A Very Long Summer's Day

By Brian Schmidt

While looking through a very old telescope belonging to his grandfather, Phil sees a town that isn't there. He peers through the open door of a house and gets pulled through the telescope and deposited on the floor of its living room. He is quite surprised when Nanny, a goat, begins speaking to him.

Phil finds himself in a land of magic. And not a very nice kind of magic. Here when a little girl wants a pony, another child loses a pony. A group of animal lovers thought it would be a great idea for animals to have the same rights as people. Their misguided idealism put Nanny in the body of a goat, and a goat in Nanny's body.

Many years before, when Phil's grandfather was young, he'd visited the land. Seemingly just by being there, the land changed for the better. Nanny believes Phil could do the same and, in the process, be the key to getting her body back. Nanny decides to take Phil to the capital. A Very Long Summer's Day is the story of their travels through a realm filled with quirky characters, magic, and wizards who have their own plans for Phil. It's reminiscent of books, TV shows, and movies that are fun for all ages as a lot of the references and humor pass over the heads of the younger ones. It's sure to become a family favorite.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9798889430810

Book preview

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A Very Long Summer's Day

Brian Schmidt

ISBN 979-8-88943-080-3 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-89043-797-6 (hardcover)

ISBN 979-8-88943-081-0 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Brian Schmidt

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. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Prologue

Is It Time Again?

Chapter 1

A Rainy Vacation—10:12 a.m.

Chapter 2

Add a Generous Helping of Nonsense, Stir until Murky

Chapter 3

Putting Your Money Where Our Mouths Are

Chapter 4

The Remembering

Chapter 5

Dexter and Sinister Lend a Hand

Chapter 6

Through the Spyglass—10:40 a.m.

Chapter 7

It's Not Much, But I Call It Home—10:41 a.m.

Chapter 8

Just Beyond Your View—10:41 a.m.

Chapter 9

Somewhere in a Forest of a Home, a Gruzzle Tells a Story

Chapter 10

The Dream Quilt

Chapter 11

You Are What's Eating You—11:34 a.m.

Chapter 12

A Quiet Forest Can Be a Noisy Place

Chapter 13

Shady Dealings

Chapter 14

A Hermit's Tail—12:29 p.m.

Chapter 15

Falling Up—12:45 p.m.

Chapter 16

Captive Audience

Chapter 17

Swimming Lessons

Chapter 18

The Man in the Moo—1:38 p.m.

Chapter 19

Soft Stone Heart

Chapter 20

Arrives a Gray Cloaked Man

Chapter 21

The Waiting Room—1:50 p.m.

Chapter 22

Lost in a Crowd

Chapter 23

M. Suttle LTD, Precision Instrument Maker—2:53 p.m.

Chapter 24

Loose Ends

Chapter 25

Meet the Heads!

Chapter 26

Sorry to Burst Your Bubble

Chapter 27

Home

About the Author

Prologue

Is It Time Again?

(A commentary by staff writer and reporter Amos L. Appletree)

I've been thinking lately. For some of my critics out there, I know this comes as a surprise. So those of that class, or dare I say lack of it, should put down their papers and have a good laugh. But for the majority remaining, please read on.

I was listening to my wife tell a bedtime story to my daughter the other night. Most of you will remember the one. It was about a lad only a bit older than my daughter. His name was Walt or sometimes just the Other. He came from a faraway place and was supposed to be very special. Now it is here that many of the tales of Walt diverge.

Some speak of his ability to change the hearts of even the nastiest of creatures, others of his magical prowess. Some told of his might as a great warrior; others of his meek and gentle manner. All seem to agree that he left too soon, but in his wake, a change swept across our land.

Some of the old stories will tell you that things used to be different. They, I believe, were right. In some ways, it was better, and in others, it was worse. It was the reason things were better or worse that had me concerned. This is the thing I've been thing about recently.

Magic. There, I said it. I know, I know. Magic has made many people's lives much better, but at what cost? Dare we ask this question? Folktales will tell of a time before magic or of constrained magic. They speak of an era when folks either did with or did without instead of relying on the Conjurers and the Great Wheel to come to their rescue.

According to the story my wife told, the Other was a soft-spoken creature posing as a young boy. He arrived after the rise of political legerdemain. That sleight of hand that brought riches to some and ruin to others. But this all took place so long ago. Even the oldest trees were but young saplings when he was here and have no memory of that time.

