by Robert West
“What about the upstairs one?” Erin asked with a shrill note of panic.
“Uhm . . . not for a couple of weeks, I’m afraid.”
“Weeks!!! So I’m supposed to wake up every morning with my hair dripping? That does it; I can’t start school — not ’til the air conditioner’s working.”
“Calm down, honey,” her mother said. “Your hair always looks just fine. I’m more concerned about whether that oversized octopus of a coal-burning, water-heating furnace in the basement will keep us warm in winter.”
Octopus? Furnace?! Beamer cast a glance down at the basement door, his cheeks picking up a definite reddish glow. Oh great! So I had a battle with a furnace! What were those little black things then? At least nobody saw me . . . I hope.
“Now go finish unpacking. I’m sure your shoes will show up,” Dr. Mac said, turning her daughter around and pointing her back up the steps. “Go on.”
Erin groaned and lumbered up the staircase, then accelerated past Beamer to the top. She triumphantly stuck her tongue out at him and yanked open a door.
Beamer finally reached the second floor. Straight ahead was a wide but short hallway with two doors on the left and one on the right that opened into bedrooms. Immediately to the right of the staircase was a short, narrow hallway that led to the upstairs bathroom and a spare bedroom beyond. He kicked open the door to his room — the second one on the left — and promptly tripped over something in the doorway. “Oomph!” he gasped as he and the box’s contents simultaneously thudded to the floor.
Groaning, he propped himself up to see the spilled items strewn, like a comet’s tail, across the floor toward the tall, twin front windows. Through a window he noticed clouds gathering above the rooftops. Back in L.A. we had rain programmed down to just one season a year. Here I am, two time zones and half a continent away from home. “Marooned in Middle America,” he moaned out loud. “I’d rather be on Mars.”
There’s a Spaceship in My Tree!: Episode I
Softcover • ISBN 0310714257
Beamer, age 13, who speaks only Californian, is an alien in the world of Middle America, exiled to a bizarre, ancient house on a mysterious street that may or may not exist on any map. With the help of a nerdy African-American kid named Ghoulie, a gangly tomboy named Scilla, and a miraculous, broken-down tree house shaped like a spaceship, he bales the indigenous life forms in his new home, from bullying creatures to the strange inhabitants of dark castles, subterranean caverns, and a spider web the size of a house, to discover how God gives a distinctive purpose to each uniquely designed human being.
Available now at your local bookstore!
A ack of the Spider-Bots: Episode II
Softcover • ISBN 0310714265
Star-Fighters Beamer, Ghoulie, and Scilla follow a strange clanking sound in their cave labyrinth and stumble onto a screaming one-eyed monster that chases them into a huge cavern enclosing a fully animated miniature world. Their search for the person who created that world leads them on a wild adventure to a palatial mansion within a wintry jungle that hides a terrible secret—a secret that they will have to trust God to expose.
Available now at your local bookstore!
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