The Key on Edge

By Michael J. Piatt

"As the rock was lifted, a shiny key was revealed standing perfectly on edge, defying gravity, as the lights flickered on and off."

A small town, a gang of friends, the courage to discover, and too many mysterious coincidences to be real, make this exciting adventure come to life for all who dare.

Follow the gang as they fac

• Language: English
• Publisher: URBAN BOOK PUBLISHERS
• Release date: Oct 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781962243599

Michael J. Piatt

Michael J. Piatt started his early career at NASA studying supersonic flow before the first space shuttle re-entered the atmosphere. He spent much of his career as a lead technologist in industry. With a background in innovation and more than 130 US patents to his name, he is most familiar with the creative process. He would like to serve the younger generation by equipping them with skills to meet the challenges of the future. He believes that creativity, in its many forms, is a mindset and a lifestyle that can be nurtured. Piatt shares his heartfelt enthusiasm for storytelling with his dedication to encouraging creative potential in The Key on Edge.

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Copyright © 2023 by Michael J. Piatt

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Printed in the United States of America.

First Edition: 2023

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Dedicated to the next generation. May they preserve all that is good. May they dare to dream of better and have the fortitude to pursue those dreams.

Table of Contents

The School Play

The Field Trip

Summer Break

Planning For Majestic Mountain

Majestic Mountain: The First Morning

Majestic Mountain: Day One

Majestic Mountain: The Second Morning

Majestic Mountain: Day Two

Majestic Mountain: Day Three

Majestic Mountain: Day Four

The Old Mansion

The Game

The Paper Drive

An Explanation

The Bonfire

Bonfire Shakeup

Back To School

The New Play

Author

Discussion Notes

1

The School Play

As the rock was lifted, a shiny key was revealed. It was balanced perfectly on the edge, defying gravity, as the lights flickered on and off. This unexplainable event happened during the Central High School play, where the Sharefield Gang was performing. It had not been an ordinary year for them by any measure. They were experiencing all sorts of things that could not be explained.

It was a warm spring day in Sharefield. The gang was excited about the debut of their school play that evening. All their parents, teachers, relatives, and friends would be there. The students had been practicing for months.

Sharefield is a small community with just one high school for grades nine through twelve. The Sharefield Gang of six freshmen consisted of Nate, Kim, Dion, Victor, Anthony, and Lucia.

They were nearly inseparable.

It was Kim’s idea to get involved in the school play. She was adventurous and liked to take charge—a natural leader. She was well-organized and made everyone feel important.

Admittedly, getting everyone signed up took a little convincing, especially Lucia, who tended to be the shyest of the bunch. Lucia was smart. She always thought things through before taking action. Lucia was a good person to have around in times of crisis.

Kim discovered that the playwright was an unknown local man who wrote this masterpiece based on a journey just outside of town, up Majestic Mountain. She suggested the idea of being part of the production to the gang in such a way that everyone felt like it would be a source of pride for their community.

Failure to do so would be disrespectful to the school and all it stood for. For this reason, every gang member felt they wanted to participate and show their school spirit.

Nate tried out for the lead but instead got a strong supporting role as the assistant to the guide for the expedition. That was perfectly fine with him. Nate was observant and somewhat of a philosopher. He had his opinions all right but tended to go with the flow and avoid confrontation.

Kim was cast in the lead role as the guide. Victor, who played Kim’s younger brother in the production. He was going to accompany his older sister on the journey. Victor was usually a voice of reason, a stabilizing force in the group. Anthony had the part of managing the local store where all the gear was purchased for the expedition. Lucia was thrilled to oversee all the costumes for the performance.

Of course, to call it an expedition might be a bit of an exaggeration. It was a three-day adventure hike up the mountain, where discoveries were made about various wildlife and plant species.

There was drama among the hikers, as one might expect over a three-day journey. Someone always didn’t like the food or wanted to take a different route. The group got lost three times on the journey, and had it not been for the magic compass, they would never have found their way!

That’s where Dion came in. He was the techie in the group of friends. His job was to oversee the special effects for the play. He had to make the compass light up in the right direction whenever the expedition was at odds as to which way to go.

The mission was to find a lost key. Supposedly left by an old man many years ago, at the very top of the mountain. Many others had searched for the key before, but no one could ever locate it. In the play, the magical key is found.

The production ends without telling exactly what the magical key is for. It leaves the audience wondering what the sequel might tell of the mysterious key.

There was enough excitement in the journey up the mountain to fully engage the audience and entertain them with mystery, suspense, and a good dose of humor—especially from Anthony.

In addition to running the local store for outfitter gear, Anthony was also the expedition coordinator. Everyone liked him, and his job was to ensure the hikers had tents, sleeping bags, food, and other necessary supplies at every step along the journey.

In real life and in the play, he was so funny that even when things got mixed up, no one ever got upset because they were too busy laughing. He had a natural talent for putting everyone at ease with his offbeat sense of humor.

Well, it was three o’clock, and classes were finished for the day. The big debut was all set for that evening, and only a few hours left for preparation. Ms. Jill Brock, the teacher in charge of the school production, checked to ensure everything was ready.

Under her guidance, the students had been practicing for months. The entire school was now buzzing with activity as the stage was prepared for the first act. Lucia had laid out all the costumes, and the time was finally near.

Everyone was going home to have dinner with their families before returning later that evening.

I am so ready for this performance, Nate said to his friends as he walked out of school.

We are going to nail it. At the same time, he had a nervous feeling in his stomach because the whole town would be watching. He did not eat much for supper.

