CHAPTER 1
The Dream and the Crows
Daniel woke on the glum Saturday morning. His small room was in disarray. Spare clothes and scraps of paper lay about his dusty floor, seemingly scattered with crumbs at the moment. Something odd had awoken him, a very peculiar dream. He had been walking along meadow, carrying what appeared to be a large vermilion feather which emitted large brown sparks every time he whirled it in the air. The dream had seemed excruciatingly real.
A head suddenly appeared in the doorway, which was the large tangled blonde head of his brother Oswald. He could see that he was clutching a large cookie firmly between his teeth.
"Mom says get up," said Oswald, taking the cookie from his mouth and holding an inch from his nose. "It's nearly time to register you at St. Mary's. She says to put on your best things." Oswald backed from the door. He could hear a loud munching coming from his brother down the hall.
Daniel slowly got from his bed, his sheets back behind him. It didn't matter how messy the rest of the room got, Daniel could not deal with his bed in disarray. Daniel sleepily walked through his room, carefully avoiding all objects that could possibly injure him (although most things in his room were dangerous enough to do so). He glanced at the mirror before him. His reflection looked smeared and badly drawn, and would have been so even his brothers had not been squirting strawberry soda at it the day before. His whole appearance seemed a bit off. His nose lay flat at the nostrils, while bulging out in the middle. His cheeks had a very sunken old look to it that carried up to his forehead. This was very odd for a twelve year old boy.
The only good part about his appearance was his eyes. He had thin, sharp eyes, which were clearly his best feature. The were round at the tops and bottoms, but met with a slight curve. They were a very happy accent to his somber, sunken face. They were a dark reddish brown with a small halo of gold around the pupil.
Sluggishly he pushed the gel from bottle on his dresser, and forced his hair to lay flat forward. He went to his closet and pulled a nice white dress shirt from the bar on which the hangars stayed. Slowly he dressed himself accordingly, straightening and tucking where necessary. After he felt he looked decent, he carefully left the room, grabbing his wallet from the TV stand beside the door.
Almost his whole family was bustling around the living room when he arrived. He walked through the generally small room, passing by the large square television. His sister, Ellaine was making a lot of racket as she sat on the floor, fiddling with an old telephone, tugging on the cord until it ripped from the receiver. Daniel paid no heed to her, nor any other of the family, but only continued across the living room into the kitchen
The kitchen was mostly deserted, only his two eldest brothers, Mikey and Silid were their, hunched over the white wooden countertop. They were both crowding around a bunch of bananas, which were no longer in the neat little bundle they arrived in, but were now spread across the counter, two of them seemingly torn ruthlessly in half.
"Dan, c'mere, we gotta show ya somethin'," said Silid, the oldest of the two, his head bowed low to the counter, holding a banana as if it were knife. He had the same brown clustered hair that Daniel had and the strange sad look. Mikey, on the other hand was, well, handsome. He had smooth blonde hair that he slicked forward, ending it in a small ski jump. His eyes were in perfect proportion to the rest of his face, and he looked as if he was always cheerful.
Daniel moved closer to them, seeing what they had been up to. In Mikey's hand was what looked a large bicycle pump connected to the banana with a long pipe. "Ready," said Silid loudly. "Go!" he yelled. Mikey pushed the lever on the and the all heard a loud hiss and suddenly the banana was blown apart with a loud wheezing pop. Silid and Mikey were both laughing hysterically bending their figures back and forth. Daniel chuckled slightly. He didn't exactly feel like laughing. He was nervous about going to school.
Daniel's mom walked into the room, her many hoop earrings jangling as she walked. "Have you eaten yet, sweety?" she asked loudly, giving a threatening look towards the other two boys. Daniel shook his head to show her that he had not. "I haven't had time to shop for cereal, so you can have cookies and milk for breakfast." She walked over to the refrigerator, pulling a large blue carton from it and placing it on the table. Another banana suddenly exploded with a loud pop, raining small chunks of banana across the table. Daniel's mom growled impetuously, seeming as if she should be taken away from any sharp object in the room.
The large clunky family car arrived at the large dull gray building of the school in mid-afternoon. All six of them were scrunched into the thin back seat of the old car. The dull pewter gray of the clouds swirled before them, as if someone was stirring them with a large finger. They could all tell it was going to rain, so Daniel's mother rushed to the back of the car and pulled four umbrella's from the back of the car. They all rushed into the building at top speed, fearing the brutal rain of the east coast.
