Sprinting across the asphalt road, on her way to school, all Drew had on her mind was how the prank was going to unfold. Over the years, she had perfected her talent for imitating other people’s voices. Hmmm, how can I make sure she’s out of her office? Drew thought as she rounded the corner. She paused briefly to tie back her unkempt brown hair. I hope she’s still getting her coffee. Still racing, Drew caught glimpses of nice cottages in rows, each one with a window box and a grassy patch for a small garden. Everything was neat and tidy in The Dome, everything organized, and everything was always exactly the same. Drew had lived in The Dome all her life. Her parents told her that she should be grateful for what she has, and where she is, for the remains of the human race were living inside this huge glass dome, safe from the wasteland the world had become. The Dome was perfect, and Drew was known for messing up the perfection. For example, a year before, she flooded the boys’ bathroom, and earlier this year, she had pulled the fire alarm and set all the sprinklers off. Those were some of her best, and most prized, pranks. Finally, Drew snapped back into the present at the sight of the school building. She dashed right in, holding her hands in front of her to push open the wooden double doors. Drew knew the quickest route to the principal’s office by heart and automatically rushed there, hoping again that Ms. Pavo and her ridiculous beehive hairdo wouldn’t be there to ruin Drew’s devious plan. Luckily, her office was completely deserted, ex cept for her tank of bobble-headed fish. Drew jogged over to Ms. Pavo’s window and kept watch for the usual swarm of approaching students. And sure enough, they came, all racing to be the first into school. This was convenient, Drew thought, Ms. Pavo is always the last one in from the playground. Perfect. The Dome was perfect, and Drew was known for messing up the perfection Drew strode across the room and scanned the office quickly for something resembling a microphone. Halfway through her scan, she noticed a small headset with a tiny microphone lying askew on the principal’s desk. She chuckled as she imagined this tiny headset perched on her principal’s huge hairdo. Drew snatched up the headset and felt around for an On button. She fiddled with the microphone for a fraction of a second and heard a faint crackling noise. She took a quick look at her watch and began to impersonate Ms. Pavo’s shrill voice. “Attention, students. We have been notified that there is a gas leak in the science lab, and the building must be evacuated immediately. Go home, and don’t come back until tomorrow.” Drew finished with a grin, and in the wink of an eye, she was back on the pavement, headed to her grandmother’s cottage, closely followed by the rest of the students. * * * Drew looked deep into her beloved grandmother’s eyes. They were bright blue, just like her own. She and her grandmother were very close, and even though she didn’t always fully approve of Drew’s pranks, she never tried to stop her. Drew loved her grandmother for this, and for many other reasons. Her grandmother yawned, and Drew realized that she should probably go and let her grandmother rest. She was getting older and slowing down. The wrinkles in her face were becoming more pronounced, her hair increasingly white. Drew went home and spent the day relaxing. After sunset, though she wasn’t tired, she followed the rules and got ready for bed. Her schedule was prescribed like all citizens of The Dome. Mealtimes and bedtimes were set. You couldn’t skip meals or stay up late. It was hard for her to fall asleep, but eventually she did. * * * In her troubled slumber, Drew watched in despair as her grandmother got wheeled out into the cold night air. The door to her grandmother’s cottage slammed, and Drew suddenly found herself near the glass wall of The Dome, the wind whipping her pale face. Time stopped as she desperately searched for her grandmother. Where have they taken her? She heard a dull thud, and there, on the smooth surface of The Dome, was a slightly smudged, dusty handprint. Out of impulse, Drew tried to wipe it off, before realizing with an overwhelming feeling of despair: the handprint was on the outside of The Dome. * * * Drew woke to the sound of her own screaming. She sat up in bed and wiped the sweat off her forehead. The handprint was still vivid in her mind. She knew she would never be able to unsee it. How could there be a handprint on the outside of The Dome? No one ever left The Dome. No one came in. There was nobody but them. She shook the thought away. No, it couldn’t be true. It was only a dream. Her grandmother was still in her cottage a block away. Nothing could have happened. She had just spoken to her the day before. Still worried, she ran out the door and down the path to her grandmother’s cottage, not eating the breakfast that had just been delivered. Drew knew something was wrong when she didn’t see her grandmother tending her garden as usual. “Grandmother,” she called softly, walking to the back of the house. No answer. She called again, a little louder this time. “Grandmother, where are you?” Every second that she couldn’t find her grandmother made the dream more and more likely to be true. “But it couldn’t be,” she reassured herself in a soft whisper. As she circled to the front of her grandmother’s house, a cleanup crew was clearing away her grandmother’s things. “Do you know where my grandmother is?” Drew asked, while trying unsuccessfully to keep the panic out of her voice.
