One month to the day and...POST

Wow, how perfect, one month to the day since the last post, though honestly it feels longer. The struggle obviously has persisted. But here I am with something to say, so something must have changed, right? Yes, as a matter of fact. I am happy to report a breakthrough of proportion equal to the block I've suffered from these last months. It's hard not to attribute a psychological theory to these events. Its is too coincidental that on very eve of hitting my 150-page halfway mark that suddenly the work seized up as though everything that had preceded before had been some erroneous fluke. I stumbled over such a seemingly trivial scene, that even if it was unsatisfactory for the moment, it had no right, no reason to so completely stonewall my progress over the last two months. A simple band aid, a pass, a place holder should have had me side-stepping the problem and forging ahead. But no. Everything had to come to a crashing stop. Two months of unrivaled productivity and purpose gave way to an equal measure of frustration and angst. Was it meant to be? Was it not the stumbling block of the scene itself that stopped me, but some larger restoration of balance? I don't know yet, but I am increasingly open to that possibility that this start and stop phenomena is part of my process. Maybe the only reason I am willing to accept that ridiculous possibility is because I have just had a break through of seemingly equal measure. The last week I could feel myself beginning to crack open. These last two days I somehow managed to wedge in the lever that would break the dam. And here I am finally with something worth reporting. Not only is that dastardly scene resolved (this point of inertia that I have been tracing backwards for two months to find the root cause of my own immobility) but now the entire story has far greater clarity, purpose and meaning to me. I know what I am saying, why I am saying it, and how I best want to say it (more or less). I can now go back and look at every scene I have written so far and re-work them to their truer form. I can move a head, sticking point and on, to the last pages of the book and the first pages of the next with conviction and confidence. This is not to say the journey will be easy and without further event. I fully expect as I encroach on my next major milestone, the completion of the first draft at the very least, that I will crack and list and cave again. But that's all part of the process now right? I'll take those moments as they come. My original plan was to kick off my three month leave from work in mid-July. As it stands my current project is progressing so rapidly that there is the possibility I could leave earlier. We'll see how circumstances develop. I am emboldened by the latest turn (barring any sudden reversals) and feel as confident as I can I will still swing into my break with both fists. Where I go now is up for question though, as I either press ahead with my renewed vision, leaving the first half as it is, or I stop, make a quick U and swing back to he beginning effectively redrafting my book. I suppose I won't necessarily know the answer to that one until I just put myself back in the page and see where the work wants to take me. More likely than not I expect to forge ahead and save the redrafting for later.

This is the general report for the moment. More details and introspection to follow later.

Where not to start

I am writing at a crawl now. It seems like I've been on the same page for the last two weeks. Still haven't broken 150 pages yet. This current chapter is killing me. A couple of pages alone took days to write and I finally found a work-around and deleted them. I'm still cutting up the scene and working back and forth, unable to get through it to the next scene.  Every two steps forward is one step back. Not sure where all the resistance is coming from, but I'll get through it eventually. What's adding to the frustration is in spite of having just completed the vast majority of freelance work that will now free up my evenings, I'm on a new production at work, which between increased work demands and moving to a new office space, is going to greatly reduce any writing opportunities at lunch. The upside, is I have three months of evenings and weekends to finish out this first draft. I've gotten this far in two months, so in theory I'm still in decent shape to knock out the second half in three. After that, I am taking at least three months off from work, finances abiding, to punch up a second draft and actually send it out into the world. By August, this manuscript has to be in the inbox of an agent or editor someone where out in the world. Then I'll be able to sleep at night, as it were. This is the real goal. Get the work out and move on. After that I can swing back to my other novel for a while. Getting back tot he present,  in spite of my current setbacks I feel great about my new process and I am fully confident I'll get this done. The most remarkable thing to me is that for the first time in my life I am not judging myself or the work. I accept it for whatever it is, while feeling the mobility and empowerment to make whatever changes it needs, to make it as good as I can make it. Unlike my last experience, I am not looking at this book to be the end-all magnum opus that defines me as a writer, a person and a human being. This is just a story I want to tell. It might say something about where I am as a writer and a person right now, but it does not define me. It's actually surprising to me how  liberating it is to write without that little burden. Fear and judgement are not the places you want to come as a writer. Sure, we all end up there sooner or later.  But you don't want to start there. 

Getting Nowhere Fast

Having a slow week and a slower weekend. Not sure how many pages I've done for the week, but I'm behind where I would like to have been, and I am continuing to get distracted and stalled. A part of the reason I am losing momentum is I am losing interest in my current scene work (or is it the other way around?). I know I am the probably the worst person and in the worst position to judge right now, but my scenes are feeling so ponderously slow that I can barely sustain myself to get to the next scene. They are cinematically dull and repetitive, with my character going though the same motions as so many other scenes.  I know now isn't the place to get bogged down in such self-criticism, but I still can't help it. If worse comes to worse I can try punting myself to another scene and come back for patch work later.

It's funny, making so little progress I turn here for a new entry, with the hopes of having something productive or introspective to say, but instead I'm running dry here as well. Ah, creativity and all its unpredictability. I'm not sure how to proceed, whether to call it the unproductive end to an unproductive week, and hope next week makes up for it. Or do I try to force something out, even if it's meaningless garbage, just to say I gave it my all? The latter will make me feel less guilty, though no less frustrated. Other than this, I don't know what else to say or think. Even my notes that are my usual refuge don't offer much solace today. In my scenes, in my notes, and even here, I am writing in empty self-reflexive circles getting nowhere and boring myself in the process.

Gads, what a mopey mess I am making for myself. Well, here are some pages while I go sit in the corner. I'm not even going over the pages to edit them since I'm in such a whiny mood. Also, it looks like I changed some stuff from previous posts, so there may be a number of inconsistencies. At some point down the road I may post a master version just so everything is consistent.

She doesn’t know whether to go after Mustard first or the dog or just get out while she can. The second she sees the two figures at the front entrance she runs for cover.

She recognizes the men immediately as the kidnappers. They pound at the door until a guard rushes up to let them in. Maddie slips into a trash bin, then tightly focuses the light into tiny peephole through which she can see and hear the others.

“What do you have?” One of the kidnappers asks the flustered guard, breathing hard and wiping his head with his cap.

