The Land of Santan
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2011 by LOC
Click on book cover to find where you can buy this book.
Copyright 2011 by LOC
Click on book cover to find where you can buy this book.
( Part of) Chapter 1 - The Last Meatball
“Mommy, can we be excused?” Philip put his fork on his empty plate.
“Sure, sweetie,”Jen answered.
“It is nice outside. You boys go outside to play until dessert is ready. John, you watch Philip.”
“Ah, mom,” John started to protest because they couldn’t run as fast with Philip tagging along.
“John,” was all Mark needed to say.
“Yes, sir,”John answered his father, and then stabbed the last meatball on the platter and put the whole
thing in his mouth.
“Hey, I wanted that,” Alex protested.
“Ha ha, I got the last meatball,” John said with his mouth full.
Snatching the last piece of garlic bread, which was the end piece, Alex bragged, “And I got the last toast.”
Sam watched the scene unfold as if it were moving in slow motion as Alex grabbed the last piece of garlic toast,
and ran from the dining room. Sam looked at Mark who also was watching their sons re-enact a scene from long ago, back when they were young.
“Santan!” Sam announced as he stood up.
“Santan!” Mark stood with his tea glass in salute.
Sam clinked his glass with Mark’s in answer and then drank it. An eerie silence filled the dining room where all movement ceased after the boys went outside into the back yard letting the screen door slam on their way out. An aroma of garlic and
spaghetti lingered throughout the house while Sam and Mark remembered the years when they were boys themselves…
* * * *
“Mom, Sam took the last meatball,” Mark whined.
“You had plenty. Run along outside to play until bed time.”
Mark took the last piece of garlic toast, jumped up from the table, and ran while sticking his tongue out at Sam. As soon as they reached their bikes, they entered another world where rusted bikes became gallant horses; sweaters were suits of shining armor, and witches and dragons waited behind every tree or bush.
Chasing blue snakes and winged blood-sucking vermin through haunted forests, they galloped into a land of dragons and witches where fiery sunsets in the distance were villages burning from the ravaging of a Fire Dragon. Nighttime was a curse cast by evil witches causing the world to live in darkness and gloom until brave warriors fought off the dragons and the witches.
Each night, a curse of darkness made them retreat with promises to fight another day. Daylight always ran out before they could save the planet forcing them to retreat inside the Mother Ship. While inside, they continued fighting evil forces of deep outer space where all visitors were possible invasions by Troids.
“Summer is almost over,” Sam swung his stick-sword at a leaf as it fell from the tree.
“Do you have to do that?” Mark complained.
“Do what?”
“Rain on the parade.”
“Shok! Listen! I hear the night witch. Cover your ears or her voice will transform you into a poisonous frog,” Sam yelled to Mark.
“It is too late, Teman! I feel my body transforming already. Aieeeee!” Mark pretended to be in great pain and take on a froglike appearance.
“Mark! Sam! I know you hear me!” yelled the night witch.
“Run, Teman, run for your life. It is too late for me and I feel I must bite you now. Run while you can,” Mark begged while acting as if he was going to bite him with poisonous fangs.
“Now!” echoed a baritone voice through the woods.
“Uh oh,”whispered Mark.
“Yeah, come on. We better go. We can get that dragon tomorrow,” Sam promised.
“I wished dad would help us make our fort. It keeps falling down,” Mark said as they abandoned their fort of sticks around a large oak tree for another day.
“You remember the last time dad helped us do anything?” Sam said as he started running because if Dad already left his recliner to call them inside, they had best run.
In the distance, they saw Dad standing on the back porch with his pipe clinched between his teeth. The look on his face meant they had best hurry a little faster, which they did. As they stepped up onto the porch, they tried to slip past him quickly to avoid his wrath, but they were never fast enough.
“Next time your ma calls you two, you had best come running,” he growled as he smacked them on the back of their heads almost knocking Mark down.
