Josh's Comet

By SP McGiff

The New Boy
Josh Foley was to discover that starting at a new school mid-term was the least of his worries. Even his getting on the wrong side of the school bullies, and his first ever kiss with his classmate (Rachel Burke) were soon to be surpassed by even more startling events.

The Trip of a Life Time
Josh has joined his class in time to travel on a school tour to Newgrange's world famous Megalithic Tomb during the Winter Solstice. It's also timed to coincide with a solar eclipse. Josh nearly falls into the clutches of two bullies during the eclipse, but sidesteps them by entering the empty tomb. While hiding in the tomb's chamber Brogan's comet passes over the moon while the eclipse is in totality.

Light passing through the comet that lights up the Tomb's chamber, triggering Josh's journey to another world.

Dust from deep within the cracks overhead started to rain down, and I felt as if my stomach was trying to inch its way up and out my body.

Sabrewolf Raid
As Josh exits into a grassy field on a summer's day, the first fluttering of anxiousness gives way to full blown panic. Josh is greeted by an aged woman, Regina Oerlass, whom we soon discover has her own problems.

'Ah, the portal to Caveworld has opened up again, I see. Are you hungry, young Maji?'

Regina, a powerful Sorceress & Alchemist, had been held prisoner by Lord Grishound

Regina and Josh discuss his predicament and are almost surprised by three Sabrewolves.

The Sentient Forrest
Regina needs to confer with the Crystal Queen, and suspects Josh will also benefit from her counsel. But first they need to travel through a dense forest so thickly covered that no light will penetrate to the forest floor. Regina obliges by removing her cloak, which floats around them and illuminates their path.
'Wow! Is that Magic?'.
'MAGIC?!? My dear, Josh. Magic is the tricks and slight of hand you expect at a birthday or Crystaleve party.
They are not long in the forest when Josh suggests that non-Maji folk could light fires to help them see their way. The utterance of the word fire causes an unseen commotion. Josh is surprised to learn that the trees don't like to hear the word fire.

Before their journey is over Josh blurts out the word fire once more…

An Audience with the Crystal Queen

Josh and Regina are told that Lord Grishound has damaged the balance between Man/Nature/Maji.

To make matters worse and hastening the imbalance, Grishound has stolen the Trimajiion – Three Majikal treasures in the safe keeping of the Crystal Queen and her daughters. There loss will accelerate the end of all Maji in Regina's world.

The only way to Travel
…

The Baengore's Cave

They discover that Grishound has hired a rival Sorcerer to place a spell on the cave's entrance, prohibiting any Maji to pass.

'What's so Majikal about your shoes?'
'You wont catch me having smelly feet, I can tell you!' Unfortunately, as a Sorceress even my fingernails have maji in them.'

Josh enters alone…

The Maji of Josh's World

…

A Brief Journey Home

…

The Trimajiion is Complete

… and have to pass through the land of the fierce and insatiably hungry Gooners.

'A Cookbook on dragons? That's disgusting!'
'I find the twenty-three books they've written on how to cook humans to be far more disturbing. I believe they've dedicated one book entirely to the cooking of thirteen year old boys.'

Through circumstances, Josh has to retrieve the two remaining Maji objects – but they need to get past the insatiable Gooners first and their unsavoury singing!

Cut 'em up. Slice 'em up. Dip 'em in sauce.
In a hurry eat 'em raw or cook 'em brown with curry
Raid the larder, find the sugar an' have 'em for dessert
Tea and biscuits have their place, but th...

