Below is a preview of Tales From Under the Nook
“Once upon a time in a faraway land…” is a phrase that is said to be used to begin many fantasy tales. However, in reality, very few tales actually begin with “Once upon a time in a faraway land…”. This is one of the few.
However, you should also understand that this is hardly a fantasy tale. If you came looking for a fantasy book, you won’t be disappointed here. All the same, this is not a fantasy tale. These events really happened. However, before you can understand the events in this book, you should probably go read a book called Tales From Under the Crevice. Go purchase a copy. Of course, if you already have a copy, maybe you should purchase another one. It can’t hurt. In fact, you should buy two or three more.
Anyway, this book takes place four days after that book. For those shameless persons who are still reading this even though they have not yet read my other book (shame on you, you shamefully shameless people), this book takes place inside a green ’95 Chevy conversion van towing a trailer that, I’m quite happy to report, is brand new and has been customized with our theatre company’s logo. The utility trailer is filled to the brim with props, sets, costumes, camping equipment, so on, and so forth. The reason the trailer is filled with such strange stuff is because my family (my mother, my father, and a fourteen-year-old novelist and Halloween fanatic) is a traveling theatre troupe with no permanent home. Really. Don’t believe me? Go to www.activated-storytellers.com. The proof is there.
Like I said, this book takes place four days after Tales From Under the Crevice. Our lifestyle often causes us to sleep in the van. My sleeping bag is placed between two seats, with my head underneath the seat that folds out flat to become my parents’ bed. Their blankets hang down over the edge, sealing my head in pitch black.
Anyway, one night I was lying down to sleep in the nook. I had just adjusted my head on my pillow and was dozing off when I felt something tugging on my hair. I turned my head. Nothing was there. I dismissed it as nothing but my imagination and returned to thinking about an interesting dream I’d had the other night involving little green people, a really bad guy, and a very tall tree. I was just drifting off again when I felt another little tug. I rolled over and something scampered across my face. Startled, I began to sit up…
…And I started to shrink. The floor dropped out from under me. I swirled around in nothingness for a moment. Then I landed with a soft plop on my pillow. And then I came to the sudden realization that I hadn’t been dreaming about little green people, a really bad guy, and a really tall tree. Maybe it hadn’t all been a figment of my imagination. I whispered the name of one of the people from my dream just to be sure. “Serrin?”
“Ha!” said the pair of glowing red eyes now bobbing in front of me. “I’m back!”
“Why?” I said. “What happened? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing unusual has happened. We just…haven’t seen you in a while.” I rather doubted this to be true, since Serrin had a knack for concealing ulterior motives.
“A while? It’s only been four days!”
“Days? Zephyr, we haven’t seen you in almost four years!” Then it slowly sunk in. Hadn’t Serrin said something about this last time? Something about how time moves more quickly in the crevice world?
“All right, all right.” I said. “I’ll come down for a visit. But I can only stay for a few days.” Without another word, he dashed off between the small cardboard boxed stored by my pillow. I followed him. We ran under a black metal bar supporting my parents’ bed and around a corner. Then we entered an air conditioning vent in the back of the van, and felt our way along the walls.
And then the wind hit me in the face. I felt the familiar sensation of plunging several stories in pitch black. The crevice world slowly faded into view from the darkness that surrounded us. I was now sliding down the trunk of a giant palm tree a mile high towards a little patch of sand far below. After several minutes, it rushed up to hit me square in the nose. It didn’t hurt in the slightest bit. The sand was incredibly soft. I pushed myself up and jumped to my feet. None of these events surprised me a bit. I was actually slightly used to having little green people interrupt my sleep. And I had experienced this sudden drop into the crevice world once before. But, of course, you would know that if you had read my other book like you were supposed to.
Serrin leaped up and jumped into the water instantly. There I got my first good look at Serrin in four days (years, I suppose). He really had changed. He still wore his purple hair in a part down the middle, hanging down to his cheeks on either side. His ears were sharper, and he was a few inches taller.
“What happened to your face, mate?” he inquired. I peered into the water.
“That would be the footprints of a certain Glunch who scampered all over my face.”
“Oops,” he grinned sheepishly. “Sorry.”
I slipped into the water and washed off my face. I felt a funny, damp sensation as I did this. Like everything else in the crevice world, the water here had strange properties. Namely, it wasn’t wet. Well, parts of it were. If the water was blue, it was wet. If it was green, however, it remained dry. I had just washed my face with water that wasn’t wet. The little patch of sand was surrounded by a mixed river of green and blue that encompassed it. On both sides were lush, tropical jungles. These jungles were separated by the river that split around the patch of sand. I assumed that the river led out to sea.
