Greetings From Floyd And Annie Lima - fandalimafamily

Letters From Annie (Douglass) Lima

Letters From Annie (Douglass) Lima

Everyone's Favorite Spy
This is the final interview I've done with characters from my novel, In the Enemy's Service, due out two weeks from tomorrow.  Scroll down to the first one, the one with Anya, to read why I've been interviewing people from my world and where I got the idea in the first place.






1. Do you like your job?  Why or why not?

Dannel chuckles.  “I love my job!  There’s nothing like the thrill of successful deception.  Of course, that’s only a small part of what I do.  I’m in the intelligence business, and deception is just one of the means I employ.  It’s quite fulfilling, negotiating for the best possible price and then delivering critical information, usually to desperate people.  But I offer other services too.  If you ever need anyone taken out of the way, for example, I’m sure we could work something out.”


Dannel affects a look of surprise.  “You have more than one question?  You’ve only paid me for one answer.”


2. Do you have any friends?  Significant others?


3. What is your idea of success?

“Infiltrating a target group, finding out exactly what I need to know while making them think they’re the ones I’m helping out, and convincing them to pay me for whatever I tell them I’m doing for them.  Then simply disappearing afterward; and – depending on the mission – they might never see me again before they feel my dagger between their shoulder blades.  And then returning to my grateful employer and getting paid even more to deliver the information I’ve learned, all the while planning the best time to sell him out to his enemies.”


4. What do you hate?

He doesn’t seem to have heard me, his eyes darting back and forth among the other patrons of the tavern.  I resist the urge to glance behind me to see who he’s watching.  Finally I realize why he hasn’t answered.  Counting the questions remaining on my sheet, I reach into my pocket and hand him eight more coins.  He counts them silently before sliding them into his own pocket.


5. What do you do in your spare time?

“Plan out the next job.  Design disguises.  Keep an eye on people and situations to see how I could use them for profit.”



6. What did you have for breakfast?

“Today?  Venison and fried potatoes at the Alasian army camp.  They’ve been on short rations since the Invasion, so there wasn’t much of it.  I bought some bread and fruit as soon as I got into Almar.”

7. Did you ever have a pet?  Describe it.

“No.  Pets mean attachment.”

8. Do you believe in luck? Why?

“Of course I do.  I make luck.  The ingredients are careful preparation and quick thinking.”

9. What is your favorite scent? Why?

He considers this for a moment.  “Skin paint.”



10. What is the strangest thing you have ever seen?

“Charity.”

11. What is the most frightening thing that has ever happened to you?

Dannel’s eyes grow distant.  “It was a long time ago, back near the beginning of my career.  I was working for a group of seafaring raiders; you know, the ones who attack coastal towns in those fast little ships, steal what they can, and then disappear among the rocky offshore islands.  They were paying me to help identify the best targets.  Long story short, the Alasian navy finally caught up with them, and there was a battle off the northwest coast.  I was on one of the raiders’ ships at the time; they were outnumbered, and we got boarded.  We all jumped overboard and tried to swim for shore, but most of us were caught and hauled on board one of the navy vessels.  It was winter, and I was wet and freezing and terrified I’d get killed or stuffed in a prison along with the raiders.  I was very young back then,” Dannel explains apologetically.  “But I managed to work it out in my favor.  I talked the captain into a deal, and ended up trading the location of their base for my freedom, a set of dry clothes, and ten gold coins.”  He sighs, remembering.  “I still regret not demanding twenty.”


Interview with Eleya
As I cross the palace courtyard toward the clinic, Eleya meets me at the front door.  “Come in, come in.  It’s freezing out there!”  A light whirl of snowflakes follows me through the door as she hurriedly shuts it behind me.  “Come on upstairs to the sitting room.  We can talk there without being interrupted.” 







1. Do you like your job?  Why or why not?

“Most of the time I do.  I enjoy helping my husband Tonnis and our friend Dal in the clinic.  The job I’m really trained for, which I don’t get to do as often, is midwife; I love helping to bring children into the world.  Lately, though, most of what Tonnis and I have been doing is just helping the Malornians.”  She sighs.  “They killed hundreds of our people, and here we are helping heal their injuries and keep them healthy so they can mistreat more of us any time they like.”  She shakes her head hopelessly.  “But after all the threats they’ve made, what else can we do?”

2. Do you have any friends?  Significant others?

“Not as many friends as I used to have.  A lot of them were our coworkers here at the palace, and most of those are buried out back now.”  She pauses to fish out a handkerchief and blow her nose.  “But of course Tonnis is still here.  I don’t know what I’d do without him.  And young Anya lives with us now; she’s become almost like family in the last couple weeks.  I’ve enjoyed teaching her to do simple tasks around the clinic; to knit – it’s almost like having a daughter.”  Eleya smiles fondly.

3. What is your idea of success?

“Helping sick or injured people recover.  Helping a mother bring a healthy baby into the world.”

4. What do you hate?

“People who hurt others on purpose.”

5. What do you do in your spare time?

“I like to knit, especially with Anya.  In the evenings or when the soldiers aren’t keeping an eye on us, sometimes we’ll all sit and knit and talk down in Wennish’s room.  In the past, sometimes Tonnis and I would read together up here, but I doubt we’d be allowed to take books from the palace library now.”

6. What did you have for breakfast?

“Bread with butter and jam, a couple slices of pear, and spiced tea.”

7. Did you ever have a pet?  Describe it.

Eleya smiles.  “I love cats.  While I was growing up, my sisters and I always had at least one.  But I haven’t had a pet since I’ve been married.  Unfortunately, Tonnis doesn’t care much for cats, and besides, it wouldn’t work well to keep one here, where we live above the clinic.” 

8. Do you believe in luck? Why?

She considers this.  “No, I don’t think so.  I believe in good and evil.  When people do evil things, like the Malornians have done here, some might call it bad luck, but I think that takes the blame off those who deserve it.  What we call good luck usually comes through people’s hard work and perseverance.”   

9. What is your favorite scent? Why?

“Warm peach pie, maybe.  I used to make it a lot, before we moved here.”  She chuckles.  “I haven’t done much cooking in years – being able to eat three meals a day in the palace dining hall, Tonnis and I are spoiled – but now and then on my day off I’ll go to one of my sisters’ or cousins’ houses and cook with them.  Peach pie is still my specialty.”

10. What is the strangest thing you have ever seen?

Eleya thinks this over.  “Once I saw four children riding a donkey down one of the main streets here in Almar.  That wouldn’t be so unusual, except that it was during a heavy rainstorm, and the poor things were doing all they could to keep from getting wet.  They’d gotten ahold of a wooden board, and the last girl was holding the back edge of it, trying to balance it over all their heads with one hand while holding on to her brother’s waist with the other.  The little boy in the front had both his hands in the air to support the board, which stuck out past him and sheltered most of the donkey’s head, too.  It was the girl behind him who was reaching around him to hold the reins.  But the board was nearly as wide as it was long, so other people on the street kept having to dodge or they’d be hit by one edge or the other.”  She stops to chuckle.  “The funniest part was, three of the children didn’t even seem to realize they were doing anything odd.  They were singing some song about the joys of rain and springtime at the top of their little lungs, and in three different keys, I might add.  Only the oldest boy looked embarrassed, like he wished he could disappear right off of that poor donkey’s back.”  She shakes her head, still chuckling.  “Children are so much fun.  Just thinking of it makes me miss my nieces and nephews.”

11. What is the most frightening thing that has ever happened to you?

Eleya’s smile fades, and abruptly her mood turns serious.  “There’ve been a lot of frightening things since the Malornians came.  The night of the Invasion was bad enough, but yesterday... yesterday eight people –”  Her voice breaks, and she pulls out her handkerchief once more to dab at her eyes and blow her nose.  “They were our friends, and most of them – well, half of them – hadn’t even done anything.  I’ll never forget the look on Talifus’s face as he –” She breaks off again, shuddering, and I wait awkwardly while she buries her face in her handkerchief, her shoulders heaving silently.  “It’s awful,” she whispers finally.  “Just awful.  We don’t know when they’re going to stop, who’s going to be next.  The only thing left to hope is that Prince Jaymin is still safe and that he has some sort of plan.  Otherwise, I’m afraid things are only going to get worse.”
An Interview with Karro (Anya's Father)
Glancing at my directions to double check the address, I knock on the front door of the house I’ve been directed to.  It’s a two-story brick building in a middle-class neighborhood in Sazellia, the capital of Malorn. 




1. Do you like your job?  Why or why not?

“Oh, yes.  I wouldn’t want to be anything but a merchant.  I love to travel, and I enjoy making new contacts, striking bargains, picking out the best goods and planning the best places to sell them.  I’ve been training my son Arvalon, who’s nearly ready to join me in the business, and it makes me so proud to see him learning and enjoying it too.”

2. Do you have any friends?  Significant others?

A shadow seems to pass over his face.  “My wife passed away ten years ago.  But my son and daughter are the joy of my life, and we have a large extended family here in Sazellia.  With my business, it’s been easy to make friends almost everywhere.  In fact, I’d say I have friends in a dozen different towns back in Alasia, and nearly as many in Malorn.”

3. What is your idea of success?

Karro smiles.  “Striking a good bargain.  Buying a cartload of goods from someone who’s glad to get it off his hands for that price, then finding just the right people to sell it to somewhere else for just enough profit to make it worth it, while they consider it an amazing bargain and can’t wait to do business with me again.”

4. What do you hate?

He considers this.  “Being cheated into buying damaged or low quality goods, though that doesn’t happen often.  Heavy rain when I’m out on the open road.  Being talked back to by one of my children or nieces or nephews.”

5. What do you do in your spare time?

“I’ve tried to spend as much time as possible with Arvalon and Anya since they lost their mother.  I try to do some of the things she used to do - plan picnics, take them fishing or out to play on the beach in summer or in the snow in winter.  In the evenings the three of us often cook dinner together, and sometimes I’ll read aloud to them afterwards.”  He chuckles ruefully.  “Arvalon thinks he’s getting too old for such things, and I suppose in a way he is, but Anya still enjoys it.  Sometimes I’ll pull one or both of them out of school for a few days if I need a hand on one of my longer business trips.  I really think the life experience and time with their father will do them more good in the long run than sitting in a classroom.”  He sighs.  “I’m glad I brought Arvalon along this time, but I would have brought Anya too if I’d known what was going to happen.  Our family has never been separated for this long before, and I’m not sure how long it will be before we’re together again.”  His expression is worried.

