Your 21st Day Gift for Christmas – My Newsletter. Why a newsletter? It leads to free books–and books on sale. Click here to subscribe. It is Advent, with me giving you gifts each day. Here are this month’s gifts.
Your 21st Day Gift – 49 Free Books of Various Genres
Your 21st Day Gift – 34 Free Books from Kindle Unlimited
Magic breaks out on the Earth. Suddenly, liars pants catch on fire. Stuffed animals stop gang members. But no one knows how the magic works. Welcome to the new Earth: eight billion sorcerer’s apprentices. Everyone is magical. Everyone gets their wishes granted. Does that sound frightening? It’s worse. Nuclear scientist Katie Garcia is doing her best to figure it out, using all the resources of Oak Ridge National Labs. Will she learn the rules of magic before humanity destroys itself—or her? Find out inside Magic Arrives.Get your free copy of Magic Arrives here!
Get your Zombie Turkeys here. You get a bushel of laughter with each book.
I’ve got another book available on royalroad.com for free!
Sam Melvin, an underachieving e-reporter from a small town, changes forever when he meets turkeys that won’t stay dead. You can shoot ’em, chop ’em, burn ’em—they come back stronger. The undead plague of poultry spreads uncontrollably, rocking the whole country. As Sam tracks down the zombie turkeys and how to eradicate them, his editor, Lisa Kambacher, nags him to turn his stories and expenses in on time.
During their years of working together, Lisa has mellowed into an irascible pinchpenny. Lisa snipes at Sam for plebeian writing but uses her intelligence to pursue the lucrative carnivorous turkey story.
Sam and Lisa ricochet across the landscape, tracking turkeys and fleeing the bloodthirsty hordes. Careening from shell-shocked grocery store owners fighting turkeys crawling out of refrigerators to machine-gunning turkey farmers to secret militia, Sam and Lisa doggedly report.
Throughout the turkey apocalypse, they dare ravaged cities, plow knee-deep in gore and corpses, and upload streams of zombie turkey video news to the world. With paranoid militias clashing with the federal government and unkillable turkeys, Sam and Lisa doubt their ability to survive.
Sam and Lisa have no superpowers. If you have a heart condition or lack humor, you should not read Zombie Turkeys, no matter how much you want to find out what happens.
Your 21st Day Gift – A Meme
One of my teen superheroes has a pair of prosthetic legs. Read about her in the next book, Secret Supers in Space
Secret Supers in Space audiobook cover. Click to listen.
The Secret Supers are bored out of their minds during summer vacation-until they go to Space Camp. They learn all about the space program, try out moon gravity and zero-g simulations, and practice docking with the International Space Station.
But that’s the easy part. The villains they defeated in the past are back with a diabolical plot that renders the middle schoolers’ superpowers ineffective. Jeremy, Aubrey, Dan, and Kayla face the biggest challenge of their lives. Even if they escape the villains’ clutches, will they survive?
Ace zombie reporter Sam Melvin has been fired–by his wife, Lisa. Their paper, The Midley Beacon, is barely surviving. How will they make ends meet?
Sam decides to give being a detective a try. He advertises his business–but his zombie experience comes with it. All across the country, people bring their zombie problems to Sam. Squirrels? Bulls? Sam’s on the case. But can his experience with zombie turkeys transfer?
Sam finds out in a series of deadly adventures–and so will you when you read this book. See if you can keep from dying from laughter.
Ten Books, Ten Chapters Free, all for Advent 20. I’m giving a gift daily. These books were from the previous ten days. Today, you get the gift of convenience. All the books are in one spot for you.
He felt different. More energetic, more alive. He bred with female after female in his flock without tiring. The tom stayed awake through the night. He feared no predator.
Then a turkey hunter shot him.
The setting sun overlooked a crisp, clear evening in early November. South of Bartonville, Illinois, a farmer had leased his wood lot to two turkey hunters. Big and burly in their bulky camouflaged outfits, they had just bagged one.
“Good shot, Pete!”
“He’s a big ‘un!”
Pete and Bob walked up to the tom turkey, bleeding on the cold ground. The rest of the flock had scattered into the woods. He had exceptionally good plumage and weighed perhaps twenty pounds. Pete reached down and picked him up by the neck.
“He weighs at least twenty-five pounds!”
