nor can we in good conscience call John Le Carré’s “The Honorable Schoolboy” or Richard Price’s “Lush Life” genre novels.

I love the imperial “we” in that second sentence.  And the “in good conscience”: I could call The Honorable Schoolboy a spy novel, because it involves, like, spies and all, but no, I just can’t bring myself to do it.  My mother brought me up to be better than that.

I thought this debate had been resolved back in the 1960s, with Vonnegut and Burgess and Tolkien and, yes, Le Carré. But apparently some people still want to fuss about it.  Sheesh.  What a waste of time.

Portal, an online novel: Chapter 6

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Yikes!  Larry and Kevin are stuck in a parallel universe and have been abandoned in Boston by the family who saved them from the Portuguese soldiers.  (Portuguese?!) They have little food, no place to stay–and they’re wearing funny-looking clothes.  This can’t be good.

The first five chapters are up there on the right side of the menu.

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Chapter 6

We walked away from the house, eating the food in silence.  I was so hungry, I forgot for a while how scared I was.  But it didn’t take long for the fear to come back.  Where would we get our next meal?  Where would we sleep?  Would we ever get back to the portal?  Would I ever see my family again?

We didn’t know where we were going.  The streets were dark, and I kept tripping on the cobblestones.  A dog barked at us out of an alley.  There was a lump in my throat, and it kept getting bigger. From one house we passed I heard someone playing a piano, and at least that sounded familiar.  But then I remembered my piano lesson, and I felt even worse.

Pretty soon Kevin and I started arguing.  “This is so stupid, Kevin,” I said. “Why did I let you talk me into it?”

“It’s not like I twisted your arm or anything,” he shot back.  “I said you could stay behind, if you wanted to be prudent.”

“I don’t know why I even told you about it.  I should’ve figured you get me into trouble, with all your theories.  And why did you tell that soldier our family had been murdered by the Portuguese?  He almost arrested us.”

“Maybe we’d be better off if we were arrested,” he pointed out.  “Jail would be better than this.”

We kept walking.

“You know what worries me?” Kevin asked softly after a while.

I shook my head.

“Even if we found the portal, what if we can’t get back?  What if it takes us to some totally different universe?”

“It took me home yesterday,” I reminded him.

“Maybe you were just lucky.  Maybe you go somewhere different every time you step into it.”

“We’ll get back,” I insisted.

He didn’t argue.  I think he wanted to believe me.  I wanted to believe myself.

It was getting cold.  Neither of us had a jacket.  At least neither of was wearing shorts.  I was grateful when we finally made it back to the main street.  With all the people around, it just seemed to feel warmer.

Now that we were out of the wagon, people were staring at us, but we were too tired and scared to care.  We looked in the store windows as we walked.  There was a dressmaker’s shop, and a place that sold something called sundries, and a chandler, which had candles and oil lamps for sale.  “No electricity, I guess,” Kevin muttered.  “Those streetlights are gas or something.  This place is, like, two hundred years behind us.”  We stopped in front of a tavern called the Twin Ponies and listened to the laughter and smelled the cigar smoke and the stale beer.  Someone was playing an instrument that sounded like an accordion.

“Look at this,” Kevin said.  He picked up a sheet of newspaper from the sidewalk in front of the tavern. It was called the Boston Intelligencer.  It had smaller type and wider pages than in regular newspapers, and no photographs–only a couple of drawings.  We read the headlines:

PORTUGUESE, CANADIANS ADVANCE ON BOSTON

Thousands of Refugees Arrive ahead of Siege

Pres. Gardner Calls for Calm as Naval Blockade Tightens

Talks with British Continue

“It has today’s date,” Kevin pointed out.

“Look at the British spellings,” I said.  President Gardner was at pains to dispel the rumour that he was negotiating terms of surrender with the Canadians and Portuguese.

We couldn’t make sense of a lot of what we read, but two things were clear: This place was in a whole lot of trouble, and there was plenty of disagreement about what to do about it.  The paper quoted one guy as saying they should cut off all the refugees from entering the city, because there wasn’t going to be enough food for everyone to survive the siege.  Someone else said there was no way the city could survive the siege anyway, and the president (who apparently was in Boston) should “surrender forthwith.”  And the president insisted everything was going to be fine and not to worry.

“What a mess,” Kevin said.

“No kidding.”

A tall man wearing some a round black hat and a green cape came staggering out of the tavern.  He stared at us for a second and shook his head.  “Strange days,” he muttered, and he headed off down the street.

“So, what do you think we should do?” I asked finally.  One of us had to ask the question.

“I don’t know,” Kevin said.  “Maybe we should, you know, turn ourselves in.”

“For what?  We haven’t done anything.”

“Well, we could, like, tell the truth.”

“You think they’d believe us?”

Kevin shrugged.  “I guess not.”

“But even if they did believe us, why would they care?  They’ve got way more important things to think about.”

“Wouldn’t hurt to ask.  What have we got to lose?”

We were lost on a strange world with no one to help us.  There really was nothing to lose.

“I think that’s a cop over there,” Kevin said.  “Go ask him.”

The blue-jacketed policeman was across the street, standing in front of a building with his arms folded.

“Why me?” I said.  “It’s your idea.”

“Because you’re taller,” Kevin answered. “He’ll pay more attention to you.”

Seemed like a stupid reason to me, but I was tired of arguing.  We crossed the street, picking our way through the disgusting horse manure.  We walked up to the cop, who stared at us suspiciously.

“Excuse me, officer,” I began.  My voice sounded thin and trembly in my ears.  “We’re not from around here, and–”

He scowled at me.  “I can see that, mate.”

“No, really.  We’re not just, you know, from another town or something.  We come from a different world altogether.  We’d like to, uh, speak to someone in authority.”

“Of course you would,” the policeman said, nodding.  “And, you’d like a meal.  And a nice bed to sleep on, as well.  Is that it?”

I glanced at Kevin, but he didn’t have anything to say.

“We’re in the middle of a war, in case you didn’t notice,” the cop went on.  “We don’t feed strays.  If we don’t get help soon, we won’t be able to feed ourselves.  Now run along.”

“But where?” I asked.  “We don’t have anyplace to stay.”

He gestured off to his left.  “The Fens camp is where you strays belong.  Don’t let us catch you stealing on the way, or you’ll wish the Portuguese had caught you first.  And don’t be wandering the streets after curfew, either.  You farmfolk–or whatever you are–aren’t going to overrun this city.  Understand?”

I nodded.  “How far away is the camp?” I managed to ask.

He laughed.  “Not far.  Just follow your nose.  And you might watch your step going through Cheapside–they don’t take kindly to strays.”  Then he turned and walked away.

“Nice job,” Kevin said to me.  “You didn’t explain anything.”

“You try, if you think you can do it better.”

We were silent then.  We headed off in the direction the cop had pointed.

“I wonder if the Fens has anything to do with Fenway Park,” Kevin said after a while.

“Who gives,” I muttered.

“They probably don’t even have baseball in this world,” he went on.

I just looked at him.  We kept walking.  I was getting really tired.  And I was hungry again.  Would there be food in the camp?  Everyone seemed worried about food.

After a while we entered what I figured was Cheapside–a nasty-looking section of town where the rickety houses were stuck close together, the street had turned into a rutted dirt path, and piles of garbage were heaped up everywhere.  Follow your nose, the cop had said.  There were lots of taverns, and people lounging in the doorways shouted insults at us as we passed.  We just kept going.

Cheapside seemed to peter out after a while, and we came to a bunch of buildings with soldiers guarding them.  Beyond the buildings was what I guessed was the Fens camp.

It was much bigger than the one we’d seen from the wagon on the way into the city.  It seemed to go on forever; we could see wagons and tents, smoky campfires and snorting horses.  There was a rough fence around it, and at the end of the path was a gate with lamps hung on either side.  A few wagons were lined up in front of the gate, waiting to enter.

“What do you think?” I asked Kevin.  “Should we go inside?”

“Do we have a choice?” he replied.

Not that I could see.  We got in line behind the wagons.  It took a few minutes for them to enter.  When we reached the gate the soldier guarding it laughed.  He was short and stout and missing a couple of teeth.  “Farmfolk get stranger-looking every day,” he said, shaking his head.  “Twenty minutes to curfew, lads.”

“Can we just, like, go in?” I asked.

“You can go in, but you can’t come back out–at least not till morning, and then you’ll need a pass.  But you’ll find plenty to do inside, I daresay.”

“Is there any food?”

“Not till morning, unless you want to steal some inside the camp–which I wouldn’t recommend, since it’ll likely get you killed.  Now run along with you.”

We walked through the gate into the camp.  There were muddy paths of a sort, along which people had parked their wagons and set up makeshift shelters.  People sat in their wagons or on chairs outside their tents, the men smoking long pipes and the women chatting with each other by the light of the campfires.  One man we passed was playing a guitar while his family sang what sounded like a hymn.  There were a lot of babies crying.  Older kids ran around, playing tag.  It didn’t seem all that bad, actually, if you could get used to the smell and the mud.

We kept walking, without any idea of where to go or what to do. Kevin pointed to the guards patrolling outside the fence, rifles on their shoulders.  “They’re serious,” he said.  “Nobody’s getting out of here.”

Great.  We were stuck inside a refugee camp.  My stomach started growling and my legs started hurting.  “I don’t think I can walk much further,” I said.  “I’m so tired I could sleep in the mud.”

“We need to get blankets or something,” Kevin said.

“How are we going to do that–steal them?  We’d get killed.”

He didn’t answer.

“Hey there!”  A thin man with long stringy hair and a beard was standing in front of us.  “Did I hear you say you needed a blanket?”  He smiled at us.  His face was pock-marked, and he was missing a lot of teeth.  His left eye wandered when he spoke.

Stranger danger, I thought.  My mother was always talking about stranger danger.  But what do you do when everyone’s a stranger?

Neither of us answered, so the man kept on talking.  “You boys here on your own?”  We still didn’t answer, so the guy just kept talking.  “These are parlous times to be on your own.  But I have a beautiful blanket I can let you have for a mere five shillings.  Made from the finest Vermont wool.  Just step over to my wagon here.”

I looked at his wagon.  A sad-looking donkey stood next to it, staring at us.  How much was a shilling, I wondered.  Didn’t matter.  “We don’t have any money,” I said.

