Oddest of All (20 page)

“What's the Worst That Could Happen?” came about because my friend James Howe was putting together an anthology called
13
—a collection of stories and poems about that joyful, excruciating first year of being a teenager, when so much is in uproar and turmoil. It may seem odd to have a story that is neither science fiction, nor fantasy, nor horror in this collection, but heck, what could be more horrifying than being thirteen? (Joke!
Joke!
) To write it I had to look back on my own thirteenth year, and while I didn't fall off a stage—that particular humiliation waited until I was in my forties—more of this is based on real life than I care to detail.

“In the Frog King's Court” was also written at the request of a friend, in this case the wonderful Nancy Springer, who was putting together a collection of frog stories to be shamelessly called
Ribbiting Tales
. My brain being what it is, a story about a werefrog was almost inevitable. The title plays off a story called “The Court of the Summer King” that Jennifer Roberson wrote for
The Unicorn Treasury
, one of my own anthologies. The difference is that Jennifer's story was lovely and profound, while this one is mostly goofy. But I really enjoyed doing it.

In the 1990s I edited a series of twelve anthologies for Scholastic that I refer to as Bruce Coville's Books of [Whatever]. (For “Whatever” you can fill in “Monsters,” “Ghosts,” “Spine Tinglers,” and so on.) Before we go on, I'd like to say that while no one who knows me would deny I have a vast and sometimes appalling ego, I'm not so vainglorious to have come up with that title structure myself. It was the publisher's fault.

Anyway, two of these stories were written for those anthologies. Both were inspired, at least in part, by my daughter, Cara, who is the model for Nina (“Nine”) Tanleven, the main character in “The Ghost Let Go.” Nine's pal, Chris, was based on Cara's best friend, and her dad, Henry, is loosely based on, um, me. Nine and Chris appear in three novels. Chronologically, this story takes place between
The Ghost Wore Gray
and
The Ghost in the Big Brass Bed
.

The seed for “The Thing in Auntie Alma's Pond” came from a conversation Cara and I had when we were out walking one night. As we strolled past some dark water, she mentioned to me that she had always been terrified of the little pond where the kids used to swim when we visited her “Auntie Wilma.” I got to thinking about that pond when it was time to write my story for
Spine Tinglers
. This is what came out.

I wrote “The Hardest, Kindest Gift” for my anthology
Half-Human
. The idea for the book, as is probably obvious, was to collect stories about half-humans: centaurs, mermaids, fauns, and so on. For my own story I turned to one of the more obscure of the half-humans, but one I found particularly haunting because of the longing and sense of tragedy that attaches to her. The text that appears here is considerably expanded from the first printed version.

The three remaining stories—“The Mask of Eamonn Tiyado,” “Herbert Hutchison in the Underworld,” and “The Boy with Silver Eyes”—make their print debut in these pages.

The first and third of these were written to perform with the Syracuse Symphony, something that is one of the great joys of my life. That “Eamonn Tiyado” was done for a concert we performed around Halloween should be no surprise. The music came from Liadov, Debussy, Holst, and Stravinsky. (The story's title is a hideous pun. In case it went right by you—as well it should have!—I'll give you a hint: The source is one of Edgar Allan Poe's most well-known stories.) For “The Boy with Silver Eyes” the music came mostly from the great Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg. The story itself is connected to the world of the Unicorn Chronicles.

Finally we have “Herbert Hutchison in the Underworld,” which is like the dark twin of “The Box,” the story that opened the first of these collections,
Oddly Enough
. This one started to take shape in my head in what I call the “twilight time”—that time between sleep and full wakefulness.

A final note: All of the previously published stories have been revised, sometimes quite extensively, for these pages. For guidance in this process, I have to thank my editor, Allyn Johnston, and her erstwhile assistant, Beth Jacobsen, as well as my writing pal, Tamora Pierce.

When I was starting out, I loved to write but found revising painful. Now I find the initial writing hard but love the chance to revise.

Just another of life's ongoing oddities.

But I think that's my favorite thing about being alive.

It's just so odd!

B
RUCE
C
OVILLE
is the author of over 100 books for children and young adults, including the international bestseller
My Teacher Is an Alien
, the Unicorn Chronicles series, and the much-beloved
Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher
. His work has appeared in a dozen languages and won children's choice awards in a dozen states.

Before becoming a full time writer Bruce was a teacher, a toymaker, a magazine editor, a gravedigger, and a cookware salesman. He is also the creator of Full Cast Audio, an audiobook company devoted to producing full cast, unabridged recordings of material for family listening and has produced over a hundred audiobooks, directing and/or acting in most of them.

Bruce lives in Syracuse, New York, with his wife, illustrator and author Katherine Coville.

Visit his website at
www.brucecoville.com
.