The Tunes of Lenore

By John Blossom

National Indie Excellence Award Finalist 2019

 

Ella is sixteen and her ex-hippie parents are getting a divorce. Reluctantly, she is headed to a boarding school on a remote ranch where things are so rustic that she is required to chop her own firewood just to have hot water. Surprisingly, the boys are hot there too, and soon Ella's troubles at home are not nearly as compelling as her romantic adventures and the challenging adjustments she faces in her vastly more organic school. On her team is Jenny, a quantumly-altered golden retriever who can communicate like no other dog in the world, and Lenore, her grandfather's old fiddle who provides comfort and needed cosmic guidance. Ella battles loneliness, sadness about her parents' divorce, confusion about sex, a troubled mentor who is not who he seems, and a camping trip that goes incredibly awry. Tragedies and triumphs shape all of us, but especially Ella who, after all her struggles to know herself and fit in, learns that setting free the spirit of someone who means everything to you can be the only way to find true love.

 

What Editorial Reviewers are saying about The Tunes of Lenore:

 

One normally does not start at an ending when writing a review, but the last pieces of imagery and the beautiful accompanying illustrations perfectly capped this captivating, creative piece of juvenile fiction. Unique is the author's use of illustrations, and I found myself guessing and anticipating what treasure may be around the next turned page, and how it matched with the text. ★★★★★  HGSR: Great Choice for Young Readers! March 3, 2019

 

The Tunes of Lenore is a beautiful book encompassing music, physics, dogs, ecology, farming, ranches, mechanics, nature, boarding school, sustainable living, farming, biology, research, and literature. It is a beautifully written book and one that I really enjoyed reading, and I'm sure you would too.  ★★★★★ Margaret: It was amazing!  Feb 24, 2019 

 

The writing and storytelling grabbed me from page one and I finished it in less than a day. Excellent read that I will remember. I will definitely be looking for other books by J.T. Blossom! The Tunes of Lenore is a fascinating look at the near future from the perspective of a young high school student who is sent to a rustic boarding school in rural California. It explores survival and getting along as well as climate issues, animal rights and care issues, population, and natural resources.  ★★★★★  Maggie T. I will remember this one! February 25, 2019

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: JTBlossom.com
• Release date: Feb 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386444398

John Blossom

Mr. Blossom holds a BA degree in English from Carleton College and an MAT degree from Colorado College. Teacher and artist, Mr. Blossom concerns himself deeply with technology and environmental issues and feels there is hope to create a better world through the power of stories to change hearts and minds. He presently lives on an organic farm on the Big Island of Hawaii where he gives away fruits and vegetables and maintains an active free library at the end of his driveway. 

Book preview

Chapter One

Mom’s electric Beamer glided smoothly over the bumps on Highway 101 as we headed south from Harbor Vista toward the prison. It’s not a prison really, just a stupid boarding school called Wandering Pines that Dad found for me.  I should have run away instead of agreeing to this. It's too late now. Two more hours and we’ll be there. It’s on some sort of ranch next to a wilderness area, so at least they’ll let me keep Jenny, my golden retriever there, or so they say. I forced a smile at her sitting attentively in the back seat next to my grandfather’s beat-up fiddle case. She can adapt to anything. But me? Wandering Pines Academy? Seriously?

Hey Mom, you probably shouldn’t trust this penitentiary to keep me under control if it can’t even keep its trees from wandering around.

"Very funny, Ella, but this is not a penitentiary. Your dad says Wandering Pines is a very well-respected boarding school. It sent tons of graduates to great four-year colleges, not to mention Brecken University."

Oh really. That’s not what I read. I read that all their graduates go on to live naked in the woods and survive on only nuts and berries. Mom just rolled her eyes at this and let the auto-steer take over so she could check the fade rate of her new Face Tats in the mirror. "You don’t need to be controlled, dear, and getting outdoors every once in a while will be good for you. You spend too much time in your room alone with that fiddle."

Well, maybe I wouldn’t have to if you and Dad weren’t fighting all the time.

"Honey. We’ve been over this. Talk to your father about that. He’s the one who just has to move up to Humboldt."

And he built you a very nice studio up there next to his new farm.

