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Story about two children who discover a magical place. Originally written in 1989. |
| A collection of chapters from my "Time" series. A story about two children who stumble upon a magical place. Originally written in 1989, I've been thinking of updating and continuing it. Unfortunately, it will probably involve a complete re-write of many portions, but I like the storyline. And I remember how much fun it was to write them originally. |
| 'Have you ever noticed that on the nights when you really want to do something, you always have homework that isn't done? Another thing is that parents always remind you that you have homework, when you'd much rather go to the movies with your friends.' These were my thoughts that afternoon as I walked home from school carrying my customary load of books and papers. I didn't realize then that the constant problem of homework would fade into the background considerably when I was faced with another definitely more pressing problem later that week. As I pushed through the front door, heedless of my mother's reminder not to let it slam, I dropped my books on the table. I turned on the TV just as the phone rang. "It's for you," my mother called from the kitchen. "Thanks ma," I called back,"I got it in here." After I convinced Marrianne that she should definitely ask Mitch to the Sadie Hawkins Day dance, I decided I'd do my homework. Now, to actually want to do my homework, I have to be very depressed. I was very depressed. You see that day had not been one of my best. It started the moment I got out of bed, and found I'd put my foot through my pencil box, which I'd forgotten to put up the night before. The next thing I did was throw it across the room and break the vase my grandmother had given me last Christmas. As soon as I was through screaming, I hopped down the hall on my good foot, and yelled at my little sister. My little sister, Becky, had the nasty, annoying habit of always being in the bathroom when I need it. So I went back to my room, and started getting dressed. I found that I had absolutely no socks. When I approached my mother about this, she told me it was my fault for not getting them washed. Of all the nerve! Some days my mother just doesn't realize what she is supposed to be doing all day while I'm at school. By the time I got to school, I was a nervous wreck. I was late, (of course), and this was to be my third tardy. Just to inform you, the third tardy is something you definitely want to avoid at my school. I deftly snuck into the room when she wasn't looking. Then suddenly she turned around! "So close . . . ," whispered my sworn enemy Jeremy Clark smiling maliciously. "Detention! Two hours!" announced my teacher amidst the laughter of my fellow classmates. 'Oh boy.' I thought 'So much for going to the football game tonight.' The rest of my thoughts I will not express word for word because they were not very proper. They were directed against my teacher's eternal soul. That evening as I was diligently, but not happily, doing my homework the phone rang again. This time it was Mitch. "What am I going to do?" he asked me. "Do you think I know?" I responded, "If your looking for Dr. Ruth, you've dialed the wrong number." "Please! You have to help me," he pleaded despairingly. "Alright," I said agreeably, "I'll talk to Marrianne about it, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow." "Just get her to retract her offer," he said. "O.K.," I acquiesced. The next day I convinced Marrianne to ask Tommy instead of Mitch. Unfortunately, Tommy was out of town at the moment, but I explained to her that didn't matter. She could ask him when he returned. When that trivial matter was completed, I turned my thoughts to more pressing matters. Jason Carness had hinted very strongly that he would like to be my escort to the dance. "What ya doin'?" asked Jeremy (the sworn enemy) Clark as he startled me into forfeiting my train of thought. "Nothin' that I'd tell you about," I retorted defensively. "Listen," he said with a note of secrecy in his voice, "I need your help. You're the only one in our class who can expect to get an "A" on your science project." "So?" I asked dubiously. "So, will you be my partner . . . " "Now, just a minute," I exclaimed, "just who do you think you are to ask me if I'll be your partner? Aren't you the one who always is inventing new ways to make my life miserable? Didn't you put the gum on my seat last week in the assembly? Weren't you the one . . . " "Whoa-a-a!" he interrupted. "Hold on. Wait 'till you hear my idea for our project. It's really great." "Our project! I haven't agreed to anything yet, nor will I!" I stormed out of the cafeteria. 