TERRIBLE TROUBLES AT LINCOLN MIDDLE

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

The power of two is about whom you were born

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,

The power of two, I shall guide you

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.

 

TERRIBLE TROUBLES AT LINCOLN MIDDLE

 

Chapter 2: Crashing through the Mirror

 

Two little sentences are about to change our lives.

 

“It’s about to happen.” I text Lils and Jamal at the same time. “My closet, right now,” I text.

 

That feeling in my gut, that intuition that Mom says I have as a magical gift, tells me that I’ve figured out the puzzle, how to open the portal within the oval mirror to the future. A portal that might help us save Lincoln Middle School from the terrible troubles that it’s about to face, according to my Grandmother, Witch Viola.

 

Within 5 minutes, Lils, Jamal and I are sitting cross-legged in front of the mirror, staring at an image, flash-frozen in time. I look horrified. I can’t remember it --since it hasn’t happened yet. It’s in the future, my future and Lincoln Middle School’s future.

 

“That’s me,” I say quietly, stomach churning, but knowing what’s about to happen. “See those teal blue sneakers peeking out from behind that stage curtain in the cafeteria? See me hunched down and peeking around the curtain? That’s where we need to be. We need to fix the terrible troubles my Grandmother, Witch Viola, told us was coming. And we need to go now. Through the magnetic force-field into the future.” I see the panicked looks on both Lils and Jamal’s faces.

 

“Now means-- no thinking about it. Now means, now.” I know I isn’t making much sense. In fact, I’m rambling, which is unlike me, and almost incoherent. I’ve spent hours, cross-legged, sitting in front of this oval mirror, figuring out the secret to unlocking the portal to the future.

 

“OK, Danger-Girl,” says Jamal. “But how did you get this image of our school cafeteria on the mirror? And what does it mean?” Jamal’s the question guy. We don’t have much time.

 

“I remembered just where the Witch tapped on the mirror and how she tapped. She had a rhythm and a loud and soft tapping that I haven’t been able to get out of my head. I’ve been practicing, a long, long time, but I didn’t touch the right spot on the mirror, or get the correct rhythm to my touch. My tapping was all wrong.

 

Until, I remembered Viola actually tapped five times. I played it over and over in my mind. I played around with the sounds of her tapping, since I have a photographic memory.  I remembered the tapping was different. It wasn’t as random, as I thought at first. Finally, I figured it out!  Ter-ri-ble troub-les!  And up popped this image of me in the school cafeteria, sometime in the future. It’s the same image that Witch Viola showed us, right before those blood red words she scrawled over the mirror—Terrible Troubles at Lincoln Middle School!

 

Ter-ri-ble troub-les is what I tapped, just like it’s pronounced! Listen! Hard tap, light tap, light tap. Then Hard tap, light tap. The emphasis has to be on the hard taps but they are not of equal value. Hard tap, light tap (ter-ri-ble); Extra-hard tap, light tap (troub-les). That’s what I wasn’t getting, the extra hard tap on the second word. When I adjusted the tapping strengths, that’s when it worked! I’m jumping up and excited about my discovery.

 

Newsflash: You’d think they would have been more excited for me! After all, I am the queen of genius! But I don’t say that out loud—none of it!

 

“OK, genius,” says Lils, and she exaggerates genius, cause she’s sick and tired of hearing it from me. Lils is a fashionista who’s wearing a matching outfit, shoes and jewelry to coordinate. I’m staring at her, incredulously, as she makes fun of me. “So what?” Slowly and deliberately, “So…what?” she asks again. “That image tells us exactly nothing. All I see is our school cafeteria. I see what is presumably your teal sneakers, your profile peeking around the curtain, the hallway, which is empty, and the cafeteria which is also bare. Nobody, nothing going on,” Lils says.

 

“That’s not the point, Lils,” I say, frustration getting the best of me. “Don’t you guys get it?” I figured it out, but before I could get the words out, Jamal, genius-boy, and I’m being serious, has it all figured out, too. And in more detail. Lils is still shaking her head, nodding back and forth with that ‘you guys are crazy’ look!