Nice studio? With no light and no ocean view? I like where I am right now, thank you very much. If he and his Brecken buddies want to grow pot, they can do it just as well hydroponically in the campus lab. Why do I have to move up north to the boonies?

No, they can’t, Mom. His business is too big. And it’s not ordinary old pot. It’s Enlightenment. It’s different. It has to grow on the earth. Besides, he’s not with his Brecken buddies anymore. He dumped them. They were the ones who were going to kill Jenny, remember?

Mom glanced at Jenny in the rearview mirror. "His pot product is not different enough that it’s okay that you stole some off his desk and vaped it. And don’t let him fool you, he calls those Brecken people up all the time for advice ."

"He does not. He was as mad about Jenny as I was. Dad’s doing just fine on his own. Don’t you follow the progress of his company on your glasses feed? Besides, doing Enlightenment freed me from substance and device addiction, so you should be happy. That’s why everyone loves it, by the way. Don’t you get it? Enlightenment? I can’t believe you haven’t tried it. No matter. You’re all set now, I guess. No daughter to take care of, no Dad to argue with, and no Jenny to pester you in the studio all day long while I’m at school. I hope you enjoy it."

Guilting me is not going to change my mind, Ella. This is as much for you as it is for the family. You know that. Vista High was way too easy for you.

If you’re sending me to this wilderness dump to get me away from James, you needn’t have spent the money. We broke up weeks ago.

Really? said Mom, suddenly genuinely interested. Did he break up with you or did you break up with him?’ Then she gave a little wave with her hand. It doesn’t matter, this is not about your social life, and you know it."

"Right, Mom, and Vista High was not too easy for me. I read a ton of books there."

None the school assigned you.

So?

So, it’s time for you to put yourself out there and learn from some people who are smarter than you for once.

James was smart.

I’m talking about people more creative than boy toys and football players.

You underestimate him, and you think playing music is easy?

No, but playing alone in your room all the time is stifling. Creativity requires more interaction than watching fiddle holograms on YouTube.

Oh, sure, right. Like all the University guys that hang around your studio all the time, I suppose.

Exactly! Artists need other artists to keep them stimulated.

"Stimulated, huh? I’ll bet! Well, at least they also pet Jenny and gave her some of their precious stimulation."

And got her hair everywhere. Can’t say I’ll miss that.

Mom flipped down her phoneglasses to cut me off, and I leaned my head against the window and watched the rows of grapevines flash by like a 3-D mind-warp video. College preparatory boarding school! Isn’t this what always happens to rich kids from broken families? Leave it to my parents to find the weirdest one in California, though.

I looked behind me at Lenore resting in its ragged brown case that still smells sweetly of my granddad. The old German violin was his favorite possession, and he gave it to me before he died since his son, my dad, doesn’t have a musical bone in his body. I always thought of you with love when I played Lenore, Ella dear. Now you can learn from her and think of me sometimes, he said from his sick bed. I never cried so much in my life when he died. But it’s true, I always think of him when I play. Somehow it’s as if his heart lives on in the intricate wood of Lenore, even though I am nowhere near as good at playing her yet as he was.

Thinking about Lenore makes my fingertips tingle and reminds me that I need to practice the new version of Mississippi Sawyer I just learned. Not likely I’ll be able to do that anytime soon at this boonies penitentiary. Jenny was excited that I turned around to look at her. She smiled at me droopy-eyed and licked Lenore’s case knowingly. She’ll probably really like Wandering Pines , more room to run around.

A restaurant billboard with a drawing of some weirdo using a huge sledgehammer to crush a little bean appears from behind a hill on the right. What the heck is that all about? Didn’t our fine progressive state have laws against old-fashioned billboards now that phoneglass holograms make ads appear majestically on any vista. I looked at the eyesore and shook my head. Do IRL promotions like that still work in 2026? Around here, apparently. This school really is in the boonies! I stifle a pfff so Mom will keep her attention on her glasses.

