Somehow we have made it to 100 blog entries. Thank you for reading!
There hasn't been one for a couple of days because here at Blut Vin Towers we're taking a short break before our next big endeavour: National Novel Writing Month!
Yes, NaNoWriMo as it is known for short is nearly upon us once again. I always have a half-hearted attempt each year and flounder. But back in 2004 (Dear God, is it really seven years ago..?) I had a go and completed it. Completed what? I hear you ask. Well, writing a 50000 word novel in one month. Every November writers all over the world are encouraged to give it a go. I going to have another crack this year and for good or ill I have decided to upload what I write on to this blog. That's right, an entire novel on me blog. I can't see it working, as I always run out of time and energy (it's just under 1700 words a day) but we're going to give it a go and see how far we get.
I'll be spending the next couple of weeks limbering up and hopefully getting some sort of loose structure sorted out so I'll know where I'm going, so there will be no blog until November the First when the novel begins. But I had a little go tonight at hitting my word count within a certain time and didn't do too badly.
So by way of a preview, here is a short prequel to what may or may not be my NaNoWriMo novel.
See you in November.
The Cone
Hello. I'll get into full introductions another time but for now all I want to say is that my name is -
Actually, scratch that. I'll tell you my name the next time. For now you may refer to me as The Jackal. Yes, I like that, The Jackal. I don't know who the real Carlos the Jackal was, but I remember my dad watching a documentary about him and when I asked what it was about my dad told me to shut up.
'I don't interrupt you when you're watching The Space Carpenters,' he said.
'Yes you do!' I replied.
'That's my point. It's annoying isn't it, so you should know better.'
I don't think dad gets The Space Carpenters as he thinks it's just a cartoon and he doesn't get all the irony and references that are in there. It's a sad fact that I am the only one in our family who has any sort of media awareness or critical faculties. This is how I have heard of Carlos the Jackal even if I don't know exactly who he is. I am always taking stuff in.
Don't try and guess what my name is from that. I'm not so stupid as to go for something obvious so it probably isn't what you're thinking of (or is it? Ha-ha! Elaborate double bluff).
This is like a DVD extra. When I started thinking about how I was going to tell the story of my idiot sister I thought long and hard about where would be a good place to start. In the end it was fairly obvious – it had to be from the Daytime Night – which I'll tell you about later, but basically it was when the first big weird thing happened and it was as light as day even though it was 8:47 in the evening. It's funny to think how long ago that is now and some of the stuff that's happened in the meantime but whenever we talk to someone and try and explain why they should come along and join us that always seems to be the start of the story. But on the few occasions I could get a word in edgeways and speak to my sister, between us we would remember odd little things that had happened before the Daytime Night that might have had something to with it.
So this is like something that happened before the main story started but it is part of the story all the same. Only it's not that big a deal.
I think part of the reason my sister (her name is Amber, by the way. I don't mind telling you her name because it's not one of the best and I don't think it would spoil anything if I told you now. I don't know what mum and dad were thinking of when they came up with that. My other sister is called May, which is much better. I have never asked but I wonder if mum and dad knew that they were going to have a girl the second time. I suspect they had a really good boy's name lined up – which is the one that they gave to me – but after using up all their creativity on a good girl's name for their first child they struggled when they unexpectedly ended up with another girl. I can think of no other explanation) didn't remember too much about this earlier incident when I mentioned it to her was that she was in a lot of trouble at the time and I think her limited mental capabilities have blotted out the incident due to trauma.
She was supposed to have come straight back from a concert that she had gone to see with her friend Michelle. I don't know who it was – one of these manufactured bands that spin off of X Factor or something. I don't actually like music. I don't know why everybody goes on about it. I'm not so stupid as to think it's rubbish or anything. A lot of clever people seem to like it as well as dim ones so there must be something to it. It just irritates me and I keep thinking there's something else I could be doing while it's going on. She had missed the last tram home and Dad had had to go into town to pick her and Michelle up. It was the first time she'd been allowed to stay out so late by herself so there was a sense that she had let everybody down by not acting responsibly.
I said to mum as she was telling Amber off in the kitchen that I certainly felt let down. Mum clearly misunderstood my concern and told me to shut up and go back to bed. When she shouted at me Amber burst into tears which was a little unexpected. I felt a bit awkward so instead of pressing my point, which was my original intention, I left. I didn't think my mum literally meant for me to get back to bed – I thought she meant just get out of the way. So I stopped on the stairs so I could at least listen to the rest of Amber's dressing down.
That's how my dad caught me. He would normally use the downstairs loo, but I think he was a bit embarrassed by all this and had decided to go upstairs so that he wouldn't be pulled into the conflict.
'You're rotten, you are,' he said to me.
'I'm not. I'm just making sure justice is seen to be done.'
