Freddy Anderson’s Home: Book 1
Read Freddy Anderson’s Home: Book 1 Online
Authors: John Ricks
FREDDY
ANDERSON’S
HOME
Freddy Anderson Chronicles Book 1
BY
JOHN RICKS
THE FREDDY ANDERSON CHRONICLES
FREDDY ANDERSON’S HOME
Copyright © 2010, 2014 John Ricks.
First Printing May 2010
Second Printing July 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
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ISBN: 978-1-4917-5707-9 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4917-5708-6 (e)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015901258
iUniverse rev. date: 2/26/2015
Contents
Chapter 5 Dying to Make Friends
Chapter 19 Having a Mental Gift Has Its Pitfalls
Chapter 20 Surprise Protection
Chapter 22 Visiting the General and Cleaning, Cleaning, and More Cleaning
Chapter 27 Whoops, I Think a Visit from the Navy Would Be Good
Chapter 28 You Need a License for the Silliest Things
Chapter 32 When It Finally Hits Home, Who’s Guarding You
Chapter 34 Stepping Over the Line
Chapter 38 The Answers to the Cons—Seems Simple, Doesn’t It?
Chapter 39 I Still Think Plowing Through Was a Better Idea
Chapter 41 Making War on the Media
I
awoke having no idea where I was. I did know that I was in some sort of vat. I was immersed in thick clear liquid, and there were translucent tentacles holding my body in the center. My energy was drained, so I could not teleport out, yet strangely, I was whole. There was a large portal showing that we were in space and leaving the system very quickly. Massive banks of equipment with blinking lights and readouts were on every wall, the ceiling, and parts of the floor.
The last thing I remembered was the Mars base being attacked. A gigantic hole was blown in the dome, and our air was escaping. I was torn apart from falling debris and was bleeding to death. I had used most of my energies by helping other victims of this devastating enemy, and I was reduced to using normal means for healing myself. I was trying to stem the bleeding and make it to a special Blink Emergency Escape Ship, and then I felt something grab me, and all went black.
Now that I was awake I could hear voices and see creatures that were unholy in appearance. They were humanoid but stood on two legs with three pads. They each had leathery skin; big black eyes without eyebrows; no nose; a small, tight mouth; a long thin neck; and multiple arms on each side of the body, with pad-fingered hands. Strange voices spoke in a language completely different from anything I had ever imagined. And they were speaking telepathically.
A small green one—small? Did I think small? It had to be seven feet tall and thin as a rail, with eight tentacles, four on each side—said in a booming voice, “There. I have opened some of the doors in this one’s mind. Now we will see much.”
A large gray one—about two feet taller than the green one, heavily muscled, and twice as wide—asked, “Are you sure that this tiny little creature is the one that destroyed our mother ship?”
Everything went black. My eyesight and hearing were gone, but the voices continued, and I could sense everything in the room.
The Green answered, “Yes, master. All the others we captured and probed pointed to this one ‘creature’ being the brains behind everything that has happened in the last ten or more of their years. He is fully responsible.”
The big gray creature turned to another gray and ordered, “Have the fleet return home. Pull off the engagement. We will find out what caused this catastrophe, and if needed, destroy this Earth and all its inhabitants.” He turned to the small green one and asked, “How long will this take?”
“Master, I must start at his birth and work my way forward. I would guess three of our days, or twenty-two of their days, at best.”
The large gray ordered, “Then get to it!”
“Yes, master.”
I saw myself at age six, sitting, thinking, wondering why no one would believe me.
I
sat back from my newest toy. It was big, and Daddy told me to put it in the back of the garage so his car would still fit. It was a jumble of wires and circuits encased in several old computers that Daddy had tossed out. I had built it from almost all the parts that were in the garage and with permission from my nanny. I had it working for only a little bit before it burned out, destroying everything. I wished I hadn’t got it working. From what the toy showed me, it was very clear that Earth was doomed, but who could I tell? I ran to my nanny, shouting, “Nanny! Nanny! The world is going to end!”
“Now, Freddy, don’t exaggerate. The world is not going to end.”
“But my new toy showed that it is going to end!”
“That’s nice, dear. You go back and pretend some more.”
Frustrated, I went back to the garage. As soon as my daddy came home, I ran to him. “Daddy, the world is going to end! The world is going to end!”