The man’s smile faded a little.  “Parlous times, indeed,” he said.  “What about barter, then?  Have you anything to trade?”  He looked us over, then pointed at Kevin.  “Odd-looking hat,” he said.  Then, “This object on your wrist–what might that be?”

“It’s a watch,” Kevin said.

“A watch?  Strange place to have a watch.  Why not keep it in your pocket?  Let me take a look.”  He grabbed Kevin’s arm.  “Odd-looking watch, as well.  No case, no hands on the dial.  But I tell you what–I have a charitable heart, seeing you here by yourselves.  I’ll give you a blanket for it, and I’ll throw in a pound of salted pork.”

Seemed like a good deal to me, although salted pork sounded awful.  But all of a sudden Kevin got a funny look on his face and pulled his arm back.  “No thanks,” he said.

The man’s smile faded a bit more.  “You lads won’t get a better deal in this wretched camp,” he pointed out.  “Nights are growing colder, and who knows how long we’ll be imprisoned here?  The price of necessities will only go up.”

“Sorry,” Kevin said.  He turned to me.  “Let’s go, Larry.”

I was really annoyed at him.  What did he want the stupid watch for?  Who cared what time it was, when we were going to have to sleep in the mud?

Kevin started walking quickly back the way we’d come.  “Are you nuts?” I said to him.

He shook his head.  “It’s not just a watch,” he said.  “It’s a calculator.  It’s a timer.  It’s really cool.”

“So what?”

“So–maybe it’s worth more than a blanket in this world.  Maybe we’re worth something in this world.”

“Kevin, they know how to add.  They know how to tell time.”

“Yeah,” he said, “but they’ve never seen a calculator before.”

“Big deal.  Anyway, where are we going?”

Kevin pointed.  “Back to the gate.”

The gate was closing.  We ran up to it and slithered through.

The soldier we had talked to before didn’t look happy to see us again.  “Curfew, lads,” he said.  “Back inside with you.”

“Sir, I have a strange and wonderful invention that I’d like to share with the military leadership,” Kevin said.

The soldier looked at him like he was crazy.  Farmfolk.  “Let’s go,” he demanded. “There’s a war on, and no time for foolishness.”

“How much is 375 times 13?” Kevin asked.

The soldier was starting to get angry.

“Come here and see what I do,” Kevin went on before he could yell at us.  “This’ll be interesting, I guarantee.”  The soldier hesitated, then leaned forward.  Kevin put his watch in calculator mode, held it up so the soldier could see, then did the multiplication.  “3875,” he said.  “See how easy that was?”

The soldier thought about it for a moment, then said, “Can I try?”

Kevin held his arm out and showed him what to do.  “I never was very good at ciphering,” the soldier muttered as he hit the numbers.  He grinned with delight when the answer was displayed.  “Hey Caleb,” he called out to a tall soldier with a scruffy beard who was guarding the gate.  “Come look at this!”

Caleb took a look and had the same reaction–surprise and excitement.  The next soldier who came by, though, was terrified by the watch.  “This is some devilry,” he muttered, glaring at Kevin like he was the devil.

“Now, Oliver,” Caleb said to him, “it’s just a toy.”

Oliver shook his head.  “The Devil makes toys, too,” he muttered, and he walked away.

“The thing is,” Kevin said to Caleb, “I’d like to show this to your commanding officer.  I think it might be helpful in the war.  We know other stuff that might help, too.”

Caleb considered, then said, “Go find Sergeant Hornbeam, Fred.  He’ll be interested.”

Fred–that was the first soldier’s name–went off, and returned in a few minutes, accompanied by a large soldier with bright red hair.  He gave us the strange look we were used to by now, and then said: “Let me see the thing.”

Kevin held out his arm.

Sergeant Hornbeam shook his head.  “Take it off,” he said.

Reluctantly Kevin took the watch off and handed it to the sergeant, who took it and studied it.  Finally he let Fred show him how to use it.  Then he looked at us again.  “Are you Chinese?” he demanded.

“No, we’re–we’re farmfolk,” Kevin said.

“The inscription on this object says it was made in China.”  He made it sound like an accusation.

“Well, uh, this is complicated,” Kevin said.  “It was made in China, but we didn’t get it there.”

“Do we look Chinese?” I asked.

Sergeant Hornbeam glared at me.  “How would I know what the Chinese look like?”  Then he put the watch into his pocket.  “An interesting toy,” he said.

“Hey,” Kevin cried.  “That’s mine.”

“I thought you wanted to contribute it to the army,” the sergeant said.

“But we have to talk to somebody in charge.  They’ll need to know more about it.”

He shrugged.  “I don’t see why.  If Fred can use it, anyone can use it.”  Caleb laughed; even Fred smiled.  Then the sergeant seemed to think about the situation some more.  “Where are your families?” he asked.

“We’re here on our own,” Kevin said.  “We just arrived.”

The sergeant thought a bit longer, then gestured to Fred and Caleb.  “Put them in the brig for the night,” he said.  “We’ll see what the morrow brings.”  Then he turned to us.  “Fare you well, lads,” he said.  And he walked away.

I looked at Kevin.  The brig?

“Come on, lads,” Fred said.  “The brig isn’t much, but it’s better than the camp, I daresay.”

He and Caleb led us to a long low wooden building near the camp.  “Where’d you get that thing?” Fred asked.  “Off a trading ship?”

“Something like that,” Kevin said.

“I hear they’ve got all sorts of amazing inventions over in China,” he went on.

“Maybe if we had the Chinese for an ally we could win this damfool war,” Caleb added.

“Maybe if we had any ally at all we’d have a chance.”

“What do you think Sergeant Hornbeam will do with my watch?” Kevin asked.  “We really need to get it to a general or somebody like that.”

“Oh, Sarge’ll do the right thing,” Fred said.  “Don’t know if the generals will pay attention, though.  They’re too busy arguing with the president.”

The first part of the building was the soldiers’ barracks.  Beds were lined up against one of the walls.  A few soldiers were playing cards at a table, others were sitting on their beds cleaning their equipment.  The air was so thick with tobacco smoke that I wanted to gag.  Fred and Caleb led us through the barracks to a room at the back.  A fat, sleepy soldier sat slumped in a chair by the door.  He peered at us as we approached.  “What’d they do?” he asked.  “Sneak out of the camp and pinch some eggs in Cheapside?”

“If they did that, the folks in Cheapside would be happy to take care of them,” Caleb said.  “No, Sergeant Hornbeam wants to hold onto them.  See that they have every comfort, Benjamin.  They’re our guests.”

“No comforts to be had, I’m afraid.  Odd-looking little fellows, ain’t they?  I like that one’s hat, though.”  Benjamin struggled to his feet and took a key out of his pocket, which he used to unlock the door to an inner room.  “Chamber pot’s in the far corner,” he said to us.  “Try not to rouse Chester.  He’s only peaceable when he’s sleeping.”

Caleb and Fred said farewell, Benjamin locked the door behind us, and there we were in jail on our first night in the new world.

It was dark–the only light was from the small opening in the door.  We heard a loud noise that we finally recognized was snoring. As our eyes adjusted to the darkness, we saw a big red-jacketed man lying with his head against the wall.  Like everything in this world, it seemed, he stank.

“This is just great,” I said to Kevin as we sat on the floor against the opposite wall, as far away from Chester as we could get.

“Come on, Larry, it could be worse,” he replied.  “This is what we were trying to do, right?  Turn ourselves in.  Get them to pay attention to us.”

“But what happens next?  What’s your watch going to do for us?”

“Anyone with any brains will know there’s nothing like that watch in this world,” he explained.  “So they’ll want to talk to us, find out where we got it.”

“And then what?  You think they’ll believe our story?  You sure they won’t think we’re the Devil, like that other soldier?”

“I dunno.  But in the meantime they’ll probably feed us.  I’ve already gotten us out of the mud for tonight.  It’s worth a shot, Larry.”

I supposed he was right.  And it wasn’t like I had any better ideas.  Suddenly I could barely keep my eyes open.  We seemed to be moderately safe for the night, except for Chester, who continued to snore loudly across the room.  And there wasn’t anything else we could accomplish right now except hope that Sergeant Hornbeam would do more than pocket Kevin’s watch as a silly little toy.  The floor wasn’t going to be comfortable, but it was better than sleeping outdoors in the mud.

I thought of the couple of weeks I had spent at sleepaway camp during the summer, how homesick I’d gotten, how brave I thought I was being when I stuck it out–with a counselor sleeping in the same cabin, with my parents just a two-hour drive away and sending me letters every day.  “We’ll get out of this, right, Kevin?” I asked.

“Yeah.  Of course we will.  It’s just a matter of time.”

“Right.”  He didn’t sound too sure of himself, but that was okay.  I slid down to lie on the floor.  “Good night, Kevin.”

“Good night, Larry.”

When I closed my eyes I thought of Matthew–was it really just last night?–telling me how life was really okay.  Yeah, yeah, I’d thought.  Would you please shut up so I can get some sleep?  Now what wouldn’t I give to be back in my own bed, listening to Matthew babble?

I was too tired to cry.  I miss you, I whispered into the darkness.  But there was no one there to hear me.

Portal, an online novel: Chapter 5

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Here’s the latest chapter of the online novel I’m perpetrating.  You’ll notice that I’ve got Portal up there in the menu now.  Click on it to see the chapters I’ve already published. Yet another service we provide for our customers!

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Chapter 5

The wagon was piled high with clothes and furniture, which swayed as the wagon rattled along the bumpy road.  Two small children–a boy and a girl–huddled in one corner, staring at us.  The woman had twisted around to look at us, too.  She was wearing a long coat and a bonnet.  “How come you to be in those woods, lads?” she asked.  Her accent was a little strange–not quite American, not quite English.

“It’s, um, a long story,” I said.  What was I supposed to say?

“You talk funny,” the little girl piped up.

“Hush, Rachel,” the mother said.  “Are you from Glanbury?” she asked us.

“Yes, we are.”

“Listen,” Kevin interrupted, “can you stop the wagon?  We have to go back.”

The man pulled on the reins to slow the horse and turned back to look at us, too.  “Why?” he asked.

“Their clothes are funny,” the girl said.

“Could you please just stop the wagon?” Kevin pleaded.

“There’s nothing to go back to,” the woman explained.  “The Portuguese army is destroying nigh everything.  If you’re separated from your parents, best stay with us till we get you to Boston.  You can find them there.”

“Along with everyone else in New England,” the man muttered.

