"The Book of Wonders" - New Chapter now available! - Chapter 10
@GlendorBoy: “📰🚨Newsflash: Dad works with the 🐲Dragons. Allegedly. Proof: He owns a Tesla🏎️, and almost killed me with it! #baddriving #shady #DragonsGoon?”
Author’s Note: As of today, March 17th, all episodes of “The Book of Wonders”, including new episodes, will be available to read for free up until Chapter 20. You can now follow the adventures!
Chapter 10: @GlendorBoy: “📰🚨Newsflash: Dad works with the 🐲Dragons. Allegedly. Proof: He owns a Tesla🏎️, and almost killed me with it! #baddriving #shady #DragonsGoon?”
I was riding shotgun in my dad's flashy new Tesla—a 2016 Model 3—feeling both excited and suspicious. I mean, this car was small, dark-red, and incredibly clean, but weren’t they super expensive? Like way above a teacher’s yearly pay rate? My antennas were up. He was hiding something. That’s for sure. The Dragons? Was he really involved with that organized crime syndicate?
My thoughts were interrupted when I caught sight of the speedometer on the Tesla's touch screen dashboard. The speed limit kept increasing rapidly. It was 30 a moment ago, but now it was 40, then 45, and it continued to climb. It reached 50, 55, and suddenly it hit 60. What was the speed limit in this street?
Right away, we passed by a speed sign. 30.
“Uh… Dad?” I said, my voice shaking a little.
“So son! How’s your little online show? Are they going well?” he said absentmindedly.
I didn’t listen. I grabbed on the handlebar above me and held on to my seat. As the car swerved through lanes, I heard honking from all around us. People were shouting in different languages, telling us to slow down or get out of the road. Suddenly, the car headed straight for a pole.
“Wait, NO!” I screamed.
But the Tesla swerved nimbly past the pole, avoiding it completely. I gasped for air, relieved that we had avoided a collision.
Victor just looked at me in surprise, "What, no?"
I looked back at him, gasping for air, "No, I mean no, it’s not called a show Dad! It’s called a channel! A YouTube channel!"
“Ohh, it’s a channel!” Victor laughed, his voice booming. “See what my old age does?”
“Old age?” I let out a scoffing laugh, “How about your awful driving!”
“Driving?”
“You gotta slow down Dad. This is a 30 miles per hour road.”
“Correction: It’s 30 kilometer per hour!” he said.
I frowned, “What? What’s the damn diff—?” I groaned, “Who cares? You were still speeding!”
“I was not!” he glanced over to me. I glared at him. He tossed a glance over his speedometer and his face fell.
“Okay, maybe I was…”
He finally eased off the gas pedal.
“Is something on your mind Dad?” I asked him. He didn’t respond. I noticed his forehead making frown lines. Something troubled him. And I could only guess what it was.
“No, it’s nothing. Really.”
My eyes never left him. He caught my gaze, “It’s nothing, son.” he patted my leg, “You have nothing to worry about.”
“Okay.”
“But you on the other hand,”—his hands spun the wheels of the Tesla and it made a turn—“you seemed like you have something you want to get off your chest.”
I looked ahead on the road and took a heavy sigh, “Yes Dad I do.”
After a brief pause, I turned toward him, “Am I adopted?”
The smile on his face fainted. “What?”
“Am I adopted?”
Victor opened his mouth to speak but then nothing came out. He just let out a huge sigh.
“Dad, I won’t be mad if you do tell me that I was adopted.” I shifted on my seat, “Dad, please. I just want to know.”
“Know what?” his voice bellowed.
“That I’m…”
“Casey…” he tossed a brief glance over to me, shaking his head, “Son… what makes you think that I'm not your real, biological father?”
I hesitated for a moment.
“Tell me!” he asked aloud.
I sighed, contemplating whether or not I should tell him everything. From meeting with Sofie to seeing my real mother Cinderella at the airport; her shoe heel still in my gym bag as evidence.