Then the turkey’s eyes opened—and gleamed red. He kicked with his spurs and pecked savagely at Pete’s arms and eyes. Dozens of his hens attacked the men from behind.
“Gobble! Gobble!”
He felt different. More energetic, more alive. He had no memory of being shot, but a certain turkey satisfaction at killing his killers. The tom also enjoyed pecking at their dead meat. He had always liked frogs, but this meat tasted better. He led his flock down the road in search of more predators to eat.
“Sam, you’re fired.” Lisa’s green eyes met Sam’s brown ones.
“What? Lisa, you and I have worked together at the Midley Beacon for ten years! And we’ve known each other for fifteen! And we’ve been married almost two months!” Sam broke eye contact, stood up from his desk, and paced about their small office.
“Sorry, Sam. Romance has to take a backseat to finances. Ever since the bottom dropped out of the zombie turkey news market since the first of the year, the Midley Beacon hasn’t made enough to pay your salary.”
“But that’s our salary. We share and share alike.”
“We can still live on my salary. And you can apply for unemployment now that you’re fired.”
“But what’ll I do all day? I can only play Fortnite for so long.”
“What did you do before I hired you ten years ago? What did you do while I was in college?”
“Uh, mow lawns. Handyman repair. Stuff like that. But I’m a grown man now. I want more.”
“Hmm, you are a decent reporter.”
“Thanks, Lisa. That’s high praise coming from you.”
“Well, it’s the truth. You’ve grown from a crappy reporter, like ninety-nine percent of all reporters, to well above average. I did lay off everyone else on the staff before you, you know.”
Sam’s eyes misted. “Aw, you’re making me feel warm and mushy.”
“You know I love your mother. But your mother’s a zombie. Who wants to see one zombie, let alone four of them?”
“Now that’s not fair. Mom and Dad have adjusted to their zombiism very well. Mom still volunteers at church and bakes cookies and pies for the bake sales. Dad still works as an accountant at GM. There’s nothing to worry about!”
“That covers Diane and George. I know them. I guess I’m ready for them. What about your brother and this new girlfriend of his? I don’t think Don has said two whole sentences to me since I’ve known him!”
“He’d never get a word in edgewise with you, Ron. You said it yourself—you’ve had diarrhea of the mouth since you were born. He and his friend Maggie will be fine.”
“Whatever you say, Karen.” I knew when to surrender. I focused my eyes on the Indiana turnpike ahead.
“Hmmph!”
I glanced at Karen while I drove. Her arms were crossed under her breasts, and she looked out the window, away from me. Trying to make peace, I said, “I thought we dodged a bullet when the zombie turkey plague just missed Gary, Indiana. I never dreamt this zombie thing would hit our own family.” I kept my tone neutral
“So far it hasn’t hit us hard. Life goes on as usual.”
Great! At least she was still talking to me. “As great as it can with glowing red eyes,” I said with a big grin.
“Maybe. I hadn’t really thought about how hard life would be like that.”
Dirac sighed with relief when the US flag came down, and the surrender flag went up on the mast of the titanic luxury yacht. He didn’t mind firing rounds from his AK-47 over their heads, but he hated killing people. He knew they were only infidels, but they were still people.
Chapter 1 icon of Paranormal Privateers
Inhaling the salted breeze, he grinned back at Muhammed. He cheered and laughed in his seat behind the M2 machine gun in the bow of the boat they used to patrol the coasts and fishing waters of Somalia. The sun gleamed off his white teeth.
“Look, Dirac!” he said. “They’re stopping!”
True enough. The bow wave ceased as he watched. A pod of dolphins ended their sporting on the wave and submerged. The gleaming white yacht loomed above them. What were they doing in the fishing waters of Somalia? He couldn’t imagine the wealth on board. Enough for their whole village to eat well for a year!
Their supreme leader, Omar Ogala, organized Somali fishermen and former coast guard sailors to patrol their fishing waters. He ordered them to capture any fishing or cargo vessels they spotted. He told them the Americans and Europeans no longer cared about Somalia with the other crises around the world and they could defend their coasts from foreign competition—and dumpers. Many foreign nations, knowing Somalia’s military weakness, sent cargo ships full of pollutants and dumped them into their waters.
