Author would like to say: Hi y'all! This suddenly popped out of my brain one night so am afraid in such a groggy situation wasn't able to write too well... but anyway, do drop a review, won't you?

Chapter 1: Exploding Bookcases

"PEEEEE-TEEEERRRR!!!!" Vicious knocks and bangs on the door ensued. The boy in question stirred in his bed and, realising who it was that was knocking and after a quick glance at the clock, groaned and buried his head under the covers. No, not now, please. Need - sleep...

"PEEEEE-TERRRR OOO'MAAAALEEEEE!!!" God, his head was throbbing now. Great, morning headache. Just what he needed. When will his ever mother ever learn? Why couldn't she be like an ordinary mom who wakes her one and only son with soft footsteps and gentle whispering in the ears and even a peck on the forehead to boot? That would be fantastic. He yawned and turned onto his side. The banging and even kicking ceased to bother him anymore, as they usually do after a while. He had locked the door last night. So hurray, he believed that a quick shuteye was in order.

Then - WHAM! - CRACK! "PETER! What the hell are you doing in bed at this time of the day?" He opened his eyes at once. How? He knew he had locked the door!

"I - I locked the door!" he stammered at her.

His mother gave him a curious look, which gradually turned into a frown. "No, you didn't. It's time - to get up. Because - if you don't - you'll be very, very, very late for school."

He moaned and clutched at his stomach. It was worth a shot. "Oooh - stomach - hurts - can't - go - school - "

"Bleargh," she strode over and whipped the covers away from him. "You disgust me. You can't lie, remember? Learn and grow up."

His hand flew to his forehead, trying to mimic some of the drama queens that he had the misfortune to be in the same class with. "Need - humane - mother..."

"Just be thankful that you ain't got Margaret Thatcher as your mom. Do you know that she smacks vagrant late risers? Hard. On the bottom." She took hold of his arm and pulled at it. "Ooof! Come on! Outta bed already!"

Completely thrown off guard, he was fortunate that his nerves got to its feet quicker than his conscious mind. His free hand instantly shot out and clutched at the bedpost. He could feel himself being torn apart, literally. "At least five minutes?" he yelled.

"NO! Out! Come on you lazy - pig - bum!"

"Pleeease?"

"That'll be one whole limb and ten dollars off next month's allowance, if you please!"

"Okay okay okay! I'm getting up!" she immediately let go of his hand and he groaned in pain. Great, just great, just the kind of stretching exercise that his right hand needed. If only he had a more timid mother, someone who respects his decision to sleep in, if only for a few minutes. He wondered if this usually happened to boys who had been reared all their life by a single mom. The absence of a husband, it seemed, only encouraged single mothers to behave in whichever behaviour they pleased with their children. That's just wrong. Plain wrong.

"Down for breakfast in five okay?" And with that she bounded out of the room and down the stairs, humming "Singing in the Rain" along the way.

He wondered if he could buy himself a normal mother at a black market; normal, God-fearing and son-fearing woman who cooks normal American food instead of exotic European food that usually caused him terrific fits of purging. There's got to be some for sale. How much would one cost?

Seven and a half minutes later, Peter trudged and yawned his way into the kitchen, which also stood as the dining room. Their house was just a modest double-storey one, and despite the small space and even smaller front compound, according to the Bailey Pond standards, their bank account (well at least his mother's) was the size of the town's namesake. And that was thanks to, he realised with a sigh, his mother's job as an interior designer with the weirdest and quirkiest tastes in the county, so much so that her clients were made up of New Yorkers, not Bailey Pond-ers, who lived just down the Hudson. Suitably so, he didn't think there could be another person who thought black and maroon were suitable colours for a baby's room.

"What are you sighing about?" asked his mother as she got out a bowl and a box of Kellogg's. He took a seat on the bright red stool at the kitchen island and shook his head. If he told her, he would probably never set foot in school again. So, "Nothing," he replied meekly and reached for the cereal box -

- which she promptly yanked away from his reach. "You can't lie, Peter. You know that."

"Mom, if you don't give me that box right now I might starve and be late for school."

