january

daniel parker

countdown: January

"The Stand, Stephen King," Zac stated before even taking his seat. "This is such a rip, guys."

Taylor rolled his eyes, Isaac smiled faintly. Jessica sat up straighter, ready as always to make things more difficult and amusing for the lot of them. "No, I don't agree." Jessica said with a frown. "The Stand was only about a plague that was killing everyone, excluding a certain few. Countdown has religion, old myths, apocalypse...everything a good book could ever wish to have," she argued.

"I'm with Jess," Taylor admitted quickly. "I think Countdown may have been inspired by the Stephen King book, but not based on it."

"The publishers wouldn't have allowed it, anyway." Isaac concluded. "Now can we focus on this chat instead of a former one and the legalities of them?" he added and raised a brow for emphases.

"Ok,ok. How about we start by each picking our favorite characters and talking about them?" Taylor suggested.

"That's a good idea." Isaac agreed.

"Yeah, ok." Zac and Jessica replied simultaneously.

Taylor realized they were all waiting on him to start things off, and he cleared his throat to begin. "Oh...I was thinking along the lines of Julia. She seems really smart and sweet, plus her boyfriend treats her badly. So I'm hoping she'll get out of that soon. I also think that she's going to have a huge impact in the end of the series, because she has all those visions of herself stabbing the demon," he concluded.

Everyone thought that over for a minute. "Yeah, she's cool." Isaac agreed. He turned to face his sister. "You next, Jess?" he inquired.

"Sure." Jessica agreed. She took a moment to gather her thoughts and began. "I like Sarah. I think it would be just horrible to watch your uncle die. Well, her granduncle. And then she lost her brother when those boys took him, and she's also being made to question her religious beliefs. Or, since she's Atheist maybe that should have been non-beliefs. But all the same I think she'll be very important too, because she's the only one who can translate that scroll that predicts all the future events that involve the mystery demon and the "chosen one"." Jessica took a few moments to have her breath catch back up to her.

"That was a mouthful." Taylor marveled. They all chuckled.

"Your turn, Zac." Isaac said. All eyes focused on Zac, who shifted uncomfortably.

"Well...here goes. I like George. I know, he was in jail at first. But I think he's a good person anyway! And he's a visionary, so even if he's not really important, he's got some kind of meaning in the book. Books." Zac squeezed his eyes shut as if he expected someone to hit him. When he opened them, he realized his siblings were murmuring their agreements. Wow...

"Ok, I'm going to have to say that Ariel would be my first choice," Isaac began. "She's just got personality. And no one deserves to see their father and boyfriend die in the same book..."

"Yeah, and her brother's a creep." Taylor cut in. Isaac gave him a look.

"Would you mind letting me try this by myself, first? Because if I can't do it right I'll be sure and ask your help, Taylor." Isaac retorted.

Taylor scowled. "Point taken," he grumbled and sank down into his seat.

"Thank you," Isaac continued. "And yes, her brother is a classic psycho genius. Smart enough to be able and get the power running again, but not stable enough to let his own sister stay with him in the building so she won't freeze to death." he took a breath and continued. "At the time being, Ariel's character confuses me, in a relation to the plot. It seems like her brother Trevor would have a larger role, she's not even a visionary, and yet she's the focus of five chapters in the first book alone."

"You counted?" Jessica gave her brother an odd look. He replied with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Never mind. Let's try and get someone to summarize the plot for us." Taylor suggested.

"I will!" Jessica offered quickly. Her brothers each wore matching smiles of pride and amusement.

"Go ahead, Jess," encouraged Isaac warmly.

Jessica nodded her head and began her summary. "Ok, I think this book in an pre-apocalypse sort of thing. It starts with a plague that kills all adults and children, but not the teenagers. The victims of the plague turn into these nasty puddles of gooey stuff," she giggled. "Anyway, there is an ancient scroll in Jerusalem written in some sort of hieroglyphics, I believe. Only one person can translate the scroll, Sarah. It tells about some mysterious demon and the "Chosen One", who can defeat the demon..." she paused to gather her breath. "Meanwhile there are all these kids who start having visions telling them to go West, and finds the "Chosen One". They all need to share their visions before they melt, and that sort of thing." she finished.

"Encore!" teased Taylor.

"That would be really bad, to have your parents and younger siblings just...melt." Zac said quietly.

Everyone averted their eyes. "yeah." Taylor agreed.

Isaac cleared his throat. "Ok, well how about special details anyone noticed? Does anyone have a favorite part of the book?" he restored the order.

"How about the first chapter? Was there even a point in that?" Taylor wondered.