“We have at least two minors, and a dog loose in the museum. Near as we can tell, they were probably in after lock up since there’s no sign of forced entry and none of the alarms were tripped.”

“Where are they?” The other kidnapper asks.

The guard points upstairs with his hat. “We have one in custody upstairs. They are bringing him down now. The other minor and the dog are still at large some where on the premises.”

The kidnappers exchange looks, one nodding to the other. “Check the scene. I’ll detain the suspect.” As one of them heads for the stairs, the guard puts his hat back on, and pulls out his walkie talkie. “I’ll prep a room for questioning and put the call out to the P.D.”

“That won’t be necessary. We will be conducting the interview off site and will notify the police ourselves once we deemed what charges we intend to press. Continue sweeping the premises until the dog and girl are found.”

Maddie is as surprised as the guard.

“Girl, sir?”

“Minor.” He corrects. “Move it.”

The guard disappears from Maddies’ view as she keeps her focus on the kidnapper. Even though she is hidden from view, she feels visible and vulnerable, especially as the man just stands there by the door waiting. She hears noise and swings the light around to see two guards dragging Mustard in cuffs. Oh no. Now he really is in trouble. If he ends up going to the police, he might not be sent just to juvie, but now possibly even jail.

She considers how she can help him from her position in the can, but knows too well the likelihood she will fail and simply be captured herself. She tightens her grip on the lamp. Keeping it safe is of up-most importance now. Without it she can do nothing, and there is no telling how it might be used if it falls into their hands.

Mustard is brought to the kidnapper, who takes quick appraisal before gesturing for the guards to follow him. “Bring him.”

The four of them move away from her towards the main doors when something bumps into her trash bin, nearly scaring the lamp out of her hands. Her bin bumps again as something scrapes the metal like it is trying to get in. She braces herself against the rocking and fumbles the lamp as something heavy drops on top of her.

“Argus!” He hangs half in the bin, his legs kicking outside trying to climb in with her. Maddie drops the lamp, trying desperately to pull him in. She hears one of the men shouting, “There’s the dog.” And the fall of feet echo off the tile growing louder as they descend on the garbage bin. Maddie is buried under fifty pounds of fur and feet, blindly scrambling for the lamp. The guards fall on the rocking garbage bin and kick it over only to find nothing inside.

Maddie crashes on a stack of cardboard, Argus landing on her, tumbling off into the pile of compressed boxes. “Ow. I hate that!” She tries to stand on the unstable mound, grasping the side of the metal dumpster they had luckily landed in, the dumpster next to her filled with wooden palettes and crates, and all around them the bare cement floor of the museum parking garage. “We have to get out of here Argus. C’mon boy.” She tries heft him up over the side of the dumpster, but the sides are too high and the compressed cardboard too unstable. Then she remembers the lamp, and finds it half under a box. As soon as it is lit she and the dog leap through the hole and scramble for the only way out she can see, a caged garage door leading to the street. She stops the moment they arrive at the door, right in front of it a gray van, the two guards closing the back doors, tapping on the back, the kidnapper at the wheel.

“Mustard.” Maddie says under her breath, defeated, afraid. “Now they have you too. What are we going to do Argus?” As if in answer, the van pulls out and drives away, revealing parked across the street the same gray car she saw at Gladstone’s, the two guards meeting the second kidnapper on the museum front steps. “This is our only chance, Argus. We have to try it.”

They bolt out of the garage across the lamp lit street.

She doesn’t know how far they are going, how long she has been in there, but she is thankful to still have Argus with her. She clings to him for warmth and to keep from rolling across the wide trunk as the car speeds around turns and over bumps. At last, after what seems likes hours, the car comes to a stop, Maddie having to brace both of them to keep from smashing into the back and giving themselves away. She waits at least five minutes more after the sounds of the door closing and diminishing footfalls before she braves looking out of the trunk. They are in the woods somewhere, it is dark, darker than she has ever seen it, and the air coming in through the peep hole is biting cold, colder than it had ever been at Gladstone’s, and how she wishes now she had never left there.

She shivers as the widens the light, and Argus bolts from the trunk before she can even reach for him. She scrambles out after him, following the fading clatter of his paws on the gravel road, as he completely disappears around the rising bank of the road. Maddie is running as fast as she can, lamp swinging wildly from her flailing arms. She doesn’t know what she is running to, if she’s running into danger, a trap, or if she’ll get caught. She just doesn’t want to be alone. Not here. Not like this. The tears on her face turn to stinging streaks of cold.

She comes to the crest of the hill, the banked road opening to a large flat expanse of land, the canopy of trees opening to reveal the most brilliant star-lit night she has ever seen. The sky is so black that more stars than she ever knew existed lay stretched out before her like a low hanging net. For a moment everything is forgotten as her mind tries to take it all in, the vastness so great that everything else is put on hold. The stars span all around her, as solid and clear as though inches from her face, spilling down to the endless horizon that lay all around her and the hill she stands atop. It is last that she notices the thing closest to her, an unusual building rising darkly before her like a ragged shape cut out of the sky.

Her situation returns, the realization that she is afraid, alone, cold and so tired, and now lost somewhere in at the of the world. She listens in the absolute silence for the sounds of Argus but hears nothing but her own racing heart and chattering teeth. She hugs herself from the cold, the lamp knocking against her. She has it still but she no longer knows what she can accomplish with it on her own. She is just a kid, like Mustard said. Worse, she is just a girl. What is she going to do against kidnappers and guards and police. She decides whatever she is going to do, she is not going to do it freezing outside.

She continues up the path to the strange building. Thankfully, what few lights are on do not illuminate her approach and she can approach in the safety of relative darkness.  The fact that Argus had preceded her tells her she doesn’t have to worry about motion sensing lights like those they had outside Gladstone’s. A large door stands at the front, but she eases around to the side to get a better sense of how big the building is. As she rounds it, the silhouette transforms and what she thought before was the shape of jagged protrusions, turn out to be tall turret like shapes of varying size, the widest and shortest of which is capped with a large dome that reminds her of the observatory she had visited during one of Gladstone’s field trips.