“Are you in the navy?” the little girl asked Kevin.  She was pointing at his Old Navy t-shirt.

“What should we do?” Kevin asked me.

“I don’t know.  This was all your idea.”

Kevin glared at me.  We heard gunfire in the distance.

My parents would know what to do.  But we had left them far, far behind.  “We won’t be able to get to it,” I murmured to Kevin.  And then I asked the woman, “Will we be safe in Boston?”

“As safe as anywhere,” she replied, “with the Portuguese on one side of us and the Canadians on the other.”

“Maybe we should go to Boston,” I said to Kevin.  “We can come back when–when–”

When?

“What if it’s gone?” he said.  “What if we can’t find it?”

What if we find it, I thought, and it doesn’t take us home?

“I don’t know,” I said.  “I don’t know.”

Kevin slumped down in the wagon.  I slumped down next to him.  The man flicked the reins and the horse sped up.  “I bet I know what the ‘B’ on your hat stands for,” the little girl said to Kevin.

I thought the woman might press us about why we were in those woods, but she didn’t.  She and her husband started arguing about why he had waited till the last minute to leave their farm and how all their neighbors were safe in Boston by now, and here they were, barely outracing the Portuguese and endangering their children.  He said he couldn’t care less about their neighbors, he wasn’t going to give in so easily, he just hoped the cowardly government didn’t surrender without putting up a fight.

Kevin’s face was scrunched up, an expression he gets when he’s thinking hard.  Or maybe he was just trying to keep from crying.  We had screwed up so bad.  This was a totally different universe.  There was a Glanbury and a Boston, but what were the Portuguese doing here?  And where were the cars?  Where were the buildings?  And now that we’d landed here, would we ever be able to get back?

The wagon continued along the road to Boston, and the gunfire faded behind us.  My family drives to Boston a lot, but I didn’t know how far it was from Glanbury.  I don’t think it took very long, except when there was a lot of traffic.  How long was it going to take by horse?  The road wasn’t that great, and we kept getting knocked around in the back of the wagon.  My back hurt, and I started to get seasick.

“What time is it?” I whispered to Kevin after a while.

He looked at his watch.  “Four o’clock,” he said.

Late for my piano lesson.  I thought about Mom, probably standing on our deck and looking out into the woods for me, worried and angry at the same time, and I got a lump in my throat.  Pretty soon everyone would start looking for us, and we’d be gone–just gone, without a trace.  Mom always read those stories about missing children in the paper.  She’d figure this had something to do with that guy lurking by schoolbuses in Rhode Island.  But she’d never know where I went, if I was okay . . .

When they started searching they’d be bound to find the portal, I thought, and then they’d figure it out and come after us.

But that wouldn’t work, I realized.  If there were a kazillion universes, who knew which one they’d end up in?

I should never have come, I thought.  How could I have been so stupid?  It was all Kevin’s fault . . .

“Larry, do you have any of those Oreos?” Kevin asked.

I shook my head, suddenly getting hungry myself.  Probably no Oreos in this world, I thought.  No Coke, no pizza, no Burger King–or Burger Queen.

The fog faded away as we rode.  Occasionally a man on horseback passed us on the way to Boston.  No one was heading in the opposite direction, south towards Glanbury.  The riders would slow down and exchange news with us, then speed up until they disappeared up ahead.  There were some houses along the road, and a few inns and shops that looked like they came out of an old movie.  All of them appeared deserted.

We stopped once to give the horse some food and water, and we all went to the bathroom in the woods; it was gross, but the family didn’t seem to mind.

“What’s that?” the little boy asked, pointing at Kevin’s watch.

He shrugged.  “A watch,” he said.

“My papa has a watch, but he keeps it in his pocket.”

Kevin shrugged again.

“Don’t be frightened,” the boy went on.  “We’re going to stay with Uncle John, and he’ll take care of us.  He has a big house in the city, and that’s where all the army is, so the Portuguese won’t be able to get us.”

“That’s great.”

The father took Kevin and me aside and spoke to us before we got back into the wagon.  “I know every soul in Glanbury, and I don’t know you boys,” he said.  “I’ve certainly never seen anyone wearing clothes like that, or heard an accent like that.  Where are you really from?  China?”

Kevin shook his head.  “No, we’re from America.”

“Where is America?” the man asked suspiciously.  “I’ve never heard of it.”

Kevin looked at me, and we felt a little more desperate.  Just how different was this world?  “What–what’s the name of this country?” he asked the man.

The man shook his head in astonishment.  “Never heard of the like.  We’re in New England, lad.  The United States of New England.  Where’s America?”

Far, far away, apparently.  “Samuel, please come!” his wife called out to him from the wagon.  “If we don’t hurry we’ll not make it to Boston by dark.”

Samuel looked back at us.  “I think you lads have some explaining to do, but now’s not the time, I judge.  Let’s go, if you still want a ride to Boston.”

He headed off to the wagon.  “This may be our last chance,” Kevin said to me.  “What do you think?”

I shook my head.  “It’s too late, Kevin.  We have to go to Boston.”

Kevin didn’t argue, and we silently trudged back to the wagon.

When we got in, the mother was feeding the kids apples and bread.  She offered us some, and we took the food gratefully.  Kevin ate his share like he didn’t think he’d get another meal.

We started up again.  The sun was lower in the sky now, and it was getting colder out.  After a while there were more shops and houses, and a few signs of life.  Dogs barked at us.  On one side street I saw a bunch of hogs eating garbage in the middle of the road.  Another road merged with ours, and suddenly there was traffic–more wagons carrying furniture and frightened families.  Some of the wagons had a cow, a goat, or even an ox tied up behind them.  Everyone was headed towards Boston.

Finally we crossed a bridge over a river, and a little ways beyond was a long high wooden fence that stretched out as far as I could see in both directions.  There were slits for guns high up in the fence, I noticed.  A pair of gates were open, but a group of soldiers stood by them, examining everyone before they let them pass through.

They looked like soldiers, but their uniform was different from any I had ever seen.  They wore short red jackets, black pants, and metal helmets with little brims, almost like batting helmets.  Each of them had a rifle slung over his arm and a pistol in his belt.  When we finally reached the gates one of the soldiers came up to us.  He half-saluted Samuel and said, “Name, sir?”

He had an accent that was almost English.

“Harper.  Samuel Harper.  That’s my wife Martha.”

“And where are you coming from?”

“Up from Glanbury,” Samuel replied.

“Waited till the last minute, did you?”

“They were right behind us.  There was some skirmishing, and I thought it best to leave.  If they weren’t so interested in looting, they’d be right behind us still.”

“Why did you wait so long?”

“I didn’t want to yield my farm to any Portuguese, I tell you that.  I fired my house and barn before I left.  I don’t know how it got to this.”

The soldier nodded and looked into the wagon.  “This your family, sir?”

“Except for those two strays back there,” Samuel said, meaning us.  “I don’t know who or what they are.”

The soldier came around and took a close look at Kevin and me.  “Strange outfits,” he said.  “And your family is where, mates?”

“Murdered,” Kevin blurted out.  “By the Portuguese.  But we managed to escape.”

Why did he say that?

“But I thought you were in the navy,” the little girl objected.

“I know nothing of any murdering,” Mr. Harper said.

The soldier’s eyes darkened.  “Well?” he demanded.

But just then another soldier called to him.  “Move it along, Corporal!  We’ll be all night getting these people inside.”

He shrugged and stepped back.  “Any disease here?” he asked loudly.  “Smallpox?  Diphtheria?  Drikana?”

“No,” Mr. Harper said.  “We’re all healthy, thank God.”

“Pray God you stay healthy,” the soldier replied.  “The city is getting more crowded by the hour.  There is little food, and the water is bad.  You are welcome to enter, but you’ll have a hard time of it.  If there is a siege, conditions will get far worse.  You’ll have to stay in a camp.”

“I have a brother in the city who will take us in,” Mr. Harper said.

“Then count yourself lucky, sir.  The camps’ll not be pleasant places.  You may pass.”

Mr. Harper grunted and flicked the reins, and the horse started through the gates.  “A siege,” he muttered.  “They want to delay as long as they can while they parley with the Europeans, as if any European has ever helped New England before.  And meanwhile, all I’ve worked for has been destroyed.”

“You needn’t have set fire to the–” his wife started to say, but he quickly interrupted her.

“Better me than the Portuguese, woman.  If we all did what I did, there’d be no food to sustain them, and they’d have to slink like dogs back where they came from.”

I looked at the fence.  Soldiers were piling up sandbags against it.  Getting ready for a siege, I thought.  There were sieges in plenty of video games I’d played.  Sieges could last forever.

“Was your family really murdered?” the little boy asked Kevin.

Kevin shook his head.  “No, but I don’t think I’ll ever see them again.”

“Oh.  That’s sad.”

Kevin nodded and looked away.

We were passing through a big military camp.  The soldiers stared at us grimly as we went by.  In the distance to our right I could see the ocean.  I smelled fish and horse manure, and worse stuff.  It was really getting dark now, and there weren’t any street lights.  I was hungry and stiff and still a little queasy from the bumpy ride.  This was awful.

“Are you sure John will take us in?” Martha asked her husband.

“He’d better, hadn’t he?” he replied.

“What about these boys?”

“What about them?  I won’t ask my brother to house and feed anyone who isn’t kin, not with what’s about to happen.  Anyway, they haven’t told the truth about anything since we met them.  They can fend for themselves.”

“But they’re so young, Samuel.”

“They’re old enough to join the army, I daresay.  The redbacks will need everyone they can get.  They should be grateful to us.  If we hadn’t taken them with us, they’d be lying dead in the road by now.  Or worse.”

Martha gave us a look full of sympathy, but she didn’t argue with her husband.  The little boy said, “I’d like to join the army,” but she hushed him.

My stomach started to growl.

We were past the military camp now.  The road crossed some marshland, and on the other side there were a lot of shacks and tents jammed together, and some of the people in wagons got off the road to join the crowd.  Was this one of the refugee camps?  “Fools,” Mr. Harper muttered.  “Camping in the swamp.  Half of them will have the flux by morning.”  We kept going, and after a while some of the buildings were built of brick, the road became paved with cobblestones, and there were even sidewalks.

“At last,” Mr. Harper said.  “Now, if I can only find the street.”

