Blue: The Childhood Legends Series

By Judith Blevins and Carroll Multz

The Best Kept Secret… 

Blue paint covered a five-year-old Cuban refugee seeking asylum in the United States. In his search for a safe-haven and, in an attempt to find food, he succeeded in causing a paint spill that would forever change his life and the lives of those who befriended him.

My name is Shacoo Bandaris, a twelve year old and a member of a club known as the Are You One Toos (R*U*1*2s). I, together with another club member, Rhymin’ Sally, was responsible for extricating from his predicament the boy we dubbed “Blue.” 

Keeping Blue a secret from the authorities and our parents was no easy task. Discovery would have meant possible deportation for Blue and, of course, a punishment we chose not to think about. Follow our trail of intrigue as the R*U*1*2s attempt to keep Blue the best kept secret—at least until he is naturalized.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BHC Press/Barking Frog
• Release date: Apr 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386248514

Book preview

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BLUE

Copyright © 2017 Judith Blevins & Carroll Multz

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published by Barking Frog

an imprint of BHC Press

Library of Congress Control Number:

2017932136

Print edition ISBN numbers:

ISBN-13: 978-1-946006-50-9

ISBN-10: 1-946006-50-5

Visit the authors at: www.bhcpress.com

Cover design, interior book design,

and eBook design

by Blue Harvest Creative

www.blueharvestcreative.com

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Operation Cat Tale

One Frightful Day

These Titles Coming Soon

The Ghost of Bradbury Mansion

White Out

A Flash of Red

Back in Time

Treasure Seekers

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Prologue

Chapter One

A Closely Held Secret

Chapter Two

The Plot Thickens

Chapter Three

Twitterpatted

Chapter Four

New Digs

Chapter Five

Dodging a Bullet

Chapter Six

A Star is Born

Chapter Seven

The Litmus Test

Chapter Eight

Out With the Old,

In With the New

Chapter Nine

School Daze

Chapter Ten

Reunited

Epilogue

Whatever Happened

to Blue?

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This novel is written by the young at heart for the young at heart. It is the tale of a young Cuban boy who, seeking freedom, escaped Cuba only to be separated from his mother when they landed on the Florida shore. It is the story of guts, determination and character—not only on the part of the refugee but his cadre of rescuers which consisted mainly of a band of preteens known as the Are You One Toos (R*U*1*2s).

The odds were stacked against the heroes in our story. The Cuban boy, a boy nicknamed Blue, was the obvious hero. He was brave and daring, and in order to reach his true potential, was required to overcome a host of obstacles placed in his path. The same thing was true of the other heroes, the Are You One Toos (R*U*1*2s). All proved the adage that Persistence Overcomes Resistance. It also legitimizes the saying that Good Overcomes Evil. If this wasn’t evident before reading our novel, it should be by the time our readers reach the end of the final chapter.

We learned while writing Blue that it is not the authors that spawn and spur the characters, but the characters that spur and spawn the authors. We were mere scribes as our characters dictated and orchestrated their own destinies and charted the course of the story line. It was as though we were guided by some invisible or mysterious force. Hopefully, the reader will find Blue, our third novel in the Childhood Legends Series®, compelling, intriguing and inspirational.

Our special thanks to Margie Vollmer Rabdau and Dr. Donald A. Carpenter for their technical assistance. Last but not least, to our publisher BHC Press, we are eternally grateful.

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Our newly formed club, the Are You One Toos (R*U*1*2s for short), had close to two dozen members (twenty-two to be exact) ranging in age from five to twelve years old. All the members lived in and around our neighborhood and were instrumental in converting an abandoned apple shed into a terrific clubhouse.

Homer Pearson, Rhymin’ Sally’s father, gave us permission to use the shed as a clubhouse after Sally, a precocious five-year old, was threatened by a band of thugs. It was approximately a year ago that Sally was rescued from the lawless group, who as it turned out, had been cruising our neighborhood looking for something to steal or destroy. They descended on the apple stand on the edge of the apple orchard manned by Sally and her mother like a swarm of bees. Apparently, the thugs had staked out the stand as a target, and when Sally was left alone while her mother sought to replenish the apple supply, they struck.

The thugs would have made off with the cash drawer had it not been for a group of neighborhood youngsters returning from a school function and who just happened to be passing by the stand. Seeing what was happening, they immediately sprung to Sally’s aid. I am proud to say I was part of that group. We struggled with the intruders before the thugs were frightened away by Sally’s mother who, after seeing what was taking place, used her cell phone to summon Sally’s father. When Sally’s father arrived and was told about the heroic actions, he praised us and a bond was forged between the Pearsons and our neighborhood group.

What can we do to repay you? Homer Pearson had asked.

Aww, it was nothing. We don’t need to be repaid, I had replied.

However, when Sally’s father was persistent and insisted he be given the opportunity to repay us, I pointed to an abandoned apple storage shed that had stood vacant for a number of years in the middle of the Pearsons’ apple orchard and said, We are in the process of forming a club to occupy us for the summer and could use your apple shed as a clubhouse.

It’s yours, Sally’s father replied without hesitation. I’ll meet you at the apple shed tomorrow at noon. We, that is the Pearson three, will have lunch waiting for you and your friends and we’ll explore what needs to be done to fashion that dilapidated old shed into a suitable clubhouse.

Yippee! we all shouted.

The next day, with some of our fellow classmates, neighbors and friends, we descended upon the orchard. There were at least twenty-four in number. And as promised, the Pearsons had lunch waiting. After everyone had settled in, Sally asked each of us, one-by-one, if we were one of the heroes who had rescued her the day before.