6. What did you have for breakfast?


7. Did you ever have a pet?  Describe it.

“I have two horses, if you can call them pets.  They’re work animals.  My wife liked cats, so we had a few back when she was alive, before Anya was born.  When I was a boy, I kept turtles.”

8. Do you believe in luck? Why?

He hesitates, and I see that his expression has grown uncomfortable.  “I don’t know.  I suppose so.  I mean, I would probably have said no if you’d asked me a year ago, but….”  His voice trails off.  I wait expectantly, and finally, reluctantly, he goes on.  “A few months ago I had what I can only describe as a run of very bad luck in my business.  You know, deals turning sour, customers cancelling orders for no reason I could understand.  Finances got tight, and I was worried.  I couldn’t figure out why everything was going wrong all at once.  I had to make some difficult decisions.”  He fidgets, running his fingers idly along the arm of his chair, and as I watch him, he won’t meet my gaze.  “So, do you have any more questions, or was that all?”

9. What is your favorite scent? Why?

Karro seems relieved to be on a safer topic.  “The tang of salt air, perhaps.  I spent most of my childhood here in Malorn where my father is from.  As you may know, Malorn only has a few miles of coastline before the mountains get in the way, and what there is is mostly rocky.  The water is all swampy and silty around the Grenn Delta, so it isn’t exactly an ideal place to enjoy a day at the beach.  But every now and then we’d travel to Alasia to visit my mother’s parents, and they lived close to a beautiful beach, perfect for sandcastles and swimming and all sorts of fun.  Sometimes we’d see dolphins out in the surf, or seals sunning themselves.  That beach was one of the reasons I chose to move to Almar almost as soon as I was grown.”

10. What is the strangest thing you have ever seen?

Karro thinks this over for a while.  “I’ve seen a lot of interesting things in my travels, but strange?”  Then he chuckles.  “Ah, I know.  A few years back I was crossing the Grenn River on the ferry, heading back home to Alasia with a cartload of Malornian coffee.  It’s always a little frightening, standing by the horses on that big flat raft, hoping they don’t spook and capsize the whole thing, while the ferrymen pull you across on their pulley system.  I always try not to look down at the water so close to my feet, but this one time, my attention was caught by a glimpse of something moving.  You may not believe this, but it was a shark - a huge one, too; the biggest I’ve ever seen.  Its dorsal fin cut through the water not three feet away, and the water was so clear I could see its whole body.  It was longer than my cart; longer than the whole raft.  I suppose it was lost, maybe disoriented in the fresh water, trying to find its way back down to the ocean.  Don’t ask me how it managed to get thirty miles upstream from the coast.”  He shakes his head in wonder.  “I think about it every now and then, wonder if it ever did make it home.”

11. What is the most frightening thing that has ever happened to you?

Immediately, Karro grows uncomfortable once again.  His gaze shifts to the floor, the fireplace, the tightly shuttered windows, but he doesn’t look at me.  Finally he licks his lips and starts to speak, pauses, starts again, and stops.  I wait, and finally he tries again.




Interview with a Traitor
Lieutenant Talifus has agreed to meet with me in a tavern in the city of Almar, not far from the Alasian royal palace. When I arrive, he is already seated at a table with a tankard of ale, staring morosely into its depths. He barely nods as I sit down across from him.

"Questions, eh? Fine, go ahead. You won’t tell the Malornians anything I tell you?” I assure him I won’t.

1. Do you like your job? Why or why not?

Talifus scowls. “I hate my job. Those stinking Malornians tricked me! Before the Invasion I was a captain; they promised to promote me but instead I got demoted to lieutenant. I have to work under Captain Almanian. I should have been his superior by now.” He sighs angrily. “Not that I liked my job all that much even before. You know, I never really wanted to be on the palace guard. As a boy, I always pictured I’d join the army, where there’s plenty of room for advancement. It only goes up to captain in the palace. What more is there to strive for when you’re already at the top?”

“So why did you join the palace guard in the first place?” I prompt.

“Well, King Jaymin put me on it, and you can’t really say no to the king. Though I see now that I should have. He was nearsighted enough to think he was doing me a favor, I suppose. You see, my father was captain of the guard years ago when his father - Jaymin II - was on the throne. The two of us sort of grew up together here in the palace, but we were never close friends. Our fathers died in battle together when we were both sixteen, and I suppose Jaymin III thought he owed me something. He knew I was a good fighter, so after they crowned him king he gave me a position on the palace guard. I pretended I appreciated it - what else could I do? - and started working my way up the ranks, and here I’ve been ever since. Until the Malornians offered me the chance at something better, and then broke their promises, those filthy stinking liars.”

2. Do you have any friends? Significant others?

“Not anymore. All the Alasians I know hate me, and the Malornians don’t trust me. Nobody respects me anymore.”

3. What is your idea of success?

“Promotion. Power. Wealth. All of which I was supposed to get after I helped them invade.” He glares at me as though it were my fault. “I gave up everything to help the Malornians. Everything! And what did I get in return? Broken promises and demotion.” He slams a fist down on the table. “It’s all Captain Almanian's fault. He's ruined my life.”

4. What do you hate?

“Those filthy Malornians, of course. Almanian, especially. Someday I’m going to make sure he gets what he deserves for what he did to me.” Talifus takes a swallow from his cup and thumps it angrily back down on the table, ale sloshing over his fingers.

5. What do you do in your spare time?

“Try to plan ways to get even with them. And drink.” Talifus wipes his hand on his breeches, still scowling. “It’s their fault I started drinking. I hardly touched a drop until the day that messenger approached me with Regent Rampus’s offer and I began planning how to help them invade. Now I can’t seem to stay away from the bottle. I never used to be like this. Well, not as much.”

6. What did you have for breakfast?

“I didn’t have breakfast today. My stomach was acting up after last night’s wine. I’ve still got a headache.” He mutters something under his breath about “that cursed Almanian”.

7. Did you ever have a pet? Describe it.

“No. I don’t like animals.”

8. Do you believe in luck? Why?

“Yes. I’ve had nothing but bad luck for weeks now.”

9. What is your favorite scent? Why?

This makes him pause. “I don’t know. Fresh oatcakes, maybe. My parents and I, that used to be our favorite breakfast together in the dining hall when I was a boy. As we sat and ate, my father often used to talk to me about the future, about the army career he was going to help me get, about all the power and privileges I’d have when I was an officer.” Talifus sighs. “It never bothered him that I didn’t want to follow in his footsteps. He had contacts in the army who he was sure would help get me on the fast track to success. We often talked about it at breakfast before he went off to work, and I still associate oatcakes with the promise of a bright future.” He sighs again. “Now that all the Alasians here have to do what I say, I sometimes make Lutian cook them for me even when they’re not on the day’s meal plan. But for some reason they don’t seem to taste as good anymore.”

10. What is the strangest thing you have ever seen?

Talifus’s eyes grow distant. “You don’t expect to see a company of hundreds of soldiers moving in complete silence. I don’t know how they did it that night. Wrapped their boots in cloth, maybe, to muffle the sound of their footsteps. And it was a dark night, perfect for their plans: no moon, and the sky was overcast. I was expecting them, but even so, I hardly realized they were coming until they were right there before the palace gates in a silent throng. Not a single footstep, not a whisper, barely the slightest rustle of movement. If it hadn’t been for the torches by the gate, I would hardly have known anyone was even close by. And yet there they were, ready to change my life and Alasia’s.” He sips distractedly from his tankard. “You wouldn’t think life-changing events would slip in so silently. Maybe that’s why it seemed so strange, so out of place. You’d expect an invading army to charge in with trumpets and war horses and battle cries. You don’t expect them to just appear out of the darkness like a horde of ghosts in front of your home.”

11. What is the most frightening thing that has ever happened to you?

Talifus looks away, and for a moment I think he isn’t going to answer. When he speaks again, his voice is lower, and I have to lean forward to hear.

“It was that same night, of course. The night of the Invasion. There were four of us guards who knew what was about to happen, and I had arranged the schedule so that two of us were on duty at the gates and the other two at the main door, ready to let the Malornians in.” He chews his lip, fiddling with the handle of his cup. “You ever have one of those moments where it seems like your future is teetering on the edge of a blade? You need to make a quick decision, and you know that one way or another your life is never going to be the same afterward. And you’re terrified you’re about to make the worst mistake of your life.” He sighs heavily. “Not that I really had much of a choice by that time, you know? I had already agreed to help them. The arrangements had all been made. They’d paid me an advance - not a terribly big one, considering everything I was doing for them, but they’d promised a lot more would be coming afterward. And now there they were, waiting outside the gate while I stood guard up top, and I had a split second where I almost….” His voice trails off and he closes his eyes, shaking his head hopelessly. When he lifts his tankard for another gulp of ale, I see that his hands are shaking.

“But I did it, of course,” he continues finally. “I had to. I had to! They would have killed me if I’d backed out of the deal then, and the other three would have let them in anyway, so what would have been the point? I had no choice, really.” It isn’t clear whether Talifus is trying to convince me or himself. “Almanian was there at the front, and I led him across the courtyard and into the palace, showed him and his men the way through the corridors. I’d tried to keep the duty schedule as light as I could that night, but I had to assign some guards to each floor or it would have looked suspicious. We killed them all. We had to. I didn’t want to do it, but there was no other way. And I didn’t realize the Malornians were going to kill everyone, even those off duty and asleep. That part wasn’t my fault! And when Almanian made me lead the way to the king and queen’s room, I - I - I -” Talifus breaks off again, his voice anguished, trembling all over now. “I swear I didn’t know what they were going to do! The messenger hadn’t said anything about that part! I never thought they’d harm King Jaymin. Just take him captive, maybe, along with the queen; make him a puppet ruler in their new government, or something. How could I have known? How could I? You can’t blame me for what they did!” His head sinks into his hands and he groans. “I’ll never forget that moment, waiting outside their door with Lasden while Almanian went in. By then it was obvious, but what could I do? Lasden was watching me with his sword ready like he knew I was having doubts, and their people were all around. I couldn’t have done anything if I’d wanted to. I wouldn’t have stood a chance. There was no point in trying.” He buries his face in his hands again. “It wasn’t my fault,” he moans once more.