The sidewalks grew crowded as we traveled further into the city.  Kids younger than Kevin and me, dirty-faced and dressed in raggedy old clothes, were selling newspapers or flowers.  Soldiers walked alongside women wearing too much makeup.  There were lots of old people–and some not so old–holding out their hands or tin cups, begging for food or money.  Policemen, dressed like the soldiers except in blue, directed traffic at every intersection.  Some people on the streets rode something that looked like a bicycle with very wide wooden wheels.  There were no traffic lights, and only a few dim, flickering lamps instead of street lights.

Mr. Harper made a few turns, asked directions a couple of times, and finally pulled up in front of a small house on a dark side street.  A bearded man walked out of the house, holding a lantern.  “Samuel,” he said, “about time you came to town.”

“Held out as long as I could, John,” Samuel replied.  “I’ve lost everything but what we’ve got in this wagon.”

“I’m very sorry for that,” John said, coming over to the wagon. “but of course you’re welcome to stay here.  Martha,” he said, nodding to the woman.  “And how are little Rachel and Samuel?”  He reached into the wagon and patted them on the heads.  Then he turned to Kevin and me with a puzzled expression.  “And you are–?”

Samuel had joined his brother and was unlatching the back of the wagon.  “Passers-by,” he said.  “Everyone had to get out or be shot.  We gave them a ride, out of the goodness of our hearts.”

We climbed down, followed by Martha and the children.  Samuel and his brother walked back to the front of the wagon, unhitched the horse, and led it behind the house.  Martha looked at us.  “Will you be all right?” she asked.

I didn’t know what to say.  “I guess so,” I said.

She reached back into the wagon and filled a small bag with apples, bread, and cheese.  “Good luck,” she said, handing me the bag.  “I’m sorry we can’t do more.  It’s a hard time for everyone.”  She turned to her kids.  “Come on, children.  Let’s go inside.”

Kevin and I watched them go into the small house.  And then we were all alone on the dark street, in the strange world, and neither of us had a clue what to do next.

My ebooks: sales, prices, reviews

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I handed over my ebook pricing to a publisher in return for having them perform some sales magic.  The magic appears to be working.  First they made Senator free on Amazon, which got it near the top of the top of the “sales” list for free political novels.  Then they raised the price to $0.99, and now it’s up to $2.99.  In the meantime it’s gotten a bunch of great reviews.  Here’s a five-star review I liked because, when I started reading it, I had no idea how it could possibly end up being a five-star review:

The beginning of this book put me off. I generally do not care for novels written in the first person, and the first chapters were tedious, another overworked story of the dead mistress whose murder threatens to ruin her high-placed lover. However, once all of the players were identified, I found myself relating to the protagonists and many supporting characters on the same kind of personal level as when I first read Presumed Innocent so many years ago. Bowker creates the flawed hero of the classics, a man driven on the one hand by ambition and on the other,by a sense of honor. Even at the end, the Senator possessed strengths and weaknesses that are not entirely resolved. In other words, he is human. This is not just a fine tuned murder mystery, it is a journey into the very complex issues of guilt and innocence-good and evil. For nearly a quarter century, I was a prosecutor of serious felonies, a position not without personal as well as professional challenges. It was not uncommon for me to sometimes relate to the defendant sitting one chair away at counsel table on a very human level. That did not change the nature of my mission–I was considered a tough prosecutor– but it made me reflect upon the difference between the concept of legal guilt and that of moral evil. This is not a story in which the murderer is arrested, tried and convicted, but its resolution is gratifying. In the past 18 months I have downloaded more than 415 books on my Kindle, and read all but a very few. This is one of the better ones, perhaps when it comes to a political mystery, the very best.

Anyway, Senator is now #22 for political genre fiction on the Kindle store, in between a couple of novels by Vince Flynn–should I know who he is?–and two positions ahead of a volume containing Animal Farm and 1984, with an introduction by Christopher Hitchens.  Yoicks!  The book is also #2515 on the overall Kindle bestseller list.

So that’s pretty good!  On the other hand, my other current ebooks, Summit, Pontiff, and Replica, are still mired in the lower reaches of the Kindle sales list.  Maybe it’s time for my ebook publisher to do something about them.  You can help, of course.  If you’ve read any of them and liked it, please write a review!  It doesn’t have to be as detailed as the one I quoted above.  Reviews on other sites besides Amazon are also welcome.

Books without any reviews just seem sort of lonely.  No one wants to hang with them.  They eat lunch by themselves in the cafeteria.  They go home and watch infomercials on high-number cable channels.  They buy costume jewelry from QVC.

Please consider helping them out.  They will be forever grateful.

Portal, an online novel: Chapter 4

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Here’s the latest installment of my online novel.  For more excitement, check out:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

*********************

Chapter 4

I was stuck sitting in front of Stinky again on the bus.  He still seemed puzzled about what happened in the woods.  “Hey,” he said to me.  “I wanna know how you did that.”

I didn’t answer.

“Come on,” he said.  “You were there, and then you weren’t.  How’d you do that?”

“Your eyes weren’t fast enough to keep up with me,” I answered without turning around.  “Leave me alone.”

And you know what?  He did.

At school, Kevin came up to me in homeroom.  “So what do you think, huh?  Are we gonna do it?”

I was feeling a little less sure than I’d been yesterday.  “I don’t know, Kevin.”

“Look,” he said.  “You don’t have to go, if you’re scared.  Just show me where it is, and I’ll go by myself.”

“I’m not scared,” I protested.  “I’m–prudent.”  That’s the word my mother always uses.  A prudent person doesn’t ride roller coasters, or pet strange dogs, or enter portals to parallel universes.

“Okay, fine, you’ve already been there–you can afford to be prudent,” Kevin argued.  “But I haven’t had my chance yet.  And if you don’t show me the thing, I’ll never have a chance.”

I gave up.  “All right all right,” I said.  “Come on over.  But you gotta promise to be careful.”

Kevin grinned and gave me a high-five.  “Of course I’ll be careful,” he said.  “And prudent.”

School took forever.  In English class, Nora just sat there next to me, and I started thinking: Wouldn’t it be great to see that smile of hers again?  And there was lots of other stuff to check out.  Who was president in that world?  Did The Gross exist?

Did I exist?  Thinking back on what happened yesterday, I wasn’t really sure if Nora or Stinky had recognized me.  Maybe Nora smiled at me because she knew me from school, and I looked so strange in my clothes.

What would happen if I met myself?  Would we both explode or something?  I should ask Kevin; he was bound to have a theory.

Anyway, the more I thought about going back there with Kevin, the more excited I got.  Just be cool and don’t get into any trouble, and everything would be fine.

Stinky stayed away from me on the bus ride home.  I was beginning to think I had really spooked him.  Anyway, when I got home, Mom was on the computer.  She has a part-time job writing grant proposals for Glanbury College, and she does a lot of her work in the downstairs study.  “Don’t forget your piano lesson this afternoon,” she said as I walked past.

I had in fact forgotten about the stupid lesson.  “But Kevin is coming over,” I said.

“Tell him to come tomorrow,” she said.  “He’ll live.”

Kevin would go nuts if he had to wait another day, I thought.

“What if he goes home when we have to leave?” I asked.

Mom sighed.  “I suppose.  But don’t go disappearing in the woods.”

“Huh?”

“You heard me.  I want you back in the house, ready to go, at quarter to four.”

“Oh.  Sure thing.”  I headed upstairs.

“And Larry–how was school?” Mom called out.

“Oh, you know.  The usual.”

In my room, I switched out of my cargo shorts into some regular khakis.  I should have told Kevin not to wear anything weird, but it was too late now.  He was probably already on his way to my house.  His mother lets him ride his bike across town–without a helmet–which is something I wouldn’t even bother asking my mom to let me do.

I went downstairs to the kitchen to have some cookies and milk while I waited for him.  As I ate my Oreos I started to get nervous.  I didn’t really like lying to my mother.  And this was my last chance to back out.

I didn’t have long to think about it.  Kevin showed up a few minutes later, breathless and excited.  “Ready?” he said.

“Want some Oreos?” I asked.

He shook his head.  “Who can think about Oreos at a time like this?” he said.  “Let’s go.”

“Okay, but we have to be back by quarter to four.  I’ve got a piano lesson.”

“Sure, fine.  I’ve got my watch.  So let’s go.”

Obviously Kevin didn’t want to chat.

I put the milk away and we left the house.  It was another beautiful day–the kind you hate to spend inside.  Kevin had parked his bike by the garage.  We went through the yard and into the woods.  Kevin kept running on ahead of me, then waiting impatiently for me to catch up.

Kevin is shorter than I am, and he has this weird combination of  freckles and black hair, which is always flopping onto his forehead.  He looks younger than most seventh-graders, I think, but actually he’s a couple of months older than I am.  He was wearing jeans, an Old Navy t-shirt, and a Red Sox cap.  I sure hoped those kids wouldn’t be hanging out at the Burger Queen.  “How much further?” he asked.  “Are we almost there?”

“Calm down.  It’s near the army buildings.  We’re getting there.”

“Okay, c’mon.”

“I’m coming.”  In a few minutes we reached the army buildings.  They looked empty–no Stinky this time.  Now I had to figure out exactly where the portal was.  I’d been running from Stinky–which way?  It took me a couple more minutes to find the clearing and the oak tree, with Kevin making impatient noises behind me.  “Over there,” I said.  “That’s where it was.”  I looked around.  We were alone.

Kevin took a step forward and held his hand out.  He looked like he was searching for a light switch in the dark.  Nothing happened at first.  What if the thing had gone away?  Should I be relieved or disappointed?  Then he took another step, and suddenly his hand disappeared.  “Awesome,” he whispered.

He took his hand out, then put it back in again, just the way I had done.  Then he did something I hadn’t thought of–he walked around the portal with his hand outstretched, seeing how big it was.  “I think the two of us can just barely fit in it at the same time,” he said.  “I wonder what happens if, like, half your heart is in this world and the other half is in the other.”

That just made me more nervous.  “Kevin, give it a rest,” I said.

“All right,” he said.  “Just thinking out loud.  It can’t be man-made, right?  I mean–there’s no structure to it.  It’s not like somebody built this.”

“If you say so.”

“Maybe they built it in the other universe–but you said they didn’t look all that advanced–they had big cell phones and everything.”

“That’s right.  And if they built it, why would they put it, you know, behind a strip mall?”

Kevin nodded.  “Could’ve been aliens, like you said.  Or maybe it comes from some other universe altogether.  What if we ended up there?”

