What child doesn’t turn a junk heap into a whole magical world of race cars, rocket ships, and airplanes, and spend their days saving the world from horribly evil enemies? Jeremy and Jemima Potts were no different, and when their favorite rusty old wreck of a car is about to be destroyed, they just can’t let that happen. Fortunately, they have two dollars and an inventor for a dad.
With some junk of his own and a little imagination, Mr. Potts transforms the old car into a thing of beauty with a slight stutter in the engine. With their new friend Truly, the family takes Chitty for a test drive around the countryside, but Chitty isn’t just any old car. She has ideas of her own, and before long her antics land Jeremy and Jemimah in a battle to save their precious car from the selfish Baron Bomburst.
This delightful book is an early reader adaptation of the original Ian Fleming book based on the 1968 movie version of the story. It’s bright-colored illustrations will draw children into the Potts family adventure and inspire wonderful backyard escapades. As a bonus, the original novel is still sold on Amazon, along with sequels written by Frank Cottrell Boyce and the movie starring Dick Van Dyke as the eccentric Mr. Potts.
It had been a week since Grims and I had sealed ourselves into the storm shelter. Fortunately for us Grims was a bit of a prepper. There had been enough food stored in there that we didn’t starve, although the composting toilet left much to be desired. In fact, as soon as Grims said we could check the surface I carried that thing out and dumped it. I didn’t even care what was waiting out there.
Now that essential task was complete, we had to figure out what to do next. If I didn’t know for a fact that we had been stuck in a hole for the past seven days, I wouldn’t have known where we were. The house was gone, not even charcoal left to mark where it had stood. The air was thick and gray with stale smoke, gusts of wind lifting dust devils of choking ash from the unrecognizable ground. Grims’ orchards were nothing but twisted stumps, stark against the smudged sunlight weakly fading through the smoky cover.
I coughed and covered my nose with my now smelly t-shirt. Grims grunted in displeasure at my exposed midriff, but I didn’t see the point. From the looks of things no one was going to be around to see it. I wondered how many of the neighboring farmers had made it to shelter in time. Maybe they were better off if they hadn’t. On the bright side, there wasn’t anything left for the beasts to come back for. We’d die from starvation instead of fire. Or maybe from suffocation; the inside of my shirt was as bad as the air outside.
Marinus and his companion turned and dove into the ocean, waves having piled up around us against the sloping sand. Our bubbles kept pace with them, seemingly drawn by invisible tethers emanating from the merman’s outstretched hands. I tried to look around as we were drawn into the deep water, but the rushing water flowing past me around the edge of the bubble so disoriented my senses that I had to close my eyes to conquer the bile rising in my throat.
We slowed and excited voices reached me through the liquid shell surrounding me. I opened my eyes to find myself in the midst of a crowd of staring swimmers. Eyes the color of the depths of the sea in scaled faces sharing the bright hues of a coral reef examined every part of us. The voices spoke in a strange language, reminding me strongly of whale song I had heard on Earth. I listened, fascinated, as Marinus responded in the same language, his own voice no longer the roaring of surf, but overpowering the others the way a lion’s roar would drown out the mews of his cubs. The crowd quieted and drew back but continued to follow, attracting more swimmers the farther we went.
With our speed slowed I was finally able to look around me. Mer was one of the most mesmerizing places I had ever seen. Houses seemingly grew from living coral, pockets across their surfaces filled with small fish and sea creatures that darted about with abandon. Wide thoroughfares of deep sand ran between them. Here and there floated odd water sleds of what appeared to be some exotic leather stiffened with whalebone, harnessed behind huge fish that despite fins and gills reminded me incongruously of cattle.
The merpeople themselves were nothing like Earth stories had painted them. The men were large and fierce, heavy fins protruding from their forearms and upper backs. Many of them bore scars that broke the sleek lines of their bodies. All carried spears strapped to their shoulders, connected to leather cords wrapped multiple times around their waists. The women were smaller, slimmer, and their fins streamed behind them like rippling trains, but their teeth were as sharp as those of the men and their fingers were tipped with sharp spikes. I was surrounded by colors brighter than I had imagined possible enhanced by the rippling sunlight making its way below the waves.
She closed the door slowly, keys slipping from her fingers to the entryway table with an absurdly loud clatter in the silent house. A light showed dimly under the kitchen door and her feet moved automatically in that direction.
Her hand slid across the door as she pushed it open and a broad swath of light broke the endless night of the hallway. The overhead lamp blazed above the breakfast table, showing off the place settings for two ready for the next morning’s date. She touched the edge of one plate, fiddling with the paper napkin hanging slightly over.
She squeezed her eyes shut and sighed heavily before looking to the center of the table. Pink roses lay in no particular arrangement around a tiny cardboard box tied with brown cord. Her hand shook as she reached for the box, and nerveless fingers bent the edge of the note stuck beneath the knot.
He should have been the one to open it. He should have been waiting for her as they had planned. It should have been the beginning of the rest of their lives. It wasn’t fair. A panicked urge to flee backed her into the door that had swung shut behind her, and she slid to the floor with the box crushed against face, dissolving slowly in unheeded tears.