'Some people!' I thought as I left to find Marrianne,'I can't believe the nerve of him to think that I would be his partner after all that he's done to me.' That evening as I again lay on the floor, diligently doing my homework, my mother announced another telephone call. 'Grand!' I thought, 'Marrianne is going to complain about the dance again or something else that just couldn't wait.' As much as I liked Marrianne, some things about her really annoyed me. Like the uncanny ability of hers to call me when I'm busy doing something else. It never fails, if I'm doing something important, she calls. When I reached the phone, however, I found that for once it wasn't Marrianne. It was someone I wanted to talk to even less. Jeremy Clark . . . "Oh, come on," he coaxed, "just give me a chance. Look at my idea, and then if you don't like it I won't bug you anymore." "Alright, if you promise not to bug me anymore." "I promise." The next day at school I grudgingly looked over his idea. At least I started off against it, but I soon changed my mind. For once Jeremy had actually had a good idea. I didn't know it was in him. His idea related to the theory of time travel, and dealt with negative space. He explained that he didn't agree with Einstein's theory. Which was about the barrier of light speed. Now for such knowledge to come through Jeremy was a totally new concept, and really scared me. You see, I didn't think that he could pass a first grade math test, let alone contemplate on the philosophies of life. Well, needless to say, I agreed to be his partner. Many people believed me to be either disastrously curious, or to have a death wish. Perhaps they were right . . . After we had been working on our assignments for about three weeks, Jeremy and I started making significant progress. We developed our own theories and hypothesizes. All that now remained to be done was to test them, and develop conclusions. Our theories involved highly developed mathematical equations, and while we were distributing them into Jeremy's father's computer, a strange thing happened. The computer screen all of a sudden went blank. Numbers started appearing randomly on the screen, and Jeremy started to say something about how he recognized part of the figures we saw, when there was a tremendous explosion. I can't explain how I felt when a very high sounding ringing projected from the computer. It was tingly, sort of a sharp metallic vibration in my head. The screen was emitting bright symbols that I didn't understand. They seemed to be boring into my head and getting brighter, so bright that I could hardly stand it any longer. Then everything went white. A fuzzy kind of white, and I almost started to dream about something. I couldn't tell what, and then I started to wake up. It was like coming out of a long white tunnel. I could see Jeremy's face floating over me. Then it got closer and resolved into the rest of his body. "Where . . . where are we?" I asked. Things were starting to look clearer now, and the ringing was growing fainter. "Beats me," he replied, "but never fear, Jeremy's here." "Great, just what I always wanted. Jeremy, there's something I never told you . . . I've been madly in love with you since third grade. I dream about you at night . . . I was always afraid you'd laugh at me if I told you so I've kept it a secret all these years, but I can't hold it inside any longer. I have to tell you how I feel, because my psychologist says I'm suffering from repression . . . " "Darling . . . I love you, too. I never thought that you could possibly love me . . . I thought you hated me, but now I know I was silly to be afraid to tell you how much I care . . . you have no idea how happy you've made me feel . . . " he broke off with a giggle. Then we both started laughing hysterically. It was the first time I really laughed with him. Usually it was just him laughing at me, or me at him. From then on we were friends, and I wasn't quite so afraid of him. I knew he could be nice if he wanted to be. we walked slowly along the winding dirt road in silent companionship. "We must be in the middle of nowhere," I said, "There's not a house for miles around." "I know," Jeremy replied, "It's incredible. We must have been walking for hours, and still no sign of life." "I'm tired," I exclaimed wearily, "Let's stop and rest for a minute. There's a nice big tree we can sit under." "Sounds like a plan and a half to me," he announced cheerfully. As we were lying under the tree, I thought of all the strange things that had happened to us. The way the computer had acted, and waking up in a strange place like this. I thought of how strange it seemed that while walking along a dirt road there were so many trees along the sides. I didn't think that sort