 

“Yes, Danger-Girl, yes!” Jamal continues, “Don’t you see, this code opens the Portal to a scene of some kind, being played out somewhere in the school. This sequence of tapping opens the Portal to the exact time and place that we need to be. Witch Viola, sorry, your grandmother, was hoping we would see it.”

 

“Soooo….what are we supposed to do now?” Lils is always cautious. “Want me to call my Dad and tell him about this development?” Lils’ Dad is Officer Sharp, the cop in town. He’s always protective of his only child.

 

“NO,” Jamal and I both yell, at the same time. We don’t want to complicate things. Besides, I don’t think it will be that complicated at all. What could possibly be that terrible at our middle school? The worse thing that ever happens is when someone fights over someone’s girlfriend or a locker is vandalized. That’s mostly seventh or eighth graders. Sixth graders lead pretty boring lives, unless you count the end of the year dance that’s coming up in June.

 

“Let’s go on the count of three,” I say. Let’s go forward-- to the future-- to whenever it is, whatever this terrible thing is…that’s going to happen. Jamal, make sure you have your phone; Lils, you too, just in case we get separated!” Remember, Jamal how you got me out of the mirror when I was imprisoned by Witch Viola? Let’s get in that same position. Remember you held the palms of your hands firmly to the mirror?” I think that’s the key. Get our electrical charges stimulating the mirror with our bodies, and the mirror will melt and swallow us into the future. To the exact scene playing out in the mirror.” I am sure of it. Well, I shouldn’t have been such a know-it- all. I’d come to regret that, but I couldn’t help myself.

 

“ Remember, time, itself, doesn’t work the same way it does in the present. Count on a disconnect between seconds, and minutes. Time is all messed up through the portal. Our phones should help. That will tell us “real” time in the current present. Then we will all be synched.  Text if you need help. Video if possible, or audio-record whatever you see or hear happening. It’s probably some kids fighting over something ridiculous,” I say.

 

“I’m in! As long as I’m home before my dad gets off work.” Lils knows she is all her dad has since her mom died several years ago. And she doesn’t want to disappoint him.

 

Jamal reminds Lils just what they had done to bring Veronica catapulting out of the mirror. “Let’s place our palms and fingers securely on the mirror and visualize all three of us on the inside of the mirror, at that exact spot,” says Jamal confidently. 

 

All of us,  Jamal, Lils, and I, place the palms of our hands firmly on the mirror. “Now, visualize, using your Third Eye, remember? Remember how we did it last time, to free Veronica, Lils? But this time, picture us inside the freeze-frame where Veronica is behind the stage curtain. Remember, the mind’s eye is the third eye. Close your eyes and visualize

in your mind’s eye, our being in the cafeteria on this future date--as hard as you can,” pleads Jamal. We stand close together, palms on mirror, for what seems an eternity, but patient and determined to follow the plan.

 All of a sudden, a powerful force-field of energy  hurls us forward, sucking us into a whirling tornado, disorienting us. And I’ll be honest, I puked up my entire stomach of Poptarts.  With a raging force we land—into the future, the one that doesn’t exist yet, the one that will bring us into a terrifying reality, and from a place we might never return.

 Just as before, Jamal, Lils, and I feel a tingling in the  palms of our hands, a searing, burning sensation. We land, face down on the floor, none of us in the same place, scattered about,  randomly! This was something we hadn’t counted on.

 

Turns out, this isn’t random at all. We are each in a different location, each where we are supposed to be on that day, at that moment in time. Our plan worked until we felt like the force-field of this future, baring down on us with an intensity and ferocity we had never felt before. I could barely catch my breathe. And there I am, alone, behind the green stage curtain in the cafeteria. It must have been well after lunch. All the tables and chairs are stacked in order, and the gleaming floor reflect the sunlight streaming in from the front doors of the school beyond the cafeteria and empty hallway.