It was the worst excuse for a map I had ever seen. Trust Lin to come up with something like this. Too much imagination, not enough sense, that girl.
That square might be the airport, I thought. Or if I was holding it upside down, maybe it was the fairgrounds. Given the giant question mark in the middle, I wasn’t holding it upside down.
What was that question mark about anyway? Who uses punctuation on a map? Lin would probably call it a challenge, but seriously. I just want to get where I’m going, not waste half an hour and twenty bucks worth of gas playing guessing games.
Next time I should probably just ask for written directions. Although, knowing Lun, she’d find a way to make that just as pointless. Could a map be written in poetry? If not, she’d probably try.
I wadded the fake parchment with unnecessary vigor and tossed it into the back seat. Time to ask for directions. “Excuse me, could you direct me to Knight’s Row? It must be, I’m supposed to look for the fourth gate west of the Great Hall. No, I’m not trying to be funny. Wait, come back! Hey, I just need directions!”
The address, Lin. Next time, just tell me the address.
A man owed billions of dollars to his employer. As a minimum wage earner, his chances of paying off such an astronomical debt were nonexistent. His employer, in an attempt to recover at least some of his money under the laws of his country, decided to sell the man and his family as slaves and sell off the man’s property. The man begged for time, promising to pay the debt despite insurmountable odds. The employer, knowing the situation and having deep sympathy for the man’s plight, decided that even that great sum of money was not as important as the man’s life and decided to wipe that great debt from the books as if it had never happened.
The man’s future had been saved, and he should have recognized the enormous opportunity he had been given to start fresh with a new outlook on life. Instead, he assumed an overimportant, entitled attitude, physically assaulted a fellow minimum-wage employee who owed him a few thousand dollars, demanded that every penny be paid immediately. When the other employee could not and begged for time to pay the debt, this man furiously and unreasonably had the other jailed until he would agree to pay the full amount.
When the employer heard what had happened, he was furious. He had given this man a chance for a future that he could never have under the weight of his crushing debt, and instead of taking that chance, the man had taken it as a sign that he was better than others and entitled to whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it. The employer reinstated the debt, called the police, and had the man arrested for embezzlement. Instead of having a future, the man would now spend the rest of his life in jail, without the opportunity of repaying even the smallest portion of what he owed.
In the beginning God created a perfect world, setting humans born of his own breath as its crowning glory. Instead of appreciating this incredible gift, humans decided they needed more and destroyed God’s perfect creation. Much like a financial loan that accrues interest the more time goes by without full payment, humanity continued to pile sin upon sin on a debt far greater than any financial obligation we could ever accrue. Two thousand years ago, on a wooden cross covered in His own blood, God wiped that debt from the books as if it had never been.
What do we do with this incomprehensible gift? I fear that most of the world behaves like the employee in the story. Rather than recognizing what an opportunity has been given them to rise above the petty desires of this world, rather than gratefully passing on the relief from this crushing weight of spiritual embezzlement, they waste their liberty in abusing humanity and demanding what they feel entitled to have. No obligation in this world, no imaginable slight on earth, could possibly come close to the spiritual obligation cleared by the gift offered on that cross, yet we become petty tyrants rather than relinquish any claims on our fellow humans.
Selfishness did not produce the result the employee in the story desired. Rather than getting everything he wanted and thought he deserved, he lost the opportunity to have anything for the rest of his life, and died with the insurmountable debt marking his name. Selfishness will not serve us either. Our jail will not be a physical one, and will not end with the death of our bodies. We will be tortured for eternity, with our debt to our creator burned into our consciousness as a constant reminder of what we threw away. Why would we choose such a fate for the sake of temporary and unfulfilling gratification, when we have been gifted a future worth more than the entire universe, a future we could never achieve on our own? Why would we waste the gift of our forgiven debt?
“Look there,” Dagda pointed out suddenly in a hushed voice. “Be quiet and move slowly; try not to draw eyes to us. With any luck we’ll slip by unnoticed.” I followed his gaze to see a pair of dwarves supervising a small group of what I could only assume were elves. Another pang of disappointment rewarded my observation. These elves were slender with the pointed ears I expected, but they were far from beautiful. Barely taller than the dwarves, they were unkempt, with tangled hair flying wildly around their ears. They fawned at the feet of the dwarves, who appeared to be giving orders with the aid of blunt spears used to poke and prod any unfortunate elf who did not please them. The elves were sullen as they tended the trees in the orchard under the scowls of their masters.
As we passed uncomfortably close to a small group working near the road, one elf who was heavily laden with what appeared to be a bucket of dung tripped over a root and landed hard on his belly with his face in the bucket. The dwarves roared with laughter, insults indistinctly heard even at our distance, and prodded the poor fellow mercilessly until he rose to his feet. One even thumped the unfortunate creature over the head with a spear point, producing a yelp of outraged pain. A scowl covered the elf’s face along with globs of manure and a trickle of blood from his mouth where he apparently had bitten his tongue, and without warning he dumped the entire contents of the bucket over the head of the closest dwarf. The dwarf, stumbling about yanking on the bucket now stuck on his head, howled with rage, and other elves ran to the support of their fellow laborer, gabbling angrily. We tiptoed by, slowly moving from tree to tree just off the road to try to escape notice.