• Language: English
• Publisher: SP McGiff
• Release date: Oct 3, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452369594

SP McGiff

I suppose I could start with my birth and work forward, but my death is of far greater interest. It was bitterly cold that Christmas evening in 1776, and I was celebrating the birth of Our Lord in the certain knowledge that no Christian army would attack on such a holy night. Okay, I'd more to drink than any right thinking sentry ought to have supped, but haven't I just mentioned it was Christmas, so a little pity I beg of you - that which was in such short supply that far away night. I should have spotted the approaching rebels and warned my comrades, but I had dozed off. The river looked frozen and who could have guessed that nearly two thousand men could cross unseen, especially with that pompous farmer general at their head. It all happened so fast - in less than an hour our forces lay dead or captured. Ah, but I was soon to learn that being captured or lying with a sword between one's ribs was not the worst fate to befall those defeated that moonless night. Worse - far worse was in store for me. I had killed a strapping Yankee lad who had wielded a sword like it was an arm off a New England windmill, but I was outnumbered and had to surrender my sword to a lad of less than twenty summers. Unfortunately my captors trudged me past the Mashpee shaman we employed as a scout. He lay holding his lifeless son close to his chest. He looked distraught, but on recognising me his eyes hardened into a dead stare. He knew. He knew the surprise attack was my fault. In one swift action he threw his tomahawk underarm which caught me square in the chest. As I fell to my knees and before he could be dragged away from me he whispered some words of his ancient tongue into my ear. I tipped forward, but all was black before I hit the ground. I came back to my senses to find it was still dark and I had a most dreadful dry taste in my mouth. I reasoned I must be in hospital with a heavy blanket tucked around me as I struggled to lift my arms. I eventually pushed myself upwards to find myself in the very field of our defeat. Long gone were the chaotic scenes of battle, and as I lifted myself out of my hastily prepared, shallow grave I felt an overwhelming urge to… to… ah, but that's a different story altogether and I fear I have rambled on and taken up too much of your time dear reader. What else can I say about myself, such as what interests I have when I'm not consumed with ... Sorry, there I nearly go...

Book preview

JOSH’S COMET

SP McGiff

Smashwords Edition

Copyright SP McGiff 2010

The Author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission of the publishers. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be circulated without the publisher’s prior consent.

Chapter 1 - The New Boy

Chapter 2 - The Trip of a Lifetime

Chapter 3 - The Sabrewolf Raid

Chapter 4 - The Sentient Forest

Chapter 5 - An Audience with the Crystal Queen

Chapter 6 - The Only Way to Travel

Chapter 7 - The Baengore’s Cave

Chapter 8 - The Maji of Josh’s World

Chapter 9 - A Brief Journey Home

Chapter 10 - Inferno Mountains Lava Abyss

Chapter 11 - The Treacherous Wretched Tree

Chapter 12 - Grishound’s Triumph

Chapter 13 - Sacrifice

Chapter 14 - Beginning’s End

Well Hi! I hope you enjoy reading my book and will visit my author’s page to let me know your thoughts or to let me know if you have any questions on writing. Thanks again and I hope to see you soon. Now, what are you waiting for…

CHAPTER 1 - THE NEW BOY

‘Josh, you’ll be late for your first day!’

That’s my mum. To be fair, she didn’t realise I was sneaking up on a sleeping, seven foot tall, vampire werewolf. If she did she may not have shouted so loud when calling me for school.

This vampire werewolf had been terrifying a small German village deep in the Blackforest and a call had been sent out for me to come and rid them of the fiend. I would too if I could just make the final few steps without making a …

‘Josh! Your breakfast is getting cold!’

It was pointless. My dream of impressing the local Fräulein slipped away, and I eventually forced open unwilling eyes. Sure enough, pink floral wallpaper and dark pink curtains were the first images I saw once my eyes adjusted from the eerie forest to my sunlit bedroom. Even the bedside lampshade was pink. I didn’t turn it on.

We had only moved into our new home the previous night and the furniture of the previous occupant (my guess would be Barbie) was still to be replaced. Only my old brown duvet cover had as yet been unpacked. You would not have thought it possible to be so grateful for a length of cloth.

‘It’s, ah, a little colourful, Josh, but we’ll have posters of Action-Man and Superman up on the walls in no time,’ my dad suggested on seeing my new bedroom for the first time.