When notices her breath fogging the air before her, she hurries to one wall far from any lights or what darkened windows she can see, and shines the light into it. She is struck first by the stonework, like something that would be on a castle, and next by they thickness. Even standing at the base of the wall with her arm fully outstretched and the light fully immersed inside it, there was still nothing before her but more stones. The light around her shaking with her shivering body, she walks blindly into the stonework, the hole closing behind her.

Five steps and she comes into a dark room. All suggestion of the thick stone fortress wall is gone, the walls paneled in smooth polished wood, the furniture and fixtures of the room sleek and modern like those at the museum. It looks like some kind of office, with a glass-topped desk and two different computers with large clear screens. Where there is not wood paneling, there are bookshelves filled to capacity with books spanning floor to ceiling. As the cold that followed her through the was dissipates, she feels the warmth of the room and rushes to a vent, squatting down against it to warm herself as quickly as she can.

When he shivering stops, she rises and moves to the door, listening first, then shining the light through it. A dark hallway opens before her and she moves into it, quickly, silently, determined to accomplish something, anything before fear or exhaustion take over. She finds doors leading to other rooms, some offices like the one she left, others storage room, filled with boxes, office supplies, equipment. She finds a conference room, a computer room, filled corner to corner with tall banks of blinking lights, like a tiny contained patch of the sky just outside. Everywhere she ventures she finds the same unlit, unpopulated workspaces. She doesn’t understand why someone would have an office at the top of a hill in the middle of a forest far away from everything else. Who would ever want to drive all the way out here? Unless they lives here too? But where are the rooms? Where would they sleep?

A deep, almost painful yawn racks her whole body. She had no idea how late it was, but she knows she has been going way too long and that she will need to sleep soon. She doesn’t know why the man came here, or even where he was, but there has to be a reason for it and she’s staying until she finds what it is. Maybe she’ll just find some small space to park herself for a little rest before going on. She decides to check one more door before deciding where to hide out and finds a garage, and there right in front of her, is the gray van, back doors wide open and as empty as can be.

Mustard’s here! Both kidnappers! Maybe the old man is here to. With a renewed sense of urgency Maddie shines the light around, searching for anything that might lead her to them. She sweeps over a wall and finds behind it a hidden stairwell. She plunges down the stairs not questioning where they lead, but knowing they had to lead to Mustard and the others. She spirals around and down so may times, two stories, three, maybe more, that she is dizzy when the stairs finally level out and end before a black metal door. It is at the same instant she sees the camera over the door and as much out of exhaustion as quick thinking, she lets her spiraling momentum carry her through the stairwell wall away from the door. She finds herself moving through concrete and metal pipes, then ducts like those back at the Home. She is lost in the foundation of the building, so dizzy and disoriented she has no idea where she is or if she will ever find her way out again. A part of her starts to panic, wishing she had the dog to guide her, but for all she knows, he’s down here too, needing her to save him as much as everyone else. She takes a moment to collect herself and catch her breath, then remembers: the air ducts!

She quickly locates one and crawls inside it, dimming the light to allow the duct to close around her. She curls up in small space feeling almost relieved in the tiny confines as though she was back at the Home, just a few feet from her own room again. She looks at the lamp and closes it entirely, being reminded of her first night in the duct, the flashlight dying on her in the dark. Maybe the lamp works the same way. Maybe there is only so much light left in it. The idea of being trapped inside solid walls makes her feel sick and she begins to understand the unusual and deadly potential of the lamp.

She pushes ahead through the completely dark space as quietly as she can, less afraid of the space within as the space without. The ducts are clean, far cleaner than those back at the Home, and the air is blissfully warm and fresh. She stops to rest again, this time allowing herself to lie down and with her head on her arms. Her eyes close on their own, so dark in there she doesn’t even know they have closed and is dreaming of Mustard arguing with the teachers and she wakes with a start, only the hum of air in her ears. How long had she been out? It seemed like only a second that her eyes were closed before she started dreaming.

She pulls herself up, taking a deep breath to wake herself, and she hears it again, this time knowing she is awake: Mustard! His voice is coming from some distance down the duct. She makes sure she has the right direction before shuffling ahead as quickly as she dare without giving herself away. The excitement of hearing him again gets her heart pounding and compels her forward. She gets to a fork in the duct, listens, and charges right, seeing a dim light breaking though the darkness seemingly miles ahead.

She is at the source light before she even knows it, a vent opening to a dimly lit room. Mustard’s voice coming from the room, but still muffled by some distance. When she peers through the vent she sees a large room, dark but for the dim flicker of light as through from a television, and within, in spite of the voices, not a person in site. She waits to be sure, then adjusts the lamp to gain entry to the room.

 In spite of the warmth from the vent, the room is cool. The walls and floor are hard cement. She moves towards the light source, coming around a bank of television screens, and on one them Mustard in a large room, being questioned by one of the kidnappers. Mustard has a bandage on his head, one of his eyes blackened and swollen. Maddie doesn’t know if this man had done it, or one of the security guards back at the museum, but one thing is certain, if they are willing to hurt a seventeen-year old kid, they are probably willing to hurt an eleven-year old one.

 Maddie finds a knob and turns up the volume. Mustard is holding his hands in his head, looking tired and hurt, his face wet with tears as the kidnapper stood over him. She hears the voice of a woman speaking from off-camera.

Monday pages

Wrote six more pages at lunch today and a few more tonight, while continuing to flesh out the plot, my characters, motivations, backstory and future scenes. Overall I'm really feeling good with my present balance of plotting versus scene work.  I am maintaining forward momentum without getting too distracted or bogged down in the thinking process, and the writing stays fun and challenging giving me the opportunity to discover things or change things as I go. It's remarkable how much a handicap the severe research and planning of my first novel turned out to be. I'm moving on to 22k words now, which if I can assume to put me at about one-third of the way done, will have me ending in the 66k word range, which considering the trimming I'll later do puts me right on target.


Here are the eight latest pages (not entirely proofed):

Maddie is overwhelmed with the sense of déjà vu, seeing the room now from almost exactly the same view she had seen through the lamp. The room is dark, save from light from the windows overlooking the lobby, illuminating the giant skeleton just outside. The first difference she notices is that the various crates that had led her the museum in the first place are now gone. She watches the dog sniffing through clumps of straw like material scattered across the floor.

