My Horribly Splendid Life

By Corri Claypool Epps

When 12-year-old know-it-all Nancy Mae tries to outsmart her mom, she sends herself to a world she read about when she was seven. (Crap! A win for Mom.) Nancy must now figure out what is real and what is not as she navigates the real dangers of the world she finds herself in while trying to find a way to return to the world she came from. Time is ticking! Will Miss Google herself learn a few things from the characters of the series she grew up loving and return home before her time is up?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Dec 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638299301

Corri Claypool Epps

Corri currently lives in the Greenville area of South Carolina where she loves spending time with her husband, two daughters and four grandchildren. She stays busy writing and advocating for children with special needs. You can find her work in a children’s series, (coming soon) entitled, Octavia and the Northern Seas that encompasses these disabilities.

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About the Author

Corri currently lives in the Greenville area of South Carolina where she loves spending time with her husband, two daughters and four grandchildren. She stays busy writing and advocating for children with special needs. You can find her work in a children’s series, (coming soon) entitled, Octavia and the Northern Seas that encompasses these disabilities.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my horribly splendid, perfectly imperfect grandchildren.

Copyright Information ©

Corri Claypool Epps 2022

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Claypool Epps, Corri

My Horribly Splendid Life.

ISBN 9781638299295 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781638299301 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022919017

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street,33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

[e-mail]

[phone]

Acknowledgment

I want to say a truly heartfelt thank you to Austin Macauley Publishers for their faith in me. I also want to thank my aunts, Pat, Gloria and Shelley for giving me the courage to press send. Without their collective faith and source of courage, this book may well be sitting on my desk.

Preface

One minute, I am sitting at the bottom of the Northern Sea, and the next, I am spinning in little circles I have nothing to do with. My circles become larger and larger as the Sea begins to rapidly churn. I start bobbing from side to side as if the waves of this sea have decided to play tennis with me as the ball. The currents are so strong; I am struggling just to stay in one place. My muscles are quickly protesting the constant push and pull and tiring fast. I look around for my friends, but I can’t see anything through this hazy water. I try swimming against currents when I am swooped to the right into a coral reef. My head slams back into the coral: immediately, looking through stars, the water around me turns red. So! Much! Blood! Panic and dizziness seize my body.

I am afraid the sharks will return. The last one we encountered nearly killed Gus. My gut tightens with dread and tears threaten my eyes. I have zero control of where this current takes me and I am so weak from struggling to stay where I am that if they do return, I am likely doomed. Somehow, in spite of the odds laid out before me, I need to get to safety.

My chattering mind: you know, cause it talks to me at the most opportune times, (NOT) wonders how many times my friends endure these type storms in this sea.

By the way, did you know that there are actually seven seas and five oceans in the world?

I yell at my chatty-Kathy brain for the first time maybe ever. Nancy! Think!

With my brain, back in the here and now, I shout for the others. Hilary! Gus! Can anyone hear me? BAMB! I am engulfed by a water tornado that has slug me into a spinning tunnel comprised of sand, seaweed, water, and my own blood. I am spinning so fast. I can’t see a thing! The sand from the bottom is so mixed with the water that this once vividly colored sea looks like a mud puddle. Octavia! Where are you? What’s happening? I hear someone but my world is currently the gravity ride at the fair.

"Nancy girl, fight! Stay away from the surface!

I know that your spinning has made you very nervous;

But, you must try to grab a hold of some coral,

Or some Kelp, sea whip or other type of Floral.

Grab onto something rooted to stop from spinning.

Then swim to a safe spot to keep the Sea from wining."

I implore my body to listen to her. I will my arms to reach out but the speed at which I am spinning forces them back to my sides. Over and over again, I try. Until finally, sweet pearls of the Sea! I have a hold of something! I grasp as tightly as I can, only the object in my hand wiggles. Startled and scared I have possibly hurt one of my friends, I snap my fingers open and let go. The tornado spins the fish into my view. Lured here, by the beacon of my blood’s call, I am face to face with the shark.

I hear what sounds like trumpets in the distance before my vision blurs further. The world winks at me and the ringing in my ears starts to quiet.

The darkness takes me and for the last moment of consciousness, there was only peace…

Chapter 1

Four Years Earlier

My name is Nancy Mae Rosensky. I would say I am an average twelve-year-old; my parents would disagree. I am a lover of music, books, cheer, and the ocean. As with anyone, I would love to spend all my time doing the things I am enthusiastic about, but my parents are pretty strict about school. After school, I am in band practice or cheer practice. I am in an unwritten contract with my parents about what they call, ‘extracurricular activities.’ This means, I must excel in my curriculars, or I don’t get to participate in what they call ‘extra.’ To me, these activities are the very structure of my personality and not at all extra. I make good grades in school, although I struggle to stay focused; often times getting called out for being in ‘la-la land.’ The doctors tell me I am hyperactive. They say that just means my mind has too much energy and I can’t focus on one task for long. To me, it’s a superpower. I have the ability to think of a hundred things at one time. Lucky for me, this superpower is also coupled with my crazy intelligent brain that retains all sorts of useless information. For example;

Did you know that the heart of a shrimp is in his head and not in his chest?

Anyway, the doctors want to medicate me, I just want them to teach me how to get my body to comply with my brains demands. My mind just chatters all the time. It never shuts up. Ideas, music, books…sometimes my mind jumbles it all together. My body, however, is most uncoordinated with multi-tasking. When I was seven, my mom would use the word ‘sprightly’ to describe me. Seven was my favorite year. Mom and I would read the books Octavia and the Northern Seas together. I just loved the three-legged octopus that helps everyone. The books rhymed, so as we would read them, I would make them into songs. There was a purple octopus, her tentacles were white. She had only three legs when eight was what was right. By the way, did you know that an octopus has three hearts? What? Anyway, I loved to sing through those books, often times making the stories into rap songs. My mom would giggle and occasionally chime in with a laughable attempt