Edgar and the Lying Potion

By Jeremy C. Crisp

When nine-year-old Edgar Mott meets a stranger on the way to school, his life is forever changed.
Edgar lives in a small mid-western town and has a tendency to lie when he gets into trouble. The antagonist in the story is a man named Lou C. Four, a pseudonym for Lucifer, who is pretending to be a travelling salesman. He provides a sympathetic ear one morning after Edgar is caught in a lie and disciplined by his mother. As a result of this encounter he gives Edgar a gift. It’s a small bottle with the words “Lying Potion” written on it.
Edgar uses the potion in order to avoid once again getting into trouble from his teacher. However, as with all lies, it ends up causing more problems, which leads to more lies.
In steps the mentor figure, Mr. Laramie. He is the elderly toy-store owner and a good friend to Edgar. Mr. Laramie has had a previous experience with Lou and shares this encounter with Edgar. In the process, he shares his faith with Edgar, which ultimately leads him to accept Christ.
The story concludes with Edgar making amends with those he’s lied to and Mr. Laramie sharing the love of Christ with Edgar’s family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeremy C. Crisp
• Release date: Apr 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310342325

Book preview

Edgar

and the

Lying Potion

By Jeremy C. Crisp

Copyright 2013 Jeremy C. Crisp

Smashwords Edition

To my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

To my beautiful wife Tammy, who was such an encouragement to me as I wrote this book; my two wonderful boys, Lincoln and Luke; and my precious daughter, Haisley.

Chapter One

EDGAR!!! Why is there dirt all over the carpet? A cry rang throughout the house. Edgar’s mother was storming down the hallway toward his room. Haven’t I told you not to play in the living room? she asked, unnecessarily. She had told Edgar several times. In fact, the living room was off limits to anyone but guests. It was the one room in the house that was always kept spotless. The Mott’s living room was in the front of the house, therefore, it was the first room anyone saw when guests came over. Edgar’s mother always liked to keep it clean in case a friend or neighbor dropped by. She liked to give the impression that her house was always nice and tidy. On this particular day, her book club was meeting at her house and she wanted things to look perfect.

When she opened the door to Edgar’s room, he was sitting on the edge of his bed tying his sneakers. His room was very typical for a nine-year-old boy. His dirty clothes were strewn about the room and his bed was unmade. Shirts and shorts bulged from partially closed drawers. His entire room was decorated with all different types of cars. There were big cars and little cars, new cars with brightly colored paint and intricate pin striping, and older ones with the paint wearing off. But his favorite car, the one he played with the most, was an electric blue remote control Camaro. It was about 10 inches long and had two white racing stripes running down the center. The car looked well used. It was riddled with nicks and scrapes. Edgar often liked to build ramps and launch his Camaro off of them. This was fine when he did it outside, but inside was strictly off limits.

A few months ago, Edgar had been home with his mom and his five-year old brother, Eli. It was the third straight day of rain and he was utterly bored. His mother was engrossed in her work and Eli was down for his nap, so he went to his room to find something to play with. Searching his closet, he spotted his blue Camaro and his building blocks and got an idea. He grabbed them excitedly and went into the living room. The Mott’s had hardwood floors throughout most of the house and Edgar had the idea to set up a little racecourse for his car. He set up some blocks as obstacles, some to drive through, and then, as a finale, he set up a ramp to launch his car over his other smaller cars.

Once the course was set, he put his car at the starting point. He drove around his obstacle course and through barriers. A huge smile was on his face the entire time. When it was time to go off the ramp he accelerated as fast as the car would go. He approached the ramp, but he was at the wrong angle. When he launched off of it, instead of going over the cars, the Camaro flew towards the wall. The car slid down the wall making blue and black scrapes as it went. Needless to say, his mother was furious. As a result, Edgar lost his Camaro for two weeks and had to clean the wall.

Ever since that incident, he had never driven the car in the house. However, for the last month the blue car had been out of batteries and his mother had kept forgetting to get more at the store. That is, until yesterday. She came home with a large pack of AA batteries and Edgar rushed to put them in his car. Unfortunately, by that time, it was too dark outside for him to drive it. So, he would have to wait.

He woke up early and was too excited. There was no way he was waiting until after school. Quietly, he snuck out if his bedroom, his car tucked under his arm. I’ll just drive a little bit, he thought to