 

This wasn’t the way I planned it. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be! My gut’s churning like the inside of a washing machine on the spin cycle! What happened to my best friends? I fumble for my phone and realize I had tucked it securely, deep into my jean pocket. But as happy as I am to have my phone, I’m beyond horrified to realize, that the intensity of the wind knocked my glasses into some kind of cyberspace, God knows where they went. Without my glasses, I am literally blind as a bat.

 

I can’t see, and I’m frozen behind the curtain trying to sort out how I’m even going to text when I can’t see a thing. Out of nowhere, I hear the sound of footsteps. Someone is racing through the cafeteria in a panic, as three sounds ring out—Boom, Boom, Boom! I know what that means!

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.

13 PUDDLEDOCK RD IS HAUNTED

 Chapter 1  Welcome to My World!

 

 “You look like a hurricane just blew through and ate you up.” says my Mom, always ready to tell it like it is. Newsflash:  I don’t even care. Well, maybe a little, but it is what it is, right? She’s constantly trying to make me feel better when she tells me flat out: “You don’t look too bad, just a little disheveled,” as if that were a compliment. I must admit, I had to look that word, disheveled, up in the dictionary, but that’s the way Mom is.  “Learn a word a day, and by the time you’re my age, you’ll be brilliant!” That’s what my Mom tells me all the time. I must be a walking dictionary by now!

 

I don’t think I’ve ever tried on clothes in a real store, in my entire life!  Everything Mom has ordered has come, straight from Amazon, online. Mom doesn’t have time to shop in real stores.  She’s says she’s  ‘Old School’. Newsflash: Taking your daughter to an actual mall to try on clothes is old-school.  You’d think she could at least take a break from her writing and take me to a store, any store! 

 

“I’m on a deadline,” is her standard reply, with that pouty look and her hands gesturing as she pretend-types in the air!  I can see it in my sleep. It’s so…not…worth…arguing.  Besides, with Mom, I always lose! So, Mom makes me wear everything twice, once regular side out, and the next day, inside out! “No use spending time washing a dirty shirt, when it’s perfectly clean on the other side,” she says, as if that were a brilliant idea.

 

I have to say, I kind of see her point! Especially since I wash my own clothes now. Actually, I’ve been washing and drying my own clothes for the last two years, ever since I was nine years old! I’m better at it then Mom, but I’d be the last person to tell her that.  She’s got a kind heart, but  she lectures at me all the time— …on and on…blah…blah…blah…about everything!

 

She picks on me whenever she sees me, which is not too often, since I try to keep out of her way most of the time. Mom’s a mystery writer, and I’m an only child.  Translated: She only has me to pick on since it’s only the two of us.  Dad left the minute I was born. And she refuses to talk about him, no matter how many questions I ask her! She replies: “You’re my love child!”

 

She writes  upstairs  in her study, with those puky, pea-green, velvet window drapes that go from ceiling to floor. Their old; their dirty! Her desk is centered between the drapes, overlooking Puddledock Pond, a brown sludgy pond with green, slimy stuff floating on top.  I call it frog throw-up. 

 

She writes for days at a time! With a bunch of best sellers, and a deadline to get this one done, I feel like she’s living in her own warped version of reality! And I’m not a part of it, not one little bit. Don’t tell her that though. I know she thinks she’s going to win some award for Mother- of -the- year.  Newsflash: Just being home every day doesn’t have anything to do with raising kids!

 

I think she figures, that at my age, I can fend for myself.  She would be right about that, since-- as of now-- we’ve moved seven times, once each year of my life, since kindergarten! She says she doesn’t want to ‘disrupt my education’ by moving during the school year.  “It’s bad for your brain to disconnect from your school until the end of the school year,” says Mom. 

 

I say back—“Are you freaking kidding me?  I’m so disconnected now, I don’t remember what the name of my current school is!”  I try to reason with her, but-- nope, there is no reasoning with a crazed Mom! Apparently, her desire to write outweighs my need to have friends and a real home!

