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Here are bite-sized portions of a few of my books...
We had already shot the scene where I climbed down a rope ladder from a helicopter onto The Statue of Liberty's head. My job now was to climb inside a window on her crown, grab the bomb, climb back out and fling the bomb as far as I could into the harbor. The wind was beginning to die down. I paused to take a deep breath. Liberty was flooded with lights, and I looked down to get a view of her that very few people have ever seen. Her head was about ten feet across, but I had to be careful not to wander too close to the edge or I'd fall off. I got down on my hands and knees and eased myself backward into the window of the crown. I grabbed the fake bomb and climbed back out the window. There are seven spikes sticking out of Liberty's crown. Roland, who knows just about everything about everything, told me they represent the seven continents and seven seas. The script called for me to climb out on the spike directly above Liberty's right eye and heave the bomb off. That's what I did. The blast set off by the pyrotechnic guys was bigger than I thought it would be. I could feel the heat and hot air from the explosion. It made me stagger back a bit, which was fine because it would make the scene look more realistic. Next, I had to fall. The Statue of Liberty is 151 feet high from toe to torch. Her head is lower than the torch, so it's about a 100 foot drop from the crown. Then there's the base of the statue, which is 65 feet high itself. So I was looking at a 165 foot free fall. No helmet. No parachute. No bungee cord. No hidden wires. No nothing. A hundred and sixty five feet isn't so far, really. I've done it plenty of times. It's over before you know it. 300 feet is far. When you're about to make those 300 foot falls, that's when you wonder if you've seen your last sunset, eaten your last meal, hugged your mom for the last time. Just like with the Empire State Building gag, we used an air bag to cushion my landing. The bag below me on Liberty Island was made of nylon and about the size of a large swimming pool. There are vents called breathers on the sides. When you hit the bag, air is forced out the breathers so the stuntman doesn't get hurt. That is, if you hit the airbag. If you miss it by a foot, you could break every bone in your body. Naturally, you've got to aim for the center of the bag. You do that the instant you jump. Human beings aren't like cats. We're not very good at mid-course corrections. It's important to learn how to land correctly. You can't land feet first, because the impact will snap the large bones in your legs like twigs, or drive them into your pelvis. Also, if you land on your feet and bend your knees, there's a good chance your knees are going to come up and smash you in the face, which is no fun at all. For a front fall, the trick is to keep your head down and eyes on the landing spot. At the last instant, you pull your head up and spread your body out. You never want to fall with a forward somersault, because you might break your neck. Rolling on one shoulder is okay. This is called a stunt roll. It spreads the impact across your whole body instead of putting it all on one part. But the script called for me to do a back fall. This is harder than a front fall because you can't see the airbag. You have to trust your instincts. I staggered back off Liberty's spiked crown and gave a little push with my toe to clear the statue. All was silent, but within a second the rush of air whistling by me roared in my ears.
From Getting Air
For a moment, David, Henry, Julia, and I just looked at each other. The pilot
was dead. The co-pilot was dead. All four hijackers were either dead or close
to it, laid out on the floor in the cabin behind us. The only people who knew
how to fly an airplane were out of commission.
“Do you know anything about flying?” I asked Arcadia. I figured
a flight attendant might have picked up a thing or two in her work.
“No!” she replied. Then she called out to the old ladies,
“Does anybody know anything about flying?”
“Goodness no!” one of them said.
A few of the others started praying again. Nobody jumped up and offered
to take the controls.
“We gotta land this thing!” David said. “Henry, sit here!
Zimmerman, help me drag these guys outta here.”
“B-but I just took one lesson!” Henry protested.
His mother always complains that Henry never sticks with anything.
He’s one of those kids who takes one lesson of something and drops out.
Then he takes a lesson of something else and drops out. The good thing is,
Henry knows at least a little bit about everything.
“This is Greek to me!” Henry said, his voice rising in panic. He was
just sitting there staring at the controls.
“You must have learned SOMETHING,” David begged Henry.
“Think!”
“I know there’s an electrical system, fuel system, navigational system,
communications system, fire detection system, hydraulic system,
cabin pressurization system...”