I wait, but for a long time Talifus remains motionless. Finally he fumbles for his cup and drains the rest of his ale in one gulp. Glancing across the room, he catches the bartender’s eye and gestures with the empty cup. The man hurries over with a pitcher to refill it, and Talifus raises it again, sucking the contents down almost desperately, as though he thinks the only solution to his anguish lies at the bottom of the cup.

Finally he pauses for breath and looks up, seeming surprised to see me still sitting there. “You’re done, aren’t you? Leave me alone now, all right?” Without waiting for me to leave, he turns back to his ale.
Interview with Alasia's Conqueror
Pushing my way through the heavy blue curtain that hangs across the entrance, I step into the throne room of the Alasian palace. Regent Rampus sits on the ornate golden throne in the center of the room, watching regally as I approach along the red carpet.

“Thank you for being willing to meet with me, sir,” I greet him, stopping before the throne. “I have a few questions for you, if you don’t mind.”

He waves his hand expansively. “What better way for the people of Alasia to get to know their new ruler? By all means, ask what you will.”

“Very well, sir.” He does not offer me a seat, so I pull out my pencil and parchment and prepare to write standing up.

1. Do you like your job? Why or why not?

“Of course I like my job.” He laughs as though this is a stupid question. “Regent is the most important job there is, except for king, of course. But since his royal highness Prince Korram is still too young to take on that position, I gladly offer him the benefit of my counsel and services.
The young prince is so grateful for my years of experience and the load I daily shoulder on his behalf. All of Malorn benefits along with him, of course, and I humbly submit that our kingdom has thrived under my management as never before in its history. And now Alasia and its citizens are beginning to experience the benefits of my leadership as well.”

2. Do you have any friends? Significant others?

The regent laughs again. “Need you even ask? All of Malorn is my friend. My kingdom loves me, as Alasia soon will too. Any man in Malorn would do anything I asked of him. Any woman I smile at falls in love with me. The wealthy and powerful sit at my table; the wise and skillful lay their riches of knowledge and talent at my feet. All the resources of both kingdoms are at my disposal now. It’s all mine!” His eyes are alight and his voice has been growing in intensity, but abruptly he seems to remember where he is, and his gaze focuses on me once again. “And of course I use it all in the service of Prince Korram, soon to be King Korram. The dear boy has been like a son to me since his father died.”

3. What is your idea of success?

“Complete power, of course. Again, to be used in the service of my prince.”

4. What do you hate?

“People who stand in my way.”

5. What do you do in your spare time?

“Enjoy the benefits of my position.” He smiles, fingering the intricate designs carved into the gold on the arms of his throne. “Look around you. Life is full of little luxuries for those capable of earning them.” He leans back on the velvet cushions, obviously comfortable and satisfied, then seems to recollect himself again and quickly sits up. “But of course that’s only when my long day’s labor is done, and even then I spend most of my spare time trying to think of more ways to serve my kingdom – both of my kingdoms – and my prince.”

6. What did you have for breakfast?

“Eggs, sausage, warm oatcakes with some delightful sort of syrup, and three kinds of fresh fruit from the palace greenhouse.” Rampus smiles again. “Quite a treat in winter, wouldn’t you agree? A small example of those benefits I was speaking of. Oh, and I had a cup of that sweet spiced tea that they make over here. Supposedly the late royal family was fond of it; I thought partaking of a local beverage for breakfast would be a nice tradition for Alasia’s new ruler to carry on.”

7. Did you ever have a pet? Describe it.

The regent gazes thoughtfully into the distance. “I kept a hawk for nearly fifteen years. Trained it myself and used it for hunting. You don’t know anything about grace and power until you’ve watched a hawk bring down its prey. I always admired its deadly speed, its unfailing accuracy, its efficient use of that hooked beak and razor talons to shred some helpless creature’s flesh.”

8. Do you believe in luck? Why?

“No; I believe in power. People who sit around waiting for good luck never get anywhere, but with enough power – wisely applied, of course – a person can do anything.”

9. What is your favorite scent? Why?

The regent’s expression grows dreamy. “There’s something about walking into a banquet hall where a feast has been prepared in my honor. It doesn’t even matter what’s being served – the mingled aromas are almost intoxicating.” He inhales deeply as though smelling them now. “For some reason other people’s feasts never smell as good. When I received word that the Invasion had been successful, we had quite the celebration back in Malorn. You should have smelled the royal banquet I ordered for the occasion.” But then his smile fades into a frown. “It would have been a perfect celebration, commemorating a practically perfect victory, but then that fool Arden had to go and ruin my evening.”

“Arden, sir?” I venture.

“The palace minstrel. He was supposed to prepare some music in my honor – that is, in honor of what our army had accomplished in Alasia. Instead he decided to be clever and sing some dreadful ditty denouncing me as a butcher and calling for a quick end to my rule and victory to my enemies.” The regent glares down at me as though it was my fault. “He completely ruined my celebration!”

10. What is the strangest thing you have ever seen?

Regent Rampus’s expression darkens still more. “People who think they can defy me and get away with it. Like Arden. But I showed him; I had him thrown into the dungeon, where he can rot until the end of time as an example to anyone else who may be tempted to follow in his footsteps. And he’s lucky to have gotten away that easy.”

11. What is the most frightening thing that has ever happened to you?

The regent glares at me again, still in a bad mood. “Frightening things don’t happen to me. I make frightening things happen to other people. To those who defy me. To those who get in my way. To those who think they can keep me from attaining everything I want. Everything!” He rises to his feet in anger. “Tell that to your readers! Tell them that no one can stop me, no one can stand against me, no one had better dare to ever try to thwart my plans. Or they’ll regret it, and they don’t know what fear is until they have felt my wrath.”




Interview with a Malornian Captain
“Come in,” Captain Almanian calls when I knock on his office door. I open it and step inside, finding myself in a lamplit room that was looks as though it was once a small sitting room for palace guests, now turned into an office. The captain sits behind a large desk covered with a map and several sheets of parchment.

“Have a seat.” He waves me to a chair before the desk. “Let’s make this quick; I have a lot to do today.”

“I understand," I assure him. "Thank you for being willing to meet with me.” I pull out my list of questions.

1. Do you like your job? Why or why not?

“I do my job.” His voice is expressionless, and he leaves it at that. I wait, but nothing else is forthcoming, so I go on to the next question.

2. Do you have any friends? Significant others?

“Not here in Alasia. I have friends and a wife back home in Malorn. Our two daughters are both grown and married.”

3. What is your idea of success?

“Victory.”

4. What do you hate?

“Incompetence. Laziness. Insubordination. People who are supposed to have joined my side but refuse to cooperate and follow orders." From the annoyance in his voice, I can tell Captain Almanian is thinking of someone in particular.

5. What do you do in your spare time?

“When I have a moment to sit down by myself, there are always maps and reports to study. I’ve also been looking through different parts of the palace over the last couple of weeks, trying to familiarize myself with its layout and get a better picture of what Alasians are like as a people. It’s fascinating how much you can learn from what you find in an art gallery, a throne room, a royal suite, not to mention a library.”

6. What did you have for breakfast?

“Steak and eggs and weak Alasian coffee.”

7. Did you ever have a pet? Describe it.

“My wife keeps a couple of cats at home. I don’t care much for them, but as long as they stay out of my way, we get along all right.”

8. Do you believe in luck? Why?

“I believe a good soldier makes his own luck.”

9. What is your favorite scent? Why?

The captain frowns as though the question irritates him. “Scent? I don’t know.” He shrugs. “Fresh coffee, maybe. The Malornian kind, of course. I’ve got to ask around and see where to buy it here. There must be merchants who bring it over.”

10. What is the strangest thing you have ever seen?

He considers this for a moment. “People who refuse to accept change,” he replies finally. “Look at Alasia, for example. The citizens know there’s no going back to the way things were, so you’d think they’d settle down and accept our authority and the many advantages of Malornian rule. And yet we continue to face uprisings and rebellion, which only make things worse when we have to crack down harder. I don’t blame the people for being angry about what happened; for hating
us, even. But how will it help them to keep struggling even when it’s obviously too late to save their kingdom?” He shakes his head. “Pride is a funny thing.”

11. What is the most frightening thing that has ever happened to you?

Captain Almanian shrugs again. “It’s always a little frightening planning a campaign or working out a battle strategy. Lives will be lost one way or another, but how many usually depends on how I decide to do things. The men under my command have all accepted the risks, of course, but there are often civilian casualties too. It’s unfortunate when that occurs, as it had to here in Alasia, but sometimes that’s what it takes to accomplish a mission. And like it or not, we all do what we must.”

He pushes back his chair. “Speaking of which, I have to get back to work. I hope this has been helpful.” Rising to his feet, he gestures to the door, signaling that the interview is at an end.
Interview with an Alasian Palace Guard
Corporal Wennish waves me to a stool beside his bed in the palace clinic. He looks weak and pale, but his voice is steady. “I’ve got nothing but time on my hands, so make yourself comfortable.”

I sit down and look at my list of questions.

1. Do you like your job? Why or why not?

“I used to, back when I had one. The palace is a great place to work, and I loved the fact that I was helping to protect the royal family. I admired King Jaymin so much.” Wennish sighs. “I should have died in his defense, but my life’s goal now is to do anything I can to help his son.”

2. Do you have any friends? Significant others?

He scowls. “Most of my friends were on the palace guard, and they’re dead. But Tonnis and Eleya are helping me get through this, and little Anya, too – I don’t know what I’d do without them.”

3. What is your idea of success?

“Keeping the palace and its occupants safe.” He scowls again, staring up at the ceiling. “Obviously we failed at that.”

4. What do you hate?

“Malornians.” He practically spits out the word. “And traitors like Talifus. He swore the same oath of allegiance I did, but look what he’s done to Alasia.”

5. What do you do in your spare time?

“Lie here.” Wennish gestures around the little room. “Sleep sometimes. Think about everything that’s happened, and about what might be going to happen. What else can I do? Tonnis won’t let me leave the clinic, not that I could get far if I tried. Sometimes he and Eleya and Anya come and sit with me when they aren't busy, and we talk. But I get terribly bored.”

6. What did you have for breakfast?

“Anya brought some fried potatoes and eggs over from the dining hall. We always get our meals cold now, because those Malornians insist on eating first. Oh, and I had some nasty sort of tea that Eleya brewed up. I have to drink the most horrible medicinal brews you can imagine.”