‘Sure, Dad,’ I replied, not having the heart to tell him I‘d outgrown Action-Man when I was nine (over four years ago) and never really rated the Man of Tights much. My dad worked for the government and tended to move around a lot and this was our third house move since I was seven and we’d never bothered much with redecorating in the past. I suppose I could paint it myself, and as for the awful lampshade…

‘JOSH!’

My mother’s tone of voice suggested her patience was at an end, and I hopped out of bed as good as any Vampire Werewolf hunter. Although, I was still the last down to breakfast. Eva, my big sister (as she likes to describe herself to her friends!) had already left for school by herself. My baby sister, Sheila, was waiting in the sitting room for her mother to take her to her new primary school. She had pulled the zip completely closed on her Parka, totally obscuring her face and she looked as if she patiently waited for the next Ice Age. My dad had already finished his breakfast and had scrambled back upstairs looking for his car keys – A regular morning forage in the Foley household!

As I sat down my mum got up from the table with a slice of toast in her mouth and mumbled, ‘U’ve fuv mints,’ before leaving to join in the search for dad’s keys.

Up until then I had not given much thought to starting at St Martin’s secondary school. But, dressed in my stiff grey school uniform for the first time I started to feel queasy. The thoughts of having to make new friends - getting used to new teachers - Uggggh. The two fried eggs laid out before me were looking less appetising the longer they stared back at me.

Then I had an idea. My dad normally listened to the morning news on a small portable radio to the side of the breakfast table and so I switched on the old Pye to see if I could distract myself long enough to eat something.

‘… every twenty three hundred years. So, don’t miss it this time or you’ll have quite a wait before it comes around again.’ This sentence was punctuated with a dry laugh before the familiar voice of the radio presenter joined in.

‘Thanks, Professor Curtain. Tomorrow promises to be most spectacular. Now…’

The radio presenter led onto a discussion of a possible mortgage rate increase, but I quickly tuned the voices out of my head. I preferred to dwell on the topic raised by Professor Curtain – Brogan’s Comet.

We discussed the impending arrival of Brogan’s comet during a geography class in my old school. Mr Kennedy told us that the Roman Empire was only just sprouting out from Rome’s seven hills the last time Brogan’s comet blazed past the Earth.

The comet had been visible in the night sky for the last month, and in the last week it was visible even during the day. During the night its long tail reminded me of what I used to imagine (Ages ago, I might add!!!) the Sandman’s dust looked like as he sprinkled it on small boys and girls to make them sleep. Tomorrow it would come as close to the Earth as it was going to get. Astronomy Ireland were hailing it the astronomical event of the century, especially as tomorrow was also the first winter equinox to have a solar eclipse on the same day since records began.

‘Ah, I see you’ve finished,’ my mother said returning unnoticed to the kitchen.

I’d finished off the fried eggs without realising it.

*/*/*

Dad drove off in his silver Volkswagen Golf (as per usual, mum eventually found his keys) leaving me to stand alone outside St Martin’s imposing wrought iron gates. I didn’t relish the thought of joining a new class almost two months into the school year. If I’m to be honest I was badly missing my old friends, and more than a little dreading the prospect of having to make new ones in what was probably a class full of close-knit groups that knew each other for years.

My stomach started to rumble as I slinked through the school gate. I was no longer sure the eggs had been such a good idea after all. Just then the school bell rang out and all around me now seemed hundreds of purposeful grey blurs racing to their classrooms. Great! I was late for my first class. I stared at the classroom directions neatly printed on the slim piece of paper that came in the post with my school registration pack. But it was of no use to me. I was hopelessly lost before the largely identical school buildings.

St Martin’s was by far the largest school I’d ever attended. There had been only two hundred pupils in my previous school, and I knew most of them by their first names.

‘Hello – Can I help?’

A girl of my own height suddenly appeared at my shoulder. Her curly, mousy hair fell to below her shoulder. This was another first. There were no girls in my old school that looked quite like this.

‘Uh, thanks. I’m looking for class 2a,’ I answered, foolishly offering my classroom directions forward.

