The First Book of Ore by Benny Zelkowicz

Author:Benny Zelkowicz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Young Adult - Fiction
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

hoebe rocketed up the front steps of the manor and flung open the doors. The house was still and thick with shadows.

“Daddy?”

She blasted past the dimpled copper door to his study. He was standing before the fireplace with his back to her—a lean silhouette carved out by the low light of licking flames.

“Daddy!”

She ran toward her father to embrace him. He turned.

Her blood froze.

His skin was hard and fixed into an eerie grin that did not reach his dead, black eyes. His brittle smile cracked, and fissures snaked across his dented face, revealing the unmistakable shine of metal.

The fireplace roared. She screamed, but no sound came.

He began to grow, stretching, towering to fill the room.

“Cricket,” came his voice, vague and very far away.

She looked down at herself—her flesh was gone, replaced by overlapping scales of metal skin. She could feel a searing gush of life in her ductlike veins and a whirring engine where her heart used to be.

Phoebe was a mehkan.

“Cricket.” This time the word was a rusty peal.

In her father’s white-gloved hand was an enormous glass jar. He leered down at her, sparks crackling in his fractured eyes. She tried to get away, but her legs were bent backward like an insect, snapping in ways she did not understand. Phoebe pounced and flailed, but she was not fast enough.

The jar slammed down around her. She leaped like mad but only clanged against the glass ceiling. His monstrous hand tightened. Cracks shivered across the dome overhead. The gritty crunch of splintering glass.

Her father’s hand came crashing down.

WHOOMF.

The sound was like the ignition of a powerful gas jet. She threw back her tablecloth covers and scuttled away in a panic. Nearby, Micah laughed.

“Up and at ’em, Plumm!” The sparky he had befriended ran circles around him, bouncing on piston legs.

Her heart was pounding. She glanced around the room, trying to shake the dream from her blurry mind. The ballroom was transformed, now awash in streaming light, refracting rainbows through the crystal chandelier. Dollop sat with Mr. Pynch and the Marquis on the far side the room, gobbling up handfuls of glop from a hexagonal shell. The mehkans were huddling around a carefully arranged stack of little curved rods knotted with symbols.

“H-h-happy rise!” Dollop called over to her. Mr. Pynch waved, and the Marquis flickered a cheery hello. “Th-they’re teaching me how to play, um, Sliverytik. It’s gr-great fun, and I lost all five games, but—”

Mr. Pynch played his hand by adding pieces to the stack, which re-formed to an intricate new shape with a little ticking sound. Dollop’s shoulders sank.

“Uh, m-m-make that six games.”

“Peaches?” Micah said out the side of his crammed mouth and offered her a can. She took it and quickly devoured the remnants, letting the succulent fruit chase away her grogginess.

“What happened last night?” she whispered, eyeing the mehkans across the room warily. “You were supposed to wake me up, remember?”

“Eh, you needed your beauty sleep. No worries. Dollop and I kept watch.” He whipped the Lodestar up and twirled it around his hand in a practiced gesture.

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