And Break It Not, page 7
part #13 of Guild Wars Series
Part Two: Amy
Chapter 1
Eighteen-year-old Amy Roeder snagged the bowl of kale chips from the cupboard and settled onto the floor cushions to watch her favorite Tri-V mystery. Her mother settled into the end of the couch and reached for the bowl of chips.
“Don’t you get tired of mysteries, Amy? How about a rom-com for a change?”
Amy glared at her mom with flashing blue eyes and pushed her dark bangs away from her forehead. “Really, Mother. Thomas Moffett is solving another whodunnit, and you want to switch to a comedy?”
Emily Roeder sighed and laughed. “You and your puzzles! You always solve the mystery before the show ends. You loved puzzles as a child. How many screens of “Can you find the hidden pictures” did you go through? And you’ve always tried to figure out how things work and why.”
“You mean like the time I took the comm unit apart and put it back together again?”
“That. Your pages and pages of details, hints, and clues. The mystery of the missing sporks at camp—”
“Caleb Comers was throwing them in the trash because he hated sporks.”
“The missing cantaloupe—”
“Now that was tragic. I cheered that little melon on, in the garden, and the damned raccs snatched it before I could pick it.”
Emily laughed and drank from her bottle of Cavanaugh Amber Ale.
“So now that school is done, you’re serious about college and getting the business degree?”
“I am, Mom. I think I can help solve problems in production and risk management. I can go to work for one of the biotech firms or the mariculture companies. We can increase production and begin to sell off world.”
“You’ve always been ambitious, dear. Even as a kid, you were looking for ways to improve life and make things better.”
* * *
“I’m telling you, U’ilana. We can be number one in this contest. Let me try this grease on the axles. It will make it go faster.”
U’ilana looked at eight-year-old Amy with a skeptical side-eye and shook her head. “No. I’m happy with what we have. I don’t need one of your concoctions to make my car go faster. The Heritage Angels say the best part of this race is the pride in making your own car, not winning a trophy.”
Amy scoffed. “U’ilana, who doesn’t want to take home a trophy for their shelf? I guarantee we’ll win the biggest one in the contest. Look, I’ve analyzed the winners of the past five races. I know how fast your car needs to go.”
“No, Amy.”
“But U’ilana, I got on the AetherNet and found some neat information. This one scientist had lots of pages on how to make things go faster. This here—” Amy held up a small tin, “—is Mister Rex Mason’s guaranteed ‘Speed of Light Axel and Wheel Grease.’ Guaranteed not to explode or cause a fire. I followed his directions exactly.”
U’ilana looked at Amy with exasperation. “And how were you able to get on the AetherNet, Amy Roeder? Does your Mom know? Amy, put your grease away. Let’s just be happy we got our car finished in time for the race.”
Amy shrugged, tucked her little container of oil in her pocket, and picked up the paintbrush. “Well, at least let me get the flames painted on the sides…”
The day of the contest, Amy and U’ilana presented their carved and painted car for inspection. Amy handed over their registration papers and turned to look for her mom and U’ilana’s mom. The school bully, Yvette Gamez, stepped into view and sneered at Amy.
“Ooh, look, it’s the Pua Maile twins. Where’s your dads? Oh, that’s right, you don’t have any. So sorry! Not!”
Amy glared at her nemesis. “Yvette, you are so stupid. You know we’re not twins!”
“And you’re not designers, either. That’s the stupidest looking car I’ve ever seen. You’ll be lucky if it finishes a race. I expect the wheels will fall off before you get it on the track.”
U’ilana turned to look at Amy with tears in her eyes. The sight of her tearful friend enraged Amy, and she whirled on the snickering bully. “Yvette Gamez, you—”
A hand came down on Amy’s shoulder, and she looked into her mother’s frowning face. “Come on, Amy, U’ilana. Let’s take your car over to the table with the others.”
Yvette sneered. “Oh, Missus Roeder, it’s so nice to see you here with Amy! Did you help Amy and U’ilana design their car? My dad says you’re a busy woman up at the research lab. However did you find time to help them?”
