There once was a girl who lived in a car. More precisely, the incredible and brilliant Amelia T. Redtooth lived in a 2007 Dodge Caravan with optional sport package and power-sliding side-doors. It was red and that, as her father often said, made it faster somehow. What made Amelia so incredible? Well I could tell you, but I’d much rather show you and trust that as we go on the brilliance of Amelia will be revealed. It will take some small measure of trust on the part of you and me, but I’m sure she’ll come through in the end—truly remarkable people always do somehow, even if they don’t realize how gifted they are until some time afterward.
Of course Amelia didn’t really live in the family minivan, but it sure seemed that way at times, most especially to her. Amelia’s mother and father had taken jobs twelve hours away from aunts and uncles and grandmas and cousins and friends and had traded them for all the cows and cornfields of Nebraska. That is not to say that they had purchased vast amounts of livestock and farm real estate by selling their extended family, it was just a funny way Amelia had of looking at the situation. Her parents were dentists. It was not a bad home and the people were certainly friendly despite the fact that her parents regularly drilled and picked at their teeth, but it was far away from everyone and everything Amelia had come to love.
She found herself now in her dreaded bucket seat on the driver’s side of the van staring out meekly at the bleary lines of corn-rows in a sort of muted stupor. The day was cloudy and there was a light mist lingering in the air, not falling as rain generally does, but floating about freely and getting thicker as the morning wore on.
Amelia’s father was beginning to wax poetic about the virtues of flossing when Amelia’s vision was drawn to something that appeared rather large to the port (left) side of the van far out among the corn. It was difficult to tell if it was indeed large as everything was distorted by the undulating haze and sheen of the mist. Amelia would have written it off as one of the many barns or farm houses that dotted the landscape except for one minor complication: it was moving. As she stared, Amelia noted that the object seemed to be following a parallel course to their vehicle and had no difficulty matching their speed.
Amelia’s father was approaching a feverishly passionate portion of his ode to the dental arts, “For the man that flosses always trusts that his gums will be hearty against the storms and garrisons spawned by the forces of periodontitus and smooth surface cavities…”
“Dad?”
“Yes, peanut?”
“Don’t call me peanut.”
“All right. Is that all you wanted?”
“No. Do you see something moving out in the corn?”
“I can’t see anything out there peanut.”
“RRrrr.”
This was clearly going nowhere and the object seemed to be getting closer or growing larger, but it was difficult to tell anything with any certainty through the mist. Just when Amelia was about to decide that she must be seeing things there was an explosion of gray mist from the object, the water droplets billowing out from the source of the blast and then blending just as quickly into the curtain of spray that was choking the light and color in the world. There was a delayed zing overhead of the van. What was that?!
About 50 yards to the starboard (right) side of the van there was a great disturbance in the field as a whole section of corn seemed to be instantly consumed with a good deal of rustling and a prodigious “THUNK.” “Strange day to be running the combine,” noted Amelia’s father. Amelia was incredulous that he could even suggest that someone would be harvesting, but then he hardly noticed much when composing poetry about the finer points of dentistry.
From the phantom object to their left there was another muted shot fired and the same delayed zing, although this time both sounds were much louder and the ship was much closer. Wait, ship? No. It couldn’t be. For a fleeting moment the mist seemed to arrange itself around the object as such as to create that impression. Whether ship or moving barn, however, one thing was clear: they were under attack. “Persistent, hard working people those corn farmers,” said Amelia’s obviously oblivious father from the driver seat.
Amelia was sure that at any moment one of these unexplainable and unidentifiable objects would blow their van high into the Nebraska sky. Just as the object was nearly level with them the whole interior of the van filled with a dazzling explosion of light. The force of this latest explosion had finally burst from the fog and varied colors burst from its source and danced on the ceiling of the minivan. As Amelia closed her eyes she wished that she had time to reach for her mother’s hand. A great peal of noise filled her ears as the metal exterior of the van began to give way. The van slowed gradually to a stop. This caused Amelia to open her eyes. She had expected something more to the tune of, ‘the van swerved and then began to roll violently as it burst into a ball of flames in the opposing lane of traffic.’
“Are you okay honey?” Amelia’s mother looked back with concern etched upon her kind face.
“Sure. Of course,” she answered automatically.
“It was just a state patrol dear, you’re okay,” said her father.
“That was a long time ago Dad!” she added with a little more harshness than she had intended. When she was younger Amelia had been afraid of sirens. She looked up now to see the flashing cruiser disappear into the mist far ahead. That would explain the flashing colors and the loud noise that had caused her so much distress. Maybe she wasn’t afraid of sirens anymore, but they still made her jump. Red tinged Amelia’s cheeks as she apologized for snapping at her father. He may be often clueless, but he was a good father and didn’t deserve that kind of treatment. Amelia loved him very much.
She looked over toward where she had seen the phantom object, but it was gone. No further blasts assailed their minivan as they regained speed toward grandma’s house. In fact the remainder of the trip passed with little to report other than the fact that they had eat at Subway along the way as the Taco Bell they were accustomed to visiting had been reduced to a pile of rubble. “Closed for Renovations” read a sign high above the debris.
They reached Grandma Redtooth’s just before nightfall. One strange fact that you must know about Amelia’s grandmother is that she still kept a cutlass. In fact she waved it now… I mean she waved from it now in greeting. Grandma was insistent upon running that car into the ground because, “They don’t make cars like they used to,” and if you grew up in the day when cars were big and majestic, well then you might find today’s little hybrids just a mite disappointing.
Amelia was out of the van the moment it was harbored securely in Granny’s driveway. Grandma Redtooth, or ‘Granny’ as Amelia affectionately called her, was one of her favorite people in the world. She was much blunter than her parents and she had a world wary hardness about her, but when one got beyond this surface stuff she bore the kind and compassionate heart that Amelia herself shared. They shared a long hug before granny stepped back a bit and examined her little granddaughter that seemed to grow so much faster out in Nebraska. “It’s good the good soil,” she often joked to Amelia. “Well Arrrr—excuse me, asthma—are you going to come in?”
Amelia was all too glad to enter the comfort and security of her Granny’s home. They reheated the feast that her grandma had prepared (grandmas always seem to cook for an army don’t they?) and after just a few simple questions about the nature of the weather and road conditions they went to bed. Amelia was only too glad. It had been a long and strange day after all. Still one couldn’t call that drive boring. She wasn’t sure which type of car trip she would prefer and fell asleep with her shoes on trying to resolve that very question in her mind.
I like this! I’m especially intrigued by the pirate grandmother and I like your voice. This is a fun idea for a middle grade novel! I hope you keep going with it.