THIS IS CHAPTER 1 OF THE SECOND BOOK IN THE DANGER GIRL SERIES
Chapter 1: Danger Is My Middle Name…for Real!
What whacked-out family passes down a middle name ‘Danger’ to her only daughter? I always thought Mom made that up, like she makes up all her best-selling mystery novels.
Mom never gets tired of asking, “Veronica Danger Powers, don’t you just love your name?” She admires how she could ever have thought up such an impressive name. Mom even says it dreamily, with a sigh at the end, and her arms swing up dramatically as if she were conducting an orchestra.
Newsflash: Mom really is a drama-queen! She’s in her own little world so much that she needs to realize what’s real and what’s not!
Cut it out, I shout in my head, but not out loud. Mom’s big on politeness. However, I do say, “Mom, you’ve been writing too much! You have an over-active imagination. Are you sure you weren’t casting me in one of your mystery novels when you thought up that crazy name you stuck me with for my entire life? Me, your only daughter?”
I have to admit I cringe every year, when I enter a new school and the new teacher says my full name out loud! Kids don’t even laugh at me—they gasp! You can see their mouth’s fall open. It’s like, Oh, God, how could any mother name her only child a weird first name like Ver-on-ick-a! Bad enough, but Danger? What planet did you come from? I can hear them say it, but not out loud, Thank God!
At least Powers is a fairly decent last name. It’s not weird like Bottomfeeder, which I swear is a real last name, cross my heart! We had a Betsy Bottomfeeder in my third-grade class. I controlled myself though, even though I had a million comments for that one. Anyone whose name is, Veronica Danger Powers, has no room to judge.
Newsflash: I do anyhow, and I belly laugh to myself! It’s all controlled though.
Mom is finishing her mystery novel early this year. I am actually in the second semester of sixth grade with my two best friends that I’m going to have for life! IF Mom even keeps her word, just saying, Mom always means to keep her word, but usually doesn’t. But this time, Mom bought a house, right next door from the one we leased on 9 Puddledock Road. Problem though? YES, BIG problem. She didn’t even consult me. I’m happy, don’t get me wrong, but and I say that with great trepidation! My genius vocabulary comes from Mom. It means FEAR, trepidation, did you forget that word already? Lots of fear! It used to belong to Witch Viola Puddledock-Viviano, and now, well, it’s ours—the house, not the name!
Viola left in the middle of the night, after Lils, Jamal, and I solved the real mystery of 13 Puddledock Mansion. It really was haunted! And Viola was actually a witch! But that’s another story. She’s since left, but not before she gave me her most prized possession, an oval mirror which is authentically magic, and really a portal into the future, and maybe the past, who knows since I haven’t had the nerve to figure out how it works yet. But, I know one thing for a fact. It is magic! I saw a scene that frightened me so much I wanted to puke!
Really, you can’t make any of this stuff up! I know because before Viola left on her broomstick—not kidding, read Book 1 if you don’t believe me, she held me prisoner in the mirror until my friends freed me. Thanks to Jamal and LIls, I lived to tell the story. The most harrowing experience of my almost twelve years on earth.
This mirror would freak out any normal kid, but not me! I’m a genius and not easily rattled, as long as I have my mood ring on. That tells me how I feel! I’m good. The mirror looks gigantic, about six feet high, three feet wide, with an old-fashioned stand that is heavy enough to fall through the floor if this house weren’t built so solid. Well, it looks old but pretty ordinary as mirrors go, except when you look into it! There’s absolutely no reflection looking back. I like that, but it freaks out Lils, since she’s one who likes to coordinate everything she wears, and actually see it in a mirror. I don’t care as much, although I love my new teal blue sneakers, and it would be nice to see how great they look on my feet.
The fact it looks like a mirror—well that doesn’t begin to describe the power it holds within! I’m not sure yet, but if Grandma Witch Viola says so, I believe her!