We rolled past another stupid restaurant billboard and Jenny sent me an urgent scent. It filled my olfactory nerves with a deeply penetrating lemon flavor with accents of urine. As usual, before I even had a chance to interpret the meaning, her visual message kicked in to make it easier to figure out. Here’s what I saw in a sort of film screen over my eyes:

Amazing, huh? Don’t ask me how she does it. Dad won’t tell me anything other than to keep it a secret. It’s all the quantum communications stuff they implanted in her brain at Brecken before they decided to kill her off as a dud. Those Brecken freaks made her mind scintillate with brilliance, and then they gave up on her, probably because she was smart enough to hide her brilliance from them in order to get out of there. That’s my theory, anyway. They had their chance to build her trust and treat her as something other than a lab rat. They didn’t do that. Their loss. They can inflict their bio-genetic, psycho-physics wizardry on other dogs for all I care. Jenny’s more like a human child than a dog, and her secret is forever safe with me. I smiled at her in the back seat.

Sometimes I had to admit that it would be easier if Mom knew about Jenny. Not only because owning a genius dog is a tough secret to keep from her, but also because, as an artist, she would probably really appreciate seeing the cool visuals. They can be pretty intense, and instead of me having to hold my nose and cover up my eyes all the time and pretend that nothing was happening, she’d see that I have an artistic side too, if sensing how to interpret random images for hidden dog meaning counts as creativity. That’s an art, isn’t it? I think so. When I first got Jenny, and she trusted me enough to send me a message, I was terrible at understanding it. I thought that smoking Enlightenment had blown my mind, and I didn’t even realize the vision was coming from her, but Jenny was patient with me, and now I read her pretty accurately most of the time, even when her messages are sometimes symbolically complicated and hard to decipher. I can interpret Mom’s paintings pretty accurately too, but I usually don’t embarrass her by informing her what they mean. Psychology was never her thing, and she’s self-conscious that she doesn’t read as much as I do.

Fortunately for my sanity, Jenny does make a sincere effort to communicate clearly. Most of the time her smell transmissions carry images of classic paintings whose meanings would be obvious to anyone who pays attention in school. Mom was so happy when I decided to take art history as an elective last year. I’m just thrilled that you are finally interested in paintings! she said, but I didn’t tell her it was just to understand Jenny’s messages without having to reach for my phoneglasses all the time. I looked over at her behind the wheel absorbed by a flashing holo-video playing on her glasses screen. She would probably be pissed to know that she has had more of an influence on a dog’s artistic education than she’s had on mine. I’m sure Jenny picked up on all the nuances of artistic communication by being forced to hang around her studio all the time. I didn’t have to do that as much, thank goodness.

The hardest scents Jenny transmits are usually random, less-than-famous art pieces, even cartoons. Rarer still, but sometimes, the smells transformed into bits of music, usually pop or indie, but occasionally whole symphonies. Jenny, who pays attention to everything, picked up on music because Mom is addicted to Pandora when she paints. When Jenny decides to send them, her musical smells can take a while to process, mainly because they come when I am expecting an image and instead my ears fill with sound. That can be challenging if I am talking to someone. I’ve really honed my social acting skills pretending nothing is happening to me when Jenny takes over my senses and starts tripping out my brain. For sure I’ll never be one of those people who go for the new holograph-disguised Apple earrings where Siri whispers unsolicited information to you about what you are seeing all day long. I already have enough interference in my brain, thank you.

Jenny sends the lemon/urine smell again and vocalizes a whine in the back seat, probably to bolster her case with Mom. The image of the dog sculpture lifting its leg pulses again on my eyeballs.

Mom, can we take this exit and stop at that stupid soup restaurant? Jenny has to go. Me too, actually. As soon as I said that, Jenny let the image fade enough for me to see the world again. The exit is just ahead.

Sure, time for something to eat anyway, I guess.  I hope they have a Starbucks in there.

Don’t count on it. They probably still make coffee around here in tin pots over a campfire.

I know my mom actually liked James, by the way, because they both adored Starbucks. She’s simple in that way, trust me. Jenny didn’t like James at all, however, the little traitor. The smells that she sent me when James was around were disgusting and violent. I could barely even see him enough to kiss him at times. But what does Jenny know about love? She’s a dog. James was a hot guy.  I’m pretty hot too, actually,  for being a little overweight. I still don’t know why he dropped me. Did he sense, somehow, that Jenny didn’t like him? I’ll probably never know. He’ll move on, that’s for sure. Every girl at Vista High had a crush on him. At least the cheerleaders did, the ones he could never stop eyeing. I’m glad I didn’t tell him about Jenny.

