Moose Lake

By Monica Coral Hemstock

This first book in the series The Moose Lake Chronicles sets the stage for the unfolding adventures of Angela, Carrie, and Roland as they brave the winter weather, bullies, wolves, haunted houses and the oftentimes very embarrassing adults and siblings that are an everyday aspect of their lives in the Northern mining town of Moose Lake.

There is more to this one-hotel one-cinema town than meets the eye. Though set in the twenty-first century, Moose Lake is unique in that technology is limited and children do not text or carry cell phones. Families sit down together in the evenings and discuss things while eating dinner, and children run from house to house and garden to garden as though they are living in the 1950s. Nature is predominant and retains its mystery.

In Moose Lake, the ordinary elements of everyday life are colourful in and of themselves. However, it soon becomes clear that while the majority of characters, especially the adults, are oblivious to the magic in their town, some of the children are seeing another realm; a realm that is not super-imposed or parallel, but co-exists and is merely invisible to the majority of adults.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Oct 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781452522869

Monica Coral Hemstock

Monica Hemstock is a Life-Writing teacher and an Angel Therapy ® Practitioner with a Master’s degree in English Literature. She is the author of numerous publications on wellness and writes the Kids Column for Healthy Living Now magazine. Monica is the owner of Awakening Spirit, a healing arts center in Ontario.

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Copyright © 2014 Monica Coral Hemstock.

Interior Graphics/Art Credit: Risa McEnaney

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ISBN: 978-1-4525-2285-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-2286-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014917356

Balboa Press rev. date: 10/06/2014

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 1

I was nine years old and in Grade 4 when I first met George. He tripped me one day in October while I was daydreaming and waiting for the bell to ring. I was in the schoolyard, and I fell against the steel pole of the chain-link fence. My face smacked along the pole before I fell in a heap at George’s feet. His boots were covered with muddy, wet snow, but even with one eye watery and stinging with pain, I could tell that if his feet were this big then I was in deep trouble.

Get up, brat, he said as I lay there trying to catch my breath. My heart beat madly. Should I get up? Or should I just ignore him and maybe he’d go away?

Get out of here, fat ass, yelled a familiar voice. My brother, Bryan, was pulling me up to my feet. George was standing his ground, and I got my first look at him. He was the same height as my brother, who was staring him down. Their eyes were locked into position and angry. George’s eyes were brown and bloodshot. He looked like he hadn’t slept for a week. His parka was dirty, and his scarf had food stains on it.

As George turned and angrily stomped away, I pictured him sitting at a table surrounded by his family and eating in his coat and toque. I started to laugh, but I was jolted away from this daydream when I heard Bryan say, Come near my sister again, and I’ll pull your head off. Boy, would Mum be upset if she heard that, I thought. Mum thought Bryan was like Clark Kent, not Superman.

I wasn’t going to tell Mum about Bryan’s threat. I looked at my brother—my hero. His pale face had become red and his freckles stood out. His eyes seemed bluer than ever.

Thanks, I said. I couldn’t think of anything else to say, and my eye was really painful.

Don’t tell Mum, was all he said. He yelled Get some ice for that eye as he ran off to his friends.

I looked around the schoolyard with my one good eye. Well, there was certainly enough ice. In winter, our town was mostly snow and ice. I looked up at the icicles hanging from the school roof. They glistened and sparkled like fairy lights as the sun’s rays beamed down on them. They looked good enough to eat.

I remembered the time my neighbour, Freddie, had thought so too. And he ended up in hospital. My mum told me that Freddie had made a big mistake. "Angela, don’t you ever do that. Bacteria are too small to see without a microscope. But they are dangerous." Her face looked pretty scary as she told me. I was really little then. I wondered which was scarier, Mum or bacteria? I didn’t want to find out. So I’ve never eaten icicles. And I guess if you shouldn’t eat them, then putting them on a black eye wouldn’t be such a great idea either. I decided to find the duty-monitor and ask her for some ice from the school kitchen.

The school monitor this year was Mrs. Johnstone. She lived down the street from me on Purdy Lane. She had her red armband on. This armband was handed down from school monitor to school monitor through the years. My mother said that Mrs. Johnstone wasn’t unkind, just very firm and a bit of a nosey Parker.

She’ll make a good monitor, Mum had said as she handed me my dinner last night. I could tell that she was just