“Well, he’s not here. What do we do now? Ask the whale?”

She ignores the comment, passing the spotlight around the room. “I don’t know. Just keep looking. Maybe we’ll find a clue.”

“Jesus Maddie. We’re not detectives. What are we supposed to do, take prints?”

“Just be quiet and look!” She says louder than she should. She moves away from him, directing the light over the large desk, finding more strands of the material spread atop it. She scans inside the desk drawers, discovering files and letters, and in one drawer a large ornate knife, like something from one of the displays, and just behind it a gun. Her gasp of surprise draws Mustard from the tall stuffed bear he had found in one corner of the room.

He eyes her discovery with curiosity. “Why does a guy working in a museum need a gun? He think something in here is going to come alive and attack him?”

Maddie looks up at him with concern but no answer. She swings the lamp around the to the built-in filing cabinets on the wall behind them while Mustard fusses with things on the desk.

“Can’t you just leave that stuff alone?”, she asks him, feeling like she is talking to a child.

A light clicks on behind her making her jump. Mustard’s hand is on the desk light, his other hand holding an ornately carved box he had picked up off the desk.

“Turn off the light Mustard!” She rushes to the lamp to switch it off before someone sees the light. He grabs her hand. “Wait, look at this.” He is turning the box around, to see all sides.

“So what? It’s a box.” But then she notices something about it, and Mustard pulls her hand holding the lamp closer, rotating it in the light of the desk lamp.

“It’s the same,” he says and she notices it too. The box has carved into it symbols similar to those etched in the lamp. Mustard flicks off the lamp and shakes the box, rattling something softly inside. “Shine your light into it Maddie.”

She turns the lamp around, focusing the peephole into the top of the box and sees set neatly inside, in individually shaped, velvet-lined sections, variously shaped pieces of glass, and small metal components like tiny clock parts. Mustard reaches through the opening and pulls out a round, delicately faceted piece of glass.

“That’s funny. What do you suppose this stuff is?”

As he turns the glass in his hand, Madde turns the lamp around and rotates out the piece of glass that has showed her the room. “It’s almost the same. Do you think it belongs to the lamp?”

Mustard hold the glass to it, closely examining both. “Or another one like it.” He points to the other panels surrounding the casing. “Do these other panels open up like this one?”

Maddie shrugs, “I don’t know. They might. I haven’t tried any others.”

“Well, why not?” He sounds almost perturbed.

“Because I’ve been busy,” she says defensively, wishing he didn’t always have to be such a jerk.

He reaches for the lamp. “Well, give it here then. Let me figure out how the rest of it works.”

She yanks the lamp away from him, clutching it protectively to her chest. “No! It’s my lamp. The man gave it to me, so I’ll use it how I like. Go get your own lamp, Mustard!” She steps away from him, back to the wall of filing cabinets.

“You’re being such a little kid Maddie.”

“You are!” she shouts back, now no longer every trying to keep her voice down.

He mutters something under his breath and just tosses the piece of glass on top of the box and sits in the chair at the desk like it was his office.

Argus brushes up against her, showing his support. She pets him, then washes the light across the cabinets again not expecting to find anything, but to keep herself looking busy so she doesn’t have to interact with Mustard. Argus barks at the same moment she sees the opening in the wall before her, not cabinets full of papers, but a hidden room, filled with things on shelves and mounted to the walls. At almost exactly the same time, the room goes white and Mustard shouts, “What are you doing Maddie?”

She checks the lamp, “I’m not doing anything—“ And then she sees the two guards at the open door, one with his hand on the light switch, the other holding a black stick.

“Freeze right there you two!”

Mustard turns to Maddie, as startled as she is. “Run!” he suddenly yells, leaping from the seat and hurtling the box towards the guards already rushing towards them. “I’ll hold them off. Go now!!” Mustard is throwing everything he can get his hands on, ripping things from the shelves. Argus is pushing her backwards even as she tries to move forward, next thing she knows she is falling backwards through the fake wall, through the dark room. One of the guard’s rushes for her opening, his face aghast, but as he is almost upon her, she falls backwards over the dog, sending the light downwards, closing the wall in front of her, opening the floor beneath her, and next thing she knows she and the dog are free falling through the lobby.

Branches are whipping her, tangling her arms and legs and she crashes through into the soft planter of ferns below. She hears the dog crashing next to her, then feels him tugging at her the minute he’s back on his feet. She looks around dazed, her chest and back aching, almost unable to breath. Lights start flicking on all around her and the museum comes to life. She hears more footfalls and people shouting. The she looks at her hands and finds them empty. Frantic, she starts feeling around her, in the splayed dirt, flattened ferns and broken palm fronds. “Argus! Find the lamp!”

The dog sniffs through the foliage as desperately as her, and she hopes, prays the lamp didn’t break from the fall. She sees something shiny reflecting in the dirt—sparkling in the bright lights like broken glass. She scoops it up in her hand realizing it is only cellophane, then continues her search.

She hears guards rapidly approaching and dives back into the foliage, scurrying under the thick cover of plants that had not been flattened by her impact. She falls against Argus, already tucked there hidden from view and holds as still as she can, not even breathing as two more guards rush past, shouting into their walking talkies about intruders upstairs. Mustard!

She peers up through the crisscrossing jungle canopy, seeing from her vantage the neat hole she made through branches on her quick trip down, and there just above, she sees the windows to the upstairs room now brightly lit, and at least one guard peering down through the window.

How is she going to save Mustard now? And how can she even save him without the lamp? Then almost the second she thought it, she sees it, the lantern dangling from one of the braches high above her. “Argus, there it is,” she points high above, the dog seeing it too. She tries shaking the tree, but it is too big, too sturdy to be moved. The only way she can get to it is by climbing, but there’s no way she can climb it without being caught. Argus looks at her and as though understanding her situation, licks her quickly on the nose and bolts out the large planter. She tries to call him back, but he is already barking, working up the loudest ruckus he can. She hears the guards returns, then ducks back under the plants as they chase Argus as he runs, barking noisily down the hall. The sounds fade away, and in the returning silence, she breaks out of her cover and leaps up on the tree trunk, wrapping her arms around it and shimming herself up with her feet.

