Happy New Year!

Read in 2018

So, I did hit my goal of reading at least 1,000 pages a month, bit by chewy bit.

Reading books for the 2018 Whitney Awards helped a bit, though I wish I’d had more time for that.
Best book of the year? Going to go with an old favorite, “My Life and Hard Times," by James Thurber. I see a lot of myself in the characters Thurber writes about, and I love that he tells these tales from true life with, I hope, only slight embellishment, because I like to think his life is as interesting has he portrays.

The most trying book? Lots could go on that list, but I think it’s going to fall to “Nomad,” by Matthew Mather. It’s Apocalypse-by-Numbers, right down to the petty personal feud that’s got to come to some kind of conclusion even as the ENTIRE FREAKING EARTH is blowing up and crumbling to dust. I don’t know. I think if the Earth were literally falling apart underneath my feet, I might forget about that personal vendetta. Ironically, that the vendetta had to go on to the end required a suspension of disbelief I could not give the book, though I did let it go when it came to the trope of asteroid coming to destroy the Earth.

Most educational? “Education of A Wandering Man,” by Louis L'Amour. While I find L’Amour’s cliffhanger endings with each chapter to be a bit annoying, reading about his life and the foundation on which he built his writing career was enjoyable. Gives me hope that as I add to my own bits of cranial flotsam, some of it will eventually come out in book form.

Yes, there’s lots of comfort food on this list. But there were also some books that challenged me. Particularly “Monkey: A Journey to the West.” It’s easy for a Westerner to get lost in all the symbolism of jade and gold and whatnot. I kinda needed an interpreter alongside me as I read this one. That monkey transcends it all is, of course, symbolic of the kind of journey that we’re supposed to make in life, but I still get the feeling there’s a lot in the symbolism and metaphor that just shit right over my pointy little head.

So here’s the tally:

Amazing World of Gumball: Vol. 1, by Tyson Hesse and Frank Gibson. 118 pages.
Anzio, by Lloyd Clark. 392 pages.
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are, by Frans de Waal. 352 pages.
Book of Mormon, The; translated by Joseph Smith Jun., 779 pages.
Brother Cadfael's Penance, by Ellis Peters. 196 pages.
Case of the Condemned Cat, The; by E. W. Hildick. 137 pages.
Case of the Felon's Fiddle, The; by E.W. Hildick. 138 pages.
Case of the Invisible Dog, The; by E.W. Hildiick. 119 pages.
Case of the Nervous Newsboy, The; by E.W. Hildick. 108 pages.
Case of the Phantom Frog, The; by E. W. Hildick. 132 pages.
Case of the Snowbound Spy, The; by E. W. Hildick. 132 pages.
Count of Monte Cristo, The; by Alexandre Dumas. 480 pages
Cruel Shoes, by Steve Martin. 128 pages.
Cubicles to Envy the Dead, by Scott Adams. 148 pages.
Deadline for McGurk, by E.W. Hildick. 120 pages.
Design of Everyday Things, The; by Donald Norman. 257 pages.
Diary of A Wimpy Kid: Meltdown, by  Jeff Kinney. 217 pages.
Diary of A Wimpy Kid: The Getaway, by Jeff Kinney. 217 pages.
Diary of A Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw; by Jeff Kinney. 217 pages.
Diary of A Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, by Jeff Kinney. 217 pages.
Dilbert Principle, The; by Scott Adams. 336 pages.
Dragon Orb, The; by Mike Shelton. 326 pages.
Dragons at Crumbling Castle, by Terry Pratchett. 337 pages.
Education of A Wandering Man, by Louis L'Amour. 260 pages.
Fire Queen, The; by Emily R. King 286 pages.
Grasshopper Trap, The; by Patrick F. McManus, 213 pages.
Great Government Goofs, by Leland H. Gregory III. 264 pages.
Great Rabbit Rip-Off, The; by E. W. Hildick. 130 pages.
Green Hills of Earth, The; by Robert A. Heinlein. 176 pages.
Hogfather, by Terry Pratchett. 402 pages.
Last Continent, The; by Terry Pratchett. 390 pages.
Lords and Ladies, by Terry Pratchett. 314 pages.
Matthew Looney and the Space Pirates, by Jerome Beatty Jr. 159 pages.
Monkey: A Journey to the West, retold by David Kheridan. 211 pages.
Mouse with the Question Mark Tail, The, by Richard Peck. 227 pages.
My Life and Hard Times, by James Thurber. 115 pages.
Nixon Defense, The; by John Dean. 746 pages.
Nomad, by Matthew Mather. 334 pages.
Overlord, by Max Hastings. 368 pages.
Peter Principle, The; by Laurence J. Peter. 180 pages.
Poison's Kiss, by Breeana Sheilds, 295 pages.
Shepherd's Crown, The; by Terry Pratchett. 278 pages.
Snuff, by Terry Pratchett. 398 pages.
Up Front, by Bill Mauldin. 218 pages.
Waking Beauty, by Brittlyn Gallacher Doyle. 224 pages.
Page Total: 12,571.