He seemed to do almost nothing, in this version of the tale, but events occurred around him in such a fashion that one could not help but ask what form of magic he possessed. Some said the Eldest Practitioner was taking the form of a child; others maintained he was just a nice boy with a fresh perspective.

Regardless of the point of view, one thing is for certain. Change did happen, if you believe the tales. Magic for political and capital gain was greatly decreased. According to this story, people began to work a little harder, care for each other a little more, and were happier. Prosperity grew out of this novel trend.

We now see the Halls of Progress bursting out in new and bigger circles. The stories fly in from every direction of alleged magical abuses. Abuses that once again seem to beckon back the days before Walt visited us.

It begs this reporter to ask the question. Is it time again, time again for restraint on the part of our political and corporate leaders and restraint by those who whisper to them? Time again for a little more self-sufficiency, or at least a little less reliance on the power that be?

Maybe the stories of Walt were just that, stories. But maybe we can take the lessons they taught and apply them to our time and place in history.

I don't know for sure, but I do think it's time we all started to at least reflect on it. I, for one, would like to live in happier, simpler times. I'd like to believe it could happen again.

Chapter 1

A Rainy Vacation—10:12 a.m.

It wasn't a normal day. A normal day has twenty-four hours. Each hour has sixty minutes, and each minute has sixty seconds.

Every ten minutes or so, Phil looked up from the book he was reading and glanced at the old clock sitting on the mantle of the fireplace in the front sitting room. The reason this wasn't a normal day was that the clock's hands had only moved a minute or two. Since Phil's grandfather faithfully wound the old mantle clock each morning and it was never slow, Phil knew that something else must be wrong.

As he saw it, that left only two possibilities. First was that for some reason, there were more minutes in each hour, and this confused the old clock. But since the clock was never wrong, it most certainly was the second reason. There were more seconds in each minute. While this really didn't make sense either, it sure solved the problem of the abnormally long day.

Phil had experienced this slow time phenomenon before. On sunny afternoons, the clock slowed down. He would stare at the clock, but 3:00 p.m. never seemed to arrive. Finally, after several hours, the last few minutes would tick by. Then the school bell would ring, announcing the end of the day.

His grandfather had to go into town on business that late morning and said he wouldn't be back until about five that night. Having turned twelve a few months ago, Phil was told by his grandfather that he trusted him enough to be left alone for a few hours. Phil was ready to prove he could be trusted. Besides would never do anything to disappoint him. So he was left to his own devices, alone in a big house. But that was all right.

Grandfather was always grandfather. Somehow it seemed the right name for him. Grandpa, Granddad, Papa, Gramps, or Pap, none of those titles fit. So Grandfather it was. Grandma had died many years ago when Phil was very young. He never really did know her. So now his grandfather lived all alone in the great big house that had been in the family for more than one hundred years.

The grounds and the house were maintained by a small staff that had been there for so long that they were now extended family. It was Saturday, and they were at home today with their real families.

He didn't mind being alone from time to time. His father had told him that the way you are when you're alone is the way you really are. This made sense to Phil, and he kind of liked that person. Besides, he was sort of quiet. He wasn't one to open his mouth just to hear himself talk; no, he rather preferred to ask questions when warranted and think about the response. He would talk to be polite, but for the most part, he just didn't have a whole lot to say.

So being alone meant that he didn't have to talk to anyone but himself, and today that suited him just fine.

Phil walked upstairs to his bedroom. Looking out of the second-story bedroom window of the large country home, Phil tried to wish the rain away, the same way he attempted to speed up the school clock.

It had been raining hard for four days now, and while he really liked visiting his grandfather, he also liked visiting the forest, the rolling hills, following the lazy streams, and skipping stones across the frog-filled ponds that surrounded the house.

It was a wonderful place, almost magical, when it wasn't raining.

To say Phil was bored wouldn't be quite true. He was fidgety. He yearned for the things that are so abundantly absent from the inside of a house. Phil just wanted to play outside. Still feeling restless, he walked back down the stair to the main front sitting room with the huge fireplace and the mantle with the clock resting there.