Amy’s mother stared at the ten-year-old and seemed to consider her response. Finally, she spoke. “Yvette, isn’t your car the one called ‘Blue Lightning?’ I saw a little boy take that car off the table and run it along the sand pit.”
Yvette turned—with an enraged shriek—toward the car table and ran off screaming for her father.
The young man manning the registration table laughed and handed over the registration badges to the girls. “Good one, Missus Roeder. Glad you could make it to the race.”
Emily took the badges and handed them to the girls. “Thank you, Chandler. Let’s see if the girls can win anything.”
Chandler smiled at the two girls. “Good luck, ladies. Hope you win something.”
The heats didn’t go well, and U’ilana sat on the floor, despondent.
“U’ilana, let me grease the wheels again. I’ve brought my tub of oil. I can grease the axles as well.”
U’ilana looked hopefully at Amy. “Do you think it might help? Yvette has won all the heats. She says she’s taking home the Grand Prize trophy this year.”
“It’s a special oil. I chose it after reading all the stats on the previous races. It couldn’t hurt to see how fast your car can go.”
Together, the girls bent over the homemade car and put drops of oil on the axles and wheels. The final races would start shortly, and they hoped they had a chance to win something, even Honorable Mention.
* * *
Eighteen-year-old Amy smiled fondly. “Yeah, Mom, that race was cool. U’ilana and I were happy with second place. All the dads studied the car and couldn’t find anything illegal about it. Next year we got first. If U’ilana and her mom hadn’t moved away from Styx Valley, maybe we would have eventually gotten the Grand Prize.”
“The message, dear, is that you studied the races and stats and figured out how to get more speed out of the little car. Your special oil did the trick.”
Amy smiled as she reminisced. “The great thing was seeing Yvette Gamez’s face when she lost to U’ilana. That was worth it.”
Emily chuckled. “That Gamez girl. She never has gotten over that, has she? She was a brat and a snobby little bitch then, and she still is today.”
“Mom!” Amy looked at her mom and threw her head back in laughter. “Yeah, like the time she told everyone in school you made up the Roeder last name to hide that I had no father.”
Emily’s smile faltered. “The sad thing is, Amy, kids often hear their parents say such things and then repeat them. I’m sorry you had to go through that. But, mark my words, Yvette Gamez won’t be happy in anything she does. She’ll always be a schemer, sneaking around and framing others for her mistakes, and trying to build a power base out of deceptiveness. She’s a conniver. Hopefully, you can stay out of her way in college, and maybe she’ll move off planet.”
Amy snickered and set the empty chip bowl aside. “We can only hope, Mom; we can only hope.”
“At least Mary Ellen moved in about the time U’ilana moved away. I’m glad you were able to fill your empty spot with another friend…even if you had your share of trouble with that girl, too!”
“Adventures, Mom, adventures! M’Ell and I never got into trouble; we had adventures!”
* * *
Ten-year-old Amy Roeder straddled her board and watched the blonde-haired girl skating down the sidewalk. The skater slowed down as she approached Amy.
“Hey!”
“Hey, back atcha!”
“You’re the girl who moved in down the street, right? The one with three brothers? My name is Amy.”
“Mary Ellen Cantor. We moved here from Landing City. My mom’s going to work at the clinic.”
“I live in that cottage over there. The one with the front yard vegetable garden. Do you like to swim?”
“I’m going to learn. My mom said that since we’re close to the sea, we need to learn. My brothers and I are going to start lessons pretty soon. Do you swim?”
“I love it. I’d go to the beach every day if my mom would let me. But I don’t know how to skate like you do.”
“Really? I could teach you. It’s not hard, and it’s lots of fun. You can go fast. You can probably borrow a pair of my brothers’ skates to learn.”
“Yeah? Maybe you could go even faster if you tried.”
“I don’t think so. You saw me skating up the street. That’s about as fast as I can go.”