That's What Christmas is All About, Charlie Brown

"God Bless All of You, All of You on the Good Earth."

I've had a tradition in years past to share the "That's What Christmas is All About, Charlie Brown," speech on this blog on Christmas Day.

Starting a new tradition sharing the Apollo 8 Christmas Eve broadcast today.

The famous Genesis reading starts at about 5:10 in.

Be Still, and Know that I Am God

I know it’s an ad.

And if I were in England and had the opportunity, I might shop at Sainsbury’s thanks to this ad.
But the truthfulness of the story transcends the – perhaps – commercial reasons for putting this commercial out there.



Did the things that happen in this ad actually happen?

Perhaps not the football match. But there were scattered bits along the front during World War I, 1914, where there was a truce declared not by generals but by the common soldiers who maybe just wanted forty-eight hours of sanity in a world gone mad.



I like what is said here:

“Even at the toughest of times, in the heat of war, the most dreadful occasions, there can be great humanity.” This from Alan Cleaver, a WWI author and researcher, interviewed for the making of video, and perhaps as a consultant as the commercial was produced.

This is as important a message in this day as was the truce in 1914.

Because you may have noticed we kinda live in a sucky world.

So Sainsburys, thanks for giving me a little bit of hope in a screwy world, even if I had to watch a commercial to do it.

Because there’s also this:

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

There for will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;

Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.

There is a river, the streams thereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacle of the most High.

God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her and that right early.

The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted.

The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.

Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations ha hath made in the earth.

He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.

Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.

And this is what I will remember. Back in 1914, for a brief moment, God made a war cease, He broke the bow, cut the spear, and burned the chariot in the fire.

Fake News is A Problem. And Some Journalists Are Making it Worse.

NOTE: I do not confess to being a good journalist; that’s why I got out of the business more than a decade ago. I screwed things up and made mistakes, but I never flat out made things up.

We know “fake news” is a problem. But when journalists make their own fake news, the problem becomes a thousand times worse.

Example: Not long after the inauguration of Donald Trump in 2017, German news magazine Der Spiegel sent award-winning journalist Claas Relotius to find a typical small American town and paint a picture for Germans of the America that sent Trump to the White House.

Unfortunately for real journalists everywhere, what Relotius wrote for the magazine was a lie.
It turns out it is one of at least 14 stories the journalist wrote for Der Spiegel that Relotius admits he made up entirely.

Even two residents of Fergus Falls, who might want to paint Trump supporters as less-than-savory, were appalled at what was written, and fact-checked the article themselves.

Michele Anderson and Jake Krohn, writing for Medium, agree there may be political tension, racism, and unsavory characters in their small town, what Der Spiegel published was at best a caricature of their friends and neighbors and at worse, a pile of German horseshit.