Going straight to the bathroom to wash up and brush their teeth, they avoided talking because of what normally happens when anything interrupts Dad’s television viewing. As they dried their face and hands, they heard him cussing at Mom in the kitchen, and then they heard glass breaking. Hurrying to avoid becoming the target of his anger, they slipped into their beds and pretended to be fast asleep. However, they listened to his footsteps pounding down the hallway making their hearts race with fear. He cussed as he banged the door open, but they didn’t move a muscle.
“When I get home tomorrow, I better not see one leaf in that yard. I know you are awake, and you hear me. You think I am that stupid?”
Dad slammed the door so hard, it rattled the pictures on the wall causing one of them to fall off. Sam sat upright and reached for the framed picture as it slid down the wall. Catching the picture, he laid back down while tucking the picture under the covers with him. Two seconds later, the door jerked open again banging the doorknob into the wall. Silence. Deafening silence, but Mark started laughing. Burying his face in his pillow to muffle his giggling, he sounded like he was crying instead.
“Wus!” muttered their father as he shut the door again without slamming it.
They listened for a long while, but didn’t hear him yelling at Mom anymore and the light beneath their door went out, which meant they were going to bed.
“Mark, stop that. Are you trying to get us killed?” Sam whispered.
“I couldn’t help it,” Mark whispered while wiping away his tears from laughing into his pillow.
“What is so funny?”
“You.”
“It wasn’t that funny.”
“I know, but because we can’t laugh…”
“Yeah, I know. Those are the best,” Sam agreed. “Get to sleep. We have a dragon to slay tomorrow.”
“Why is dad so mad all the time?” Mark asked.
“Mom says it is because he works so hard,” Sam whispered.
“Charlie’s dad works hard, too, and he’s nice.”
“Charlie says he isn’t always nice. Besides, dad isn’t always mad.”
“Yes he is. The only time he isn’t is when he is watching television,” Mark argued.
“Shhh. Go to sleep. We can talk tomorrow after dad goes to work.”
“We have to rake every leaf in the yard. That’s not possible,” Mark persisted.
“I don’t think it is either, but we can try. It won’t be so bad,” Sam promised. “Just remember, they are Noids.”
“Can you fix my aircraft carrier?” Mark sounded half-asleep.
“One day, Mark, I will buy you another one and we can hide it so dad won’t stomp it to pieces like he did your other one. Now go to sleep.”
“Remember the blue truck in the wall?” Mark giggled.
“Will you stop that and go to sleep before dad hears you and throws us off the ship into the next galaxy or worse, a black hole?”
“Mom didn’t even spank us,” Mark sighed.
“Yeah, she was laughing so hard, she couldn’t.”
“Good thing she knows how to fix walls,” Mark sounded sleepy.
“Yeah.”
While still dark out the next morning, slamming of the front door announced their father leaving for work. However, they waited before getting up because he sometimes forgot something and came back into the house. After he was gone, they peeked out into the hallway, and then opened their door just enough to slip out of their room before the hinges squeaked. Mom was sitting at the breakfast table holding her coffee cup as if it would escape.
“Morning Mom,”Sam eased up behind her.
“Hey, boys.”She jumped slightly, almost spilling her coffee. “Why are you up so early?” she said while wiping her face as if she had been crying.
“We’re burning daylight,” Mark rubbed his eyes.
Standing up from the table, Mom smiled and shook her head, “If only I could get you two up this easily for school. You two beat all I ever seen. All summer you get up with the chickens and on school days, you want to hibernate with the bears.”
“Mom, you know dragon slaying is more fun than school,” Sam said.
“Well, then. What would two knights in shining armor want to eat before venturing into Never-Never Land to slay dragons and fight evil vermin?”
“Pancakes!”they said in unison as they sat down at the table.
“Go wash up first,” she poured another cup of coffee and then started making pancakes.
Pausing for a moment, she watched her sons scuffle towards the bathroom. As she set out a bowl to make pancakes, she looked out at the sun coming up on the horizon. The sky was red and then blazing with brilliance as the sun eased up above the horizon. She sighed at the beauty, yet her heart ached to fly as one of the mourning doves cooing in the distance.