Inside was even more boring than the dull, blank outside. The walls were painted a very mellow white, making them seem as if the had just stepped into a mental institution. In fact the inner rooms looked exactly like that. There was no color except for the flat stern colors the portraits of very severe looking men and women. Their was no plants, and no other signs of life except for the bored looking registaar, and a few nuns who appeared to be very sullen and dismal.
Daniel pushed past his stocky brother Oswald to see the school before him. His older brothers and older sister (who now lived in the west) had all gone to Drenelbommy School for Advanced Students. He had not been excepted, rather had scored highly on the comprehension's and logic exams, but had failed miserably on the literature awareness exam. He loved reading, but they had given him dull, tedious, informational literature instead of the fun, interesting works that he loved to read, now he was stuck at the worst school possibly imaginable...a catholic reform school. It was mostly the same though. They both had strict teachers and both followed the same boarding school system, except St. Mary's kids could also stay at home if they chose. Daniel actually preferred the boarding part. He rather not stay at his house in which he had to wear his same old shabby clothes and same ruined supplies. This way all the things he could get were right where he needed them to be at all times.
They reached the registaar's desk, his mom holding the forms. A young woman sat at the desk, filing her nails and obviously chewing on a large wad of gum. He black hair was very straight and neat except for the small curl in front, which led down to her heavily over-eyeshadowed eyes. "Can I help you," she said, barely taking a glance at Daniel's mother. Her voice sounded very irritated and bored.
"I am Janice Grimm here to drop off the papers for Daniel Grimmy," his mom said, tipping her shoes forward like a small child might do. She whirled around and pointed at Daniel with the papers locked firmly in her grip. Her head jangled as her hoop earrings collided with each other.
"Hold on," said the woman, letting out a very deep sigh. She put her nail file down and pushed chair up to the large square computer sitting on the desk before her. Her fingers rapped loudly against the pale keys of the keyboard. Daniel was sure that someone much more primitive might find that sound horribly agitating, but most people were used to it. The woman did not speak, but instead just swiped the papers from Daniel's mother and started tapping madly on the computer keys. It went on like this for the next five minutes.
"He is set up," uttered the woman quietly after two more minutes of waiting. "Since he will be lodging with us, he is expected to show up here at noon in three weeks." The woman finished very abruptly. She expertly remover a bit of the paper and thrust the remaining paper into Daniel's mothers hands. With a slight humph, his mother twisted sideways and stormed down the colorless hallways, signaling for her children to follow.
They all arrived home later that evening. They had went out to eat at a small buffet downtown, and were not able to leave due to slight flooding in the lowered parking lots. They all looked very weather beaten, and all felt very tired. Their mother barked at Mikey and Silid to clean up the mess they had left across the counters, so Daniel sat down at the small polished table and watched them scrape bits of banana off the oddest places. It almost gave him a sense of relaxed silence, so much that he fell asleep, right there on his chair.
He slipped into a glittering dream. The whole image before him was blurred and stretched, though Daniel could tell what was happening. He was swooping in on a wide valley, riding an enormous white steed. He leaned forward, looking at the horses face. It had two enormous golden eyes which glittered brightly in the blurry surroundings. The valley, even though blurry, were green and shinny, perhaps from morning dew.
Slowly as he rode on, bouncing abruptly, the place around him materialized before him. He was set in a brilliantly green meadow, surrounded by gigantic brown oaks. The glimmering grass shone brightly before a great violet sky, which was quickly slipping from deep purple to a lighter blue, the stars still glittering wisely among it.
They were riding ever faster, passing through the trees at a breakneck speed that Daniel could not contemplate, for he could not fell the cool breeze or the moist air. Things were developing past the horrizon. Many things were taking shape. He could now see sparkling, lustrous waters far ahead and what seemed like a shadowy mountain. Loud whispers echoed in his ears, inaudible for the most part. He bounced roughly, not able to steady himself. He was starting to think he might be ill if this horse did not ride more gentle.
Great loud screeches came from above. A great flock of crows were soaring soar gently across the sky. The screeching was getting louder and louder, spooking the horse, making it buck up, flinging its mane wildly. Loud bangs emmited behind Daniel.
Suddenly he was shaken awake by a hard, painful whack across the face. He found himself on the cold patterned tile floor, feeling very dizzy. There were a large amounts of black feathers surrounding him, flying around him and landing lightly on the ground. Slowly he inched his face level with the table. A strong urge to throw up suddenly rested in his stomach. Hundreds of crows sat on the table, sputtering quietly, every now and then letting out a loud craw!