They write:

Yes, we have problems with racism here that he could have used real accounts of (the sign he mentions, “Mexicans Keep Out,” as far as we’ve asked other members of the community, was not seen by anyone else, and would have certainly generated a significant community discussion), but I would also have made sure he got the story of Fergus Falls residents who proudly attended the women’s marches in St. Paul or D.C., and displayed Black Lives Matters signs in our yards or buttons on our jackets, people who mentor immigrants and refugees in the region, people who grow their own food and bike everywhere in order to protect the environment and keep their families healthy, people who have chosen the simplicity rural life as a protest against the often extravagant necessities of city living.

This is just a hunch, but it seems to me that Relotius’ overseas readers might appreciate knowing that small American towns are more complex than they imagine — that die-hard liberals like me can still magically live alongside conservative Republicans — that sometimes we even find some common ground and share a meal together, and take the time to try to understand each other’s viewpoints. You see, we’re definitely not perfect here in Fergus Falls, and many of us feel a lot of responsibility right now, considering that our friends, family and neighbors voted against their own interests in 2016. But we also know how it feels to be ignored in policy and media for decades only to be lectured by ignorant articles such as this after so much silence about our challenges.

A small hunch on my part: Relotius probably figured no one from the hick town would read his article – Americans don’t know second languages after all,* and have never heard of things like Google Translate or, you know, actually KNOW foreign languages or at least someone who does. So why make it true to life when he could just write the kind of fiction he wants to write.

(There’s a link to Der Speigel’s investigation into Relotius’ fabrications in the Star-Tribune article, but it’s protected by a snarly German anti-ad blocker bot thing.)

When journalists and news organizations publish fake news, it makes the stupid cries of “Fake News” we hear coming from our President and his ardent supporters sound – bear with me here – at least somewhat plausible. Viz, via the Washington Post:

But at a time when political parties are deeply polarized on both sides of the Atlantic, the Spiegel controversy could also bolster those who now regularly portray reporting as “fake news.” As a publication that often allows its reporters to include subjective observations in their stories, Spiegel’s anti-Trump cover pieces had been widely shared in liberal circles in recent years. The fact that Relotius was initially exposed because of a story from the United States was immediately used to discredit the magazine’s wider coverage.

On Twitter, Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party wrote: “CNN Journalist of the Year 2014 is #FakeNews. Enjoy #TeamTrump.” The party’s regional branch in the southern city of Heidelberg went on to suggest that other stories published by the magazine must also be fabricated, given the scale of the scandal.

Even Trump’s supporters deserve better treatment than what they got in Fergus Falls.

*Just in my family alone are members who speak French (like myself) Korean, Spanish, Hungarian, Japanese, and Cantonese.

"Round About Now . . . "

Round about now, you’re probably expecting an “I’m going to finish Doleful Creatures if it kills me” post.

Because this is usually the time of year when I realize, much to my surprise, that I have NOT finished my book. Yet again. Because of all the gremlins that so easily beset me. Like being totally lazy and neglectful of my book and finding any excuse under the sun to avoid editing it.

I’d like to say I’m going to turn over a new leaf.

I should also say I recently found a past editing attempt and threw it all into the recycling bin. So you can see how well that’s working.

A few things to try:

1. Now that curtailment is here, I will lock myself for two hours a day in the study to work on my book.
2. I will prepare a query letter and first chapter to submit to a BYU editing class that’s looking for YA novels right now for next semester.
3. I will not let future distractions (full-time job, part-time job, starting an all-girl Scouting BSA troop, etc., deter me from my current editing project.
4. I will cut lots of unnecessary words.

I think No. 4 is going to be the best thing. I’m far enough removed from the story now that I can cut those things that I really like, but that are slowing the story down.

So we’ll see how this goes.

Spoon River Revisited: Ahmed Youssef

When I was seventeen years old
My grandfather took me on the hajj
We circled the Kaaba the required seven times
Then he packed my family up and we moved to Skokie
Always he spoke of the old ways
Lamenting that his great-grandchildren
Likely would not do the hajj
Or ride a camel
Or smell the desert
What does he want?
I go to his mosque and my children will go
When they are old enough
as far as he knows
He died of a heart attack when my oldest boy
Spoke of walking seven times around The Bean in Chicago
And said that was enough hajj for him
And in Skokie I visited the Catholic church
With my wife who only converted to Islam on paper
Forgive me, jada,
I am buried at St. Peters.

