Kat and the Inconvenience Store

        It’s Wednesday evening again. Wednesdays are light homework days and that’s why they work out as a good blog night. I wish I could blog more often.
        So today I went to the convenience store/café/gas station with my mom. This place is five miles from where I live, but it is the closest thing to a downtown that we have. It’s actually a good place to grocery shop and have lunch. I’m not sure that it’s a good place to get gas. We don’t have much money, and my mom always complains about gas prices which seem to be getting worse every time we go there.
        But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. It’s just that whenever I go there I think of the Inconvenience Store. That’s what I call it. When Carter and I came to the end of our first day traveling, on foot, beyond Dead Forest, we were tired and hungry. We hadn’t seen any signs of civilization other than the road we walked on. The sun had set, and we had no lights or matches. Yet we were confident that somehow we would obtain what we needed. You see, neither Carter nor I brought any money, but when we checked our pockets for something we might be able to trade for the things we needed, we both found a ten dollar bill in our pockets. We knew that the money must have been provided by Guard (The Guardian).  Since we had been given money, we knew there had to be a place to spend it.
        We were right, but it wasn’t a place you would want to do business with unless you had to. It was a dirty, stinking, disgusting mess. There were two old-fashioned gas pumps in front of an old, rickety, wooden shop. The white paint was almost totally peeled off. The one outside light, atop of a pole, attracted every moth for miles around. There was a miserable electrical hum coming from everywhere. Inside the shop, it smelled like body odor and motor oil. Then I found a dead rat on the floor that had been dead so long that there was a thick layer of dust and cobwebs over it. When Carter went to purchase a flashlight and some batteries, they were all covered with spider webs with fat black widow spiders crawling all over them. That wasn’t the worst of it. The man who owned the store/gas station was really scary. He was rude, nasty, and mean. It was obvious that he didn’t want us in his store. When he saw that we had some money, he let us in, and we got some junk food, matches, and the flashlight.
        On the whole, it turned out to be a terrifying night. You can read all about it in the book “Beyond the Dead Forest.” The thing that is curious about that night is that in spite of how frightening that man was, and the bizarre things he ended up doing, he saved our lives. The things he said to us and the way he did it, made us afraid to go against what he told us, and it turned out that he was right. There was another man that crossed our paths that night who did not listen to the store owner, and he ended up dead. Like I said, that first night we spent in Dearth, the land beyond Dead Forest, was full of scary stuff.
        I have heard about people who seem friendly but turn out to be evil. They call that deception. Even though the store owner looked and acted evil, we owe him our lives. He saved us from a terrible fate. I don’t think that he was being deceptive. I think he was just being himself, as he was trying to save us. What does it all mean? I keep thinking about that night. So much happened…

Kat's Guest, Carter

        Hi everybody. Tonight my best friend and partner in the business of exploration, Carter, is here with me. His new dog, Ticket, is also with him, and my mom isn’t too happy about that. She doesn’t care much for pets, but as long as Ticket behaves himself and stays in my room, it’s okay.
        Carter has been following my blog to make sure I don’t get my facts too wrong. Don’t look at me like that, Carter. I know why you read it. Instead of making annoying remarks about what I say, you could leave a comment at the end of my posts.
        I’m sorry. I was so annoyed that I typed what I said to Carter, but he doesn’t want me to delete it.
        Back to business, I asked Carter to share his first test after the killer storm. I already told about mine in my third post titled Kat’s Confession. So here is Carter.
                                                          ***
        Well… Okay… Kat already got one thing wrong. Choosing the cabin built on rock instead of the cabin on dirt during a killer storm was actually the first test. If we hadn’t passed that one there wouldn’t have been a second test. Kat’s rolling her eyes at me. She hates it when I’m right. Okay, okay I’ll get on with it. She can be so bossy sometimes. What do you mean I’m the bossy one?
        Sorry, Kat and I really do like each other. It’s just that we enjoy pushing each other’s buttons. Anyway, after the storm, we met The Guardian (We call him Guard.). He invited us to sit at his campfire, fed us, explained about the Adversary and how dangerous he is, and then he vanished, leaving Kat and I alone.
        Wait a second. Kat just informed me that I should have said Kat and me, not Kat and I. I’m never going to get to my story if you don’t stop interrupting me, Kat.
        By this time it was dark. We had no flashlight, so we decided to spend the night around the fire and head home in the morning. At first we thought our parents would be worried; they would not be able to find us in Dead Forest because Kat and me are the only ones who can see it. But then we remembered that Guard told us that we were in a dimension that was outside our time. He said that we could be gone for years and when we returned home that it would be as though we had been gone only a couple hours.
        Kat’s correcting me again. This time I was supposed to say Kat and I. Will you make up your mind? It is either Kat and me or Kat and I, which is it? Oh great, it depends? Never mind. You can correct my grammar before you post this. No? Thanks a lot. Okay just leave it.
        I’m going to make this short. I found myself in a wilderness in bright sunlight with nothing but a canteen a quarter full of water. I was hot, thirsty, and scared. After I realized that Kat was not with me, I headed down a dirt path looking for help. When my water was almost gone and I was near collapse, I came across a man who was near death from exposure. I had to make a decision. Was I going to save my meager swallow of water and try to make it out of the wilderness alive, or was I going to doom both of us by giving the last of my water to this man who was near death.
        After struggling with myself, I decided that even if I did survive by saving the water for myself that I wouldn’t be able to live knowing that I just walked away and let a man die. I knew that if the person lying there was Kat, I would give it to her. Was this man any less valuable than my friend? I gave him all the water I had left, and when he regained consciousness he told me that he knew this wilderness and said that he collapsed just before he could get to the waterhole around a large pile of rocks just a few feet away. He also said that the only chance I had of getting out of the wilderness was to have a full canteen of water because this waterhole was the only water for miles around. If I hadn’t given him my last water, I would have died. Of course there’s more to the story; you can read about it in the book about our adventures “Beyond the Dead Forest.”
        I have often thought about that decision. What I did wasn’t logical. Logically, I should have let that man die in peace rather than wake him just to tell him that there was no more water, and that now we are both doomed. But just the opposite was true. Compassion over logic saved my life.
        Well what do you know; Kat is finally smiling at me. Um… That’s all I have to say. I would be interested in hearing what you think about what I shared with you.