Are you one too? I remember her asking. And it came to pass that the name of our newly formed club was conceived. From that point forward, we would be known as the Are You One Toos (R*U*1*2s). All those present, including Sally, became the coveted charter members.

With the help of Lloyd Pearson, we furnished the clubhouse with empty packing crates and other odds and ends we gathered from our families. Our mothers took turns providing sandwiches, drinks and snacks. It was cool inside the converted apple storage shed because the apple trees outside provided shade and a persistent breeze wafted through the open door and windows as if on cue.

The clubhouse was soon jammed with an assortment of games and books. During those summer months, Shacoo and I took turns reading to our fellow R*U*1*2s. Our seventh grade teacher to be had challenged us to do something over the summer to promote education in our respective neighborhoods. At first, we did this to satisfy the homework assignment but it was not long before we discovered it was not only educational but fun as well.

Everyone looked forward to our reading sessions. The reading sessions not only became a hobby, but an obsession, and needless to say, our parents were delighted that we were not whittling away our time or getting into mischief.

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Cole, Emily, Joey, Kate, Kirsten,

Logan, Taran, Trenton, Bridgette,

Hannah, Irina and Caroline

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I am a stranger in a strange land no longer!

~ Dashfer Freedom ~

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The undernourished five-year-old boy in tattered jeans entered the garage unimpeded. His cunning and shrewdness allowed him unimpeded passage since having been on his own and on the run for the past several months. He had become separated from his mother when they had reached the Florida shore after arriving in a refugee boat from Cuba.

When they landed, it was dark and there was a lot of chaos and confusion. His mother, trying to hang onto their meager belongings, inadvertently had let go of his hand. The other passengers were pushing and shoving, and with the constant press of bodies, he soon became separated and lost in the eerie darkness of his surroundings. He called out for his mother with frustrated repetition time-after-time but received no response or any inclination that she heard him. After searching for a child’s eternity, he finally gave up. Exhausted and frustrated, he found sanctuary under the branches of a palm tree. Soon he was enveloped in a fitful, dreamless sleep.

As the sun rose high in the blue expanse of sky the following day, other migrants, seeing his plight, took him under their wings and shepherded him through the travails of the next several weeks. Knowing it was not safe for immigrants to stay in Florida, they had prevailed upon a sympathetic trucker to transport them further up the coast and further inland. Unable to locate his mother, who apparently had been whisked away the previous night, they took him with them.

It was not long before he became an unwanted burden and the migrants who had befriended him quickly abandoned him. He was left to his own devices and innate determination to survive. He foraged discarded clothing and resorted to eating from the surrounding gardens and trash receptacles behind supermarkets, convenience stores and restaurants.

And so it was when he entered old Henry Harden’s garage on Melrose Lane in Jefferson City, Iowa, on that cool, overcast June day. Once inside, he quickly looked around, hoping to find something he could use to shore up his survival. He spotted a rickety ladder and looked up to where it was resting against a shelf. With child-like curiosity, he wondered what was on the shelf that contained cans and jars, so he began to climb. When he reached the top, he put his hand out to steady himself and caught the bail on a paint can, toppling it in his direction. Before he knew it, he was covered with paint. Not just any paint but blue paint. The ladder became slick, and losing his grip, he slid clumsily down the ladder landing in the puddle of spilled paint now covering the garage floor.

Stunned and dripping with blue paint, he moaned for several agonizing minutes. When he regained his composure, he found he was covered from head to toe with blue paint. As he rose, he frantically searched around for something to extricate himself from the dripping paint. He located a barrel with a supply of cleaning rags and began trying haphazardly to clean the paint first from his face and then from his arms and hands. This resulted in merely smearing it. With no little effort, he was able to remove some of the paint from his eyes, nose and mouth.

Surveying the mess he had created, he became worried about the trouble he would be in should he be detected. Surely, the noise would attract the curious. He made a bee-line for the door but was inhibited by the clinging mass that engulfed him. Looking back he could see the trail of blue footprints he was leaving behind. He didn’t have the resources, the energy or the time to try to clean up the mess in the garage though he knew he should. He was in survival mode and he could only hear and pay attention to the cry of the wild that had befriended him until now and that beckoned to him from beyond.

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It just so happened that Rhymin’ Sally and I were taking a shortcut past Henry Harden’s garage when we heard the clatter of metal as it hit the floor and then a dull thud. We pressed our faces against the window of the garage door and peered in. We could scarcely believe what we observed. There in plain view glimmering in a ray of light was a small lad dazed and lying on the garage floor drenched in blue paint. We watched as he began to move about and then attempt to wipe the blue paint from his face and hands. Not having much success, we watched as he retrieved some rags from a barrel and repeated the routine. He then headed for the door. Sally and I quickly ducked behind some bushes so we wouldn’t be seen.

Sally whispered to me, Little Boy Blue. Her mother had apparently read her the story by that name. Ironically, it fit the description of the boy now drenched in blue paint.

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MY NAME IS SHACOO Bandaris. I’m twelve years old and in the eighth grade. I live with my parents in a town with a population of about thirty-five thousand called Jefferson City. There is another Jefferson City, only that one is located in Missouri. My home town is located in Iowa. Both, no doubt, were named after our third president, Thomas Jefferson.

Every Friday afternoon Sally took piano lessons from my mother. She was barely five and had not yet started school. Since I don’t have a little sister and Sally doesn’t have a big sister, we adopted each other.

Rhymin’ Sally is the youngest member of the R*U*1*2s, a club we formed consisting of classmates and neighborhood kids. Sally’s father provided our clubhouse which sits in the middle of his apple orchard. His name is Lloyd Pearson and Sally’s mother’s name is Rosemary. My mother’s name, by the way, is Katrina, and my father’s name is Carlo. Our parents