 

 “I can’t write my novels if the location is all wrong,” says Mom, always with dramatic gestures, as if she were actually a character from her own novel.  “I’ve got to feel the place, the vibes,” she shouts. Translated:  She’s feeling guilty about ignoring me. Maybe I’m getting to her. No, she’s too wrapped up in her own imaginary world.  No more explanation ever!  No matter how hard I plead my case.  

 

Kids cringe when they ask me where I live, so I quit answering that question! Puddledock Road, is a disgusting street with weeds edging the tar and popping up in the cracks where the whole road is disintegrating. This is Mom’s idea of inspiration.  This run-down street on the edge of nowhere, with its run-down houses and dead-end street must really inspire her!  Her crack-brained schemes inevitably lead to creepy towns where she drags me, her only child, kicking and screaming, alone, without any friends!

 

I scream out loud,  so loudly my brains rattle:  “I HATE IT!”

 

Mom’s famous, pretty-much everywhere in the country!   She’s been on the New York Times best seller list a gazillion times. Translated: That means dragging me on book tours all over the country, mostly during the school year.  Not to brag or anything, but I’ve got the highest IQ of anyone in the seven schools I’ve attended in the last six years. But even I need to attend enough days to pull off an “A”.  Which, by the way, I could do in my sleep!  No bragging or anything: Just fact!

 

Puddledock is a totally small town with absolutely nothing going on!  “Better to go where I’m not recognized,” says Mom.  “That way I can concentrate without a bunch of paparazzi lurking around every bush!”  Now, that’s creepy.  And don’t think I haven’t seen my share of crazy people lurking in bushes, waiting for a chance to take her picture and upload it to Instagram, Snapchat, you name it!

 

All in all, weird as she is, in some ways,  she’s a pretty cool person.  She calls herself eccentric. “You take after me,” she insists. At first, I thought that was gross, just plain crazy!  Her style of parenting, if you can even call it that—well, it’s odd! But now, I see the resemblance. I might be eccentric too. I get it! I’m willing to concede that. Time will tell!

 

Unfortunately, and I say that emphasizing unfortunately, I live right next door to snoop doggy-dog, my creepy neighbor, Viola Viviano.  Viola is really, really old and I mean, maybe 60 years old! She peeks out from behind those lace curtains of hers and lurks in the shadows where she thinks nobody can see her.  But I’ve caught glimpses of her long, crooked nose with  those two large nostrils that flare up like a balloon—in and out —whenever she gets excited about something, which is all the time!  Flap…flap…flap…faster…faster…faster! Newsflash: I swear she’s going to explode some day! I sure don’t want to be around when that happens!

 

Lurking in the shadows isn’t enough for Witch Viola which is what I call her now. When you hear more creepy stuff about her, you’ll understand why!  She plops herself right down in front of the window to watch everybody’s every move in our neighborhood!  And believe me, there’s not many people in this neighborhood.  Which makes me wonder just why she lives here. And it’s pretty creepy the way she stares at my Mom and me! It creeps me out. Not Mom; she smiles like she has pity for her or understands her, or something.

 

Witch Viola even watches dogs and their owners who walk down this dead-end road, to make sure the owners pick up their dog’s poop! Viola is obsessed about poop! Viola is the poop patroller who screams out her window when the dogs poop all over the place. “Pick up your dog’s poop or I’ll call the police,” she screams out the window in that raspy, low voice.

 

Newsflash:  They never do-pick up the poop--, ‘cause nobody cares about dogs crapping on  Puddledock Road. There’s poop positively everywhere I step! 

 

I can’t get away with anything when Viola’s home, and that’s most of the time since she has some sort of a disorder going on. Mom just shakes her head and says: “Be kind, Veronica Danger Powers. Someday you might be just like her, too.” Mom is too kind and understanding. She seems to actually like Witch Viola. I’ll never know why! Unless Viola is going to be a character in her next book!

 

“No chance,” I scream back.   I don’t want any kind of a disorder. I think hers is all in her brain, which is why I keep my distance. Besides, rumors about her may be true:  They say she’s a witch! No kidding! I’m not the first one to notice that. Cross my heart, on my grandmother’s grave.  That is…if I had a grandmother.

