The Popcorn Colonel: There Is a Kernal of Truth to It.

By Toni Anderson, Billy Carney and Ted Christopher

11 year old William is desperate for an adventure like the kind he sees in the movies. When he discovers a dull grey metal box under a hedge in his yard he opens it to reveal the first of a tangle of mysteries that leads him to a secret room behind the movie screen in the old theater. With the help of his best friend Marie, he slowly begins to piece together why there is a lone cornstalk growing in his neighbors back yard, why its surrounded by lanterns, and why someone is out to get their hands on the box and its contents. It's up to William and Marie to investigate the clues as they try to sort out why the box was under the hedge. Will they be able to figure it all out before it's too late? The "Pop-ulation" of Stock om is in desperate need of the brave duo. Trouble is, no one knows it yet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543943566

Toni Anderson

A former marine biologist who completed her PhD at the Gatty Marine Laboratory in St. Andrews, Scotland, Toni Anderson has traveled the world with her work. She was born and raised in rural Shropshire, England, and, after living in five different countries, she finally settled down in the Canadian prairies with her husband and two children. Combining her love of travel with her love of romantic suspense, Anderson writes stories based in some of the places she has been fortunate to visit. When not writing, she's busy walking her dog, gardening, and ferrying the kids to school, piano, and soccer games. She is also the author of Storm Warning and Edge of Survival.

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The Popcorn Colonel

© 2018 Toni Anderson

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Print ISBN: 978-1-54394-355-9

eBook ISBN: 978-1-54394-356-6

Table of Contents

Prologue

CHAPTER ONE – The Zuckerwattes

CHAPTER TWO – The Glasses

CHAPTER THREE – The Bus Ride

CHAPTER FOUR – The Popcorn Made At Home

CHAPTER FIVE – The Cotton Candy Movie House

CHAPTER SIX – The Time Stood Still

CHAPTER SEVEN – The Locked Door

CHAPTER EIGHT – The Disappearance of Mr. Zuckerwatte

CHAPTER NINE – The Contents of The Golden Box

CHAPTER TEN – The Back Door

CHAPTER ELEVEN – The Discovery of Stock Om

CHAPTER TWELVE – The Mayor’s Explanation

CHAPTER THIRTEEN – The Special Forces

CHAPTER FOURTEEN – The Wild West

CHAPTER FIFTEEN – The Littlefield of Dreams

CHAPTER SIXTEEN – The Pirates’ Harbor

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – The Movie Choosing

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – The Beacon and The Town Square

CHAPTER NINETEEN – The Details of The Plan

CHAPTER TWENTY – The Rescue Mission

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE – The Return Home

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO – The Offer

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE – The Retelling

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR – The Late Night

Prologue

Sound the alarm, shouted the Sergeant, urgency and confusion overcoming him. His sharp eyes scanned the room and halted on the source of the catastrophe. Soda Pop Falls were flooding the room at a devastating rate.

Barricade Soda Pop Falls, ordered the Sergeant, and his troops scattered.

Ahem, sir, the… the b... beacon is umm, well it’s malfunctioning…sir, stammered a voice behind the Sergeant. He turned to find one of his men clearly upset at being the one chosen to alert him to the problem. In the background chaos had erupted as all of the townspeople were pointing blame in any direction but their own. The Sergeant knew they needed to notify the Colonel immediately. If the beacon wasn’t repaired by tonight, everything would be in jeopardy when the popcorn was popped.

CHAPTER ONE

The Zuckerwattes

Leaves tumbled down in fiery hues swirling to the ground as the school bus stopped on Maize Row. Ms. Tulia pulled the lever on the door, and two children officially departed the school day, exiting the bus. The air was crisp and smelled of damp leaves. Autumn in Shuckersville was the best time of year; everyone said so.

Why does the bus ride to school seem to take less time than it does to ride home? Marie asked her best friend William as they walked away from the bus stop. I mean it just doesn’t make sense, she said tugging at the bobby pin in her red hair that had lost its grip during the grueling day at school. The freckles on her nose wrinkled into a crease as she struggled to reposition it. I’m anxious to finish my book, I’m on the last chapter, she said, patting the green velveteen book bag slung over her shoulder that her Granny had made for her.