“Come on, then.” said Serrin. We splashed our way to the opposite shore. He led me through the thick jungle until we came to a bamboo ladder.
“Hey, what’s this?” I asked. “This wasn’t here before.”
“The village transportation system.” Serrin said casually.
“You guys added a transportation system?”
“One of us did,” he said, climbing the ladder. I followed him up. We stood on a wooden platform about thirty-five feet high. A ten foot high wooden pole sat in the middle of the platform. Attached to the pole was a rope that lead into the jungle. A wooden box was attached to the rope by means of another rope. A metal hook attached the box to the platform.
“Here we are,” said Serrin, climbing into the box. “Just room enough for two.” I squeezed in beside him.
“So…how does this work?” My question was answered a little too quickly when he flipped the metal hook. We slid down the rope all too fast, the bottom of the box clipping trees. Then we were crashing through a tangled mess of limbs and leaves. We erupted out of the greenery just under the tree line and sped towards the ground just as we reached the village outskirts. Then we came to a screeching halt. Unfortunately, I was ill prepared for this. I went flying through the air and landed several feet away, whereupon I noticed two things.
The first was that I had managed to land directly in the midst of a young group of girls who appeared to be having some sort of social gathering involving tea. They were staring at me rather awkwardly. One of them had started to take a bite of a cone, but was now rapidly scooting back in fear. The rest followed her example.
Kimara by Kiaya Steele
The next was that the village had been completely rebuilt. The last time I had visited, it was in charred, smoldering ruins because of an intentionally set fire. This time, though, it was rebuilt better than before. The bamboo buildings were clean and fresh, each with an architectural elegance its predecessor had not achieved.
“Wow,” I stammered, standing up. “Who rebuilt this?”
“I did.” replied the one girl who had not instantly shied away. She was casually leaning against a tree, staring up at me. She was about my own age, with deep, calculating purple eyes and blue hair pulled back into a ponytail accompanied by heavy bangs and two long locks of hair that hung down over her temples. A pair of goggles was pulled up over her head. She wore loose, baggy pants and a grimy white shirt, along with fingerless gloves on her hands. “I also designed the transportation system,” she continued. “Although Serrin still hasn’t learned to properly operate the brakes yet.” She shot a withering glance in his direction. Wincing, he came forward.
“Zephyr, this is Kimara, our transportation specialist and engineer,” he said before quickly retreating.
“Engineer, huh? I don’t think we’ve met.” I said.
“We haven’t.” Kimara replied. “But I have seen you before. The last time you were here.”
“Ah,” I said. “Well, yes, um, nice to meet you.” Here I extended my hand to shake. The rest of the girls leaned closer, staring in excitement as to what would happen next. When she shook my hand, they all relaxed visibly.
In a couple of hours’ time I was in the pub drinking slurk with some of my old buddies. You have probably not heard of slurk. This means you have never been to the crevice world, and if you have, you weren’t paying attention. Slurk is a thick, delicious drink, sort of like eggnog. Serrin likes slurk. I like slurk. It would appear that Kimara does not like slurk. She stared at Serrin and I as if we were drinking worms. Instead of slurk, she drank some sort of green tea and sat on the indoor balcony of the pub (which she must have helped build, since it had been a single story the last time I had been there). Serrin and I were talking rather animatedly about what had happened in the time we’d been apart, although we exaggerated several things for the benefit of the group of girls, who had now decided that I was okay after all and had taken to crowding around us.
I was taking a particularly large gulp of slurk when somebody popped up beside me—somebody very familiar. “Long time, no see, eh?” said the slender form that was Bednik.
“Bednik!” I cried. “How have you been?”
“Not so good after Ragnark died, but I’m doing fine now. Where have you been?”
“Up in my world, where I’ve been attending to my…other life.” I said, allowing a moment of silence for Ragnark. Ragnark had been a great friend of ours who had died in battle with a very evil person named Ranook.
Anyway, we sat around drinking slurk with our friend Morn (who lived with different little green people called Galians in the tall red palm tree) into the wee hours of the morning, when we finally shuffled off into the darkness, each going his own way. I found a nice, soft, mossy spot under some ferns and fell asleep. Even though so much had changed, it was great to make a return.
BUY THE BOOK OR ELSE YOU WILL HAVE 20 YEARS OF BAD LUCK!
(Not really, but it's still a good idea to get a copy.)
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