 

I mean, Viola is a card-carrying, bonafide witch!  She’s got a collection of brooms, really! You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried! Which (no pun intended) she keeps in plain sight on her porch.  I know for sure. I’ve seen shadows at night outside my bedroom window; something or someone floating by, crossing the moonlit sky, over Puddledock Pond.  Brooms and all!  And that’s why I keep my bedroom door and windows locked at all times! Newsflash: No one, and I mean no one, is getting into my room in the middle of the night!

 

My best friend this year is Lily-Lou.  The Lou stands for Louise.  To avoid snoop doggy-dog, we sneak around the back of Viola’s house to the blind spot, where she doesn’t have any windows.  That must drive her nuts! Then we stick to the shadows through the bushes to get to my house.

 

Mom sure outdid herself, when she leased this two-story Victorian house straight out of a horror movie, on Puddledock Road, the most deserted, scariest, spookiest road on the planet.  She says in order to write her mystery novels she needs a run-down house in a run-down neighborhood for inspiration! Jackpot!  I know it sounds strange  but, trust me, there have been worse places we have lived before Puddledock Road! 

 

All the houses on Puddledock Road face the pond, a dark black scummy, slimy pond. I’m not allowed to swim there because of the high algae count, or to play on the docks since they’re all splintered and rotting. Newsflash: I do anyhow.

 

Mom doesn’t have a clue what I’m up to once she starts writing her mystery novel. But that’s nothing new. The same thing happens every single year. Talk about predictable!  She’s really into the novel now, and her hands are just flying over the keyboard a mile a minute.  But, sometimes she asks me for help! I give her clues to help her create her plot.  She’s impressed with my creativity and my wild imagination. Newsflash:  Most of my ideas come from real life. No joke! Mom doesn’t even know the half of it!

 

Rumor has it, at Lincoln Middle School, where I go, that Puddledock Road is haunted! Everybody knows it! Whenever I tell the kids where I live, well, they whisper to each other so I can’t hear them. They just can’t believe anybody would let their only child grow up there. They don’t realize that everything in our lives depends upon when Mom finishes her novel. We’re half-way there now! Next year, a new location.

 

Now, to the greater question! My name!  I can’t figure out why Mom named me Veronica Danger Powers.  I’ve been stuck with it for 11 years now, And, she won’t tell. Says she wants to forget her past. Mom says she loves the name Veronica! “It just rolls off your tongue,” she keeps telling me.  “It’s almost musical,” she says. “Can’t you just hear the musical tones,” she says, not really asking, ‘cause she already knows the answer.  I hate it!

 

My friends used to call me Ronnie, since that didn’t seem as bad to me. In fact, I insisted.  But my mom had a fit. It’s not worth listening to her lecture, so back to Veronica! And Danger is really my middle name! Cross my heart!  Mom says it’s a family name.  How can I be sure? She never does talk about my grandmother or any other relatives, no matter what.  Newsflash: She’s not talking! But someday, I’ll find out!

 

I suspect she makes up all those stories about me, because, maybe she has something to hide. Translated:  I’ll find out someday, Mom! Just you wait! You can’t keep secrets about who I am to yourself.  But I never say that out loud to Mom. It would devastate her!

 

Just like all her fiction books with the weird character names!  Her name probably isn’t really Mom!  She’s probably some stranger who snatched me from a polluted river somewhere and just took me home! This novel Mom’s writing has a character named  Viola Powers.  A little like our last name, too?  A little like Witch Viola Viviano? Coincidence?  I don’t know for sure. 

 

It’s the Powers I can’t deal with. Did she make our last name up, too? I don’t know if she’s actually living in my world any more.  It’s starting to creep me out.  Hopefully, this mystery novel she’s working on,  will be done by the end of the school year, and we can stop this “make-believe” stuff!  And since her novels are about danger, well, it kind of does fit pretty well that she would stick me with that middle name.  Newsflash: Thanks a lot, Mom! I’ll figure out what you’re hiding.