Here’s the freaky part. Witch Viola appeared in the mirror after a black cat burst through the mirror, which liquified into a turbulant mass of electrical charge- straight through, from the inside of the mirror. Am I freaking you out? Well, just wait. I’ve got more to say! Anyway Viola, who’s outside the mirror now with brooms hopping around us in circles, tells me I am related to her—Viola Danger Puddledock is my grandmother!
Well, you can’t imagine the shocked look on my face. Wouldn’t you be shocked if someone told you that? It wasn’t an illusion or some trickery. My gut told me this was real. I felt a surge of love, an instant connection to my past. I knew this was the person I was supposed to trust in finding out about my past and in saving my middle school. Somehow, now, Viola seems softer and gentler than the terror-stricken, snot-nosed witch we all came to fear on Puddledock Road.
I’m hearing the words come out of Witch Viola’s mouth, and I’m speechless.
Newsflash: That absolutely never happens!
She’s now telling me that she knows where my father is, and that he is a Warlock from the Powers Coven, living in another space-time dimension. Don’t believe me? Well Lils and Jamal, my two best friends can vouch for me! They were peeking around the corner that Saturday in November when Witch Viola visited me to tell me of the Danger ahead at Lincoln Middle School. Lils and Jamal were petrified. Heck, I’m usually the one who’s calm and collected. Viola told me that Danger was a family name and Powers was from the Warlock Powers’ Coven. Mind you, Mom told me Dad split when I was a baby, and Mom wasn’t talking about all this stuff!
Newsflash: Do you know what a shock this was to my system! I’m now a wreck.
On my thumb is my mood ring, which Mom gave me for my tenth birthday, and which I cherish because she said my Dad gave it to her at one of those hippy-dippy concerts a hundred years ago, when they first met! Anyway, I thought that was sweet, and, well, I never take it off my thumb, which is the only digit it fits on! It’s my compass of sorts. It changes from aqua blue to onyx black, and every shade in between, depending upon my mood. It warns me if I’m terrified and helps me control my moods. It seems to have some hidden magic in itself. I don’t ever remember seeing this ring as black as the blackest black can be. But it is, today!
I stand statue-still as this witch grandmother of mine recites a chant which Jamal actually recorded on his audio recorder so we could figure it out later on!
Newsflash: I’m not sure I ever want to hear it again. It gives me the creeps!
Here’s what happened, maybe not word-for-word, but close!
Viola holds my hand in hers, which is creepy in itself. I feel a power-surge, an electrical transfer of some kind, an instant connection with this woman, my Grandmother: “Use your Powers, Veronica, to see what I see,” she says.
Translated: I’m thinking now, that my last name Powers, means I have some magical Powers I don’t yet know about! Could my last name be that meaningful, or am I just going insane?
The Circle complete, as the brooms circle round,
Spinning, electrifying, crashing into the ground
Let it be known, thy sweet little witch,
Of magical powers bequeathed thee, of which,
You are the key, my dear granddaughter, ‘tis thee
Bestowed with THE POWERS of magic and telepathy
The power of two is stronger than one
For you are a witch and must bear the scorn
For THROUGH this mirror, therein lies your fate
YOUR SCHOOL IS IN DANGER, your portal awaits
Of what was and what could be,
Past and future, worlds you can see
For you are my granddaughter… I do love thee so,
Wherever YOU go-
I am near, we, the power of two-
For you, my sweet witch, ARE my alter ego
I’m totally freaked and definitely scared out of my wits. Then as Viola disappears back into the mirror, she hesitates, and turns back to me and says the very same thing again: “Use your Powers, Veronica, to see what I see!”
Yes, Danger is my middle name. Jamal, one of my two best friends, calls me Danger-Girl--all the time. He gets me. Jamal, is also in all my advanced sixth grade classes, and the star basketball player on the Lincoln Middle School Panthers. He’s also the most interesting and smartest guy I know. Don’t let him hear this, but he’s pretty close to my genius level! Got to give him credit for his busy life. He’s even taking a photography class and a computer class at the local community college! He just won the sixth-grade science fair for the entire county. And his Mom’s just been promoted to Principal of Lincoln Middle School. He’s become an instant celebrity!