NOTE: This one might be a little problematic.

Clear the Snow Off Your Solar Panels, or, Don't Believe the Salesman -- Who Knew?

Take this as clear evidence that if you have solar panels in a snowy climate, remove the snow as soon as possible.

Although, as I’m always willing to give others the benefit of the doubt, maybe we had meteorological conditions conspiring against us.

So, about a week ago, we got about two inches of snow. This being Idaho in December, we should have seen it coming.

With the snow came a week of below average temperatures, with mornings in the single digits or below zero, and afternoons rarely peeking over 20 degrees. Naturally, that meant the snow on the 16 panels on the roof of our two-story house didn’t melt off. In fact, it crusted.

Now, before we had the panels installed, snow was my first question: Do we have to clean the snow off of them in the winter?

You might, the salesman said, if you get a really good storm. Otherwise, the panels “run hot,” and the snow will melt off.

Haven’t seen that happen yet. But, again, I have to lay some of the blame with the cold temperatures.

Clearly, you can see after we got up on the roof Saturday to clean the panels (using a roof rake with a pool noodle attached as a squeegee) we got significantly more power generated than with the snow still in place. Of the methods I saw for snow removal, this seemed to be the one that promised the most return for the time invested.

(The method I’m most dubious about is spraying the panels with water. Maybe I’d try it once, but given we’ve got a two-story house, it’d be messy and difficult and I’m not sure I want all that excess water up there, even if most of it drips off.)

A friend who had panels installed at about the same time said his salesman said other wavelengths of light would get through the snow and help generate power – something his monitoring and customer service showed did not come to pass. We saw the same with our own monitoring, as the graphs show.

So, if you want maximum power, be prepared to clean the snow off. Or pray for wind to come with the snow.

Can you guess at about what time we cleared the snow off the panels?

Clearly, removing the snow was a good thing.

It snowed two days later. And will snow again tonight. But tonight's snow should be accompanied by 25 mph winds, so hopefully the snow will fly off.

I expect, given the scarcity of sunshine, that December will be our worst month for electricity generation. Knowing we’re getting more power with the snow gone is a bit more solace than listening to the salesman can provide.

Overall, we’re still pleased. Last month, we paid about $22 for electricity from the grid. Same billing period last year saw us pay $66. That still means with a payment of $90.11* for the panels, plus applicable fees and taxes, electricity still cost us more this month than it would have otherwise, but we’re looking long-term. It’ll be interesting to see where we are a year out from having the panels installed (and working at full-throttle, we had a month last year just after the panels were installed that things were pretty glitchy).

So, should YOU clean the snow off your panels?

If you’re looking at a string of cold weather, definitely. The snow will not disappear on its own if meteorological conditions aren’t conducive to melting, and your power generation will suffer.

If the snow comes with wind and is then followed by more moderate temperatures – here I’m guessing in the high 20s to low 30s, without the intervening below zero – maybe waiting a day or two for natural melting will pay off. You’ll have to decide the benefits of snow removal versus the expenditure in time (and, in our case, a climb up to our second-story roof). I’ll let you know if this pans out after our next storm, which is set to arrive later this week.

*Mileage may vary. Right now, Blue Raven is sending us a check for $90.11, a deal that’ll last for the first 18 months, and we’re turning that right around with additional cash on the loan, so the math is a little off.

Hubris' Tale

Inspired by "Mr. Seguin's Goat/Le Chevre de M. Seguin," by Alphonse Daudet.

I’d have been better off had Nan not been so bookish.

But because she ran offt and married the wandering book-seller and not settled in the village as the wife of the cobbler’s son, the life I lead is . . . well, Nan calls it interesting.

I call it a bother.

Then Nan says the bother – that’s all my fault.

“You’re much too stupid,” she said in the gentle goading way she had when she wanted me to do something I in no way wanted to do. “If you went on an adventure, hah! Come crying back to your Nan in a day, if you were lucky! But as you’re luckless, you’d be gone and done, et by a troll or a dragon or a wolf. You don’t have the guts to go past the garden gate.”

