Sammy Tsunami is no ordinary sixth grader. For one, his fiery sapphire blue hair is always standing up--no matter how hard he combs it. Also, his head could fall off at anytime, unless his neck is always wrapped tightly with a special red scarf. As if things couldn't get any worse, his shadow is far from normal too. It is shaped like an arrow. A shadow arrow. As he starts middle school, its sinister and destructive secret begins to emerge. And unless he can manage to control it and fast, there is no guarantee that he and his new friends will ever survive the middle school!

Sammy Tsunami and the Shadow Arrow

By Luke Gatchalian

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 Luke Gatchalian
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4685-4584-5

Chapter One

KNOCK! KNOCKITY-KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

The woman's clenched fist hammered the wooden door to no end—and hard enough that the hinges almost came undone. When she got no response, she tried again, but this time around she made sure it was much, much louder. Although she had a slender and waifish figure that barely filled out the silk rose red dress that she wore, she was anything but frail.

On the sixth knock the second time around, the bolt finally gave in and broke, leaving the door slightly ajar. Through the narrow opening, she saw her son still bundled up in his sleeping bag on the dingy kitchen floor fast asleep.

"Sammy Tsunami!" she yelled out loud at the top of her raspy voice. "Your school bus is about to leave! And you know what that means!"

Sammy Tsunami didn't like himself much that he wished that he was someone else. In the looks department, he was just plain weird-looking that he shuddered at the sight of his own reflection in the mirror.

His hair was sapphire blue and fiery shaped, which did not blend well at all with his exotic features and subtle tan complexion. For some reason that defied explanation, his locks always stood up and stayed wildly disheveled, no matter how hard and how much he tried to comb it and tame it. As if being cursed with a neon-colored flaming mane was bad enough for his self-esteem, he only had one set of clothes to wear to school—and at home—each and every day.

For his top, he always had on a raggedy jet black sweater that was two sizes too large, with sleeves too long that they swallowed up his hands if he didn't have the good sense to roll them up. Printed on its front were six large yellow diamonds-three on top and three below—that glowed eerily in the dark. This baggy upper garment of his fitted himself quite nicely, although he didn't quite agree, fattening him up and throwing off any suspicions that he was really pitifully undernourished underneath all that Egyptian cotton.

His pants were likewise black, but not because they were dyed that way. They used to be some other lighter color but had, over the years, irreversibly darkened into the perfect shade of soot as a result of accumulating a lot of dirt and grime. There was a time when his worn out pair of jeans was too big for him. They used to sag all over his feet that he used to trip all over them every time he walked. Nowadays, they were too short for his long, endless legs and too tight that they literally choked his poor waist. And Sammy Tsunami, in all fairness, only had an itty, bitty waist because he was too scrawny and lean that his bones actually showed through his light auburn skin.

Lucky for him though, he had a pair of reliable navy blue running boots that were high enough to compensate for the lack of clothing covering his shins. Although they bore lots of wear and tear on them from their many years of reliable and dependable service, they were sturdy and had remained quite fashionable. They had several straps and buckles which made them complicated to wear. Notwithstanding this though, they were comfortable on his feet, which was a small blessing for him, especially given how stringently tight his pants were.

While Sammy hated the way he looked, he absolutely despised his two dark secrets which he kept to himself under heavy personal guard. The first one had something to do with the red scarf that was always wrapped around his neck. He has had it on for the longest time and never once took it off. He never ever dared to do so. His mother, India, who is his only surviving family, has made it her cross to bear to constantly remind him, day in and day out, to never even attempt to remove it—

Otherwise, his head would fall off!

As to how Sammy came to be cursed in this way, there is a story behind it which India herself has told the boy from time to time so that he could appreciate how fortunate he was that he was still alive to this day. The long and short end of the tale is that an evil alchemystic once tried chopping the boy's head off on a block when he was still a baby, but instead of lopping it clean off, the executioner's blade had shattered, leaving only a long, deep, gaping wound on the neck itself that could never heal.

To keep the gash from severing his head from his pencil thin torso, it has become his burden to wear, for the rest of his days, a red scarf made from a special fabric to keep the bleeding in check. As elegant as this solution was to his strange predicament, Sammy himself didn't enjoy wearing it all the time, most especially in the spring and summer time. More than the rest of his odd apparel, it was the red scarf that attracted the most attention because of its sheer crimson screaming bloodiness.

While he wasn't an ungrateful lout and did appreciate the fact that he was still breathing today and not a corpse, Sammy didn't like the awful, money-challenged life that he was living. If he was given the chance to magically transform himself into someone else—someone better off right here and right now—he would snap up the opportunity, just like that, without entertaining any second thoughts whatsoever. What really mattered to him more than anything else was escaping the crippling poverty that he and his mother were mired in. Unless a miracle happened and soon, there was no future, not even a glimmer of hope, to speak of in his case. He was just going to be another dead boy who starved to death.