November/December 2016
The Annual Holiday Summer Street Showdown
Holiday decorations on Summer Street always got a little out of hand. If a two-hundred-foot inflatable Santa was put up one day, you better believe that there would be a three-hundred-foot menorah the next day. Smoke machines were brought out, mechanical masterpieces were set up (Mr. Johanson had moving reindeer that made actual noises and flashed red lights from Rudolph’s nose), and amazing designs were painstakingly created using lights. Even the Galdans, a family not that into the holidays, draped tinsel over their whole house, yard, and car and set up a radio that blasted Christmas songs twenty-four seven. The only house that was left out of this tradition was the Abbotts’. As Mr. Abbott believed that the holidays should be about being with your family and not setting up decorations (really he was just afraid of heights and worried that he would be forced to climb something) and Mrs. Abbott said that the whole idea was crazy, their comfy old house was left bare each year. The children decided they had to do something to amuse themselves, and so the Annual Holiday Summer Street Showdown was created. It was a fake competition where each house was judged on three criteria, and the house with the highest number of points won. The first criterion was Uniqueness (how special and different it was from the rest), the second was Impressiveness (its astoundingness; how shocking it was), and the third was Work (how much work was put into making it). The whole street was bedazzled with colors and sparkles and bright lights The Showdown started on the same day each year, December first, and submissions could be entered up until the twentieth. But one year, it almost was at risk for being shut down. The story begins on December eleventh, when most of the houses were finalizing their decorations. “Ooh, look, Ms. Lethern has made spinning dreidels!” said thirteen-year-old Dove, pointing her bejeweled finger out the window (note: Dove is a firm believer in fairies and has dreamcatchers lined around her windows). “I would rate it a seven out of ten on the Impressiveness scale. Pretty good, but I think we know she can do better,” said nine-year-old Oliver. He quickly scribbled down on his clipboard the score on the already almost filled to the brim chart. His light brown waves (that all the Abbotts had) were spiked up in the air in an almost Mohawk sort of way, as when he was concentrating he had a habit of running his fingers through his hair. “Look at Liam’s house, look at Liam’s house!” said four-year-old Daisy. She clutched onto her teddy bear named Mr. Fluffy and jumped up and down in front of the window to get a better view. Liam was one of the many crushes that Daisy had been obsessed with over the years, and Mr. Abbott said that at this rate, she would get married at ten years old (the children didn’t know if he was joking or not). “Oh, don’t worry, Daisy Crown,” said beaming Dove, kissing Daisy on the cheek, “I shall tell you what Liam’s house looks like. Ooh! The whole place is bedecked with lights—even the car!” “Let me see, let me see!” squealed Daisy. “I got it,” said twelve-year-old Aubrey, who perhaps was the normal one of the family. She hoisted Daisy overhead, and they peeked out of the window. The whole street was bedazzled with colors and sparkles and bright lights. Daisy went quite still after she spotted Liam’s house, and she stared at it with her blue eyes wide, as if trying to capture it in a photograph. “Who’s in the lead so far?” asked Aubrey, nudging Oliver’s shoulder to see his calculations. “Mr. Zhang is,” Oliver announced. “He has a forty-foot-tall Christmas tree with flashing silver lights, a fake Santa and Rudolph climbing into his chimney, and a stand where people can donate presents to kids without them.” “Oh, the kind man,” said Dove, holding her hand to her heart. “Yeah,” said Oliver, “but guess who’s creeping up after him? Mrs. Aldrich! She has the lights that spell out Happy Hanukkah, a thirty-foot flickering menorah, and a basket with chocolate coins and dreidels that neighbors can take to play with!” “I want chocolate,” said Daisy in a dreamy sort of way, and she stared wistfully at the house outside. “Looks like she’s found another love,” said Aubrey, rolling her eyes. “Well, to be honest, chocolate is everyone’s love,” said Dove. They spent a few more minutes gazing outside at the holiday decorations (“I bet that Ms. Whitaker will have the most points! Shake on it now; whoever wins gets a dollar,” said Oliver to Aubrey) before Mrs. Abbott sent them to bed, as there was school the next day. Aubrey settled into her warm sheets, her long hair braided tightly so that it was not messy at all in the morning, and she sighed peacefully. Her hazel eyes slipped shut, with images of snowmen and dreidels and lights flashing in her mind. * * * “So, I suspect your house will be blank this year?” said Aubrey’s friend Melissa Galdan as they walked to school. “Yeah, my parents don’t really want to decorate it,” said Aubrey. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear as she walked, watching her hand-me-down rain boots from Dove splash into the puddles. The odd mixture of dirty water and bright floral print was a mesmerizing mix, and she found it quite fun to see. “Well, why don’t you guys do it yourselves? Dove’s thirteen now, she can make sure that you guys are safe doing it. And you know, I feel really bad, because everyone else’s houses have decorations except your guys’, and it isn’t right that your parents are keeping you from doing it. I always feel a little guilty whenever people talk about it to me ’cause I know that you’re not doing it. And some people at school say you’re
