Sleepers (The Blue Planets World series Book 1) Page 23
Mom didn’t just recite the script; instead, she took the dry words and put passion into them: “We want the same thing you want. To raise our children, to watch a sunset, to invite friends to a party. To live.”
Jake took up the dialogue, “I want to graduate from high school and go to college. With our people here, the Earth’s economies will be booming, and I’ll join other graduates in exciting new professions.”
They had an audience: the cameramen and security detail had established a perimeter and allowed no one within it. But just outside were a couple dozen photographers. They were a staple of Jake’s life now; everywhere he went, photographers followed. He was getting used to seeing his face on the Internet, in print and on TV.
After that taping, Dad pulled Jake into a fierce hug. Then he held him at arm’s length and whispered, “You risk your life with this video.”
Echoing his mother, Jake said simply, “Life is a risk. I choose life.”
It was a small party, just a dozen friends from school but it was a start.
Scared but determined, Jake took off his sweat pants and stood there with just khaki shorts on; everyone pretended not to stare. To defuse the tension, Jake sat and stretched out his legs and called, “You can come and look if you want.”
David Gordon, of course, led the group. David wore a tight-fitting ankle-length swimsuit, like several others; just because Jake had “come out” didn’t mean David had to. He leaned over Jake’s lounge chair and used his index finger to point at Jake’s calf. “OK, if I touch it.”
Jake rolled his eyes, but nodded.
David ran a finger down the line of villi and whistled, “Weird.”
Other’s joined him, and Jake felt like a cat being petted by everyone in the room. And like a cat, he was suddenly tired of it all. He shoved back, startling a couple of people.
“Sorry,” he said. “I just need to cool off.”
With two steps, he was at the pool’s edge and dove cleanly. His legs automatically Velcroed together, and his gills took over. To please the skeptics, he sat on the bottom for a while, watching the warped images of people walking above him. Of all the people on Earth, he missed Em. Still no word on where her family had gone. Or why.
Finally, bored, he shoved off the bottom and pulled out on the edge of the pool. Shaking like a dog, he brushed aside comments:
“Wow!”
“Seven minutes, 13 seconds. I timed it. No human could do that.”
Instead, he checked with Sir in his pink apron. Of course his family was still keeping secrets: if he called Sir and Easter his grandparents, someone might eventually figure out that it was literally true. Instead, the Navy thanked them publically, loud and clear, for hosting an “exchange student” from Rison. Newspapers and talk shows interviewed the kind souls who had acted as foster parents for the Ambassador’s son while he went to high school. Living with them gave Jake a lower profile and a chance at a normal high school life. Or so the story went. And since only science fiction nuts or conspiracy theorists would believe that alien species could interbreed, it was mostly believed. In the public view, Jake was the son of Swann and Dayexi Quad-de. Exactly as they wanted.
Sir’s shiny baldhead nodded when he came up. “Good show. The burgers are ready.”
“Hey!” Jake shouted to his friends. “Let’s eat.”
“Yeah,” someone called. “I’m as hungry as a shark.”
Phoke
The moonless night sky dazzled Jake with the display of stars: the Milky Way truly looked like spilled milk tonight. The air was brisk, cold. Jake walked determinedly through the neighborhoods until he stopped at the Tullis’s house.
Dark. No lights.
As he had with the Blevins’s house a few months earlier, Jake tried the garage door. Locked. No one had seen the Tullis family—not father, mother or two girls, Marisa or Em—for two weeks. He was determined to find some clue, some scrap of information that would tell him where they went. He snuck around to the back and tried the door there. Locked.
But the dining room window was unlocked. It screeched when he opened it, the wood protesting. He paused, waiting to see if anyone heard. A dog barked in the distance, just a normal neighborhood sound.
