Benchland News
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Norm and Burny Book Two
The Girl with the Gold COin
Preview
Prologue
“Norm, you’ve been dreaming again.” Burny sat up and looked at Norm with concern. “You wake me up at night, talking in your sleep.”
Burny was almost always right about everything. He was Norm’s best advisor.
He was also Norm’s big black-and-white bristly haired dog.
Burny could always talk. At first Norm heard only dog noises, so he didn’t realize Burny was exceptional. Burny thought Norm was being difficult. But in August, on his twelfth birthday, Norm bought a used tablet—an orPad, made by Orange Computer—with an app that did magic, and after that he understood everything Burny said. Burny had always understood what Norm said. Dogs are smart that way.
Burny would do anything to protect Norm, and he instinctively knew the magical orPad app was dangerous. But it sent the two of them on amazing adventures. Burny flew on a magic carpet and saw his first camel. He also helped win a naval battle in a sailing ship of war. The summer had not been boring. Burny guessed Norm had lots to dream about.
Norm enjoyed remembering those adventures, with their exciting times and narrow escapes, but that was all behind him now. The magical app had gone crazy and tried to kill him and Burny. It even damaged the orPad. Norm’s parents, who didn’t know about the murderous app, had sent the tablet off for repair, and when it came back the magical app was gone. But Norm could still understand Burny.
On one adventure Norm had met a girl—a fascinating Gypsy girl with tiny bells on her swirling skirts.
Adara.
Norm thought often of Adara, her face framed in ringlets of long dark hair.
It was because of Adara that Norm started writing. Most twelve-year-olds write at home only when school requires it, but Norm had begun writing about his adventures even before school started. Now he had regular writing assignments for his seventh-grade English class. Without the magical app, the orPad seemed perfectly innocent, and Norm used it for all his writing.
Name: Norm Pardee
Date: September 15
Class: English
Teacher: Mr. Kewnzee
Assignment: Personal memoir
On my first horseback ride the horse went berserk! I hung on tight, but the horse snorted wildly and ran even faster. What would have happened if Adara hadn’t saved me? What a rider! She stopped my horse by crowding it against a fence and then handed me the reins I had dropped. I was embarrassed!
After that we visited a little town in the Old West and stopped a bank robbery. The bank owner gave each of us a gold piece. I didn’t have mine long, because Adara picked my pocket.
Norm had planned to write about every one of his adventures, but so far he had written mostly about Adara.
She looked at me sadly. “Will you come back, Norm Pardee? I put myself into your dreams because I was lonely. But you went away. Please come back!”
Norm’s teacher said, “Writers often set out with a destination in mind but end up someplace else. That's the way writing is. Your stories are imaginative and entertaining. I’d like to hear more.”
This story begins on a Saturday in late September, a month into the school year. Norm started the day thinking of another dream of Adara.
Or was it Dara?
Norm had met Dara on the first day of school. She looked like Adara and had almost the same name. To top it off, she handed him a gold piece exactly like the one Adara had taken from him. Norm definitely wanted to get to know Dara, but she disappeared! After that first day, she didn’t return to school.
“She left town because of a family emergency,” the teacher said. “She plans to return.”
Two interesting girls! Burny was right. Norm had plenty to dream about.
The Girl from the Circus
After breakfast, Norm and Burny set out for the downtown park. Saturdays were always colorful and interesting downtown. The streets were crowded with people who shopped once a week. Parking was hard to find, and pedestrians were everywhere—children with dripping ice cream cones, families struggling to stay together in the crowd, people carrying groceries.
Burny loved the park’s dog play area and hoped to find interesting news there from the many other dogs who visited its corners to leave p-mail. Burny felt he knew those dogs, even though he had never seen most of them.
The day was splendid and warm, with squirrels to amuse Burny, and the walk went quickly. Even before Norm and Burny came to Main Street, they saw the crowd. Then they heard the music.
“Burny!” Norm shouted, “The CIRCUS!”
Norm took off running. Burny loped alongside, happy to be with his boy at such an exciting event. They arrived on Main Street in time to see a wagon carrying two waltzing bears. Norm stared wide eyed at a troupe of clowns riding unicycles and juggling burning torches. Behind them, an elephant pulled a calliope; its music reminded Norm of his magical orPad app. Up and down the parade route, people laughed and applauded as a marching band played, dancers leapt and twirled, and performers in spangled costumes waved to the crowd.
After the last circus wagon rolled by, Norm and Burny fell in with a crowd and followed the parade all the way to the park. The big field beyond was in chaos, with trucks everywhere and a throng of workers milling around. Men worked setting up rides, including a Ferris wheel. Others put up tents and unloaded a ticket booth from the back of a truck.
Norm looked at a poster on the side of a truck. The circus would open September 25th—Sunday, the next day. “Let’s go to the dog play area,” he said to Burny. “The circus isn’t until tomorrow.”
By noon, Burny was tired, and Norm was hungry. They were headed home for lunch when they heard someone behind them.
“Norm! Wait for me!”
Norm turned to look and laughed in delight. “Dara!”
“Norm! I’m glad to see you.”
“This is my dog, Burny.”
“My name,” Burny said testily, “is Roderick. Won’t you ever learn?”
Even after weeks, it still sometimes amazed Norm that he could understand Burny. He wasn’t surprised nobody else could.
“Norm?” Dara looked puzzled. “If his name is Roderick, why do you call him Burny?”
Norm and Burny stared at Dara in shocked surprise. Norm’s mind was so full of questions that it took him some time to decide what to say.