A Friend Named Chester
Robin Carter was a lonely child. He had no friends, and he couldn’t remember a time when things were different. He was twelve, in the seventh grade. He was only open when he was reading and had such great passion for it that it was the most dominating factor in his life. He had loved reading for as long as he could remember, and his parents told him that he still loved reading even before that. His parents had tried to drive him out of his shell, but when he was put out into the world he would pull out a book and read. As much as it broke their hearts to see their son alone and cut off from the world, they eventually gave up. At school he was no different. He was average in nearly every subject, barring English, in which he excelled. The kids acted as if he was invisible, and even the teachers sometimes forgot about him. And when they did remember him it was only to give an acknowledgment when they passed back a test. His English teacher, Ms. Murkly, was perhaps one of the few people in the whole school who realized that he existed. He was her best student. He always turned in his homework and always had something to say about the author of the book they had been reading most recently. On the other end of the spectrum was his sister, Judy Carter. Eighth-grade diva, Judy was one of the most popular kids in the school. She was a motormouth and always had something to say or a story that she had just remembered. The parents of these drastically different children were Mabel and Albert Carter. Mabel was a thin and kind woman with long flowing dark hair and a large intellect. She would read to Robin when he was a baby and never ran out of books, since she was the head librarian at the Guava County Library. Albert was a slightly rotund man with hair like a bonfire and a deep love of botany. The first thing he did when he bought the house was build an extension in which he housed his vast collection of plants. Just recently his collection had grown too vast and he had been forced to make an extension to the extension which he classified as “For Bonsai Trees Only.” “No books!” he spluttered. “Mom, this is outrageous!” On this particular day, Robin was in the fiction section of the Guava County Library, currently reading E. Nesbit’s The Magic City, when his mother walked in. Robin was a curious figure in the library. While the librarians loved his passion for reading and encouraged it often, Robin could be quite aggravating due to his tendency to check out the maximum amount of books at a time. Sometimes he would use his parents’ library card too. When his mother spoke, she startled Robin out of his fantastical reverie. “We’re going on a vacation,” she said. “Where?” said a surprised Robin. “The beautiful Hibiscus County,” she replied. “OK,” said Robin dismissively, and continued reading. “Also, we were thinking you shouldn’t bring very many books, if any,” she continued. Now Robin was really surprised. “No books!” he spluttered. “Mom, this is outrageous! Books are great!” “I agree, but I think you read too many books for it to be healthy,” responded his mother. “You have no friends, Robin, you don’t stop and enjoy this world because your head is in another.” “Books are my friends,” muttered Robin. But it was hopeless and he knew it. Unlike his father, his mother was a strong woman, and he would be even more shocked if she did back down than he was about this atrocity. He quickly relented and stormed down the street towards his house. A cloud of fury was about him. * * * Judy had a similar reaction, but for very different reasons. “The country! We’re going to the country!” she screeched. “There’s no cell reception in the country! How will I talk to my friends?” “This is a family trip,” responded a tired Albert Carter. Judy continued to complain, but Robin didn’t stick around and listen. He was walking upstairs to his room, hoping that it would provide him some calm and sanctuary. His room was a veritable treasure trove for people like him who loved books. Robin’s dream room, in other words. It had stacks of books everywhere. Robin had tried to put them all into shelves, but he was unsuccessful, as they repeatedly spilled out. He had so many books that you would wonder why he goes to the library at all, as his room was a library in its own right. This remains a mystery. Once upstairs he walked straight to shelf A-6 and pulled a book from the shelf. It was his favorite book, Edward Eager’s Magic or Not. He found it was calming, a charming story about a young girl, her brother, their friends, and their adventures in a rustic town. He sighed. This was going to be a horrible vacation. * * * The Carter family’s red truck rumbled down a bumpy dirt path. Up ahead was the house they had rented, a small ivy-encrusted cottage, which was barely large enough to avoid being classified as a hut. Goodie, thought Robin as they pulled up to the “parking space.” In truth it was brittle twigs forming an open rectangle. Robin’s father was the first to leave the car, followed closely by Robin’s mother. “All right, gang, let’s go see the place,” said Albert Carter in a voice that suggested that he had won the lottery. He was answered by the chirping of the birds. Judy was giving them the silent treatment, and Robin… well Robin just didn’t feel like talking. Unperturbed by the apparent lack of enthusiasm, Albert pushed on. He had a brief tussle with a door that appeared to have never been opened within the century, but eventually