Dad sat next to me on the stairs and joined me in listening in to the scene in the kitchen. It was surprisingly one sided. Amber normally likes to give as good as she gets, but all we could hear was Mum going on and on about ditches and stuff you see on the news.
'Shouldn't you be sharing your disappointment too,' I asked of the figure huddled beside me.
'Don't,' he said. 'Your mum was really worried. Your sister let her phone go dead again – Mum couldn't reach her. It was Michelle who phoned in the end.'
'That girl's a bad influence,' I told him.
I don't know why that made him smile. 'You may be right. I think your sister's had a little bit to drink tonight. She had a traffic cone with her when I picked her up.'
'I hope you put it back,' I said, appalled. It was thoughtless acts like that that caused all sorts of problems on Britain's roads.
My Dad sighed. 'Yes Jackal, I put it back.' Only he didn't call me Jackal.
Amber squeezed past us and made her way up the stairs. She was trying not to cry again. We had missed the end of the telling off and as a result had not thought to scatter. It was too late. There was Mum.
'You – come with me,' she said pointing to Dad. Then she pointed at me. 'You – get to bed.'
It would have been interesting to listen in to my Dad getting a telling off, but the look he gave me as he walked off was so pathetic that I thought it best to leave him be. It isn't healthy for a child to see his parent robbed of too much dignity. I went off to bed fully expecting that to be an end to matters.
But the next morning I got the shock of my life when I looked out of my bedroom window. There, in amongst the overgrown tufts of grass that passed for our garden was a traffic cone! My own father had lied to me! A big orange lie pointing up at me, warning me never to trust anyone in my family ever again. I quickly marched over to Amber's room.
'Have you no concern for road safety,' I shouted, through her closed door.
'Go away,' was her considered response.
'I insist you take the time to replace the item that you've thieved immediately.'
'You're talking nonsense. Go away.'
'The cone. The traffic cone you've left on the lawn.' It couldn't really be called a lawn but that didn't stop us doing so anyway.
Amber opened her door ever so slightly. An inquisitive, if irritated, eye regarded me.
'What cone?'
'Yours. On the lawn.'
She opened the door and pushed me aside, heading for my bedroom.
'You don't mean the one from last night? Dad made me put that back.'
'Then he didn't do a very good job.'
By the time I had rushed back into my room, Amber was already over by the window. I joined her only to receive a clip round the ear.
'Are you trying to be funny?' she said. 'There's nothing there.'
There wasn't as well. That threw me a bit.
'Did dad tell you about the cone?' Amber asked.
I was still trying to figure out what was going on. Had I imagined it?
'There was one there a minute ago,' I said in a very calm voice that wasn't at all whiny. It has taken me a while but I don't get flustered in these sort of situations any more. It wasn't even a bit whiny.
'I said I hadn't been drinking. Well, not much, anyway. That cone really did follow me.'
If I was writing this as a story I would put that I did a double-take at that point. But this is real so what really happened was I just said 'What?'.
'You idiot. I didn't pick the cone up. It followed me to the car. I told Dad but he didn't believe me.'
Well, I've heard some nonsense in my time. Actually, no I haven't, I'm only thirteen. But although I didn't believe her and my initial instinct was to tease her about it, she was doing that thing that girls do of looking really, properly upset. I wasn't entirely sure what the right thing to do was so it was with a bizarre mixture of relief and surprise that I noticed that there was now a traffic cone sat on my bed.
'What's that doing there?' I asked rhetorically. All right, I didn't really. I just stood there looking at it trying to figure out what was going on. But I'm sure someone's going to do a story of this at some point and that's what I would have said and I want that to be reflected in any fictional account of what went on.
'I told you,' yelled Amber. 'That thing's following me!'
I started to believe her, although I had no intention of giving her the satisfaction of knowing that. Besides, there was probably a sensible explanation for what was going on.
'Target acquired,' said the cone in a voice that sounded like the one that says 'Mind the Gap' on the tube. Then it disintegrated and left a horrible orangey dust all over my bed. My mum really gave me what-for for that and it wasn't even my fault but she wouldn't have it.
'What does that mean? 'Target acquired'?' asked Amber.
'I don't know,' I told her. But this is the point that I keep making. I might not have known exactly, but I had a feel for what was going down. I knew that something was on its way, while she didn't have a clue and soon forgot about it all. So when it all kicked off a few months later, it should have been me that was at the centre of the action – I'm into all this paranormal gubbins, it's my bag. Somehow, though I ended up merely as a sidekick. Fortunately that gave me the opportunity to offer useful insight and tell the real story of what happened. And that's what I'll do very soon. So I hope you'll join me for a tale I like to call:
My Idiot Sister Is The Chosen One
coming November 2011...
More soonliest.
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