Dissimulants

Up until now, he's managed to watch a few action-adventure movies, visit a few amusement parks and survive as a kid on his own. Unlike the average teen, he's avoided promoting himself in places like myspace, facebook and other online communites. He's not an anti-social youth, he's just a kid on the run.

Some of his favorite things are:

Skateboards

Bikes

Movies

Harry Potter

Lost

Heroes

Doom

Myst

GTA (Grand Theft Auto)

Soccer

Swimming

Basically, Parks is a teenager. Restless around others except his friend Geli. He likes to see movies about heroes and warriors but he doesn't really want to be one himself.

The story is also about Geli, who turns eighteen years old in a few months. She's a smart kid, who likes to read books, study for school and plans to change the world.

Geli's favorite things are:

Bike Riding

Music

Her iPod

Nervana

Green Day

Harry Potter

Twilight

Fan Fiction

Novels

Romance Books

Puzzles

Reading

Libraries

Young adult movies

Family movies

Comedy

Peanut Butter Sandwiches

MySpace

Facebook

Twitter

Text Messaging

High School

Musicals

Fantasy

Some Video Games

Mean Girls (the movie)

Juno (the movie)

Mugglecast

Mugglenet

Muggle anything

Everything Disney

She's a teenage girl faced with the realities of becoming an adult. In a few months, she'll be starting that adult life as a college student.

Two young people, who meet in San Francisco and discover that they have a common destiny. They have special abilities, not unlike their favorite heroes in books or movies.

Together they learn how to use these almost magical abilites, to save their lives and save the world.

The adventure of this story begins one night, when Parks is riding his skateboard, using bike lanes to move around the San Francisco streets. He notices that he is being followed. When he tries to avoid the car, the chase becomes more serious as it looks like it wants to run him down.

As the adventure story progresses, the two teenagers become involved in their own real-life video game, action film and fantasy novel. But in this case the adventure is real, the magic is real and the bad guys are very real.

3.16 — Uncle Smee

Previously:

Geli and Parks separate from each other in 1942.
Parks suspects trouble and is trying to find Geli.
Geli has met a guy—nice and with a little charm—and she’s accepted his offer to walk together.

Geli knows the area Sam has brought her to as the Castro. Two nights ago—in their own time—she and Parks launched their escape from this neighborhood. But she knows that before it’s called the Castro, it’s an Irish-American neighborhood, and before that, Scandinavian immigrants live here. Like most San Francisco districts, the Castro changes with each new wave of people who escape to the city. Through all these times, Eureka Valley remains as the official name for the area.

At eleven years old, starting with her third journal—she‘s kept a daily journal since she was nine—Geli developed the habit of writing the names of books she’s read, on the inside back cover of her journals. If the book was really good, it gets a circle to the left of its title. The circle indicates that she wants to read the book again someday—just because it was very entertaining, or she feels there’s something she missed or didn’t understand from the first reading. Two summers ago, while browsing the fiction shelves at the Marionville library, Geli found a book titled, Mama’s Bank Account; it was a book that earned Angelica Henry’s coveted circle of approval next to its title. This book sparked her initial interest in San Francisco.

The novel, about the daily lives of the immigrants in Eureka Valley—then nicknamed Little Scandinavia, because its residents came from Denmark, Sweden, and Norway—convinced her that someday she’d move here. At the time, she didn’t realize how quickly it would happen, and she certainly didn’t know she’d exist in San Francisco in such an odd way—living almost as one of its ghosts. But that’s exactly how it feels to her now, walking here next to Sam, nearly fifty years before her own birth.

Sam has lived here all his life, but he says he’s never heard anyone call it Little Scandinavia. Even though Sam’s last name, Paulsen, may be a carryover from the Little Scandinavia years, his obvious Irish self-identity reflects what’s happened to the neighborhood since then. Alongside the majority of businesses, with Irish family names on their signs, a few of the older businesses do still exist. These Scandinavian shops originally catered to Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish immigrants, but now serve a new client. On Castro Street, the blue frame windows of the clean-white fish store still display baskets of herring—fresh, or in various sauces and preparations, unchanged for forty years. And the smell of cardamom still fills the air from the ginger-colored bakery next to the theater. But the sweaters offered for sale on the shelves at Anderson Woolen Goods reflect the real change. Twenty years ago, Anderson would carry nothing that wasn’t from the old country—his old country. Now, his son runs the store and most of the goods in his shop window read, “Fine Irish wool,” on the label.