"Okay, I know it sounds crazy,” I started to say, “but there's this girl I met, right? She’s a huge fan of my YouTube channel, right? She came up to me, dressed up like a fairy, and told me that she's my baby sister from another world in a video game."
Victor looked at me for a moment, then burst into laughter. "Oh man," he said, wiping tears away with the back of his hand. "You are one weird guy!”
“I know.” I went on with an amused chuckle of my own, “But she’s weirder. And get this—she claims that my mother and father were, get this—not Beauty and the Beast, but Cinderella and the Beast. I mean isn’t that crazy? And she was pretty damn serious about it.”
A feign laugh left his lips, “Yeah! No kiddin’! A video game? With fairy tale characters in it?” his voice stuttered, “What? Was it made by? Was it made by Disney or something?”
“Actually no it was made by FTR Corp. Called Fairy Tale Odyssey.” I replied.
Soon as I said that, Victor stopped laughing and the color of his face drained. “I see.”
He cleared his throat and zeroed his focus back on the road. That sudden reaction startled me.
“Whoa, Dad? What’s with the…” I paused, “Dad, is it true? Is this for real?”
I only got a sigh from him. A red light flashed up ahead and he pressed on the brake. The car slowed into a complete stop.
“Dad? Is this for real?” I asked.
A faint whisper left his lips. Sounded like a no.
“Dad, come on!” I pressed on, “You look like this is life and death serious! It’s just some crazy joke. You have to admit that this chick needs to get committed and locked up in a straightjacket or somethin'.”
“Casey!” Victor shot me a wide-eyed stare.
“What?”
“Sofie Charming is still a child! How could you say that kind of thing?”
A slight gasp escaped my lips, “You said her name.”
Victor went quiet. He turned away.
“You know her, don’t you?”
Pause, “Maybe?”
I slapped the dashboard almost in excitement, “I knew it! You DO know each other, Professor Victor Tresor! I can’t believe you lied to me!”
“HEY, WATCH IT! ” he shot at me with an exasperated scowl, a finger to my face, “I should be the one to be mad at you here, boy!”
I frowned, “And why should you?”
“You had a party at my house?”
Heat flushed through my face. I shrunk to my seat. “Maybe?”
Victor scoffed.
The light turned green and the car departed again.
“So if I decide to check out your YouTube channel, you’re saying that I’m not gonna see you and your hooligan friends throw my lazyboy chair into the pool again and smash my fifth Michelangelo statue?” Victor asked.
“Yeah Dad, I would have loved for you to see that video. Rowdy drunk teens, crazy ex-girlfriends, and don’t forget the highlight of the night—criminals breaking into the mansion, trying to kill me and everyone there!!!”
“Wait… what are you talking about?”
“The Dragons? Crashing my birthday party? It was all over social media! If you had taken the time to check out what’s been going on in my life, you would’ve known! But YouTube had to go and delete the video,” I sunk to my seat, arms crossed, “Tsk, lucky bastards.”
“What a minute…” Victor started, “The Dragons, one of the most powerful crime syndicates in the world, tried to kill you?”
"Yup," I said, with a nod.
"Why?"
"I don't know. You tell me," I said, shrugging.
"What's there to tell?" He said, shaking his head.
"Dad, come on. You're an European archeology professor at an academy, driving a Tesla. That's fishy as hell," I said, pointing out the obvious.
“So professors can’t have nice things?” Victor said as we rolled into a complete stop by a stop sign, “Look Casey, I’m sorry about what happened to you, but I don’t work for those criminals. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have any dealings with the Dragons!”
“Uh-huh. But where do these gifts come from? The expensive artifacts? The mansion? The Tesla?”
“They’re all just that! Gifts!” Victor snapped.
I squinted.
“What? You don’t believe me, son?”
“How am I supposed to believe you?” I said, “when you’re avoiding my question about me being adopted? Or being related to you?”
