Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy
Author: Sunayna Prasad
Publisher: FriesenPress (August 22, 2013)
Pages: 216
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1460207017
ISBN-13: 978-1460207017
Twelve-year-old Alyssa McCarthy can no longer stand the toughness of
her uncle and wants a better life. But one day she discovers not only
the existence of magic, but also a villain hunting her down. The villain
uses magic and magical technology to kidnap Alyssa to the Fiji Islands.
As much as she wants to go home, she has to face some dangerous
challenges first. Not only that, the villain himself must also be
defeated. Can Alyssa succeed, even with the help of her mentors?
First Chapter:
The sound of the rain banging
against the window distracted Alyssa from washing her lunch dishes. She stared
out the window and watched every drop. What better way to spend a Thursday noon
than to wash dishes? No hard work involved—just looking out the window.
Gone were the happy days of living
in her uncle’s house. No more family fun. No more sweets and desserts. Just a
structured life of strict and unfair rules. Alyssa longed for a normal and
better life—the kind she’d lived before her parents had died in a car crash five
years ago. She wanted to be like many children her age, but when would it
happen? Not any time soon.
Unless… she could find
her godfather’s phone number and call him without her uncle knowing. One of the
rules here was that all phone calls had to be earned unless there was an
important reason to call someone. She hadn’t talked to her godfather ever since
she’d also lost her aunt three years ago. She had never been able to find his
number nor had she ever succeeded at convincing her uncle to let her talk to
him. But she still remembered how sweet, fun, and caring he’d been. He even
could be her legal guardian since her parents had designated him as one. If she
could find his number and ask about moving in with him, her life would be
happier.
But now something
didn’t seem right with the raindrops, which took Alyssa’s mind off of her
godfather. They turned grayish blue. Huh? How could that be? That broke the laws
of nature. Too distract her more, though, the blue deepened into a dark grayish
blue. What could be going on?
The rain now turned black, looking
as if ink fell from the sky. Alyssa leaned closer, squinting her eyes to
determine the shapes it formed on the window. The rain formed—letters. What? No.
That was impossible. But then a message formed as the rain plopped on other
parts of the window. What could be causing this? Nature couldn’t be changing its
laws, right?
The message finished
putting itself together. Alyssa gasped at what it said.
Your life will never be the same,
Alyssa McCarthy, as magic will interfere.
What the heck—magic? Alyssa had
never believed in magic. She’d even been told at a very young age that magic
didn’t exist. But was now the time to change her views on reality? Was now the
time to start believing in magic? Who could’ve done all that? No one on Orion
Street was a wizard—at least Alyssa had thought that ever since she’d moved
here, right after her parents’ deaths.
Turning around, she
saw her babysitter, Mrs. Hutchinson, examine the kitchen floor as her
eleven-year-old cousin, Hailey, watched, since she had mopped the floor. Would
Hailey get a break now? Ever since her uncle, Bruce, had hired Mrs. Hutchinson,
she’d liked the way Hailey had done her chores better than Alyssa.
“Hailey, you can take a break until
your next chore,” said Mrs. Hutchinson. “Alyssa, get back to work.
You’ve been
staring at the rain for too long.”
“Okay.” Alyssa turned
back—only to see the message gone and the rain back to its normal transparency.
What?
“What did I say?”
asked Mrs. Hutchinson.
Alyssa sighed. “Fine, I’ll finish
washing the dishes.” She scrubbed her dish and glass with dishwashing soap under
warm, running water. Her eyes focused on those and that was it. No way would she
want Mrs. Hutchinson to catch her looking out the window again. Even though Mrs.
Hutchinson was only in her sixties, she had the irritability of a
ninety-year-old. But it had taken Hailey and Alyssa a while to realize that she
wouldn’t even tolerate the mildest kind of nonsense, such as getting distracted
by a windowpane when having to wash dishes.
After she finished
washing her dishes, Alyssa put them to the side and grabbed some paper towels to
dry them.
“What do you think
you’re doing?” Mrs. Hutchinson asked.
Alyssa stopped. “I’m
just—”
“The last few times I
was here, you’d left little bits of food on your dishes,” Mrs. Hutchinson
reminded her.
“But they were
stuck.”
“Let me inspect them.
Also, if something is rubbery, you have to wash it again.”
“Why?”
