“Hyperventilating Hobbs!” he exclaimed. “A Librarian! Quickly, lad, we have to go! Get dressed; I’ll go steal some food from your foster parents!”
“Wait!” I said, but the old man had already scrambled from the room, moving with a sudden urgency.
I stood, dumbfounded.
Ms. Fletcher? I thought. Take the inheritance? That’s stupid. Why would she want a silly bag of sand? I shook my head, uncertain what to make of all this. Finally, I just walked over to my dresser. Getting dressed, at least, seemed like a good idea. I threw on a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and my favorite green jacket.
As I finished, Grandpa Smedry rushed back into the bedroom, carrying two of Roy’s extra briefcases. I noticed a leaf of lettuce sticking halfway out of one, while the other seemed to be leaking a bit of ketchup.
“Here!” Grandpa Smedry said, handing me the lettuce briefcase. “I packed us lunches. No telling how long it will be before we can stop for food!”
I raised the briefcase, frowning. “You packed lunches inside of briefcases?”
“They’ll look less suspicious that way. We have to fit in! Now, let’s get moving. The Librarians could already be working on the sand.”
“So?” I said.
“So!” the old man exclaimed. “Lad, with those sands, the Librarians could destroy kingdoms, overthrow cultures, dominate the world! We need to get them back. We’ll have to strike quickly, and possibly at great peril to our lives. But that’s the Smedry way!”
I lowered the briefcase. “If you say so.”
“Before we leave, I need to know what our resources are. What’s your Talent, lad?”
I frowned. “Talent?”
“Yes,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Every Smedry has a Talent. What is yours?”
“Uh… playing the oboe?”
“This is no time for jokes, lad!” Grandpa Smedry said. “This is serious! If we don’t get that sand back…”
“Well,” I said, sighing. “I’m pretty good at breaking things.”
Grandpa Smedry froze.
Maybe I shouldn’t play with the old man, I thought, feeling guilty. He may be a loon, but that’s no reason to make fun of him.
“Breaking things?” Grandpa Smedry said, sounding awed. “So it’s true. Why such a Talent hasn’t been seen in centuries….”
“Look,” I said, raising my hands. “I was just joking around. I didn’t mean –“
“I knew it!” Grandpa Smedry said eagerly. “Yes, yes, this improves our chances! Come, lad, we have to get moving.” He turned and left the room again, carrying his briefcase and rushing eagerly down the stairs.
“Wait!” I cried, chasing after the old man. However, when I reached the doorway, I paused.
There was a car parked on the curb outside. An old car. Now, when you read the words old car, you likely think of a beat-up or rusted vehicle that barely runs. A car that is old, kind of in the same way that cassette tapes are old.
This was not such a car. It was not old like cassette tapes are old – it wasn’t even old like records are old. No, this car was old like Beethoven is old. Or, at least, so it seemed. To me – and, likely, to most of you living in the Hushlands – the car looked like an antique. Kind of like a Model-T.
But that was just my assumption.
The point is that many times, the first thing a person presumes about something – or someone – is inaccurate. Or, at the very least, incomplete. Take the young Alcatraz Smedry, for instance. After reading my story up to this point, you have probably made some assumptions. Perhaps you’re – despite my best efforts – feeling a bit of sympathy for me. After all, orphans usually make very sympathetic heroes.
Perhaps you think that my habit of using sarcasm is simply a method of hiding my insecurity. Perhaps you’ve decided that I wasn’t a cruel boy, just a very confused one. Perhaps you’ve decided, despite my feigned indifference, I didn’t like breaking things.
Obviously, you are a person of very poor judgment. I would ask you to kindly refrain from drawing conclusions that I don’t explicitly tell you to make. That’s a very bad habit, and it makes authors grumpy.
I was none of those things. I was simply a mean boy who didn’t really care whether or not he burned down kitchens. And that mean boy was the one who stood on the doorstep, watching Grandpa Smedry waving eagerly for him to follow.