Tag: serial fiction

The Mysterious Arboretum (7)

~ Meg ~ 28 Comments

By Meg Sorick

Last year, I started writing a story for the 10-year-old daughter of a friend. I hope you enjoy it. Find previous chapters here.

Chapter 7

“Mr. V! Did you see that?” Liam asked excitedly. “Look!”

From the depths of the forest flew a tiny winged creature. The teacher and his students instinctively ducked as the flier zoomed over their heads. After a loop, Pella came to a hovering stop in front of Mr. Vogelsinger.

“Teacher!” she cried. “Sandy is in trouble! The professor has her. You need to follow me!”

Mr. Vogelsinger was rendered speechless and stood staring at her with his mouth agape. Pella motioned for him to follow and flew a little way in the direction she’d come. “Please!”

Mr. Vogelsinger shook his head to clear it. “Now hold on just a minute.” He held his hands up for her to stop. “I think you’d better explain…. “ He paused, struggling to wrap his brain around what he was seeing. “You’d better explain… everything.”

“There’s no time!” she cried.

The teacher frowned. “I am not following after a…. “ he waved his hands in her direction. “What are you?”

Pella sighed. “All right, here’s our story…” And she quickly relayed the tale of what had happened to her and her unit as they traveled through this part of the universe. Finishing by explaining how the professor and trapped them to make them do his bidding. “Now will you come with me?”

Mr. Vogelsinger looked skeptical. “I don’t understand. With all your abilities, why couldn’t you free yourself? Surely if you can maintain the habitats of this arboretum, you could move a simple cage to free yourselves.”

“If it were a simple cage, that would be true. But the professor has it rigged with a small explosive device. The explosive device itself is in a container that has a pad that the professor uses to turn it off and on again when he brings us supplies.” She flew in a circle, becoming more agitated. “I’ve tried using the pad myself but it doesn’t work for me. I think maybe another human has to open it. I couldn’t take a chance that I’d set off the device before my friends could get free.”

“Hmm, it might be a fingerprint reader,” Mr. Vogelsinger mused. “If that’s the case, the professor will be the only one who can open it, then.” He cleared his throat. “So that’s what you were hoping to get my student to do for you? Open the container? Good gracious! Sandy could’ve blown herself to smithereens!”

“Well, the professor has her now! We have to hurry!”

This time the teacher sprang into action. “All right, listen up guys. Stay within sight of me but stand back. I can’t take a chance on losing you in this crazy place but I also can’t take the chance on getting any of you hurt. Follow me!”

The class and their teacher hurried to keep pace with the flying alien as she darted along the path and into the trees. They had to follow single file as they wound their way deeper into the habitat. Soon though, they emerged in front of the shed where Sandy and Pella’s friends were being held. Mr. Vogelsinger motioned for the class to wait quietly at the edge of the trees.

He crept to the door and pushed it open. “All right, professor! What do you think you’re doing?”

The professor spun around, shocked and sputtering. “What? Oh! N-n-nothing! Look, your student broke in here and was up to no good!” he blustered, pointing at Sandy in the corner.

“It’s not true Mr. V!” she cried. “He’s the one that’s up to no good!”

Pella flew into the shed and hovered over her caged friends. The professor gaped at her. “There’s another one? Where did you come from?”

She ignored him and spoke to her friends. “You can stop flying now. The teacher is gong to help us!” And at her words, the exhausted fliers stopped their circular flight and dropped to the floor of the cage. Immediately, the ground beneath their feet began to rumble.

The professor cried, “NO!” and made a dive for the container holding the explosive device.

Mr. Vogelsinger stepped in front of him and blocked his way as the building began to shake. “Don’t even think about it!” he ordered.

The professor stopped in his tracks, but as the children waiting outside began to shout, he smiled wickedly. “Don’t you think you’d better go check on your class?”

Mr. Vogelsinger looked from the professor to the tiny imprisoned aliens in the cage. And he realized he had no option….

To be continued…

For more of my writing, visit my Amazon Author Page!

Total War

~ Meg ~ 19 Comments

More of my research on World War One – by Meg Sorick

“Wisdom is an arrow seldom used in the quiver of government.” -Historian Barbara Tuchman

The First World War was a ‘total’ war in the sense that the civilian populations and the entire economies of the warring nations were fully mobilized to support the effort. No longer was the conflict limited to fighting between professional armies. Rather an entire generation of young men was conscripted to join the decimated troops on the frontline. It was a war of attrition, slow and deadly. The armies dug in and slaughtered each other with little ground gained or goals achieved. The Battle of the Somme in 1916 is an example.

The battle, an offensive staged by a combined British and French force, began in July and lasted five months.  On the first day alone, the British lost 57,000 men. When all was said and done, the British and French had advanced about 6 miles (9.7 km) on the Somme, on a front of 16 miles (26 km) at a cost of 419,654 British and 202,567 French casualties, against 465,181 German casualties. Lloyd George called it, “the most gigantic, tenacious, grim, futile and bloody fights ever waged in the history of the war.”