“Because clean dishes
aren’t supposed to be rubbery. And boy, did you do such a sloppy job! Look at
that stain on your sweater.”
Alyssa looked
down.
“That looks like
chocolate,” said Mrs. Hutchinson.
Alyssa blushed and
arched her eyebrows. Washing dishes was no slice of peach cobbler. Yet Mrs.
Hutchinson just had to embarrass her as if she were a messy five-year-old
child.
“Hey—it’s just water,”
Alyssa said, covering the stain at the bottom of her sweater’s V-neck with her
hand.
But Mrs. Hutchinson
held up her index finger. “Don’t you ‘hey’ me, Alyssa,” she warned, waving her
finger. “That’s very rude. In my days kids respected their elders. We never
would dare talk to them that way unless we didn’t mind them smacking our
bottoms.”
“Things change,” said
Alyssa.
“Yeah, yeah,” said
Mrs. Hutchinson. “Let me do my inspection.”
Great—an inspection!
How long would Mrs. Hutchinson take? She might take a couple of minutes, or
maybe twenty minutes. Alyssa crossed her arms and tapped her foot. She wanted
her break now. She wanted to read, rest, do a small craft—anything but wait for
Mrs. Hutchinson to finish her silly inspection.
“Mrs. Hutchinson,”
Alyssa started.
“Whatever you need to
say, wait till I’m done,” she insisted.
Alyssa sighed. She
continued to watch Mrs. Hutchinson run her finger down the middle of the front
of the dish. She then rubbed it back and forth. When she put it down and nodded,
Alyssa figured out that that the dish had nothing on it.
After a few minutes of
running her finger down the glass, Mrs. Hutchinson put it down and turned to
Alyssa.
“You’re good. Now what did you want to tell me?”
“Um… if I tell you,
can you not give me a hard time?”
“Okay.”
“There was writing on
the window.”
Mrs. Hutchinson pursed
her lips and tilted her head, as if Alyssa had spoken Ancient Chinese.
“Writing?”
“Yeah.”
“Nonsense,” said Mrs.
Hutchinson.
“No, really, it was
there,” Alyssa said.
“There was nothing
here when I came, and there’s nothing there right now. So don’t tell me
stories.”
“But it’s not a
story.”
“I don’t want to hear
any more,” said Mrs. Hutchinson.
“Now it’s time for
your next chore.”
“Aw, but I wanted my
break,” said Alyssa.
“Too bad,” said Mrs.
Hutchinson. “You have to go vacuum the living room.”
Alyssa dragged her feet towards the
living room and took the vacuum from the corner. While vacuuming, she thought
about that writing and how Mrs. Hutchinson wouldn’t believe her. Would a nicer
babysitter believe her? Mrs. Hutchinson had babysat her and Hailey for three
years, and not once, did she smile or use kindness. Alyssa wanted her out of the
house.
After vacuuming the carpet for about
ten or fifteen minutes, Alyssa decided that it looked clean enough and stopped
vacuuming. She put the vacuum away.
“Hailey, you and
Alyssa need to go get the mail now!” Mrs. Hutchinson called, facing the
staircase.
“Coming!” cried
Hailey.
Another rule Uncle
Bruce had placed on Alyssa and Hailey was they could not go outside by
themselves. He worried about people taking them or some animal attacking them,
even though they were older. Alyssa would be turning thirteen next month, so
childhood would end for her. But that rule had been placed because a few months
ago, Uncle Bruce had heard about a seventeen-year-old boy who got shot while
skateboarding in his neighborhood. Violence could even happen here in Bursnell,
New Jersey.
Hailey and Alyssa headed to the
closet and put on their raincoats until Mrs. Hutchinson said, “It stopped
raining outside.”
“Already?” asked
Alyssa.
“Yes,” said Mrs.
Hutchinson. She walked towards the bathroom.
The girls walked
outside towards the mailbox. Alyssa pulled the mail out of the mailbox and
walked back towards the door. Then, all of a sudden, she spotted some mud
bubbling from the ground right near the house. It piled up, looking like horse
manure, and grew as more mud emerged. Alyssa dropped her jaw and stared at
it.
“Alyssa, what’s going
on?” Hailey asked.
“No idea,” said
Alyssa.
The mud stopped piling
up, but it continued to bubble, and the bubbles spread throughout the whole
pile. This also had to be caused by magic because mud couldn’t just bubble on
its own.