“Sam, why is mommy’s tummy getting bigger? Is she getting fat?” Mark whispered while washing his face and hands.
“No, mom is not getting fat. She is preg…preg…she is going to have a baby.”
“A baby?”
“Yeah, I heard her on the phone talking to someone and she said it is going to be a girl.”
“A girl?”
“Stop it or I will start calling you echo again.”
“But, Sam…”
“We will get use to a sister. She will be cool.”
“Girls are not cool, Sam. Why did she order a girl?”
“You don’t order babies, Mark. God chooses for us.”
“God wouldn’t do that to us, would he?”
“Mom says it is a blessing, so I wouldn’t say things like that if I were you. Come on, I smell flapjacks.”
“Flap what?” Mark said as he threw the towel on the sink and ran behind Sam.
“Turn the light out,” Sam ordered.
“You just want to be first,” Mark complained as he turned around and flipped the switch in time to see the towel slide off the sink onto the floor.
“Well, I am biggest, so I am first,” Sam answered as he sat at the table in front of the first pancake.
“Sam…” Mom warned.
“Yes, ma’am,”Sam replied as he bowed his head and waited for his brother to sit down and then he asked a blessing on the food.
While eating his pancakes, Mark kept staring at Mom’s stomach and when she caught him staring, he looked away.
“Mark is there something wrong?” she smiled.
He shook his head no in answer with his mouth full of pancake and a drop of maple syrup on his chin.
She looked over at Sam as if redirecting the question to him. He tried the same closed-mouth answer, but his mouth was empty.
“You know?” she asked Sam.
“Know what?”
“You know what.”
“Yes, ma’am,”he surrendered.
“Who told you?”she persisted.
“You did.”
“I did?”
“Yes, ma’am. I heard you on the phone with your friend. I didn’t mean to hear, really I didn’t.”
“Sam, I knew you were listening.”
.....buy the book to finish reading a great adventure of how two brothers turned bad situations in a magical land they called The Land of Santan.
“Sure, sweetie,”Jen answered.
“It is nice outside. You boys go outside to play until dessert is ready. John, you watch Philip.”
“Ah, mom,” John started to protest because they couldn’t run as fast with Philip tagging along.
“John,” was all Mark needed to say.
“Yes, sir,”John answered his father, and then stabbed the last meatball on the platter and put the whole
thing in his mouth.
“Hey, I wanted that,” Alex protested.
“Ha ha, I got the last meatball,” John said with his mouth full.
Snatching the last piece of garlic bread, which was the end piece, Alex bragged, “And I got the last toast.”
Sam watched the scene unfold as if it were moving in slow motion as Alex grabbed the last piece of garlic toast,
and ran from the dining room. Sam looked at Mark who also was watching their sons re-enact a scene from long ago, back when they were young.
“Santan!” Sam announced as he stood up.
“Santan!” Mark stood with his tea glass in salute.
Sam clinked his glass with Mark’s in answer and then drank it. An eerie silence filled the dining room where all movement ceased after the boys went outside into the back yard letting the screen door slam on their way out. An aroma of garlic and
spaghetti lingered throughout the house while Sam and Mark remembered the years when they were boys themselves…
* * * *
“Mom, Sam took the last meatball,” Mark whined.
“You had plenty. Run along outside to play until bed time.”
Mark took the last piece of garlic toast, jumped up from the table, and ran while sticking his tongue out at Sam. As soon as they reached their bikes, they entered another world where rusted bikes became gallant horses; sweaters were suits of shining armor, and witches and dragons waited behind every tree or bush.
Chasing blue snakes and winged blood-sucking vermin through haunted forests, they galloped into a land of dragons and witches where fiery sunsets in the distance were villages burning from the ravaging of a Fire Dragon. Nighttime was a curse cast by evil witches causing the world to live in darkness and gloom until brave warriors fought off the dragons and the witches.