She cackled, and my stepsisters with her.

And I was stupid. Too stupid to see the goading for what it was. And too stupid not to sit still by the fire and listen to Nan’s tales night after night, while the more sensible members of the household slept or sneaked out once the moon set, or earlier if the wind blew.

What Nan didn’t know – or I thought she didn’t know – is that from inside the garden gate which, curse it, for a time I was too scared to pass unless it was holding tight onto Nan’s hand as she did her visits round about the neighboring farms, I could see the white tops of the distant mountains.

They frightened me too.

But they called their promises to me, over the wind and when the moon was tall and shining:

Come. The air is clear.

Come. The trees are green.

Come. Where your stepsisters are not.

But then the wind blew, and in the wind I felt Nan.

Nan’s hearing was never all that good, and she had one eye clouded and milky, so when the wind blew or the light dimmed, she had trouble counting those around the fire. My step-sisters thought they could sneak off, one by one, to find their horrible beaus in the woodshed, or the hay loft, or underneath the hawthorns that surrounded our farm. Still Nan knew. She knew when they slept or when they sneaked off, and always had a sharp word for them come morning.

Yet I’m the one she named Hubris. Explain me that.

Oh, but the tales. The tales Nan told. Stories of adventurers seeking their fortunes, seeking lost loves, seeking revenge. Revenge! Those were my favorites. Because once the adventurers found their fortunes, well, they had to cart it all home, didn’t they? The tellers of tales never told the returns, filled with highwaymen and lavish nights at the inns and adventurers and heroes slinking back home in rags without a penny in their pockets. But those who sought revenge! White-hot at the moment they found it, glorious and streaked with blood and making thrones of the skulls of their enemies! Those are the tales that kept me ‘round the fire and often caused the nightmares that made me roll into the fire once I did finally fall asleep.

And Nan always cackled as she stomped on me to beat out the flames.

“Stupid boy,” she’d say. “Last one I’d take on an adventure. You’d be the one to fall down the hole where the goblins live or get lost in the enchanted forest or be imprisoned by the Dark Lord and we’d all have to risk life and limb to find you, wretch. Maybe we’d leave you there. And you’d deserve it.”

And yet.

Often during the telling of a tale, I could see the tops of the white mountains far away.

“Don’t listen to the daft old woman,” they said. “Come to us and we’ll show you your bravery! You’re no whelp, you’re a warrior!”

And I was. Because when no one looked I practiced my swordsmanship with the bit of iron I beat out cold on the anvil at the far side of the barn. It didn’t have much of an edge to it, but I could do enough damage to a bit of sacking stuffed with straw that I felt confident, in a pinch, it might save my life.

And Nan saw me practicing one day and cackled. “It takes more than a bit of pointy metal to make a warrior,” she said. “There’s creatures just the other side of the fence know more about defense and battle than you do. Best stay home, milk the goats, boy. You wouldn’t last an hour out there.”

And yet.

When she learned a new tale – and you could tell when it was fresh, for the milky eye would glow and you swear you could see the tiniest of black pupils at its center as it roamed independent of the other – she made sure mother shaved my head and that I’d had a good ducking in the river before she told it, so afterwards when I rolled into the fire gripped in a nightmare my clothes would only smolder a bit and I’d only lose my eyebrows. Eyebrows grew back quickly, Nan said. “Don’t care if the rest hears it,” she’d say. “But you. You need this one.”

And she’d put on her pointy boots to do the kicking.

Father – as in many of the tales Nan told – was dead. Died right after I was born. Dead of disappointment, Nan said, for up until then he’d had only daughters and wot not to do with a son. And Mum worked hard washing laundry and taking in sewing and worked us hard in the garden and in the woods looking for berries and stealing firewood, often complaining of the hard life she led because of being the offspring of a bookish woman such as Nan.

“Books have done me a lot of good,” Nan said.