Kat Meets the Adversary

        What a storm we’re having tonight. It’s really coming down, and I hate how the thunder makes my windows rattle. It reminds me of the killer storm that Carter and I got caught in right before we began our journey through Dearth. It was the first time we met the Adversary, and right off he tried to trick us into making a bad decision that would have gotten us killed.
        Carter and I were studying two of the seven abandoned cabins that were located in the center of Dead Forest when all of a sudden, day turned to night; something horrible was about to happen. So we ran for our lives. Clumsy me, I tripped. Carter stopped to help me up, and that’s when the Adversary appeared. He looked like a normal man except for the hooded white robe he wore. He didn’t have the hood on, so we could see that he had hair so brilliantly white that it did not look natural. The strange thing was that he was not in any way affected by the storm. While Carter and I had to yell to be heard and struggle to stay on our feet in the raging wind, the Adversary spoke to us in a calm conversational voice, and his hair and robe did not move at all in the powerful wind.
        He wanted us to take shelter in the cabin nearest us. But Carter insisted that we go back to the other cabin we were studying when the sky went dark. I thought Carter had lost his mind. That cabin was much farther away and we would have to struggle into the powerful wind to reach it. But in spite of the lightning striking all around us and the ground growing muddy from the drenching rain, Carter insisted we try for the other cabin. I trust Carter and even though I didn’t know why he wanted us to risk our lives in an attempt to reach the other cabin, I agreed.
        Curiously, the Adversary, became very upset when we made that decision. I have to admit that I became rather upset myself.  The struggle was so difficult that I panicked, and I begged Carter to abandon his insane course of action. Well, to make a long story short, we did just barely make it to the second cabin, and it turned out that it was a good thing we did. In our investigations of the two cabins, Carter discovered that the first cabin, the one the Adversary wanted us to choose, had no foundation. It was just sitting on the ground, and as a result, it was destroyed by the storm. I realized why Carter wanted us to try for the second cabin when I learned that he had found that the second cabin was anchored to the bedrock, and that’s what saved us.
        Once the storm passed, we met The Guardian who became our guide and support throughout our adventures. He asked Carter why he risked going for the second cabin when the first cabin was such an easy choice. Carter shared with us how when he was little, his mother told him a story about two men who built houses. One man built his house on sand and the other built his house on rock. When a storm hit, the house on sand was destroyed, while the house on rock survived. Since he had already determined that the second cabin was built on rock, Carter remembered that story and that’s why he insisted we try for that specific Cabin.
        The Guardian told us that the story teaches that the kind of foundation you build your life on determines how well you will survive against the challenges of living. If you build your life on selfishness, only doing what you want and taking the easy way, it’s like building on the sand without a foundation. On the other hand, if you seek out and live by wisdom, your life will be solid, strong, and rich.
        That was quite a lesson. After what we went through, I don’t think I will ever forget that one. It’s a lot to think about. I hope it doesn’t keep you up tonight, pondering it. Have a good one.

