For All I Know, Scooter Wrote It

Out of deference to my Cousin Fran's cat allergies, I've been pretending to clean my apartment. And out of deference to my cat Scooter, much of the cleaning has involved searching under the stove and refrigerator and somesuch places, in search of the twist ties he shoves there. Twist ties (especially the black and white expensive ones) are Scooter's current favorite plaything.

While cleaning the den the other day, I searched around under the computer cabinet. I found a couple of pens (Scooter's previous favorite plaything), and I could hear a piece of paper rattling about.

Scooter heard it too (Scooter likes noisy things), so he went digging. He dragged out a piece of paper with typing on it.

I scanned the paper, but I can't figure out how to post the scan here, so I'm just going to type what was on the page, using that nifty blockquote thing to make it look official.

6

He was a little drunk. I was sure of it. I'd met Trish, once last summer, when Dad and she first began seeing each other, and again over Christmas vacation, when I'd gone for my semi-annual visit, and could tell things were getting serious between them. But in all my conversations and e-mails with Dad, he'd never hinted that he was going to marry her. In fact, he'd expressed some reservations because of Trish's two young children.

"I was just wondering," I said. "What I mean is, why now. Why Vegas?"

"You sound like my mother," Dad said, and I knew that wasn't a compliment. "Megan, Trish and I are grownups. We both happened to have a couple of days off, and Trish's parents were able to take the kids, and it seemed like the best time to do it." There was a pause, and I could see Dad start thinking Daddy thoughts. "Oh honey, are you disappointed?" he asked. "That we eloped? I didn't think. But of course you'd want to be there, see your old man tie the knot."

The noose was more like it, I thought, but I love Dad, and Trish wasn't so bad, not really. "Of course I'm disappointed," I lied. "Disappointed, and surprised. But mostly I'm real happy for you."

"Here. Trish wants to say hello," Dad said, and I could

Here's the thing. I've been in this apartment six and a half years. I was the first person to live here, so I can't assume anyone else wrote that page (besides, it positively reeks of my style). I've written three books here that have been published (Life As We Knew It, The Dead And The Gone, This World We Live In) and one (Blood Wounds) waiting to be published. I've written several books that haven't been published, a YA suspense novel (named, I think, 7 Hours) that I loved but never found a publisher, two middle group novels, one of which my agent thought needed work and one I never showed her because it wasn't good enough, and one completely unpublishable version of a third moon book. And this page 6 doesn't sound like my memory of any of those books.

I have no idea what manuscript it came from. There's no point in my going through all my documents because I'm on Hard Drive #3 since moving here, and I'm not one to back things up. I don't know who these characters are, what happens to them next, or even if there's a page 7 floating about.

My brain is currently hard at work (although it feels like play) at the idea I came up with last week. I'm ready to write a chapter outline, to get a feel for if I need more events in the story. If I stay interested, I'll most likely begin writing it week after next (next week I'll spend recovering from November, a long and tricky month).

I only hope if I do write it, that I keep better track of it, and don't let it vanish under the computer station, only to be dug up by a cat searching for his twist ties!