“Saved you from a life of prosperity as the wife of a cobbler, no doubt,” Mum retorted. Indeed, when knew nan’s former beau had made his fortune and moved to the city and had stables of cobblers making shoes for the lards and ladies there. Her own husband, the book-seller, died in a binding accident when Mum was only six days old.

“I’m happier with books,” Nan said. “Who needs money?”

“Money buys food!” Mum screamed.

“I’d like to see you wipe your bottom with money!”

That’s usually when they began throwing things at each other. Not that we had much to throw. But Mum and Nan collected rocks and rotten turnips for such occasions and hid them round the house.

This is when I usually left.

I was not afraid to pass the garden gate. It held no mysteries for me. For when I stepped out into the yard, I saw nothing but the distant mountains, and tried my best to run to them.

Usually. Because most of the time if I showed so much as a burnt eyebrow outside the hut, my sisters, they got unpleasant with me.

‘Baby! Oh Baby!”

Meridy typically started it, as Meridy was the one who also rarely ventured past the garden gate. Said she was tending the potatoes. Probably eating half the crop, raw, fat as she is. She’d been the youngest until I came along and resented my accident of birth.

“Nan says it’s always the youngest in the family who finds her fortune, reaps her rewards, finds her prince! You came and mucked it up. Though you’d probably like a prince, wouldn’t you, Baby?”

That was her standard speech. And Baby is what they all called me, sneering. And as she was too fat to leave her spot in the garden, that’s typically as far as she got into it before I was out of the house and running down the lane, singing one of Nan’s filthy songs to drown out Meridy’s voice.

I liked her the best of my sisters. Her weapons were words, and Nan’s tales always said that words could do no harm unless the victim were a complete and utter clod and dullard who bothered to think about what was being said by an enemy who used only words as weapons.

So her words fell on my back as if she were pelting me with daisies. I’d laugh and run and see the mountains coming and –

Hagg always tripped me near the briar patch, near a fresh pile of horse dung, or near the poison ivy. One could say I could avoid such obstacles, but Hagg cultivated both briar and ivy, and collected fresh dung by the bucketsful and always varied the location of her traps.

I had bruises on my shins from the ash branches she used to foul my legs.

“Stupid Baby, you smell like a horse!” And she’d croak out a laugh.

I never saw Hagg. Only heard the voice, like a frog tired of eating flies.

I’d have hugged her out of revenge, (Oh, revenge!) but it never paid to linger where Hagg set her snares. Just when you thought you were past them, bang! Another bucket of dung.

And Nan never let me back into the house smelling of horse. I had to go duck in the creek first. That awful creek full of leeches and ice water.

After such a ducking, as I stood shivering on the threshold – Nan didn’t cotton to water dripping all over her clean dirt floor – why I tried to run.

I pulled a leech from my left ear, flicked it into the grass, and waved my arms expansively. “You see all this, Nan? It’s the same. Every day. Every day mother leaves to collect the washing. Every day I try to leave and the sisters get me. I’m bored of it. Bored.”

“Ah. Boredom. My old friend,” she said. “Ought to be happy with boredom. It’s predicatable. Always know where you stand when you’re bored. Now, interesting. When things get interesting, come back and talk with me. After you’ve patted out interesting’s flames and maybe pulled her teeth out of your hide. Boring is safe.”

Her milky eye, always her betrayer, spun as she looked at me.

“You’re having me on,” I said.

“Huh,” Nan snorted. “So maybe you need a change? Need life more interesting?”

Never liked it when Nan spoke of change. Change usually involved Jaundice.

She never spoke at all – frighteningly quiet, our Jaundice. I never knew why she hated me so, though I suspect she didn’t really need a reason.

Meridy was easy to pass. And Hagg too, once I learned her habits and learned to salt her patches of ivy and briar.

But Jaundice. Jaundice was tougher to pass.

“Why do you do it, boy?” Nan would ask, helping me pick the briar thorns out of my skin, or smearing her skunk-smell poison ivy salve on my rashes. “I’ve set so many traps around the farm, you’ll never get out. Yet you keep trying. Why?”

All I had to do was look at the white tops of the distant mountains, and she knew.

