Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

"Michael Springthorpe, the writer of ""Harriet's Journal" is from Australia (born in Sydney) and is presently living in the United States with his wife Kate. In ""A Frog and His Really Cool Sandals"" he tells a compelling tale (ably assisted by artist Enrique Aravena) set in an ethereal and other-worldly habitation. Two previous pieces, ""Eppie & Beppie"" and ""The Bones at Red 22"" have been included in a new work ""The Xipodic"" which will debut in 2021. He is also working to complete the long-awaited sequel to ""Harriet's Journal."""

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Harriet's Journal

By Michael Springthorpe

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 Michael Springthorpe
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4634-4438-9

Chapter One

Harriet first began keeping a journal when she was six months old. She didn't write anything down—writing is not easy for possums, especially babies, but she kept everything in her mind. She lived with her mother and siblings in a big oak tree in an area that Don, the grey dove, told her was called "Toloo kalake". Don knew many things but she didn't get to see him as much as she would like because, being a possum, she mostly hung out at night when most of the birds were asleep and there were mainly cats, who were nasty, and sometimes dogs—who just wanted to chase a possum on sight! She didn't like her five siblings much, they were loud and noisy especially the eldest one, Reould, who told her she had a big nose. She loved her mother, who wore herself thin running about keeping her eye on all the babies and teaching them, but her father was a dark and distant figure. Sometimes she would see him several trees away, laying along a branch and gazing sullenly, but he would never even acknowledge her wave. She loved Prilty, a tiny possum from the fir tree on the other side of the grassy field, who was actually a couple of days older than Harriet but who seemed always like a little sister. She was very good at getting those little green kernels out of the centers of the nut-flowers on oak tree saplings. She would just stick her littlest finger into the edge between the kernel and the cob, twist, and out they popped—ready to eat. She tried to show Harriet how to do it but every time she tried the kernel broke into a myriad of tiny, slimy pieces and the two friends would laugh so much.

An old, big house that's windows were boarded up was at the back of the big field. Those strange, weird, vertical "humuns" who never climbed trees or flew but hung out on the ground all the time and went about in big, noisy "carzzz", as Don called them—some of those had lived there but they had died long before Harriet was born, and now just a single man-humun lived on the grass field in a big box with wheels.

One day, in the Change of Colors time, when the sugar is full in the green leaves and they turn to many different reds and golds and browns, Prilty told her about a great feasting that would take place at chestnut and sycamore trees in the gardens of a human-house on the other side of the black strip. That was the place beyond the walls and gates of their green field, where the "human cars" whizzed by day and night and where they had never been allowed, and in fact had never dared to go before. But Prilty was adamant. They were getting older, they were almost full-grown and it was time they explored some things on their own without having their mothers nearby. And there was one other thing that Prilty was excited to tell her—at the Feasting there would be boys! Harriet thought that Prilty was a bit too concerned about boys. She would always point one or another out to her and say "He's nice" or "He's quite good-looking" but whenever they came near she would say "Hi Scrawny!", "Hi Jerk-Face!"—but Harriet knew she was interested. As for Harriet she didn't much care for them—those that she knew like her brothers and others that she'd seen, seemed rather stupid—always rolling around and punching one another, they couldn't sit still for a minute. She knew her mother would never agree to her going but Prilty said they would only be gone a short while and nobody would miss them. She didn't know, she worried about it and she was terrified of the black strip. But yet the idea of going to the Feast, the more she thought about it as the time came nearer, the more it seemed strangely interesting to her.

Soon the day in question, or rather the night, came. Prilty waited at the bottom of Harriet's tree. It was quite dark now and all of the others had gone out to forage. Harriet had pretended she was still asleep when the others left, she felt a bit sneaky about that but still, she reassured herself, the two of them would only be gone a short while. She clambered down to meet her little friend and together the two ambled off down the gravel driveway towards the big gates. They squeezed through them, that was easy but suddenly they were beyond the walls of the field for the first time. Harriet felt her heart pounding and she took some short breaths, Prilty touched her arm and gave a reassuring smile. They walked across the grass verge and then the white gravel part and now the Black Strip was before them. Harriet said "Perhaps we should go back", but Prilty said "Don't worry. There it is!" She pointed to a big white stone house behind black gates just across and down from where they were. There were no cars about, the black strip was quiet and still. "It's easy, watch," said Prilty, and off she bounded across the black strip to the safety of the white gravel on the other side. She turned and waved then gave a two-fisted arms-raised signal as though to say, "Yah, I did it!" Now it was Harriet's turn, she took a deep breath—no cars about—and Prilty called her! Or did she call her? Did she say "stop"? Her voice was faint that far away and the noise made it harder to hear. She was on the black strip now but Prilty was waving and saying "No!" "Why `no'?!" "Go back!!" screamed Prilty—the noise before was a "carz" noise from way down the black strip. Suddenly the noise was so loud and white light flooded the black strip around her—then a terrible high squealing sound began—she sat bolt upright and saw but couldn't hear Prilty's anguish. Then a great heavy shadow was above Harriet—a terrible iron-heavy shadow and before the next moment of time had passed she felt as though her head had been broken apart. Her scream of agony was choked by a throatful of her precious blood—light fractured in her and a deep, dark water of nausea filled her up. Pain like slabs of burning matter fell through her, through her neck, through her shoulders and all down through her body, and greasy, fat globs of blood flopped onto her hands from her nose shredded inside. Then numbness came—like everything had gone hard inside her. She felt as though she was beginning to fall—not to the ground but into herself. Deeper and deeper she fell, further and further—a fall without end into black unconsciousness.

Suddenly there were legs around her, human legs, like a cage around her—voices and shouts and screaming sounds and all the while the dark, heavy shapes whizzed by spraying light. Dear Prilty, was she hit too? She was across the black strip though. Still the blood bubbled out of her nose, she pawed at it but oh it hurt so much she couldn't bear to touch it. Suddenly she felt swirled around and she was falling, no—skidding, no—backwards—on all fours—her head rocked with horrible new pain, her claws tried to grip but couldn't—her tail was being pulled, pulled! She was off the black strip on green grass. She ran blindly a few steps and collapsed in deeper grass. She spewed up blood. She spread-eagled on the ground as though the earth and grass would draw from her all her bilious agony. How long she lay there she didn't know.

The next thing she became aware of she was lying on something cold and hard and with bars around it. And she was inside something—some big room with windows and with humans in front of her—and then the room started to move and she realized it must be a "carrz" they were in. But it wasn't bumpy and loud—as they rolled...