"You've never been late, have you?"

He stared at her. And this is the woman he called Mother. Hmm. "Of course I haven't."

"Then we wouldn't want to spoil the clean record, would we?"

"No," he replied, feeling more and more... perplexed, by the minute. He knew that his mother had a weird way of starting the mornings off and usually he could handle it. But this particular morning was driving him nuts. Loco. Crazy.

"Now you tell me why you - exhaled a little more loudly than usual - because to my understanding, people sigh when they come across an obstacle that they can't jump, leap, or crawl over and under but they don't want to ask for help from the lieutenant because he will only make them do push-ups and they don't like that. No one likes push-ups. Including me. So I won't make you do push-ups."

"Mom," he said exasperatedly. "There's - nothing - " then he remembered. Thank God he hadn't completely forgotten, or he'd be toast, blackened to the brim. So he thanked himself silently for sighing. Sighing is good after all. Sighing has been proved to be more than just a sign of distress. He could mention it in his creative writing class tomorrow. "Actually there is something. I got a history assignment to work on and I promised Lloyd that I'd go to the school library with him this afternoon to get it done. So I'll be late."

She frowned. "Why don't you use the Internet at home? It's much more convenient. And besides, libraries smell. Stinko."

"Because wants photocopies of the excerpts from the source books together with the assignment. Believe me, Mom, I tried to convince her to let me use the Net but she wouldn't hear of it."

"Aww, you poor little imp!" she winced and then, to his horror, leaned across the kitchen island and ruffled his curly brown hair up, He yelped and ducked away from her prying fingers. "Mom!"

"What? It's not like it was and ever will be neat anyway. I assure you that no oil or gel or Wonder Comb can make you look like class president. So what's wrong with a little messing up, hmm? Sometimes I envy you, you know that? You don't need to spend dastardly money on making sure your hair looks good." She sighed and put the cereal box back down on the table. "Just like your father," she murmured.

Peter studied her face for a moment; a faraway look on it, as if she was analysing memories, deciding the wrong and rights of them, and then later classifying them and stowing them away in the deep recesses of her brain where she had dug them out in the first place. Sometimes when she had mentioned his father, she would put on this kind of look. And often Peter had wished that he could see what she was seeing, weighing what she was weighing and help her to keep them back into their places, or perhaps even cast them away. But those memories usually were about his long lost, dear ol' Dad, who had, according to her, had simply vanished one night, without a trace. She didn't think that even Anthony LaPaglia could help them find him.

When it came to her own memories, those concerning her childhood and her extended family that lived just in the neighbouring town, she was just as secretive, but she had never tried to hide her disliking of them. Disliking, she had insisted, not contempt, or worst; hate. They were tied by familial bonds, after all; she just couldn't find the means to tolerate their rigid, holier-than-thou and almost Puritanical policies concerning family traditions (moose-hunting among the uncles and nephews three days and three hours after Thanksgiving dinner every year, and in which Peter had never been invited to take part) down pat to the floor plan of the house that you lived in. The O'Malleys of Greenpurtle, from his mother's side, was a massive family; so colossal and complex that almost everyone in Greenpurtle County could claim of having even a trickle of O'Malley blood running in their veins.

And that also meant that rumours spread wider and faster, and wreak more havoc than could ever be hoped for. He remembered his mother mentioning to him (after three glasses of Shiraz, him, half a can of Anglia shandy) that her sister's husband's brother's cousin's daughter had once made the mistake of telling her hairdresser that she was thinking of doing a boob job and the next day she found her mailbox stuffed to the brim with short letters and name cards, all recommending this plastic surgery firm and that; some even wrote in telling her that she could die if she ate scrambled eggs two days after the operation.

Which was why in all the fourteen years that they had returned to the ancient family stronghold (a sprawling estate of unfathomable boundaries, with two mansions on it and even then no room even to be rented out) for the traditional family holidays, Hesper O'Malley had never put on the mantle of good cheer and tolerance, no, not even once. The rest of the clan didn't bother to make jolly with her and her son anyway.