Argus’s barking rises and falls as he runs wild through the museum, the shouting of guards in hot pursuit, but it is only so long before the come back to the lobby or the catch him. She pulls herself up as quickly as she can, the pointy bark jabbing into her arms, legs and chest. She hurts, but she can’t stop. She has just a few more feet to go when the main doors open and three more people stroll in the building, not guards, but men, two of whom she recognizes instantly as the kidnappers.

She freezes from her perch in the tree, high enough it sways slightly with her weight. Again, she is holding still, holding her breath, watching the men pass below, hoping none of them look up. They hear the distant ruckus and rush ahead and the second they disappear from view Maddie is climbing faster, reaching out as far as she can. She drags on the branch the lantern still hangs from and mercifully the lamp slides right into her hand.

She slides painfully down the tree, feeling her clothes snag and her skin scrape. Cuts she can deal with later. First she has to help the others. The second her feet hit soil she bounds from the planter onto the hard tile lobby floor. 

Another Twenty Three

This weeks been spotty, but the other commitments are thinning out and with luck (and no further distractions), I can get back to a more consistent output. I'm just about at the end of my rope so to speak with where the story is planned thus far. Another ten to twenty pages and I'll be writing in the dark, so to speak. Already I have some reservations about where the characters end up, but I think I've come up with a solid enough rationalization for it. We'll see how much weight it carries as I proceed. Another interesting thing has developed, (for better or worse I don't know yet), that takes the story in a potentially different direction than I first imagined. My original vision kept the story simple at heart, with enough ambiguity and thematic soil that it could almost be read as spiritual in nature. Having explored the back story further I am wandering into far more intricate plot and explanation that widens the scope and span of the story. I almost feel like I am going from writing the Hobbit to writing the Lord of the Rings. While I like some of the ideas, I don't want to shine so much light on this story so that it becomes more about plot and idea rather than character and meaning, as I all to often tend to do.  Just keeping an eye on it as I move ahead.


Here are the pages:

“We won’t have too much time,” she tells the dog still licking his mouth. “If they are where I think they are, we should be able to get back before dinner time.” She stuffs more clothes under her blanket, adjusting the lump on her bed to look more like her. “Hopefully they’ll let me sleep here until then.”

She straps on her backpack and grabs the lamp and the flashlight. “C’mon boy. We need to make a stop first, but we have to be very quiet this time.” The dog bounds up and slips into the duct as she holds the paper open for him.

They pass the utility closet and as they round the first corner, she pockets the flashlight and pulls out the lamp, opening it enough to illuminate the duct around her. She cinches forward, peering through the metal confines of her space into open rooms and crawlspaces that surround her. She jumps as she sees a family of mice scurry through a crawlspace just on the other side of the duct.

She hurries forward, the dog sniffing ahead as though searching for something too. Maybe he already knows what she is looking for. They round another corner, nearly halfway across the building now, when she finds the room she is looking for. She swings the light around to see as much as she can to make sure it is empty.

“I hope this works,” she says opening the lantern further, widening the hole in the duct big enough for her to crawl through. “Stay close to me,” she tells the dog, but he is already by her side as she reaches out her hand and passes through the open space into the neighboring room.

She smiles to herself, feeling elated as though she had just done something no one else in the world had ever done—except the old man of course, and the dog—but still, she is incredibly pleased with herself and feels a shiver of excitement. This makes sneaking around so much easier and so much more fun too!

She dims the light without closing it completely, not wanting it to disappear from view again, and opens the pinhole passing the small beam around the room. She scours a dresser much like her own, spying disheveled boys clothes, and under them magazines on sports cars and another with naked women.

“Eww, gross!” she blurts out, instantly covering her mouth. She sweeps the light over other furniture in the room, discovering little else. At the end of the room is another door, she is about to bring the light around when she sees the dog sniffing intently at the bed. She brings the lamp over it, and finds tucked beneath the mattress a large envelope. Drawing it from the hole she finds crumpled twenties inside with three crumpled half-smoked cigarettes.

“Bingo.” She slips out two twenties, then a third. “That should do it.”

“What are you doing!?”

The voice scares her so much she drops the lamp and the envelope, spilling the bills across the floor. She turns and finds Mustard standing at the door to the adjoining bathroom, his pants hanging around his knees.

“Ohmygod! You scared me.” She looks at the dog now on the floor scratching his ear. “Some guard do you are.”

“How did you get in here? What are you—“ Seeing what dropped to the floor he shouts at her, “Get away from my money!” He charges past her, nearly bowling her over, grabbing the money off the floor with one hand, the other still holding his pants. Maddie quickly scoops the lamp from the floor and scurries away from him all too aware of the threat he presents. She slips the three twenties in her back pocket while he scoops up the rest of the money from the floor.

“That’s not your money, Mustard! You stole it from the school! You should be thankful I didn’t tell anyone about it or you’d be in juvie right now.”

His flashes a look of hate at her. “Are you kidding me!? It’s your fault they want to send me there in the first place.” He rises, crushing the money in his fist. “But I got news for you Maddie, I’m getting out of this place and nobody’s going to tell me what do to or where to go again!”

“That’s stupid. You can just leave next year when you turn eighteen.”

“Screw that! I’m taking charge of my own life from now on. And now you can give me back the money you took, or so help me Maddie, girl or no girl, I’ll kick you ass, so give it back!”

He lunges for her but the dog jumps between them, bounding up on Mustard with its forepaws. Maddie retreats against a wall, fiddling with the lamp, in case she has to use it.

“Get off me!” Mustard and the dog rock back and forth in a clumsy dance before he pushes the animal to the floor and resumes his approach on Maddie. But now the dog is on the other side of him and even if Maddie can back through the wall before Mustard gets her, there’s no way she can get to the dog.

She decides to try reason, “Felix, please…”

“My name is Mustard!!”

“Mustard. Wait. Please. I need this money. Just to borrow. I’ll get it back to you really! And I won’t tell anyone you took it or that you are planning to run away. Just please let me have it for today and I’ll get it back to you as soon as I can, I promise, and then you can run away.”

But Mustard keeps pressing towards her, Maddie pressed against the wall, her hands clutching the lamp, ready to pop it open if he so much as takes a swing at her. Suddenly he stumbles to one side.

“Cut it out you stupid dog.”

