Realia

By Ulric Alvin Watts

Graeme Pendlebury is a genius. Or at least his fellow fifth graders think so, and he's in no rush to correct them. He dreams of going to MIT and becoming a physicist. . .Until he goes there on a field trip and finds a pencil case with his name on it, full of diamonds. This leads to increasingly bizarre events signifying a looming crisis with stakes greater than he could have possibly imagined. . .

Realia is a middle-grade soft science fiction/coming-of-age novella.

"If Isaac Asimov had contributed to a science fiction version of the famous Goosebumps YA book series, the results might have looked a bit like this—and that is no small compliment. . .This is well-mannered, restrained, and satisfying SF for all ages that celebrates the intellect and does not concede to trendy cynicism or dystopian themes." — Kirkus Reviews

"[From a 5/5-star review] 'Realia' by Ulric Alvin Watts is a captivating and entertaining children's story that contains innovative concepts and fascinating characters." — Edith Wairimu

"[Ibid.] I would highly recommend 'Realia' to fans of adventurous MG sci-fi, appealing protagonists with credible flaws, and for technology enthusiasts everywhere." — K.C. Finn

"[Ibid.] It is extremely well written, and Ulric Alvin Watts's expertise is equal to his ability to inspire the reader to read further." — Astrid Iustulin

"[Ibid.] The twists and turns will surprise you and the ending may just take you to a place that is unforgettable." — Jacob R LaMar

"[From a 4/5-star review] 'Realia' is an enchanting journey seen from an eleven-year-old's perspective and understanding, brilliantly told by Ulric Alvin Watts." — Stefan Vucak

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ulric Alvin Watts
• Release date: Oct 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005273897

Ulric Alvin Watts

Ulric Alvin Watts (AKA @UAWatts of UAWatts.com) is a librarian and cat-sitter, as well as a former film critic, videographer, stage actor, screen actor, news cameraman, and Elvis impersonator. He lives in the northeastern United States and enjoys books, movies, video games, and cartoons.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Perhaps no one, not even they, would know if there was anything before the beginning. All that was certain was that a very tiny fraction of a second after the beginning, there was everything.

All that ever was, is, and will be flooded what was previously nothing, in temperatures that were one order of magnitude away from as high as a temperature could possibly get.

It was then that they began, too.

Some matter would, in about ten billion years’ time, form a tiny damp pebble that would be known to its sapient inhabitants as Earth. But it would not be until 14 billion years after the beginning—not according to its own inhabitants, of course, but to them—that something truly interesting would happen on that pebble.

CHAPTER 1

Approximately 14 billion years later, and a couple days before he found the pencil case, Graeme Pendlebury had cut his finger.

Mr. Newland had advised the class beforehand how to handle the microscope slides so they wouldn’t be smudged by fingerprints. He instructed the students to hold the slides by the edges. As if you were holding a CD, he’d said. It seemed that Graeme had squeezed too hard.

But because Graeme was Graeme, and not just an average fifth grader (or so people told him, and he would like to think), his first idea was not to go to Mr. Newland and ask to see the nurse. Instead, he put a drop of his blood on the slide and observed it under the microscope, just as he had done with the cat whisker, skeletonized old leaf, and other small objects Mr. Newland had assigned with him to take to class on the day they would be using the microscopes.

It was Mr. Newland who approached Graeme and noticed that he was bleeding. Graeme, did you cut yourself? he asked.

Yes, answered Graeme nonchalantly.

And why didn’t you ask to go see Mrs. Hwang?

Well, I thought I might as well look at the blood under the microscope.

Mr. Newland had been teaching the class about the history of microscopes and their impact on science since the class returned from spring vacation on Monday. One of the ways scientists first used microscopes, he’d said, was to study droplets of their own blood. This was even mentioned in a poem they read about Anton van Leeuwenhoek. Graeme doubted some parts of the poem, such as how van Leeuwenhoek’s fellow Dutchmen wanted to send him to Spain (was that just to rhyme with the line about him having seen a housefly’s brain?), but he was quite sure the part about the blood was true. And someone like Graeme would do the same.

Mr. Newland cracked a smile, a smile that suggested that he’d read somewhere in a book on how to be a teacher that he was supposed to smile at a moment like this. Smiling and other expressions seemed like something of an effort for Mr. Newland. All his facial features had been firmly snapped into place.