And so it was until it was supplanted by an even more horrific battle the following year. In July of 1917 the assault began on the village of Passchendale in the Ypres Salient. General Douglas Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was confident he could take the village in a matter of hours by simultaneously attacking German positions. But the reality of the situation was that rains had turned Flanders into a muddy mire and thousands of men were quickly bogged down. They became sitting ducks for the German guns and died from a combination of wounds and the diseases that festered in the muck they were forced to fight and live in. At the end, Canadian forces eventually prevailed but at the cost of a quarter million British soldiers. And for what? No German communication lines had been cut and the army’s morale was in tatters.

pdale_mud

The Mysterious Arboretum

~ Meg ~ 25 Comments

Last year, I started writing a story for the 10-year-old daughter of a friend. With one thing and another, I never got around to finishing it. I think it’s about time I did. It gives me a light-hearted break from The Great War, too! This is different from my usual fare, so I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter One

Sandy was so excited this last Friday of school. Today was the day her class was going on a field trip. She kept checking the clock on her bedside table to see if it was time to get up. Her cat Diamond stretched out a paw and swatted at her under the covers, thinking that this restlessness surely signaled a game.

Finally, Sandy could stand it no more. The sun was finally peeking through her window shade so she threw back the covers and bounced out of bed. She had picked out her outfit the night before and laid it out across the trunk at the foot of her bed. After quickly dressing, she went to the bathroom and brushed her teeth.

“Sandy, what are doing up so early?” her mother asked from the doorway.

“Today is the day we visit the Arboretum! I was too excited to sleep.” Sandy explained. Not many ten-year-old girls were as excited as Sandy to go look and plants and trees. But Sandy wanted to be a botanist when she grew up. Visiting the Arboretum was just as exciting as going to a theme park.

She ate a quick breakfast and walked to the bus stop a full fifteen minutes early. When the bus finally came, she practically ran up the steps. Her best friend Liam had saved her a seat. Sandy chattered excitedly and Liam listened patiently. He did not share her enthusiasm for today’s field trip, beyond the fact that they didn’t have to sit in the classroom on a beautiful sunny day.

“I can’t believe you’re so excited about a bunch of stupid plants.” he grumbled.

“Plants aren’t stupid!” she cried. “We need plants to survive, dummy. They give us oxygen so we can breathe.”

“Yeah, but they’re boring.” he said in reply.

Sandy shook her head. “You wait and see, Liam. I bet you’ll change your mind after today.”

For the rest of the bus trip they talked about their summer plans. Liam’s family was going to the beach for a week in July. Sandy’s family was going to visit her cousins in Florida. Soon they arrived at their school and made their way to Mr. Vogelsinger’s classroom.

Mr. Vogelsinger might have been just as excited as Sandy to go on this field trip. He grew award winning roses, raised enough vegetables to feed a small village and regularly brought in pies his wife had baked with berries from his huckleberry bushes. He quickly took attendance and herded his students back out to the waiting bus for the trip into the city. On the way there, Mr. Vogelsinger quizzed the students about photosynthesis. Sandy raised her hand to answer every question.

“Sandy,” Mr. Vogelsinger sighed, “give someone else a chance.”

“No, let her answer. Then we don’t have to,” muttered Liam and Sandy elbowed him.

“What was that, Liam? I didn’t hear you,” Mr. Vogelsinger said, giving him the eye.

“Nothing,” Liam answered.

Eventually, they left the highway and traveled the streets leading to the center of the city. The bus driver skillfully navigated the busy traffic. On one of the streets, Sandy could see the high stone wall running the length of several city blocks and turning the corner.

“We’re here!” she cried, pulling her backpack onto her shoulders.

The bus moved slowly past the massive stone wall until finally it reached a circular driveway that ended at a set of enormous iron gates. The driver honked the horn and the gates slowly swung open, allowing them entry. Just ahead was the Visitor’s Center where the bus would drop them off and pick them up again later.

Sandy grabbed Liam’s hand. “Come on, let’s go!”

In the Visitor’s Center, every student had their hand stamped with a green leaf-shaped stamp. Besides the class, the center was empty. Sandy whispered to Liam, “They must not have many visitors this time of day.” It was, after all, early in the morning. A plump older lady gave each of the children a little map.

“Now, listen. This map is only in case you get lost or left behind. I don’t want any of you thinking you can just wander off, understand?” Mr. Vogelsinger ordered.

Just then, their tour guide arrived. He was the funniest looking man Sandy had ever seen. The round, thick lenses of his glasses, his pointy nose, and his narrow mouth, gave him the appearance of an owl. “Hello, children!” he cried. “My name is Professor Noom and I will be your guide today! Follow me! Right this way.”

Professor Noom led them through a set of doors in the back of the Visitor’s Center. When they stepped through the doors, all the children gasped.