Lise’s eyes darted back and forth in the dim light under the trees. Jole was always following her around, but she didn’t want to share her find with her loudmouth little brother. Sure she was alone, she ducked under the hanging moss hiding the strange pod and its contents.
The bones were merely a curiosity; scraps of material that crumbled at a touch held no meaning, though she did run her antenna over the hands. What possible use could require the use of five fingers? No matter, she had seen stranger creatures.
It was the box that she came for. The lock was simple and old; nothing a quick finger circuit couldn’t shock open. Inside was a roll of some thin stiff substance, cracking with age despite being protected in the box, and covered with what could only be a map. Lise had seen one when she snuck inside the council bore; a whole cycle of silence had been the price of that indiscretion. This one didn’t look right, though; the outlines were far bigger and more wiggly than on the other.
Beside the map was the strangest device, like a small box except covered with gadgets that spun and clicked under her fingers. She dropped it with a alarmed purl when one side flew open and whatever had been inside scattered as dust over the square objects beneath it. Carefully she pulled them out, wondering at the images on their smooth faces. Nothing like them grew anywhere near her home; surely such things were nothing but fever dreams of a creative. Still, her eyes drifted to the five-fingered creature’s remains and the odd looking map. What if they weren’t?
My breath caught in my chest. Was it possible he had heard my silent scream? My fear hadn’t lessened, but somehow my need directed it outward. Dagda had said to use my feelings rather than letting them control me. I kept my eyes on the Eimlach and begged wordlessly. He didn’t move, but shreds of music began to separate the gray.
I turned my attention inward, listening with every fiber of my being. The Eimlach’s eyes bored into mine, the sneering laughter of the vampyr fading under the swelling, unifying song in my mind. I didn’t realize I had begun to sing, words that I did not understand, until my hands began to tingle. I lifted them in front of me and watched as the notes shaped a great sword, unsheathed and deadly sharp. Movement around the room pulled at the periphery of my vision. The giants moved, slowly stirred by the battle song.
My eyes returned to the Eimlach, whose lips moved with the words of the song though little sound accompanied them. I turned slowly to find Dagda and Balhon watching. Balhon lowered his head and a whirl of red light streamed from his horn, wrapping itself around me and the Eimlach, seeking the Eimlach’s warriors. I could feel the heat of its intent; fight, it said, fight for your lives! Dagda stood, sword drawn and ready, seemingly as tall and mighty as the Eimlach himself. His smile to me glittered through the retreating gray and the swirling notes in my mind.
I whirled back as the Eimlach’s voice boomed suddenly behind me, his deep bass joining my girlish tones as he heaved himself to his feet, face still gray but with color quickly returning. A sword twice the size of mine formed in his hands, and the other giants in the hall stood and joined the song. Dagda shouted the windows open and both the song and Balhon’s red-hot light flowed into the city.
Dagda led us to an inn near the edge of town. The door, large enough to accommodate the tallest of giants, was made of solid oak planks, heavy and impenetrable. Fortunately for us, a smaller door was set into it, still solid and heavy, but with a latch that was accessible to smaller beings like humans or Tuatha De. Dagda lifted the latch and opened the door to a huge room filled with light and people.
A centaur, his human torso wearing a linen shirt and an apron that hung to his knees, approached us as we entered. “Welcome, Your Majesty!” he exclaimed, rubbing his palms on his apron before extending his hand. Dagda grasped it with a warm smile, and the centaur pulled him in to slap his back with the other hand, towering head and shoulders over him. “It’s good to see you again, my friend!” They turned to us. “Balhon you know, of course. Kizi is the one sticking her tongue out at you from beneath his mane. And this is Selene. Selene, meet Khirrafi, the best innkeeper in all Fae.”
“Nice to meet you, Khirrafi,” I acknowledged, examining the centaur with interest. In all the fairy tales and legends, creatures like centaurs and giants were spoken of as fierce, terrifying warriors. I had never considered them as people, with families, homes, and occupations. Yet there was Khirrafi, his dark skin and long straight hair looking not at all incongruously civilized. A leather thong tied his hair into a braid down his back, and grease stains adorned his apron.
He smiled broadly at me and bowed slightly. “The pleasure is mine, Chosen,” he responded. “Whatever you need is at your disposal with my compliments.” He turned to Dagda and Balhon with a similar bow. “You as well, my friends.” Kizi twittered, an indignant note in her voice as she propped tiny hands on her hips in midair. Khirrafi laughed suddenly, a guffaw that startled me and drew momentary attention from half the occupants of the room. “As for you, mischievous sprite, mind your manners and refrain from annoying my cooks and there will be a sweet treat for you!”
The Word Worker 