After a few minutes, she jerked a bit and shook her head. He thought he heard her sniff a bit (like the crying sniff, not the dog's one) and said softly to her: "Mom, are you okay?"

She turned to face him and nodded slowly. "Yes, I think." Then, she smiled and leaned over to give him a light kiss on his forehead. "Thank you, sweetie."

"What did I do?" he was surprised himself. His mother was the type of person whom you'd consider lucky to have heard the words 'please', 'sorry' and 'thank you' pass through her lips and out for the world to hear. And hearing that from her, the kitchen (and even the milk in his cereal bowl) seemed a little brighter.

Peter bit his lip and tried to ignore the grumbling and groaning of his stomach and the aching pulsing of his nose. Just after Math, which was right before lunch, Mr. Sherlom had asked him to stay behind and literally spent the entire lunch time trying to convince Peter to join the state math olympiad, of which Peter had no interest in whatsoever. He, in turn, had tried to pass off a theory that his ability to score not more than three mistakes in math quizzes thrown at the class was purely because he had an excellent knack for shooting answers blindly. Mr. Sherlom was not amused, let alone convinced. Thinking (actually more like sulking) over it later as he went straight from Math classroom to science, he concluded that he might have been able to convince Mr. Sherlom if he had been presenting the idea with a full stomach. And that only reminded him even more of the food that he could have eaten during lunch. Grrr.

By the time the bell rang for the last time of the day, he had already trodden on at least five set of toes, touched the nerves of seven people and picked a fight with the janitor, from which he earned a binged nose and a detention threat (deathly close to the real thing) from, yep, Mr. Sherlom. And had he mentioned that Mr. Sherlom was a discipline teacher? Sigh. The day could not possibly get any worse than this.

Although his heart was heavy, he forced his limbs to push open the school library's door anyway. The hushed and heavy atmosphere in the library, reeking somewhat of old socks, surprisingly lifted his mood a tad. God knew he needed the mood pick-up. He left his backpack at shelves committed in the library's war against book crime. The librarian's desk stood directly near the entrance and he recognised one of the school's baseball players manning the desk. His eyebrows rose. Jocks and libraries did not belong in the same equation. Just then the jock looked up and smiled and nodded at him. Peter smiled weakly back. He had participated in the tryouts for the baseball team a few months ago and had, as expected, properly humiliated himself by tripping over his own shoelaces while making the homerun. And the person who had been presiding over the tryouts had been no other than this particular guy: Dylan Macintosher. Wow, even his name sounded cool. While his, Peter, hah. It was the sort of name that went down hand-in-hand with punchlines like: 'Peter, Peter, who?'. He had questioned his mother about this choice before; why couldn't he have gotten a name with as much punch and coolness as hers (Hesper did not only sounded cool, it was exotic). She had told him instead to find out what his name had meant. After a trip to he found that his name actually meant 'the rock'. He brought the question back to her, rephrased. She promptly went ovet to the cabinet where they kept their extensive DVD collection and brandished 'Scorpion King', pointing especially to a particular former wrestler. He slapped his forehead. The Rock. O-o-o-oh the horror.

Peter huffed, still feeling angry and somewhat perplexed by his mother's ridiculous reason for a name. Look at him: see any muscles? Any fierce upturn of mouth? The ability to arch a single eyebrow? If he could thicken up by even five inches, it would be a miraculous achievement. To that aim, Peter had found out (during a three-dose-of-Shiraz-and-half-can-of-Anglia session) that his mother had actually used Appeton when he had been a boy, but that didn't help at all. If anything, he had only grown skinnier. Then she had switched to WeightGain. That sparked fits of purging and rashes on his left arm in particular. Maybe, maybe if she hadn't given him any of those drugs when he was younger, he could have filled up naturally? That was a possibility! He shook his head angrily. Double grrr.

"Wo-o-ah," came Lloyd's voice, snapping him out of his fuming musings (rhymes, hah). "What?" he snapped back and took a seat directly opposite Lloyd. Why on earth had Lloyd chosen the table directly in front of the bookcases? The smell of old books wafted out from the shelves and was frankly quite enough to unsettle an empty stomach. But the plastic table felt cool and thus also extended its effect to his temper. He sighed.