I couldn’t blame Henry for freaking out. The dashboard or control panel or
whatever it was called looked like it had a hundred dials and gauges and
switches all over it. How could ANYONE know what they all did? Some of the
glass covering the dials and gauges had been broken in the fight. Some had
blood on them. You couldn’t even see through them.
“Okay, calm down, Henry,” David said. “Do you remember any
of the basics, like how to make the plane go up and down, left and
right?”
“Yeah,” Henry said, taking a deep breath. “The plane flies
straight and level if you don’t do anything. You pull on the yoke to go up,
and you push it forward to go down. Same with left and right.”
I didn’t even know what a yoke was, but Henry pulled on some dohickey in front
of him that looked like a video game joystick and I could feel the plane tilt
up a little.
“That’s good, Henry,” David said, putting a hand on his shoulder.
I knew he was trying to be positive and comforting. Henry was going to need
our support.
“It’s not like the Cessna I took my lesson in,” Henry said.
“It’s big. Heavy. Slow.”
“Can you land it?” David asked.
“How should I know?” Henry said, his voice rising again.
“Okay, calm down,” David said.
“Where would I land it anyway?” Henry asked.
It was a good question. We all looked out the window. The plane was pretty low.
There was nothing but trees and lakes down there. If there was a highway, maybe
we could land on it. But there wasn’t. I couldn’t think of any part of the
United States that hadn’t been carved up by strip malls and fast food joints.
Maybe we were wrong when we thought we had turned back toward the East Coast.
Maybe we were flying over Canada.
“The sun is to the right of us,” Julia said. “That means
we’re heading north.”
“How do you know?” asked David.
“Girl Scouts,” she replied. “The sun rises in the east and
sets in the west.”
Julia has been a scout since she was five. I dropped out of Boy Scouts as soon
as I took up skateboarding.
Arcadia came back into the cockpit to check up on us. “
Did you figure out how to make the radio work?” she asked.
The radio! Of course! We could radio somebody and they could
“talk us down.” I saw somebody do that
in a movie once.
It hadn’t even occurred to me. Henry picked up a headset. He fiddled with it
and yelled “Mayday! Mayday!”
“It’s busted,” he said, “and I think they disabled the
transponder.”
“The transWHAT?” I asked.
“It’s like a receiver that tells the air traffic controllers
where we are,” Arcadia told me.
“So we’re not a blip on some air traffic controller’s radar
screen?” David asked.
“Possibly not,” Arcadia said.
“What about fuel? Maybe we can keep flying until we find
a better place to land.”
We hunted all over for a fuel gauge. There were a few of them on the lower part
of the instrument panel. I guess they have more than one fuel tank. The needles
were close to empty.
“Oh, great!” David moaned.
That didn’t make sense. The plane was heading for California. How could it
be low on fuel?
“Maybe the hijackers dumped the fuel,” Arcadia said.
“You can do that in case you need to get the weight down in an
emergency.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” I said. “
Why would THEY want to dump fuel?”
“Maybe the PILOT dumped the fuel as soon as the plane was hijacked,”
Henry suggested. “ That way, the hijackers wouldn’t be able to reach
their target.”
“It doesn’t matter who dumped the fuel,” David said urgently. “
We gotta land this thing soon or we’re just gonna run out of gas and go down
wherever we are.”
He was right. And right after he said that, it suddenly got quieter in
the cockpit and the nose started to dip even though Henry hadn’t pushed on
the yoke.
“What’s happened?” I asked.
Henry looked out the left side. “The engine isn’t turning!” he
shouted.
David cursed.
“Maybe the trees will cushion our fall,” Julia said, “Like shock
absorbers.”
“Yeah, hitting a tree should be real gentle,” David said.
“The other engine stopped!” Arcadia shouted, looking out the right
side.
We didn’t need her to tell us. There was a strange and eerie quiet
suddenly. After a while you don’t notice the constant hum of an airplane’s
engine. But when it stops, it’s like you’re alone in the woods in the middle
of the night. It felt like we were moving more slowly.
The nose tilted down a little more. The treetops were suddenly bigger in
the window.
“Pull it up, Henry!” David shouted, tapping the fuel
gauge with his finger. “We’re losing altitude!”
Henry pulled the yoke back and the nose went up a little, but not all the way
to level.
