Bringing the Blues to Gloxia XII
an excerpt

Mandy and the Mini-Mandolin

Mandy made her way across the campus and out onto the main thoroughfare. It was late afternoon, Jupiter Colony Station time, and the lights had dimmed almost imperceptibly, to give the illusion of approaching dusk. Most people thought it silly to try to replicate the day and night light, and seasons from Old Earth after all these centuries. Some days were gloomy and a mist fell everywhere, making people soggy and cranky. They were centuries past living on Earth, and had no idea why things had worked the way they apparently had on the old homeworld. What was the varying weather good for, anyway? But it was a system put in place by the first colonists, and no one was bothered quite enough to try to change it. Mandy supposed, if she had to look on the bright side, that she should be happy it was a dry day today, and that her study group had gotten out later than usual, so the walkways were almost deserted.

She hated study group days so much. She got nothing useful out of them. They were just one day a week out of her life that she’d never get back. Nothing like spending a day in a classroom with a bunch of other space kids she didn’t like. The only positive spin she could put on the mandatory social time was that it inspired some of her darkest poetry.

Today had been a good poetry day. It had started with an argument with her parents, and gone steadily downhill from there. Her parents. Why did adults have to be so exasperating? She could be going along, perfectly content in her black moods, when in they’d come with myriad suggestions about what she ought to be doing with her life. ‘Ways to make myself more miserable,’ she considered them.

Her father had raised an eyebrow over the outfit she’d chosen to wear. Her mother suggested kindly that perhaps another outfit might be more appropriate, to be walking the companionways of the station. In spite of the fact that Mandy had considered the exact outfit her mother mentioned, she couldn’t stop herself making an issue over the fact that she was now 20, at Academy, and could most certainly dress herself.

She had slammed out of the habitat. And then had immediately wished that she’d worn the leggings and jacket, because it had turned “Autumn” and there was a chilly breeze down the walkways. Before the morning was over, she’d sneaked off campus to the nearby shopping district, and bought a pair of knit leggings and a matching sweater.

As she approached the door to their habitat, she considered for a moment slipping out of the new leggings and sweater and stuffing them into her pack. She knew her parents wouldn’t say a word about the earlier blow-up, but they would smile knowingly, and she didn’t want to give them the satisfaction. In the end, she decided she couldn’t be bothered, and just hoped she could get to her room without being seen.

She slipped silently through the door to the back hall and kicked her bag down the passageway to her cabin. She passed her hand over the sensor, and the door slid open. She was about to give her bag one more kick inside, when she noticed a box sitting in the middle of her floor. She put her hands on her hips and fumed. Her room was off-limits. Her parents knew that. And yet someone had been in.

Glaring at the box, she dragged her bag the rest of the way in and let the door slide shut behind her. She circled the box suspiciously. Her parents weren’t ones to give her presents, because with her dark moods, they could only be assured that she’d hate whatever they chose for her. So, what could this be, and from whom?

She crouched down and poked at the box. It was plasticene, a little bigger than a bootbox, and didn’t seem to weigh much. She gingerly turned it over, and revealed the one clue. A sticker of a blue/green planet. It had come from Old Earth!

She was on her feet in an instance, shouting, “Uncle Rex!!!” He must be back from his latest expedition, and had brought her a treasure from the ancient homeworld. She raced to the door, sensed it open, and came face-to-face with a rugged, ruddy-faced man, in ridiculous clothes, with wild hair, and a grin from ear-to-ear. This was the only person in the entire universe who could put a smile on her face without even trying. She threw her arms around his neck, and he hugged her back.

“Where’ve you been this time? Did you find anything exciting? When did you get back? What’s in the box?”

“Whoa there,” he patted her on the arm. “A place that was called ‘Chicago’. Yes. This morning. And, if you open it, you’ll find out! And after you’ve taken a look at it, we’ll go out front and meet a friend of mine who can explain it to you.”

Mandy’s eyes narrowed. So, there was a catch. A cool present, attached to some stranger who was going to disrupt the rest of the evening.

She sighed, and her uncle laughed. “Maybe you should write your gloomy little poem about it now. Because I think you’ll find out it’s not as bad as you anticipate.”

She stuck her tongue out at him, but was already composing a verse in her head.

They sat cross-legged on the floor, and she carefully opened the small crate. Inside, amongst miles of packing, was a metal box. On the cover was a picture of some strange implement. Someone had translated the Old Earth writing, and the paper was taped to the side.

mini-Mandolin.
Made in Chicago at
Plucky Strings Studio
SRP $19.95