Jake heaved himself over the windowsill and tumbled into the room. Awkwardly, he stood and climbed the stairs. He paused at the first bedroom, but it smelled wrong. The last bedroom, though, smelled like Em: coffee and swimming-pool-chlorine. He sat on the bed abruptly and thought about how she hummed all the time, not trying for any melody in particular, just enjoying the sound of her own voice. Where was she?
He switched on a small flashlight—he’d come prepared—and wasn’t surprised that the room was littered with books, paper, clothes and shoes. Em never knew how to keep a neat locker or a neat gym bag, so it made sense that her room was messy, too.
Where to start? He sat down at the desk and flashed the light onto the bulletin board. Startled, he saw a photo of himself and Em together. She’d taken a selfie of them together on the sly!
She grinned at the camera in a swim team t-shirt, and a headband held back her dark hair. He was looking away—that’s how she managed to take it—but she caught his profile.
He pulled the thumbtack from the photo to take it with him. But another card fluttered to the desktop. It had been thumbtacked behind their photo. Jake’s heart pounded suddenly. Had she left him a clue to where she went?
Curious, he picked up the card. Small, rectangular, it was a regular sized business card, like all Earth businesses used. Laying it flat on the desk, he shone the light onto it and read, “Maximillian Bari, M.D. Family Practice.” There was an address of the doctor’s office and a phone number. Why was that behind their picture?
He turned the card over, and at the four words scrawled in Em’s tiny handwriting, he stopped breathing:
Jake –
Help! Phoke!
Em
The End.
Read More: THE BLUE PLANETS WORLD SERIES
The Blue Planets World Series
Earth finally receives a message from space:
“You only live on land. Allow us to live in the seas.”
Rison will implode soon. They desperately need a new blue planet, a water planet for their aquatic species. Will humans be able to open their hearts and their world to an alien race?
ENVOYS - Prequel
A lonely doctor. A desperate alien race. Which blue planet will survive?
Envoys is the prequel to the exciting science fiction trilogy that pits the planet Rison against Earth. Rison has avoided all direct contact with Earth, till now. Blake Rose joins the First Contact team on the Cadee Moon Base. The first Risonian he meets, the mysterious Dayexi Quad-de, calls him an idiot—and thereby, stops the delegations from destroying each other. As the Navy team’s comparative anatomy expert, Blake examines the Quad-de family and reports a startling fact: the Risonians can breathe under water through gills in their armpits. The Risonian delegation finally reveals the reason for the meeting. Because of their scientist’s arrogance and errors, Rison will implode soon. The aliens have one simple request: allow us to live in your seas. If you like epic science fiction, join Blake Rose as he struggles to look into the future and decide if aliens should be allowed on Earth.
Read ENVOYS free at:
MimsHouse dot com / More-BLUE
SLEEPERS - Book 1
A rogue militia. A diabolical sabotage.
Is an alien teen is the only hope for either blue planet?
Sleepers is the first book of an exciting science fiction trilogy that forces a dying world to beg for refuge on Earth. A test-tube baby, fourteen-year-old Jake Rose is half human and half alien. He’s lived on Rison with his mother, Dayexi Quad-de, who is now the Risonain ambassador to Earth. She’s tasked with finding Risonians a new home on Earth in a peaceful manner. Jake accidentally discovers that Earth’s elite ELLIS forces are tying to sabotage Mt. Rainier in hopes of an eruption that they can bla
me it on the Risonian aliens. Can Jake stop them in time or will they ruin the Risonians chances at a refuge on Earth? If you love thoughtful science fiction like Ender’s Game, you’ll love this provoking book from Darcy Pattison.
SIRENS - Book 2
He’s an alien. She’s not quite human.
Can they survive an epic battle under the sea?