The dog has grabbed his still unfastened pants in its mouth, yanking them down to his ankles, tail wagging like it’s all a game.

“Where’d this dog come from anyway?”

Then Maddie remembers, as should he. “You know this dog, Mustard. It’s the one that came with the old man. It’s is his dog, remember! From the Director’s office?”

The dog lets go and licks his hands clutching at his pants. Mustard stands a moment, then slowly raises his pants, remembering. “All right. So what’s he doing here then? What are you doing here?”

“I can’t tell you.”

He fastens his pants and looms over her again. “You sure as heck are going tell me, or you’re going to be in as trouble as me.”

 “All right. But you can’t tell anyone Mustard. You have to promise.”

He crosses his arms and waits for her to continue.

“I’m going to save the old man. He was kidnapped right outside of here, just like I said, and it’s all my fault, just like it’s my fault the dog is stuck here all alone. So now I’m going to save him, because I’m the only one who can.”

Mustard’s face bursts in laughter. “Yeah, right. Don’t be so dumb Maddie. You’re just a kid. You’re not going to do anything but give me back my money and get out of my room. And take your stupid dog with you.”

“All right. I’ll leave.” She pats her leg, calling the dog, “C’mon boy.” She inches toward the door to the hall, just to her right, but Mustard swoops over to the door, blocking her way, but giving her more of a clear shot back to the bath room.

 “Uh-uh. Money first.” He says, holding his hand out towards her. She now inches away from Mustard and the door, towards the opposite wall. Mustard keeps pace with her until she finds herself once more backed the against by the window.

“Please don’t tell anyone I’m gone, Mustard. I’ll be back, with your money. I promise. Just don’t leave until then, okay?” She holds up the lamp, yanking on the bottom lip.

“What’s tha—“

The room goes white as she opens the lamp. The dog follows her out through the wall. The sound of Mustard’s shouting falls silent suddenly as she closes the lamp and finds herself on the sidewalk outside his room.  Her eyes adjust faster this time.

She reaches down to find the dog still by her side. “Good boy! You are such a smart doggie aren’t you?”

The dog sits and pants, then twists around noticing something behind them. She looks up to see Mustard’s face staring at them incredulously through the window.

“C’mon.” she says, grabbing the dog by the collar and rushing around the corner of the building. She looks around to get her bearings. They are on the back side of the building, not far from the Executive’s Director’s window. They have to get as far away as they as quickly as they can before someone sees her or Mustard gets her caught.

She tucks the lamp under her arm, adjusts her backpack and signals the dog. She waits for a car to drive by before running across the quiet street to the building on the other side, hurrying along the brick wall, ducking around the first corner, out of site of Gladstone’s. She catches her breath, not tired, just nervous, more nervous than she thought she would be. As thrilling as escape had always felt inside the walls of Gladstone’s, it had always felt safe and fun, like a game. This time feels different as she crouches at the corner hiding from view. The dog licks her reassuringly and she pats him on the head. “Thanks boy.”

She stands and peers around the corner to see if anyone had seen her and were in pursuit. Nothing. She takes a breath and thinks about what to do next. She continues around the building, back to the main street now a block from Gladstone’s. The bus stops right in front of the Home—she’s taken it on a number of field trips through town—but it is in plain view and unlikely she can catch the bus without being seen. She looks up and down the street searching for other bus stops, when sees a yellow cab parked two blocks up the street in front of a hotel.

Together they race up the street, the lamp clutched tightly in her arms, to keep from dropping it. She approaches the cab, out of breath from running the distance, and stops short when she realizes the car is empty. Undeterred, the dog bounds on to the car, knocking against the open window and startling someone inside. The surprised driver rises from his reclined position, frantically trying to roll up the window as the dog licks him from outside. Maddie rushes to the window. “Wait, mister.”

He pauses, noticing her. “This your dog?” he asks, one hand holding the dog at bay through the half-closed window. “Want to call him down? He’s slobbering up my car.”

“Sorry.” The dog drops before she even reaches for his collar. The driver brings his seat upright. Maddie steps closer to the window. “Uh, can I get a ride somewhere?”

 He looks at himself in the mirror, smoothes his hair, and puts on a pair of sunglasses before looking at her again. He looks from her to the dog to her again. “You want a ride?”

“Yeah.”

“What. just you and your dog?”

“Yeah.”

“Where to?”

“Do you go downtown?”

“Uh-huh. And your parents are fine with you taking a cab rides by yourself? Downtown?”

Maddie tries to sound confident, casual. “Sure. They always let me go by myself.”

He looks up and down the street, then points down the street at Gladstone’s. “See that tall brick building right down there. There’s a bus stop right out in front. The D Line can take you downtown if you really want to go.”

Maddie pulls the bills from her back pocket, “I have money. I can pay you.”

He looks at the money, thinking about it. “Look, you seem like a good kid, but frankly you’re a little young to be riding around by yourself, especially downtown.”

“What about me?”

The voice right behind her takes her by surprise. Maddie watches aghast as Mustard walks up to the window. “Can I get a ride downtown?”

The driver checks him out. “You eighteen?”

Mustard nods.

“All right kid.”

“I’m not a kid.”

“Trust me. Eighteen’s a kid. Where you want to go?”

“Downtown.” He answers with irritation in his voice.

The cabbie eyes them both. “What’s the story here kids?”

Maddie jumps in, grabbing Mustard’s hand. “This is my brother. He’s supposed to go with me. We’re going to the museum.”

The driver sighs. “That’s a different story, hon. Can’t take the dog though. No pets.”

“How much is it to the museum?”

He looks at Mustard, “Both of you. Ten bucks.”

Mustard grabs the money still in Maddie’s hand, handing him one of the bills. “I’ll give you twenty.”

The cab shakes his head. Mustard looks at Maddie accusingly and hands him two bills. “Forty.”

“Look I don’t want that dog having an accident in my back seat.”

Mustard looks at the money in his hands, looks at Maddie and the dog once more and holds all three out.

The cabbie looks at the money, looks in his rear view mirror, then takes the bills. “All right, but that dog so much as farts in my cab, I’m bringing you both right back here.”

He starts the engine and they all pile in the back, the dog cushioned between them, sitting up straight and attentive. Mustard gives Maddie one more disapproving look as they speed up the street towards the rise of buildings just ahead.