“It won’t go any higher!” he yelled. “We’re out of
fuel. We’re gliding!”
“So can you glide it down?” David yelled. “Try to steer it
between the trees!”
“It’s so heavy!” Henry said, still pulling on the yoke like
he was in a tug-of-war.
The trees were getting bigger and bigger, rushing past us. There were trees
everywhere. It didn’t look like there was any room between them. We had to hit
them. We were going awfully fast.
“Hold on!”
“This is it!”
“Brace yourselves against something!” Arcadia yelled.
We probably should have gotten out of the cockpit. We should have run to
the back, let the front of the plane hit the trees, and hope to get out
alive after the plane broke apart. That would have been smart. But there
was no time. We weren’t thinking straight. And we couldn’t stop looking
at the trees coming at us. We were frozen.
The tops of the trees licked the underside of the plane and there was this
eerie scraping noise as they bent against it. Somebody screamed. We were
falling into the forest. I saw the nose ram right through the middle of two
thick trees. There was a jolt. The sound of metal ripping apart. A rush of air.
More screams. The smell of something burning. Tree trunks flying past us.
Getting knocked off my feet. My head hitting something.
And that was the last thing I remembered.
From From the Secret Life of Dr. DementedPublished by Pocket Books, 2001
It didn't seem possible that it could get any louder in the Astrodome. But
when Doctor Demented stepped into the spotlight, the place nearly exploded with noise. Grown men put their hands over their own ears while shouting
his name. Some young children, who were up past their bedtimes and shouldn't have been there in the first place, began to cry. The noise was
just too intense for their delicate ears.
On either side of Doctor Demented, roman candles were ignited and shot majestically into the air.
Giant sparklers sent showers of sparks on and around Doctor Demented. He didn't flinch.
Multicolored lasers swirled pinpoints of light around the
Astrodome. Smoke machines poured out artificial fog until a layer of it filled the path leading from Doctor Demented to the ring. Purple spotlights
gave the arena an eerie, otherworldly glow.
"It's him!" Wesley Brown marvelled. "Doctor Demented!" Wesley and Jimmy had been serious wrestling
fans for several years. They read all the magazines, rented the pay-per-view specials, bought the T-shirts and other memorabilia. But
neither boy had been to a professional wrestling match in person. They were in awe.
Doctor Demented stood rock solid in one spot. He let the emotions
of the crowd wash over him.
"I hope you choke on some poisoned food and die, Doctor Demented!" a lady screamed into a bullhorn.
"Marry me, Doctor Demented!" hollered another.
Even from their distant seats, Wesley and Jimmy could see the huge muscles that seemed to be trying to push right through
the man's skin. Doctor Demented was even bigger than Captain America. His shoulder muscles were so built up that it looked like he didn't have a
neck.
"He is cut, man!" Wesley declared. Jimmy knew what his friend meant, but his dad did not. They explained that being "cut" meant that your
muscles were sharply defined, as if your body was chiseled out of stone.
Doctor Demented's costume was basic black. Black trunks. Black boots.
Black mask that completely covered his head except for his eyes, nose, and mouth, like a ski mask. It was made from leather. He looked positively
evil. Doctor Demented held a cordless microphone in his right hand. Slowly, in a voice that sounded like death itself, he spoke the words he used every
time he stepped into a wrestling arena. The crowd recited those words with him... "I...RULE...THIS...PATHETIC...WORLD!"
The crowd erupted in another earsplitting burst of boos. It sounded like a jet engine revving up.
"Shut yer stinkin' mouths, ya losers!" Doctor Demented shouted at the
crowd. "Erica America is my woman now, and I'm gonna keep her! Right, baby?" A gorgeous woman with dark hair and a low-cut red dress ran out and
wrapped herself around Doctor Demented. That made the crowd scream even louder. Doctor Demented waited a few seconds until he could be heard.
"I fear no man," he boomed. "I am the man. If that wimp is the best man America can come up with to represent this country, it's no wonder his wife
would rather be with me, a real man. I feel sorry for your country. Captain America will be spending the night in the hospital. And Erica
America will be spending the night with me. Right, baby?"
"Booooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
"I don't think so, Doctor Demented," boomed Captain America from the ring. "At the end of the evening, Erica will be with me. And you will come to me and bow before me.
No, more than that. You will get on your knees and beg for my permission to allow you to exist. Because if Doctor Demented doesn't beg, Doctor Demented
is gonna need a real doctor, real bad."
"Oooooooooooooooooooooooooh!"
"I get on my knees before nobody," replied Doctor Demented. "You hear me, Captain Kangaroo? When I get through with you, you're gonna wish you never existed!"
With that, Doctor Demented handed the microphone to Erica
America and sprinted up the aisle. He leaped into the ring and tackled Captain America, grabbing him by the waist. Captain America powered out of
the hold and threw Doctor Demented against the ropes. Demented clotheslined him on the way back, dropping Captain America on his back.
The two men went at it furiously for the next few minutes. Chokeslams. Moonsaults. Jackhammers. Combinations. One wrestler would have the advantage
momentarily, then his opponent would battle back until he was on top. Several times the referee reached a two count, but each time the man on the
bottom would kick his way out of it.
The crowd was roaring, screaming, exploding emotionally with each violent blow.
Any one of these blows, if struck with full force, would knock a man senseless and perhaps kill him. But Doctor Demented and Captain America were professionals. They knew how
to hit a man to create a loud smacking noise without putting their full weight behind the blow. They knew how to collide chest to chest; flat part
of the body against flat part of the body, so nobody got hurt. They knew how to miss their target slightly. They knew how to fly through the air and
land without letting the sharp, vulnerable parts of the body-elbows, knees, or head-strike the mat first. Neither man suffered a scratch.
"Oh no!" Erica America shrieked into the microphone every time Captain America took a hit. "Stop hurting my husband!"
After a few minutes of fast-paced action, Captain America gained the upper hand. He had Doctor Demented face down on the mat, and he was sitting on his back.
"Kids," Captain America exhorted as Doctor Demented lay on the mat, "Don't try this at home."
The room was nearly bare, with just two chairs and a table with a pitcher of water and two glasses on it. There was an intercom that would let us call the captain if we needed anything. I felt around the drapes to make sure there weren't any hidden listening devices. When I was satisfied, I sat down and rehearsed what I was going to say to Trujillo.
He showed up a few minutes later, escorted by the captain. Trujillo was wearing a military uniform with lots of ribbons and medals dangling off it like Christmas tree ornaments. They didn't impress me.
"So we meet again, President Moon," Trujillo said, a cocky tone in his voice.
He didn't stick out his hand, and neither did I.
"Lock the door," I instructed the captain. "We're not coming out of this room until we reach an agreement."
With the room sealed, Trujillo and I stood face to face. He was a short man, but was still a few inches taller than me.
"It is time to separate the men from the boys, President Moon," he sneered.
"Mr. Trujillo," I said, "I didn't come here to separate anything. I came were to bring us together."
"Bring us together? Ha!" he snorted. "You only came here to protect your precious oil. Without your planes and guns and bombs--"
"Forget about planes and guns and bombs," I interrupted. "I have a proposal for you. A simple proposal. Either listen to what I have to say, or the United States will take military action against
Cantania."
"What proposal could you possibly have that would interest me?"
"I always thought it was stupid that soldiers have to die in wars when it's the rulers who have disagreements," I explained. "Wouldn't it make more sense if the leaders of the two nations simply fought it out among themselves?"
"Are you suggesting that you and I fight?" Trujillo said with a laugh."Yes!" I said. "You and I fight. Right here in this room. If you win, you can go ahead and invade Boraguay. America won't interfere. And if I win, you pull back your troops and never bother the people of Boraguay again. Either way, no bombs are dropped. No bullets are fired. Nobody has to die."
"Good," he said, rolling up his sleeves. "Instead of fighting a war, we will arm wrestle."
"No," I said. "You're obviously much stronger than me. It has to be a fair fight."
"Guns," Trujillo suggested.
"No."
"Swords, then."
"No."
"What then?" he asked.
"Video games," I replied.
When I opened the front door that afternoon, I didn't immediately sense anything wrong. It had been a long day at school. I was beat. I just wanted to grab a snack and veg out in front of the tube for awhile before tackling my homework. My parents were still at work and my sister wasn't home yet. I wasn't sure where Grandpa Leo was.