7. Did you ever have a pet? Describe it.

“My family had a cat when I was a boy. And my parents bought me my own horse when I turned sixteen. I loved being able to go where I wanted any time.”

8. Do you believe in luck? Why?

Wennish hesitates. “I suppose I do. I mean, Alasia didn’t deserve to be invaded. The king and queen didn’t deserve to be betrayed and murdered. If that isn’t bad luck, what is?”

9. What is your favorite scent? Why?

He thinks this over. “Maybe the smell of fish frying. My uncle’s a fisherman, and sometimes when he had caught more than he needed to sell, he and my aunt would come over for supper with some of the extras. My cousins and I used to play at soldiers out back while our mothers fried up the fish with onions and herbs.” He smiles, remembering. “Those were good times.”

10. What is the strangest thing you have ever seen?

Wennish smiles again. “There’s an odd little pile of rocks about a quarter mile off the northeast coast. You can’t see it too well from the shore, but it’s visible from some of the other islands. At the right angle, it looks like the head of some giant creature rising from the sea, looking up at the sky with its mouth open. I once stood at just the right spot at the right time to see the sea monster swallow the moon.”

11. What is the most frightening thing that has ever happened to you?

Wennish’s expression turns grim as he remembers, and he is silent for so long that at first I think he isn’t going to answer. When he speaks again, his voice is low, serious. “It was just a couple of weeks ago. I had the night shift up on the sixth and seventh floors, which is usually really boring. You just patrol the hallways and the stairs, and check in every so often to report that nothing’s happened. Well, about half way through my shift I thought I heard a distant shout from below, cut off right away. I headed down to check it out, and then I started hearing other shouts; and about that time I happened to pass by a window that looked out on the front courtyard. You can imagine my shock when I saw hundreds of soldiers in red and black uniforms pouring into the palace through every entrance. I started yelling, myself, to sound the alarm, and I ran toward where the king and queen have their suite on the fifth floor. But then soldiers were racing through the hallways toward me.”

He stares into space, breathing hard as though reliving the scene. “Two of them attacked me at the top of a stairway, and I managed to hold my own for a moment or two, but I knew I couldn’t defend myself against both for long. At one point, when I turned to parry a blow from the first man, the other slashed out and caught me right across the chest.” He fingers the bulky bandages under his tunic. “I tried to dodge, but it was too late, and I suppose I lost my balance and fell down the stairs. I don’t remember what happened, but Tonnis says I must have hit my head and lost consciousness.” Wennish reaches back to rub the side of his head. “It was a lucky thing, because they left me for dead. I nearly did die, but Tonnis found me still breathing in the courtyard later and brought me into the clinic. I’d lost more blood than I thoughtI had to spare, but he and Eleya and Anya have slowly been pulling me back toward health. He says if I hadn’t fallen backward just when I did, that sword would have sliced right through my heart.”

Wennish shudders. “I still sometimes wish it had, you know?” He seems almost to be talking to himself now. “Why should I still be alive when none of the others survived?” He closes his eyes, exhausted from the long speech, one hand still moving restlessly over his bandaged chest.

“Thanks for your time,” I whisper. “I’ll leave you to get some rest.” He doesn’t look up as I tiptoe out.
Interview with an Alasian Physician
I sit down with Tonnis, a stout, graying man in his forties, in the front room of the palace clinic where he works. “Thanks for agreeing to meet with me,” I say, settling myself on one of the benches.

“You’re welcome. No medical emergencies at the moment, so it’s a good time,” he replies, leaning back against the wall from his own bench. “Go ahead.”

1. Do you like your job? Why or why not?

“Yes, I do. It’s fulfilling to know I’m helping people; saving lives, even.”

2. Do you have any friends? Significant others?

He looks away. “Most of my friends are dead now.” There’s a pause, and he clears his throat roughly. “Killed in the Invasion. But the Malornians let a few people live, and of course there’s my wife Eleya. Don’t know how I’d make it without her. And Anya; she’s become almost like a daughter to us in the few weeks she’s been here.”

3. What is your idea of success?

“Helping a patient to complete recovery.”

4. What do you hate?

“Losing a patient.”

5. What do you do in your spare time?

He shrugs. “Usually sit and talk with Eleya and Anya and Wennish, our one surviving Alasian patient. Before the Malornians came and made most of the palace off-limits, I'd often get a book from the palace library and read in my sitting room. Sometimes Eleya and I would go into town and visit our relatives on our days off.”

“What kinds of books do you like?” I wonder aloud.

“Oh, anything I can find about medicine or the sciences. Now and then Eleya will get a book of poetry and we’ll take turns reading aloud to each other.” He looks embarrassed.

6. What did you have for breakfast?

“Oatcakes with syrup in the dining hall.”

7. Did you ever have a pet? Describe it.

“When I was a boy I had a couple of dogs. Big bouncy ones with lots of energy. We lived near the edge of town, and my brother and I used to go hiking with them up in the hills.”

8. Do you believe in luck? Why?

Tonnis considers this. “I suppose so, if you consider luck to be good or bad things people don’t deserve. There’s certainly been a lot of bad luck for us Alasians lately.”

9. What is your favorite scent? Why?

He smiles almost shyly. “Yellow roses. Eleya used to wear them in her hair sometimes back when we were courting. We had them at our wedding, too. One of the palace gardeners knows we like them, and he’ll often bring us a bloom or two when he trims the rosebushes.”

10. What is the strangest thing you have ever seen?

Tonnis considers this for only a moment before starting to chuckle. “It was years ago, but I’ll never forget. Back when Talifus was a sergeant on the palace guard, he took sick one time with a high fever. It was the middle of the night, and he was in bed in the clinic, tossing and turning and talking to himself in his delirium. I had been sitting up with him for hours, trying to bring the fever down with tonics and wet cloths, and I must have dozed off in my chair. When I woke up, his bed was empty and the door was open. I jumped up and ran to find him, and I saw the
outer door standing open too.” He points to the clinic door beside the bench I’m sitting on. “I hurried outside, and there he was halfway across the courtyard, barefoot and in his nightshirt. He had picked up a riding whip that someone had left outside the stable, and he was wielding it like a sword, fighting off imaginary enemies and yelling battle cries in the moonlight.” Tonnis stops his tale to chuckle again, picturing the scene. “Half a dozen guards on duty were already hurrying over to see what was going on. A couple of them helped me disarm him and get him back to the clinic, and I made them all promise they wouldn’t tell anyone what they’d seen. I don’t know if they ever did or not, but I made the mistake of mentioning it to Talifus the next
day after his fever had gone down. I don’t think he ever forgave me.”

11. What is the most frightening thing that has ever happened to you?

Tonnis’s smile fades. “There’ve been a lot of frightening things since the Malornians arrived. The worst was a few days ago when Eleya and I almost got killed for something Talifus tried to pin on us.” He shudders. “I really thought we were going to die. If it hadn’t been for Anya and Lasden, we would have.” He swallows hard and turns to me soberly. “And as long as we're forced to labor in the enemy's service, that’ll be a daily possibility.”
Interview with a Malornian Soldier
Lieutenant Lasden and I sit down in the empty conference room in the Alasian palace where he has agreed to meet with me. As I face him across the table, I notice he looks weary – not just the weariness that comes after a long day, though that’s there too, but the weariness that comes from discouragement, perhaps depression. His eyes are dull.

1. Do you like your job? Why or why not?

He doesn’t look at me. “I’m a soldier. I follow orders. What does it matter what I like or dislike?”

I wait for him to elaborate, and finally, reluctantly, he goes on. “No, I don’t like my job. Not anymore. Not since being a Malornian soldier came to mean invading a peaceful kingdom and slaughtering civilians.”

2. Do you have any friends? Significant others?

“I’ve got friends in my company, but no one I’m all that close to, especially lately.” He shrugs. “We don’t see eye to eye about the Invasion.”

3. What is your idea of success?

Lasden chuckles humorlessly. “If you’d asked me a month ago, I would have said defeating an enemy with minimal casualties on our side. But that’s pretty much what we’ve done in Alasia, and I can’t feel proud of it.”

4. What do you hate?

He stares, unseeing, out the window, where rain beats against the pane. “What we’ve become. What I’ve become. Oh, I’m a good soldier. I’ve always put everything I’ve had into this job. But I feel like a failure as a human being.”

5. What do you do in your spare time?

Lasden shrugs again. “Haven’t had much spare time since we came to Alasia. Before, I’d usually play cards or dice with my friends. Swap stories in a tavern or around a campfire. You know. On my days off when I was stationed in Sazellia, I liked to go out riding, or just sit down with a good book. Histories, especially.

6. What did you have for breakfast?

He frowns, trying to remember. “I think they served eggs with bacon this morning. Not bad, but the coffee isn’t as good here. I miss Malornian coffee.”

7. Did you ever have a pet? Describe it?

“My family has always kept horses. I think I learned to ride before I could walk.”

I look up from my list of questions, puzzled. “Then I’m surprised you’re in the infantry, not the cavalry.”

“I didn’t exactly have much choice.” Lasden looks away. “My father’s a colonel in the infantry.” His tone of voice makes it clear that further questions along that line would not be welcome, so I go back to my list.

8. Do you believe in luck? Why?

“No. I believe in skill. In my experience, soldiers who rely on luck don’t last long.”

9. What is your favorite scent? Why?

He considers this. “Wood smoke, I suppose. Especially if we’re sitting round a campfire roasting a rabbit we’ve finally had time to trap after days of field rations, on our way back home at the end of a successful campaign.”

10. What is the strangest thing you have ever seen?

Lasden thinks this over. “I saw a family of Mountain Folk up close once. Usually they stay up in the higher slopes of the Impassables, but in the winter they come down low where it’s warmer, and every now and then you see them camped in the foothills. My company was on our way
to the Western Wilderness, and we came across a group of them them trading for supplies in a little village near the Grenn. There were maybe five adults and twice that many children, all dressed in animal skins, most carrying spears. They looked just as savage as people say they are: shaggy hair, shifty eyes, and all. And it’s true, they do smell like the goats they keep. But something about how tenderly they treated their horses made me wonder if they might be a little more civilized than everyone thinks.”