Each night, a curse of darkness made them retreat with promises to fight another day. Daylight always ran out before they could save the planet forcing them to retreat inside the Mother Ship. While inside, they continued fighting evil forces of deep outer space where all visitors were possible invasions by Troids.
“Summer is almost over,” Sam swung his stick-sword at a leaf as it fell from the tree.
“Do you have to do that?” Mark complained.
“Do what?”
“Rain on the parade.”
“Shok! Listen! I hear the night witch. Cover your ears or her voice will transform you into a poisonous frog,” Sam yelled to Mark.
“It is too late, Teman! I feel my body transforming already. Aieeeee!” Mark pretended to be in great pain and take on a froglike appearance.
“Mark! Sam! I know you hear me!” yelled the night witch.
“Run, Teman, run for your life. It is too late for me and I feel I must bite you now. Run while you can,” Mark begged while acting as if he was going to bite him with poisonous fangs.
“Now!” echoed a baritone voice through the woods.
“Uh oh,”whispered Mark.
“Yeah, come on. We better go. We can get that dragon tomorrow,” Sam promised.
“I wished dad would help us make our fort. It keeps falling down,” Mark said as they abandoned their fort of sticks around a large oak tree for another day.
“You remember the last time dad helped us do anything?” Sam said as he started running because if Dad already left his recliner to call them inside, they had best run.
In the distance, they saw Dad standing on the back porch with his pipe clinched between his teeth. The look on his face meant they had best hurry a little faster, which they did. As they stepped up onto the porch, they tried to slip past him quickly to avoid his wrath, but they were never fast enough.
“Next time your ma calls you two, you had best come running,” he growled as he smacked them on the back of their heads almost knocking Mark down.
Going straight to the bathroom to wash up and brush their teeth, they avoided talking because of what normally happens when anything interrupts Dad’s television viewing. As they dried their face and hands, they heard him cussing at Mom in the kitchen, and then they heard glass breaking. Hurrying to avoid becoming the target of his anger, they slipped into their beds and pretended to be fast asleep. However, they listened to his footsteps pounding down the hallway making their hearts race with fear. He cussed as he banged the door open, but they didn’t move a muscle.
“When I get home tomorrow, I better not see one leaf in that yard. I know you are awake, and you hear me. You think I am that stupid?”
Dad slammed the door so hard, it rattled the pictures on the wall causing one of them to fall off. Sam sat upright and reached for the framed picture as it slid down the wall. Catching the picture, he laid back down while tucking the picture under the covers with him. Two seconds later, the door jerked open again banging the doorknob into the wall. Silence. Deafening silence, but Mark started laughing. Burying his face in his pillow to muffle his giggling, he sounded like he was crying instead.
“Wus!” muttered their father as he shut the door again without slamming it.
They listened for a long while, but didn’t hear him yelling at Mom anymore and the light beneath their door went out, which meant they were going to bed.
“Mark, stop that. Are you trying to get us killed?” Sam whispered.
“I couldn’t help it,” Mark whispered while wiping away his tears from laughing into his pillow.
“What is so funny?”
“You.”
“It wasn’t that funny.”
“I know, but because we can’t laugh…”
“Yeah, I know. Those are the best,” Sam agreed. “Get to sleep. We have a dragon to slay tomorrow.”
“Why is dad so mad all the time?” Mark asked.
“Mom says it is because he works so hard,” Sam whispered.
“Charlie’s dad works hard, too, and he’s nice.”
“Charlie says he isn’t always nice. Besides, dad isn’t always mad.”
“Yes he is. The only time he isn’t is when he is watching television,” Mark argued.
“Shhh. Go to sleep. We can talk tomorrow after dad goes to work.”
“We have to rake every leaf in the yard. That’s not possible,” Mark persisted.
“I don’t think it is either, but we can try. It won’t be so bad,” Sam promised. “Just remember, they are Noids.”