“I suppose if anybody else could understand Burny, it would have to be you, Adara—I mean Dara. Now tell me about this.” He took the gold piece out of his pocket and showed it to Dara, holding it tightly.
She looked directly at him, and her flashing eyes made him certain of what he had suspected since the first day of school.
Adara! Somehow transported into his time!
“Norm Pardee,” she said in a quiet, dangerous voice, “my people had magic long before you. I already told you my mother’s magic put me into your dreams.”
“So you’re really Adara?” Norm still couldn’t believe it.
“No,” she said, smiling now. “Adara was a different girl. But I do remember when you and I stopped the bank robbery.”
Norm stared at her and tried to understand. Dara was wearing sandals and shorts, as most girls did on warm days, but for an instant Norm saw her in Gypsy clothes.
“I thought it was you in school that day.” He saw that Dara was amused by his puzzlement.
“Maybe I wasn’t in school at all.” She grinned wickedly. “Maybe you imagined it.”
“Dara, don’t do this to me. The gold piece, remember?”
“OK, I was in school. Then I had to leave. Now I’m back.”
It all came together in Norm’s mind. “You’re with the circus!”
“See the trailer? Behind the tents? Come meet my mother. She knows all about you. Come on, Roderick. You can meet our two little performing dogs.”
“I love meeting new dogs!”
“Norm Pardee, you never came back after the bank robbery.”
“The orPad app went crazy and tried to kill me and Burny. I was afraid of it after that, but I would have come anyway, except it wrecked the orPad.”
On the way to the trailer, Burny trotted beside Dara and licked her hand—something Norm had never seen him do.
​
The trailer seemed surprisingly large inside. Dara’s mother sat in one corner of a slide-out living room grooming two small white poodles. She looked much younger than Norm had expected—not so much older than Dara.
The poodles looked up hopefully when they saw Burny. “OK!” Dara’s mother said, and they bounded off the table and over to Burny. She smiled. “They never are meeting other dogs. Look how they are loving it.”
“Mama, this is Norm.” Dara added something in a language Norm couldn’t understand. Her mother laughed and turned to Norm.
“I am hearing about you always. You call me Jo. I call you Norm.” Her eyes and expressions looked remarkably like Dara’s.
“I’m glad to meet you.” Norm always tried to be polite. “This is my dog, Burny.”
“Roderick, please,” Burny said.
“Mama, he says his name is Roderick. He talks to me and Norm.”
“Too bad no more circus. Circus happy to have talking dog. But too much travel. All over whole country. Last year too, all summer. No more. We quit circus and live here. Circus leaving town Thursday. We find trailer park.”
She looked at Norm. “You have magic.”
“I used to. Not any more. It tried to kill me.”
“Norm, I am seeing magic around you. Dogs are not usually talking, you know. Magic is dangerous for boy your age. Tell me about trying to kill you.”
“I had an orPad app. It went crazy.”
“App with black square?”
“Yes! You know about it?”
“Dangerous. Full of bugs. Hacker could take over. Do not use again.”
“I can’t. It’s gone.”
“Maybe someday I get you new one. But I test for you first.”
She paused and looked directly into Norm’s eyes. “Of course you have magic, Norm. Otherwise app do nothing. Like wand in Harry Potter story. Magic is in you, not app.”
Norm felt she was looking into him. He wondered what she could see.
Dara talked about her mother as she and Norm walked through the downtown area with Burny.
“Mama can do things. Sometimes she’s scary. In her circus acts people think they’re seeing illusions, but she’s really doing magic.” Dara looked at Norm. “You and I have magic. It’s not like hers, but remember the bank robbery? I couldn’t have done that if you hadn’t taken me there. You couldn’t have done it alone either,” she added with a smile, “because you don’t know how to ride a horse. Mama says our magic works together.”
They arrived at a smaller park, where Norm and Burny often played. Norm and Dara talked, and below their bench Burny snored on the grass, pleased to have two people to care for.
“I’ve never had to do magic on my own the way you did,” Dara said. “Mama did it for me. She told me the words that put me into your dream.”
“Why would she want you in my dreams?”
“She thought I was lonely. Camp life is hard. It makes women tough. Look at Mama.”
“Look at you.”
Dara shrugged. “Anyway, that’s why she did it. She does things nobody else can.”
The bench overlooked a duck pond with a small stream flowing through it. They sat quietly, listening to the soft gabbling of the ducks and admiring the leaves on the trees, already turning red and gold.
That night Norm stayed awake late thinking about everything that had happened. He had first met Adara in another place and time. Now she was Dara. She lived in a trailer near the park and was in his class at school. Her mother did magic and knew the black-square app. She said he had magic of his own and that he and Dara could use magic together.
Burny would be in the middle of it, of course, and Norm could imagine Burny, now asleep on his dog bed, saying, “Roderick, please.”
Norm jerked awake in the middle of the night, surprised to find he had been asleep. He was immediately afraid, but of what? Had he been dreaming? He couldn’t remember the details, but the feeling of dread and danger stayed with him. He lay quietly, trying to remember the dream. Eventually he drifted back to sleep and into a forest too deep and dark to have any memory of sunlight. A fearful menace was everywhere, felt but invisible. Once again he woke in fright.
Still half asleep, he turned on his bedside light. Burny looked up at him questioningly. “It’s nothing,” Norm said. “Just a dream, I guess.” He was not at peace, though, and sleep was a long time coming. Boys of twelve do not normally give much thought to the dangers ahead, but that night Norm did wonder whether his dream might be a warning.
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