11. What is the most frightening thing that has ever happened to you?

“I don’t know. I’ve had a lot of close calls since I’ve been with the army.” Lasden hesitates. “But usually, when you’re fighting for your life, things happen too fast for you to really feel much until afterwards. Really, I suppose I haven’t been as frightened out on the battlefield as I used to be sometimes at home, when I was a boy. When I did something to make my father angry.” He looks away again, and I can tell by the way his lips tighten that he wishes he hadn’t said that. Abruptly, he pushes back his chair and rises to his feet. “I have to go. I’ve got to make my rounds before the workers turn in for the night. Excuse me.” He strides to the door and leaves the room without a backward glance.
An Interview with Anya
Want to meet an Alasian?

With my second novel, In the Enemy's Service, (hopefully) coming out this spring, I decided to create a series of "interviews" to introduce friends and fans to some of the main characters. Thanks to Tina Morgan at Fictionfactor.com, I discovered the idea of creating imaginary interviews with characters to help develop their personalities. Not all of her questions really apply to some of the characters I plan to interview, but I'm choosing to stick with them anyway. It helps me look deeper inside my characters as I consider how they would answer the odd questions. Never mind whether or not they would actually sit down and have a conversation like this with a stranger - if they did, this is what they would say!


I stop at the table in the palace dining hall where Anya has just finished her lunch. She looks up curiously as I take a seat on the bench across from her. “Hello. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

She drains the last of her glass of milk and shrugs. “No, but I might get in trouble if Lieutenant Talifus sees me just sitting here after I’m done eating. He’ll tell me to get back to work.”

“I’ve already cleared this with Captain Almanian,” I assure her. “Talifus will leave us alone.”

“All right.” She brushes a lock of brown hair out of her eyes. “What do you want to know?”

I glance down at my list of questions.

1. Do you like your job? Why or why not?

“Here at the palace?” She glances around thoughtfully at the half empty dining hall and the tired and wary workers finishing their lunch. “I guess so. I mean, I’d rather be back at school with my friends, but it’s fun helping Eleya and Tonnis in the clinic. I’m learning a lot about different herbs and how to use them to make medicines. And most people here have been pretty nice to me. But I’m scared of Lieutenant Talifus,” she admits. “He hates me. I’m afraid if he ever catches me doing something wrong, he’ll kill me.”

2. Do you have any friends? Significant others?

Anya frowns. “What are significant others?”

“Boyfriends,” I explain.

She blushes. “I’m only ten! I don’t think Father would let me have a boyfriend even if I wanted to.”

I shrug. “Maybe not, but aren’t there any boys you’re interested in?”

Anya hesitates, fiddles with her fork, not making eye contact. “Well, sort of. But I don’t actually know him. I’ve just heard about him. He sounds like someone I might like, though.”

“Yes?” I encourage her.

“Well, his name is Erik, and he’s Prince Jaymin’s bodyguard. He’s only twelve, like the prince, but people say he can fight better than most grown men. I just think he sounds really impressive. I’d like to meet him.”

“What about friends?” I inquire. “Do you have many friends?”

Anya laughs. “Of course! I have dozens of friends. But most of them go to my school or live in my neighborhood, so I haven’t seen them in the last few weeks. We have lots of fun together, though; or we did. My favorite thing to do with them is make up stories and act them out for our families to watch.” She grins, remembering. “I always get to play the part of the tragic heroine. You know why?”

I shake my head. “Why?”

Anya glances around as if to make sure no one is listening and leans forward conspiratorially. “Because I know how to make myself cry whenever I want. You want to see?”

I chuckle and glance around as well. “Maybe not right now. People might notice and wonder what’s wrong.”

3. What is your idea of success?

Anya considers this. “Finding out something important from Captain Almanian or Regent Rampus, like information I can pass on to the people helping Prince Jaymin. I’d love to be a real heroine and help him return and defeat his enemies.”

4. What do you hate?

“Traitors, like Lieutenant Talifus and Phenniel.” She scowls. “The king and queen are dead because of them.”

5. What do you do in your spare time?

Anya brightens. “I sew! I love sewing. I made the dress I’m wearing; see?” She stands up and pushes the bench back so she can turn in a circle, arms outstretched. I see that her dress is faded and stained near the collar with what looks like blood, but is of a stylish cut and well made.

6. What did you have for breakfast?

“Bread with jam, and scrambled eggs and sausage.” Anya plops back onto the bench again. “The food here is pretty good, but it’s always cold by the time we Alasians get any. We’re not allowed to eat our meals until after the soldiers have finished.”

7. Did you ever have a pet? Describe it.

Anya nods. “We have two horses back at home. My father’s a merchant, you know, and they pull his cart when he takes goods to and from Malorn to sell. It’s fun to ride them.”

8. Do you believe in luck? Why?

“Luck?” Anya frowns, considering. “I don’t think so. I think bad or good things happen because of choices people make. I guess you could call it unlucky for us that the Malornians invaded Alasia, but they made that choice.”

9. What is your favorite scent? Why?

This seems to stump her. “I don’t know. I don’t really care much about how things smell. I’m not really interested in flowers and perfume like some girls.”

10. What is the strangest thing you have ever seen?

“That’s easy.” Anya’s face lights up with excitement. “A blank wall that turned out to have a hidden door that opens on a secret passageway. I can’t tell you where it leads, though. I promised I’d never tell.”

11. What is the most frightening thing that has ever happened to you?

Anya’s expression turns sober. “It was when Lieutenant Talifus dragged me out of my neighbor’s house and forced me to come work here in the palace. I didn’t know where he was taking me at first, or what was going to happen to me. I thought I might be killed.” She stares down at her plate again. “I guess I still might. And I don’t know for sure if I’ll ever see my friends or family again,” she confides in a low voice. “But that’s one reason I’m trying to find out everything I can from the Malornians. If I can help Prince Jaymin defeat them, we'll all be safe again.”
Wilderness Survival
After reading Sign of the Beaver, I gave my fifth graders a project with several sections. In one, they had to imagine they were going to go and live alone in the wilderness like the main character. They could only choose ten items they would bring with them, and they had to explain why. Most of the items were what you would expect: tools, weapons, food; but some of them were amusingly impractical or unexpected. Here are a few of my favorites:

hunting dog
salt
survival guide
bracelet-making kit with instructions
the Bible (actually, quite a few students wrote that)
strings
silverware
hatchet (someone's been reading Gary Paulsen!)
sniper
poisonous darts
soccer ball
phone
towel (um... maybe he had been reading Douglas Adams?)
iPod
camera
Mom's necklace
nice shoes
sweets
MP3
picture of family

A couple more pieces of humor from other parts of the project:

Here's how one student (a non-native English speaker armed with a thesaurus) described how to make a fishing device: "First, I will have to go and take my saw to amputate the tree's bottom."

Another student's journal entry about a trip through the forest: "Today I came one 6th way to my destination. Three more quarters to complete!" Yikes, I think it's time for another fractions lesson!
Breaking News!
For the next five days only (i.e., until February 1st) Prince of Alasia is being offered for FREE on Amazon! Click on the link to download the ebook to your Kindle now. http://www.amazon.com/Prince-Alasia-Annals-ebook/dp/B0051UNBAU/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1327742157&sr=1-1
Though Prince of Alasia is classified as a young adult action/adventure fantasy, the story can be enjoyed by readers of all ages. Tell your friends that today's their chance to download their copy for free!
One of Those Days
Monday was one of those days.

I knew it might be a little hectic because it was the start of the second semester and I was getting two new students (a week before Chinese New Year break, so the kids would be antsy anyway). I was also told I'd have a high school student aide, which I was really looking forward to; I knew she would make my life a lot easier. I wasn't sure what I'd have her do that first day, though, since a parent helper had made my whole week's copies the Wednesday before and there would be no homework to grade (I don't usually assign any over the weekend). But in any case, it would be great to have her.

I got to my classroom early that morning to make sure everything was ready. I was planning on teaching a lesson from a section of our new language arts curriculum that I'd never used before, and it involved a vocabulary chart that the teacher instructions assured me could be found on the CD-ROM that came with the new material. So before school started I put in the disk to make sure I'd have the chart ready to project onto the Smartboard later. Lo and behold, it didn't work. I tried again and again, but got nothing but confusing menus and error messages. Finally I ran out of time, but I decided not to let it frustrate me. The chart was a simple one; I could easily draw it on the board, and the students would have the same thing in front of them in worksheet form anyway. Just a minor setback.

Well, 7:50 rolled around and I let my 5th graders into the classroom. The new ones both seemed happy to be there, and the class was welcoming (I had let them know about them beforehand.). But because everyone was so excited at the change, they were noisier than usual. Add to that the fact that I had to explain every step of every classroom procedure to the new ones while those who already knew how to do things got bored and restless, and you'll see why my normally sweet class was a little unruly.

In retrospect, Monday was probably not the best day to try out a lesson from an unfamiliar part of the curriculum. But I'd looked over it long in advance and planned it all out, and I was sure I was ready, malfunctioning CD-ROM and all. I looked in the "Monday" folder by my desk where I keep all worksheets and supplies I'll need for the day, and was surprised to see that the student copies of the article we'd be studying (to practice infering the meaning of unfamiliar words) were not there. Neither were the charts. And when I hastily searched my shelf, I couldn't find the teacher's edition that had the blackline masters and lesson plans, either.

Yikes! I knew I had had all those materials last week. Where could I have left them? Normally I'm pretty organized. I don't usually leave piles of books or papers sitting around haphazardly in my classroom, and when I use something, I put it away in the exact spot where it goes. But the papers weren't in the folder, and the book wasn't on the shelf where I keep my teacher editions. And of course the students were getting restless once again while I looked.

I realized that the last time I had seen the book was when my parent helper took it to make copies from last Wednesday. Aha! She must have left it (along with the copies) down in the workroom. I would have to go get it at recess.

So, I hastily decided on a change of plans and announced that we would be doing math next. The math lesson went well, but as recess approached, I could tell we weren't going to finish. I normally don't like carrying over a lesson until after recess, but sometimes there's no help for it. The situation was further complicated by the fact that one of my students is in ELL and gets pulled out for one-on-one help in between recess and lunch. Normally she just misses language arts (which she can make up with her ELL teacher), but today she would have to miss part of math. Oops. (Not that she minded!)

About that time my new aide appeared in the doorway, and I realized that amid the chaos, I had not come up with anything for her to do. So I introduced her to the students and then had to ask her to please just have a seat on the sofa at the back and wait.