Hard to believe, but that was the first time it occurred to me that the portal might not take us back to the world I’d visited the day before.  That didn’t help calm my nerves.

“This is just so great,” Kevin went on, as he continued to stare at the thing–or, really, at the thin air where the thing was.  “It’s totally strange, but totally real.”  He looked at me.  “You ready, Larry?”

“Well,” I said, “I’m really not sure if I–”

Kevin looked at his watch.  “C’mon, Larry.  We don’t have that long before we have to get back.”

“All right, all right,” I said.  “I’ll come.”

Kevin grinned.  “Attaboy.”

I don’t know why I agreed, really.  Now that the moment had arrived, stepping back into the thing didn’t seem like that great an idea.  On the other hand, I pictured myself being prudent, hanging around in the woods like Stinky, waiting for Kevin to reappear, and the image just seemed sort of . . . pitiful.  If Kevin was going, I had to go, too.

“So what do we do,” Kevin asked. “Just walk into it?”

“Yeah.  It’ll be all kind of foggy, but just keep going.  Just a couple of steps, and you’re out the other side.”

“Cool.  Want me to go first?”

“Okay.  I’ll be right behind you.”

Kevin grinned.  “All right,” he said.  “Here goes.”  He stepped inside.  I watched him disappear, and it really was weird, seeing him vanish right in front of me.  No wonder Stinky had been so freaked.  I took a deep breath, and then I followed.

I was inside the thing.  Same clouds, same vague shapes off to the sides.  Everything seemed kind of out of focus.  I blinked a few times, but nothing changed.  “You there, Larry?” Kevin said.

The sound of his voice was reassuring.  “Right behind you.  Keep on going.”

I kept my eye on Kevin’s back as he moved forward.

But it was more than a couple of steps this time, and still the clouds didn’t go away.  Instead it started feeling cold and damp–like real fog.  And then I heard shouts and what sounded like footsteps.

Uh-oh, I thought.  “Um, Kevin?”

As my eyes adjusted, I could make out trees through the fog.  I looked around for the dumpster, but it wasn’t where it had been yesterday.  Nothing was where it had been yesterday.

I saw two men coming towards us.  One of them shouted at us.  It sounded like Spanish, but I couldn’t understand it.

“Let’s go back, Kevin,” I said.

But where was the portal?  I had lost my bearings in the fog.  The men were wearing blue uniforms and carrying rifles.  They were soldiers, I realized.  They raised the rifles and pointed them at us.

Kevin took off through the trees, and I followed.

I heard rifle shots and tensed, expecting a bullet in the back.  But the shots missed; one of them screamed as it ricocheted off a rock or something.  I was having a hard time keeping up with Kevin.  A branch whacked me in the face.  There was more shouting.  “C’mon!” Kevin shouted back at me.

The trees petered out suddenly and we found ourselves on a road.  And now we heard hoofbeats and saw a wagon bearing down on us through the fog.

“Samuel, stop!” a woman’s voice called out.

The wagon slowed.  We stepped back.

There were more rifle shots.

The man driving the wagon peered down at us suspiciously.

“Get in!  Quickly!” the woman sitting beside him said.

We hesitated.  Kevin looked at me, his eyes wide with fright.

“Now!” the man ordered.  “Before the blasted Portuguese send all of us to our Maker!”

Portuguese?

More shouts, from close behind us now.  We scrambled into the wagon and the man drove off.  Behind us in the fog we saw the Portuguese soldiers come out of the trees and aim at us again.  But the fog closed in around them before they could shoot.

I looked at Kevin again.  He was shaking.  I felt as if I was ready to cry.

The wagon picked up speed.  And every second that passed, it took us further away from the portal, and from home.

Portal — an online novel: Chapter 3

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Here’s Chapter 3 of Portal.

We also have Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 for your reading pleasure.  There’s no telling what chapter I’ll publish next!

*****************************************

Chapter 3

I stepped through the clouds inside the thing and out the other side.

“Hey!  Where’d you go?” a voice called.

It was Stinky.  My Stinky.  Standing in the woods–my woods–looking puzzled.

I tried to catch my breath.  “Hiding,” I said.  I didn’t think I could be happy to see Stinky Glover, but right then I sure was.

He still looked puzzled.  “Hiding where?”

I waved vaguely.  “Behind a tree.”  I didn’t want him to know about the time machine, or whatever it was.  I moved quickly away from it.

He seemed to get back his Stinkiness.  “Why are you hiding?” he said.  “You afraid of me, Lawrence?”

I was no longer happy to see him.  I didn’t answer.  Instead I just kept walking, back towards my house.

“Don’t you like wet willies, Lawrence?” he called out.

I ignored him.  This time he didn’t follow me.

When I finally saw our swing set I stopped and took a deep breath.  Man, that had been strange.

I ran through the yard and inside our house, and there was Mom, frowning at me.  “Larry, I thought you were going to do your homework,” she said.

“Mom, you wouldn’t believe–” I began.

“Wouldn’t believe what?”

I stared at her.  “Well, uh, what a beautiful day it is,” I said finally.  “I just had to get some fresh air before I started my homework.”

She looked at me a little funny, and then just shrugged and said, “All right, but I don’t want you going too far into the woods.”

“Okay, sure.”

So, I didn’t tell Stinky because I just don’t like him.  And I didn’t tell Mom because I knew she’d yell at me–first, for disobeying her by going to the army buildings, and second, for doing something idiotically dangerous like actually stepping inside the invisibility thing.  Maybe I should have–but you don’t know my Mom.

I had to tell someone, though.

I figured I could tell my Dad.  He wouldn’t be too bothered by the disobedience thing, especially if it turned out I had made some important scientific discovery, which obviously I had.  But he wasn’t home from work yet.

In the meantime, I decided to call Kevin Albright.  This was just the sort of thing he’d love.

I went into my dad’s study and picked up the phone.  That turned out to be a mistake.  Cassie had arrived home while I was in the woods, and of course she was already on the extension in her room talking to one of her high-school-loser buddies.  She’d been demanding her own cellphone, which had caused more eyerolling from Dad.  So far, no cellphone.

“Hang up, snot-for-brains!” she screamed at me.

How creative.  I banged down the receiver and waited for her to wear herself out talking about how cute her math teacher was or whatever.  It took a while.  For someone who is always too exhausted to do any chores, she certainly has a lot of energy when she’s talking on the phone.

When she finally got off I called Kevin.  “You’ll never guess what just happened to me,” I said.

“Want me to try?” he asked.

“Not really.  Listen.”  And I told him about my adventure.  I have to admit it sounded pretty whacked, but Kevin didn’t have any problem believing me.  More than that–he was ready with an explanation.

“Larry, this is so awesome,” he said.  “You’ve found a portal to another universe.”

“A portal,” I repeated.

“Yeah, you know, a portal–a gateway.  An opening into a parallel universe.  Not the future, not the past–just different.”

I thought about it.  “Okay, I sort of get the idea of parallel universes.  But, I mean, that’s just Star Trek stuff.  They’re not for real.”

“Well, maybe,” Kevin said. “But there’s this theory I read about.  It says that every time anyone makes a choice–you know, turn left or turn right, watch the Red Sox game or watch the Celtics, whatever, a whole other universe splits off from this one.  And in that other universe, everything is exactly the same as this one, except that in one of them you changed the channel and in the other you didn’t.”

“But that’s nuts,” I protested.  “That would mean there’d be, like, kazillions of universes.”

“Okay, well, it’s just a theory,” Kevin said.  “But what if it’s true?  Or something like it?  In the place you went to, what if the guy who started Dairy Queen back whenever decided to name it “Dairy King” instead?  So another universe splits off, and things go on from there.  When some other guy is starting Burger King, well, in this world the “King” part is already taken, so he names it “Burger Queen” instead.”

“Okay, but what about all the other stuff–the different clothes, the cars, a whole new Glanbury Plaza in the conservation land behind my house?  All that’s because somebody decided to name his business ‘Dairy King’?”

“The butterfly effect,” Kevin said.  “You know–the idea that a butterfly flaps its wings in China and changes the weather in America.  One event ends up making a big difference.  Maybe the Dairy King choice wasn’t when that universe split off.  Maybe something else happened a whole lot earlier.  Doesn’t really matter.  The point is, the changes just keep piling up from when it started, until finally everything is just a little bit different, or maybe a lot different, and there’s no way of tracing everything back to that one little event that started it.”

“But Stinky was there,” I pointed out.  “And Nora Lally.”

“It was a different Stinky and Nora,” Kevin replied.  “And a different Glanbury.  But not entirely different.  No reason why they couldn’t be there.  No reason why we couldn’t be there, for that matter.”

That was a strange thought.  But it made sense.  Something else still didn’t make sense, though.  “Okay, let’s say you’re right, and there are all kinds of parallel universes.  There’s no way of traveling between them, right?  No one has ever been to a parallel universe.  So what’s up with this–this portal?  Where did it come from?  How come it’s back there in the woods behind my house?”

“Beats me,” Kevin admitted.  “Maybe it’s like black holes before they got discovered.  Maybe these things are all over our universe but no one has noticed them before.”

“Or maybe somebody put it there,” I suggested.  “Aliens–like that black slab in 2001.”

“Yeah, could be.”

“But the thing is, why was I the first one to find it?  I know it’s invisible, and it’s kind of out of the way in the woods, but it’s not that out of the way.”

“Maybe you weren’t, but other people kept it secret,” he suggested.  “Or the government took them away.  What if it only shows up every few years–like a comet?  I don’t know, Larry.  Anyway, when can I see it?”

“Well, I was going to show it to my Dad tonight, and–”

“Larry, come on, you can’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“Because once you talk to your father, the grownups’ll be in charge–scientists, the army.  Like in ET.  We’ll never get near the thing.  This could be the most amazing thing that ever happens in our lives.  You can’t just give it up without doing a little exploring.”

“Kevin, I almost didn’t get out of that other universe,” I pointed out.  “What if I couldn’t find the thing again?  It’s invisible, remember?”

“Well, we just have to be more careful.  Where’s your sense of adventure?”

All of a sudden Cassie was standing in the doorway of Dad’s study, shooting death-rays at me with her eyes.  “Are you going to be on the phone all day?” she demanded.

Dad says Cassie speaks in italics, and I think I know what he means.  I ignored her.  “Look, Kevin, I gotta go,” I said.  “Let me think about it.”

