The Secret of Kite Hill: Recent Episodes
Bradley Charbonneau
Do you know every nook and cranny of your neighborhood? How about UNDER your neighborhood?
Do you let your kids walk home from school? It's just a few blocks, right? What lurks in the shadows? In the bushes? Or scarier yet, under the bushes?
Or is it all just happy-go-lucky Huckleberry Finn and exploring and adventuring in your own neighborhood? When do you know the difference? Maybe your kids know. Maybe they don't. How will you learn?
It began as a simple walk home, the same one we did every day after school. But our dog's ball went into something of a hole, or was it a cave? Maybe a tunnel. But are there tunnels in the city? The ball was pretty close to the entrance, but just far enough to be a little spooky. Should we just forget it?
WARNING TO PARENTS: there are some questionable parenting decisions in this book. It is not intended as a parenting handbook. There's a fine line between making the right decision and making the fun decision. When to choose which? How much do you involve your children in daily decisions? What if they involve danger? But what if your kids think it might be fun? You get the idea. Maybe I need a disclaimer ... ;-)
You know in scary movies when you yell, "Don't go in there!" We went in. Yeah, I know. Ask your 8-year old why.
I slid as quickly and quietly as I could, and I caught up with Lu around the first bend. I tried to slow myself down, but still I crashed into him, and he let out a quick “Ow!” I was going to remind him to be quiet when we were both immediately quiet. I was listening for other voices. They seemed to have stopped, but they quickly came back. I’m sure, OK, not that sure, that the voices were more excited or elevated or at least talking about us. They were talking about what they were going to do to us. OK, so I wasn’t sure of any of that, but we did hear the voices.
Chicken that I am, I felt safer with the four of us together even if I was the only adult and my companions were small boys who were more concerned about farting than getting out of here alive, and a small dog who looked like Toto and would protect us perhaps from a rat, but not much else. It was time to move.
I hurried to the end of the nothing, the end of my tunnel and screamed as loud as I could, “Li Lu!” as if a singsong, a call to the angels in the heavens. “Li Lu!” A frantic call from someone who didn’t like to regret actions, but was regretting actions. I just wanted things to be as they were only minutes ago, reunited with my boys. “Li Lu!” I sounded like a bad backup singer chanting and yelling as if possessed.
The Kite Hill publicity team managed to get Lu on the line for an interview! In this episode of The Secret of Kite Hill podcast, we take a break from the nail-biting adventure of the Kite Hill drama and we go back in time and then back to the future and talk with Lu now four years after his breakout success.
In this sneak peek into the mysterious life of a 12-year-old superhero, we learn: 1. What car he's bought (and can't actually drive) with the shower of earnings from book royalties. 2. The secret powers his brother may or may not have. 3. What you can do in middle school if you can see the future--and read the mind of your teacher.
All that and (not) much more!
“This has got to be the most irresponsible thing I’ve ever done,” I said out loud, although under my breath. I’m not really one to talk to myself, but it seemed the opportune time. A flash went through my mind of a quick collection of other irresponsible things I’ve done in my life, but so fast I can’t list them here. I do recall jumping out of a moving train. Maybe I should just get moving.
It got darker, but I could still see the outlines of the cave.Right away the single tunnel turned into a maze of more tunnels and since I didn’t know where to go, I followed my instinct. You might think that “instinct” is a big word for me, but I know what it means, it means naturally or that I knew what to do because I followed my heart. It’s not every day that I’m deep in a dark tunnel, but today I was and I somehow knew where to go. That’s what instinct is.
Dear Reader,
The veracity of the following account cannot be guaranteed by this author as it was only what was recounted after the fact. We are all at the mercy of an 8-year old’s ability to stick to the facts and retell them as accurately as possible. It was certainly one of the hazards and cautions the author had to take in splitting up deep in the tunnel, but it was simply what had to be done at the time.
The Author
"I heard it here!" Li shouted.
"Me, too!" Lu said excitedly.
"I did, too!" I said quickly. "But it came through my tunnel," I said.
"No, it came through mine," Li answered back.
"No," Lu said defensively, "it came through mine."
We all were silent. In the shadowy darkness we all looked at each other.
"Pepper is in three pieces!" whispered Lu and looked at us sad and worried, but still kidding.
My boys scrambled ahead fearlessly as if this were a video game. I hesitated as if this were my real life. Hello? It is our real life! Anyone? Anyone? Maybe that was it, maybe I was scared because this was all real, this was just an after school walk home and now we've been down a secret tunnel, catapulted into a different park, our dog is missing, and now we're consciously climbing back up this tunnel through a place where obviously we're not the first and I'm not even sure we're alone. Oh, that's OK, let's just pretend it's a video game, that's easier. I'll just follow along.
"Wait!" I whispered hoarsely behind Li.
"What?" Li turned his head towards me and asked.
But I didn't have anything to say. I was as bad as his classmates who raise their hands in class when they don't have a question or a comment, but just want to be called on. Li continued up.
"Pepper!" we cried one by one. "Pepper! Treat! Treat!" But there was nothing, no one and eerily not a sound around.
"Lu!" I screamed. "Lu!" Li screamed and looked at me. But there wasn't a sound. Pepper looked up at me as if to tell me that he had to do what he had to do and he bolted in the next instant. In the small park, we don't have him on leash and he knew it. He was gone.
Was it a small light? Maybe a flashlight? But it wasn't necessarily shining, it was more like a reflection, like a cat's eye at night. But it wasn't night ... and it wasn't a cat.
There was also only one. Most animals have two. Or do they all? Are there one-eyed animals? Maybe it was an animal but one eye was closed. There was also something of an orange shape and possibly a slight blue stripe. Our ball. But it was very near the one eye.