It was rainy and cold, so I gave the students the option of playing inside instead of going out to the covered play area for recess. Little did I know that every single one of them would choose to stay in (that was a first)! Ever tried to figure out what to have an aide do in a room full of noisy kids excitedly playing Twister and Jenga and Uno? Well, I ended up giving her something to photocopy for me for a few weeks later, and I asked her to bring up the papers and books my parent helper had left down in the copy room. Sure enough, she found them there and brought them all back up to me a few minutes after recess was over. (Yay!)

So I taught the language lesson after we finished math, and it went fine, in spite of not having a chart for the Smartboard. But it's always tiring teaching something brand new, especially something that involving. And it didn't help that part way through (when I was taking a quick breather at my desk while the students searched their Titanic article for unfamiliar vocabulary) I suddenly realized we were supposed to do a science activity about physical properties and changes that afternoon. There it was in my lesson plan book, necessary materials listed and highlighted in blue the way I always do it so I won't forget to look ahead and make sure I have what I need. But somehow I had completely forgotten the Friday before, and now I didn't have anything ready. The measuring cup, spoon, balance scale, zipper seal bag, beaker, plug-in burner and thermometer wouldn't have been a problem; I knew I had all those in my classroom cupboards. It would just have taken some time during my lunch time to dig them all out, and it didn't help that I had lunch recess duty that day. But the ice cubes and cold water would have been a little trickier. I would have had to run home at lunch time when I otherwise could have been eating, and I wasn't even positive we had any ice in the freezer at the moment anyway. I debated it mentally for the rest of the language lesson and finally decided to postpone the experiment until the next day and do Tuesday's science lesson (much simpler with no unusual materials needed) that afternoon.

The day was made a little more chaotic by the fact that one of the new students kept asking questions about things in the classroom (like the behavior and homework boards and the "Star Helpers" job chart). I'm pretty strict about requiring students to raise their hands before speaking out, and I could soon see that this one is going to need a lot of practice in that area, and also to learn not to blurt out answers to questions I've asked other students, or to "help" classmates by telling them what the hard words say when they're reading aloud.

What with all that had happened, we had been a little behind in pretty much everything all day. The students were still busily writing in their science notebooks when I realized that although we hadn't covered everything we were supposed to, it was time for them to go to music. After that they would go straight to P.E. and Chinese, and there wasn't even enough time for them to write down their homework assignments or pack up their backpacks before they left. So I had to tell them to come back to do those things right after school. The poor new kids were a little confused about where to go, especially for Chinese, since the class isn't all in the same group. The two of them hadn't taken their placement tests yet, but this week they're all having special activities in honor of Chinese New Year, so I figured the exact group didn't matter all that much. I just told them which other students to follow, and bundled them all out the door.

By the time I finally had the room to myself, my brain felt as fried and my voice as worn out as they usually do on the first day of school after summer. Then I had to grade the assignments my students had done that day... then someone came in with a stack of report cards for me to proofread before they got sent home a few days later... then I had to work on my Professional Learning assignment due this week... then school was over and the students came swarming back in to write their homework and pack up, and I realized I'd never explained the procedure for those tasks to the new ones... then both of their parents came in wanting to talk to me about how their first day had gone.

I had to stay longer than usual in my classroom getting caught up on lots of little miscellaneous things. By the time I finally headed home to make dinner, I really didn't feel like staying up late to have my Chinese lesson that evening. It had been a long day! But I decided that the good thing about Mondays is that there's a whole week still ahead of them. (Okay, so I know that's the bad thing about them too!) But I reminded myself that there were still four more days for the week to get better. Four more days to recover from Monday. And just four more days until vacation. I can make it!
Prince of Alasia, Chapter 1

As many of you know, over eleven years ago I started writing a book called Prince of Alasia. It began as a short story, sat untouched for years, brought itself to my attention again with new ideas I just had to add, and then vanished in a cataclysmic computer crash. I retyped the whole thing from a hard copy printed from an earlier version, making changes and improvements along the way, and in the process the story evolved into a 16-chapter novel. I read it to my 5th grade class that year, thought of more ways to improve it, got friends and family to critique it for me, made more changes, and ended up reading it to my next six years' worth of classes, changing and adding to it every year. My students always loved it; one even made a Facebook fan page for it (of which I'm now an administrator), and their feedback encouraged me to keep polishing it a little more each time.

Now Prince of Alasia is18 chapters long and hundreds of times better than the early versions, and a couple of years ago I decided to pursue publication. For over a year I struggled through the process of trying to find an agent or a publisher who was interested - a slow and discouraging process, to say the least. Then this spring I attended a teachers' conference where I was introduced to the world of electronic publishing, where agents and publishers aren't necessary and writers can present their own work for sale as eBooks. Books in this format aren't actually printed on paper, but are readable on the Kindle, as well as on any computer (PC or Mac), iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, Windows 7 Phone, or Android device.

Preparing my manuscript for ePublication has not been an easy process either, but by the grace of God and after a lot of hard work, I'm finally just about done with the process. I hired a talented high school artist, Jack Lin, to create the cover, and I'm excited to say that Prince of Alasia is now available for sale! You can find it on Amazon.com, but in the meantime, I decided to make the first chapter available here on my blog. If you enjoy it, please consider recommending the book to your friends or family. You can even send it to others through Amazon's "gift" function.

Chapter 1

Jaymin knew he would never forget that terrible night.

He was sound asleep in his room in the palace when Erik, his youngest bodyguard and closest friend, shook him abruptly awake.

“Jaymin! Jaymin, wake up! Something awful is happening,” Erik had hissed in a frantic whisper.

Groggy and disoriented, Jaymin sat up in bed, clutching the heavy woolen blankets to his chest. For a split second he couldn’t understand what Erik was talking about, and then from somewhere in another part of the palace he heard muffled shouts and the metallic clash of swords.

Swords? In the palace? Suddenly wide awake, Jaymin shoved back the blankets and sprang out of bed, fumbling in the chilly near-darkness for his clothes. The fire in the grate across the room had died down to glowing embers, and at this time of year the air had a bite to it, even indoors. He shivered as he snatched up the garments a servant had laid out for him the evening before.

“Hurry,” Erik whispered urgently, yanking a coat on over his night clothes and gliding over to listen by the door. Outside, the sounds of swords and shouting were growing louder.

Why hasn’t anyone come to tell me what’s happening? Jaymin wondered, tugging his tunic over his head. Where were the guards who always patrolled the corridor at night? “Guards!” he called out just in case, raising his voice as he jammed his feet into his shoes. “Guards?”

“Shh!” Erik hissed, gesturing frantically at him to be quiet, his ear still glued to the crack by the door. There was no other response.

Suddenly Erik leaped back, and the next instant the door flew open, making Jaymin jump. Erik slid instantly into position, slipping into a defensive half-crouch with both hands in front of him, ready for action. He had no weapon, but he needed none. Erik was an expert in unarmed combat, and although he was just a boy, his skills made him the perfect bodyguard for the young prince.

Those skills were not needed now, however. Into the room swept Sir Edmend, a loyal member of the king’s Council of Advisors. He, too, wore only a coat over his night clothes, and his graying hair stuck out in all directions. He was followed closely by a nervous-looking young guard with a drawn sword, his blue and white uniform damp with sweat in spite of the night’s chill.

“Your Highness!” Sir Edmend, out of breath and looking anxious but relieved, hurried up to Jaymin as Erik slid silently aside. “Thank goodness you’re still safe – I thought for certain they’d be in here before now. Quick, come with us.”

“Don’t worry, Your Highness, I’ll protect you,” the guard added proudly, flourishing his sword with a dramatic flair. Though Jaymin couldn’t recall his name, he recognized the young man as the newest member of the palace guard. He had taken the oath of allegiance only last week, and was full of that enthusiasm and eagerness for action that new guards often displayed.

“What’s happening?” Jaymin demanded, as he and Erik followed Sir Edmend through the bedroom door, half-running to keep up with his swift strides. The guard paused to quietly pull the door shut and then hurried after them, his boots thudding in a staccato rhythm on the hard stone floor. “Where are we going?”

“This way.” Without answering the first question, the old advisor led them rapidly down the wide hallway, strangely deserted, though from just around the corner they could hear shouts and screams and crashing noises, as if doors were being broken down. His heart pounding with excitement and confusion, Jaymin hastened after Sir Edmend away from the sounds, following him into a smaller hallway used mainly by servants. The alarming noises grew fainter as the four of them hurried down back staircases and little used corridors, lit only by the occasional smoky lamp and by moonlight streaming through the windows. Now and again they passed frightened servants scurrying about, but aside from the young man behind him, Jaymin didn’t see a single guard anywhere. Had they all deserted? Been killed? Left their posts to go fight whoever was breaking down the doors? Or were the guards themselves the ones causing all the commotion?

From somewhere ahead and to the left came the bang of a door being flung open, and bellowing voices and heavy footsteps burst forth, startlingly close. Sir Edmend stopped in his tracks so abruptly that the others nearly plowed into him. Jaymin grabbed Erik’s arm for balance as the guard bumped into them both, almost knocking them over. They all glanced around frantically for somewhere to hide as the shouting voices drew nearer.

“In here!” Erik whispered, yanking open the door of a closet on their left and pushing Jaymin inside. The others crowded in after him, stumbling against mops and brooms and bundles of dusting rags as they squeezed into the tiny space. Jaymin knocked his head on a shelf in the closet’s dim interior as Sir Edmend backed in against him, trying to pull the door shut. But the little closet was not designed to hold four people, and the door wouldn’t quite close. They all held their breath and watched through the crack as half a dozen soldiers charged by brandishing swords and torches, shadows fleeing before them and sweeping after as they passed. Jaymin was hardly surprised, at this point, to see that their uniforms were not the familiar blue and white livery of the palace guard, nor the dark green of the Alasian army, but wine-red and black.

“They’re Malornians, aren’t they?” he guessed, frowning in confusion, after the shouting had faded and Sir Edmend had finally sighed with relief and let the door swing open.

His father’s friend swatted at a couple of brooms that had toppled over against him and gave a brusque nod as he peered both ways before stepping back out into the hall. “Yes, I think so. I don’t know how they got in, but there seem to be more of them than of our people in the palace now.”