Sirens is the continuing story of Jake Rose, a teenager who is half-alien and half-human. When aliens beg for refuge on Earth, they ask only for a home in the seas. But what if Earth’s oceans aren’t empty? The undersea civilization of the Phoke, the mermen and mermaids, comes out of hiding to take a place at the negotiation table. They’ve been infected by a Risonian water-borne illness and demand a medical mission to Rison to find a cure. Jake is devastated when he learns that his girlfriend, Em, is a Phoke, and she’s infected. When a rogue General orders his troops to attack the Phoke, the stage is set for an epic underwater struggle. If you like stories of the fantastic blended with scientific possibility, you’ll be fascinated with the underwater culture. Come cheer for Jake as searches the cold North Sea for Em.
PILGRIMS - Book 3
A deadly microbe. A race against time.
Who will survive?
Pilgrims is the thrilling conclusion of an epic science fiction trilogy that pits Risonians and Earthlings against inevitable implosion of a planet. A small team from Earth travels to Rison to find the cure for a water-borne disease that threatens the Phoke, the mermen and mermaids of Earth. In a rush against time, they must deal with the politics of desperate men and the tricks of a dying planet. Jake battles with his mixed heritage as he pushes for the team to find the cure for the disease. Em’s life is in the balance, and he won’t stop until he’s got what the doctor needs. Will they find the cure and escape in time?
For more on THE BLUE PLANETS WORLD SERIES go to:
MimsHouse dot com / More-BLUE
About the Author
Translated into nine languages, children’s book author DARCY PATTISON writes picture books, middle grade novels, and children’s nonfiction. Her books, published with Harcourt, Philomel/Penguin, Harpercollins, Arbordale, and Mims House have received recognition for excellence with starred reviews in Kirkus, BCCB and PW. Three nonfiction nature books have been honored as National Science Teacher’s Association Outstanding Science Trade books. The Journey of Oliver K. Woodman (Harcourt) received an Irma Simonton Black and James H. Black Award for Excellence in Children's Literature Honor Book award, and has been published in a Houghton Mifflin textbook. She is a member of the Society of Children’s Bookwriters and Illustrators and the Author’s Guild. For information on new releases, teacher’s guides and more, join Darcy Pattison’s mailing list:
Join our mailing list:
MimsHouse dot com / More-BLUE
www.mimshouse.com
Other Books By Darcy Pattison
Join our mailing list:
MimsHouse dot com / More-BLUE
NOVELS
The Girl, the Gypsy and the Gargyole
Vagabonds
Liberty
Longing for Normal
Saucy and Bubba: A Hansel and Gretel Tale
The Wayfinder
PICTURE BOOKS
Nefertiti, the Spidernaut
Abayomi, the Brazilian Puma
Wisdom, the Midway Albatross
Burn: Michael Faraday’s Candle
The Nantucket Sea Monster: A Fake News Story
THE READ AND WRITE SERIES - picture books
I Want a Dog: My Opinion Essay
I Want a Cat: My Opinion Essay
My Crazy Dog: My Narrative Essay
My Dirty Dog: My Informative Essay
SHORT CHAPTER SERIES
The Aliens, Inc. Series
Book 1: Kell, the Alien
Book 2: Kell and the Horse Apple Parade
Book 3: Kell and the Giants
Book 4: Kell and the Detectives
Copyright © 2017 by Darcy Pattison.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Mims House
1309 Broadway
Little Rock, AR 72202
www.mimshouse.com
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data
Names: Pattison, Darcy, author.
Title: Sleepers / by Darcy Pattison.
Series: The Blue Planets World.
Description: Little Rock, AR: Mims House, 2017.
Identifiers: ISBN 978-1-62944-071-2 (Hardcover) | 978-1-62944-076-7 (pbk.) | 978-1-62944-077-4 (ebook) | LCCN 2017901372
Subjects: LCSH Extraterrestrial beings--Fiction. | Parent and child—Fiction. | Refugees--Fiction. | Science fiction. | BISAC JUVENILE FICTION / Science Fiction
Classification: LCC PZ7.P27816 Sl 2017 | DDC [Fic]--dc23
ISBN: 978-1-62944-077-4
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