Why, hello there, friends. I've decided to post the first chapter of my book and see if anyone has any opinions about it that they would like to share: good, bad, or otherwise. It's still a work in progress, but I need to get used to getting it out there and hoping for the best. This chapter is a bit short than the rest, but I didn't want to add any useless information to it and make it drag. Anyway, without any further ado, chapter 1!
A Place for Everything
In the town of Shortcut, things were as they should be. It was clean, quiet, and quite normal for a Midwestern town, and the residents liked it that way. The midnight air that rushed through the trees even quieted to a whisper as it swept through Shortcut’s main road. There were only three lights on that pierced the town’s darkness – one belonging to Kevin Little’s nightlight, one belonging to Mr. Miller’s living room light, and the occasionally flickering one belonging to the flashlight of twelve-year-old Charlie Bishop.
As the flashlight shimmered once more from beneath the blanket, it lit up the decidedly plain bedroom for only a moment. There was nothing colorful, nothing large, and nothing with any odd shapes or angles that would call attention to itself. The room was–like the rest of the house and the rest of the town–ordinary.
A noise came from downstairs, and Charlie switched off the light, a head of mousy-brown hair escaping from under the blanket to quickly rest on the pillow. With his book safely tucked under his arm, he just managed to close his eyes as the door opened to reveal a small woman in a rather large bathrobe. He heard slippers shuffle across the floor and he closed his eyes tightly. There were rules, and being up this late reading broke a few of them.
He heard a dissatisfied sniff, and then listened as the figure turned to leave, closing the bedroom door behind her. He waited there and counted a slow, “One… two… three…” until he finally reached ten, letting out a sigh of relief.
Shortcut was a place between places, a forgettable town with largely forgettable people. Charlie had occupied the third house on Willow Drive with his great-aunt Ruby since before he could remember. She, like the other one-hundred and twenty-six residents, took pride in silence and order. Events happened when and where they should, people showed up wearing exactly what they were supposed to, and the citizens were even born and often died right on time. Charlie had been born two days early to people of different standards, and his Aunt Ruby often said this was the main reason for his many other faults.
Charlie slowly placed the book of Roman mythology down on his bedside table. He didn’t want to risk getting caught. As moonlight shone through his bedroom window, he stared at the quiet town, its quiet road, and the quiet old house on Shortcut’s only hill. Tonight everything was exactly how it had been every night before, and he began to wonder about the why’s and how’s of the small town that prided itself on barely existing.
Charlie had never been happy to barely exist. While other people talked in hushed voices, he knew they often talked about him. He was and would always be an outsider. His parents hadn’t been from there, and he was thusly not one of their kind. He always spoke louder than they thought necessary, asked too many questions, and could never keep himself as organized as everyone else.
“Must be from his parents,” he’d hear some say as they clucked their tongues or shook their heads.
There were times Charlie would have loved to say they were wrong, to say his parents were as normal as everyone else and he was just the same. Unfortunately, he couldn’t. Richard and Frances Bishop had “gone” according to Aunt Ruby, and nothing more was ever said about it.
He remembered the day he had come to stand on his aunt’s front porch after one last goodbye to his mother and father. No matter what anyone said, his parents didn’t just leave. They were out there somewhere.
“There are other worlds out there,” his father once said. “Temples and statues and great big walls you can see from space.”
He glanced out the window, out to the main street and sighed. Nothing in Shortcut could be seen from space. Somewhere far away there were places with buildings a mile high, with lakes and rivers, with theaters and music halls. There were big places with skyscrapers and an ocean of libraries, and Charlie wanted to see them all. Shortcut would never be one of those places, and it was perfectly pleased about this.
He lay there for a moment, staring at the blank ceiling of his blank bedroom. He’d asked once for posters or artwork that would make his room look more interesting, and make him feel more interesting in the process. His aunt refused.