He could just picturing his mom walking in a yelling at him for this, some way placing the blame on him. He heard a quiet patter of footsteps over the noisy rustle of feathers. Quickly he took off his sweater and placed it in his hands like a cape, batting wildly at the crows, but they did not move.
His little sister Ellaine poked her head through the swinging kitchen door
"Whatcha doin'," she asked quietly. She could obviously not see onto the table, for she was very small. She stumbled slowly over to a tall chair resting at the table, apparently going to see what was making the noise.
"No Ellaine, no!" Daniel screamed, though in vain, for she was now climbning onto the chair. Her eyes leveled with the table and he could see shock fly over her face.
"How'd ya make...make them birds come?" she asked in a whisper. One of the crows sputtered loudly as it turned and looked at Ellaine, it beady eyes blinky fast. It let out an enourmous caw, spooking Ellaine, the effect was to fall down on the chair.
"Bad bird!" she screamed, hopping off the chair and running out of the kitchen. "Bad bird! Bad bird, bad bird, bad bad!" He could hear her running down the hall, into his mom's room, screaming something strange, and the soothing murmur of his mother's voice, obviously reassuring her. Daniel couldn't stand this. He placed his head firmly on the table, avoiding the crows. He did not want to be blamed for letting the birds in. He picked up his sweater again and started beaying at the crows, who seemed to be avoiding it, even dodging it.
"Come on!" he yelled at the birds. "COME ON!" That yell was so loud he was sure his mom would be suspicious. He let out a loud sigh at the crows, thinking that maybe if he took a passive approach they would go away. Then things got entirely strange.
The table burst into flames. Brilliant blue flames twisted and writhed on the table, seeming not to ignite anything else (placemats, spare scraps of paper, etc.), including the crows, who sat calmly all the same, watching the flames wind around them.
"AHHRRRGGGHHH!" screamed his mother, who had just walked into the room. She ran out of the room, grabbing a fire extinguinsher and fleeting back into the room, spraying the table in an enourmous panic. The white foam mounted on the table, very slowly dousing the flames. The crows did nothing but shaked the foam off their backs.
"You ----," she squealed, panting heavily. "Room...now - NOW!" Normally he would argue that he did not do it or that it was accidental, but he had no words. He was even suprised at his usually very mild mannered mother's frightening attitude. He knew he could not argue his way out.
Daniel woke on the glum Saturday morning. His small room was in disarray. Spare clothes and scraps of paper lay about his dusty floor, seemingly scattered with crumbs at the moment. Something odd had awoken him, a very peculiar dream. He had been walking along meadow, carrying what appeared to be a large vermilion feather which emitted large brown sparks every time he whirled it in the air. The dream had seemed excruciatingly real.
A head suddenly appeared in the doorway, which was the large tangled blonde head of his brother Oswald. He could see that he was clutching a large cookie firmly between his teeth.
"Mom says get up," said Oswald, taking the cookie from his mouth and holding an inch from his nose. "It's nearly time to register you at St. Mary's. She says to put on your best things." Oswald backed from the door. He could hear a loud munching coming from his brother down the hall.
Daniel slowly got from his bed, his sheets back behind him. It didn't matter how messy the rest of the room got, Daniel could not deal with his bed in disarray. Daniel sleepily walked through his room, carefully avoiding all objects that could possibly injure him (although most things in his room were dangerous enough to do so). He glanced at the mirror before him. His reflection looked smeared and badly drawn, and would have been so even his brothers had not been squirting strawberry soda at it the day before. His whole appearance seemed a bit off. His nose lay flat at the nostrils, while bulging out in the middle. His cheeks had a very sunken old look to it that carried up to his forehead. This was very odd for a twelve year old boy.
The only good part about his appearance was his eyes. He had thin, sharp eyes, which were clearly his best feature. The were round at the tops and bottoms, but met with a slight curve. They were a very happy accent to his somber, sunken face. They were a dark reddish brown with a small halo of gold around the pupil.
Sluggishly he pushed the gel from bottle on his dresser, and forced his hair to lay flat forward. He went to his closet and pulled a nice white dress shirt from the bar on which the hangars stayed. Slowly he dressed himself accordingly, straightening and tucking where necessary. After he felt he looked decent, he carefully left the room, grabbing his wallet from the TV stand beside the door.