“Actually, I have a special oil I can put on those wheels…”
* * * * *
Chapter 2
Mary Ellen Cantor was Amy’s best friend from fourth grade through her various college classes. Whereas Amy was short and dark-haired, with sparkling blue eyes, Mary Ellen—or M’Ell as her friends called her—was tall and blond, with brown eyes.
Both girls had single, working moms, and they bonded by hanging out after school and doing homework together. M’Ell was the first to come up with the idea of a camping trip to Nanakuli Point. Both girls knew their mothers would veto the solo camping trip, so Amy concocted the story that they would meet the Heritage Angels for a weekend camping expo. Amy got the details of the expo from a classmate and laid out the plan to her mom, Emily.
“Honestly, Mom, this will be so educational. We’ll be with other girls and learn all the tricks of camping and survival. We’ll use a tent M’Ell’s brother is lending us. We’ll ride our bikes out to the Point and meet up with the other Angels.”
Amy’s mother looked at her doubtfully. “You told me the Angels were losers and you wanted nothing to do with them.”
“Not fair, Mom!” Amy protested. “You know I love their cookies. I have the utmost respect for the Heritage Angels.”
Emily bit her lip as she stared at her daughter. “Let me talk to Mary Ellen’s mother and make sure she’s on board with this.”
“Oh absolutely, Mom. M’Ell has told her mom all about the trip, and we’ve got a little trailer we can pull with our bikes to carry our tent and stuff.”
The camping trip would have been a successful expedition if Amy hadn’t pushed their luck a little too far. After they set up their tent—not too far from the Angels’ authorized camp site—and ate their evening meal, Amy decided it was time to have a little fun with the younger girls at the camp site.
She and M’Ell waited until the camp was dark and quiet, then snuck over to one of the semi-permanent cabins. They growled, barked, and scratched at the canvas siding. Amy pulled her hair over her face, stuck a pair of sunglasses over her hair-covered eyes, and held a flashlight under her chin. When one of the girls looked through the tent opening, Amy gibbered and growled, shining the light on her hairy face. The sound of a half dozen screaming girls roused the rest of the camp, while M’Ell and Amy turned off their lights and fled back to their own tent outside the compound.
The next morning, one of the troop leaders stopped by the girls’ camp to ask if they saw or heard anything unusual the prior night. Amy admitted they’d heard some screaming or crying but just thought it was one of the littles who was homesick. M’Ell and Amy collapsed in laughter after the leader left and spent the rest of the day exploring the Point and swimming in the shallows at the beach. That evening, relishing the success of the night before, Amy knew they had to revisit the camp and frighten the girls again.
They would have pulled it off successfully, except they failed to notice a couple of sleeping bags near the center of camp. As they began their routine of growling and barking, one of the adults stepped around the cabin and grabbed Amy by her ponytail and the collar of her shirt. M’Ell gave a gasp as she, too, was grabbed and held by an adult.
Amy and Mary Ellen sat in disgrace in the camp headquarters as their families were called. To add insult to injury, several of the Heritage Angels peeked in the headquarters windows until troop leaders shooed them back to cabins. Several of their school friends were in the group. Yvette Gamez stuck her tongue out at Amy and drew her flat hand across her throat. Amy realized, sadly, that school life—and home life—was going to be hell for the next few weeks.
Of course, both Amy and M’Ell were grounded for weeks. Ms. Cantor paid her oldest son to escort Mary Ellen to and from classes, not allowing the girls to walk home together.
Amy’s mother spent quite a bit of time in communication with what Amy presumed was a counselor. She frequently talked about Amy’s quick wits and her tendency to get into trouble. She spent quite a bit of time detailing Amy’s outlandish and experimental projects. Amy knew it was only a matter of time before her mother enrolled her in some type of counseling program.
But a surprise awaited Amy a few seven-days later. A stranger came to their home and greeted her mother warmly. He brought flowers, salmon steaks, and wine for her mother, who seemed somewhat reserved and flustered. He turned to Amy and handed her a slate, one of the top-of-the-line slates, like the one Yvette Gamez had.