of thing could happen naturally, and there weren't any houses or any other sense of life except the trees anywhere. It seemed to be about two or three in the morning, because it was so quiet and dark. There was a sort of half light that you would expect from the moon or stars except there weren't any. Hey, now that was weird. There aren't any stars. About this point I was interrupted by Jeremy. "It's so quiet," he whispered. "Yeah, and you want to know somethin' weird?" "What?" he asked. "There's no stars." "Hey, you're right!" he said, and then he was quiet for a minute," I was thinking about how we got here. I think it has something to do with my dad. You know he works for the government as a scientist, Right?" "Yeah, I was aware of that. Go on." "Well, he was working on an experiment that was top secret. Often at night I'd be walking to my room, and pass him working on his computer. I'd see him typing in equations. They caught my eye, because sometimes I would recognize parts. The speed of light was frequently present on the screen. And the distance between the earth and the moon, and the amount of time it takes the earth to rotate around the sun and at what speed. I used to be terribly curious about what he was doing, but now I think I know . . . I think he was working on a theory about time travel, just like us." "Wow! Really? That's awesome," I said thoughtfully. "Yeah, We probably hit a hole in the system, and the computer automatically filled it in with our equations. I can't figure out what those weird symbols were though, or that horrible ringing . . . " "That was the worst part of it, that ringing," I commented. "Do you think we should start walking again?" he questioned. "Why not? There's not much else to do." So we walked . . . and walked . . . and walked. I found it amazing that even after going so far, nothing had changed. The landscape was still the same, and even the trees looked alike. I was wearily trudging along, when I remarked that it sure would be nice if we knew where we were. He agreed. Then a strange thing happened, around the next bend a stand with a book on it stood in the middle of the path. Cautiously I walked up to it, and gingerly touched the page. I felt an electric shock travel up my arm. I read the caption at the top. 'He who travels this road beware, for LIMBO knows no man's fare. A tree, a time, another rhyme. Each year another tree, each day another leaf. Pick a rhyme, Pick a time, But stay not long, or forever gone. "O-o-ooh! Creepy!" Jeremy exclaimed. "What does it mean?" I inquired thoughtfully. "It says we're in Limbo, and something about trees and time." "Oh!" I suddenly realized what it meant, "These trees are different times. Every leaf is a different day. If we pick a leaf, we'll go to that time." "Do you really think so? But how do we know where . . . er . . . when we're going?" "There's only one way to find out . . . " So I cautiously placed my hand on a leaf, and slowly . . . carefully . . . picked it. Then I waited, but nothing happened. Disappointment washed over me as I slowly let the leaf float gently to the ground. It seemed so hopeless. Maybe we were stuck here forever. "What happened? Why didn't it work?" Jeremy questioned in a wave of frustration. "I don't know. I don't understand it. I'm scared, what if we can't ever get back home?" I asked him anxiously. "Well, we won't have to worry about our science project, that's for sure!" Jeremy said trying to lighten up the atmosphere a little. "Gee, you're right, how consoling," I remarked with visible lack of enthusiasm. "Now what are we going to do?" he asked forlornly. "Keep walking until we think of something else, I guess." I replied. So we walked . . . and walked . . . and, well you get the idea. I began to wish the scenery might change. It was getting repetitious. When I told Jeremy, the most amazing thing happened. Around the next bend it actually did change. The trees now did more than just lining the road. They extended further outward, and now you could see the end of the road. There was another pathway intertwining between the trees. As I turned around, I saw that the road we had just come from didn't go on back the way we came. It was so strange to see a dead end where we had just come from. I began to wonder whether maybe we had just come from the path in the woods, and I began to feel disillusioned. Then everything began to move. It seemed as though the world was spinning, faster, and faster. Until I felt that we would be hurled from the face of the earth into the infinite blackness of space. The blackness swallowed me up, and I lost consciousness. When I awoke, I gazed around at my surroundings. I was in a house, or at least it served the same purposes as a house. Sort