“Please, Larry,” Kevin begged.  “One more time.  Just one more time.”

I hung up, and Cassie stomped off to make another call.  Why wouldn’t Dad just give in and get her a cellphone?  I went upstairs to my room.

Matthew was playing my Assassin’s Creed on the Xbox.

“Matthew!” I screamed.

“Oh.  Sorry,” he said, as if he’d never heard the one about not messing with my stuff.  Then he started talking endlessly about some video game he wanted to invent that would be way better than Assassin’s Creed.

I ignored him and lay down on my bed.

A portal to a parallel universe, practically in my backyard.  That was so cool.  But did I want to go back inside it?  It would be fun going with Kevin.  And there was Nora Lally and her smile . . . maybe I’d run into her again.

But what about those kids who had chased me?  I could wear different clothing if I went back, so I could blend in better.  And I’d stay away from Stinky–that was always a good idea.

Just once more, I thought, then I could turn it over to the grownups.  Would I become famous?  The First Human to Travel to Another Universe . . .  Or would it all be top-secret, and we could never tell anyone?

Thinking about all that stuff, I kind of blew off my homework, and before I knew it, it was time for supper.

Dad sometimes doesn’t make it home for supper, which drives Mom nuts, but he managed to make it tonight.  Not that it helped.  Family suppers are usually not very pleasant.  Lately Cassie has been on some weird diet that only she understands, so she automatically hates everything Mom cooks, which gets Mom in a bad mood.  And of course Matthew never shuts up, which gets the rest of us in a bad mood.

“So how was everyone’s day?” Dad asked.  He always asks that.  And he expects an answer.

Cassie rolled her eyes.  She acts like she’d rather have her fingernails pulled out than talk to any of us.

I tried to think of something, but if I wasn’t going to mention the portal, what else was there?  “Fine,” I said–my usual answer.

“Did you practice the piano?”

That was the last thing on my mind.  My parents have made me take lessons for years, but I’m still not very good.  “Uh, no, not yet,” I said.

“You have a lesson tomorrow afternoon,” Mom pointed out.

“Okay, okay, I’ll get to it.”

“How about you, Matthew?” Dad said.  “Anything interesting happen at school?”

That was all the opening Matthew needed.  “We had gym today,” he said, “but Jeremy Finkel is such a ball-hog, he only passes to Luke Kelly.  Luke isn’t as much of a ball-hog as Jeremy, only like maybe seventy-two percent, but he thinks he’s so cool and tries to dribble through his legs, but most of the time the ball just bounces off his ankle.  Anyway, I was on a team with Peter Gorman and Chet Pillogi, and we were playing this game the gym teacher made up–well, it’s kind of complicated, see . . . ”

Dad always tries to look interested when Matthew gets going, but after a few minutes of that sort of thing, even he starts to fade.  I just zoned out until the usual fight started because Cassie left the table without asking to be excused, and who did she think she was?  And she started screaming about how she hated this food and this family and her entire life, and why couldn’t everyone just leave her alone?

When the Cassie storm blew over, Dad asked Matthew and me if we wanted to go outside and play catch after supper, but we didn’t, so he just stared at his plate like we’d kicked him in the teeth.  He seems to think playing catch is such a great thing, but Matthew and I don’t like to play catch.  It’s boring.  Baseball is boring.  I’d actually rather practice the piano.  So after supper I did, just long enough to get my parents off my back.  Then I knocked off the rest of my homework, watched some TV, and went to bed.

Matthew was already in bed, but he wasn’t asleep, so of course he wanted to talk.  “Larry?”

“What?”

“I don’t like it when we all yell at each other.”

“Me neither.”

“How come we can’t get along better?”

“I don’t know.  How come you won’t stop playing my videogames without permission?”

“I’ll stop, really I will.”

“Okay.”  He really meant it, too.  For now.

He paused, and I thought maybe he’d given up.  But then he said, “Larry?”

Give it up, I thought.  “What?”

“I don’t know what Cassie gets so mad about.  Life is okay, don’t you think?”

“If you say so, Matthew.”

And that was it–at least, that’s all I remember.  Life is okay.  Sometimes Matthew could be surprising.

The last thing I thought about before falling asleep was not Nora Lally’s smile, but that long-haired man in the park, and the way his glittering eyes fixed on me.

This world is not only stranger than you imagine, it is stranger than you can imagine.

That portal back in the woods had certainly turned my world strange.

Eventually I drifted off to sleep, and a bunch of strange dreams.  And before I knew it, it was time to get up and go to The Gross again.

Portal — an online novel: Chapter 2

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Here is the second chapter of Portal.  You can find Chapter 1 here.

*****************

Chapter 2

I knew right away this was a big mistake.  I guess I had thought it would be sort of like stepping into the other side of one of those mirrors where you can see the person looking into the mirror, but he can’t see you.  That would have been cool.  But why in the world did I think that?  I dunno–seeing Stinky had made me stupid, I suppose.  Things just aren’t supposed to become invisible.  I had stumbled onto something very weird.  And instead of running home and getting a grownup the way I should have, I had gone ahead and stepped into it.

Well, it wasn’t like one of those mirrors.  Inside it was all cloudy.  I thought I could make out dark shapes to my left and right, but I couldn’t tell what they were.  Trees?  I didn’t think so.  I had brains enough to be scared, but here’s where I made another, maybe bigger mistake: I didn’t turn around right away and get out.  Instead I reached out and groped through the clouds.  I took a step forward.  Then another.  The cloudiness seemed to fade, and I was outside again.  I heard noises.  I looked around.

I was someplace . . . different.

Not entirely different.  I was still in the woods, sort of–I recognized the little clearing, and the oak tree right in front of me.  But Stinky was gone.  And ahead of me, through the trees, were the backs of buildings.  Beyond them was a street.  The noises I heard were cars passing by.

What was going on?

I turned and held out my hand.  It disappeared.  So the thing was still there.  But where was I?  What had happened?

I decided to take a look around.

I guess that was one more mistake.  Was I being brave?  Or stupid?  I don’t know.  Maybe I was just really confused.

I headed for the buildings.

Like I said, I was in back of them, and the first things I saw were dumpsters and parked cars.  One building I recognized right away–a Jiffy Lube.  But I didn’t think there were any Jiffy Lubes in Glanbury.  My dad always drives over to Rockford to get his oil changed.  And this didn’t look like the place in Rockford.  It didn’t look much like any regular Jiffy Lube I’d seen, actually, despite what the sign said.  But I couldn’t put my finger on what was different.

I walked around front, still trying to puzzle it out.  The layout of the building was different from the one in Rockford, I decided.  And the sign–it said something about their 16-point Signature Service.  Weren’t there more points than that in Jiffy Lube’s Signature Service?  Maybe different Jiffy Lubes had different numbers of points . . .  I had no idea.

I looked around and saw another sign that said “Glanbury Plaza,” and that was a little reassuring–except that the real Glanbury Plaza has a Stop ‘n’ Shop and a CVS in it, and this place didn’t have either; it was just a little strip mall on a street I didn’t recognize.

Next door to the Jiffy Lube was a Burger King.  And that didn’t look right either.  It took me a minute–it really did–to figure out what was wrong.

The sign didn’t say “Burger King.”  It said “Burger Queen.”

Burger Queen?

By now I was extremely freaked out.

I looked around for other things that were out of whack.  Sure enough, across the street people were lined up to get ice cream cones at a Dairy King.  And the cars–they were mostly long and wide, with big fins, like the kind you see in old movies.  In the Burger Queen parking lot I saw a really big one that was called a “Jupiter.”  I’d never heard of a Jupiter.  And where were all the SUVs and Jeeps and minivans?

Finally I noticed the kids hanging around outside the Burger Queen.  They were all staring at me.  One of them called out, “Hey, rad gear, hombre!”  At least, that’s what I think he said.

I couldn’t think what to reply, so I just stared back at him.

“I said, ‘Nice clothes,'” the kid repeated, laughing.  The other kids started laughing, too.

Well, my clothes were nice.  My mom had bought me some Abercrombie cargo shorts and Old Navy t-shirts, and I was wearing brand-new back-to-school Adidas.  But the kids in front of the Burger Queen–the boys were wearing tight black pants, shiny leather shoes, and actual white shirts–the kind you button up.  The girls were wearing big skirts and baggy sweaters.  The boys’ hair was long and shaggy; the girls’ hair was short and spiky.  They all looked totally strange, like they were going to a costume party, although I had no idea what they were supposed to be dressed up as–some rock group?

And they were making fun of me!

I kept walking.  I was scared, but I was also sort of fascinated.  Why had Burger King changed its name?  Why were people dressed funny?  Those kids weren’t the only ones–the men who walked by me wore suits and odd-shaped hats; the women wore long skirts and way too much makeup.

Why were some things familiar, while other things seemed so completely different?  Traffic lights looked the same, for example, but crosswalks were painted in bright yellow zig-zags.  I passed a Dunkin’ Donuts that looked normal, but the cellphones I saw people using were enormous, the size of hardcover books.

And lots of people stared at me like I was the one wearing a costume.

Finally I wandered into a little park with winding paths and old-fashioned streetlights.  Near the entrance, a man was standing on a bench and talking to a small crowd of people.  I went over to listen.  He was a tall and thin, with long black hair and dark, glittering eyes.  He was wearing baggy brown pants and a shapeless white shirt with a necktie hanging loosely over it.  His voice was soft, but it carried, and you could hear every word he was saying even from a distance.

“This world is not only stranger than you imagine, it is stranger than you can imagine,” he said.  “And more beautiful.  And more full of love.  Do not be complacent.  Do not live your lives as if each day is a chore to be endured.  Seek out the strangeness.  Find the beauty.  Feel the love.”

Then he turned his glittering eyes on me, and all of a sudden he smiled, like he was sharing a joke with me.  When he spoke again, it was as if he was talking to me personally.

“‘Where is it?’ you ask.  The strangeness–the beauty–the love.”  He lifted up his hand.  “It is here.  It is in each speck of dirt, and in the worm that crawls through the dirt.  It is in distant exploding suns.  It is just over the horizon.”  And then, looking even harder at me with those dark eyes, he added, “It is in the home you left behind.”

I shivered a little, then tore myself away from the guy and kept walking.  He was really creepy.  Nobody like that in Glanbury.

But this was Glanbury.  I sat on a bench and thought about it.