We pulled into the restaurant and auto-parked next to Buicks, Winnebagos, and other newly-electrified classics driven by doddering old people apparently willing to be sucked in by billboards offering bean gruel and flatulence. Jenny was out of the car in a flash and found a gnarly oak tree to pee behind. She looked back at us to make sure the tree hid her well enough. Remarkably self-conscious for an animal. Next thing you know she’ll be begging me for clothes to wear. Jenny must have picked up on what I was thinking because she immediately sent me a strong scent of laundry soap. Here’s the image that appeared in my eyes:

"You’re way more beautiful and talented than that dog is, Jenny," I said to her when she returned from the tree and jumped back into the car. I could tell she wanted nothing to do with the inside of the tourist-trap feeding trough. I patted her knobby head and poured some water into her bowl on the seat before closing the door. We left the windows open for her.  She’ll probably meditate the whole time we’re gone.

"What that dog?" said Mom, flipping her phoneglasses up and looking around.

You didn’t see it, I said. Let’s go get souped.

Chapter Two

Mom raved about the bean soup. It probably reminded her of her starving hippie days when everything she made came out of the Moosewood Cookbook Revisited, but I thought it was watery. The oyster crackers kitchen-printed from an old Vermont recipe were amazing, though. Frankly, I’ve never met a carb I didn’t love. Mom’s always telling me I needed to lose a few pounds; like I needed to hear that all the time. Still, despite her eyeing my every bite, it was good to get something in my stomach. Getting dumped off at boarding school can sure work up an appetite. When we got back into the car, Jenny sent me a woodsy scent of something like a squirrel or a fox: 

Mom, Jenny is feeling a little cooped up right now. She needs to run around a bit before we drive again. This was a guess from the image since the wolves were so trapped, and when the image faded and Jenny stood up and bared her fangs playfully, I knew I was right.

I could tell Mom wanted to get going, but surprisingly she didn’t object this time to things that put a hitch in her giddy-up, probably because she was feeling guilty about what she was about to do to me. She forced herself to smile and only waved the car on to turn on the air conditioning.. She pulled her phoneglasses down off her forehead. Sure, dear. Good idea. I’ll just check my messages.

I left Mom to her satellite feed and let Jenny out of the back seat. She immediately headed back to the oak tree, leapt over a dry streambed and tore into the brown hills beyond. I used to panic when she’d gallop off like this without even a backward glance at me. She’d run with such wild enthusiasm whenever she found herself in an open space that I was often afraid she would never come back, or even remember where she started from, but I was always wrong.

I checked my phoneglasses for a message from Dad. Nothing. I didn’t want to go back to the depressing car, so I stood in the hot sun and waited. Fortunately, Jenny didn’t stay away long enough to make me worry. She came galloping back, panting and happy. I guess the cruises flushed out whatever was bugging her mysterious and labyrinthine mind.

Since the divorce, Jenny’s sprints have been increasing in length, though. After she cruises I get the distinct sense that she’s returning to her life with me more and more in the same way 19th-century factory workers did in The Jungle after a lunch break, very reluctantly. The scents of gratitude she sent me afterward were always satisfyingly rich, free and expansive, though, so I could be wrong about this. Why would she bother to thank me if she were going on cruises to get away from me? As I said, she’s more human than dog. There’s a lot about Jenny I just don’t understand.

In any case, the pattern is the same this time when she flew athletically back over the stream and trotted happily toward the car. She hesitated, looking back at the field as if she wanted more time out there, but then hopped in smiling, and my nose filled immediately with the pleasant scent of sage:

OK, Jenny. Good girl. I’m glad you enjoyed it. You’re welcome. Sit down now, please. Thanks. Time to mosey on, unfortunately. She settled in obediently next to Lenore. The image of the field faded like one of Mom’s temporary tattoos, and there was just a hint of celestial harp music in my ears at the end. I got back into the front seat. Now if a five-minute sprint like that could only solve my problems so easily, we’d all be happy.

Oh, ready? Mom asked, finishing a post with a deft flick of her fingers.

Onward to my so-called future, I replied and tilted my head again to rest against the side window.