"Yip," a low voice groaned when I stepped into the front hall. "Yip!" My real name is Lucas Turner, but at home everybody calls me "Yip." You see, my Dad and Grandpa Leo have always been in the movie business. Dad named me Lucas in honor of George Lucas, but Grandpa wanted me to be called Willis, like my Dad. Willis O'Brien was the guy who created the ape for the original King Kong back in 1933. Grandpa idolized him. But Dad always hated being named Willis, and he refused to name me Willis Jr.
It was my Mom who settled the dispute by nicknaming me "Yip." Yip Harburg was the guy who wrote the words to the songs in The Wizard of Oz. That's her favorite movie.
"Yip..." the voice pleaded.
I almost stepped on a big, red, wet footprint on the tile floor of the hallway. Ketchup? Paint? Blood? Quickly, I followed the footsteps toward the kitchen.
Grandpa Leo was laying there, face down. There was blood smeared on the floor all around him. My cat, Freddy, was sniffing him. A long knife handle stuck out of Grandpa's back, just below the shoulder blades. I was rocked. I almost didn't notice Grandpa's hand. It was detached, on the floor, a few feet away from the rest of him.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!" I didn't try to scream. It just came out of my throat involuntarily. Freddy yowled and dashed out of the kitchen.
"Yip...it hurts..."
"Grandpa!"
I reached for the wall phone to dial 911. I punched in the "9" and was about to punch in the first "1" when Grandpa Leo suddenly leaped up off the floor and grabbed the phone out of my hands.
"Stop!" Grandpa shouted. "What are ya tryin' to do, Yip? Get us in trouble? 911 is only for emergencies!" Then Grandpa broke up laughing.
September 3, 1902 I said I was gonna rite about the mouse, so now I’m gonna rite about it.
While we was workin, this mouse was a-runnin ‘round the shed. A brown little
critter. It didn’t bother me none. Me and mama got lots of mice at home and we
don’t pay ‘em no mind. But Mr. Orville was tormented powerful by the critter. He
would chase it ‘round the little kitchen with a hammer, but the bugger always
managed to escape through the cracks in the floorboards. Me and Dan Tate had a
good laugh over it. Mr. Wilbur says that Mr. Orville has MUSOPHOBIA, which he
says is a fear of mice. He even spelled it out for me so I’d get it right. Anyways, the mouse weren’t mommickin nobody, but Mr. Orville decides he’s
gonna invent a mousetrap and capture the thing. Seemed to me he would be better
off inventin his flyin' machine and beatin that Langley feller, but what do I
know? Mr. Orville took a whole afternoon and built a trap. It was a wondrous wooden
thing with a steel spring that any respectable mouse would be proud to be caught
in. Mr. Wilbur says the design is better’n their glider and they
should put wings on the thing to see if IT will fly. I reckon that was a joke,
but I never heard Mr. Wilbur joke afore so I wasn’t sure. I told Mr. Orville that mice like to eat cornbread, so he slipped a piece in
for bait. Then we all sat ‘round after supper waitin for the critter to come to
his last party. Nothin doin. The little feller must of had a previous engagement. I knew he’d
come soon and I didn’t want to miss the fun, so I asked Mr. Wilbur if I could
sleep on the floor and he says sure. Afore we went to sleep, two interestin things happened. First, Mr. Wilbur
took his teeth right out of his mouth! Turns out he got busted up playin hockey
when he was 18, and he had to wear fake teeth ever since. Then, I spy Mr.
Orville rubbin lemons all over his face. I say what are you doin and he says the
sun makes his skin dark so he bleaches it with lemon juice. I never heard of a
man bleaching his skin to look good, but I guess it takes all kinds. Anyway, I sat ‘round watchin for the mouse a whit, but I got tuckered and
fell asleep. Then, in the middle of the night I hear a SNAP and we all wake up. Mr.
Orville hops out of his bed and runs to check the trap. Empty. The little
critter must of run off with the cornbread. Mr. Orville was plenty sore. We go
back to sleep and not more than five minutes later, Mr. Orville wakes up
screaming. “What is it, Orv?” Mr. Wilbur says, jumping up on his bed. “The mouse ran over my FACE!” Mr. Orville shouts. I had to laugh. How he managed not to let out a cuss word, I’ll never know.
