The World of the Unknowns: The Discovery.

By Nadia Bethell

On the way to school Bradley, his twin sister Megan and their friend and neighbor John find a small shed-like building that was not there before. They don't know that it serves as an portal into another world, the World of the Unknowns. When the three get transported into this world, little by little they realize how much the World of the Unknowns offers: a lot of fun things to do and capabilities one has never heard about in the real world – flying, like a bird, without an aircraft, going through walls, transporting over long distances in no time... However, with those skills also come many unpleasant rules from the Unknowns, then the disastrous discovery that they can never return home. What choices will Bradley, Megan and John make? This is the first book in the series of the World of the Unknowns where it is introduced and we begin to enjoy the adventures undertaken by Bradley and Megan and their friends.

Theme music: “Walking in the air” performed by Celtic Woman, from the famous children’s book and animation “The Snowman”.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nadia Bethell
• Release date: Sep 28, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301268313

Book preview

The World of the Unknowns: The Discovery

By Nadia Bethell

Published by Nadia Bethell at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 Nadia Bethell

Cover Design by Paul Dean Coker

Coastwise Communications

[e-mail]

Table of Contents

Preface.

Chapter 1. The discovery.

Chapter 2. Not quite a pleasant entry.

Chapter 3. John learns and speculates.

Chapter 4. John’s flying lesson.

Chapter 5. Megan learns of consequences of flying.

Chapter 6. A temporary escape.

Chapter 7. Questions multiply.

Chapter 8. Traveling through the walls.

Chapter 9. What is freedom?

Chapter 10. Is there a way out?

Chapter 11. John is having fun.

Chapter 12. Books from Bradley’s backpack.

Chapter 13. Bradley designs a trick for John.

Chapter 14. In front of a closed door.

Chapter 15. The door from the other side.

Chapter 16. What price are you willing to pay?

Chapter 17. Train is the way.

Chapter 18. Back with the family.

About the author.

Other books by this author.

Preview of the World of the Unknowns: The Rescue.

Acknowledgements.

[back to top]

Preface.

Mom, what are these notebooks? I heard my daughter call out.

I sent her play in her room and sat down to work on my presentation for the conference. I didn’t really feel like getting up and checking what those notebooks were. My computer was already on, the instructions for the presentation on the screen, and I was ready to emerge into my work.

But Rachel was already carrying in a large box with a black marker label STORIES.

We moved into this house when my daughter was a toddler, in a rush, like all our moves were. The boxes were unloaded from the truck into the garage, and it took a few years to really settle down and organize. Boxes, for the content of which I felt no immediate use, were stored in the garage or on top shelves in the closets. This box, STORIES, ended up in my daughter’s closet, and this is where it was found five years later.

Rachel already opened the box to check what was in it, so when she put it on the table, we could very easily get to its content. When I was a kid, my hobby was to write stories, and I had quite a few of the notebooks written way back when my family lived in Russia. When my parents immigrated to America, I continued to write, at first in Russian, and then in English when I started to pick it up at school. Writing remained my hobby when I became an adult, but of course I had much less time for it when I got a full time job and had kids.

On the very top inside the box there was a notebook titled The World of the Unknowns. This is what my daughter saw when she opened the box, and this title provoked her curiosity. I took the notebook out and flipped through the pages. The familiar story ran before my eyes.

This is the story that I wrote after your Dad told me what happened to him and his friends when he was in school, I told Rachel, putting the notebook down onto my lap. This is just the first notebook, there are many others. This story is quite amazing. If you like, we can read this story before bed, I suggested.

Sure, sure! Rachel jumped in excitement. Can we start today? I can’t wait to find out what these Unknowns are!

The Unknowns are very evil people who had created a very tyrannical society, I began, forgetting about my presentation. But, I should say, they WERE evil. Because Dad and few other brave people, who went to their world, helped them to get back on track again. And, who knows, how many people from our world were rescued because of your Dad. But I am getting ahead of myself… I stumbled, seeing the computer screen out of the corner of my eye.

Mom, please, how did this happen? Rachel pleaded.

I felt like I wanted to re-read the story myself and remember how it all happened. I checked my tomorrow’s schedule and decided I would have enough time tomorrow to work on my presentation.

Ok, we can start now, but of course, we won’t be able to read it all, I said, standing up and moving to the couch. Rachel ran behind me.

Let’s call Brian! she suggested and dragged her brother out of his bedroom where he was working on a project.

My kids sat down on the couch next to me, I opened the first notebook and started reading.

[back to top]

Chapter 1. The discovery.

It was a Monday in early May, when it was very desirable for Bradley that the weekend was longer so he could go back to the beach to keep watching the surfers practice for their competitions. The surf was pretty high yesterday, so he and his father had a blast watching the surfers, one of whom was actually Bradley’s older brother Dustin. It was so much fun to watch how these guys battled with the waves and successfully rode them all the way to the beach. Too bad neither Huang Fu, nor John, Bradley’s best friends, could make it! Bradley and his father spend some time body surfing and had fun doing that, too. Of course, there were also occasions when they would get into a ‘washing machine’, but that did not spoil it.

