Joey Blake could be in trouble again, he knew, because he remembered his mom waking him up three times. He looked at his clock and saw that his school’s first bell for class was only fifteen minutes away. Realizing this, he catapulted out of bed, pulled his clothes on, ran down the stairs and hurried through the kitchen where his mom had his breakfast serial set up on the table.
Joey said, “Sorry, mom, I gotta run or I’ll be late again,” as he swept a kiss across her cheek and rushed for the door.
She shook her head knowingly, then remembered to reply, “Okay, but be ready for Big Sur this weekend.”
This comment brought Joey to an abrupt halt. He smiled broadly and exclaimed, “Wow, cool!”
Outside, he pumped his fist. He had hoped his dad would make the decision to go down there, but he had looked very preoccupied this week, with his taxes overdue and other problems seeming to weigh on him; he normally spent a lot of time with Joey, but during the last few days he seemed a bit distant; such that their regular bimonthly trip south to rough it in nature seemed increasingly unlikely to occur. Grandpa Karl had been back east visiting friends and relatives for a month, but he was due back to his Big Sur habitat within a couple of days. When they went down to Big Sur was the best fun Joey ever had with his siblings Natalie and Paul and his best friends – Kurt McCarty, twins Frank and Freddie Shapiro and Phil Branson. Joey felt the urge to run in and see if Natalie was home and ask if she knew about this; but then he remembered that she was out of town attending a program for budding biologists, so she wouldn’t be able to come. Glumly, Joey then considered his teenage brother Paul; Joey hadn’t even seen Paul for two days. He thought bitterly, I know he wouldn’t be interested, even if I knew where to find him. As Joey thought this, he felt a wave of apprehension that dampened his elation from hearing the good news from his mom about Big Sur. But he had no time to consider that – he needed to get to school ASAP.
He hopped on his bike and was away, headed for Mason Elementary School in Palo Alto, about two miles from his house, a few miles west of San Jose. The home of Stanford University, where Joey’s dad taught, this town is in the heart of Silicon Valley, the epicenter of California’s computer culture. Joey and his friend and fellow fifth-grader Phil both arrived at a spot half a block from the school, so Joey stood up and pumped his pedals mightily to get ahead of Phil. However, Phil made no attempt to keep up with Joey, disappointing him by not racing to see which of them was faster. Joey screeched to a halt near the main building and Phil pulled up next to him. They always parked next to each other if they managed to arrive at the same time.
“See you at lunch, Phil,” said Joey as he hurried into the building.
Joey’s first class was taught by Mr. Sheridan, who always had a wry quip or two to make about his students’ arrival and their enthusiasm for his subject, which was English. Mr. Sheridan, loved teaching, didactically nurturing and edifying the fertile minds of the children who will manage tomorrow’s America; in his opinion, English was a vital crucible for the critical thinking required to make democracy a success.
Mr. Sheridan spoke this morning about recognizing and dealing with one’s own occasional irrationality; such as getting angry at a tree root after tripping on it, or when the wind blew your hat off your head. As he listened to this, Joey wondered if the remarkable intensity of his own competitiveness was an example of this irrationality. Frank was the only one of Joey’s closest friends who was in Joey’s first class, and sat next to him. Lately, Frank had tried to engage Joey in discussions of brain-teasers that went over Joey’s head. Frank’s dad taught linguistics, so Frank had a substantial proclivity for the vagaries of language. Frank was always coming up with oddities such as neologisms and onomatopoeia. Frank also liked neologisms and words like valuable and invaluable that look like they are opposites but have similar meanings, examples of which are the words flammable and inflammable and claim and declaim. And Frank had recently delved into the repetition of a word immediately afterward in the same sentence, such as was in in a flash, or I got on on May 9th. He also enjoyed creating oxymorons such as humbly pompous, miserable happiness and slightly devastated. One evening, when Frank and his dad were watching a news program, a commentator used the term military intelligence, and Frank’s dad sarcastically called it an oxymoron. Frank’s father told him that a sentence that looked ungrammatical and was barely comprehensible – constructed, for example, as in German grammar in which the verb tantalized before finally making its appearance at the very end of the sentence, could be technically correct.
His celestial companion was waiting for him
Precariously
climbing a sea-side cliff near Big Sur, ten-year-old Joey Blake was as
yet unaware that near his grasp was an object, so odd, mysterious and
alien to earth that it would change his life forever and the lives of
countless others in the next few astonishing days. Reaching up as far as
he could for a handhold it was just there; it had subconsciously lured
him, occupied his mind, and made him find it. It was like he was meant
to see and discover this object of unimaginable power … the power to
change reality.
Time travel and more
This young adult series of sci-fi fantasy novels begins with The Reality Master and continues through four other exciting and amazing stories about time travel and mysterious alien devices. Joey and the reader will face dangerous shadowy criminal organizations, agents of the NSA, bizarre travelers from other times and even renegade California bikers and scar-faced walking dead.
This young adult series of sci-fi fantasy novels begins with The Reality Master and continues through four other exciting and amazing stories about time travel and mysterious alien devices. Joey and the reader will face dangerous shadowy criminal organizations, agents of the NSA, bizarre travelers from other times and even renegade California bikers and scar-faced walking dead.
- Vol 1 The Reality Master
- Vol 2 Threat To The World
- Vol 3 Travel Beyond
- Vol 4 Missions Through Time
- Vol 5 The Return Home
- Vol 2 Threat To The World
- Vol 3 Travel Beyond
- Vol 4 Missions Through Time
- Vol 5 The Return Home
Buy Now @ Amazon
Genre – Science fiction, Fantasy, Young adult
Rating – G
More details about the author
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