Kat's Dirty Deed

        Hey, I was wondering if anyone out there has done something they really regret. Oh yeah, before I go on, I have to tell you that Carter got a dog last week. He named it Ticket. The dog is really cute. It’s a yellow lab and golden retriever mix. He’s just a puppy. But I ask you, who names their dog Ticket? I thought it was stupid at first, but then I got used to it. It sort of fits.
        Anyway, naming your dog something silly isn’t the kind of regret I’m talking about. Okay, I guess I’m just rambling because I am ashamed to tell you about my dirty deed that I regret. I want you to know that I’m not a bully. But there was one girl, Beth, that I treated really bad.
        When I was in the fourth grade, I was part of this group of girls. I guess you could say that we were part of the cool crowd. At least we thought we were cool. There were four of us, and we just hung out at school and left everybody else alone. But when Beth showed up in the middle of the school year, looking like a lost puppy in plain uncool cloths, it just screamed loser. I found out later that I was the real loser.
        My friends and I took every opportunity to humiliate the girl, and I was the worst of the bunch. Tears come to my eyes every time I think about it…
        Okay… So… One morning, I was having a bad fight with my mom, and I ran out of the house without eating breakfast, and I forgot my bag lunch. By lunchtime, I was so hungry. I just figured that my friends would share their lunch with me. Wouldn’t you know it, two of my friends were home sick and my friend that was there that day, took an attitude with me. She said, “It will be a good lesson for you to go hungry and then maybe next time you won’t forget your lunch.”  I couldn’t believe it. I was so mad at her that I stomped out of the cafeteria, sat in the hall, and fumed.
        Then the most unexpected thing happened. Beth came out into the hall and offered to share her lunch with me. Okay, so, I’m crying again… Beth was so sweet and sincere. Her kindness to me after how I treated her was like a burning fire of shame in my stomach. You can read the whole story in the book “Beyond the Dead Forest.”
        After that, Beth and I became good friends. My old friends ended up rejecting me as a traitor. I didn’t care, but I wish Beth could have stayed at the school longer. She was only there four months before she had to move again. Beth taught me a really good lesson about sweet revenge. That lesson came in handy when Carter and I were on our adventure in Dearth. But that’s another story. I hope you don’t hate me for being mean to Beth. It all happened before I went to Dearth, and I grew a lot there. I guess we all make mistakes. Night everyone.

Kat's Haunted Adventure

        Hello again, everybody. It’s me, the weird girl who has all the bizarre adventures with her best friend Carter. I don’t know if I am doing this blog thing right. I went back and read my posts and was disappointed that I have been jumping all over the place. Maybe I should start at the beginning and go from there. But then where is the beginning? Carter and I started exploring when we were old enough to leave our front yards.
        There isn’t anything for us to do! Carter and I grew up together in a small village of eleven houses in the Texas wilderness. We are the only two children for miles around, and since we both like to explore things, we formed a partnership. One of our most dangerous adventures took place a couple years ago in a haunted barn.  There’s a story that says Mr. and Mrs. Wilson owned a farm. They had one son named Jimmy, who set the house on fire while his parents were asleep. Then he went out into the barn and hung himself. People say that if you go to the barn after midnight you can hear Jimmy Wilson’s ghost up in the hayloft, kicking and banging around at the end of the rope.
        Well, my mother had warned me never to go to that barn because it wasn’t safe. She said that it was old and decaying and could collapse at any time. But I was bored; I wanted something exciting to do. Carter had little trouble talking me into sneaking out of our bedrooms before midnight and taking a bike ride out to the barn to see for ourselves if the rumor about Jimmy Wilson’s ghost was true.
        That was one of the most dangerous adventures we ever did. It was the first time I had ever felt such overwhelming terror. I ended up in the hospital, lucky to be alive. You can read about what happened if you like by clicking this link http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewshortstory.asp?AuthorID=132409&id=49630 , scroll down to the story and read what happened. The story is also recorded in the book about our adventures in Dearth “Beyond the Dead Forest.”
        The thing that sticks in my mind is that when I was most terrified I remember thinking I wish I had listened to my mother. I never thought I would say that. She never listens to me; she doesn’t understand me and… And that is the attitude that almost got me killed. Just because she doesn’t listen to me or understand me doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t listen to her and try to understand where she’s coming from. She has gotten me this far in life. But sometimes she makes me so mad. I'm not a little kid anymore.
        Okay, I can tell it’s time to wrap this up. I still have some homework to finish before bed. Night everyone.