Botheration

Vito DiBarone

Description

While seventeen-year-old Matty Weber is gazing upward at the evening sky, he witnesses an explosion on the lunar surface and later a cryptic message drawn by a skywriting plane. At the time, he doesn’t realize how prophetic these events will be in his school life or for the people on Earth.
School’s out for the winter. School’s out forever? Something weird is happening all over Matty’s small town of Scotsbourgh.
Why is everyone acting strange? Has Matty changed, or is it the people around him? To discover and sort through the clues, Matty teams up with the grown-ups: his biological dad, his mother, and his stepdad, along with his friends Gabriel and Samantha. From the streets of Scotsbourgh to a brief stay at Stanford University, the adventure is on!
They travel to study dinosaur fossil remains and Mars rock in Utah before a boarding a first class flight on a C-17 air transport plane to the ruins of Gobekli Tepe in Turkey and then to India. Matty’s search for the truth makes him realize he sees only the tip of this iceberg-like mystery. He summons all his wits and newly gained skills to overcome the ultimate challenge but not before learning that these growing pains are an integral part of reaching his goal.

Sujets

• Young Adult Fiction
• Mars

Informations

• Publié par: Archway Publishing
• Date de parution: 09 mai 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781665739832
• Langue: English

Extrait

BOTHERATION
PART THREE: EPIPHANY
 
 
 
 
Vito DiBarone
 
 
 
 

 
 
Copyright © 2023 Vito DiBarone.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
 
 
Archway Publishing
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.archwaypublishing.com
844-669-3957
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
Scripture quotations are taken from the American Standard Version Bible (Public Domain).
 
ISBN: 978-1-6657-3985-6 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-3984-9 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-3983-2 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023904079
 
 
 
Archway Publishing rev. date: 04/03/2023
Contents
Chapter 1     Star Light, Star Bright
Chapter 2     Turn, Turn, Turn
Chapter 3     SIASE
Chapter 4     Gabriel
Chapter 5     Stephanie
Chapter 6     Stalling
Chapter 7     What Do You Want Me to Tell You?
Chapter 8     Let’s Think about This
Chapter 9     Like Pulling Teeth
Chapter 10   He Who Controls the Past
Chapter 11   When I Wish upon a Star
Chapter 12   Makes No Difference Who You Are
Chapter 13   Either Way, You Win
Chapter 14   Waking Up Is Hard to Do
Chapter 15   Halfway Home
Chapter 16   Life Goes On and On
Chapter 17   How High Can You Jump?
Chapter 18   Déjà Vu All Over Again
Chapter 19   Ready, Here I Come
Chapter 20   Ready, Steady, Go
Chapter 21   Just Another Lie?
Chapter 22   T-Rex Here?
Chapter 23   Ruined Ruins
Chapter 24   Next Stop: India
Chapter 25   China or Bust
Chapter 26   Really?
Chapter 27   Oops!
Chapter 28   A New Day, a New Plan
Chapter 29   After Removing All the Impossibilities
Chapter 30   Colossal Checkerboard
Chapter 31   Tuesday Night
Chapter 32   Wednesday Morning
Chapter 33   Wednesday Evening
Chapter 34   Birds Eat Beetles
Chapter 35   Thursday Morning
Chapter 36   Thursday Afternoon
Chapter 37   Weekend Fun
Chapter 38   Back Where I Started From