"Had a bad day?"

"I skipped lunch. What do you think?"

"Suicide."

Peter opened his arms. "Stayed alive."

"From the looks of it, barely," said Lloyd as he jabbed at a pile of books, all of them menacing and frighteningly thick tomes, sitting meekly by his right arm. "Scoured the library when you were skulking towards here."

"I love you, you know that?" said Peter with a grin as he reached for the topmost book.

Lloyd stuck his tongue out at him and heaved a book towards him.

The book dropping at a thud in front of him, Peter pushed away all thoughts concerning food, Mr. Sherlom and The Rock out of his mind and frowned as he studied the title of the book: Voyage of the Mayflower: The Story Behind the Myth. Story behind the myth? Aren't they both distorted facts? He opened the book, anyway, and squinted at the fine lettering beneath the word 'PREFACE'. Blah blah blah... Barely five seconds into the book and he was feeling sleepy already. He groaned and shut the book. "I can't do this."

"Hmm?" Lloyd was, to his amazement, deeply immersed in We Were Puritans: Early Pilgrim Religions. Peter inched the book to level surface and peered at the pages. More small words. "How can you read this?" And he was reading the Introduction. "Why don't you skip to the other chapters?"

"Because intros are important. People hide all sorts of things under intros. Intros get you in the mood for book, movie, whatever. So we should read the intro. Why aren't you reading? We have to get this handed up this Friday."

Peter shifted in his seat, suddenly feeling uncomfortable despite the cushions on his chair. Beads of sweat trickled down his back and his neck, even though he did not feel any heat at all. Lloyd had begun murmuring out the words he was reading (a despicable habit of his and usually indicated that he liked what he was reading) and the more Peter listened, the more they didn't make any sense. It was as if he had been chanting in another language.

"Lloyd?" he whispered hoarsely, but it sounded more like "Boid", to him. His world was swimming, twisting, pulsing, and purple patches blinked at random corners of his vision. He shook his head to clear it, regain his balance, but his brain seemed to rattle in its cage. And it felt unusually heavy. Peter squeezed his eyes shut and held his head in his hands. This is some migraine!

Lloyd looked up and his eyes widened. "Pe - Peter? Are you okay?" Peter barely heard those words. More creepy chanting, each word pounding his head with a Viking sledgehammer. God, stop it! Stop!

"Peter? Hey, don't scare me man!"

"Stop talking!" he shouted. Irritated and startled stares were thrown his way, but he didn't notice. He didn't care.

"Peter?" asked Lloyd again, fear tinged his voice and miraculously it reached out to him through the fraughts of confusion.

"Migraine," he croaked back, "I think."

"Stomach okay?"

Now that Peter turned some attention to his empty belly, it grumbled and suddenly a stone seemed to have dropped itself to the bottom of his stomach. Doof. He clutched at his stomach and he thought he actually felt something hard and round in it. What the -

SCRRREEEEEEEEEEEEE - The din of wet chalk scraped across a blackboard burst literally inside his ears and he had to bite his lip from screaming from the agony. It was a library after all. He didn't want to get into enough trouble as it was.

Then - CRACK! BAMF! BOOMF! Something heavy, and huge, exploded.

And the torment ended.

Peter sat up, frowning. No pain at all. As if nothing had happened to him. He could almost describe the feeling he was experiencing now as something new... like he had been reborn. He shook his head and actually allowed himself a laugh. Nonsense... nothing had happened! Just a fit of migraine. Everything was fine. Normal. Good.

Then he saw Lloyd's astonished look. His gut cringed at once. "Lloyd?"

His friend wasn't the only one. As if just woken up from a dream, the other library visitors immediately kicked their chairs back and dashed out of the library in fits of screaming. Peter's frightened gaze darted to the counter. Dylan Macintosher grinned back at him. What the - ?

"Look behind you," came Lloyd's barely-there voice.

Peter turned around.

There used to be rows and rows of bookshelves behind him. Apparently, something had reduced them to no more than dust.

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