Beverly Quarter, chapter 2

On Tuesdays, I’m using this newsletter to publish a book I wrote. It’s called Beverly Quarter: Invisible Frenemy. I have been unsuccessful in trying to sell it to a traditional publisher. But I’m proud of it, and I don’t want it to just sit in my computer forever.

It’s got nothing to do with the rest of the content of this newsletter. I mean, for real: It doesn’t even contain the word burpee. But I think you’ll like it.

I wrote it to make my kids laugh, their friends laugh, and their parents laugh. I’m guessing most of you have kids, or know kids, or were kids, so you’re my target audience. I explain the book’s backstory here.

Give the first chapter a read. If you like it, read it to your kids, their friends, their friends’ parents, random strangers on the street, etc.

I’ll keep publishing the newsletter as usual on Thursdays. This will just be bonus content.

Chapter 1 is here.

Beverly Quarter: Chapter 2

Sally burst into the house.

“Mom! Dad!”

She paused for what seemed like an eternity to her … but it was a millisecond or maybe less.

“MOM DAD MOM DAD MOM DAD DADMOMDADMOMMOMDADSOMEBODYHEYISANYBODY HOME!”

“What, sweetheart? What? What happened? Is everything OK?”

That was her dad. He was in the kitchen, sitting at the table, drinking coffee and “reading the newspaper.” That’s what he called it when he was playing with his phone.

“It’s more than OK. It’s great! Are you ready for big news?”

“Always!”

She paused for dramatic effect.

 “Iwentdowntheslide.”

She smiled so big she ran out of teeth to show. Her eyes popped far out of her head, like a cartoon dog. Rainbows of happiness shot out of her ears.

“Wait,” her dad said. “Wait, wait, wait. You don’t mean the slide? THE SLIDE? The Slide of Death? The arm distintegrating leg breaking off blind making deaf girl slide?”

Sally nodded so fast it almost looked like her head never moved. If the braids on her neck had not vibrated, her dad might not have even know she was nodding at all.

“You made sure it was clear, right?”

Sally didn’t understand this question. But she nodded her head enthusiastically.

Her dad dropped his newspaper, er, phone, and it banged on the table. He stood up. He raised his hands high in the air, so high Sally thought he looked like the man on TV wearing the zebra costume who signaled home run or goal or touchdown or strike. Sally didn’t really understand sports.

“YOU! WENT! DOWN! THE! SLIDE! OF DE-E-E-A-A-ATH! That’s awesome! Tell me what it was like!”

Let’s retell it here all at once, because Sally’s dad interjected with so many silly questions (what color was the sky? Was that turn clockwise or counterclockwise? Was it like a toilet flushing? Here or in Australia? Could she build a time machine real quick so he could go back and watch? Well now that I think of it if it’s a time machine it doesn’t have to be real quick does it because we’ll just go back anyway?) that it would take dozens of pages to transcribe word for word.

The ride seemed to happen in slow motion, she told him. She swore that she was going so fast her hair billowed behind her like Superman’s cape. Her dad did not catch the contradiction between those two statements. Neither did Sally. She said she briefly thought her arm had fallen off but that was just her gum flying out of her mouth. It pinged right through the slide, and the kids later complained of the smell of burning plastic.

She said that she leaned into each turn, picking up speed, thrilled to be going so fast. She said that when she reached the end of the slide, she kicked her feet up over her head, flipped over backward and landed on her feet. She didn’t remember doing that last part. But Beverly Quarter had convinced her it was true. And it never occurred to her to think that it wasn’t.

“Were the other kids surprised?” her dad asked.

“I don’t know,” Sally said. “It was completely silent when I got to the bottom. It was as quiet as it is in the middle of the night when I sneak downstairs to eat coo—“

“WHAT?”

“Nothing, Dad. Just focus. It was really quiet. And you should have seen Beverly Quarter. She was jumping up and down and high fived me 11ty bazillion times.”

“Who?”

“Beverly Quarter.”

“Who’s that? I’ve never heard of her.”

“She’s my new friend. She talked me into going down the slide.”

Sally didn’t mention that Beverly Quarter had pushed her.

“I like her already,” her dad said.