Excerpt: A Thunder of Salad Bowls

The engine rumbled meaningfully as the two individuals tried to make themselves as secure as possible on the back of the motorcycle. The one in front, who was holding onto the handles with a grip so tight that either the hands or the handles were going to feel it in the morning, was a girl of about 21 years (okay, exactly 21 years) who had a bob haircut and a terrified expression on her face. The other of the two, who was sitting behind the first, had his small, skinny arms wound tightly around her stomach, all his otherworldly possessions in a cumbersome backpack on his small back (neither of them knew you could life the seat for storage space), and more of a determined expression than a terrified one.

”You hesitate! Don’t you realize what is at stake?” he shouted into the wind. It was a very gusty Fall day, and was even more so on the roof of the building where they were.

”Don’t rush me!” the girl shouted back, not able to take her eyes off the ramp in front of them. “This has got to be the worst idea in the history of ideas!”

”I doubt that. Anyway I’ve calculated the trajectory to within an inch of our lives—“

”What the heck is that supposed to mean?”

“The portal is exactly seven feet from the building and four stories up in the air, you said yourself that there is no other way to reach it!”

There was the sound of keys in the lock of the roof door. No more time for stalling. Once someone saw what she was about to do it would just give such an embarrassingly wrong impression that she’d never be able to show her face in public again. Not that seeing the after effects would be any less embarrassing, but at least she wouldn’t have to make eye-contact.

Feo had heard it too. “Go! Go! Go!” he cried, kicking the sides of the motorcycle as if it was a stubborn horse.

Margot needed no more prompting. Gritting her teeth she let the gas pedal do its thing (or maybe it’s different for motorcycles, I don’t know) and steered the bike straight ahead at the ramp that was set up at the edge of the building.

How in the name of reason and logic did these two individuals come to find themselves in such inherently unreasonable and illogical circumstances? What’s all this fol-de-rol about a portal machine? How do you pronounce the name “Margot”? Well, for the answers to these and other perplexing questions, might I direct your attention to the rest of this book.

More specifically at this moment, to the next scene. I promise that one of those questions will be answered therein.