Dirac never expected to see a luxury ship here. It was as big as a cruise liner, but apparently a private yacht. He’d seen one once before when an Arab sheik visited Mogadishu. This one was three times the size! The owner would pay big to get it back. Maybe even a billion dollars? He couldn’t imagine that much money, and he was good with numbers. Let’s see: fourteen million people lived in Somalia. Divide a billion dollars among them would give each about seventy dollars. Unbelievable. A family of five could live comfortably for a year on that!
Now, what was he going to do? His boss just told him to double the productivity of Vegan Inc.’s pickle strain they used for their Kilwowski Pickle brand. That was completely impossible.
But keeping his job required it. Bryce was the low man on the genetic engineering totem pole at Vegan Inc., the last one hired and the first one to be fired if another recession hit.
He couldn’t think. He couldn’t face this. So he cruised the internet.
“The origin of Zombie turkeys? I didn’t know they’d found that. Hmm, a Midley Beacon exclusive, the foremost zombie news source,” he read to himself.
Zombie turkeys had ravaged Illinois and the US at Thanksgiving. Thankfully, they hadn’t hit near Terre Haute, where he lived. He skimmed the article rapidly. Corn All, one of their agribusiness rivals, had genetically modified its corn to fight off corn disease. The genetic modification would adapt to the disease at a cellular level and neutralize it by copying the DNA from the disease organism, whether fungal or bacterial.
“Dear diary,” Jeremy Gentle dictated into his app on his tablet in his bedroom. “Today, I became a superhero.” Jeremy stopped, uncertain. Was that the best way to start his journal? Might as well just tell the story. He needed to sleep. He had a big algebra test tomorrow at Maryville Middle School.
Yesterday, school went as usual. It was the same old seventh grade. Same handicapped kids in the same class. Same problems transferring to the toilet from my wheelchair. Nothing new.
Oh, I take that back. I had one new, bad thing happen— I fell during physical therapy. There I was, between the parallel bars, halfway done. I tried with all my might to take another step. I couldn’t. My muscles screamed, at their end. My legs collapsed, and I hung like a marionette from the gait belt, held by my therapist, Fred Bernstein.
How fascinating! This book says there are libraries where hundreds of books live. It also says the fiction books are in order by author name.
Dancer scurried off Your Sixth Year Reader to look at Jeremy Gentle’s bookshelf again. Jeremy was Dancer’s owner and unknowing educator. Ever since he’d taught himself to read by studying the newspapers lining the bottom of his cage, Dancer had craved reading.
He hadn’t figured out why he’d started reading. One day Dancer had noticed patterns in the markings. He saw they repeated themselves in clumps which then formed more patterns. Then he started listening to his owners differently. They also spoke in patterns. “Jeremy” was always called “Jeremy” or “Jeremy Gentle” by his mother and sometimes by his father.
Dancer had learned to understand Jeremy and his parents, and then he’d put the terms they said with the clumps on the paper. Each letter had a sound, and together they formed clumps his master called “words.” The idea was brilliant. No wonder they were his owners and he was only a hamster.
Dancer read each paper eagerly to the point of memorizing it, but reading started to bore him. Jeremy only changed the lining about once a week. So he’d watched Jeremy open and close his cage door. Then he copied the motion, using his paws and nose. He left to search for more words to read.
Startled, I looked up from my computer and turned around in my wheelchair. My best friend, Dan, had slipped silently into my lab. I still thought of it that way, but we’d made it into the Secret Supers clubhouse almost a year ago. Dan’s round, brown face smiled down at me while his tall, wide frame loomed behind me. His dark glasses hid his blind eyes.
“I didn’t hear you come down the elevator.”
“I took the stairs. Your mom made cookies, so I came over. I could smell them from my house.”
“You mean, you could smell them from my mom’s thoughts?”
“And your’s and your dad’s. You were all excited, so I couldn’t help myself from taking a sniff from your mom’s nose. I didn’t snoop any further than that.”
“I know you respect everyone’s privacy with your mindreading power.”
“Except maybe yours. You did permit me to read yours anytime. But I haven’t read your mind about what you’re concentrating on. C’mon, tell your old friend Dan.”
“Don’t tell anyone. I want to surprise the Secret Supers.”
1 The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
The Pre-Existence of Jesus Christ
The Gospel Medley back cover
John 1:1–5, 10–13
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. [1]2The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him. Without Him was not anything made that has been made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness hasn’t overcome it.[2]
This is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things which must happen soon, which he sent and made known by his angel to his servant, John, 2 who testified to God’s word and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, about everything that he saw.