And to goad me, those nights when the thorns were especially stubborn or the rash exceptionally itchy, she’d tell us new tales of hapless boys who left their farms to fight dragons in the mountains. And as she told her tales, her blind milky eye seemed to stare directly at me, no matter where I sat near the fire, and the firelight danced on it and I vowed to try again.

Where Hagg was mostly passive in her aggression, Jaundice was overt, always had her hair in a severe bun and her fists balled up, and almost always waited until I’d nearly picked all the briars out of my face or brushed off the worst of the manure before she leaped out of her hiding place and began beating my kidneys. And where Nan’s fire-kickings were generally enjoyable because the dogs joined and soon enough were tugging on opposite sides of Nan’s shawl and she was batting at them and I could dart away, laughing, Jaundice aimed to end the fight quickly with blows that would fell a troll.

And if I hollered, in anger or pain, she hit harder. So I learned to be quiet, kept my thoughts on the tops of those mountains, where the air must be clear of firewood smoke, and one could see the lights of the farms and the villages as if they were fireflies lit in the dark valley.

And oh, the sunrises one must see up there! When the sun pops over the horizon and lights the tops of the mountains first – islands of light when all around them is dark!

Nan always knew when I was thinking such thoughts.
“Go there, you’ll get et, plain and simple,” she said many times, her milky eye strangely aglow. “There be dragons.”

“There be dragons here too,” I muttered.

“Aye,” she said. “But they’ll never kill you. Just keep you in your place. Only place a dragon’ll keep you is her belly.”

“Maybe I could give her gas.”

Nan chuckled, then slapped me upside the head.

“An imp like you, not likely to cause even a single burp.”

Dragons, she said.

Oh, she told tales of dragons and how they et princesses and townsfolk and virgins and warriors sent to free the virgins from them.

“I could take my sword,” I told her.

“Nice of you. Dragon could use it to pick her teeth.”

Still, the mountaintops called.

I felt it most the days I passed Hagg and her traps.

Then Jaundice. Never felt brave enough to pass Jaundice. Of course, if she used your kidneys and punching-bags like she did mine, you’d not walk near her often.

But if I could resist the blows. Or dodge them, maybe for thirty seconds. She loved to punch – but did she like to run?

I began running. First, short bursts of speed between the house and barn, startling the chickens.
Faster, faster, pushing each day. Soon the trip between the house and barn took ten seconds, rather than the laggardly twenty-two I started with.

Maybe I was ready.

Run past Meridy. Easy enough. Her weapons were words and if I ran fast enough, she’d only get half a sentence out of her fat face before I was out of earshot.

Hagg. Hagg would be trickier. There, I’d have to combine speed with luck.

Twelve tries. Then on lucky thirteen, I got past her and her traps without much injury. Pulling the thorns out could wait if I could only get past Jaundice.

There, twenty tries. And a year and a half of running, because while Meridy and Hagg didn’t like to run, it was clear Jaundice would. And when she caught me, the blows were even more severe.

On the twentieth, I crawled home, with Hagg and Meridy laughing at me, kicking at me as I crossed the threshold.

“Stop that, you two,” she snapped. “Don’t know a good thing when you see it, do you?” Nan looked at me. “I know what you’re planning. And it’s daft. Almost as daft as marrying a book-seller.”

Then she turned to Hagg and Meridy. “He’ll leave us one day, sure enough. Probably go straight to the mountains, straight to the dragons’ gullets,” she said.

“But he might do. He might do.”

“Do what?” Meridy sniffed.

“Treat him poorly enough, he’ll flee,” Nan said. “But dragons don’t like bruised meat. He passes you, he passes you. And if he passes Jaundice – little chance of that, no matter how fast he’s getting – he’ll flee.”

“So?”

Nan rolled her milky eye. “And then he’ll come back, bringing a fortune back to us all on his return, one of these days.” And the family believed her. Because that’s how it always was, in the tales she told.

So one day, when I was about fourteen or fifteen – both good ages to run away from the unpleasantness to seek one’s fortune, Nan always reminded me – I did run off.

And my life got a lot worse.