“Can you fix my aircraft carrier?” Mark sounded half-asleep.
“One day, Mark, I will buy you another one and we can hide it so dad won’t stomp it to pieces like he did your other one. Now go to sleep.”
“Remember the blue truck in the wall?” Mark giggled.
“Will you stop that and go to sleep before dad hears you and throws us off the ship into the next galaxy or worse, a black hole?”
“Mom didn’t even spank us,” Mark sighed.
“Yeah, she was laughing so hard, she couldn’t.”
“Good thing she knows how to fix walls,” Mark sounded sleepy.
“Yeah.”
While still dark out the next morning, slamming of the front door announced their father leaving for work. However, they waited before getting up because he sometimes forgot something and came back into the house. After he was gone, they peeked out into the hallway, and then opened their door just enough to slip out of their room before the hinges squeaked. Mom was sitting at the breakfast table holding her coffee cup as if it would escape.
“Morning Mom,”Sam eased up behind her.
“Hey, boys.”She jumped slightly, almost spilling her coffee. “Why are you up so early?” she said while wiping her face as if she had been crying.
“We’re burning daylight,” Mark rubbed his eyes.
Standing up from the table, Mom smiled and shook her head, “If only I could get you two up this easily for school. You two beat all I ever seen. All summer you get up with the chickens and on school days, you want to hibernate with the bears.”
“Mom, you know dragon slaying is more fun than school,” Sam said.
“Well, then. What would two knights in shining armor want to eat before venturing into Never-Never Land to slay dragons and fight evil vermin?”
“Pancakes!”they said in unison as they sat down at the table.
“Go wash up first,” she poured another cup of coffee and then started making pancakes.
Pausing for a moment, she watched her sons scuffle towards the bathroom. As she set out a bowl to make pancakes, she looked out at the sun coming up on the horizon. The sky was red and then blazing with brilliance as the sun eased up above the horizon. She sighed at the beauty, yet her heart ached to fly as one of the mourning doves cooing in the distance.
“Sam, why is mommy’s tummy getting bigger? Is she getting fat?” Mark whispered while washing his face and hands.
“No, mom is not getting fat. She is preg…preg…she is going to have a baby.”
“A baby?”
“Yeah, I heard her on the phone talking to someone and she said it is going to be a girl.”
“A girl?”
“Stop it or I will start calling you echo again.”
“But, Sam…”
“We will get use to a sister. She will be cool.”
“Girls are not cool, Sam. Why did she order a girl?”
“You don’t order babies, Mark. God chooses for us.”
“God wouldn’t do that to us, would he?”
“Mom says it is a blessing, so I wouldn’t say things like that if I were you. Come on, I smell flapjacks.”
“Flap what?” Mark said as he threw the towel on the sink and ran behind Sam.
“Turn the light out,” Sam ordered.
“You just want to be first,” Mark complained as he turned around and flipped the switch in time to see the towel slide off the sink onto the floor.
“Well, I am biggest, so I am first,” Sam answered as he sat at the table in front of the first pancake.
“Sam…” Mom warned.
“Yes, ma’am,”Sam replied as he bowed his head and waited for his brother to sit down and then he asked a blessing on the food.
While eating his pancakes, Mark kept staring at Mom’s stomach and when she caught him staring, he looked away.
“Mark is there something wrong?” she smiled.
He shook his head no in answer with his mouth full of pancake and a drop of maple syrup on his chin.
She looked over at Sam as if redirecting the question to him. He tried the same closed-mouth answer, but his mouth was empty.
“You know?” she asked Sam.
“Know what?”
“You know what.”
“Yes, ma’am,”he surrendered.
“Who told you?”she persisted.
“You did.”
“I did?”
“Yes, ma’am. I heard you on the phone with your friend. I didn’t mean to hear, really I didn’t.”
“Sam, I knew you were listening.”
.....buy the book to finish reading a great adventure of how two brothers turned bad situations in a magical land they called The Land of Santan.