Danny Flash and the Alien Crash

CHAPTER ONE:

I didn't start off always believing that I could do magic. Well, I didn't start out believing much of anything. When we're babies the world is a pretty scary place. Everything is new, and fresh. Every smell is curious. Every sight is intriguing. I guess there's some magic in that. But you don't believe in magic at that age, you just experience it. It's not until you get a little bit older, with people telling you what you can and cannot do, that you start to really believe in magic.

There are a few things you should know about me. My name is Danny Flash. That's my real name, not a stage name. I know some famous people change their name to sound cool, in order to impress people and stand out from the crowd, but that's really my name. I live in a small house, just outside Thompson's woods, in a small town, also called Thompson, where everybody seems to know everybody's business. And I don't mean "everybody's business," like they know if you work at the post office or the corner grocery store. I mean, they know what you ate for supper last night. They know when you didn't pay a bill, and they certainly know when you've caused any type of trouble.

I live with my mother, Anita; my father, Spencer; and my little sister, Annabelle. My father is, what some might call stern. I prefer to call him wooden, partially because his favorite thing in the whole world was his collection of 1930s wooden figurines, and partly because that was how best to describe him. He looked, and sometimes acted, like a wooden figurine. To me stern would imply he gave me a lot of rules to follow, and he told me when I did things wrong. Wooden was more his style. He was non-responsive much of the time. It's not that he didn't care; it's just that in his own way, no response was a response. It meant, you're doing fine, or you'll get there on your own, or you'll figure this out. I appreciated my father's woodenness. I accepted him for who he was, and how he acted.

My mother was very much the opposite. Have you ever heard the song, "Flight of the Bumblebee?" This song reminds me of my mother. She was quick, and fast, and light, and smart and witty and funny and emotional and caring and loving and charming. All of those positive words, thrown into a blender.

Aukteuogtfnimslltqhcinmiofaaitrnwtsyyatc (That's what all those words look like in a blender,)

My sister was one of my favorite people in the whole world. But don't you dare ever tell her that. It would go straight to her head.

I enjoyed playing in the woods. I enjoyed reading books. But most of all, I enjoyed magic.

My first magic trick was with a blueberry. It was a simple trick. I had a bowl of blueberries in front of me. I would pick a blueberry up. I would hold it out for everybody to see.

"This," I would exclaim, "is a magical blueberry!"

I would pass the blueberry around for everybody to study. I would make a big show of it. When it got back into my hands, I would hold the blueberry up high, and say, "I am going to make this blueberry disappear, and then reappear."

And then, I would turn around, and plop the blueberry in my mouth. I would turn back around to my audience and show them my empty hands.

"Tah-dah!" I would say. "The blueberry is gone!"

There was usually a round of polite applause, but everyone knew I had eaten it. My little sister, Annabelle, would squeal with delight. Her toes would curl and her fists would clench, as she waited for the blueberry to reveal itself again. My mother would lean forward, her eyes twinkling, a small smile forming at the corner of her mouth. My father would sit stoic, staring straight ahead. I would not be quite sure if he was looking at me, or the wall, but I knew he would sit through the whole performance, and when it was done, he would give me a hug and go back to work. I liked my sister, Annabelle's reaction the best.

I would then say, "I am now going to make the blueberry re-appear!" Everyone would wait in anticipation, expecting me to spit the blueberry out of my mouth. But I wouldn't. That blueberry was long gone, on its way down to giving my body energy and nourishment. Instead, I would reach into the bowl of blueberries, and pull out yet another blueberry that looked very similar to the first, and I would say, "Behold! The blueberry has re-appeared." This was usually met with laughter.