I was apparently in Glanbury, but it wasn’t anything like the Glanbury I knew.  Had I stepped into some kind of time machine and ended up in the future?  But why would cellphones be bigger in the future?  And why would Burger King and Dairy Queen switch their names?  This just didn’t feel like the future.  Could it be the past, then?  The cars and the clothes looked a little like something out of a 50s TV show, maybe . . . but cellphones hadn’t been around that long, I was pretty sure.  Maybe I should go find a newspaper and check the date.

Or maybe I should just go home.

But would I be able to get home?  If the thing was a time machine, did it have a dial where you could set the date, like that car in Back to the Future?  It hadn’t really seemed like a time machine at all.  So how could I be sure it would take me back where or when I had come from?

Well, it just had to.  All of a sudden I really wasn’t interested in this place anymore.  I needed to get out of there, right away.  I stood up.

And I bumped into someone.  A bunch of books fell to the ground.  “Sorry, sorry,” I said, and bent over to pick them up.

They were textbooks–math and science.  I went to hand them to the person, and I froze.  It was Nora Lally.

She smiled at me and took them.  “No worry,” she said.  “Thank you.”

“It was my–I mean–sure.  Sorry.”

She tilted her head and looked at me as if trying to figure something out.  Then she just smiled again and said, “See ya.”  And she walked away down the path.

I watched her go.

Nora Lally.  Here, wearing a puffy skirt and short white socks and shiny black shoes.  Smiling at me.

I remembered to breathe.  I should go after her, I thought.  But she had already disappeared.  And if I did go after her, what would I say?  What had I just said to her?  It had been pretty stupid, right?

And then I thought: If she’s here, then it can’t be the past or the future.  So what is it?

Didn’t matter, I decided.  I had to go home.  With one last look down the path where Nora had walked, I turned and headed back toward the Burger Queen and the Jiffy Lube.  I went past where the creepy guy had been preaching, but he was gone, and the crowd had disappeared.  I wasn’t interested in him now, though.  So weird, I kept thinking to myself.  Nora Lally–wearing clothes that the real Nora Lally wouldn’t get caught dead wearing.  But she had smiled at me, and she had talked to me, even if it was just a few words.

Back at the Burger Queen, the kids were still hanging in the parking lot.  “Hey, there’s the hombre in the short pants!” one of them called out.

“Hombre, aren’t you a little old to be dressed like a baby?” another kid shouted.

“What do you need all those pockets for–your pacifiers?” a third one said.

I ignored them.  I just wanted to go home.

Then the door of the Burger Queen opened, and I saw Stinky Glover come out, carrying a big bag of food.  He was wearing a white shirt and black pants, too, but his shirt wasn’t tucked in, and it looked like it hadn’t been washed in a week.

The other kids moved away from him.

The strange thing was, with everyone yelling at me, I felt grateful to see a familiar face, even if it was Stinky Glover’s.

“Hey Stinky!” I called out.

He looked up at me, and I could tell I’d made a mistake.  “What did you call me?” he said.

“Uh, never mind,” I replied.

“No.  You called me something.  What was it?”

“He called you ‘Stinky’,” one of the other kids told him, and they all laughed.

“That’s what I thought.”  He put down the bag of food and started toward me.

Swell.  I walked away.

“Hey!  C’mere!”

I walked faster.

“We’ll get him for you, Julie!” I heard one of the kids say.  Julie?

I started to run–back behind the Jiffy Lube, with the gang of kids behind me.  Past the dumpsters.  Where was the oak tree?  Where was the thing–the time machine–whatever?  Was it still there?  I had to find it.

“Hey, hombre!  We’re gonna get you!  You can’t run forever!”

There was the tree.  I reached out my hand–and it disappeared.  Thank goodness!  I didn’t look back at the kids behind me.  I just plunged inside and hoped for the best.

 

Portal — an online novel: Chapter 1

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Here’s an experiment.  I have a science fiction/alternate universe novel that I am pondering/revising.  It’s a bit of a departure for me, since it has a young-adult narrator.  I think it might work for grownups, too.  If I decide I like this approach, I’ll post an additional chapter every week, or perhaps more frequently. I’ll also add an entry to the menu up top, so all the chapters will be in one place.  And I’ll probably end up making it an ebook, so  folks can pay for it!  Or, not.

*************

Chapter 1

 People tell me I’m a pretty good writer for a kid, so I’ve decided to try and tell this story.  Not that I’m going to show it to anyone.  But if I don’t write it down, maybe I’ll start forgetting parts of it.  Worse, I might start thinking it didn’t really happen.  But it did.  It was as real as anything in this world, or any other world.  So here goes.

#

My name is Larry Barnes, and I live in Glanbury, which is a small town south of Boston.  I go to the Theodore Grossman Middle School, which even my parents call The Gross.  When this all happened I was just starting seventh grade, and my life sucked.

Just to show you, here’s the way things went on the day it began.  First off, Mom woke me up with that chirpy “Rise and shine, Pumpkin!” that she knows I hate.  One of the worst things about Middle School is you have to get up so early, and I’ve never gotten used to it.  I looked over at Matthew, and of course he was still sleeping like a baby, because grammar school starts an hour later.  One of the bad things about my life is that I have to share a bedroom with my kid brother.  This is okay when he’s asleep, but when he’s awake it’s just about unbearable, because he won’t stop talking.  It’s like the Mute button in his brain is broken.  And it’s not as if anything he has to say is all that interesting.  He’ll talk for twenty minutes about, I don’t know, lemonade, or water balloons, or some stupid video game.  And he doesn’t really need me to say anything, he’s happy just to yak away by himself.

So anyway, I got up to go to the bathroom, and of course Cassie was already in there, taking one of her endless showers.  Cassie’s my sister.  She’s in high school, and she has “issues,” my mother says.  I say she’s a jerk.  She’s the reason Matthew and I are stuck with each other, by the way; apparently there’s some law that a teenage girl has to have her own bedroom.  So I yelled at her to quit hogging the bathroom, and she yelled at me to get lost, and then Mom yelled at me to hurry up, and I was in a bad mood and I hadn’t even eaten breakfast yet.

Breakfast was the usual–gulp your cereal down or you’ll miss the bus.  Dad had already left for work.  I think he likes to get out of the house before all the yelling starts.  Mom doesn’t complain about him much, but I get the idea that she thinks the same thing.  He’s a computer programmer, and I guess he works really hard; but I don’t see why he can’t eat a meal or two with us once in a while.

While I was trying to get out the door Mom had something new to warn me about; she’s always worried about something.  “Larry, I read in the paper about a man in Rhode Island who was caught stalking kids as they walked to the bus stop.  I want you to be extra careful out there.”

“Mom, we’re nowhere near Rhode Island.”

“They’re all over.  You can’t be too careful.”

“But I’m almost a teenager.”

“That’s just the age these people are interested in.”

Cassie came downstairs in time to hear this part of the conversation, and she said, “Don’t worry, Larry, not even a dirty old man is going to be interested in you.”

So I yelled at her, and she yelled at me, and then I had to run to catch the bus.  I made it, but the only seat was right in front of Stinky Glover.

His real name is Julian, but guess why everyone calls him “Stinky”.  I suppose he takes a shower sometimes, but the effect must wear off before he gets out in public, because I’ve never been near him when he didn’t smell like low tide.  If there was a BO event in the Olympics, he’d get the gold medal.  Oh, and also he’s fat and stupid.  Of course, no one would sit beside him if they could help it, but sometimes you had to sit in front of him, and that could be just as bad.

For some reason Stinky has it in for me.  I really don’t know why.  I don’t call him Stinky; I don’t call him anything.  “Hey, Lawrence,” he whispered, leaning forward.  “How’s it going, Lawrence?”

Why someone named Julian would find the name Lawrence funny is beyond me, but that was Stinky for you.  I ignored him.

I’ve seen the bullying video, of course, and heard the lectures from the school shrink, so I know all about what you’re supposed to do, how you’re supposed to act when someone bullies you.  But the fact of the matter is, Stinky wasn’t exactly a bully.  He never beat me up or stole my lunch money or any of that stuff.  He was just really, really annoying.

Like that morning.  After he got through saying my name a bunch of times, I felt something long and wet in my ear, and heard him half giggle/half snort behind me.  He’d decided to give me a Wet Willie.  Can you imagine feeling Stinky Glover’s finger wiggling in your ear, with Stinky Glover’s spit all over it?  Especially at seven o’clock in the morning, when your stomach hasn’t really woken up yet.  It’s a wonder I didn’t hurl.

I turned around.  “Cut it out!” I demanded.

He grinned, and I saw specks of breakfast on his teeth.  “What’s the matter, Lawrence?  Not having fun, Lawrence?”

So I got up to try and change my seat, and the bus driver started yelling at me.

Just great.  It was a relief to actually arrive at school, where I had a chance to talk to Kevin Albright.  He’s my best friend at school, even though we’re kind of different.  I’m good at writing; he’s better at math and science.   He actually doesn’t do all that well in school, mainly because it’s just so boring, compared to all the stuff he finds out on his own, reading books and visiting weird web sites and doing science experiments in his basement.  He likes me, I think, because I talk about more than video games and TV.  Lots of kids think he’s just strange.

In homeroom before “A” period I told him about Stinky.

“Stinky is an example of evolution gone wrong,” Kevin said.  “Darwin should apologize for coming up with people like him.”

“I don’t need apologies.  I need to figure out what to do about him.”

“Maybe you can pretend you have some kind of disease.  At least that might keep him from sticking his finger in your ear.”

“Stinky is a disease.”

“Maybe you need an anti-Stinky pill.  Stinkomycin.”

Kevin was no help, but he was fun to talk to.

Everything went okay then until English class.  I like English class.  Mrs. Nathanson is an interesting teacher, and she’s the one who thinks I’m a good writer.  But there’s just one problem: I sit next to Nora Lally.  That’s not bad, actually.  Nora is no Stinky Glover.  In fact, she’s the prettiest girl in the seventh grade.  She’s got long black hair and bright blue eyes and this terrific smile.  So what’s the problem, then?

The problem is I can’t bring myself to speak to her, even with her sitting right next to me.  I get nervous.  My throat feels funny.  I can’t think of anything to say.  It’s so stupid.  I go to the school dances.  I pal around with girls.  No one has ever accused me of being shy.  So why can’t I talk to Nora Lally?