The remnants of Scandinavian architecture, businesses, and even some faces, exist quietly among an Irish-American world that now dominates 1942 Eureka Valley—Sam’s neighborhood. “Holy Redeemer,” he calls the area. This nickname comes from Most Holy Redeemer Catholic church, which serves two-thirds of the people in the area. The name of the church and the neighborhood are synonymous in his mind, as well as to the rest of the people who live here—although it’s Eureka Valley to the Protestants who live across town. Sam’s baptism was at Most Holy Redeemer, and five years later, his confirmation was practically in the same spot. In his early teens, he served as an MHR altar boy. In his late teens, time seemed split between the confessional, and his pursuit of the things he had to confess.

“I came clean about everything,” Sam says proudly. “There’s no point in it otherwise. Sometimes I had some stiff penance though; Father Duggan was especially rough.” Sam explained with a laugh that Father Duggan was also his baseball coach—and the coach was responsible for half the angry thoughts Sam confessed each week.

The real experience of 1942 isn’t exactly as Geli might’ve imagined it. Her images of this time came mostly from old movies. Some is familiar and expected: all the men are wearing hats, all the women are in dresses, and all the cars are massive. But other stuff is unexpected. For one thing—a stupid thing, she realizes—things are in color. All the color she’d ever seen of 1942 was the range of grays offered by black and white movies and old magazine photos. The women here are dressed in vibrant blue, vivid greens and bright yellows. Even the black clothes are a deeper black, richer than the faded charcoal Geli associated with wartime America. The lipstick is red—really red—and women use a lot of it here. But more than anything, the overall effect of color startles her; color makes everything look real.

The view east, toward downtown, has its own startling reality—and not just color. The San Francisco skyline—that, in 2009, masks the bottom two-thirds of sky, all the way from Clay Street to Bryant—is mostly sky in 1942. Geli sees only two buildings that she’d consider tall; the rest of the city’s structures are short—under ten stories. The absence of skyscrapers makes sense to Geli. It’s only thirty-six years since the 1906 earthquake and fire knocked most of the city to the ground. It’s natural that people here would be dubious about erecting tall buildings. In some ways, Geli finds it sad to realize that soon they will figure out how to design for earthquakes, and the San Francisco skyline makes a tremendous change, in a very short time.

Sam has guided their walk—and the conversation—up to this point; Geli wants it that way. Too afraid she’ll say the wrong thing—some phrase or reference from the future that’d require an inventive cover-up explanation—she lets him do the talking instead. It isn’t as though she’s concerned he’ll suspect her of being a secret traveler from the future—that would be ridiculous, or at least, unlikely. But having to come up with fake explanations for a casual slip of the tongue, explanations that will make sense enough for Sam to accept, isn’t the sort of thing she does well. It’s an attribute Parks has, but Geli‘s not much of a liar. So, for most of the way, they walk, Sam talks, and Geli listens. It isn’t a problem—it doesn‘t draw attention from Sam. Like most guys, as long as he’s talking, he doesn’t notice that she isn‘t saying much. But as they approach Noe Street, something about what he’s saying gives her an odd feeling—the type of feeling that gives a person goose bumps. It prompts a change in her tactics; she begins to drive the conversation.

It was a point that Angie had made several times during their chats together; events in different times connect to each other in many possible ways. Angie said that when a Dissimulant experiences such a connection—she called it a reality key—they feel it as a chill running through their body. When found in one reality, such a key provides important clues for many different realities of time. As a kid, Geli’s friends said that a chill like this meant someone had stepped on your future grave, but she never believed it—she got the chill far too often for that explanation to be real. Yet, what Angie said made sense—it felt right. And when Sam mentions his uncle, the chill that comes over Geli‘s body is like a thousand people walking over her grave. She knows that she’s close to finding a key.

It starts with Sam’s explanation that—although his family name is Norwegian—all of his friends have last names like Kelly, Sullivan, Fitzgerald and McCarthy. With pride, he adds that even his mother’s family name is Irish. Sam identifies more with his mother’s Irish side of the family than with the side that gives him the Paulsen last name; this much is clear to Geli. He also sounds Irish—not from a brogue, or even specific words—it’s his attitude.