 

And I really hate to admit it, but my stupid name really makes me sound more authentic when I’m solving cases. I’ve got this sixth sense about stuff, maybe ‘cause I’m a genius. I’m the one who solves real life mysteries.  Mom solves the ones made up in her own head. Veronica Danger Powers, it is!  Everybody takes me seriously.  My name has a really ferocious sound, and yet musical at the same time. Good God. I’m beginning to sound just like Mom now!

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.

13 PUDDLEDOCK ROAD IS HAUNTED

 Chapter 2    Puddledock Road Is Haunted!

 

“This whole Puddledock Road place spooks me,” says Lily-Lou, my new best friend in sixth grade.  “I purposely avoid this road.  Everybody does!”

 

“Well, that hurts my feelings, Lily-Lou,” I say to her. “If it spooks you out, why do

you come to my house every single day after school?” I ask, almost insulted.  Newsflash:  I’m just as spooked-out as Lily-Lou, but I don’t show it. It’s a sign of weakness!

 

“There’s never anyone home at my house, that’s why,” admits Lily-Louise.  Lily-Lou is my shadow. But she is opposite my looks. I like that.  I bet I tower over her by a foot, well maybe just six inches! She’s a bit pudgy, too! My Mom used to call me ‘string bean’ until I put a definite, complete stop to that nonsense a few years ago. That kind of nickname could be very damaging to my psyche! I can’t afford that!   But everybody at school isn’t as nice as Mom.  Pudgy is a polite word for fat. “Lily-Lou is horizontally-challenged,” Mom says.  Mom has more ways of expressing herself than a thesaurus! 

 

 If you ask the kids in class, you’ll get an earful.  Kids can be cruel. I know that for a fact.  How?  From experience, that’s how!  Lily is large, but she has beautiful, red hair and a million freckles on her face that dance around and re-arrange themselves when she laughs, especially in the creases of her mouth. Plus, she’s a great dresser.  Everything matches.  She has bows and shoes, and dresses that are so coordinated with shoes and matching purses, sometimes I don’t know what to stare at first. But that still hasn’t gotten her any friends. It’s awful to have no friends because of what you look like on the outside. Lils is the most kind-hearted, funny, intelligent person I’ve probably ever met in my life.

 

That’s just what happens to me in every school I go to!  I’m really, really, and I emphasize again, really super smart, but on those days when I wear my clothes inside out (yes, you heard that right), well, I don’t quite make the impression I should.  Newsflash: I could care less what anyone thinks of me. Well, maybe a little. But just a very little.

 

Not so Lils. She really tries hard to hang out with the popular kids, but they crush her every time, with their cruel remarks and disgusting jokes about her weight. They don’t use the word pudgy. It’s “pig-face,” and “blubber butt”, mostly. That infuriates me. Newsflash: I never tolerate that language. I got sent home for punching one of the boys in my class in the nose for making fun of Lils. That’s how I first met Lils, when I decked that kid and he went screaming for his mommy--to the teacher. Mom never punished me. In fact, she told me how “noble” that was. I spent two weeks without my phone though.  Mom wasn’t that sympathetic!

 

My personality, Mom always says, is ‘larger than life’ --  outgoing, clever, problem solver, an easy ‘A’ student, and by the end of the year—poof-- I’ve got tons of friends. No matter what school I’m in-- any particular year!  My so-called friends all promise to text me even though I change schools.  Newsflash:  They never do! I guess it’s true what they say:  “Out of sight; out of mind.”  I haven’t heard from any of them! 

 

But I think Lils is different.  She’s my opposite.

That’s what I like about her.  She balances me off. I bet it’s been years since I’ve laughed so much—until this year, that is.  Lils is as funny as they come!  She’s always googling jokes.  She keeps a journal, where she actually writes down all the jokes she finds funny, especially the ones that make me laugh the most: 

 

Joke #1:

Lils:  What time do you go to the dentist?

 

Me:  I don’t know.