“Amy,” her mother said distractedly, “this is Doctor Brent Roeder.”
Amy looked at her mother in surprise. The same name she had! She’d heard news reports and adults talking about Roeder the business tycoon and had occasionally wondered about the fact they both had the same last name.
The significantly older man waited for Amy to take her slate. His face was wreathed in wrinkles, but he smiled, and his blue eyes twinkled in delight. “Miss Roeder, I am so very pleased to meet you. I’ve been waiting a long time. You see, Amy Roeder, I’m your father.”
* * *
Amy loved the relationship she had with her father and eventually forgave her mother for misleading her about his disappearance before she was born. As she learned more about the missing husband and dad, she began to realize her mother thought Doctor Brent Roeder would never return to the planet of Azure. With the number of wives, mistresses, children, and grandchildren clamoring for rights to the Roeder businesses and fortunes, her mother Emily decided to quietly resume her science research back in the Styx Valley and raise her daughter alone.
Brent Roeder frequently told Amy how precious she was to him. He described his lifelong adventures, revealing more details each year they celebrated together. Amy knew he had been paralyzed and a Wrogul surgeon had repaired his damaged spine. She learned that another “somewhat shady” scientist had treated the senior citizen with a youth potion, and that Amy was the youngest daughter in his widely flung family as a result of these medical advancements.
It was strange to go from a mom and daughter duo to a huge family of all ages. Some of the great-grandchildren were close to her in age but more of the family was significantly older than she was. Her mother told her Brent Roeder found himself attracted to women named Emily (or Emmy, Emmilee, Emma Lee, and other variants) and many of the first generation Roeders were named variants of Emily or Brent (Brant, Brennan, Bre, and more) to curry favor with the tycoon. Not all the mothers of Amy’s half-siblings had married the man, but most felt they were entitled to his wealth and business holdings.
Amy loved her father for his sense of humor and wisdom. She knew her mother and Roeder would not resume their marriage, but they had a comfortable relationship with each other. Her father shared Amy’s love of mysteries and puzzles, and she learned to appreciate his wordplay and puns. While she knew she could ask her father for anything—like the latest Tri-V technology or money for expensive clothes—Amy retained the sensible and frugal nature she’d learned from her single mother. She preferred to do as much as she could on her own, such as her college studies, but she relished the ability to talk out strategies and possibilities with her father.
Amy pictured her younger dad as a swashbuckling pirate, wearing a three-cornered hat and sailing the galaxy in a space ship instead of a sailing ship on the seas. She imagined all his adventures had shaped his values before he became Doctor Brent Roeder, the business tycoon, occurring long before his crippling space accident. She loved learning about his businesses and inventions and meeting his friends.
Her dad knew important people and elected officials. He even knew Todd! The Wrogul alien with eight arms and the strange eyes—rectangle-shaped pupils in green eyes—was a legend to many of the original colony Humans. And Neill Cavanaugh, another of the great business founders in Azure. Her father spent most of his time at the Cerulean Station because the lower gravity was easier on his aged body. But he never hesitated to take a call from her or visit her when she wanted comfort or to explode in celebration.
As a nosy pre-teen, Amy began to make lists of the women her dad had been involved with. Then she tracked the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren he had. She listed birthdays and anniversaries and reminded him to make calls or send messages. She encouraged him to talk about his businesses and the triumphs and disasters each faced. She tracked the trusts and financials he set up for his first-generation children.
When she met Todd and his family of Wrogul cephalopods, she began to keep lists and family trees of who was who among the Azurian Wrogul. Her dad, seeing her curiosity and zeal for solving problems, gave her an open account to buy all the electronic books she wanted or could find on the AetherNet. He encouraged her friendship with the Wrogul and gave her badges to some of the research labs and business offices. As a teen, she spent as much time on Cerulean Station as she did in her mother’s home. He always talked about her college education. He wanted her to study science with the Wrogul community. But Amy knew her strengths were business management and analysis.
