P.J. McCarthy
Listen to P.J. read his story
Mom says proper explorers don’t have rules, they have principles,
“Because rules are something we try to not break, but principles are something we try to live up to.”
We have four principles in our Explorers club:
Explorers are brave.
Explorers are curious.
Explorers are honest.
Explorers are loyal.
She’d ask me to recite them, then hug me so tight I sometimes worried she’d forget to let go.
Usually we only explored around the house when Dad was out, but one night Mom woke me up for a super serious secret mission. I had to help her sneak into an evil wizard’s lair!
We were in the car before I noticed that Mom’s face was kinda puffy red. For the whole drive she muttered to herself and played the same song over and over, stabbing the rewind button.
“Jolene, Jolene, Jooolene, Joleneeeeeeeeee.”
She smacked the steering wheel in time to the beat. At one point she laughed,
“You’re getting mad at the wrong person, Dolly.”
We arrived at a big building that was all lit up in blue and pink. Mom said it was a place where every room was a different country. That the people who stayed there were all pretending to be someone else. The perfect hiding place for an evil wizard.
She reached into the back seat and pulled out the writing-covered baseball bat Dad kept in his office. I knew it was a dangerous weapon, because he had caught me holding it once and thrown me across the room. Mom stared at it for a moment and then took my hand.
“I need you to use your concentration powers to make the car invisible, so the wizard won’t find it.”
She jumped out before I could reply, so I shut my eyes tight and concentrated really hard. I didn’t want to let Mom down.
I failed. As Mom threw herself into the driver’s seat, something slammed into the car. I screamed as Dad appeared out of the dark. Naked, eyes wild, teeth bared. His hands left red streaks on the windows as the car roared out of the parking lot.
“Was that? Why was Dad?,” I sobbed as Mom gripped my hand.
“That was the evil wizard darling, not your Father”, she panted.
“But…”
Her grip on my hand tightened painfully,
“Explorers are honest”
Those words sounded different now, less comforting. We drove in silence until Mom said,
“We’re going to hide out in Grandmas so the wizard won’t find us, ok? She can’t wait to see you.”
The car rumble was making me sleepy, but I jerked awake when I saw her taking off her wedding rings and throwing them out the window. She caught me looking and winked,
”Those were cursed objects, full of evil magic. It’s a curse cast by people who break big promises to those who love them”
I am not sure if I dreamed it, but as I drifted away I heard her whisper,
”Explorers are loyal”
P.J.s prompts were: at a novelty motel, an explorer, a cursed object
P.J. McCarthy is a financial analyst and writer who lives in County Cork, Ireland, along with his wife, their son and two dogs. His work has appeared in the Second Wave Drabble Anthology [Starry Eyed Press] and Trash Cat Lit.
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