 

Lils:  At tooth-hurty!

 

Joke #2:

 

As told by Lils:

Hi honey.  So I tried to make cookies for the bake sale. But I burnt them.

 

That’s OK, Mom.  Try again, and double check the ingredients.

 

Oh, Lils, I already tried again…it turned out even worse.

 

Oh Mom… you really suck at making things!

 

Well, I suppose that’s true. I did make you!

 

Joke #3:

 

Why did the class clown take a computer to her teacher?

Her mom told her to bring an apple for her teacher!

 

Get the picture?  I’m hysterical, falling down laughing.  I never get tired of her jokes. 

 

I’m sure Lils is one of those friends for life.  We really seem to click on the first day of sixth grade. 

 

Lils isn’t afraid of anything either. Between the two of us, we are like steel—strong, and sturdy, and unbendable.  Her Dad’s a cop in town.  And still he lets her come to my house. With this caution: 

“Be careful on Puddledock Road.  They say it’s haunted there.” He smiles but not the way he usually does.  Lils says her Dad gets the most calls about strange things happening on Puddledock Road; really it’s a Cul-de-sac.  Translated: Puddledock Road is not a road that goes anywhere. It’s circular and you come back out the same way you came into it.

 

Well, as I was saying, Officer Sharp gets more calls for strange things happening than from any other part of town, by far!  The strangest call came a while ago, when a neighbor said she heard ghosts dragging chains behind them- on 13 Puddledock Road, the house at the very end of the cul-de-sac.

 

“That’s insane,” said Officer Sharp, Lils’ Dad.  “No such thing as ghosts!”

But he cautioned Lils and me to be careful when walking on Puddledock Road. Newsflash:  How else does he think I’m going to get home?

 

“Be aware of your surroundings,” said Officer Sharp, with a stern warning.  He says he doesn’t believe in ghosts.  But he sure doesn’t act like it!  He acts like Puddledock Road is haunted! Newsflash:  Lils’ Dad spooks me out with that warning more than any ghost ever would!

 

Besides old crooked-nosed Viola Viviano, and my Mom and me, at 9 Puddledock Road, there are exactly three more houses on this dead-end street. That’s five all totaled!  Three of them haven’t been lived in for at least a dozen years.  They’re all for sale, but the signs have just about worn out. 

 

The house at the very end of the cul-de-sac  is the one that scares me the most. It’s different from the rest.  It’s totally creepy! I’ve even taken pictures of it and texted them to my ‘make believe’ friends from last year. You remember, the ones who never text me back?  Maybe, I shouldn’t scare them. Newsflash: I don’t care though. I hope they’re freaked out! They aren’t real friends if they don’t keep in touch.  

 

So, every once in a while, I still take a creepy photo of that house on 13 Puddledock Road, the one at the end of the cul-de-sac, and I text it to them. I know it gets to them. Their Moms have texted my Mom telling me to stop.

 

Newsflash: No, I won’t!

 

Sometimes, I take a selfie with the house behind me. But always in the daytime.  Nighttime scares even me.

 

The house at 13 Puddledock Road is a giant two-story Victorian house. It overwhelms the other houses on the street with its size. Look up old, creepy Victorian houses, if you don’t believe me. You might just find the one I’m staring at right now!  Its peeling so badly, it almost looks like it’s bleeding. Newsflash: No, I’m just kidding. But its dark, gray peeling paint screams, ‘paint me’. Nobody seems to care. 

 

And it’s boarded up.  I mean not one window or door is opened.  There’s heavy wooden planks screwed into the sills of the doors and windows.  Even the basement windows,  set into that old stone foundation, are boarded up soundly.

 

There’s a large blood red detached barn. Yes, that part of the house is blood red, and peeling! It looks newer than the spooky mansion but sure doesn’t go with it. Someone’s got awful taste, I mumble. By now, I’m actually talking to myself-- out loud. Sometimes that helps me think better, I mean people think I’m a genius anyway. What’s a little talking out loud, right? The padlock’s all rusty and the roof  of the barn is wavy and overgrown by green mold. The property is completely surrounded by thick pine woods.  It looks to me as if each tree were planted to deliberately keep this mansion a secret from the rest of the world. Translated: I must be going mad or something.

