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Time Travel Tuesday
May. 26th, 2020 07:20 amHere is the third and final installment of The Time-Traveling Popcorn Ball! (Here are chapters 1 & 2 and chapters 3 & 4, if you need to catch up.) The book itself will be released next Tuesday; it’s already available for preorder if you want it.
Chapter 5
“Rosie!” I cried. “No, you’re not – ” I hopped off the window seat so fast that I knocked over one of the book piles. “Oh, crap, Angela’s gonna be mad.”
“We’ll put them back,” Rosie assured me, swinging herself inside the room. She looked older than she had yesterday: almost Angela’s age, and Angela’s height too, and she had little gold earrings. But her monkey-like grin was still the same. “Gosh! Your floor is cold!”
“Sorry,” I said, and ran across the room to shut the door so Dad couldn’t hear us – well, hear me – not that he’d be listening.
Turning back, I suddenly saw the room through Rosie’s eyes: the two sagging twin beds from a garage sale, with a suitcase sitting between them for a nightstand, and on top of it a gooseneck lamp so battered that it permanently drooped. Even the white walls looked scuffed and dirty, and suddenly I was ashamed.
But Rosie didn’t seem to notice. She knelt on the floor and took one of Angela’s books in each hand, looking back and forth between them. “Enchantress from the Stars,” she said. “And The Moorchild. These are beautiful. Do you know when they’ll be published?” She dropped The Moorchild and flipped open Enchantress from the Stars. “1970! I’ll be twenty then! Oh please, couldn’t I borrow it?”
“It’s Angela’s! She barely lets me borrow her books, and I live here!”
“Well, I live here too,” said Rosie. “Only fifty years ago. In this same room, though! Maybe there’s somewhere I could hide it, so you could find it, a loose floorboard or…”
( Read more )
Chapter 5
“Rosie!” I cried. “No, you’re not – ” I hopped off the window seat so fast that I knocked over one of the book piles. “Oh, crap, Angela’s gonna be mad.”
“We’ll put them back,” Rosie assured me, swinging herself inside the room. She looked older than she had yesterday: almost Angela’s age, and Angela’s height too, and she had little gold earrings. But her monkey-like grin was still the same. “Gosh! Your floor is cold!”
“Sorry,” I said, and ran across the room to shut the door so Dad couldn’t hear us – well, hear me – not that he’d be listening.
Turning back, I suddenly saw the room through Rosie’s eyes: the two sagging twin beds from a garage sale, with a suitcase sitting between them for a nightstand, and on top of it a gooseneck lamp so battered that it permanently drooped. Even the white walls looked scuffed and dirty, and suddenly I was ashamed.
But Rosie didn’t seem to notice. She knelt on the floor and took one of Angela’s books in each hand, looking back and forth between them. “Enchantress from the Stars,” she said. “And The Moorchild. These are beautiful. Do you know when they’ll be published?” She dropped The Moorchild and flipped open Enchantress from the Stars. “1970! I’ll be twenty then! Oh please, couldn’t I borrow it?”
“It’s Angela’s! She barely lets me borrow her books, and I live here!”
“Well, I live here too,” said Rosie. “Only fifty years ago. In this same room, though! Maybe there’s somewhere I could hide it, so you could find it, a loose floorboard or…”
( Read more )