Chapter Three

"T his is it ? I asked, looking at the long dirt driveway heading downhill across a field with an open riding ring on the right side and a sprawling vegetable garden on the other. Where’s the campus?"

I don’t know, dear. Down there, I guess, said Mom cranking the steering wheel and plunging the Beamer into the rutty driveway. Dust immediately swirled over the hood and obscured our view of an oak tree and the faded gray wooden sign below it that read, Wandering Pines. Feeling a little like we were trespassing on some rancher’s property and could get shot at any minute, we eased our way slowly down the road toward a simple bridge over a dry streambed, not unlike the one Jenny jumped over at the bean place. On the left, rising above the expansive and rolling garden was an unusual triangular-looking mountain we had watched grow larger and taller as we drove up the valley. On our right, in the open field, I saw old wine barrels and horse jumps made of plain wooden sawhorses and rough-cut branches. The early afternoon sun baked the dry ground everywhere, and heat came off the land in quivering sheets. They must have a deep well here or they could never grow anything in this desert.

Sensing we were arriving someplace, Jenny sat up and looked out the window at the garden. My nose suddenly filled with the scent of a fresh stream, and then the smell of Dad:

Yea, but he would like any funky old farm. If he were here and in charge of that garden, there’d be more than just strawberries and vegetables growing, that’s for sure!

Jenny stretched forward and licked the back of my neck. Her making me see Mom’s old painting of Dad back before he shaved his beard made me tear up a little bit, but I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and pulled myself together. In the dirt clearing ahead there was a Welcome Students! banner made from a white sheet hanging on a low branch of an oak tree.

Well, it isn’t Brecken, that’s for sure, said Mom. The 927-i’s tires rumbled over the wooden planks on a bridge over a dry streambed that led to a clearing in front of a pair of unusually giant oak trees, a barn, a farmhouse, and a fold-out table set up with casually dressed people in jeans sitting on tree stumps. There were a couple of cardboard boxes on the table and about a dozen stylishly-dressed people standing around looking awkward, city dwellers just arriving with their families, I assumed. One student stood out. He was an athletic guy about my age dressed in black jeans and a black t-shirt with something thick wrapped around his neck like a scarf. Jenny noticed him right away too. She sent me a scent. This time it was oiled saddle leather and then: 

Oh my God. That’s a snake!

Mom, check out the huge snake that guy has draped all over him!

Well, let's just park and see what’s going on. Maybe it’s a pet. The classrooms must be hidden somewhere in the woods, I guess.

Right, and where do people sleep around here? In tents?

Maybe, if you’re lucky! She laughed. Not a great time for a joke, Mom. When was the last time you had to rough it at a hick boarding school on a ranch?

We parked next to a green Suburban and waited for the amazing cloud of dust we created to settle down a bit before getting out. I braved the air first and grabbed Jenny’s leash from under my seat. The leash was always there, but really I never did this. I don’t even know what got into me. Nerves, probably because Jenny hasn’t used, or needed, a leash for years. As sensible as she is, she should actually have me on a leash! As soon as she sees the thing in my hand when I opened her door, my nose switched from leather to horse manure, and the snake’s fading image was quickly replaced by this:

Okay, okay. Sorry. But stay close to me. Just trying to keep you safe. There could be some strange mean dogs here, I said to Jenny letting her jump out of the back seat.

She cleared my nose of poop, but right away came the distinctive smell of burning rubber and this: 

Yea, yea, OK. You’re right. You are perfectly capable of taking care of yourself. But I’m still your mother! Well, sort of...

I swear you have more to say to that dog sometimes than you do to me! said Mom. She closed her door and squinted in the settling dust and hot sunshine.

Maybe it’s because she listens to me better than you? Right, Mom. Let’s go meet the moonshiners and see my new school. Maybe they’ll strike up the jug band to greet us. Stay close, Jenny.

Oh, Ella. Try to be positive! It’s your school now, and it’s beautiful here. Besides, I thought you liked that kind of music. I could tell from her tone it was time to cut the sarcasm. She always gets this way when she is about to meet new people. But I won’t let her force me to like this place. It could never  be better than all of us living together with Dad.

Surprisingly, Jenny didn’t immediately take off for another five-minute run. Instead, she stayed close and heeled like a normal dog. Maybe she knew this was hard enough on me