 

Want to know  the really, really, really spooky part?   The front porch sags exactly in the middle, forming a smile, an evil smile! When I take a selfie, I sit right in the middle of the sagging porch and smile as if I don’t care the house is creepy. Newsflash:  I don’t!

 

Here’s the crazy part.  The houses all have a direct view of the scummy pond, but this house  doesn’t even have a little view of the pond.  I even asked Mom about it. The sagging front porch is large with a broken porch swing that’s rusted, one side up, the other, half down, dragging its rusty chains on the rotted floor boards of the porch. That’s probably why everyone thinks it’s haunted.  The large rusted swing chain makes a screeching, high-pitched sound whenever the wind blows, even the slightest breeze. That’s cool! That’s definitely scaring the neighbors on the other streets. When it’s really windy, it sounds like a thousand crazed hyenas screeching their dying brains out. That’s what I don’t get. Neither does Lils.

 

“Mind your own beeswax,” (that’s old people talk for business), says Mom.  “If they wanted you to see inside, they’d fix up the old swing and un-board the windows.” 

 

“Strangely enough though, I thought I saw someone hanging around the old house the other day, sitting on the porch steps,” said Mom. When I pressed Mom for more information, I got that circular stuff, “Mind your own beeswax, Veronica Danger Powers.  Mom only uses my whole entire name when she’s  totally frustrated with me. Danger may be your middle name, but I don’t want you getting any funny ideas! Stay out of trouble, do you hear me?”

 

I really, really, really hope it wasn’t me she saw. Translated: I think I’m safe, because she’s blind as a bat without her glasses on.  And that’s exactly where I was sitting, taking my selfie, for my last year’s friends that never text me.

 

By the way, I take after Mom in the “four-eye” department. It really does hurt when the kids at all my schools called me “four-eyes” for real. I talk to Mom every year about getting contacts, but all she’ll say is, “It will make you a stronger person, having to deal with adversity.” Adversity is a fancy way of saying “trouble”. I’m still pressing her for contact lenses. That could be one less thing for kids to make fun of. I’m wearing her down though. Newsflash: I’m going to win this one! By seventh grade I’ll be two eyes again, not “four eyes”.  Although I have to admit that it makes me look as super-brilliant as I really am!

 

“Yes,  Mom,” I say half-heartedly, crossing my fingers behind my back. 

 

“Did you hear your Mom,” asks Lily-Lou? “Wake up, VDP!  I don’t think you heard a word she said. You day-dreaming again? I think she’s worried. I can have my Dad come with us to take a look at that creepy place,” says Lils to make me feel better.

 

“That’s not an option,” I tell her.  “Officer Sharp, your Dad, would tell us in that official police voice:  ‘Don’t you realize that it’s a crime to trespass on private property?’ I’m sure he’s had it with people complaining. But Lils, I know something’s wrong with that house. It’s my intuition, my sixth sense.  I feel it in my bones.”

 

“You don’t believe in ghosts, do you, VDP?” Newsflash: I have to tell you right now, Lils is the only one that can pull off that VDP stuff with me. Everyone else calls me Veronica but her. Lils says using my initials makes me sound important. I’ll go along with that.

 

“Of course not! I don’t believe in ghosts, not even for one minute!”  I shout at Lils in a loud, squeaky voice, so unlike me! 

 

I say to myself, as if I were talking to another person, like I was someone else:  Veronica Danger Powers knows better.  She knows there are ghosts.  She hasn’t told a soul. She’s seen them before.  She knows, somehow, she will see them again.  I am the one I’m talking about. It sounds even scarier than I imagined!

 

I look at Lils.  At that moment I now know that the lie I just told Lils is not working.  Lils is scared.  And deep-down I sense something awful is about to happen.

13 Puddledock Road is haunted!

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.