The sad, awful truth was that the Tsunamis lived in a small, run-down cabin somewhere in the middle of what many believe to be a haunted forest. They had made their home here ever since they were evicted from their apartment by their landlord. India, the sole breadwinner of the family, had lost her job as a grocery clerk when the supermarket that she had worked in decided to use robots instead of people anymore. Unable to find work elsewhere and unable to pay the rent, the fortunes of the Tsunamis quickly worsened and worsened, until they ultimately ended up poorer than they had ever been. They became so dirt poor that they had to eventually move out of the city and into the wilderness, far beyond the outskirts of town.

This change was particularly difficult for Sammy, who still had to go to school in the city every day. He was eleven, and just about ready to start middle school this year in the sixth grade. His school was twenty-five miles away—a long ways from where he lived. The nearest pick up point for the school bus was a three mile walk across the darkest part of the forest, where the shadows were thickest and heaviest and gloomiest.

Not that going through them was a problem for him. All Sammy needed was time, and that meant rising up earlier than the rest so that he could catch his bus. The problem was, time was no friend of his—and whenever it pressed down on him, it pressed hard.

Unfortunately, today was one of those days when the clock demanded a lot from Sammy. It was the very first day of middle school, and he had been sleeping in late—really late. To get him to peel his eyes open and snap out of his extended slumber, his mother had to resort to something a little more drastic than just screaming her lungs out into his ear to spirit him back from his sojourn in dream country.

Grabbing a pail from a corner, filled to the rim with stagnant water and all sorts of leafy vegetation, she emptied its soggy contents on to Sammy, who quivered and bounced feverishly on his backside as he gasped for air like a fish freshly plucked out from the sea.

"Why did you do that, mom?" he angrily screeched, dripping wet and looking like a deep sea diver after a swim. His mother was standing over him as he groggily crawled out of his sleeping bag. She was grinning like a crazy lady, while holding up an empty bucket over her frizzy, emerald colored head. Sammy sneered at her as he begrudgingly rose to his feet.

"I found a water source—a spring!" she happily announced with her loony eyes lighting up. She lowered the bucket on to the rickety, wooden floor, and pranced around Sammy mockingly. "It isn't far from here. Now, you can finally bathe when you come home from school!"

Sammy ignored her as she turned away and hopped merrily toward the makeshift fire pit in the middle of the kitchen. This was where they cooked their meals and kept warm at night. It was nothing more than a hole really, filled with coal and all sorts of wooden debris, both burnt and un-burnt, which released smoke and the scent of boiled and grilled foods into a small crack in the ceiling that functioned as a chimney, if not for anything else.

The kitchen, modest and threadbare as it was, doubled as Sammy's bedroom considering that the only other one in the house was his mother's, which was much smaller and so much more cramped with clothes and wicker baskets scattered all over the place. Soaked to the bone and with no ready change of clothes, Sammy's initial reaction was to run inside there and wipe himself off with one of his mother's dresses. He was about to dart right in when his mother threw some celery at him, grazing his shoulder.

"No going in there!" she warned him strictly, as a raging blaze formed on the surface of the pit, filling the room with smoke and the curious scent of eucalyptus.

"I really wanted a bath, Mom, but not like this," grumbled Sammy as he stiffly rubbed the wet fabric of his sweater. "I'm going to get sick for sure, and you know that we can't pay for a doctor to treat me if that ever happens!"

"What are you talking about, darling?" she then asked him slyly, squinting her eyes as she beamed radiantly at him. "Are you still wet, you mean?"

To Sammy's surprise, his clothes were completely dry, thanks to the smoke that was blowing over him. It felt like sauna steam—hot, but not sweat inducing for some reason. There was an aridness that circulated in the air, which had the boy wondering how. He wanted to quiz his mother for an explanation, but he was too tongue tied to express himself, verbally or otherwise.

"I mixed something in the water that will get rid of your body odor," authoritatively added India, crouching in front of the burning fire as she tossed pieces of wood into it to stoke it. Her stomach was complaining rabidly, but she was deliberately ignoring its indignant pleas for food that sounded off one after the other.

By sheer coincidence, Sammy's was tetchy as well. Secretly, the boy hoped that she would make them a satisfying meal to quell both their incessant cravings since it has been days since they have last eaten anything substantial and filling. Regrettably, she had nothing on her to burn in the fire, except for wood.

"It's guaranteed to last until you get home, so you don't have to worry about getting teased by your friends for smelling like a hobo, like they did in fifth grade last year."

Forgetting about his hunger pangs for a moment, Sammy returned his Mom's smile with an even bigger one—a grateful one. As soon as he started smelling the wonderful fresh scent of crisp linen on his clothes, his sour mood improved drastically for the better. But that would only last for a brief moment. Something more pressing had come up, as bright as a newly turned on light bulb inside his head.

"While we're on the topic of getting teased, Mom, don't you think it's high time that I get a new set of clothes. I've been wearing these old rags since I started kindergarten!"