Chapter 1
STAR LIGHT, STAR BRIGHT
“S tar light, star bright, first star I see tonight,” I whispered. I sat on a hill under an apple tree and stared at the sky over Scotsbourgh High School’s new football stadium. It was one of my favorite places. The verse was an old outer-space-themed poem my mom had taught me when I was young, probably when I was three or four years old.
The night was dark except for a few stars peeking through the soft light of a waxing crescent moon. I knew one of those stars wasn’t a star. It was our twin-sister planet, Venus. Other objects visible were the Pleiades and the stars Aldebaran and Sirius. I could quickly identify almost every one of the bright stars. Usually, I would have diverted my energies and thoughts into naming all of them. But, feeling some sort of whim, I uncharacteristically chose to continue staring at the shape of the moon. It was more than just a sliver; it resembled the classic form of crescents that appear on flags. During this stage of the moon, I could easily make out parts that were cloaked in darkness and mystery.
I shifted my gaze and attention to one of my favorite objects in the sky—the Pleiades. They were called the Seven Sisters in days of old—a cluster of over three thousand stars dominated by seven very bright stars. I wonder why the ancient astronomers chose the feminine gender for them. I asked myself which sister I would have liked. Would she be the brightest or the youngest? Most of the seven stars are blue giants—as if any tall girl would be interested in a white dwarf like me. Even so, I was captivated by the light of the enormous number of stars packed into a small volume of space. Though corrective glasses augmented my eyes, I could still count only seven of those three thousand stars. I was glad I grew up with telescopes to help me see more.
I must have been staring too long at this cluster, because my imagination stenciled an image of Samantha’s smiling face over the backdrop of those stars. Why would I do that? Her pretty blue eyes gleamed where the stars Alcyone and Maia stood clear to see. As I looked closer, I got confused. She wasn’t staring at me! Samantha’s eyes were staring at the hunter warrior in the constellation of Orion.
A tear grew in my eye and fell heavily down my cheek. Even in my imagination, the girl in my dreams flirts with the brightest constellations in the sky! Another followed that tear. Before I knew it, I raised my right arm to wipe away the flood from my cheek. I closed both eyes. That would stop the deluge!
“I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight,” I continued. What did my mother tell me to wish for after saying those words? “What did you say, Mother?”
In my mind, her answer came almost immediately. Matthew, you can do anything as long as you put your mind to it. You can say it out loud while I am here, and later, when you are older, you can say it quietly or even to yourself. Funny—this was the first time I asked for help from my mother since she died in that car accident.
“What am I going to wish for?” I said out loud. “Anything I want?” What did I truly want? What do I need? Hmm, according to Marlow, the basic needs are food and clothing. Easy, Grandma provides me both. Check. Safety—easy again; there are no problems. Check. Love and belonging. Hmm, I’ll come back to this one. Esteem and self-actualization. I get straight As. Check. Belonging. Hmm, I belong to Scotsbourgh High School, and I belong with Grandma. I have a wonderful friendship with Gabriel, although it has become weakened by his love of girls. Okay, back to love. Grandma loves me, and I love her. But is that sufficient? Perhaps at my age I need more than family and brotherly love. Maybe I need the Philia or Eros forms of love.
Yes, that is it! But what do I know of these forms except what I have read in Shakespeare or Lord Byron? What do I know about Samantha? Nothing—even though I have seen her every day of my high school life in her Barbie-doll look. However, now I have also known her during sweaty cheerleading practices and seen her at her swimming pool half naked in her bikini and smelling foul from her imprisoned time at Lake Tahoe. Despite all of my experiences with her, I don’t think I know the real Samantha!
How do I really feel about Samantha? Do I want her to be with me? Maybe that is the real problem. Or do I want to be with another girl? The truth is, I keep coming back to thoughts of Samantha. There is no other. What did my mother tell me about girls? She told me I would someday meet a girl who was right for me and we would love each other. I keep asking myself these questions. What and who is Samantha to me? A girlfriend? No. A sister? No, Chloe is my sister, or at least my half-sister. A friend? Yes, but is that all I want? Do I want Samantha for more than a friend? The buzzing sound of the swirling wind blowing warm against my still-wet cheek caused me to open my eyes again and interrupt my fantasy.
I refocused my eyes on the Pleiades until a flicker in the lower part of the sky caught my eye. Although faint, I could tell it was worth viewing. It was moving! I was drawn to this new object. It wasn’t a plane—no red blinking light. Is it a meteorite? Possible, but not likely, because it is taking it time to go across the sky and heading into the atmosphere and burning up. Is it a satellite? Even though it looks like it is going in a straight line, it is not flashing in any pattern. No. Then what could it be?
Is it going up or down? Not down, so perhaps up? Is it a rocket? Possibly. Wouldn’t I see the exhaust gas? Yes. I followed it into the sky, but it did not decrease in brightness as it traveled. It had a constant glow. It was headed toward the crescent moon. The moon is about two hundred thirty-eight thousand miles away. Indeed, I would lose sight of it soon.
I reached up to my glasses to remove them. My eyes were still teary. Perhaps this was interfering with my perception of this event. I tapped my eyes with my handkerchief until they felt dry. I then reinserted the handkerchief into my back pocket and placed my glasses on again. I searched for that traveling speck of light again, but as expected, it had faded. Ah ha! Yes, it was traveling up and away. Most likely, it was a rocket. Yet I continued to watch and wait. I stared upward. I felt my eyes straining. Then there was a brilliant glow on an area of the crescent moon that had earlier been dark. It lasted for only a second or two. What had just occurred?

“‘Each Day,’” I said out loud, “‘I Resolve to Be the Best Person I Can Be, No Matter What Happens.’” How strange a title for an English composition essay. Was Mr. Warrent looking for a presemester inspiration-themed essay, a guide on how to do it, or an essay about my plan to be a better person? I had no clue.
“‘Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life. The longing for love, the search for knowledge, and