Well before you start reading, you’ve got to come up with your guess on what kind of movie will be showing, William replied with a grin, looking down at Marie as he pulled his baseball cap from his backpack and put in on. It was navy blue with red stitching. His dad had bought it for him as a souvenir from a baseball game in the city. The hat had frayed from constant wear, and there was a snag in the top. Over the summer break, he had misjudged the height of a tree limb hanging over the sidewalk. By the time he realized what had happened and stopped his bike, his hat was missing. Behind him, Marie had stopped her bike as well and was laughing hysterically at his cap hanging from the tree branch. She liked to remind him of the incident on occasion.

Earlier, during the bus ride home, William and Marie had been discussing possible movies that might be showing at the theater over the weekend. They liked to see who could get closest to the right answer. It was always a surprise because the unknown owner of the theater didn’t put a poster in the now showing frame until Friday. The anticipation was the best part, and since the one-screen movie theater was the only place for miles and miles that you could go to for a break from boring old Shuckersville, almost everyone looked forward to it. For around ninety minutes you could be transported to somewhere else. William always hoped for a movie about a baseball field or a superhero, and Marie wished upon every star she could see for something magical with castles and princesses. On movie preferences, William and Marie differed but had almost everything else in common.

Will, said Marie as they were parting ways: You didn’t say why you thought the bus ride takes longer going home; do you think it’s because we are so ready to get there?

He shrugged his shoulders; William didn’t mind going to school but he preferred to be home and was always ready to get there. He always had his eyes peeled for an adventure or a chance to discover something the way heroes act in the movies. Over the summer, he and his dad had built a fort in the backyard, and he pretended he was out in uncharted lands looking for a lost treasure; lately, however, he hadn’t encountered anything fascinating. He had actually begun to think he was trying too hard to find his treasure, and he lost interest. The problem was that he wanted a real adventure, not a make-believe one. Something beyond the movie screen. But in Shuckersville, every day was the same. However, he had, for the most part, finally accepted his fate that he couldn’t just go out and find a real adventure -- not in Shuckersville, anyway. He still felt the pang of a recently developed and nagging feeling that something big was going to happen to him. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but sometimes it was all he could think about. Whatever it was, it was not waiting to be found nor was it going to just show up. He knew he would have to meet this adventure halfway, and when the time came he was going to have to decide whether or not he had the heart and guts that the adventure called for. He was still lost in thought when a sudden gust of afternoon wind threatened to steal his ball cap, bringing him back to the sidewalk he was walking down. In the distance Marie’s bright pink shoes blinked along the sidewalk as she went to meet her Granny, who was waiting for her on the front lawn.

William waived to Mr. and Mrs. Zuckerwatte, who he thought must be at least one hundred years old. They seemed slightly odd to most of the neighbors on their street, and the fact that they spoke in thick German accents only added to their mystery. Even though they were strange, they had kind faces, and William really liked them. Mrs. Zuckerwatte was as sweet as spun sugar. She always wore her silver hair swept up into a bun on the top of her head. Most of her clothes were red, her favorite color. When she pulled the pesky weeds from the red poppies in the garden, she blended in so splendidly that she almost disappeared entirely. She liked to make William apfelsaft and springerle, which she had explained to him was German for apple juice and cookies.

Mr. Zuckerwatte was tall; his white hair was peppered here and there with the hints of the black hair he once had as a young man. He typically wore trousers and button-down shirts, which were accompanied by lightweight sweaters; he always wore a shiny golden pin on the collar of his sweater. The scar shaped like the letter Z on his right cheek morphed into other shapes when he spoke, and William was fascinated by it. Mr. Zuckerwatte wouldn’t talk about how he got the scar, but he said it was okay for William to call him Mr. Z. It was a grand coincidence that William’s last name also began with a Z. Mr. Zuckerwatte worked at the movie theater part time. William supposed it might be for free tickets. Mr. Zuckerwatte loved movies! Often times he would sit in the backyard overlooking a cornstalk that grew there. Every evening, precisely at 7:00, he lit the lanterns that surrounded it. William never asked about the cornstalk or about the