Ten minutes later driver is dropping them off outside the tall steps to the Museum of Natural Sciences. The three of the climb out the back and are about to climb the stairs when the driver calls Mustard back. Maddie watches with the dog, as the driver hands Mustard something. When the car drives away, she asks what he said.

“He told me to take care of you, and he gave me back forty bucks. What a moron.”

“He’s being nice Mustard. He didn’t have to do that.”

“Whatever. Just be thankful he did. Now you just owe me the other twenty.” He shoves the money in his pocket, then as she starts going up the steps he grabs her by the shoulder and turns her around. “Not so fast. Before we go anywhere, you’re going to tell me what happened back in my room. That light. And how you got out. Is it all because of that thing you’re holding?”

He reaches for it, and she pulls away. “I don’t have time to explain right now Mustard. I’ll tell you later—if you promise not to tell anyone. But right now we have to go in the museum.”

“Why is that? You want to at least tell me that much?”

“Because I think he is in there.”

“Yeah. And what makes you think that?”

“Because the lamp showed me.” She says holding it tight against her chest. “Now come on.”

They run up the steps to the main entrance. People are lined up at a ticket window, others milling around the front doors, a few children running around playing tag while their parents wait in line.

Maddie points out the ticket window to Mustard, “We buy tickets over there.”

Mustard squints his eyes to read the ticket prices listed by the window. “Screw that. I’m not paying ten bucks each. C’mon.” He grabs her by the arm and pulls her with him towards the main door. “Wait here for a minute. You want to get in there, you do what I do. Got it?”

“But we have to pay—“

He thumps her in the shoulder, startling her. “Tag! You’re it.” He shoots into the cluster of other kids running around the line. He waves at her to join him, so she tucks the lamp tightly under her arm and runs into the fray uncertain what this is supposed to accomplish. They chase each other back for a couple of minutes, even the dog joining in the fun, as they run around the other kids.

She can’t believe Mustard wants to play, especially at a time like this. Just then, he grabs her and yanks her to a stop. “C’mon,” he says, suddenly serious. She notices the other kids are all filling into the door with their parents and Mustard leads her in after them. They are just through the door when the person at the ticket window yells to them. “Hold it, you guys!”

Maddie stops while Mustard presses on ahead, egging her on. She puts up her hands and turns around.

“No dogs allowed.”

She looks down and notices the dog still by her side. He looks at the guy in the ticket window then back to Maddie. She kneels down in front of him. “Can you wait for me here? I’ll come back in a little while. I promise.” The dog pants and sits in front of her. “Good boy.” She pats him on the head and runs inside where Mustard is waiting for her.

“Hey, you can’t just leave your dog alone out here…!”

Maddie and Mustard quickly lose themselves amongst other people in the museum, leaving the flustered ticket seller trying to shoo the dog from his ticket window. Maddie waves at him as they disappear from view.

Maddie looks around intently, awed by the size of the museum, the immense displays of animals and their habitats, but she is looking for something more specific and doesn’t have time to admire everything. She turns around to see Mustard having stopped some distance behind her, apparently awestruck by the place. She walks back to him. “I thought you said you’d been here like a dozen times before.”

He turns away from what has his attention, to look at Maddie for a brief moment before turning back to the spectacle around him. “So what. Maybe I have and maybe I haven’t. I can still be impressed.”

“Well, let’s keep moving.”

He falls in step behind her, “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Wait, you said you knew where he was.”

“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t…”

“I swear Maddie. This better not be a wild goose chase.”

They move through different rooms, traveling through different eons in time: the Jurrasic, the Triassic, through different geographies: deserts, tundras and oceans, finding themselves finally back in the present space and time at the front of the museum where they had began nearly thirty minutes earlier.

Mustard stands with his hands on his hips scowling at Maddie. “Nice museum. I’m glad I wasted twenty bucks and risked my neck to come here and see it.”

“Shut up Mustard. I didn’t ask you to come. I would have been fine all by myself.”

“No you wouldn’t. Besides there’s no way I was going to let you run around throwing away my money.”

Maddie grips her backpack, getting angrier with him by the minute. Maybe letting him come had been a mistake. “Fine. Whatever. You have your money so now you can go back.”

“Yeah right, like I’m ever going back to Gladstone’s. I told you I’m done with that place.”

“Yeah? So where are you going to live then, Mustard? You going to move in here?”

He stares at her belligerently. “No. This place isn’t far enough away from you.”

“Well, where ever it is, maybe you should just go there now!”

“Good idea. Good luck getting back to the Home for Losers, all by yourself Maddie. I’m out of here!”

He pushes past her, towards the main doors, leaving Maddie in the of the vast space of the lobby, her eyes blurring with tears. She looks down at the floor, feeling completely defeated and alone. Nothing is going right. Not today. Not yesterday, not last year or any year since her family left her at the Home. Why did they do it? What was so wrong with her that no one wanted her? Not even someone as rotten and horrible as Felix Mustard?

She wishes she had a tree to climb, a tree tall enough to take her away from all of this. She looks up at the tall ceiling and stares for a moment at the sight above her, the giant skeleton of the whale suspended from the ceiling, and behind it, the dark windows set high on the wall.

Her voice cracks and she shouts out: “Felix, Felix!!”

She turns to sees him by the door looking back at her. She points up and as he sees what she sees, she yells to him across the lobby, “He’s up there!”

He takes her outside, where they are greeted by the dog who had been obediently waiting. He nuzzles both of them as they sit on the steps. Maddie grasps the thick folds of his fur and buries her face in his neck. When she finally comes up for air, she asks, “Why did we leave Mustard? He’s inside and if we are going to help him we have to--.“

”If we are going to get him, if everything is like you say it is, which I still don’t totally believe by the way, then we have to think this through before we go charging around looking for a bunch of kidnappers.”

“Two kidnappers.” Maddie corrects him.

“Whatever. The point is, they’re probably dangerous. And we’re—“

“Kids?” Maddie interrupts, getting another look of irritation from him. But he doesn’t finish his thought. He looks down at the dog happily nestling between them. “All right, So what was your plan anyway Maddie? How did you think you were going to save him all by yourself?”

