Monday, September 3, 2012

excerpt: chapter 2

di here.
i'm sorry i haven't gotten any time to blog over the weekend, so today i'll try to put up 3 chapters.
i hope you have read my earlier posts. if you haven't i recommend reading those first.
and please, as always, keep writing those great comments!
thanks & enjoy.


Chapter 2
        The family set off that morning.  Emily was yelling, the twins were shoving each other, and Abigail was sulking because she had ended up taking all the blame for the spilled food.
       Sheldon himself was feeling cooped up.  The stuffy carriage was bumping madly, and the noise was unbearable.
       Finally, they arrived at a small, mercifully quiet shack with an enormous garden.  Emily and the twins stayed outside, enjoying the fresh air.  Sheldon, Abigail, and their parents went in.
       Every clock of every sort was piled on tables, hung on walls, stacked on shelves, and dangling on the ceiling.  An excited looking old man trotted in.
       “Hello, sir, miss,” he said, “and hello young ones!”
       They all nodded hello, then Sheldon and Abigail pulled coins from their pockets, and found two clocks to buy.
Sheldon’s was a square, light-colored wood one, with no glass in the front.  Abigail’s was round, with polished dark wood and a thin sheet of glass in the front.  They both were strung on fine gold chains.  Then, when they were paid for, Abigail made a discovery.
       “Hey – I found a door!”
       They nudged it open.  A dark passageway twisted a way down.
       Shutting the door behind them, and keeping one hand on the wall, they followed the pitch-black tunnel.  Suddenly the tunnel widened into a brightly illuminated room, filled with clockwork.  The clockwork was ticking rhythmically and in unison.
       Abigail suddenly stopped in her tracks.
       She looked weak.  She was slowly starting to collapse. Sheldon caught her as she tumbled to the floor.  She was shaking badly.
       “Abigail -”
       “Sheldon,” she whispered, “fix my clock.  My clock -”
       And those were the last words Abigail said as she fell unconscious.