[This is a sample chapter from Kaspian King and the Grocer's Goblin [Book 1 in the Kaspian King Conquests] By Boo Radley (A.K.A. Gary Lee Parker)]
Chapter
1
Kaspian
King is an ordinary boy in ordinary torn cargo shorts and an ordinary T-shirt
with an ordinary stain on its ordinary collar. He lives in an ordinary house in
an ordinary neighborhood at the end of an ordinary cul-de-sac with his ordinary
parents, two ordinary big sisters, and an ordinary cat named Fred.
His ordinary family eats ordinary meals, takes ordinary
vacations, watches ordinary shows, and listens to ordinary music on ordinary
radios and ordinary iPods.
His ordinary parents, August and
June King, drive ordinary cars to their ordinary jobs in ordinary office
buildings in the ordinary city nearby. They come home at ordinary times and do
ordinary chores, and go to bed at ordinary bedtimes.
Ordinary
birds build ordinary nests in the ordinary elm in their ordinary back yard, and
ordinary school busses haul ordinary kids along ordinary routes to an ordinary
elementary school in their ordinary suburban town.
But
Kaspian King has a not-so-ordinary secret; a secret he keeps tucked away in his
ordinary pocket and never tells a soul. Kaspian King has a very unordinary
ring.
Oh, it
looks ordinary enough, nuclear green and plastic, like something you might find
at the bottom of an ordinary box of cereal on an ordinary Saturday morning. In
fact, he got it in the most ordinary way possible, in an ordinary clear plastic
egg from an ordinary grocery store gumball machine, while his ordinary mother
was distracted, as usual, by her ordinary shopping list.
He’d hoped, as he ordinarilly did,
for an ordinary fake tattoo, or an ordinary rubber ball, and the ordinary ring
was an ordinary disappointment that he almost tossed in an ordinary nearby
garbage can.
But
then he had an ordinary whim that he might be able to use the trinket to
somehow tease his sisters in the ordinary way all ordinary boys of ordinary
habits do, so he slipped the ring on his ordinary finger. And so began a most
extraordinary adventure.
For
when he put the ring on, his ordinary world changed.
It was
the ordinary plastic egg he noticed first. As he raised his arm to toss it in
the garbage can, he felt bumps and ridges against his hand that felt less like
an ordinary plastic egg, and more like a hand grenade. And sure enough, when he
opened his hand to take a look, there in his palm was an ugly green hand
grenade, with a trigger and a pin, just like he’d seen on t.v.
His
ordinary eyes widened in surprise, and he almost dropped the nasty thing, which
probably wouldn’t have blown up since the pin was still snugly in place. But it
still scared him when he thought about it later.
Luckily,
he recovered from his surprise and stuffed the small bomb in a pocket of his
daypack, between several pencils and a pack of gum. When he pulled the pack of
gum from the pocket to chew a piece, however, it had turned into a block of C4
“plastic” explosive, and the pencils were now “pencil detinators.”
What
was going on? And when did his daypack become an army rucksack? He didn’t know,
but as soon as he thought this he noticed that his daypack had, indeed, become
a camoflaged army backpack.
He unzipped the main zipper and pulled out two of his
schoolbooks. But as he pulled them out, they changed right before his eyes. One
moment he held English Is Your Language
in his hands, and the next he held a dirty green tin with the words Basic Survival Kit – US065719 stenciled
in gray on the front.
The
second book changed from Math for
Munchkins to a whole package of gray C4 explosive clay bricks, wrapped in
thick paper and stenciled with C4
explosives – US1122334 – Handle With Care.
Kaspian
began to panic. He opened his bag and pulled out several more items: another
grenade, a survival knife, three boxes of bullets, and a gun. His rubber ball,
ruler, the three boxes of staples he’d sneaked from the teacher’s desk drawer,
and the gnarled stick he found on the playground, were oddly missing.
Even
his big sister’s ordinary old hand-me-down cell phone was now army-green. And
it was beeping ominously.
When he
opened it, there was a text message from his mother that read, “Where r u?
Sis’s in the bathroom. Wen shes done, tellher I’m in the checckout line.” Mom
wasn’t very good at texting.
