They sure got a lot worse after moving to the city, the ‘mares, that’s for sure. Maybe a change of beds had something to do with it. 

Niffy was a frequent visitor in the 'mares, as was the Grahi Witch, and at times Saayu – that is, the Nerth-doll who drove our carriage to the Coven' fortress. 

I would toss and turn in bed, fighting to keep my eyes shut. But eventually the rustling would force them open, and I would see Niffy – always in her red gown with polka dots – and in the 'mares there would be nothing wrong with her vocal cords, it was all a pretense to gain sympathy, to steal my friends, and her one hand would hold Aar's and the other would hold Mar's and she would say to me in a voice as sharp as that of the actual Grahi Witch, making my skin crawl and trip over itself: 'They're no longer yours.’

I would scream soundlessly, and Niffy and Marra and Aar would utter in haunting, flawless synchrony: 'We are one, and one are we. We are one, and one are we. WE ARE ONE AND ONE ARE WE-'

And finally I would find my voice and I would shriek until my Pops was chaffing my shoulders and asking me if I wanted to sleep with him for the night. I would ask for Momma, but she would not wake if a tsunami carried her to Narnia itself because she had been working tirelessly on a pitch she had next month. Evidently, she had discovered the most efficient and cost-effective method of replicating stem cells in plants.

Toby, watch out.

Pops is very nice and considerate and all, but you know him. He doesn’t have thoughts of his own. He’s a mild fella, observing what happens around him and repeating what others say and living life like he were slurping juice. So he couldn’t exactly comfort me, although not for lack of trying.

After each of the 'mares, I found myself in that strangely magnetic alley, cursing my hair, my house, my life.

I guess most of us have that time in our lives, when we hit rock-bottom.

But most of us don’t end up like I did, dodging death left, right and center in an alien place.

Likely not for long.

I told you Garbo's big on cut-throat competition. I didn’t tell you just how big. Allow me.

Firstly, I wasn’t getting off on the right foot with my new teachers. I’d always raise my hand to answer their questions even when no one else would, and they’d choose me, and then I’d end up standing there vacant behind the skull and blank behind the face as the memory of Niffy and Marr and Aar going We are one, and one are we would crash into me like the truck that crashed into Mar when he was four, leading to a cascade of thoughts and remembrances. Marra, his eyes red and glowing, his fangs smothered with blood. That Mr. Cellomann characters blinding us with white powder, rasping the word 'Sleep' in a wacky voice. The saggy, ancient woman rattling keys on bars, watching us starve with bulgy, shining eyes.

The banana. The godforsaken sand-banana.

I’d been ignoring bananas ever since that one time, by the way. I just – I couldn’t bring myself to eat them.

Anyway, we had this science project to do in school. And since I was already working on a hydraulic brake, I stuck to it. Only I was making a rather complicated system of such brakes, such that a single lever would control them all. I had it all figured out, theoretically, and I had to do was make it happen, with or without rock-n-roll distracting my I intellect.

I kept it a secret from Pops (not that hard; he’s indifferent to most things) and Momma (not that hard either; she’s working on her stem cell research, no?) because I wanted to woo them both. Bad decision, as it turned out.

The model worked primarily on two principles.

First is Pascal's Law, which states that any pressure exerted on a liquid is transmitted equally and evenly in all parts of said liquid.

Second is Newton's Third Law Of Motion (everyone’s heard of his apple story, right? I would expect no less). Every action has an equal and opposite direction.

Indeed it does.

I ran into some trouble here and there when my lever wouldn’t pull easily due to the transmission pipes being too tight or the cotton linters too heavy. Whatever. Technicalities, technicalities, technicalities.

At times I felt like one of Heisenberg's particles. I could either know whether I was going to reach the deadline of the date of submission on time (that is, my momentum, or my speed), or if I was going to be able to make it exemplary, the way I wanted it to be (that is, my destination, or my position). Sorry, I guess that doesn’t make much sense.

You should still check his work out though, he’s a revolutionary physicist.

Toby gave me some suggestions on how to make improvements. Dracaena reflexa is a smart, smart plant variety, I tell you. See gave me the much needed rest and pulverization by letting me cuddle with him. I don’t cuddle like Es, but hey – (imitating Aar): I ain’t half bad.

In the end, I had a finished project on my hands which was way better than I’d expected.

Eh, I guess you know what happened next. When it was finally time for submissions, my levers wouldn’t budge. Which meant the whole project was essentially rendered useless.

But, thanks to my awesome luck (I don’t believe in luck, actually), that wasn’t all there was to it. When the science teacher applied more and more force on the lever attempting to make it work . . . the pressure in the pipe became too much for its plastic walls to withstand, and it exploded in her hand like a tiny volcano (which would’ve been a much easier and convenient project to make, but who likes convenience, right?), pouring thick, muggy fluid down on her face and leaving her looking worse than Dope Sue.

It didn’t end up well for me.

She called my parents, telling them how I had pulled a dour prank on her and questioning them if I had made any real project for submission. I said that had been my real project, but she wouldn’t believe it. Pops and Momma had no idea I was working on the model – get how that was a bad idea now? – and were absolutely aghast at my “deed”. I presume they thought the moving had had a toll on me. Which wouldn’t have been an incorrect assumption, just a peripheral one.

For the first time in my life, I got a D grade. And I knew Garbo was behind this.

You see, I had found a battered chewing gum left to congeal on the lever bottom. And we all know who is addicted to chewing gums.

I showed this to my teacher, but she was enraged further still. Not only had I dared to play a humorless practical joke on her, but now I was also trying to frame her top student.

The next week I found Garbo whispering to her senior friends while pointing at me, probably telling them the blood-drinking fiction she had popularized, and I couldn’t take it anymore. During recess, I smartly extended a leg and made her trip over, such that she landed face-first in her own lasagna. Got detention.

Me. Bee. Received. Detention.

Not a sentence I thought I’d ever hear.

Totally worth it.

But that still didn’t make up for the fact that my parents were upset with me, my educators even more so, and that my life was one huge T-Rex turd.

The 'mares weren’t helping either. They were unrelenting and too real, too interfering, to ignore.

I wasn’t just going to let this turd get the better of me. I could beat it. Or flush it, I guess?

If Sir Alexander Fleming could discover the world's first broadly known antibiotic using a friggin' fungus – which no one had ever thought of doing – owing to his own sloppiness in biology, then surely I could heave myself out of this quicksand.

(Actually, scratch that. Sand reminds me of bananas.)

So I started ignoring calls from Marra and Aar and Es (she really just wants to talk when she has a joke to tell or a chess move to master). I know – Bee, they’re your friends and they could have morally supported you!

I just . . . I knew this was my life now, and I had to move on. They couldn’t stick with me forever, could they?

No one ever does.

I started studying like crazy. I shunted Toby and even See. Didn't pick up calls from Marra and Aar. I held my head low when I was with Momma or Pops. That atmosphere in the house – not home yet – was cold.

The only respite I had in my days was when I spent a few moments in that alley while going to and fro the school, and the reticent minutes before falling asleep that I spent in bed, staring at the ceiling and holding the silver amulet in my hand.

I have honestly been going through a lot lately, and I don't want to be THAT guy, but writing this book really helps.