Almost his whole family was bustling around the living room when he arrived. He walked through the generally small room, passing by the large square television. His sister, Ellaine was making a lot of racket as she sat on the floor, fiddling with an old telephone, tugging on the cord until it ripped from the receiver. Daniel paid no heed to her, nor any other of the family, but only continued across the living room into the kitchen
The kitchen was mostly deserted, only his two eldest brothers, Mikey and Silid were their, hunched over the white wooden countertop. They were both crowding around a bunch of bananas, which were no longer in the neat little bundle they arrived in, but were now spread across the counter, two of them seemingly torn ruthlessly in half.
"Dan, c'mere, we gotta show ya somethin'," said Silid, the oldest of the two, his head bowed low to the counter, holding a banana as if it were knife. He had the same brown clustered hair that Daniel had and the strange sad look. Mikey, on the other hand was, well, handsome. He had smooth blonde hair that he slicked forward, ending it in a small ski jump. His eyes were in perfect proportion to the rest of his face, and he looked as if he was always cheerful.
Daniel moved closer to them, seeing what they had been up to. In Mikey's hand was what looked a large bicycle pump connected to the banana with a long pipe. "Ready," said Silid loudly. "Go!" he yelled. Mikey pushed the lever on the and the all heard a loud hiss and suddenly the banana was blown apart with a loud wheezing pop. Silid and Mikey were both laughing hysterically bending their figures back and forth. Daniel chuckled slightly. He didn't exactly feel like laughing. He was nervous about going to school.
Daniel's mom walked into the room, her many hoop earrings jangling as she walked. "Have you eaten yet, sweety?" she asked loudly, giving a threatening look towards the other two boys. Daniel shook his head to show her that he had not. "I haven't had time to shop for cereal, so you can have cookies and milk for breakfast." She walked over to the refrigerator, pulling a large blue carton from it and placing it on the table. Another banana suddenly exploded with a loud pop, raining small chunks of banana across the table. Daniel's mom growled impetuously, seeming as if she should be taken away from any sharp object in the room.
The large clunky family car arrived at the large dull gray building of the school in mid-afternoon. All six of them were scrunched into the thin back seat of the old car. The dull pewter gray of the clouds swirled before them, as if someone was stirring them with a large finger. They could all tell it was going to rain, so Daniel's mother rushed to the back of the car and pulled four umbrella's from the back of the car. They all rushed into the building at top speed, fearing the brutal rain of the east coast.
Inside was even more boring than the dull, blank outside. The walls were painted a very mellow white, making them seem as if the had just stepped into a mental institution. In fact the inner rooms looked exactly like that. There was no color except for the flat stern colors the portraits of very severe looking men and women. Their was no plants, and no other signs of life except for the bored looking registaar, and a few nuns who appeared to be very sullen and dismal.
Daniel pushed past his stocky brother Oswald to see the school before him. His older brothers and older sister (who now lived in the west) had all gone to Drenelbommy School for Advanced Students. He had not been excepted, rather had scored highly on the comprehension's and logic exams, but had failed miserably on the literature awareness exam. He loved reading, but they had given him dull, tedious, informational literature instead of the fun, interesting works that he loved to read, now he was stuck at the worst school possibly imaginable...a catholic reform school. It was mostly the same though. They both had strict teachers and both followed the same boarding school system, except St. Mary's kids could also stay at home if they chose. Daniel actually preferred the boarding part. He rather not stay at his house in which he had to wear his same old shabby clothes and same ruined supplies. This way all the things he could get were right where he needed them to be at all times.
They reached the registaar's desk, his mom holding the forms. A young woman sat at the desk, filing her nails and obviously chewing on a large wad of gum. He black hair was very straight and neat except for the small curl in front, which led down to her heavily over-eyeshadowed eyes. "Can I help you," she said, barely taking a glance at Daniel's mother. Her voice sounded very irritated and bored.
"I am Janice Grimm here to drop off the papers for Daniel Grimmy," his mom said, tipping her shoes forward like a small child might do. She whirled around and pointed at Daniel with the papers locked firmly in her grip. Her head jangled as her hoop earrings collided with each other.
"Hold on," said the woman, letting out a very deep sigh. She put her nail file down and pushed chair up to the large square computer sitting on the desk before her. Her fingers rapped loudly against the pale keys of the keyboard. Daniel was sure that someone much more primitive might find that sound horribly agitating, but most people were used to it. The woman did not speak, but instead just swiped the papers from Daniel's mother and started tapping madly on the computer keys. It went on like this for the next five minutes.
"He is set up," uttered the woman quietly after two more minutes of waiting. "Since he will be lodging with us, he is expected to show up here at noon in three weeks." The woman finished very abruptly. She expertly remover a bit of the paper and thrust the remaining paper into Daniel's mothers hands. With a slight humph, his mother twisted sideways and stormed down the colorless hallways, signaling for her children to follow.