What is the origin of the book of Revelation?
How did John get the book of Revelation? Through which Persons did the Revelation pass?
What is the purpose of the Revelation?
Who is the intended audience of Revelation?
What is in the Book of Revelation?
Prayer: Thank You, Almighty God, for giving us the book of Revelation, directly from You through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thank You for using Your created angels and sons of men to spread Your truth through all the world. Amen.
God gives us the name of the book: the Revelation of Jesus Christ. He gives us the topic, things which must happen soon, and shows the provenance of the book as the knowledge flows from His throne through Jesus, to His angel, to John, and then to the whole church.
Read Secret Supers in Space – Chapter 1 Enjoy this free chapter on the 17th day of Advent. All through Advent I’ll give you a gift per day!
In Secret Supers in Space, four seventh graders with four different disabilities and four different superpowers go to a space camp for the summer. They learn all about the space program. But they didn’t expect to be hijacked into outer space. Merry Christmas to all!
Startled, I looked up from my computer and turned around in my wheelchair. My best friend, Dan, had slipped silently into my lab. I still thought of it that way, but we’d made it into the Secret Supers clubhouse almost a year ago. Dan’s round, brown face smiled down at me while his tall, wide frame loomed behind me. His dark glasses hid his blind eyes.
“I didn’t hear you come down the elevator.”
“I took the stairs. Your mom made cookies, so I came over. I could smell them from my house.”
“You mean, you could smell them from my mom’s thoughts?”
“And your’s and your dad’s. You were all excited, so I couldn’t help myself from taking a sniff from your mom’s nose. I didn’t snoop any further than that.”
“I know you respect everyone’s privacy with your mindreading power.”
“Except maybe yours. You did permit me to read yours anytime. But I haven’t read your mind about what you’re concentrating on. C’mon, tell your old friend Dan.”
“Don’t tell anyone. I want to surprise the Secret Supers.”
“Of course not. Now I’m dying to know!”
“I’m applying to Space Camp.”
“What’s Space Camp? I can hear the capital letters in your voice.”
I spun my wheelchair around to face him. “What’s Space Camp? It’s the greatest camp there is! We’re all bored out of our minds now that August has started and we want to do something. Space Camp teaches you all about our space program. You learn about astronauts and rockets. You go on a centrifuge and experience zero-g and moon gravity.
Part 2
Chapter 2 – Space Camp
“Sounds fun and cool. I can see them accepting you, Jeremy, but how about the rest of us? I guess Kayla would make it, but Aubrey and I are just average students.”
“As far as I can tell, there are no qualifications, just an interest in space and rocketry.”
“I sure got more interested in space after our adventure chasing the villain in a rocket at the coaster park this summer. What about the money?” Dan sat down in the chair so I didn’t have to look up at him.
“Mom and Dad have been saving the royalties from Secret Supers and Villain’s Vacation for you, Kayla, and Aubrey, and you can use that for the camp.”
“Well, count me in!” Dan’s huge hand engulfed mine. I felt like a little kid—which I was. I didn’t usually think about how small I was until Dan was right next to me. Or Aubrey, who was also Dan’s size.
“I just thought of a problem.” Dan frowned, his brows hitting his dark glasses. “What about my parents? And Kayla’s and Aubrey’s?”
“Mom and Dad have already been in touch with them ever since our royalties from the books have been coming in. They all agreed to divide them. Everyone’s just waiting on me to tell all the Secret Supers.”
“Now I know, so we might as well let Kayla and Aubrey know.”
I glanced at my screen clock. “Ten thirty. I can call Kayla, but Aubrey’s at her summer baseball practice.” I speed-dialed Kayla.
“You don’t have to put her on speakerphone. I can read her mind.”
Read Secret Supers in Space – Part 3
Chapter 3 icon
I laughed. “You read my mind. I was ready to do that.”
Hello, Jeremy. Kayla’s voice sounded in my mind. Kayla had spinal meningitis and could no longer talk or walk without a walker. I felt sad when I heard her high mental voice, sounding just as she used to talk before losing it.
“Hi, Kayla. I’ve got big news for you and Aubrey: the Secret Supers are going to Space Camp!”