of a dwelling place. The walls were made of dirt, and brown, twisting columns of what looked amazingly like tree roots protruded from the ceiling. There was an indescript shape hunched over a fire in a corner of the room, or rather just close to the wall, seeing as the room was round. I stared at the ceiling for a long time, absorbing my surroundings. I was on a bed, I supposed. It was hard, like stone, and a thin, itchy surface covered my skin. The figure moved, drawing my attention away from my aching body, and concentrating it on a sharp stab of fear. The reason for my acute anxiety was that I had no idea where I was. I was completely in the mercy of this stranger. The shadowy figure slowly crossed the room and came towards my bedside. I closed my eyes to feign sleep. "Alright, little one," a shrill voice protruded from a bundle of clothes and dust, "I know you're awake." It waited for a reply, but I did not answer. "Fine, if you're going to just lay there and waste your life away, I won't stop you." I peeked out of the corner of my eye, and quickly closed it again when I noticed that "it" was staring at me. I still didn't know whether it was male or female. "Ah, ha!" it exclaimed," I saw you. You looked at me." Then it turned away and walked off. I lay in the dim confines of the room. It puzzled me as to how the . . . well, whatever it was, got out, because I didn't see a door. All of a sudden, I realized that Jeremy was missing. I was alone in the room. I began to worry about Jeremy. Then I thought about how I would never have worried about him before this strange event happened. I felt like crying, but I didn't know why. I guess I was just frustrated about everything that had happened, just scared . . . scared that I would never see my family again. Scared that I would never wake up to the familiar, yet abhorred, yellow and orange wallpaper on my bedroom walls. What was going to happen to us? I was so scared. Then I cried. I suppose I must have fallen asleep, because I had a dream. When I woke up Jeremy was sitting on the edge of my bed and talking to the . . . whatever-it-was. "But there wasn't a door there!" Jeremy exclaimed. "Yes there was, you just didn't see it because it's invisible," the "thing" replied. "What are you talking about?" I interrupted, "And where are we?" "Your inside my home, I'm a marmoff," informed our host. "Um-m-m, are you a girl or a boy?" I asked. "Neither." This was said with such affirmity as to discourage any further interrogation of the matter. "But back to our discussion," encouraged Jeremy, "How exactly are we supposed to get out of here if the door is invisible?" "Haven't you figured out yet that if you want something, all you have to do is verbalize a request, and it will be granted?" asked the marmoff, "You humans really are stupid!" "Well excuse me for having been born!" I said, and Jeremy haughtily nodded his head in agreement. "I didn't mean it that way," it apologized, "but you really must leave, or you won't ever be able to get back. In fact it may already be too late." "Well what are we waiting for!?" I yelled. "Let's get a movin'! Where's the stupid door in this place?" "Settle down!" said the marmoff, "There's no need to run around like your head's chopped off. The door is any where you want it to be, like right here . . ." at this it snapped its fingers, and a door frame appeared. "Right this way, my friends." We stepped through the door and out into a grove of trees. The marmoff started talking to himself about finding the tree and leaf from whence we had come. Then a tree appeared and he plucked a leaf. "Now let the door to the worlds appear." said the marmoff in a very commanding tone. Another door frame appeared and he opened it. "Good-bye, come back and visit anytime," he said. "But we don't know how we got here in the first place," said Jeremy. The marmoff looked surprised for a minute, then reached into his bundle of clothing and pulled out two medallions, which he gave to us. "Now come back anytime," it smiled. "Hurry, or the door will disappear." We stepped through the door and were home. It looked exactly the same as when we left. The computer screen had a sign flashing: ** ENTER COMMAND ** So Jeremy pressed the save button. Then the computer screen went blank and the power went off. "That was weird!" said Jeremy. He turned the power switch off and then on again, and the computer turned back on. "Really weird." He said again. I told him it was time I went home, and he nodded. "I'll walk you to the door," he said. As I walked home, I thought about the last thing he had said. 