Cody Liberastrum Book

My wife and I are considering writing a story together, for fun. It is a science fantasy story for middle-school-aged kids, but meant to be enjoyable for adults as well.

This is the first little bit that I have written. I figure getting off to a good start is the most important part of the story. So, if page 1 works, the rest will hopefully follow naturally. The title of the story will be "Cody Liberastrum, the Boy Who Could be Anything"



Chapter 1: That embarassing little lycanthropy problem

Cody Liberastrum dreamed of a white-clad elfin female (he had been reading too many sword-and-sorcery books lately). She was beautiful, with green hair and sparkling purple eyes. She flew as if she were a mermaid gliding through water, her glowing ethereal robe lofting her gently.

He was standing on a small floating island of red ice, about half the size of a basketball court. He knew (but he did not know how he knew) that the ice was made of frozen human blood. This world was cold, but the cold did not touch him. Although it was night, no stars were visible. Indeed, no stars had been visible for decades. The sea shined brightly with glowing red algae. He leaned over the edge of the island, staring at the algae as tendrils of sticky gunk oozed upwards from the water. Cody reached for it with his fingers, obeying an urge to run his fingers through the muck, the way one might be drawn to stroke an old favored pet. As he stretched out his fingers, he felt as if he were giving in to a feeling of fatal resignation. He anticipated the cold pain that would shoot up his arm until it reached his head, lulling him into a peaceful permanent sleep.

"No," the floating elf whispered harshly.

He jerked his hands away sharply, recalling that if the algae touched him, he would quickly sicken and die; and he didn't want to die. He stepped away from the edge of his blood island, safe in the middle, but frightened. He looked questioningly at the elf, wanting to ask her how the world could have gotten this way, but he couldn't speak.

Cody was only 10, but in this dream he wore an adult body, and appreciated the elf woman's beauty with adult eyes. Her form was perfect. Her clothing was not quite transparent, but light from her body diffused through the billowing fabric. He stared at her, entranced. She floated to him, kissed him lightly, then whispered in his ear.

"Remember the Xenthus Kai, Cody. Remember them. They have come to Earth. Remember them, tell your people, prepare for them, and your world may yet survive."

Cody opened his mouth to respond. He knew this was crucial, and was about to promise the beautiful elf that he would remember, that he would pass on the message to his parents. They were the only people he could think of who could be "his people" and he was sure they would know what to do with this message. They always seemed to know how to handle any situation. But, as he began to make his promise, a grungy heavy-metal singer named Zack Zigna suddenly appeared on Cody's island, singing "Feet, feet, smell my feet. They stink like rotting turkey meat."

This was a line from "Stinky Feet," one of Cody's favorite songs. He mostly liked it because it annoyed the heck out of his parents. The fact that Zack Zigna was intruding into Cody's dream meant his i-pod alarm clock was trying to wake him up. It was the kind of music that sounds like a car crash, with an angry cat screeching on top. It was also the kind of music that wakes a person abruptly, and distracts them from recalling their dreams.

Had Cody recalled this dream, he would have gone downstairs to breakfast and discussed it with his parents. This would have set off a long chain of events that would eventually lead to the Earth, Cody's Earth at least, being saved from disaster. Alas, the dream was completely wiped from Cody's memory by a song about the virtues of odiferous feet, and humanity's destiny irrevocably plummeted down a darker path.

Cody dragged himself out of bed and into the shower. He played the same annoying song one a CD player in the bathroom while the hot water poured over his head. Just to be extra annoying, he cranked it up really loud.

"Stinky feat, turkey meat, lick my toe cheese and eat, eat, eat" blared the song. Cody's father, Jason Liberastrum, despised that song. It wasn't the lyrics that bothered him. He only pretended to be squeamish to amuse Cody. It was that aggrivating rhythmic driving guitar sound. It made him want to bang his head, not in tune to the music, but just to give himself a throbbing headache that would be more pleasant than the music itself.

He knew Cody cranked up the music to be annoying, and he didn't want to come down too hard on his son, but at the same time, he couldn't just let the boy be rude. He decided to stop the racket, without saying a word. The Liberastrum's house was made of two upper stories and a fully finished basement. The circuit breaker box was located in the spare bedroom in the basement, right above a crawl space entrance in the closet. It took Jason a minute to work his way down the steep basement stairway, through the mass of toys piled in the play room, and into the spare bedroom. He opened the closet, moved aside their spare rain gear, opened the circuit breaker box, and turned off the power to Cody's bathroom, leaving Cody in the dark, and in silence.

"Daaaaaaaad!!!!" Screamed Cody.

Cody's dad pretended to hear nothing. He just just started cleaning up Cody's toys, as if nothing was wrong.

"Dang it, Dad!"

Cody marched down to the basement with shampoo still in his hair.

"Dad, I can't believe you did that."

Cody loved his father, and even respected him for the most part. But his father was not like other dads. To Cody, it seemed as if his father never truly got angry, but at the same time he was just too strict. Cody's dad was a pacifist, of sorts. He was always telling Cody not to get too angry, because anger leads people to do things like get in fights or scream out insults that they would later regret.

'If I am not supposed to get angry,' thought Cody, 'then why does he do things like this.'

"Dad. I was taking a shower."

"I see that, son. You're dripping on the carpet. Why don't you head back upstairs and finish your shower?"

"Why do you think?" Cody replied, his voice coated in preadolescent sarcasm.

"I dunno Son. I have no idea as to why you are standing here, wrapped in a towel, dripping water on my carpet, with soap still in your hair. I am clueless - totally in the dark."

His dad had a little smirk on his face after that last line.

"Dad, this isn't funny. You cut off power to the bathroom. You know you did."

"Perhaps your music was blaring so loud that it was drawing too much power, and the circuit breaker cut off all by itself? Do you think that could have been the problem?"

"No" Cody's voice now dripped with preadolescent sulkiness.

"Tell ya what, Cody. If you will get back up there and stop dripping on my carpet, I will check the circuit breaker box to see if I can restore power to your bathroom. I think you should probably keep the music down, though. It sounds to me like the music caused your bathroom to lose power. Wouldn't want that to keep happening, right?"

"Right" Said Cody, envisioning himself punching his dad in the nose.

Cody was angry, but he did not allow his anger to have too much influence on his actions. As long as Cody could remember, his parents had taught him to control his anger. They said that bottling up his anger would never work. Instead, they taught him to express some of his anger in words, and to release the rest of his anger through his imagination. Cody's imagination could be very violent. One of the big rules about imagining violence, his parents explained, is that if he imagined hurting someone, he was also required to imagine all the consequences of being violent, and what it would take to make it up to that person.

Cody didn't see why it was such a big deal, because he was fairly small and a bit shy around people he did not know, but it seemed to Cody that his parents thought it would be a disaster if their son ever lost his temper.

'Parents are just weird' Cody thought to himself, as he stepped back into the shower, the lights on again. He was still angry, but he kept the music down.