The Dangerous Doors of Shannon Anderson

Chapter Four

The power was still out, it was still storming violently, and I had just had a conversation with Abraham Van Helsing.

I picked up my flashlight and ran to my bookshelf, pulled down Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and wrenched open the familiar teal-and-purple cover. I didn't hear a creak, but I figured doors were better oiled in the wizarding world. Heart beating wildly, book and flashlight in hand, I dashed to the spot next to my dresser where the door to Dr. Van Helsing's study had appeared. There was nothing there but a patch of purple wall. No sign that the Dracula door had ever been there.

I closed Prisoner and opened it again. Still nothing. I checked every inch of wall in my room, shined the flashlight under my bed, and even looked out in the hall, but there was no door. I put the book back on the shelf, more than a little disappointed.

Just to be sure, I tried Dead Until Dark too. No dice.

I hurried downstairs and came back up with as many of Dad's books as I could carry. I dumped them on my bed and picked one off the top of the pile: The Swiss Family Robinson. I'd never read it, but I was pretty sure it involved a tropical island paradise which at this particular moment sounded a whole lot more appealing than a torrential Midwestern downpour. I opened the book.

I found the door near my closet this time. It was made of bright green bamboo stalks fastened together with rough brown rope. I pulled it open and bright sunlight spilled into my dark bedroom. Squinting, I crawled through.

The door had let out atop a sandy hill that sloped gently towards the ocean's edge where clear aquamarine waves lapped calmly against the long legs of bright pink flamingos. The air was warm but not hot, and a cool breeze drifting up from the sea made for a perfectly pleasant temperature. My purple door stood half ajar in the thick trunk of a banana tree. I took a deep breath, drinking in the fresh air, and then choked on it as three penguins waddled by.

One by one, the penguins flopped down onto their bellies at the top of the sandy slope, and slid face-first into the water, bowling over several flamingos as they went. The pink birds squawked wildly and flapped away further down the beach while the penguins splashed in the surf.

It was easily the weirdest display of flora and fauna I'd ever seen together in one place. Palm trees next to pines, penguins and flamingos, ducks and geese. Then a whole pack of these squirrel-pig-kangaroo things came hopping - literally bounding - out of the brush, chittering as they bounced away and vanished in the tall grass on the opposite side of the clearing. It was like being on the safari tour at Disney World. And it was awesome, like all the best places Dad had ever taken us camping rolled into one island. With penguins. And flamingos.

The tall grass rustled again, and then stopped suddenly. There was no sign of the little squirrel-pig-kangaroos, and considering the biodiversity I'd seen so far, I had an uneasy feeling that some big lion or panther (or maybe some unnatural combination of the two) was preparing to pounce out of the reeds and tear my face off.

I was slowly turning to slip back through my door when a boy leapt out of the grass. He was younger than me but older than Aidan, maybe 16, with plain brown hair, a freckly, badly sunburned face, and an old fashioned pistol like the kind my grampy had hanging on the wall of his den pointed straight at me.

"Are you a savage?" he asked, cocking the pistol.

"What? No."

"My goodness, you're Swiss!" He lowered his gun.

"What?" Did I look Swiss or something? I'd always thought my blondish red hair marked me pretty well for the Irish Swede that I am, but maybe that was a Swiss thing too? "No," I said. "I'm American."

The boy's eyes went wide and he tottered on the spot for a second, like he was dizzy. "I fear I have been too long at sea, or else the shock of the shipwreck has addled me, for I am clearly suffering a great delirium. I must have a long drink of cool water when I return to the bay."

And with that he trooped off across the open meadow into the trees beyond. I shrugged and had a seat in the shade of my door-tree, helping myself to a banana from a bunch that had fallen. I was entertained watching the various fowl on the beach for a while; the penguins spun and splashed in the water, much to the annoyance of the proud flamingos, while the ducks and the geese were minding their own business in a shady bit of water farther up the shore.

My peaceful moment was shattered by a high pitched squeal and a gunshot, and before long the sunburned boy marched back into my clearing with his gun in one hand and a squirrel-pig-kangaroo thing slung over his other shoulder. He didn't look at me as he passed, and soon he was out of sight.

A/N: Curiouser and curiouser! If you were Shannon and realized you could open a book and make a door to that book's universe appear, what book would you choose first? Thank you to all my readers for their continued support! All of your comments, votes, and reading list adds really mean a lot. :)