"Oh, yeah, the military base. It wasn't ever mentioned again, and no one lived through it so I guess not." Jessica said with a small frown. "And what of those guys in New York? The ones who killed that girl while Julia was watching." Jessica added. "That would be awful."

"Did anyone notice that besides the US, the only country mentioned for more than two seconds is Israel?" Zac added. They all agreed.

"The book has my name in it," Jessica changed the subject.

"Does it?" Taylor seemed minorly interested.

"Oh, yes," Zac recalled. "I saw that too. In the dedication." he nodded.

"Yes." Jessica agreed.

Isaac and Taylor glanced at each other and simultaneously reached for their books. "Preview, About the Author,Title Page..." Taylor trailed off.

"It's on the page with all the copyrights." Zac informed them.

"Someone didn't pay attention in English Lit. class." Taylor scoffed. "It's called the Copy page."

"That's wonderful," Zac retorted. "But English Lit. is about the contents of a book, not being able to name all of the pages. You must be thinking of your 3rd year reading classes."

"That's enough, both of you." Isaac warned.

"While we're on the subject, I've always wondered if English Lit. was literature written in England, or literature written in English." Jessica asked. Her brothers all looked on blankly.

"Um..."

"Er..."

"Well..."

"Never mind," she sighed. "I should have known not to ask."

At that precise moment, Mrs.Hanson appeared in the doorway. "Kids are you almost finished with school?" she asked "Because there are some dishes out there with Taylor's name on them, Isaac you need to make dinner, Zac needs to do the laundry and clean the rec. room, and Jessica promised to babysit while I ran errands," she finished all in one breath.

"Yeah...we're about done." Isaac agreed. "You guys, homework is to put yourself in place of any character in that book, explain your actions and reasoning. Be thorough, and have it ready by Tuesday or so," he finished and looked to his mother for approval.

"Sounds good to me," she agreed. She walked over and planted a kiss on his forehead. "You're a wonderful TA honey, now go and make us some wonderful manicotti," she teased. Isaac kissed her cheek and saluted.

"Yes'm," he replied and left the room. Mrs.Hanson smiled and turned to face Taylor.

"I know. Dishes." he sighed and started to sulk away. His mother reached her arms out and grabbed him by the waist. She twitched her eyebrows wickedly at Zac and Jessica and ran her fingers over the ticklish spot on her son's back. "Mom!" Taylor squealed. He started to giggle and tried to squirm away. His mother laughed and left him go. He quickly scampered away, still wearing a grin.

"The kids are in the bedroom helping your father get ready for his meeting." Mrs.Hanson informed Jessica.

"Love you mum." Jessie said and gave her mother a quick squeeze before leaving.

"Bye." Zac mumbled as he tried to sneak past.

"Rec. room, laundry!" his mother called after him. Zac sighed and headed toward the laundry room. Just then there was a crash from the kitchen. Mrs.Hanson cringed.

"Oh sh...oot." Taylor's voice mumbled. "MUM I'LL CLEAN IT UP! AND PAY FOR IT!" he called loudly.

"You do that!" she called back and rolled her eyes to herself. That boy was going to be the death of her. She smiled to herself as she gazed at a picture on the book shelf. Her three eldest children stared back at her, terrified out of their minds and ecstatic all at once. It was from one of their first performances.'Can we get ice cream, now?' Taylor had started when they finished playing. She had enveloped them all in a big hug and granted them each a soft serve ice cream.

Arms suddenly wrapped around her from behind and broke her thoughts. She didn't even have to glance at the arms, she knew by the gentle grasp who they belonged to. Taylor buried his face between her shoulder blades. 'I'm so sorry mum," he mumbled into her shirt. She smiled to herself a little.

"It's ok, honey. Did you know you cut yourself cleaning that up?" she informed him. "You're bleeding on my shirt." she added.

Taylor jumped back quickly and glanced at his arms and hands. "Oops, sorry," he apologized again.

"Never mind that. Honey, why don't you let me help you clean those cuts?" she offered.

"No, that's fine, I can manage." Taylor declined.

Diana watched him walk out of the room, and wondered to herself when Taylor had gotten so independent. It was amazing the way children did that, they grew and changed and learned. Speaking of changing...she looked down at her shirt and shook her head. That blood would never come out. But as odd as it seemed, she wasn't upset. She was in too good a mood to be bothered with it. She decided to see how dinner was coming along now, something smelled lush...

Note from the author: Heaps and bundles of thanks to my friends for practically writing this for me! *lol* I don't think I would manage without the lot of you to help me when I needed it. *grin* And a million thanks go to Jackie, you're just a legend. -Liz*