Quantum July

If Danny Parsons had known he was about to "unleash the power of the quantum world"--which was how his little sister, Bridget, referred to it--or if he'd had even the slightest clue that in two hours the shed he was leaning against was going to explode in a fireball of near-Big Bang proportions, he probably would have had an easier time staying awake. As it was, he sat in the shade, let his eyes slowly close, and tried to keep from drooling on himself.Part of the problem was that it was July and hot. And the other part of the problem was that, on the other side of the wall he was leaning against, his mother was scribbling physics equations on a chalkboard. That reminded him of Mrs. Ferguson's seventh-grade math class. And that made him droopy. His eyes drooped until they were shut, and his chin sagged and hung from his mouth, just about resting on his chest.Math had always had that effect on him. It was in Mrs. Ferguson's math class that he'd broken his personal record for most consecutive days of falling asleep in school. Seventy-two. That added up to almost half a year. It might even have been a record for the entire seventh grade. His brother, Simon, who had just turned sixteen, liked to brag that when he was in seventh grade, he fell asleep seventy-seven times, but that was in Mrs. Ruskin's English class, where she was always playing Beethoven and Bach in the background, which was completely unfair. Plus, it was right after lunch, which was also completely unfair. Who wouldn't fall asleep? No, in Danny's mind, seventy-two third-period math naps with Mrs. Ferguson was a far bigger accomplishment. Especially considering that during the entire class she would constantly lean over Danny's shoulder and shout, "Wrong, wrong, wrong," in his ear. He would have liked to see Simon fall asleep under those conditions."Danny, wake up!""The answer is seventy-two," Danny said, his eyes startled and wide. He sat up and searched for the blackboard, the math problems, and tried to shield himself from the scorn of Mrs. Ferguson. But she wasn't there. Instead he saw the yard, his house, the barn just off to his left. He breathed a bit more easily and leaned his head against the shed. He could hear his mother on the other side of the wall. It was summer. He wasn't in school after all.Bridget, his twelve-year-old sister, glared at him. "Will you quiet down? Do you want her to hear us?""Well, stop scaring me," he said. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and shook out an arm that had started to fall asleep. "Anything happening yet?""Not yet," Bridget said.His eyes drooped again.Danny didn't mean to abandon his sister in the middle of their spying activities, but dreaming, dropping off for a moment no matter where he was, was one of the best things in his life. He dreamed--sometimes fully asleep, and sometimes by slipping into that strange place that lies between sleep and wakefulness--all the time, one minute aware of the world around him and then, in a second, drifting into a dream about a different life in another time, a dream about the life he might have lived if he hadn't been kidnapped.The dreams weren't about being kidnapped. They were dreams about a world that had somehow gone wrong--put him in the wrong family, the wrong place. They were dreams that tried to help Danny make sense of his life, because as far as he was concerned, one thing was certain: he wasn't supposed to be Danny Parsons at all. In his heart, in his very soul, he was supposed to be somebody else, somebody important. And his dreams helped him discover who that might be.He'd been creating these dreams and making up stories about himself for years, but for the past year, thanks to subscriptions to National Geographic and Smithsonian magazines, his stories had been getting much better. He used photos from the magazines to make the sights--and even the sounds and smells--so real and lifelike thKing, Ron is the author of 'Quantum July ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780385734189 and ISBN 0385734182.