Product Description
Braggart Ralph Henry Dalton irritates even the new substitute teacher of Jeoffrey and Jerrianna’s fifth grade class. He’s a Class A Annoyance that everybody would love to blast into a black hole in the remotest part of the galaxy!
When an abandoned, but uniquely talented cat enters their lives, Jerri, the creative optimist, dreams up her “perfect” solution. Hold an air hockey tournament, Saturday, and set Ralph Henry up for the ultimate humiliation! Defeat at the paws of their seven-toed wonder, Snowshoe Mal.
Malley, however, doesn’t seem to like boys, and plays only if and when she feels like it. Pessimistic Jeoffrey only sees disaster in his sister’s plan.
There’s no way to skip by Saturday, so, Jeoffrey plots the next best thing—Malley’s disappearance.
With her gone, their mom, Northfield’s local champion, would have to agree to take the dumb cat’s place as Mystery Guest Player! Heh! No one’s ever beaten the great Kai Cei Jayne Kingsley!
Couple of things the twins didn’t anticipate:
1) that Ralph Henry actually IS deadly at the game
2) that, as children, the adults chaperoning this momentous event used to be friends and/or rivals themselves
. . . and it’s all coming back to them as the twins and their classmates battle on air cushoined ice leading up to the decisive match that may or may not put Ralph Henry in his place.
Could be it’s not just Ralph Henry who needs an attitude adjustment!
Yeaht . . . doesn’t it figure . . . Malley’s disappeared without Jeoffrey’s help.
When an abandoned, but uniquely talented cat enters their lives, Jerri, the creative optimist, dreams up her “perfect” solution. Hold an air hockey tournament, Saturday, and set Ralph Henry up for the ultimate humiliation! Defeat at the paws of their seven-toed wonder, Snowshoe Mal.
Malley, however, doesn’t seem to like boys, and plays only if and when she feels like it. Pessimistic Jeoffrey only sees disaster in his sister’s plan.
There’s no way to skip by Saturday, so, Jeoffrey plots the next best thing—Malley’s disappearance.
With her gone, their mom, Northfield’s local champion, would have to agree to take the dumb cat’s place as Mystery Guest Player! Heh! No one’s ever beaten the great Kai Cei Jayne Kingsley!
Couple of things the twins didn’t anticipate:
1) that Ralph Henry actually IS deadly at the game
2) that, as children, the adults chaperoning this momentous event used to be friends and/or rivals themselves
. . . and it’s all coming back to them as the twins and their classmates battle on air cushoined ice leading up to the decisive match that may or may not put Ralph Henry in his place.
Could be it’s not just Ralph Henry who needs an attitude adjustment!
Yeaht . . . doesn’t it figure . . . Malley’s disappeared without Jeoffrey’s help.
From the Author
I can't recall where I got the inspiration for this book. Mind is searching through drawers of memories, but--is coming up with . . . dust bunnies . . .
Might have been at a time when a young relative related some trouble he was experiencing in school. Probably, my fertile imagination linked that with similar troubles I remember having--and then started what ifing.
What if I tossed a fifth grade class having issues with an extremely annoying class braggart, that extremely annoying class braggart, a not always co-operative, seven toed, air hockey playing, feline, and toss them together at an air hockey tournament at the home of twins, Jeoffrey and Jerrianna Kingsley, in a fight to the finish? All a mix for fun and lessons learned?
Fun? Oh, definitely! Lessons learned--yes, but not too preachily.
This was originally just a short story. Probably pretty predicable, besides. Then, I had an inspiration; "Hey, this could be better as a novel!" On the heels of that thought was the one demanding, "And just how are you going to make this into a novel? Huh? What else can you do with this to make it worth 200 pages, more or less? You have to have conflict. Way more than you have now!" And more along that vein.
Back to what ifing.
If you what if . . . long enough, good stuff comes out it. Helpful questions and ideas like: 1) As one twin makes optimistic plans to pull this scheme off, the other wallows in mud pits of pessimism and doubt. 2) How co-operative is this feline? How skillful is she really? 3) How skillful is Ralph Henry the Braggart? How skillful are the rest of the children in comparison? 4) Out of everyone in the story, is he the only person who needs to learn a lesson? If not, who? 5) What other problems might a former stray cat now called Snowshoe Mal, or Malley, help solve along the way?
There aren't many adults in the short story. Most of the kids are never mentioned or named. But writing the novel let me explore all of these aspects in more detail: A) To give the adults more depth and character, B) To discover that yes, it wasn't just Ralph Henry who needed to be roundly put in his place. C) To have the kids discover their parents had weathered this kind of situation before them . . . but maybe haven't gotten past the issue . . . D) That it's not just adults who deal with anxiety.
I like to think of Malley being the glue that binds them all together. For now, at least. Some people don't learn a lesson in one sitting. So, since I hope to do many more stories using these characters, I'm sure Malley will have to straighten out a few people more than once!
Speaking of what ifing, I've often thought, "What if I had a cat like Mal?" Would be fun, don't you think?
Thank you so much for considering my Kindle novel for children! I hope you and your children get as much enjoyment out of reading it as I did in writing it.
-Anita M. Shaw-