“And outside in the city, too,” added the young guard grimly, pulling his boot out of the mop bucket it had been wedged in and ushering Jaymin out of the closet ahead of him. “Have you looked through a window lately? Almar seems to be swarming with Malornian soldiers. We have to get you away from here, your Highness.” A sudden volley of distant screams from the direction in which the soldiers had disappeared punctuated his words, and he glanced around nervously, gripping his sword hilt with white knuckles.

The four of them set off down the corridor once more, their steps even faster now. Jaymin tried to puzzle out what was happening as he followed Sir Edmend down another narrow staircase. Malornian soldiers in Alasia? Was this the beginning of a war? But why would the Malornians attack his kingdom? Alasia and Malorn had no official alliance, but they had gotten along peacefully for decades.

The neighboring kingdom had been ruled by King Kerman until his death several years ago, and was now under Kerman’s son, Prince Korram. Jaymin knew that Malornian law prevented the teenaged ruler from actually being crowned king until he turned eighteen, but he didn’t know much else about Korram. He had met the other prince only once, four years ago, but Jaymin would never have predicted Korram would someday send his army to attack Alasia for no apparent reason.

“Careful now,” Sir Edmend warned softly, motioning the little group to stand back as he paused before a door that stood ajar on the right, spilling torchlight into their corridor. “We have to get through the banquet hall here without being seen.” He leaned forward and peered in cautiously.

Jaymin could see the banquet hall in his mind. It was the largest room in the palace, with seating for over three hundred. Last night at supper it had been nearly full, but he knew it would be empty and bare now. They might be able to hide under the long wooden tables, he thought, if anyone came in before they got through. The room had five doors: this one, a matching one in the opposite wall, two small servants’ doorways leading to a kitchen, and the large double doors in the western wall, which always stood open to welcome guests on feast days.

Sir Edmend drew back and hastily stepped away from the door. “There are soldiers in there,” he whispered tersely. “Six of them. We’ll never get through.”

“Can’t we go a different way?” wondered the guard, casting anxious glances all around. “We can’t just wait here in the hallway. Someone’s sure to come along.”

He was obviously a little excited as well as scared, though he was trying hard to cover it, Jaymin thought. He looked young: probably no more than eighteen, and now facing a crisis his first week on the job. Jaymin would have to recommend that he receive a commendation for this later.

“There’s only one other way around, and it would take too long,” Sir Edmend groaned in frustration. “We have to get the prince out, and we have to do it now. They must be combing the palace for him already. It’s just a matter of time until....” He glanced at Jaymin and let his sentence trail off.

“But why –” Jaymin began, still confused.

“I know!” exclaimed the young guard in a sudden whisper, in his excitement probably not even realizing he had interrupted the prince. “We need a diversion. I know what to do.” Quickly but quietly, he pushed them all forward past the doorway, through which Jaymin caught a brief glimpse of tables and benches and a brightly tapestried wall, and stopped them just beyond the doorway, where the angle of the open door blocked their view into the room. Suddenly the guard seemed more nervous, his face paler than it had been a moment ago. “Wait here,” he breathed, shifting his sword from hand to hand as he wiped sweaty palms on his tunic. He paused, licked his lips, and glanced at Jaymin, looking as though he wanted to say something but couldn’t quite find the words. Then he forced a grin and bowed, straightened his shoulders, gripped his sword, and pulled the door wide open, stepping boldly around it out of their sight.

“This way, Your Highness,” he exclaimed in a loud voice, and then stopped short. “Oh, no! There are soldiers in here! Quick, go the other way! I’ll be right behind you.” He turned and they could hear him sprinting back down the hallway in the direction from which they had come.

Jaymin held his breath, frozen in place beside Erik, as voices roared from inside the banquet hall. “Did you hear that? He’s got the prince with him! After them!” There was the crash of a bench overturning and the thud of boots pounding across the floor. Jaymin, Erik, and Sir Edmend shrank back as the soldiers poured through the doorway and turned left, running full tilt down the hall. Jaymin risked a quick glance around the door and caught a glimpse of the young guard disappearing around a corner, half a dozen red and black clad soldiers in hot pursuit, before Erik grabbed his arm and jerked him back out of sight again.

Sir Edmend drew a deep breath as the booted footsteps faded in the distance. “Well, he’s cleared the way and bought us a little time, and I hope he lives to tell of it. Now let’s go.” They hurried into the banquet hall, staying around the edge to avoid having to weave between tables, and darted through one of the smaller doors into a shadowy kitchen. Then it was out of the kitchen through a back entrance and down a dark corridor through which they felt their way to an even darker staircase, half stumbling down its narrow, creaky steps.

Finally, the trio arrived at a low door in the wall of a damp cellar somewhere below the palace kitchens. Sir Edmend fished out a jingling bunch of keys from his coat pocket and inserted one into the keyhole. It turned reluctantly, as though the lock had not been touched for years, and the door finally opened with a grinding creak. Jaymin peered in, seeing only a low, narrow hallway, or possibly a tunnel, stretching into musty-smelling black nothingness.

“It’s a secret exit,” explained Sir Edmend, gesturing for them to enter. “It will take us out into the forest on the other side of the hills.” He groped around on a shelf just inside the doorway. “There should be candles in here somewhere.…”

“But we can’t just leave the palace,” protested Jaymin, belatedly realizing that they had not come here to meet his parents and make some sort of plan or at least escape together, as he had assumed. “Not if everyone is in danger. We’ve got to stay and help. I should be fighting beside my father. Where are my parents, anyway?”

Sir Edmend did not reply. He wouldn’t meet Jaymin’s gaze. “Your parents would have wanted you to leave, Your Highness,” he murmured. “There’s nothing you can do here.”

And then Jaymin knew. He drew in his breath, and the world seemed to reel about him. Erik caught his arm to steady him, and Sir Edmend placed a compassionate hand on his shoulder.

“No,” Jaymin heard himself whispering hoarsely. “It can’t be true. It can’t. No!”

Interested? To read the rest, search for Prince of Alasia on amazon.com. It's available for download as an eBook for $2.99 (that is, if you have a credit card with a US, Canadian, or UK address; otherwise it's $4.99).

House Rules
My fifth graders recently completed a project where they created their own imaginary worlds. One section of the project involved writing a list of the rules that must be followed in their worlds. Here are a few of my favorites - as you can see, some of the rules give an interesting picture of what life in those worlds would be like!
The Key to the Problem
Lately I've been asking myself what the point of a blog is if I never write in it. It's just easier to post little updates in Facebook all the time than sit down and write something. Especially when life is pretty normal and there's nothing much exciting to write about. But I've decided I need to get back to posting in here at least a little more often than I have been, and yesterday Floyd and I actually experienced a blogworthy event, so here goes.

Floyd and I took the bus to Taipei Tuesday evening so we could spend Wednesday at the International Flora Expo there. Everyone we know who's gone has said how fun it is, and how worth it it is to see before it's gone in a few more weeks. So we decided we'd go during our Easter break when local schools wouldn't have time off so it wouldn't be too crowded. We would go up to Taipei on Tuesday, spend the night with our friend Linda Thorsen who teaches at Morrison's Bethany campus, get to the Flora Expo right when it opened in the morning, spend most of the day there, and take the bus back to Taichung Wednesday night.

A good plan, in theory, even though four hours in a bus is a bit much for one day of flowery fun. The problem started when Linda emailed us back and said that yes, we were welcome to stay at her place, but no, she wouldn't actually be home at the time. She was going to Thailand but would leave her keys with the Su family across the street (also teachers at Bethany) and we could make ourselves at home in her apartment in her absence.

That sounded okay to us, so we made the arrangements and showed up on Tuesday evening as planned. Alison Su met us outside their apartment and gave us an envelope with Linda's keys, which we promised to return the following evening. We found our way to Linda's apartment (where we'd stayed once before) and successfully let ourselves in. This may not sound like any big deal until you consider how complicated the locks on Taiwanese apartment doors can sometimes be. Like many local apartments, there was a metal security gate that had to be opened before we could open the front door, and each needed different keys which turned all the way around multiple times in different ways with loud clicking sound effects. But after a couple of tries we got them both open and then closed behind ourselves.

Well, the rest of the evening was uneventful, as we went almost straight to bed (it was pretty late by the time we got in). We got up early the next morning (well, early for being on vacation), planning to leave the house by 8:00 so we could take the subway and be in line for the Flora Expo in plenty of time before it opened at 9:00. We were running a little late, though, so it was about 8:15 before we were ready to leave the house. Only to discover that the house was apparently not ready for us to leave.

Floyd tried turning the knob that unlocks the front door (there's no keyhole on the inside) this way and that, and we heard the familiar clicking sounds from within the mechanism, but the door didn't actually unlock. There was a second little knob on the lock, so he tried that too, and then tried different combinations of turning one one way and the other the other way, but nothing helpful happened. I gave it a try as well, but it was as though the door didn't even recognize that we were trying to unlock it. That is, the lock kept clicking, but the bolt wouldn't turn all the way. And when we tried both knobs at once, it reminded me of that scene from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi when Han Solo is trying to hotwire the door of the bunker on Endor, and just as he thinks it's about to open, a second security door crashes shut in front of the first. Instead of unlocking the first bolt, the second knob eventually turned another bolt, locking us in doubly securely.

I was proud of us both for not getting more stressed than we were, considering that we were in a hurry, no one else was home to help us, we didn't know very many people in the city, and we don't speak much of the language. After 45 minutes of peering into what he could see of the lock mechanism with a flashlight and struggling with two butter knives to try to pry back the bolt, Floyd finally gave up. We decided against unscrewing the screws on the hinges and removing the door completely (we couldn't find a screwdriver anyway) and instead called the Sus to see if they could recommend a locksmith, preferably one who spoke some English. Alison said she'd call around and see if any of the mechanically-minded workers at the school were available (not necessarily likely since everyone was off on Easter break).

After she hung up, I had the idea that perhaps the door could be opened from the outside with the key. Of course there was no way to pass the key through the locked door to anyone, but maybe we could drop it off the balcony (Linda's apartment is on the 4th floor) to someone below. We decided to try this when the locksmith showed up so that we wouldn't end up with as big a bill from him having to pick or break the lock.