The bubbles stopped
popping up and down. Alyssa and Hailey gasped as they expanded. They kept their
mouths open as the bubbles merged together. Each bubble attached to another
bubble, forming a single bigger bubble. Alyssa and Hailey stepped back as the
now-one giant bubble swelled. And to their horrors, it… popped! Particles of
exploding mud landed on the girls, causing them to shriek. A few seconds later,
the front door opened to reveal a glowering Mrs. Hutchinson.
“What the heck have
you two been doing?” she screamed.
“T-the mud… it
e-exploded,” explained Hailey.
“Nonsense!” growled
Mrs. Hutchinson. “Get inside!”
The girls headed
inside, pulling and wiping the mud out of their hair. Alyssa could easily spot
the mud in her straight, pale blonde hair, unlike Hailey, who needed more
patience to search for globs in her elbow-length red hair. But Alyssa’s hair
fell to her tailbone, a few inches past her hips, so cleaning out the mud would take longer, even with the shorter
layers in the front.
“How could dirt
explode?” yelled Mrs. Hutchinson, stomping her feet.
“I-I think it was
magic!” exclaimed Alyssa.
“There’s no such thing
as magic!” screamed Mrs. Hutchinson. “Alyssa, you’re twelve years old. You’re
too old to say things like that!”
“But nothing else can
make mud explode!” Alyssa pointed out.
“Mrs. Hutchinson, we
swear it did!” whined Hailey.
“Enough!” retorted
Mrs. Hutchinson. “You and Hailey—go upstairs and take showers!”
Alyssa followed Hailey up the stairs and heaved a sigh.
How else would the mud have gotten all over the two of them? Mrs. Hutchinson
couldn’t have thought they’d play in the mud. They weren’t small children
anymore.
“Alyssa, can I shower first?” asked
Hailey.
“Sure,” said
Alyssa.
As Hailey strode into
the bathroom, Alyssa strode into her room. She scratched more mud off her skinny
jeans (the only thing she’d wear ever since they’d come into style) and the back
of her left hand.
Standing by her bed,
since she didn’t want to get dirt on it, she thought about the writing on the
window and the exploding mud. Why did they happen? Someone wanted magic to
interfere with her life, but who, and why?
Also, why hadn’t she
ever seen magic before? Why would her parents and others tell her that magic
didn’t exist? Could magic be new to the earth? Had it been hidden somewhere?
There had to be some reason why no one had ever believed in magic.
Alyssa thought about the
possibility that maybe magic would only interfere if she stayed here in her
uncle’s house. Maybe she’d be safe if her godfather could arrange with his
lawyer to let her move in with him. Or would it? Unlike science, anything could
be possible with magic, which meant that magic could follow her wherever she
went. How could she find out more about it? Right now there were no options
available.
The sound produced by
the shower ended, which let Alyssa know that Hailey had finished. Now she could
have a turn. She walked towards the bathroom as Hailey stepped out with a towel
wrapped around her body. After heading inside she took off her clothes and
stepped into the hot shower.
After five minutes
Alyssa stepped out and headed back to her room. She put on leggings and a long
shirt, but she gasped when something appeared out of nowhere, onto her bed. What
on earth? Now that had to be caused by… magic. Approaching it, she saw that it
was a folded piece of paper. She unfolded it and read it.
Hello Alyssa McCarthy,
You must be
wondering about the writing on your window, the exploding mud, and the note that
appeared here. Who was responsible for them? You’ll find out at some
point.
Anonymous
Anonymous? What in the
Milky Way—how dare someone create incidents and not say his or her name? To make
matters worse, Alyssa couldn’t report that person to the police without a name.
But she needed to know. She didn’t want strange, magical occurrences to keep
happening. The only way to tell this mysterious person to stop was to find out a
name.
Regardless of that,
now she had proof to Mrs. Hutchinson that the writing and exploding mud had
occurred. Mrs. Hutchinson had seen her write before, and this looked nothing
like her own handwriting. She wrote in a half-print and half-script style. This
writing, however, was pure print.
Jogging down the
stairs, Alyssa carried the note.
“Mrs. Hutchinson, I
have something to show you!” she cried.
“Not right now,
Alyssa,” said Mrs. Hutchinson, striding out of the kitchen. “You and Hailey have
to go wash my car.”