In particular, Sam is proud of his uncle—his mother’s youngest brother—a Boatswain’s Mate in the navy. For a good part of the walk, Sam has talked about this uncle, who he calls Uncle Smee. Mr. Smee is the nickname the uncle’s first shipmates had stuck him with. His uncle told Sam that it came from a hapless but jovial pirate in a story called Peter Pan. And Sam’s uncle, true to his nature, took the nickname with good humor—even letting his nephew in on the joke. But Sam knew that his uncle was really a damn good sailor. He knew it even before the First Lieutenant who came to see his mother—after the Jap attack at Pearl Harbor—had pulled Sam aside to make sure he knew it.

Sam drops in the mention of Pearl Harbor so unexpectedly that Geli doesn’t catch it right away. It’s the first time he’s hinted that his uncle was dead—and the revelation explains a good deal about his feelings toward Japan. For him, the war isn’t just a poster or a slogan. Geli wants to say something, but words would be pointless. She just looks at the hurt in Sam’s eyes.

“They gave me his Navy Identification Card.” Sam pulls a white card from his wallet and offers it for Geli to look at. The card is just plain paper—no lamination to protect it. It looks almost like something a kid has made. The personal data, letters hand-typed at odd angles, drop below the lines printed on the form. Geli’s seen typewritten documents before, so that’s not the reason her eyes lock on the card—it’s the photo of Sam’s uncle.

A staple holds the black and white photo to a box at the upper left corner of the card—as if the original adhesive weakened and someone repaired the card with whatever was available to use. Although the face in the photo is thinner, it shows the unmistakable eyes of an unstoppable grin, forced into hiding for the momentary purpose of taking a serious photo. And it’s hard for Geli to tell if he’s younger or older in the photo, but the photo matches the name—and the name on the card reads, “Jake Finney.”

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
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4 Responses to “3.16 — Uncle Smee”

Kayla Bee Says:
May 3rd, 2009 at 11:33 pm
Good as always!

Is the name Jake Finny supposed to mean anything to me? Was it mentioned in previous chapters and I’m just drawing up a blank? Just wondering.
Kayla Bee Says:
May 3rd, 2009 at 11:35 pm
OH! Never mind, just figured it out. It’s Finn! But wait… Finn’s alive… confusion… Damn you and you cliffhangers! lol.
kdk Says:
May 17th, 2009 at 5:14 am
OK, two cliffhangers in a row and then a LONG break between this and the next update… what gives??? Keep us hangin’… how dare
mhduncan Says:
May 18th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Alright, I owe an apology to those who are following the story and have been kept waiting too long between new episodes. I promise to do better going forward. On the plus side, the delays have been for a good cause. I’m working on the editing for publication as a novel; this is far more time-consuming than I expected, but rewarding in its own way.

Look forward to more this week, and a better schedule for episodes going forward.

This novel is about Parks, a teenager who rides skateboards, plays video games and drinks soda.

The story is also about Geli, who turns eighteen years old in a few months. She's a smart kid, who likes to read books, study for school and plans to change the world.

The real story is how these two teenagers became friends and became involved in an adventure to save their world.

Two young people, who meet in San Francisco and discover that they have a common destiny. They have special abilities, not unlike their favorite heroes in books or movies.

Skateboards, video games, super heroes and characters in a novel; are all put away as the the two teens begin a real stuggle for survival in a changing world.

Afterall, being a kid in an adult world was never easy. Maybe with a few supernatual talents, the playing field can be leveled.

3.16 — Uncle Smee

Previously:

4 Responses to “3.16 — Uncle Smee”

Reader comments are really appreciated!
Please add yours below.

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Open Access Is Ending

DISSIMULANTS
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Published Chapters:

Pages

This novel is about Parks, a teenager who rides skateboards, plays video games and drinks soda.

The story is also about Geli, who turns eighteen years old in a few months. She's a smart kid, who likes to read books, study for school and plans to change the world.

The real story is how these two teenagers became friends and became involved in an adventure to save their world.

Two young people, who meet in San Francisco and discover that they have a common destiny. They have special abilities, not unlike their favorite heroes in books or movies.

Skateboards, video games, super heroes and characters in a novel; are all put away as the the two teens begin a real stuggle for survival in a changing world.

Afterall, being a kid in an adult world was never easy. Maybe with a few supernatual talents, the playing field can be leveled.

Dissimulants

3.16 — Uncle Smee

Previously:

4 Responses to “3.16 — Uncle Smee”

Reader comments are really appreciated! Please add yours below.

REGISTER NOW Open Access Is Ending

DISSIMULANTSSearch the Site

Published Chapters:

Pages

Reader comments are really appreciated!
Please add yours below.

REGISTER NOW
Open Access Is Ending

DISSIMULANTS
Search the Site