The Old Shed YA Time Travel 2,200 A coming of age tale. (standard:science fiction, 18850 words)
Author: Oscar A Rat	Added: Jun 13 2020	Views/Reads: 1467/1031	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A coming of age tale involving a 13-yesr-old boy. While searching an old shed, he finds an alien skeleton wearing a time control bracelet -- one that changes his life.

I'm invisible as I slide silently around the corner of my bedroom and
into a hallway leading to the back door, left open because of the heat 
of summer. Bending slightly, I glide silently down an empty corridor 
toward the outside. Back to the wall, I avoid several creaking boards 
in its thinly-carpeted expanse. 

On this early July morning in 1953, the back door has been left open at
night; only a screen-door and an eyehook protecting my family from the 
elements and invading Mongols. 

Traversing that short remaining distance takes concentration and speed.
I can hear my mother stirring as I pass an open bedroom door. In this 
heat, doors and windows in our home are seldom closed. I step on the 
far left of the doorway -- the board squeaks on the other side -- and 
pull sharply down and inward on the handle with one hand while 
unhooking a latch with the other. Swinging it open, I hop over the sill 
and onto a small back porch. 

"Elroy. You get back in here." She caught me. 

"I'm not doin' anything, Ma," I call back inside while standing on the
porch, bare thirteen-year-old feet yearning to keep moving. 

"You're going for that old shed again, that's what you're doing. I told
you to stay away from there. It's too dangerous. Get back in the 
house." 

She caught me out there yesterday. We've only lived here about a week
and the ancient wooden structure out back has been pulling me like a 
magnet. From the outside, it looks exactly like those old log cabins in 
my history book at school, except for the rear, where wooden planks 
were used -- the only clue to a more modern origin. I just know it's 
filled with treasures, maybe guns or relics of some bygone age. I'll 
bet there are boxes of magazines and books out there, many from before 
I was even born. 

I found a box of comics in our old house, up in the attic. We ain't got
no attic here, but we got that shed. It's just as good, but only 
downstairs is all. There's a big padlock on the door, but I found a 
loose board in the back. Through it, I saw all kinds of boxes and stuff 
inside. Too dark to see good, though. 

I like to read, and can understand all of the words in comic books. I
tried the Bible once, but only once. Jeez, that's something else. Some 
of the words in there are easy, but I can't understand much about what 
they're saying. That's about all the books we have. Papa don't read 
good and don't believe in them. He won't even let a newspaper in the 
house. 

"Man was made to work and God gave him woman to help. We don't have time
for useless reading," he says. 

Me, I want to learn to read good, maybe even write books when I grow up.
I know I have to go out and have adventures to write about. So much to 
do, so much to see, so much to live. 

And here I am, already thirteen and ain't done nothing yet. School's
full of stupid jerks. All they want to do is play games and fight, and 
the game -- more likely than not -- is to beat me up.... 

"Elroy, Dumbboy," they yell, "we'll give you a head start." 

Then, the game is, I run and they chase me. I run better than before,
but they always catch me, then Tommy sits on my face and farts while 
the rest of them laugh. And the girls all watch and laugh too. Even 
Shirley, the cute one. 

It's not my fault I can't read and write as good as them. Papa doesn't
let me do that school stuff at home. 

"I gotta send you to school," he tells me, "cause the law makes me, but
here at home you do what the hell I tell you. And that don't need no 
damned books. You get out and mow that yard like I told you." That sort 
of thing. 



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