Ah, I see, Mr. Newland said. But I’m afraid this class isn’t really the place to be conducting such experiments. Off to Mrs. Hwang you go. And in the future, Graeme, let me know if you’ve hurt yourself—and don’t deliberately spread your bodily fluids around the classroom.

Before Graeme left for the nurse, he saw Mr. Newland take out what seemed to be a spray bottle of disinfectant from a cupboard in the corner of the classroom. Graeme realized why Mr. Newland disapproved of his actions. Blood could easily carry someone’s diseases and germs. It probably wasn’t safe to put your own blood on microscope slides without first making sure it was what you were supposed to do. But Graeme couldn’t help but think that if he really was as smart as people said, he would be the sort of person to do things like that, to take it upon himself to learn more than what was expected of everyone else.

Graeme was used to having teachers stop him from doing work more advanced than what he was supposed to do, because it was not what he was supposed to do. He would often complete math problems with multiple steps before the rest of the students had even finished the first step.

He remembered when Mr. Robinson was once reviewing a math problem on the blackboard. Graeme raised his hand and said the final answer to the whole question, even though he was supposed to only give the answer to the step they were on. Mr. Robinson said Graeme was wrong and kept reviewing the problem. To Graeme’s chagrin, no one seemed to notice when the eventual answer was the same as the one he had given earlier.

Graeme knew his teachers wanted him to stay on track and in step with the rest of the students, because the teacher was teaching them to do things in a specific way. But he didn’t see why he had to slow himself down when he already knew how to solve a problem. After all, he was the smartest kid in his class—not according to him, mind you, but to the rest of his classmates.

And now he was in fifth grade, the highest grade in Sycamore Street School. So, that probably meant he was the smartest student in the whole school. Graeme may not have excelled at sports or gym class, which got him teased by other boys, but no one could deny that he excelled in everything else. He once overheard a former classmate tell someone that Graeme sucked at running and soccer, but then add, He’s wicked smart, though.

Graeme bet that if he wanted to, he could take more advanced lessons in math like he heard that people took in high school, things like calculus and trigonometry. After he graduated from high school, he planned to enroll in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he had heard that people who know a whole lot about technology as well as math and science learned how to explore new fields and make cutting-edge stuff, like robots and solar-powered race cars. He was looking forward to the field trip to Boston and Cambridge the class would be taking on Friday where they would stop by MIT.

When Graeme returned from the nurse’s office, their time for studying science had ended. (There weren’t real periods like there would be in sixth grade, but Mr. Newland designated specific times to specific studies anyway.) It was time for the class to go to the library. Ever since he was in kindergarten at Sycamore Street School, Graeme went along with the rest of his class to the library for 45 minutes each week. It was what the teachers often called specials, the other specials being art, music, and physical education, although most everyone called it gym class.

At the library, though, it wasn’t like the other specials where it was like the rest of school and they had lessons and worked with things. Mrs. Carson, the school librarian, a woman noticeably older than Graeme’s parents but still too young to fit his idea of a grandparent, would read them a picture book. After that, the students were free to browse the library and check out a book for themselves.

At least that was the case until fourth grade, when Mrs. Carson used every library class to teach them about how to find things in the library better and how libraries work in general. She taught the class about what call numbers were and what the Dewey Decimal system was and what each of the subjects were for each group in the Dewey classification system.

Today she was showing the class the Internet. Graeme knew some of his classmates had the Internet at home, but he didn’t quite yet. He wasn’t sure whether the Internet was the Information Superhighway he’d heard about, or whether that was something else they’d get in the future. When he first read about the Information Superhighway in 3-2-1 Contact magazine, it was supposed to be where things like your computer, television, and telephone were all connected, and it sounded very futuristic.

But the Internet that Mrs. Carson showed them didn’t seem all too impressive. The computer display as they watched it on the projector showed how the computer was connecting to the Internet. There was also a series of noises: a dial tone, a bunch of beeps that a telephone would make when a number was being dialed on it, then a number of strange screeches and chirps, and finally some loud static. Graeme knew the noises were actually information being sent from the computer to other computers, in a way that was never meant to be understood by people.

Graeme liked to think that he’d have an Internet closer to what they said the Information Superhighway would be like by the time he was a student at MIT. And if it wasn’t around yet, maybe he would be one of the ones to help create it.

Another thing before you select a book, said Mrs. Carson. "I heard you’re going to take a field trip to Boston this