Phil shook his head to clear it. He had read the same sentence three times and still couldn't remember what it was. If he stayed here much longer in the comfortable high-wing back chair, he would fall asleep and waste the day. He looked at the clock again, then he did a double take. He looked back up along the mantle. He could have sworn he had seen something else up there where nothing else should have been. But no, he must have been mistaken, or just on the verge of sleep, and quickly dismissed the idea.

The reason Phil wasn't exactly bored was that his grandfather's house contained a grand and unusual collection of photographs, weapons, masks, small statues, and bizarre trinkets. He somehow had managed to travel the entire world, it seemed, and had brought back enough stuff to keep any young boy's imagination busy for days.

The problem was, Phil had already been stuck inside for days, so even the allure of the exotic was wearing thin. So he began to wander.

Phil was in the main hallway. It was somber and darkly lit, mostly from the windows in other rooms. A couple of small chandeliers attempted to brighten up the gloom but with little success. He picked up a small tarnished silver statuette of a multiarmed creature sitting cross-legged from a polished dark wood stand sitting alone on a wall. In one of its many hands, it held a knife; in another, it clutched a severed head by the hair. Phil sat it back down next to a carved wooden figure of a monkey. Upon the wall behind the stand hung a pair of roughly shaped knives with large curved blades.

A faded black and white picture hung under the knives showed a much younger version of his grandfather wearing a pith helmet, khaki shirt, and shorts, holding a riffle. Flanking him on either side was a bare-chested, darker-skinned man, each holding a knife like the ones above. Phil knew this was from India. His grandfather had told him stories of hunting for tigers in the jungle.

Further along the same wall, he stopped to look at the delicately carved ivory figurines his grandfather had collected from the Inuit people living deep within the Arctic Circle at the northern edge of Canada.

The hallway ended in Phil's favorite room in the house. He passed through that room's door and into the long narrow room. It was similarly decorated with pictures, framed maps, spears, and other memorabilia gathered from years spent traveling to the far-flung reaches of the planet.

Sitting on top of an old rolltop desk, next to the door, were several faded family photos in their tarnished silver picture frames. In one, there was a boy, about Phil's age, standing on the front porch of this very house. Phil knew this to be his grandfather. Old friends and family often remarked on how much they looked alike.

About midway down the dimly lit mahogany-paneled room, Phil stopped. He had been here many times and had often daydreamed as he gazed at the items on the walls or those displayed on tables or shelves. But today, there was something new, something different sitting atop a small chest of drawers. It had to be new because it certainly would have caught his attention before.

As Phil looked at the object, he had the distinct feeling it was looking back at him! Even stranger was that the more he stared, the more he couldn't tell what he was looking at. But it was definitely a goat's head, and it appeared to be opening and closing its mouth as if speaking, but he could hear no words. No, it was just a bluish-colored rock. Now it was a goat's head again… It seemed to change, but not change.

It was like he was unable to focus his eyes properly. Phil blinked a few times. It didn't help. Perplexed, he decided it must be the shadows playing tricks on his eyes. There just wasn't enough light to see it properly.

He stared at the object for what seemed like only a few seconds, but shaking his head, he had the distinct impression he had fallen asleep while standing there. Kind of like a bit earlier when he thought he had seen something next to the mantle clock. Phil disregarded that notion almost as soon as it entered his mind. Then just as quickly, he forgot about the strange object and continued on his search for something to do.

After what seemed like hours, but in fact were, yet again, only a few very long minutes, Phil found himself looking at a closed door at the top of a flight of stairs. He had been in this room before. It was a slightly dusty, medium-sized room, filled with old boxes, chests, tables, and all manner of other things too nice, or with too much sentimental value to just be given away. It was a room clustered with memories, but not Phil's.

Without realizing it, Phil now found himself at the top of the stairs with the doorknob in his hand. This would have been strange if he had thought about it, but he didn't.

Turning the cut glass knob, he heard the familiar click as the door released its hold on the wall and allowed him to push it open revealing the cluttered room. It creaked, as it swung inward. A single window, shade drawn, let in a weak light. Running his hand across an inside wall next to the door, Phil found the light switch.

One of the two bulbs in the ceiling light was burned out. The second was of a low wattage. The yellow light it gave off contrasted with the gray coming in from the window. Deep shadows clung to the edges of the room and hid under every table or cast themselves on the unlit sides of each object they