His face turned red. There was an intense silence between me and Victor, I started to feel a bit nervous. No, scared for my life. Then a loud honk from behind us broke our gaze. Victor released the brake and the car departed.
“All right.” Victor spoke after a moment, “Here’s the truth.”
I waited.
Victor slowed down the car and glanced over to me, “I am your father, and you are my son.”
“By blood?”
“Doesn’t matter. I am your father, and you are my son. And nothing will change that. Nothing.”
I let out a heavy sigh of defeat. “Okay.”
“Now can we talk about something else?” a hopeful smile returned to him, “Like the party our school will be having tonight!”
“A party?” I lit up.
“Yup! Today is a special day for all students attending Starlight Academy. Orientation Day. They would be settling in to their respective Houses for the academic year. First day of school is scheduled to start on Monday. We will also be having a black-tie event later tonight. I got you a tux in the back seat.”
I looked at the back to see two tuxes zipped inside black covers. I mean I did see them when I got into the vehicle, but didn’t think they were important at the time.
“Oh, cool!” I said, “So this party? They’ll be students from the academy attending right?”
“Oh of course!” he replied, “You’ll get to know each and everyone of them—like the Greenhorn Twins Dayton and Danielle; Professor Ellis’s daughter Anne; Francisco and Enzo; of course there’s Cashmere and his sister… anyway, you’ll feel right at home.”
“Sofie gonna be there?” I asked.
Victor paused for a moment, “…sure. she’ll be there too.”
“Good.” I said, “because she and I have unfinished business. I can’t risk getting distract—”
We took a turn into the city, and my train of thought was interrupted when my eyes landed on the most iconic monument in all of Europe.
“Whoa…” I breathed.
“What do you think, son?” Dad said, “Isn’t she a beaut?”
“No kiddin…” I breathed at its splendor.
The Eiffel Tower soared into the sky before me, tall and imposing. A skeleton of a tower more akin to the medieval structures of homes and businesses around it. It was then that I realized I was in the most beautiful and popular city in the world, Paris, France.
“Dad?” I began.
Dad just glanced over at me with a smirk.
“That tower is lit!” I said, “I know we see it all the time in pictures and on the web, but to see it here in real life?”
“That’s the beauty of life.” He said. “The experience.”
I breathed in awe. To actually attend high school here in this place and make new friends would be EPIC beyond imagining. And who knows, I could actually meet my girlfriend here. A sexy French girl whom I can share my chocolate croissant with.
Do they even have chocolate croissants? I gotta do some research. But first—
“I gotta vlog this.”
I pulled out my cellphone, scrolled to my YouTube page, and started recording my live stream.
Yo, what's going on, y'guys! GlendorBoy here, and check this out!”
I turned my phone camera to film the tower in front of me. “Your boy’s lookin’ at the Eiffel Tower! Isn't that awesome?” I turned the camera back, “Now, ladies, how would you like a date with me at the very top of that? Huh? Pretty legit eh?”
“You can ask that girl you were chasing after back at the airport.” Dad said with a crooked smile. My face flushed red and my smile vanished. I lowered my phone, “Dad, I told you! She’s a woman. She is not that kind of gal!”
I turned back to my screen, “Guys don’t listen to him. She wasn’t really important.” I glared at him, “She was not important. She just left her shoe and I wanted to return it.”
“Uh-huh. Okay, whatever.” Dad laughed.
The chat responded:
TerreTabize: “LOL!”
yapic369: “Ooo @GlendorBoy! Where the hot chick at?”
AlohaChap234: “@GlendorBoy got a girlfriend!”
CrazyHoboZ100: “Yo, @GlendorBoy! Just admit she was running away from you!”
“See y’all in a bit.” I gave the audience a peace sign and ended the stream.
“Anyway, we’re not that far off from our destination.” Victor said.
“So Starlight Academy… that’s the name of the school, right?” I asked.
“Right you are, son!” he said, “Located at the very border of the quaint little town of Starlight Haven. And that will be your new home.”