Sounds like fun. I assume it’s all paid for and our parents are on board?
“Right. I researched it, then my parents contacted yours, Dan’s, and Aubrey’s, and everyone agreed. Just now, I applied and got approval. We’ll be gone for a week.”
When?
“The last week in August, just before Labor Day.”
Now I have something to look forward to, instead of another sweltering day. How long does it last?
“A week. We arrive on the last Sunday of the month and leave on Friday.”
Is Dan there?
“Yeah, I’m here Kayla.” Dan leaned over my shoulder.
“How’d you know, Kayla? Dan snuck up on me as I was applying to the camp online. Are you mind reading now as well as sending thoughts?”
No, just sending, like always. I just know you, Jeremy. You don’t give up secrets until you have to. I figured Dan would be there. He sees you about every day. Say, where is this Space Camp?
“Huntsville, Alabama. We’re driving down there the day before in our big van. It’ll take us about twelve hours, dad said.”
Part 4
Chapter 4 icon, Zero-G
I suppose you want me to tell Aubrey. I’ll give her the message to come over to our Secret Supers room, and we’ll all surprise her when she comes in.
“Great idea, Kayla!” I grinned.
Dan’s head snapped up from the phone and then he leaned back down. “You can tell her now. Her practice was canceled because of a thunderstorm. Boy, is she grumpy!”
“Baseball’s the love of her life,” I said. “A new adventure will cheer her up.”
All right, I told her to meet us there. She’s riding her bike straight from practice.
Dan placed his hand on his head like he does when he’s listening telepathically. “Uh, oh, Kayla, you’d better hurry. She’ll beat you here.”
I didn’t think of that. Mom’s busy at work. I can’t interrupt her, and I can’t bike anymore.
I straightened in my wheelchair. “Let me give you a lift—literally.”
Now you’re reading my mind, Jeremy. I was just about to ask you for help. Are you sending your flying car?
“Nope. Just put on your Secret Supers outfit and I’ll fly you over.”
“I’ll put on mine. It’s here in my backpack.” Dan slid it off his shoulders.
I hadn’t noticed Dan’s backpack. I turned to my phone. “We’ll make it a full club meeting. This’ll be the first time we’ve worn the new costumes your mom made for us, Kayla.”
I modeled mine for Mom. They fit a lot better than the store-bought ones we had, and they’re much sturdier. The old ones were pretty scuffed up.
“Something about fighting ten-foot robots does that.” Dan grinned.
Kayla laughed, in their heads. Ha! Not to mention flying at a hundred miles per hour chasing speedboats and rockets.
Part 5
Chapter 5 icon – Kayla at the controls
“Are you ready, Kayla? I can picture your front porch in my mind and pick you up there.”
Just about. Let me get my boots on. There. I’m ready.
I imagined Kayla standing on her front porch. I exerted my telekinesis.
Okay, Jeremy, can you pick me up another fifty feet? Then I’ll be clear of any telephone or power wires between my house and yours.
“Sure.” I pulled her toward my house at a steady rate.
All right, I’m right over your yard, Jeremy. That was something! I felt like a flying superhero. But carrying my walker.
“But no cape.” Dan grinned as he talked into Jeremy’s phone.
Right, Dan. The best superheroes –don’t have capes, and we don’t either. But we do have masks.
The elevator came down. Dan and I greeted Kayla as she got out in her walker. My parents had installed the elevator when I got my first electric wheelchair in first grade.
“Sorry, Kayla, I should have helped you walk like I usually do.”
No problem, Jeremy. You won’t always be around to help me. I still have hope I’ll be able to regain my strength and balance if I keep working at therapy. And your mom gave me a chocolate chip cookie on the way. Kayla pulled out a warm, soft cookie from the purse hanging from her walker.
I liked seeing Kayla’s pretty features face-to-face. Her dark eyes were framed by the black mask and her black hair rested on the scarlet tights. Still, she had a handkerchief in her hand. She tended to drool because she couldn’t control her muscles.
Read Secret Supers in Space – Part 6
Chapter 6 icon – Rocket Launch
“Uh, I’m the only one not in uniform. I’d better change.” A uniform flew out of the cupboard as I rose from my wheelchair and flew into the bathroom.
“You’d better hurry, Jeremy. Aubrey’s coming here at full speed! She’s keeping up with traffic on her bike. She’s using her super strength.” Dan called after me from the other room.
