Wiley Trudeau and the Knight-Light

Chapter One

The Mucks is a subdivision of tree-houses floating on fluctuating docks in Backwash, Louisiana. The tree-houses rose and fell with the tide—all built around the stability of the cypress trees. Rashes of green moss grew on the sides of the clay-colored tin shacks. The usual aquatic creatures splashed a greeting to the morning, along with the loud power tools whirring from 241 Muck.

Starting his morning off being welcomed by an angry choir of neighbors, Carol Trudeau sat on a wicker glider with his gritty cup of coffee. Wiley, his daughter, was up before the birds banging and clashing away at her inventions. The lynch mob that hated the Trudeaus had intensified since Wiley's recent "inflame-ous" incident. Carol didn't like to talk about it. He had always hoped his daughter would make the front page for her inventions. Never did he think his eleven-year-old would end up on the front page for arson...of a church. A mistake Carol made sure Wiley spent her whole summer rebuilding. A mistake the people of Backwash would still never let him, or Wiley, forget.

He began to regret making his coffee so strong on the day he was trying to quit smoking. By now he was a professional at quitting smoking after having practiced it thousands of times. The night before, he'd been full of gusto, and he had thrown away his remaining pack — hoping to feel refreshed by the next day. But, here it was – anxiety

      Carol read yesterday's newspaper about two hunters who saw a giant teddy bear that could fly. Carol thought they must have eaten something that made them hallucinate, but the hunters – obviously lying – claimed they hadn't. He rolled his eyes. The papers hadn't stopped talking about it.

"Garbage." Carol was unable to distinguish if his irritation was caused by the fact he was surrounded by idiots or if it was pure nicotine withdrawal. He contemplated looking through the trash for the discarded cigarette box when suddenly, his train of thought was interrupted by a wrinkly figure studying him across the dock.

"She better be curin' cancer in there!" shouted Pickle, the Trudeau's next-door neighbor.

"I hear you — I hear you," Carol muttered, slurping the caffeinated tar while rubbing at the black sacks under his eyes.

The senile neighbor scratched as the skin under his arm waved like a wet sheet on a clothesline. Pickle looked like a naked mole rat with large yellow incisors, pink-transparent skin, and eyes that squinted fiercely at the sun—as if the two were arch-rivals.

"I'll tell you somethin', Carol," Pickle stammered, wiping the orange spit from the corners of his gray lips. "Spare the rod..." the ancient man said matter-of-factly, waving his knobby finger in the air.

Mr. Trudeau falsified engagement with a shameful "mm-hmm."

"Maybe you can come by later and teach me a thing or two," Carol replied sardonically, but Pickle marked the date, oblivious to sarcasm, and scampered back inside his shack with an eek and a rattle from his screen door

Carol slurred to himself, which he often did to avoid conflict. If only the town's two cents on how to raise his daughter were literal and not figurative, Carol would be a wealthy man. Getting more irritated and it wasn't even 7' o clock yet, he decided to find the box of cigarettes he had thrown away—hopefully still intact.

The steps moaned as the shack shrieked under his weight. The rusty springs of the screen door screeched ghoulishly. He was immediately greeted by the smell of eucalyptus tea leaves brewing on the stove. The combination of scents always made the inside smell salty and sweet. Dead center in the room was the tree growing through the hole in the floor straight to the ceiling. The orange lamps gave the room a tawny glow, and the furniture was draped in floral quilts.

He noticed the dust from one of the family photos had been cleaned off, and he could see his late wife Ernestine holding infant Wiley. She had been gone about seven years now, but Ernestine's face was still plastered in his memory and on the face of his daughter. Her shimmering-syrup colored skin, her large hickory-black eyes, and tight curly black hair circling her imp-like face. Wiley had her mother's almond-shaped eyes and cupid's bow lips always pinched in a Mona Lisa's smile.