Everyone returned to school at six o’clock in the afternoon. sharp that evening. As the crowd of friends and loved ones began to fill the gymnasium—turned into a theater—the cast put on their costumes, set the stage for the opening act, and readied themselves for their big debut.

Ms. Brock could also sense that everyone felt a little nervous, but the students jumped into action as soon as the curtain opened. They commanded the stage like well-oiled machines with turning gears that had been preprogrammed to do exactly what they had done a thousand times before.

They had practiced their lines and knew the dance routines so well that they could almost do them in their sleep. The same went for the prop switches and costume changes.

The actors went through the first act as if they were all singing one long song in unison. Their performance was flawless.

The audience showed their appreciation with applause and cheering support for all the students, who surprised even themselves with a perfect first-act performance.

During intermission, the cast members were given cold drinks and fruit bar snacks as they caught their breath and readied themselves for the performance’s second half. Everyone was ready to show the town of Sharefield what this ninth-grade class was truly capable of.

The Sharefield Gang was grateful to Kim for suggesting they get involved in theater. Although they had second thoughts during the long hours of practice leading up to this moment, everyone felt it was all worth it now.

The second act started off as flawlessly as the first. The production was progressing like clockwork. In this act, the hikers got lost several times going up Majestic Mountain, but the compass always lit up on cue, thanks to Dion showing the way, as the journey continued. On top of Majestic Mountain, it was very misty, again thanks to a water vapor sprayer that Dion was controlling.

The mountain explorers set about trying to locate the magic key strategically placed under a large rock.

Per The Script, Kim came upon the rock. Then everyone stood around her as she grabbed one side of the rock and tilted it up.

There she saw something very strange which was not in The Script. Kim found the key under the rock, balanced perfectly on its edge.

How was this possible? she thought.

This was not what happened in practice. She picked it up and held it in her hand.

Suddenly, all the lights on the stage went off and then flickered back on. This happened three times. The audience thought it was part of the play, sort of a special effects thing, but the cast was stunned.

Nate thought, What caused this? Is everything okay?

Ms. Brock motioned to continue, so everyone did their best.

During the rest of the play, there were a couple of missed queues and mistaken lines. The cast was a bit shaken up, affecting their ability to concentrate. The students got through to the end of the play, where the special key was brought down from the mountain and stored in a local safe bank deposit box, number 395. To keep it safe for whatever was to come of it.

The audience was thrilled with the performance. They gave all the students a standing ovation that seemed to them to last for an hour, although it was only a couple of minutes. Everyone involved in the production smiled and felt satisfied, knowing they had completed something very challenging.

This production seemed almost impossible when they first started practicing months ago. Each of them would remember this moment, in their own way, for a long time to come.

Backstage, Ms. Brock commented that this was a team effort. None of you could have pulled this off on your own, but together, the talents and abilities of each unique individual contributed to its overall success.

The students learned that having the courage to move forward into something unknown can have tremendous rewards.

It occurred to Lucia that the emotional excitement of this new experience somehow increased her awareness of everything around her, creating a memory that would stay with her for some time to come.

Kim was particularly satisfied with the outcome of the play as well. After all, she’s the one who had encouraged the rest of the gang to participate in it.

Life is magical, she said.

She could not stop talking about how the key under the rock was standing on the edge, especially given the weight of the rock lying on top of it.

2

The Field Trip

Now, that all the excitement of the play was over, the gang was looking forward to the end of the school year and their summer break.

As a reward for all their work during the year, their teachers planned a field trip to the base of Majestic Mountain, the same location as the school play.

One crisp spring morning in late May, the students packed lunches in their backpacks, got on the school bus, and headed for their now-famous mountain. They could see its smoky mystical-looking peak from the bus, miles from the mountain’s base. The whole class was looking out the windows and snapping pictures with their phones.

Anthony started singing On Top of Old Smokey. The bus was so noisy with chatter that Arthur, the driver, had to ask everyone to quiet down a bit so that he could hear if a train was approaching on the railroad tracks they were about to cross.

Once they reached the base of the mountain, everyone quickly piled out of the bus. The air was crisp and seemed to fill the students with energy.

The funny thing is that the mountain does not look quite so big now that we are right beside it, said Victor.

One of the teachers, Ms. Jenkins, explained that it is a matter of perspective.

You are not seeing the entire mountain from this vantage point, she explained.

By this time, it was mid-morning. The entire class followed along the trail that led them into the woods. Ms. Jenkins, their guide for the day, knew the area very well. Many classes before had made a similar pilgrimage to the mountain as a school-sponsored field trip.

Around lunchtime, everyone started to hear the roar of water in the distance. It was really loud. It sounded like thunder over the top of a charging herd of buffalo. The students could hardly hear themselves talk.

As they rounded the bend, they saw a beautiful waterfall cascading down the mountain cliff into the lagoon below. The Wandering River fed it, it was quite a sight to behold.

As Nate looked at the cascading falls, he said, Nature is amazing!

Dion, who was standing beside him, said, A minute ago, we were in the shadows of the woods. Now, we suddenly have this glorious sight in front of us.

Ms. Jenkins told the class that this gorge was formed before the time of the dinosaurs and was still in motion due to natural erosion from the powerful waterfall.

Victor said, It is hard to imagine something as massive and stable as a cliff would move. But I guess that over an extended period of time, things can change, even though you don’t notice it happening from day to day.

Anthony referred to it as the Wonder Wear River. Anthony was always coming up with corny names for things. It was part of his personality.

The class stopped at the base of the falls for lunch. Mist from the waterfall landing in the lagoon below rose into the air and blew over the students, keeping them cool while they ate. It was just like the mist machine in the play that