But
then even that message changed. The words blurred, and suddenly it wasn’t a
message from his mom anymore, but from someone named Grout Gregor. And now it
said, “We’re watching you and we have your sister. There’s nothing you can do
for her. She’s going to die! And you’re next! Don’t try to run to mommy. She
can’t help you now. No one can! Mwahahaha!”
Kaspian
gasped out loud and took a step back, dropping the phone in fear. What was
happening? What was going on? He couldn’t make sense of anything.
Then he
noticed his clothes. He was no longer wearing cargo shorts and a dirty T-shirt.
Now he had on full army camo, black army boots, and black leather gloves.
He
looked up to find even the store had changed. He was no longer in a bright,
cheery grocery store, with shelves full of delicious food, and happy employees.
Now he was in a dark and dingy warehouse. The rows of shelves had become rows
of dirty wooden crates stacked on dirty wooden pallets, piled so high he
couldn’t see their tops. The ceiling was lost in darkness, and the oily
concrete floor was grimy and cracked.
It was
then that he screamed.
But
screaming wouldn’t help, and he knew it. So he clamped his mouth shut and sat
down against a particulary filthy crate to think. He pulled his book bag over
and went through his supplies again, listing them out in his mind: 2 grenades,
1 survival knife, 7 blocks of C4, 1 gun, 3 boxes of bullets, 6 pencil
detonators, and 1 army phone.
He
found another grenade, a small canteen, and half of a survival meal that the
army calls an MRE stuffed into the front pocket of the bag where he’d stuffed
the leftovers from his sack lunch that afternoon, but that was it. Not much,
but it would have to do.
Now he
had to make a decision. What should he do? He didn’t know what to believe and
what not to believe. Was his sister really kidnapped? Was his mom really in
danger? Were they really coming after him next? If so, he should probably try
to rescue his sister and mom. Of course, he’d probably get killed doing it, but
what else could he do?
But
maybe none of this was real. Maybe he was just imagining it. Maybe the
extraordinary world he’d found when he put on the ring was just just a ruse.
The
ring? The ring! None of this had
happened until he put on that ring!
He
looked at it, glowing slime-green on his finger. Could it be? Could he really
have gotten such a ring from a gumball machine? A ring that could do all this,
that could turn his world topsy-turvy upside down, and turn his school bag into
a deadly arsenal of weapons and war?
But on
his finger it looked so ordinary. So plain. So ridiculously normal. It couldn’t
be, could it? He was just being silly. Of course, he wasn’t being any more
silly than to think he was now in a dark and dirty warehouse filled with rows
of crates where his sister was being held captive by evil forces and his mom
was in danger.
The
ring.
Now
that he thought it, he was afraid to touch it. He was afraid that if he took it
off, it wouldn’t do anything and he would just feel stupid. He was also afraid
that if he took it off everything would go back to normal, and he really would
have a magic ring. He didn’t know which thought scared him most.
Either
way, he didn’t have time to waste. Suddenly he grabbed the ring and pulled it
off as hard as he could. But it didn’t budge. It was stuck on his finger.
Strange, it didn’t seem too small when he’d put it on. He yanked on it again,
but it didn’t move.
He bit
it, but it wouldn’t break, and he twisted it but it didn’t bend. No matter what
he tried, the ring simply would not come off.
Something
was definitely up with that ring!
Suddenly
he heard a thought in his mind, “I’ll
come off when you rescue your sister.”
It was
quiet, and he almost didn’t notice it. But it echoed in a ghostly chatter that
caught his attention and held it. “I’ll
come off when you rescue your sister. I’ll come off when you rescue your
sister. I’ll come off when you rescue your sister.”
It was the ring, and it could talk!
“What
should I do? How can I rescue her?” he said, hoping the ring would answer. But
nothing came. The warehouse was spookily silent.
“I know
you can talk! I heard you. So, come on, help me out!” he said.
But
there was still no answer from the ring. Just a squeaking board a couple of
rows away. He was on his own, his sister was being held hostage, his mother was
in danger, and evil forces were out to get him too, and it was up to him to
save them all.