They all arrived home later that evening. They had went out to eat at a small buffet downtown, and were not able to leave due to slight flooding in the lowered parking lots. They all looked very weather beaten, and all felt very tired. Their mother barked at Mikey and Silid to clean up the mess they had left across the counters, so Daniel sat down at the small polished table and watched them scrape bits of banana off the oddest places. It almost gave him a sense of relaxed silence, so much that he fell asleep, right there on his chair.
He slipped into a glittering dream. The whole image before him was blurred and stretched, though Daniel could tell what was happening. He was swooping in on a wide valley, riding an enormous white steed. He leaned forward, looking at the horses face. It had two enormous golden eyes which glittered brightly in the blurry surroundings. The valley, even though blurry, were green and shinny, perhaps from morning dew.
Slowly as he rode on, bouncing abruptly, the place around him materialized before him. He was set in a brilliantly green meadow, surrounded by gigantic brown oaks. The glimmering grass shone brightly before a great violet sky, which was quickly slipping from deep purple to a lighter blue, the stars still glittering wisely among it.
They were riding ever faster, passing through the trees at a breakneck speed that Daniel could not contemplate, for he could not fell the cool breeze or the moist air. Things were developing past the horrizon. Many things were taking shape. He could now see sparkling, lustrous waters far ahead and what seemed like a shadowy mountain. Loud whispers echoed in his ears, inaudible for the most part. He bounced roughly, not able to steady himself. He was starting to think he might be ill if this horse did not ride more gentle.
Great loud screeches came from above. A great flock of crows were soaring soar gently across the sky. The screeching was getting louder and louder, spooking the horse, making it buck up, flinging its mane wildly. Loud bangs emmited behind Daniel.
Suddenly he was shaken awake by a hard, painful whack across the face. He found himself on the cold patterned tile floor, feeling very dizzy. There were a large amounts of black feathers surrounding him, flying around him and landing lightly on the ground. Slowly he inched his face level with the table. A strong urge to throw up suddenly rested in his stomach. Hundreds of crows sat on the table, sputtering quietly, every now and then letting out a loud craw!
He could just picturing his mom walking in a yelling at him for this, some way placing the blame on him. He heard a quiet patter of footsteps over the noisy rustle of feathers. Quickly he took off his sweater and placed it in his hands like a cape, batting wildly at the crows, but they did not move.
His little sister Ellaine poked her head through the swinging kitchen door
"Whatcha doin'," she asked quietly. She could obviously not see onto the table, for she was very small. She stumbled slowly over to a tall chair resting at the table, apparently going to see what was making the noise.
"No Ellaine, no!" Daniel screamed, though in vain, for she was now climbning onto the chair. Her eyes leveled with the table and he could see shock fly over her face.
"How'd ya make...make them birds come?" she asked in a whisper. One of the crows sputtered loudly as it turned and looked at Ellaine, it beady eyes blinky fast. It let out an enourmous caw, spooking Ellaine, the effect was to fall down on the chair.
"Bad bird!" she screamed, hopping off the chair and running out of the kitchen. "Bad bird! Bad bird, bad bird, bad bad!" He could hear her running down the hall, into his mom's room, screaming something strange, and the soothing murmur of his mother's voice, obviously reassuring her. Daniel couldn't stand this. He placed his head firmly on the table, avoiding the crows. He did not want to be blamed for letting the birds in. He picked up his sweater again and started beaying at the crows, who seemed to be avoiding it, even dodging it.
"Come on!" he yelled at the birds. "COME ON!" That yell was so loud he was sure his mom would be suspicious. He let out a loud sigh at the crows, thinking that maybe if he took a passive approach they would go away. Then things got entirely strange.
The table burst into flames. Brilliant blue flames twisted and writhed on the table, seeming not to ignite anything else (placemats, spare scraps of paper, etc.), including the crows, who sat calmly all the same, watching the flames wind around them.
"AHHRRRGGGHHH!" screamed his mother, who had just walked into the room. She ran out of the room, grabbing a fire extinguinsher and fleeting back into the room, spraying the table in an enourmous panic. The white foam mounted on the table, very slowly dousing the flames. The crows did nothing but shaked the foam off their backs.
"You ----," she squealed, panting heavily. "Room...now - NOW!" Normally he would argue that he did not do it or that it was accidental, but he had no words. He was even suprised at his usually very mild mannered mother's frightening attitude. He knew he could not argue his way out.