I haven’t mentioned this problem to Kevin, by the way; I haven’t mentioned it to anyone.  It’s too embarrassing.

That day was no different.  Before class I could have asked her a question about the homework.  I could have made some funny remark about Mrs. Nathanson–the kind I’m always making to Kevin.  But I didn’t.  I just sat there like a dope.  And Nora just ignored me, the way she always does.

So school finally got out, and wouldn’t you know–Stinky got the seat next to me on the bus.  The only thing worse than having Stinky sitting behind you is having him sitting next to you.  Especially when you can’t open the window.  I felt like my elbow was sticking into a tub of rancid butter.  “Hey, Lawrence!  We’re gonna be best buddies, right, Lawrence?”  Giggle-snort, giggle-snort.

Finally I got off at my stop and walked home.  I didn’t notice any perverts, but then, I wasn’t looking too hard.  My mother was waiting for me with the usual questions.  “How was school, Larry?  How are things going?”

She’s always interrogating me about school.  I think she figures sooner or later I’ll break down and admit I was doing drugs during gym class or something.

“Fine.”  So what was I going to say?  My mom is really great and all, but she’s sort of, well . . . intense is the word my father uses.  I sure wasn’t going to tell her about Nora Lally.  And if I had told her about Stinky Glover, she would have been on the phone to the principal and probably Stinky’s mom as well.  There would have been letters written and meetings called and action plans developed.  And I’d still have to get on the bus with Stinky.

“Are you sure?” she asked.  “You look . . . ”

“I said school was fine,” I snapped at her.  “I’m just a little tired,” I added, trying not to be too grouchy.

“Well, you should go to bed earlier, then,” she replied.  “You know, Middle School can be very demanding, and children your age really need–”

“Good point,” I said.  “I’ll really try.”

She gave me another one of her searching glances, as if trying to figure out if my agreeableness was a danger sign of alcohol abuse.  But I just wanted to end the inquisition.  “Gotta get going on my homework,” I pointed out, and she couldn’t argue with that.  So I headed upstairs to my room.

This was the best part of the day–before Cassie and Matthew got home and started bugging me.  No yakking, no complaining.  Just . . . silence.  Too bad it wouldn’t last.  I didn’t start my homework.  Instead I lay on my bed for a while thinking about how rotten things were.  How was I going to stand a whole year of this?

Finally I decided to go for a walk and try to get Stinky and Nora and everyone out of my brain.

I went back downstairs.  “Goin’ out!” I yelled at Mom, and I headed into the back yard before she could ask me about my homework.  And then I kept on going, past the garage and the old swingset, into the woods beyond the yard.

I have to say something here about those woods.  They’re called conservation land.  My father says it’s great that we’re next to conservation land, because no one can build on it and it increases the value of our property.  My mom worries about Lyme disease, snakes, and poison ivy.  When we were little she used to have a rule against us going into the woods, but she’s kind of given up on that.  It’s better than playing in the street, I guess.

The thing about the woods is, if you go in far enough, you come to a bunch of falling-down old brick-and-concrete buildings.  They were used by the Army during World War Two, although I don’t know exactly what for.  After the war the Army didn’t need them anymore, so they gave the whole area to the town, which turned it into the conservation land.

It’s not that easy to get to the buildings.  There’s an old road that runs up to them, but it’s pretty wrecked by now because the town doesn’t maintain it.  But of course some kids go there, and you see broken beer bottles and stuff scattered around.  Everyone thinks the buildings are a safety hazard and should be torn down, but no one can agree who should pay for it.  Mom really doesn’t want me to go there, because she’s certain one of the buildings will fall on me and I’ll be crushed to death with no one to hear my cries for help.  But she can’t stop me.

I don’t care about the buildings, but I do like the woods.  They’re dark and quiet, and there’s no one to bug you.  My dad has taught me the names of some of the trees and plants, so I don’t feel like a dope in there.  Anyway, the woods just felt like the right place to be that afternoon.

So I picked up a long stick and started whacking it against the trees as I walked.  Take that, Stinky!  Take that, Cassie!

I usually don’t go out of earshot of the house–that’s Mom’s latest rule–but that day I just felt like walking.  I wanted to get as far away from my life as I could.  And eventually I found myself near those old army buildings.

I was a little surprised–I hadn’t realized I had walked that far.  But it was no big deal.  It wasn’t like a wall was really going to fall on me.

Then I heard a noise from inside one of the buildings.

Again, no big deal.  If other kids were there, I’d just go home.  Despite Mom’s fears, I don’t drink or anything, and I don’t want to hang with the loser kids who do.  So I turned around.  I had only walked a few steps when I heard someone call to me.  “Hey, Lawrence!  Watcha doin’, Lawrence?”

What was Stinky doing here?

“Wait up, Lawrence!”

I turned back.  He was heading towards me.  I really didn’t want to deal with Stinky right then.  I started to run.

Okay.  Here’s where it starts.  I slowed down to catch my breath–I wasn’t too worried about Stinky being able to catch up to me.  I was in a small clearing.  And I was still holding onto the stick, kind of whipping it in front of me like a sword.  And I noticed something.

The end of the stick disappeared.

I don’t mean that it got lost in the brush or anything like that.  I mean, it was there, in mid-air, and then it wasn’t.  And then as I kept moving the stick, it came back again–it reappeared.  I looked at the stick.  It seemed okay–it wasn’t broken or anything.  I tried again.

Same thing.

My heart was pounding.

I dropped the stick and slowly reached forward.  And my hand disappeared too.  One second it was there in front of me, the next second it was gone, like it had been lopped off.  But there wasn’t any pain.  There wasn’t any pressure or resistance.  It didn’t feel hot or cold.  It just felt–different.  I took my hand back out and extended my foot.  It went in, disappeared, and then I brought it back out.

I couldn’t figure it out.  All I could think was: This is really weird.

“Hey, Lawrence!  Wait up!”

Stinky was heading towards me through the trees.

And then I had another thought: Wouldn’t it be cool if I disappeared right in front of Stinky?

This was a really stupid thing to think.  I admit it.  My mom would have totally freaked out.  I would’ve freaked out if I’d thought about it for another couple of seconds.  But I had this cool vision in my mind of Stinky standing there with a dopey look on his face, and me standing right next to him in this zone of invisibility or whatever, laughing at him.

I sure wanted to do that.

So, like a total idiot, I stepped inside.

Forbidden Sanctuary: The pope gives a sermon about aliens, among other things

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Readers of this annoying blog may have noticed that I have lots of problems with religion.  Readers of my fiction (especially Pontiff) may have noticed that I treat religion (and, in particular, people with strong religious faith) pretty sympathetically. What’s up with that?

Beats me.  It really is a mystery why some characters and plots and issues seem worth writing about, and others don’t (why, for example, I have no interest in writing the organically plotted novel I talked about here).

Anyway, here is a little snippet from Forbidden Sanctuary that addresses issues I still find interesting: the relationship between science and religion, the nature of morality, blah blah blah.  Pope Clement is giving a brief sermon to a small congregation in a drafty rural church before he goes off to meet with the alien leader–a meeting on which the future of the world depends (naturally).  He has been doing a lot of thinking….

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“We have heard it stated,” Clement said softly to the congregation, “that mankind’s knowledge has outstripped its religions. The Church fights losing battles against Galileo and Darwin, and people’s faith is shaken. Is the Church nothing more than a relic of ancient ignorance, vainly reinterpreting its doctrines in an attempt to reconcile them with modern facts?

“We would suggest that the opposite is true, that science is struggling fitfully toward truths our spiritual nature has always apprehended. And chief among these is the interdependence of all life, all matter. As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me. Ask the ecologist, the physicist if that is not a scientific truth as well.

“Always our perspectives are widening, but the moral basis for our response to these perspectives has always been there. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Science makes the starving African our neighbor, and the homeless Indian, and the oppressed Cambodian, and we realize our actions affect them, they cannot be ignored. Now we have a new neighbor, and science struggles to understand why, and how. But the moral, the spiritual response to this knowledge already exists, and it is right. If we falter in our application of these spiritual truths, then truly religion’s claim to superiority is lost. This is a crucial time for mankind, not the least because these truths are being put to the test.

“That is why we ask for God’s blessing on our work, and your prayers. The truths will always be there, but men and women must always seek the strength to put them into practice. That strength can only exist with God’s help. Let us stand and profess our faith. I believe in one God…“

What do you do if your future is already in the past?

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I’ve been rereading my first novel, Forbidden Sanctuary, as it makes its way through the ebookification process.  You’ll like it!  Check out the first chapter!

Forbidden Sanctuary is straight-ahead first-encounter science fiction with a religious twist.  I wrote the novel in the 1980s, but for reasons that are somewhat opaque to me now, I set the action 30 years in the future–around 2003, if I follow the novel’s implicit chronology correctly.  This offers the same challenges I faced with Replica, which is implicitly set in 2024, except that I don’t have the extra 12 years of futureness to play with.  All the action in the novel takes place in the near past, as far as a present-day reader is concerned.  And, of course, I got some things wrong.

Do my failed attempts at futurology matter?  The novel is an artifact, created at a certain time and in a certain place.  You don’t expect science-fiction predictions to be entirely accurate.  Readers understand this.  Why bother tweaking the thing?

Well, for one thing, I’m not completely sure that readers do understand this.  The original publication date is right there on the ebook’s copyright page, but that’s all there is to let people know that this ebook isn’t new–it’s not like you’re buying a paperback with yellowed pages in a musty used bookstore.  I was talking to a really smart guy who had just read the ebook of Senator, and it soon became clear that he thought I had written the book recently, presumably to coincide with the 2012 election.  Er, no.

Anyway, as with Replica, the two major features of modern life that I missed were cell phones and the Internet.  I did have some people with “personal phones” that they flipped open, but I was somewhat inconsistent with them.  For example, I also had FBI agents communicating with each other via something called “telecoms,” which I guess were like super-modern walkie-talkies.  There were also some minor references that no longer work in the world as it actually was in 2003: references to the Soviet Union, for example, and to the never-ending conflict in Northern Ireland.  So I did some tweaking.

The thing that I got right, I think, is the role of the Catholic Church in the 21st century.  I didn’t imagine the sex abuse scandal, of course, but I did imagine a church fighting a rearguard action against modernity–churches closing, vocations plummeting, but still with many people who believed deeply, fervently, in its truths.

Also, the aliens are great!