The book written for my niece finally comes home.
Well, what can I say? I’d told my brother and his lovely wife, our sister-in-law, Emma, how I’d been unable to write my normal Space Fantasy until I’d finished this story for my niece. And, after several long months, it was ready.
I wanted my niece to be surprised by it, and enjoy reading it. This led to long periods of anxiety, wondering how she’d receive, not only the first book I have published, but my first attempt at writing a children’s chapter book. I needn’t have worried because the reaction from Freya was priceless.
Her eyes lit up when she realised it was a unicorn story and that I’d written it for her. I loved the moment when Emma pointed out that Freya’s name was in the acknowledgements. This prompted my niece to read the front matter, and my day couldn’t have got much better. Even the table of contents sounded so good being read by my niece. Forget the Amazon sales and all the lovely reviews. This was… well, I have no words to describe it. No, I have too many words to choose from so I’ll just say it was brilliant.
After this, we had a kick-around with Alfie’s new football – an official Euro 24 football. Alfie is Freya’s older brother, and is football crazy, just like his dad and uncle.
I amazed the little ones with my Messi-like ball control despite my young niece and nephew bombarding me with questions about the book, Annika Dash and the Unicorn from Space. Questions like, who was the baddie? What was the unicorn called?
I was proud of how little I gave away, though I suspect gasping for air while trying to keep up with Alfie and Freya played a part in this. Puffing and panting, I gave up only a few details – teasers, really – cleverly designed to encourage them to read the book. Freya promised to do this straight away and sat down to examine the map of the City Space Museum, inside the book’s front cover.
Nonchalantly, Alfie performed keepy-uppies while looking me straight in the eye.
“Will there be another book?” he asked. “A sequel?”
The park fell silent.
I stared back at Alfie. Alfie glanced at Freya. Freya narrowed her eyes at me.
Someone gulped. I think it may have been me…
The Seven Systems 