I’m still dealing with Mom, who’s now spending all her time in our ‘new’ old house, the Witch House I call it, the one that Witch Viola left in a hurry in the middle of the night about three months ago. No one’s seen her since. That makes Mom upset since Mom has been rejected by her own Mom, who turns out to be Witch Viola. Coincidence we live on this haunted street? Now, I know why! Mom must have magical powers too, if I do. It only stands to reason. But she hasn’t used them yet. I guess her writing talent is enough for her and being in her make-believe world of mystery writing is her thing.
At least Mom kept her promise when she gave me that mood ring last birthday. She said that my dad had given it to her, and she wanted me to have a part of him. How sweet. So why did he leave then? Isn’t a dad supposed to stay with his family? Anyhow, Mom has more than kept her promise, ‘cause we now own the old Puddledock house, not the Mansion down at 13 Puddledock Road.
The Puddledock Mansion at the end of the cul-de-sac is the one the historical society fixed up with the money we dug up in another time dimension, in the 1950s. It was Jamal’s idea, and a great one, to place all the money and the stocks we found, in the Mansion so the police could find. That’s all in Book 1, too! Jamal just left a note with the money, and now the Historical Society has fixed up the mansion. It looks totally transformed. Puddledock Pond is clear and beautiful too! They even resurfaced the street and planted beautiful flowers on the cul-de-sac.
I’m happy to be living in the same town for the next three years, at least. I’ve moved once each year since kindergarten and now I’m almost twelve. I don’t want to move anymore, except to this old house. Mom’s done a lot of the remodeling herself, and surprised me with a gigantic bedroom closet.
Newsflash: I still have the sparse wardrobe I’ve always had, but I have room to think now!
I have Witch Viola, I mean, Grandmother-Witch-Viola-Danger-Puddledock’s mirror, which she insists is the portal to the future and past. Well, maybe I thought she meant past, cause LIls, Jamal and I have really gone back to the 1950s, to figure out Witch Viola’s life and why she was such a miserable person. Now, I understand. That’s all in Book 1, too!
So, I get the Danger now. It’s crazy but now it makes sense and gives me some connection to my past. I’m fearless, smart, and get into more problems than most kids ever dream about! And now, Grandma Witch has told me about my dad, sort of, that is. I know that my name is not a total fabrication of Mom’s imagination, which freaked me out more than the truth itself.
What really freaks me out now is that my life is as perfect as I’ve hoped it could ever be. I’ve got Lils and Jamal as true best friends, and a Mom who promised to let me graduate from LMS. I even know that I’m related to the Puddledock family who started this town way back in 1791! I feel like I’m home!
In spite of all the good stuff finally happening to me, my gut is telling me that those words that were scrawled in blood red on the oval mirror when my Grandmother Witch Viola left—Terrible Troubles at Lincoln Middle School, well, that was going to happen very soon. Danger is my middle name but that thought terrified me!
So, where does that leave me now? At least my best friends, Lils and Jamal, who, by-the-way, have been through tunnels and time traveling and counterfeiting money-laundering with me, well, they’re true friends.
But this next challenge just might be the most dangerous one yet. I need to convince them to time travel to the future, to a danger so great and fearful that I can’t even imagine-yet!
YOU CAN CONTINUE THIS STORY OF OUR HERO, VERONICA DANGER POWERS WITH ITS ALL ITS TWISTS AND TURNS EITHER BY GOING TO AMAZON.COM AND SEARCHING MARGARET DESJARDINS OR EMAILING ME DIRECTLY AT MARGARETSVIEWS1@GMAIL.COM AND WE WILL INVOICE YOU BY A RETURN EMAIL SHOWING YOUR 30% DISCOUNT AND FREE POSTAGE. WE WILL SEND YOU YOUR COPY WITH SAME DAY MAILING (NO POSTAGE OR TAX TO YOU). EASY-PEASY.
No comments:
Post a Comment