“But it’s quick,” said
Alyssa.
“You can show me after
you’re done with washing my car,” said Mrs. Hutchinson. She turned to Hailey,
who emptied the dishwasher and put dishes away. “Are you almost done?”
“I think so,” said
Hailey.
“How many dishes do
you have left?” asked Mrs. Hutchinson.
“Uh…” Hailey looked
into the top rack. “Four.”
“Okay, hurry up,” Mrs.
Hutchinson ordered. She turned to Alyssa. “Why don’t you go put that piece of
paper away?”
“But this is what I
need to show you,” said Alyssa.
“Do I have to repeat
what I said before?” asked Mrs. Hutchinson.
“But—”
“Alyssa, do as you’re
told,” demanded Mrs. Hutchinson, pointing at the staircase.
Alyssa sighed. This
note contained so much crucial information. It was the only piece of evidence
that those incidents happened.
After putting the note
back in her room, Alyssa headed down the stairs and walked with Hailey towards
the garage. The two of them grabbed sponges, buckets, and soap for washing cars.
They filled the buckets with water and soap and then scrubbed Mrs. Hutchinson’s
car.
“I wish we had another babysitter,”
muttered Alyssa.
“What was on the piece of paper?”
asked Hailey.
Alyssa told her.
“Who wrote it?” asked Hailey.
“There was no name on it,” said
Alyssa. “Just ‘anonymous.’”
The sound of whistling
turned Alyssa’s attention away from the car. She leaned her head towards the
sidewalk and saw her friend from school, Madison Jennings, riding her
scooter.
“Hi, Alyssa,” said
Madison, as the wind blew her long, dark brown waves across her face. But when
she stopped at Alyssa’s driveway, her hair went limp. Hailey and Alyssa ran up
to greet her and ask how she’d been.
“I just moved onto
Draco Drive a few days ago,” said Madison, mentioning a street off of Orion
Street.
“So how do you like
the middle school?” asked Alyssa.
“Oh, I go to Catholic
school now,” said Madison. “What about you?”
“Hailey and I are
homeschooled now,” said Alyssa. “I never got to tell you.”
“That’s okay,” said
Madison. “So you guys want to come over to my house on Saturday?”
“What time?” asked
Alyssa.
“I’ll ask my mom,”
said Madison. “Okay, bye.” She rode back in the direction she’d come from as
Hailey and Alyssa said goodbye to her.
After washing the car
for half an hour longer, Alyssa and Hailey cleaned up and walked back inside.
The sound of snoring suggested to Alyssa that Mrs. Hutchinson slept. Huh? Why
would she sleep now? She never slept while babysitting.
Striding towards the
living room, Alyssa saw Mrs. Hutchinson asleep on one of the couches.
“Why is Mrs.
Hutchinson sleeping?” asked Hailey.
“I don’t know,” said
Alyssa.
“Can you show me the
note?” asked Hailey.
Alyssa nodded and led
her up the stairs. But when she opened her door, she gasped. The note that she’d
left on her bed was gone.
“Where’s the note?”
asked Hailey.
“It was right there,”
said Alyssa, pointing at her bed.
But then another piece
of paper appeared onto her bed. Alyssa picked it up and read it.
Hello again, Alyssa,
I have put your
babysitter to sleep again to reveal magic to you. You’ll find out why she is
sleeping later.
Anonymous
“Not again,” mumbled
Alyssa. “Why won’t they say their name?” She showed the note to Hailey.
“Let’s go call my dad
before anything else happens,” declared Hailey.
How much worse
could this get? Alyssa thought as she followed Hailey down the stairs.
ABOUT SUNAYNA PRASAD
SunaynaPrasad has been writing stories for over thirteen years, starting at
the age of six. Now nineteen, she will start her junior year of college
this fall, and will study accessory design as well as continue to write
for children. Aside from that, Sunayna also likes to cook, watch movies,
and draw. She lives on Long Island, New York, with her family.
Her latest book is the middle grade fantasy, Alyssa McCarthy’s Magical Missions: From Frights to Flaws.
Visit her website at www.SunaynaPrasadBooks.com.
Disclosure: I received free the item(s) mentioned in this post in exchange for my honest review. Regardless ~ All my reviews are my honest and personal opinion. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”.
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