New Release Sample: VIRTUALLY LONDON

 

Jinx roared up the driveway from the shed in the back, where he stored his motorcycle, and skidded to a stop in the gravel. He gunned the engine a few times, twisting the handlebars and gave me his, "Weren’t you in a hurry?" look. I signaled for him to cut and he did. Jinx was a lot more alert than people gave him credit for. He only pretended to be off in another dimension to irritate people.

"It's London." I pointed at her.

Jinx shrugged.

"Aunt Lenore's London."

Jinx jumped off his motorcycle so fast he almost knocked it over. He was up on that front porch with such speed, the force of the wind from his movement made the screen door bang open and then shut again. He grabbed Doni by her shoulders and turned her around and out of the shadows of the porch.

"Hey, sugar," he said, in a thick molasses drawl. For some reason, he always talked like a good-old-boy to anyone under four feet tall. Don't ask why. "Where's your folks?"

That was so not the thing to say.

Doni's eyes welled up with tears and her lower lip trembled. She didn't burst into tears. Doni was never a crier and certainly never a wailer or a sniveler. I didn't know that then. All I knew was that my cousin had showed up on the porch without any warning, without any parents, and looked like she was going to burst into tears. I panicked.

"Gram!" I grabbed Doni's shoulder to drag her into the house.

I didn't get to school, and I ended up sharing my bag of treats with Doni, which helped. She liked those particular candy bars. Candy at eight in the morning helped her relax a little and open up and talk. My theory was, she figured someone who would unload a whole gob of candy bars on her had to be friendly.

Gram was happy to see her, even though Doni brought the news that Aunt Lenore and Uncle Thad had died. More than four months before. The Hallidays couldn't be bothered to notify our family. Aunt Lenore's maiden name wasn't known to the foreign media, and the death of a do-gooder scholar who never caused any scandals to report didn't create much of a blip to the media in the U.S., either.