She looks at him smiling, “With this,” she says, bringing the lamp forward.

“What is that thing? You keep carrying it around like it’s a baby or something.”

She pulls it back to herself, feeling protective. “It’s a lantern for your information. A very special one. And it’s going to help us save the old man.”

Mustard looks at it suspiciously, maybe with even a touch of fear. “All right, you want to tell me what it does then?”

“I’ll do better. I’ll show you. Tonight. I have a plan.”

“Oh, now you have a plan.”

“That’s right. I do. And the first part is we eat.” She digs into her pack pulling out the foil wrapped sausage, bacon and toast from breakfast. The dog licks his mouth.

“And what about you getting back before they find out you’re missing?”

She looks at him intently, handing him the food. “I made it this far. I’m not going back until I save him.”

He shrugs and grabs some cold bacon.

At nightfall, they round the corner to the Museum, having tried as much as possible to stay out of sight, and scurry up the stairs to the front entrance. Even closed the exterior is still so brightly lit there is little place to hide. They crouch in a shadowed crevice by the gift shop.

Now Maddie is calm and Mustard is nervous. “All right. What’s your plan. Let’s do whatever we are going to do before the cops bust us.

“You sure you want to do this Mustard?”

He nods, his hands thrust deep in his pockets because of the cold. Maddie pulls the lamp out of the coat he had given her to stay warm. “Okay. I need you to trust me now. When I turn on the lamp, I want you to take my hand and follow me in.”

“What do you mean, ‘follow you in’? You think you have a key or something?”

Maddie smiles, “Yes. Don’t I Argus?”

They both stop and look at each other. “Argus?” he asks. Maddie looks back at the dog, smiling up at her attentively. “Yes, I just now remembered. That’s his name. That’s what the old man called him in my room.” She smiles, pleased with herself for remembering, then looks around the street one last time before twisting the base of the lantern, letting the light spill out all around them. “Now,” she says to him, “take my hand and follow me.”

They are inside, the dog sniffing ahead, but for some reason Mustard keeps dragging behind her and she has to constantly tug him forward. She looks back and sees him even more stunned then when they first came in.

“C’mon,” she whispers, trying to take them away from the exposure of the front windows. They settle to another shadowed nook near the bathroom doors, Mustard turned around fixating on the way they came.

“But, =this can’t be—How did we—How did we— “

She hears the footfalls of the one of the guards she saw lock up museum and she yanks him again, this time dragging through the locked bathroom door.

The guard’s feet echo through the door, growing louder, then quieter, Maddie watching him through the illuminated hole in the door as he continues his rounds. Maddie sighs a breath of relief, patting Argus, always at her feet. She looks around for Mustard, not seeing him anywhere.

“Mustard!” She whispers as loudly as she dares. “Where are you?” She hears a moan from behind a closed stall door.

“I—I think I’m going to be sick.”

 She shines the light in front of the stall, shining a hole revealing him crouched on the toilet nearly doubled over, shaking. “Hey--!” he yells, seeing her through the sudden opening.

She backs away, lowering the light. “Keep it down.” She warns him, turning around to see Argus guarding the bathroom door.

“What just happened Maddie? I mean—how did we get here? This isn’t possible—“

“Duh.  Of course it’s not possible. But it’s happening all the same, so just please try to deal with it all right. Otherwise we’ll never find him.” Then she remembers her first experience with the lamp, when she was pushed through the wall, and how Nurse Mary had tried to calm her down. She changes her tone, trying to sound as reassuring as the nurse had. “Okay, just take a deep breath and try to relax Mustard. Take your time.” Time isn’t something they really have, but she leaves him alone all the same, listening to him breath loudly and slowly.

He finally speaks from his stall. “Okay, I think I’m better.” She hears the rustle of toilet paper and suddenly the toilet flushes, the sound echoing off the tiled floors and wall like an explosion.

“Mustard!” she screams as he comes out buttoning his pants.

“What?” he asks, perturbed but suddenly remembering, “Oh, crap.”

Maggie widens the light of the lamp and grabs his hand again and pulls them towards the back wall.

Covering his face with his other arm, he shouts, “Not again!”

“Stop being such a baby!”

They pass through one wall, then another, then through dark spaces, crammed with pipes and panels of wires before finally come out in a dark cement hall. She is about to push them through the next wall when she notices a lit sign over a door. “There,” she says, pointing the ‘Stairs’ sign out to Mustard.

He is shaking when he opens his eyes. “This is really freaking me out.”

She rushes up to the door, shining the light through it to see a stair well on the other side. “These might take us to that high room behind the whale. C’mon Argus.” The dog bolts through but Mustard takes a step back.

“I can’t do it Maddie. Not again.”

She groans to herself, considering leaving him behind. At this rate its going to be easier to do this on her own. But she doesn’t want to leave him alone hear in the dark, anymore than she wants to proceed alone. She looks at the door, trying to figure how she can convince him to just go through when she gets the idea. “Oh, all right.” She focuses the light to a smaller hole, reaching through it to unlock the door from her side. She leans against the door holding it open for Mustard. “Okay, now come on. We have to hurry!”

He looks at her dizzily for a moment, then pushes past her, climbing the stairs after the dog.

They take the stairs to the last flight, a door reading ‘Authorized Personal Only’, with a small sensor next to it. Mustard leans against the wall while Maddie shines her light through it.  She turns to Mustard in muted excitement. “This is it! The room I saw him in”, she whispers to him.

He collects himself and presses against her to peer into the room with her. “Where is he,” he whispers.

“I don’t know. It looks empty.”

She moves the light around, covering as much as the room as she can from their vantage point in the stair well. It’s empty as near as they can tell. Then again she thought his room had been empty too.

Mustard steps back, bracing himself on the stair rail. “You sure about this Maddie? Sure you want to go through with this?”

She looks at him, nods, then shrugs. “Not alone,” she says, feeling nervous now herself.

He nods, as though as much to himself as to her.

“Here,” she says, reaching into the door, “I’ll unlock it for you.”

He grabs her arm, pulling it back inside. “No, don’t. It might have an alarm.” He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes for a moment. “I can do this. I don’t know how. But I got it this time. Hold the light up for me.”

She raises the lantern and watches him slip into the room first. She and Argus follow right behind.