“Ha! Dan, I’m almost as fast as any superhero. Kayla, did you tell Aubrey to wear her uniform?” I yelled from the bathroom as I dressed telekinetically, pulling the tights over my legs twisted by a lifetime of cerebral palsy. It did fit better than the old uniform. Even the boots went on better. I loved the material I selected. It was completely air tight and waterproof. It fit beautifully with the other secret enhancements I’d put in. I wondered when I should tell the others about them.
Of course—
THUMP! THUMP! Ba-DUMP!
I don’t need to read minds to know that’s Aubrey. No one else pounds as she does down the stairs.
The door to the clubroom burst open. “TA-DA! I’m here. I came here at the speed of light, on a bicycle.”
Coming out of the bathroom, I saw Aubrey’s tousled blond hair peeking out of her baseball cap. Sweat beaded her broad forehead. Her black mask and red Secret Supers uniform clashed with her green ball cap. Instead of black boots, her prosthetic legs went to her knees.
I smiled at her. “Aubrey, did you notice how much better these new uniforms fit?”
Read Secret Supers in Space – Part 7
Chapter 7 icon Elon Musk
“Yeah, it doesn’t bind me at all when I run or bike. I could wear it all the time. It’s easy to get on and fits nicely around my stumps. Now tell me what the big news is, Jeremy. Kayla wouldn’t tell me anything!”
“The big news is we’re all going to Space Camp later this month.”
“Woah! Will we learn to be astronauts?” Even talking normally, Aubrey was loud. She sat on a chair and crossed her prosthetic legs. She’d lost both legs in an auto accident. After melting one prosthetic leg while rescuing Dan’s family from a house fire, I had a pair made using a 3D printer. The black, carbon-fiber latticework blended perfectly with her red tights. Everyone else had black boots.
“Kind of. Here’s the agenda.” I cast the Space Camp website to my wall-mounted monitor. They read:
Design, build, and launch a team rocket and safely recover its payload.
Discover the role the International Space Station plays in our global community.
Prepare for every contingency as you go to Mars on an extended-duration mission simulation.
“Man, Jeremy, you didn’t tell me all that!” Dan looked in Jeremy’s direction.
“Well, you could have read my mind.”
“My dad is really strict about that. He doesn’t want me mindreading without permission or if something is life and death. I did borrow your eyes to read it.”
“You always have permission with me.”
And me.
“Me, too, if you can find anything in there. My science teacher says I’ve got nothing up there.”
“Aubrey, wait until you tell your teacher you went to Space Camp. The session can count for college credits.” Jeremy tried to encourage her.
Read Secret Supers in Space – Part 8
Chapter 8 icon – The Villain
“Right, but what if they give me some formula I don’t know? I’m not good at math, let alone algebra.”
We’re always here to help you, Aubrey. Kayla carefully transferred from her walker to a chair.
“I do okay at science, but nothing like you and Jeremy. I’ll help you as well as I can, Aubrey.” Dan’s dark glasses met Aubrey’s blue eyes. They were of the same height and build but as different as night and day.
“That’s why we’re a team, Aubrey. You don’t expect a weightlifter to be a genius, do you?”
“Are you calling me a muscle-bound weightlifter, Jeremy?”
“Uh, no, I was just making a comparison of contrasts.” Oh, no! I felt my face glow as red as my uniform. I had a secret crush on Aubrey and didn’t want to offend her.
She grinned. “I’m just pulling your leg, Jeremy. I identify with weightlifters. I like lifting and smashing things. It’s my natural gift!” She made a bicep the size of grapefruit.
I tried to butter her up. “Well, you’ve saved the whole team with your strength.”
Like when you pulled the steel net off us as the robots shot at us with machine guns.
“Thanks, guys. I know you’ve got my back. And I’ve got yours.” Aubrey looked at the floor under my computer table. “Hey, what about Dancer? He’s coming isn’t he?” She bent down and picked up my pet hamster, the Secret Supers mascot, out of his cage. He’d crawled into his uniform. It was a red vest with a black elastic belt and a backpack for his cell phone.
“Where’s your cell phone, Dancer?”
The hamster pointed at the floor by his cage and then gestured, “Bring it.”