Maybe he don’t know no cuss words is all I can figure, cause he was powerful
sore. “Maybe the mouse wanted to tell you he wants another piece of cornbread,”
Mr. Wilbur says, going back to sleep. Well, Mr. Orville is so mommicked he can’t sleep. He lights a lantern and
picks up a piece of wood about a foot long. “What are you gonna do with that?” I ask. “Get revenge,” Mr. Orville says. “Go to sleep, Orv,” says Mr. Wilbur, who couldn’t sleep no how. “My mama told me it’s bad luck to kill a mouse,” I said. “Especially for the mouse,” says Mr. Orville. So he is stalkin ‘round with his piece of wood, mouse hunting for a few
minutes. Suddenly, I spy the little feller in the corner, cute as a button, his
eyes shining in the light of the lantern. Mr. Orville sees it too and he chucks
the wood at it. He misses, but he does hit something--a teacup that Dan Tate
must of left on the floor. Pieces went flyin' all over. “Orv, control yourself!” Mr. Wilbur says. But now Mr. Orville is REALLY
mommicked. He grabs the shotgun from the rack and aims it at the spot in the
corner where we seen the mouse last. “For goodness sakes, Orv,” says Mr. Wilbur. “It’s just a little mouse!” “It’s going to be a little DEAD mouse,” Mr. Orville says, without takin his
eye from the sight. Sure enough, the critter pokes his little head out of that spot again and Mr.
Orville mashes the trigger. BANG! Well, I reckon he got it. Couldn’t say for sure, cause there was no body to
speak of. Just some bits of fur and blood scattered acrost the floor. Anyways, that mouse didn’t bother us or nobody else the rest of the night.
A door opened and a man strode into the room. He didn’t look like Thomas Edison. At least, he didn’t look anything like the photos Qwerty had seen of
Edison. This man was much younger. He was handsome, about five foot eight, with soft, straight dark hair that was starting to turn gray. It flopped
down over his forehead and he brushed it back with his hand. From the way he walked into the room and the way the workers looked at him, it was obvious that the man was the great Thomas Edison himself. To sum up Edison’s appearance in one word, it would be “disheveled.” There were grey smudges on his black suit and pants. Underneath the suit he was
wearing a dark vest and wrinkled white shirt. His bow tie was crooked and loosened. He carried a cigar, which he hadn’t bothered to light. His
posture was slightly stooped. His complexion was pale. He didn’t look like he spent a lot of time outdoors. But Edison was alive. He whipped around the room like a tornado, stopping to peek over the shoulder of one worker, to ask a question of the next one, and
to issue an order to the next. He seemed to be working on a dozen or more projects at once. Edison looked up and noticed Qwerty staring at him. “You, boy,” Edison barked before Qwerty could say a word, “I’m not paying you to stand there gawking. Get me four ounces of nitrous peroxide!” Qwerty was paralyzed with fear and awe. Edison’s steel blue eyes bore in on him. The eyes were bleary and tired, as if he hadn’t had enough sleep, but
they also seemed to crackle with energy. Edison came over to him. Qwerty could see the man’s yellowed teeth, the stubble on his chin, and the dandruff on his shoulders. Qwerty tried to
speak, but his mouth couldn’t seem to form any words. “Why do you fix me with that vacuous stare of incomprehensibility, young man?” Edison demanded. “Nitric acid! Is that within the scope of your
understanding?” “Uh...where is it?” Qwerty mumbled. Edison leaned over, cupping a hand around his right ear and placing that ear almost against Qwerty’s mouth. Qwerty remembered learning in school that
Edison was almost totally deaf. Qwerty also realized something they never taught him in school—Thomas Edison had bad breath and body odor. “You work your articulating apparatus so weakly I can’t make out a word you’re saying!” Edison shouted at the boy. “Go to the supply room, pinhead!”
 Site Maintenance by Bjorn © 2006 DAN GUTMAN, All Rights Reserved |
From
Race for the Sky
From Qwerty Stevens, Back in Time: The Edison Mystery 
