Excerpt from by THE CALDER GAME
by Blue Balliet
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Chapter One
The setting is a very old town in England. It is dawn, a pale October dawn that pours through the streets like cream, erasing line and dissolving shadow. Red ivy stirs against damp stone; the houses are stone, the walls are stone, the street is stone. A lace curtain has escaped through an open window and waves unseen in the early light. Now a black cat blinks, stretches, and slowly crosses the empty square, stepping carefully around a raised sign that reads, MINOTAUR, ALEXANDER CALDER, 1959.
Someone sneezes behind closed shutters. A light goes on in a kitchen and a man in plaid pajamas fills a brass kettle. In other houses, butter sizzles and silverware clinks. The first truck of the day rattles across cobblestones and comes to a sudden stop. The driver sits for a moment looking straight ahead, his mouth open, then hops out and hurries to a nearby door. He bangs the knocker twice, sticks his head in, and shouts, "It's gone! The sculpture is gone!"
Soon enough, the town realizes that a boy is also gone.
From The Calder Game. Copyright © 2009 by Blue Balliett.
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