'I'll walk you to the door.' Would he have ever said that if we hadn't gone through all that we had? It would be more likely he say something like, 'You know where the door is, use it!' What were things going to be like now? I hoped that we stayed friends and that I could get to know him better. He really wasn't that bad once you got to know him. I walked slowly up the steps to my front door and stopped to look at the bright glow of my little sisters bedroom window. 'Looks like she's the only one up,' I thought. I went inside, and then to my room. 'There's that wallpaper again!' Boy was I glad to see it! That night I had beautiful dreams of other places and other times. The next day was really strange. I began to think I could sympatgize with people who've had jetlag. It was weird to see my family arguing at the table again as usual. I realized how much we take each other for granted. At school, I went to my locker and just stared at it for awhile. Marrianne asked me if I'd forgotten my combunation or something. I told her, 'No, i'm just reminisc¬ing.' then she looked at mew real weird, shrugged her shoulders and walked away. Lunch was, however, slightly different. Jeremy came over and sat by me. This, of course, caused a major uproar. Marrianne whispered furiously across the table at me, What is he doing here!" "Eating lunch, do you mind?" he replied. Marrianne looked disgusted and turned away. "Let's make like a tree," she said. "No, let's just stay here," I interupted trying to think of an excuse, "We'll never find another table in this mess." "If you want to stay here, go ahead, but I'm not going to be seen anywhere near that creep." She hesitated for a moment as if waiting for me to follow her, "What's wrong with you? Have you forgotten all the mean, cruel things he's done to you?" She was practically shouting at me now. "Listen, I'm really sorry for the stuff I did to you before, but I didn't really know you then," Jeremy started apologizing, "Now that we've bee through so much together, I really feel bad about it. I realize now what a jerk I've been. I just didn't know you." "It's alright," I said, "I know you're sorry and I've already forgiven you for all that." Marrianne looked at the two of us as though we were diseased, and walked off in a huff. By the end of a week, people began to get used to me and Jeremy together, although Marrianne still wasn't speaking to me, but I didn't really care. My teachers were slightly harder to convince. They thought we were up to something, and didn't trust us for another month and a half. Then the last day of school came, and it was time for another summer. I didn't know what summer was going to be like, but I wasn't looking forward to it. After all, it meant that I probably wouldn't see Jeremy all summer long. He lived on the opposite side of town, and there was no way he was going to call me. I couldn't call him because my mother would have a cow. This meant that it was going to be one boring summer. I slowly made my way to my locker. I stared at the floor and noticed the little dotted patterns. Suddenly. i was attacked from behind! "Hel-l-lo-o, baby!" Jeremy cried as he grabbed my waist and attempted to tickle me to death. "So, what's happening?" he said grinning like a cheshire cat. "Not much," I smiled back, "Why are you so gleeful?" "It's the last day of school," he announced looking at me with an amazed expression, "What do you mean 'Why am I so gleeful'?" "The last day of school is nothing to be cheerful about," I replied firmly and stubbornly. "Ah-h-w-w-w! Is somebody being depressed today?" he asked, sympathy dripping from his tounge so sarcastically that I couldn't help but grin a little. "Could that be the beginning of a smile?" I tried to frown back, but I felt so stupid I burst out laughing. "Ah-ha! It was an act all along. I knew it. I the great Sherlock Clark can never be fooled." It is not an act!" I pouted, "I am depressed. What am I going to do all summer?" I demanded. "What do you mean? You're going to spend every waking hour with me! The greatest of all company! Besides, have you forgotten these?" At this, he removed the chain from his neck from which I perceived his medallion. "Oh, yeah! We could always go--" I stopped and looked at him for a minute, "but would you really want me to come with you next time you go there?" I asked timidly. "Of course!" He replied emphatically, "Do you think I could possibly go there without you leading me? I wouldn't know what I was doing. You're the smart one." He looked shocked that I would even consider making him go alone. "Really?" Relief washed over me. I couldn't believe he really wanted me to go with him! "Yeah, really! Do you think I'm lying or something?" Maybe this summer wasn't going to be so bad after all. In fact, I was definately starting to look forward to it! |
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