There was a clattering downstairs and he glanced at his bedside clock. It was ten o’clock exactly, which meant his aunt was sneaking her usual nighttime snack before she fell asleep watching her usual movie. Sure enough, the muffled sounds of a cheesy theme song introduced A Romance on the Rio Grande. The only interest his aunt had in traveling was through black-and-white films.
Quietly Charlie shifted to his bedside table and opened the top drawer, pulling out the journal he kept hidden inside. He opened it, making extra sure the pages didn’t flutter or the spine didn’t crack and give him away. He listened for any signs of his aunt. The movie was still playing downstairs. A slight smile spread across his face and he eased the journal open to the map resting on the back pages.
The map was littered with markings. Dots, notes, and lines were scrawled on almost every inch. He had notes about the Egyptian pyramids, the Mayan ruins, and every mountain range from Argentina to Nepal. He had circled major cities, and marked and color-coded sights in Germany, Jordan, and Chad. Charlie had even dotted places of legends. The believed locations of Camelot and Atlantis were written in handwriting so tiny only he could read it. Perhaps, he had thought, his parents were exploring one of these places. They just had to be, and he imagined them as odd and unShortcut-like as possible, discovering new sights in new worlds.
Biting his lip and removing his pen from the drawer, he found where he believed Shortcut would be on the map and firmly placed the pen on the paper. Slowly, with great thought and careful planning, he began to draw lines from the tiny town to every other city, sight, and mountain range he had labeled. He would explore them, every one of them, and would only have to wait for the right opportunity. Shortcut could be as content with its plainness as it wanted to be. Charlie was going to do something about it.
After a few moments, Charlie closed the journal and placed the book and pen back into their rightful place. With a stretch and a yawn, he pulled the blanket tightly around his shoulders and closed his eyes. He imagined the big places, the skyscrapers, and an ocean of libraries. He thought of all the temples and walls that were so big they could be seen from space. With another yawn and a contented sigh, he thought of his parents perhaps traveling to Rome, Cairo, or even Shanghai. One day he would join them, he decided. And the thought allowed him to drift to a gentle sleep, the shadow of a smile still on his face.
***
On the distant border of Shortcut, as the moon rose high in the sky, a few bells clinked, just barely breaking the night’s silence. An out-of-place buggy painted in out-of-place colors bounced down the long dirt road toward the main street, now only lit by Kevin Little’s nightlight. The buggy looked worn and weathered in the darkness but had a certain brightness about it. Perhaps it had something to do with the swirling orange letters painted on its sides. Perhaps, still, it had something to do with the people riding inside.
Gregory and Grace Grant looked onto the quiet town, with its quiet road, and finally to the quiet house on the hill. The pair shared a knowing smile and urged the old buggy onward. This was the place, unlike so many places before it. Vials of odd liquids clanked together from the back, and a few clay pots and figurines bumping against each other as they moved down the dirt road.
Thirteen-year-old Grace sat in the passenger seat, overlooking the small houses in their overwhelming sameness. She couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose as she saw each little cottage with a similar beige color, and complete with a kept yard but nothing more. The right place or not, the idea of living in a town so lacking in personality made her shudder slightly. She thought for a moment of creating various animals out of any wires or spare parts they had in the back and sticking them in people’s yards. She pondered what it would be like for the people to wake up to an elephant or an alligator in their grass and the image made her giggle.
Gregory drove the old buggy down the road, past the same houses with the same yards, and even past a now sleeping Charlie on Willow Drive. They finally reached the only hill in town, with the house sitting on top of it looking just the same as the rest. As the car came to a stop, its tires barely letting out a squeak, Grace hopped out and stared at the empty house in front of her. It was there, like it should be. Boring or not, Shortcut had done its job.
She looked toward her father who gave her a nod, his bright white hair shining in the moonlight. For a brief second relief and excitement flooded over her. She had been in many places like this, with many houses on many hills. This, she was sure, was where they needed to be.
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