‘That’s my class, but we’d better hurry. We’ve double English with Mumbles first thing and she hates her students to be late for class.’

My guide had started to skip ahead but came to an abrupt halt. I stopped myself just in time from bumping into her, as she turned and placed a hand over her open mouth.

‘Oops! I mean Ms Delap,’ She blurted, before rushing off again without further explanation. She didn’t look back again on our winding journey until she came to a wooden framed door with a large 2a painted in black lettering. From outside we could see an imposing figure standing at the head of our class.

‘Ah well, we tried. My name is Rachel Burke. Sorry I didn’t introduce myself earlier.’

‘No problem. My name is Josh – Josh Foley.’

Ms Delap turned at the sound of the creaking door and glared down at us. Unlike at my previous schools the St Martin’s teachers wore their authoritive black gowns.

‘Show me, Rachel, where your itinerary states that my class starts at Nine Oh Two and not Nine on the dot like everyone else!’

Rachel was by now staring intently down at her brown brogues, the beginnings of a brilliant blush appearing on her sallow cheeks.

‘Sorry Miss, it was my fault. Rachel saw I was lost and came back to see if she could help me get to class.’

With this a low snigger whirred around the rest of the class, and for the first time Ms Delap fully focused her considerable gaze on me, but instead of the barrage I expected she pointed to an empty seat in the front row.

‘You’ll be the new boy – Mr Foley. Very well, you can sit in Tommy Finn’s seat for today. His mother handed in a sick note this morning.’

As I took my seat Ms Delap turned back towards the whiteboard and muttered something under her breath that sounded something like, ‘sick my eye… my day…’ At least I knew what Rachel had meant when she said we were late for Mumbles’ class.

Science was next, but we needed to leave the classroom we were in to walk to the science laboratory. At first I was grateful Ms Delap had not made a big deal of my joining the class, but it now meant I remained a stranger amongst my new classmates. The other students seemed to be busy discussing some big development (to which I was completely clueless) in hushed tones as we walked to our science class. I did, however, get the impression it may have had something to do with Tommy Finn’s absence.

‘Thanks for this morning,’ Rachel said, again appearing unexpectedly at my shoulder, ‘Ms Delap is alright, but she can be a bit grumpy about time keeping.’

‘She’s fine, but I still don’t know anybody in 2a yet. Besides you,’ I hastily added.

‘Well, this is my friend, Samantha Quirk,’ Rachel said, putting her arm around the petit girl walking next to her. But, before I could say hello, two large boys brushed roughly between us. A canvas schoolbag slung over the larger of the two caught a glancing blow to my head.

‘Silly me!’ he laughed.

The other boy thought this hilarious and threw his arm around his buddy as if for support, and the two burst into a fit of giggles.

‘Ignore those apes,’ Rachel said firmly.

‘I hate those two,’ Samantha agreed in an alarmingly strong voice considering her size.

‘They seem a pleasant bunch. Who are they?’ I asked, trying to make light of our less than friendly introduction.

Rachel answered, ‘the oaf with the large holdall is Thomas Murphy. His sidekick is Malcolm Dunphy. They were second years last year, but stayed back a year. Lucky us, eh?’

Not only were they large for second years, but I would imagine they would easily pass for Sixth-Years. I was tall for my age, but I didn’t even come up to Murphy’s chin. Dunphy was only an inch or two taller than me, but both boys were far broader. I had a bad feeling in my stomach, and this time I didn’t think the eggs were at fault.

The science class was also a double and was due to bring us up to lunch. Thinking back now, I wonder how close we were to lunch before the upcoming squabble triggered the adventure you are soon to read about. If even this incident were altered I think the events that subsequently transpired would have been very different. No doubt I would have fallen foul of the two bullies at some later stage, but almost certainly with less spectacular consequences.

Murphy and sidekick had been the last to take their seats before class had started and took the two spaces left up front next to Rachel and Samantha. I had intended to sit next to the two girls, but we became separated