1st 5 Pages March Workshop - Saunders Rev 2

Name: Merriam Saunders
Genre: MG Light Fantasy
Title: WHAT WESTIN SCOTT HOPPER FINDS

The basement in Grandma’s house is calling me like lightning to a flagpole.

“Oh, Westiiiin. There’s something really amazing down here to plaaay with…”

But I’m not supposed to go down there.

So I sit on Grandma’s sofa cutting out the Sunday comics instead. Thinking about how my former friends are all at Peter Madsen’s birthday party, stuffing their faces with cake. I wasn’t invited. Whatever. Grandma plops blue sheets next to me and starts folding. Fresh and warm from the dryer. I dig a tunnel into the toasty pile, thinking about how to sneak into the basement, which is way more fun than some stupid party anyway. I’ll have to wait till Dad leaves. He and Pops are watching football, so could be a while. Mmmm, these sheets feel soft. Wonder what it’s like to cut sheets, instead of comics.

“Westin Scott Hopper!” Grandma closes her eyes and shakes her head. “I just bought these. Why would you cut a hole in perfectly good sheets?”

I look down at my hands. Uh-oh. “I didn’t mean to!”

“West! What’d you do that for?” Dad leaps out of the brown lounger chair.

I have no idea why. “Sorry Gram.”

Dad takes a swig from a silver can and sets it on the glass coffee table. “You can’t keep doing stuff like that, West. You're twelve, not two. Use your brain.”

Lot of good that’d do. My Brain’s not the cooperative kind. Someone else’s Brain might have been like “Dude. Bad idea to cut a hole in your Grandma’s sheets.” That Brain’s kid would’ve been like, “Thanks, Brain. I’ll cut the comics instead. Good thing I have you to stop me from doing stupid stuff.”

But my Brain’s different. Mom says it’s not my fault. The part that stops you from screwing up——the same part that makes you pay attention even when it’s super terrifically boring (like math class)—that part of my Brain is on vacation in Hawaii most days. Or climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. Or canoeing the Amazon. Wherever it is, it’s not in my head doing its job.

“You’ll have to pay Grandma out of your allowance.” Dad glances at his watch.

And I know what’s coming. Actually, what’s leaving.

Him.

“Your mom will pick you up later. You’re her problem now, buddy. Don’t forget anything at Grandma’s.” He leans over and messes my hair. “See you next Sunday night. Be good.”

I follow him to the kitchen. He’s so tall he has to duck through the doorway. And so strong when he slams the back door, sometimes the walls shake. Like now. “Bye, Dad.” I whisper. I watch through the side window as he peals out of the drive-way in the bright red Evidence. That’s what Mom calls his new Porsche—she says it shows he can pay more child support.

My stomach usually feels kind of hollow when he leaves early. But not today. Today I just have this feeling. There’s something cool in the basement.

I pull a soda from Grandma’s fridge. My fourth. Mom doesn’t let me drink soda, so I have to load up at Grandma’s. When I shut the fridge, a picture I drew—a flying blue dragon——falls from its magnet and floats to the floor. Dad’s knocked this drawing off three times today getting a drink out, and Grandma puts it back up every time. She loves my drawings. They’re okay, I guess.

I finish my soda and peak into the living room. Pops is fading fast in the recliner and Grandma has a TV-coma glaze to her eyes. I creep down the hall to the basement door.

“Don’t you even think of going in that basement.” Pops grumbles. “You’re always breaking something.”

Darn. He’s got supersonic hearing for an old guy. I grab a tennis ball and throw it against the basement door, eyeing the knob. Catch. Ba-dump. Catch.

“No ball throwing in the house!” His screechy voice makes the hair on my neck stand.

“Okay.”

I wait.

Doesn’t take long.

Zzzz…ggphkkg…zzzz…zzzz

We have lift off! Full-snore throttle ahead.

I look both ways down the hall and step toward the old basement door. It’s all scratched under the knob where Jessup used to claw at it before he died. He was a fun dog till he started peeing everywhere. I twist the loose knob and quietly open the door. The stair creaks errrt under my foot and I hope they don’t hear.

The basement smells weird. Like wet fur, stale barf and old cardboard. Most kids would be scared down here. It’s dark. Midnight under-the-ground dark. There’s one dim bulb hanging from the center of the room and you turn it on by pulling a long string. But only after you’re all the way downstairs, through Spider City in the floor boards above your head. Once, after I walked into a web, thrashing around to get the sticky wisps off, a giant spider crawled down my cheek and into my sweater. Mega gross.

My heart pumps fast till I tug the string and the light clicks on, dim and yellow. The room is filled to the rafters with stuff Grandma buys at garage sales. There’s a cool record player on a dusty table that works by cranking the handle. The singer sounds like she's in a tin can. Next to it, is a pink accordion. But I accidentally poked a hole in the middle, so it doesn’t work. There are more books than in my school library, in heaps, on shelves, and in boxes. But nothing I'd read. They have weird titles like “The Edible Northwest” or “Weaving for Dummies”.

I tap my thighs and spy around. There’s nothing different since the last time I snuck down except a blue hard-sided suitcase. I snort out dust and disappointment.

But there could be something awesome inside that suitcase. Gold coins. Or Pokémon EX cards. Maybe an intergalactic treasure map with specs to build a space ship. So I kneel down on the red square of carpet and pull the suitcase toward me.

Worse than empty. Just a stupid silky bag. Red with a draw string and scratchy looking symbols shaped like forks. Boring. I pick it up and look inside. Nothing. Totally not worth the scolding I’ll get when Pops catches me in the basement.

I sigh. Still holding the bag, I look around. There’s an ugly oil painting of a swamp propped against the wall. Why would Grandma spend money on that? Totally hideous. The crocodile has huge bug-eyes and the turtle on the shore is a strange purple color. Everyone knows turtles aren't purple. Duh.

I drop the bag back into the suitcase and scratch behind my ears. I’m about to close the lid, when it bangs against my knees.

“What the—?”

Toddling around the inside of the suitcase is a purple turtle. Like the one from the painting. A teensy version, no bigger than a tootsie roll. I reach my hand in to touch it and snap! The bug-eyed crocodile in mini-size leaps out of the red silk bag.

“Look out!” I yell to the turtle. Quicker than the flick of an elastic, the crocodile clamps down and gobbles him up. He looks up at me with his bug-eye, winks, and crawls back into the bag. I slam the top of the suitcase down hard.

No freaking way. I did not just see that. The painting…came alive? Brain is playing a joke on me. I raise the lid, ready to leap away if a mini crocodile attacks my face. I hold my breath. Nothing. Just the red silk bag, flat and empty. How did that happen? I reach in slowly, heart thumping like a basketball and pick it up. I turn it inside out. Empty.

But I know what I saw.

Brain knows it too.

A tiny crocodile ate a purple turtle.

And vanished.

I am so totally getting all my friends back now.