The beach was so inviting that Bradley felt like going to school was not at all appropriate. The feeling was so strong that he was willing to take the consequences should his parents find out he was not there. He felt like it was a waste of time, anyway, because they were preparing for the tests and rehearsing over and over again the material that he knew long time ago. Bradley’s parents were very strict when it came to studies, though. They went out of their way to supervise the completion of all his assignments and even gave extra tasks to make sure he was at the top of his class. It was, of course, out of the question to miss school just because they had review. It was possible to go to the beach later in the day, after school. But by the time all the homework was done, it was too late to watch the surfers, just the sunset, which Bradley’s mother and twin sister would enjoy, but was too boring for him. Oh, why was it not the Memorial Day weekend already!

It was particularly annoying that on work days Bradley’s mother liked to get up early. She would fix breakfast for everyone and fellowship with her family before taking off for work. She demanded that all the kids got up as well, of which Bradley did not see the point. He personally could not participate in any kind of fellowship this early. She started at 8 a.m., and in Bradley’s opinion there was no need to get up at six. Breakfast didn’t have to be so sophisticated and take so long.

Bradley postponed getting out of bed under pretense of waiting for Dustin to finish up with his shower. The best would be if he could come up with a clever plan to miss school today without any ramifications. So Bradley was desperately thinking, while still in bed, but nothing came to his mind. Megan was still asleep. She hated getting up early as well and always slept till the last possible moment. Then she would jump out of bed and rush to the table without ever taking a shower. She actually did it in the evenings, which was not that bad at all, because it reduced competition for the bath in the morning.

After breakfast Bradley’s mother left, followed by Dustin who had an early lesson today. In forty five minutes Bradley was ready to go. He and Megan had a math class together in the morning, but Megan was not quite done with her hair. Why couldn’t girls just make it simpler! Bradley felt overwhelming frustration with his sister but realized that the real reason for his being upset was the lack of a plausible idea of how to avoid school. If he pretended to be sick, he would have to stay home all day instead of going to the beach. Moreover, there was really nobody to take him to the beach. How convenient would it be to have an older brother with a car to play a hooky with.

Bradley was stuck. Their father would usually wait for ten minutes for him, Megan and Dustin to get to school to make sure everything was Ok, and then he would leave for work himself. Bradley ran out of time to think of any idea, because their father prompted them to go. Since Megan was not quite ready, Bradley started off without her. It was not uncommon that she would get going later and run all the way to school.

Suddenly Bradley heard the sounds of fast steps behind him and thought it was Megan, but it was his friend John, who lived in the house right next to his.

Hi! Great day, uh? John said, slowing down and walking next to Bradley. I was trying to tell my parents that I was sick so I could stay home, but they did not buy it.

Bradley objected, I thought of that already. What good is that pretending to be sick? You would have to stay at home all day. I wish I could go to the beach. This sure isn’t a kind of day to boil at school… and afterwards with the homework.

Have you done the math assignment? John inquired.

Sure I have. And a bunch of additional problems that my parents made me do. You are lucky yours don’t sit on top of you all the time like mine do. They keep telling me I’m the one who is lucky because I will learn well and be successful in the future.

Bradley’s parents belonged to the category of people whose parents and parents’ parents were well educated and raised to believe that if one studied hard, one would be very successful in life. His father studied hard, and the choice of his education proved to be just right. He obtained a Bachelor’s degree in mathematics and then Master’s in engineering and successfully landed a job with Boeing shortly after graduation.

Bradley’s mother, on the other hand, even though she studied hard as well, could not decide for a long time what she wanted to do. Since her parents made sure she took all the hard classes in high school, it would have not been difficult for her to continue studying science. However, she decided that it would be much more fun if she obtained her Bachelor’s in history of ancient civilizations. So she did, minoring in literature at the same time. She realized shortly after graduation that this field did not offer many well-paying as well as interesting jobs. She could become a teacher, but this was not appealing to her. She wanted to stay close to her family in California, especially that her boyfriend, future husband, already found a successful job and was not interested in moving. So she went back to school and followed her parents’ advice to study sciences, choosing molecular biology to work in a research lab. Following graduation, she worked in academia for a few years to gain practical experience and then joined Allergan’s Research and Development team.

Dustin, Bradley and Megan were raised to study hard, go to college and choose degrees that would allow them to find interesting, as well as well-paying jobs. Bradley had not decided just yet whether he liked this idea of being so narrowly directed into choosing what to study and how many hours per day to spend studying. But he heard stories of other adults complaining in their later years that their parents did not discipline them enough to study when they were kids, and