Well, we heard the guy come to the door, and Floyd tried to explain our idea in a mixture of English and a bit of Chinese. Unfortunately, neither of us knew the words for "lock", "key", "balcony", or "drop", which might have helped. And the other guy didn't speak a word of English. We had no idea what he was saying through the door, and I'm sure he was equally frustrated with our inability to communicate. Finally Floyd heard him get back on the elevator, so I hurried out to the balcony with the keys. (I should mention at this point that I wasn't sure where we had put the keys Linda had left for us with the Sus, but I found a spare set sitting on a shelf, so I grabbed those.) I saw the guy leave the apartment building, but he never even looked up, and I wasn't about to toss the keys down onto a public sidewalk if I couldn't get his attention first. I watched him get on a scooter and disappear down the road, and with him our hopes of getting out of there any time soon.

We decided to call Alison again and see if she would be willing to come over and try to unlock the door from the outside. She was, and I successfully tossed the keys down to her without getting them stuck on any of the neighbors' balconies below us. (Wouldn't that have made things interesting!) She got on the elevator and a moment later we heard her trying to unlock the doors. But she couldn't even get the metal security gate to open with Linda's keys, let alone the inner door whose lock was stuck. We conversed through the door while she tried all three keys on the ring, and I happened to mention that the locksmith had been there but had given up and left. So she called him again from her cell phone and convinced him to come back and that she would stay and translate for us.

The locksmith returned in just a few minutes. From the moment he stepped off the elevator, it couldn't even have taken him five seconds before he got both the metal gate and the door unlocked. Floyd and I had never been so thankful for the sight of a door opening in front of us! As he stooped to examine the lock, he handed us two sets of keys. It took a moment before it occured to us that he shouldn't have had two sets to give us. There was the one I had dropped to Alison, but where had the other set come from? On closer inspection, we realized it was the set we had been given in the envelope the evening before. But how...?

Oh. We had left it in the lock when we let ourselves in last night.

So that was why the lock had felt so stuck! Boy, did we feel stupid. It was a relief to hear the locksmith say (via Alison) that there was also a problem with a faulty lock mechanism. While we waited, he unscrewed the whole thing, took it off the door, and installed a new one, all at no charge (because he works for Morrison, and Morrison provides free housing for its staff, including certain basic repairs). (Here's a picture of the guy at work replacing the lock; you can see the security gate open behind him.)



He gave us two copies of the key to the new lock, and was nice enough to remove the old one from one of Linda's keyrings so we wouldn't get mixed up and end up jamming up the new lock with the wrong key or something. After he left, I decided we'd better throw away the old key just to be sure we didn't have any more problems with it. I tossed it in the kitchen trash can while Floyd tried out the rest of the keys just to make sure of everything. And boy, I'm glad he tried them before the trash got emptied! Turns out the locksmith had given us the wrong one to get rid of! It was the key to the security gate. So I hastily dug it out of the trash and reattached it to the keychain, thankful that we had realized in time.

Well, it was after 10:00 by the time we finally left the apartment. Neither of us could believe that we had just spent an hour and forty-five minutes locked in, mostly because of our carelessness in leaving the key in the lock. The key to the problem had been that the key was the problem, at least in part.

Well, when Linda gets home from Thailand she won't be able to get into her apartment. We left a note on the door to tell her so, not that she won't be able to figure that out on her own when she gets there. And before we left Taipei on Wednesday night (after a day full of lines and crowds and 95,000 people at the flora expo - but that's another story) we gave the keys back to Alison to give Linda upon her return. So, Linda, that's why your door might look a little different when you get back. Sorry about that... but at least you have a brand new lock!
Back in Taiwan
Wow, it's been forever since I posted anything here. Almost a year! I much prefer Facebook, since it's so convenient to post short comments, and they make it much easier to upload pictures. But this afternoon I decided it was time for another blog post.

Floyd and I arrived safely back in Taiwan early this morning after a wonderful Christmas in California. It was great to spend the holidays with family for the first time since we came to Taiwan three and a half years ago. Our eleven days there went by far too fast, as we knew they would, but I think we did the best we could to really make what time we had count.

Our trip back went fairly smoothly, even though we found out a few hours before departure that our flight would be leaving an hour and a half EARLIER than our tickets said. Yikes! Good thing we had called the airline that afternoon to ask a baggage question, otherwise we might not have found out until it was too late.

Oh, and the answer to our baggage question was that the box containing the double stroller we were bringing to Taiwan for some friends of ours was too big to be allowed on the plane, period (not just that we would be charged for oversized baggage). The Malaysian Airlines representative Floyd talked to basically said that we would have to plead our case at the baggage counter and hope that they let it on the plane. Otherwise we (or our friends) would have to pay very big bucks to have it shipped separately.

Well, we scrambled to finish packing and get ready and say our last goodbyes, and somehow we even got to the airport with time to spare. We were praying all the way that God would have just the right person in place to give us grace with our luggage. There was no line at all at the counter, so we went right to the front. I think we were both holding our breath the whole time the lady checked our luggage in. She did put one of our other boxes back on the scale a second time, frowned at the digital readout, said something to another airline employee about it, and then let it through. (This was the first time that's happened to us, even though we usually pack each piece of luggage to just under the maximum weight allowance.) But she put the stroller box (which, though large, was not awfully heavy) through without a comment or a second glance. Praise the Lord!

Anyway, the flight was uneventful, and we arrived in Taipei a little after 6:00 this morning. We took the bus to Taichung and two taxis (with our luggage, we couldn't fit in just one) from the bus stop to campus, and are back home now. We finished unpacking and enjoyed a take-out lunch from our favorite little Chinese buffet (and a warm milk tea for me from a nearby tea shop). It's good to be back!

Oh, and the friends we brought the stroller for were very happy to receive it (and that they didn't have to pay any extra to get it here)! They've invited us to join them for dinner at a nice restaurant tonight or tomorrow to say thanks.

So, we're glad to be home once again. We have the weekend to get over jetlag, and then school starts on Monday. Here comes 2011, and shortly thereafter, the Year of the Rabbit. Happy New Year, everyone!
Chinese New Year


Christmas Travels
My parents flew in from the States to visit Floyd and me for Christmas. It had been a year and a half since we'd seen each other, and we had a great time together! It was fun to show them around our home, school, neighborhood, and country. They spent a morning in my classroom, met many of our friends, and even had the excitement of a 6.8 earthquake on their second evening here.
Gorgeous Gu Guan





It's the Law
A couple of days ago my fifth graders turned in a project where they each had to create an imaginary world. My class this year was exceptionally creative: they came up with worlds populated by rabbits, robots, talking candles, stick figures, otters, ghosts, and only children under the age of 18. Their illustrations involved media ranging from colored pencils to computer graphics, cardboard models to cut-paper collages and stunning watercolor paintings. But as always, one of my favorite parts to grade was the list they each had to write of laws that must be followed while in their world. There were plenty of the usual ones I see every year: don't murder, don't steal, don't litter, don't smoke; but every year I get a good laugh at some of the more - shall we say - original ones. Here are some of my favorites from this year's fifth grade class at Morrison:


Do not stay out after 2 a.m. All stores are closed. -I.Y.

Plant a tree when a person dies or is born. -C.S.

Always go outside to get fresh air. -J.S.
Only use up to ten tissues a day. Don't waste. -C.S.

If you have a harmful sickness tell the government and they will put you into custody until you get better. -J.S.

Do not use powers or transform into a monster inside a house. -I.Y.


You cannot exit at the entrance or go in the city at the exit place. -S.H.

Be modest. -M.S.

A Trip to Taipei

Floyd and I are enjoying our fall break here in Taiwan. We spent three or four days this week in Taipei and had fun playing tourist. Here are a few snapshots of our experiences there.




The Museum of Drinking Water! Yep, it was about as exciting as it sounds. But the building was beautiful, and you can actually touch the old pumps and water-purification machinery.




















We spent a few hours in Danshui, an historical area outside of Taipei. Unfortunately, I didn't get any good pictures of the fort we explored, but this church - planted by pioneer missionary George Leslie MacKay over a hundred years ago and still holding services today - was interesting too.





Riding the Miramar Ferris Wheel for a twilight view of the city was a fun way to end the day.






We spent Thursday morning at the Taipei Zoo, where the pandas (donated by China last spring) are by far the most popular animals. We had to get a special ticket at the front entrance which said what time we were allowed to go to the panda exhibit (to reduce crowding). They were cute but a bit of a let-down after all the hype, and their enclosure was nothing to write home about. (Most of what you see is a mural on the back wall.) Now the tigers, THOSE were fun to watch. Almost as fun as the hedgehogs.

This was Floyd's favorite! The art museum had a special Pixar exhibit where we spent a couple of hours learning more about the making of Cars, A Bug's Life, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, etc. Floyd was like a kid in a candy store the whole time!







Another good way to end a day. We had seen the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial before, but never at night. The monument itself wasn't especially well-lit, but the gates were. They're especially beautiful with colorful skyscrapers showing through in the background.








Impressions upon Returning to America
We're back in California for the summer! Here are some of the things that have stood out to Floyd and me in the last few days since we've returned to the States:

Wow, everything is so much more expensive than it was last summer. You know it's bad when even the 99 Cent Store raises its prices!

Look at all the sidewalks everywhere! Why aren't there cars parked all over them?

There's so much sky visible (because all the buildings are so short)!

It's so quiet here. Sometimes at night we can't hear a single sound.

How does everyone manage without a 7-Eleven on every corner?

Most of the streets have only cars on them. Where are all the motorized scooters and wandering dogs?

Speaking of dogs, all the ones we've seen here are naked! (See my last post below.)

Speaking of cars, why are they so HUGE?

Why aren't there more vegetables on the menus at restaurants?

So many people speak English. It's weird to understand what's being said all the time, and to actually be able to read all the billboards and street signs.

The trash trucks are so quiet and boring. Why don't they play Beethoven's "Fur Elise" loudly enough to be heard for blocks away while everyone in the neighborhood comes running out with bags of trash?

Where can we get REAL Chinese food????
It's a Dog's Life!










































































































Chinese New Year
The Year of the Ox is upon us, and oxen (in various forms) are everywhere in Taiwan. I took these pictures at the Shui Nan Market the Saturday before Chinese New Year.









Decorations (mostly red and gold and cow-themed) are for sale or on display everywhere. Even fruit (designed to be given as gifts) comes with bows and ribbons this time of year!

Tasty snacks are one of the most fun things about the season!

My Thoughts by Floyd Lima

5/17/2012 4:45:35 PM