"Ah! So you're at that age already where you're conscious about what you wear!" ruefully acknowledged India, crinkling her forehead as she picked up a brass spoon lying on the floor among the rest of the clutter scattered there. "What's style compared to function, hmm?"

Soon as she propounded this question to her son, she swiftly hurled the spoon in her hand straight at him, like a baseball pitcher's fastball special. It whisked through the air in a tick of a second before striking Sammy square on the chest. The force of the impact should have hurt the boy in some way, but it didn't. Instead, the spoon hit the stone floor, clanking and forcibly bent at an acute angle.

"Do I need to demonstrate how strong those clothes of yours are again?" she then waspishly added, producing a kitchen knife out of nowhere which she naughtily brandished in front of Sammy. At the sight of the blade, all the boy could do was purse his lips and hold his breath in terrified disbelief. "So do we understand each other loud and clear?"

"I'll keep wearing them if you promise not to throw that at me!" Sammy wheezed, his eyes bulging as they stayed transfixed on the glinting, sharp edges of the cutting instrument.

"Fair enough," agreed India, putting away the knife. "Just so you know, those things that you're wearing aren't made of cloth. They're alchemy steel, stronger than diamond but flexible and soft enough to provide you the soft comfort of cotton. Took me four years from the time you were born to construct 'em."

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Mom. All I want really is to get something else to wear for a change. But if that's not possible, I'll keep wearing these, no problem."

"You're afraid of what other people might think of you, is that it? Sammy, you're the most fearless boy I know. What happened?"

"Fearless, ha!" jeered Sammy, making a face when he said so. "You're saying that because you're my mom."

"When I gave birth to you, you never shed a single tear when you came out of my womb—not a tear! All babies come into this world crying. They cry because their souls, which are older than they are, fear. They fear the uncertain future ahead of their new lives—but not you! You didn't cry when you were born because you ... are fearless!"

"Come on, Mom!" Sammy begged to differ, slightly embarrassed by the nonsense his mother was spouting. "You're just making that up to build my confidence. All newborns cry, of course. I couldn't have possibly been an exception!"

"Am I making this all up?" cheerlessly countered India, raising her eyebrows as she begrudgingly returned to her chore of throwing wood into the blaze dancing wildly in the middle of fire pit. "Then why are you still here when you have a school bus to catch? I'd pretty much say that's being fearless, won't you agree?"

As soon as his eyes fell on his weather beaten, rusty old wrist watch—which had stopped telling time at precisely 4:58—an overwhelming sense of dread and panic immediately seized Sammy. And he couldn't hide it even if he wanted to, for it was all over his newly minted pensive face.

"My watch is dead, Mom," Sammy declared with an obvious air of disbelief and panic in his shaken voice. "The batteries must have gone out while I was asleep. That means I'm late for the bus, am I right?"

"Yep, yep, yippity-yep," replied his Mom who didn't seem to share the stress that was quickly percolating inside Sammy's churning insides. "I tried screaming that into your ear earlier. That's the other reason why I splashed with you with cold—!"

Before she could finish her sentence, Sammy was gone, off and running out the main door that he left wide open and flapping in the whistling breeze. When India saw the dust clouds trailing behind him, she felt an icy chill suddenly wash over her.

Unlike the cold shower that she gave her son earlier to wake him up, this one brought with it a lingering uneasiness that she had not known in a long time. It was a jarring experience vaguely familiar to her, and it forced her to try to remember a part of her past that she had long put behind her and tried to forget.

Something menacing circled the air, and noting its undeniable presence, she became deathly worried for her son. She was about to follow him when she noticed the shadows of the woods outside her humble home moving—as if they were alive.

"Where is the boy?" she heard them whisper. "Where is he? Where are you hiding him?"

Someone was out there, she thought to herself, as she stepped out the door of her cabin to closely observe and listen to the murmuring shadows creeping across the transmuting forest. Before she could manage to blink, the colors around her melted away and were replaced by a dull black and shadowy gray. It was like watching an old movie play out on the screen, only one that she herself was starring in.

"Who's there?" she hollered into the trees around her, whose leaves and branches responded by swaying back and forth as a passing wind noisily whooshed by. She then heard a faint growl in the distance, like that of a lion's. "Who's there?"

After she repeated herself, her eyes fell on her flattened shadow which was resting quietly on the moist, muddy earth. No sooner did she see it there, did it stand up by itself and confront her with its faceless visage. Had it any eyes, she would have certainly locked gazes with it. But there were no windows to its soul, for a soul was something it did not have.

As India pined for an answer, she was able to recall what it was exactly that she was trying to extract from her brute memory. And knowing what it was now, all her senses were overpowered by a great and terrible fear that left her completely numbed and paralyzed. She wanted to go after Sammy to warn him. But it was too late.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Sammy Tsunami and the Shadow Arrowby Luke Gatchalian Copyright © 2012 by Luke Gatchalian. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.