Read Secret Supers in Space – Part 9
Chapter 9 Icon Dancer Floats
Aubrey grabbed it and set it before the hamster on the big work table. Dancer began to furiously type. Dancer was a super hamster, with genius-level intelligence. He remembered everything he read or heard, and he read all the time.
I cast Dancer’s text message app to the screen.
“whew. I thought i’d never get a word in. my phone fell out of my cage and my door was jammed shut.” Dancer was great at texting, but he had trouble typing capital letters or any shift-key character.
“Sorry, Dancer. I didn’t notice.” My face reddened again.
“bad timing, jeremy. yesterday as I conducted my circumnavigation of the yard, I noticed some corvids with metal yarmulkes.”
“I know a yarmulke is a Jewish religious cap, but what’s a corvid?” asked Aubrey.
“I don’t know either,” Jeremy and Dan said together.
It’s a crow, Kayla thoughtcast.
“cor·vid – any of a family -corvidae- of stout-billed passerine birds including the crows, jays, magpies, and the raven. i didn’t know which species it was, so i just said corvid.“ Dancer’s message appeared on the screen.
“So it had a metal yarmulke, just like the chipmunks we found last spring spying on us. Those were cyborg chipmunks. A cyborg crow! That’s not good. Are cyborg mambas next?” I frowned.
Right. That means our villain Becky Robinson that we defeated at Coaster World is on the move and is spying on us.
“Or someone from her gang. We’d better tell the NSA.” I sighed.
“And our parents. Remember, we promised we would let them know the next time we heard of danger.”
“Right, Aubrey. Let’s go upstairs now and give them the bad news.”
Read Secret Supers in Space – Part 10
Chapter 10 icon – Dancer Unplugs
Dancer never stopped typing. His new message appeared. “wait. before you go, i’ve got to say it may not be a good idea to go to space camp at all.”
“Dancer, we fought off that gang twice before and won.” Aubrey petted his back as he continued swiping at his phone’s keyboard.
“i say this because you’ll be away from home and the villain can plan an attack.”
“Aubrey’s right, Dancer. That’s just what happened at Coaster World. We came out okay, and Becky was taken away in zip ties.” Now Dan patted Dancer. He didn’t stop typing.
“obviously she’s escaped and is probably coming back with reinforcements.”
“That’s logical, Dancer, but we can’t live our lives based upon what might happen. Maybe they’re planning to attack us at our home and will be completely thrown off if we go to Alabama?” I held Dancer in my lap as the hamster typed on the cell phone.
“okay. you’re humans, and i’m just a little hamster. what do i know?”
* * *
“Hi, Loretta. Are you all refreshed from your Paris vacation?”
I looked at my wall-sized monitor in my home. My boss and grandpa John Smith smiled genially at me. He might call me any time, day or night, but he always knew where to project his image so we could have a video conference. He stroked his salt-and-pepper pompadour in the bright sunlight. I could see the sea in the background. I knew his hideout was on some island. From the angle of sunlight I could calculate the time—but I had to answer him first.
“Hi, Papa Smith. Yes. I had a lot of fun waterskiing on the Riviera. I also cheated the casino in Monaco out of a million bucks.”
Read Secret Supers in Space – Part 11
Chapter 11 icon, Jeremy grimaces
“Of course.
“But now I’m refreshed and bored. I haven’t had a job since I left for Coaster World.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that. I’ve got a challenging assignment for you—the Secret Supers.”
“Ugh! I sure want to get back at them. But they’re backed up by the NSA. I’m not eager to tackle them and the US government.”
Papa stroked his hair. “The best cure for falling off a horse is to get back on. How about if I get a partner for you?”
“They’d better be awfully competent. I can’t really work with anyone who’s incompetent, or average, or merely a genius.”
“How about if you and I work together?”
I gasped. Papa Smith had raised me. He’d been very vague about what happened to my parents, so he was the only parent I’d known. I’d dreamt of working with him in the family crime business, but I hadn’t seen much of him once I went to college and began teaching, over fifty years ago. He was the one person I was pretty sure was smarter than me. Or at least he knew more.
“That’d be wonderful! I’ve got some ideas I’d like to try out on our little red-uniformed friends.”
“Me too. I’ve got some news too. They’re going to Space Camp. Jeremy just applied today.”
“So are you intercepting their internet signals?”
“And cell phone communication. It’s easy as pie once you’re in their wireless network.”
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