Ireland Rose & The Endless Stream - The Fountain Of Youth Chronicles Vol. 2

Chapter 4 - UFO's And The Green Men's League

Hope Springs, Maine, United States, 1983, 2:45 P.M, 33rd Day Of Summer

Ireland emerged from her house one afternoon a few days after her brush with mortality in the ocean and got her bike out of the barn. She and Jonas planned to ride down to J.P.'s General Store for ice cream, and she had waited to finish the last chapter of her book before heading out. Mrs. Blue had recommended it for her a week ago at the library, and her recommendation had been spot on. It was the story of a pirate princess and her adventures on the high seas, and five hundred pages had just flown by as Ireland sat in her bedroom window seat and whiled away the summer afternoons turning the pages. Her parents had given her the summer off after last year's stint as a bait girl in her father's fish processing plant (although her sister India had taken a job there, albeit a much less stinky one in the plant's office, filing receipts). Although Ireland missed her sister, at least she had her best friend and neighbor Jonas (who had also served a term in the fish bait room at the plant last summer) around for company. The two had become close last summer while filling bait bags for Lobstermen to buy, and they had learned how to amuse themselves by coming up with a better story on any subject than the other came up with. They called this game "fish story", and it had gotten them through the summer. In fact, Ireland had enjoyed the game so much that she thought she might like to be a writer someday. Jonas had told her that she won the competition (such as it was) almost every time. She had taken pride in the amount of silly detail that she wove in and around her tales, and she had started keeping a journal of ideas. The journal had been a Christmas present from her Mother, and it had a beautiful leather cover decorated with fancy geometric patterns that Ireland loved to trace with her fingers.

On this particular sunny, summer afternoon, she placed both her journal and recently completed library book in the basket on the front handlebars of her bike and planned to go the library to get the next book in her pirate series after she and Jonas got ice cream. He had only recently gotten over his fear of the library and its fearsome (yet kind-hearted) librarian Mrs. Bella Blue. Last summer she had caught him and the Rose sisters sneaking into an off-limits room in the library, and her scolding and follow up punishment of the children (part of it was the fish bait job) had put Jonas off the library for the year. But recently, with the help of India and Ireland (who, after an adventure with the old lady involving the clean up of the oil spill in the bay with secret, ancient tools available to Eternals like Mrs. Blue), Jonas had come to realize that the exotic and colorful old lady was actually a very nice person. She had known Jonas' father (who had died in Vietnam when Jonas was just a baby) and had started telling him short, comical stories about him whenever Jonas came into the library.

Ireland rode her bike over to Jonas' house next door and rang the small bell on her handlebars three times in a pre-arranged signal between the two of them. In short order, Jonas emerged from his house with his own stack of books to return.

"Are those the mystery books that Mrs. Blue recommended?" asked Ireland, grinning a bit at the thought of Jonas following Mrs. Blue around the library as she fussed and fumed while in search of a specific, "perfect" book for him to read.

"Yeah," said Jonas, placing the books in an empty backpack that he had in his other hand. "My mother wants me to read twenty books this summer before she buys me one of those new video game systems that they just came out with."

"How many have you read so far?"

"With this stack done, I've got nine. It's weird for me to be this into reading, but these "Hanscomb Brother's Mysteries" are awesome. I stayed up late last night reading the last chapters of this latest one. I couldn't stop."

"I feel the same way about the book series that she recommended for me too," said Ireland, pointing her bike towards the town center and kicking off. "It's like she has this weird power of 'recommendations', you know, finding the perfect book and author for every person that comes in the library."