I’m new to this forum, and I’m not sure how open the members are to electronic publishing. I published a novella of about 35,000 words with Wild Child Publishing and I’ve included the first chapter as an excerpt below. Please let me know what you think.
Here is the link for my book on the publisher’s site:
http://www.wildchildpublishing.com/inde ... cts_id=274Chapter One
I watched Mary, a six-year-old neighbor of mine, playing in her backyard sometimes, going between the swing set and the green, turtle-shaped sandbox while I sipped my coffee and stared out the kitchen window. For three weeks I didn’t talk to her, but I met her mother once when some of her trash blew into my yard from the curb during a storm. Some hours later I had been packing it up in a plastic bag, and Denise Watson came outside, saw me, and apologized. We spoke for a minute, introduced ourselves, mentioned the weather, how good it was we’d finally got rain. But for a while that was the only association I’d had with Mary Ellen Watson or her mother.
Early in June several years ago—June 8th, I think—we had a patch of nice weather, the kind where it’s better to leave all the windows open rather than running the air conditioning. I finished shaving right about the time the coffee maker beeped, so I washed my face and headed into the kitchen. The coffee maker sat next to the sink where I could look out the window and pour a cup at the same time.
That morning Mary played in her sandbox, her feet hidden under the sand and her jeans rolled up. Two dolls sat in front of her; one of them looked like a weathered Barbie (Mary had apparently taken scissors to the doll’s hair), the other a stuffed toy that reminded me of a Raggedy Anne doll. I enjoyed watching her, the way she changed her voice between high and low pitches to distinguish between dolls and scrunched her face for their emotions.
I slid the pot back into the coffee maker and turned in search of the paper. I suppose I’ll never forget this moment because it was the last peaceful three and a half minutes I’d ever had living in that house.
The sun floated high to my left on a slow rise, a big orange ball hanging above the trees right where it should have been at nine-thirty in the morning. I stood on the porch in nylon shorts and a thin, white t-shirt from my college years, and breathed in the morning air. The sprinkler system chittered in the yard across the street. The tff-tff-tff sound of the sprinkler head is stuck somewhere in the back of my mind forever and will always play as a soundtrack to this memory.
Clouds formed in the west before a deep, blue coastal sky. It was going to be a hot one, they said, ninety-something before noon.
“If you have a pool, you’d better darn well use it before your goose is cooked,” I heard coming from a garage radio. “If you know what I mean.” The DJ laughed along with someone. After a moment they recovered.
Another DJ came on. “After this, we’ll come back with an old school hit from the King, then the Four Freshmen and Aretha Franklin. Keep it cool, ladies and gentlemen. We’ll be right back.”
A red Cavalier passed with three kids in it, windows rolled down and music going. Only a blur in the background. I walked barefoot to the end of the driveway and got the paper, slipped off the plastic cover, stuffed it in my pocket. Another car passed behind me as a whipped cream commercial played over the radio.
Tff-tff-tff.
The headline had to do with a state scandal involving the mishandling of a pension fund. Jimmy White—our governor in those days, if you’re not familiar—swore his innocence in the disappearance of a state-managed sixteen million-dollar fund, even said he thought the money was safely invested in corporate bonds. I skimmed the article on the way up the driveway as the sun beat down on the side of my face. Another car passed, slowed, and stopped at the curb a few houses down.
I thought about my own investments just then, wishing that I had had sixteen million dollars to lose. White would give up his job over this. There’s no way a man can lose that much money and slide. He had a year and a half left in his second term, and according to the column, the VA House had already hinted at impeachment. Besides, this wasn’t the first time he’d screwed up. He’d misreported his taxes the year before and lied about it. And had a fling with an intern.
I rolled the paper and stuck it under my arm as I stepped onto the porch. That’s when I heard Mary. I didn’t know it was her immediately, but I knew after she yelled the second time. I had never heard her say anything so loudly. I waited with my hand on the doorknob and listened for her to yell again. Just to be sure.
After the third time, I couldn’t tell if it was a tantrum—is it possible?—or if some pervert was trying to put his hands on her. I remember not giving that idea more than a thought. I threw open the door and ran through the house, setting my coffee on the counter on the way by; the newspaper sailed across the living room.
My hand reached for the plastic handle on the screen door to the patio. I pushed it sideways, and it wouldn’t budge, then used both hands and yanked on it a couple of times. She screamed again, “No!” on the verge of sobbing before I realized the door was locked. I swore and got it open.
She sat in her sandbox wiping her face with the back of her arm. Her cheeks shone with tears, her face covered in sand as if she’d dragged her whole head through it.
She ran out of breath, and her face turned a dangerous shade of scarlet. Her whole torso began to shudder, and she took a long gasp of air. When her lungs were full, her voice came out in a screech going on hoarse. One of her little fists pounded against the green edge of the sandbox each time she screamed that one word: “No! No! No!”
There was no one else around. I wanted to go over there, but I didn’t know if it would be okay to do that. Where was her mother anyway?
I searched the yard—my yard, her yard, the one a few doors down—and didn’t see anyone. I cupped a hand over my eyes to block the sun and looked into the bushes, expecting to see an arm or a face hunkered down in the landscaping that ran along the property line.
“No!” she yelled again. “You stop it! Do you hear me? Go away!” She pointed at someone that should have been a few feet from her…but she was alone.
She must have been talking to someone.
“I don’t like you anymore! Go away! Go away now! You’re not my friend!” No reply came, just the breeze blowing and leaves rustling. She hunched now on her knees and kept that rigid finger pointed, a frown on her face, just staring at nothing.
The wind calmed briefly. I watched her watching nothing for an eternity. Tff-tff-tff-tff-tff came between the houses in a small echo. I wanted to say something—and where was her mother?—but didn’t. By the time I realized my hands were rolled into fists she had lowered her arm, and her little mouth softened to a pout. She sniffled and rubbed her eyes to wipe away the tears welling there.
I took a calming breath and eased my hands into my pockets. Before stepping back inside the house, I thought I heard something, something like a person running in the grass. It may have been the breeze, but didn’t really sound like the breeze. It sounded like a dull, flatfooted pounding through the yard. I looked over there again and didn’t see anyone, and Mary had returned to her dolls.
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