“Freddy, I’m sure you’re correct about this, but I don’t think we need to worry about it for a few million years yet. I have papers to grade, so I need time alone tonight.”
“But Daddy—”
“No, Freddy, not tonight.”
Mommy was the same, and so were my friends—no one believed me. I spent weeks trying to get someone to listen to me, but no one would. I thought back on my short life, trying to determine why no one would listen to me. I remembered everything as clearly as if it had just happened …
I was born on a Wednesday. That was no reason for people not to believe me. Mommy said everyone could tell from the time I was born that I was different. My eyes were already open, and I could focus quickly. My size was smaller than most full-term babies, but I was pink and wrinkled like others. The only strange thing was my eyes. The doctor had commented, “I have never seen bright purple eyes on a baby.” Purple eyes were a rarity, but would people not believe me because my eyes were different?
I didn’t cry at birth, although Mommy said I did smile. And I recognized both her and Daddy as soon as either of them talked. She said I was a happy newborn, and I remember playing constantly with my toes and fingers, giggling and counting them over and over, once I could finally reach them. That was a frustrating time. Something else … I could understand words at birth. Mommy said that was not normal either. I often tried to make words and talk when I was a newborn, but my toothless mouth just would not work right.
By the time I was six months old, I could talk very well and understood most words. I could hold a pencil and write a sentence, and I colored inside the lines. Everyone gave Mommy and Daddy credit for that. Daddy is a physics professor at the local university, and Mommy is the head of the chemistry and biology departments. They were very proud of me. They took me to several groups to have my IQ tested, and it was determined that I am very special indeed, but I was too young for the tests to prove my IQ.
Daddy said that all of the exams went “up top,” out to the government someplace, and even though the information showed “better than normal” intelligence, it also showed a lack of increased brain use. Daddy said the government wouldn’t care—and he was right. They did tell Mommy and Daddy that I needed special schooling so that I wouldn’t get bored. Mommy and Daddy took me home after that. I still didn’t do anything to cause anyone not to believe me.
I remember when Daddy brought my nanny home with him. She taught me a lot of good words—she had been an English teacher. Daddy told her that I was allowed to read and do anything I wanted, as long as I had her permission and she could watch—he didn’t want me “burning down the house.” I never lied to Nanny or anyone, and I did everything she asked of me.
Nanny took me to the playground every day. She would not let me take any books to read. At first, I was really upset with this decision, but when she told me I needed to look at what was outside and analyze it, I realized that she was right. Nanny was good at piquing my interest. I actually started enjoying my times in the park. I found answers and examples of mathematical expressions in almost everything. I spent plenty of time with other children and learned to hide my intelligence, as knowing things usually got me beat up.
I didn’t realize it, but I was developing an ability. I looked it up; it’s called “empathy”—I could feel the emotions of the other children and was drawn to their happiness.
At age four, I was enrolled in a school for gifted children at the university. It was a special program sponsored by the science department, and since my parents were VIPs at the university, it wasn’t difficult for them to get me accepted. The first week of school was testing. The tests were so easy; I’d read all that stuff in Daddy’s library last year. Each of us children was given tests to determine where we would be placed in a “normal” school, because they said they needed a base from which to grade our progress. The other children finished testing on the first day, but the university needed to find more for me, as I had aced all the tests up through the twelfth-grade level. They talked and talked trying to figure out how I’d done it.
I think it was at this time that I started developing the ability to read other people’s emotions and empathize with them. I didn’t understand what was going on, but it affected my life a lot. It was actually kind of funny. I often felt tired when Daddy came home, and I would fall asleep. When Mommy came home, I would be wide awake, happy, and unable to sleep for hours past my bedtime, just like my mother, but as soon as she went to sleep, so did I. Female emotions seemed the strongest and affected me the most. Mommy loved her earrings, and Daddy had pierced ears and long hair. Therefore, I loved earrings and long hair, and I convinced my mother that I should get my ears pierced. I never had my hair cut. I loved life so much.
Nighttime was becoming devastating for me because I would sense other people getting badly hurt, scared, or dying, and that gave me nightmares. Mommy would come in and comfort me. She always knew when I was having a problem.
Four weeks after enrolling in school at the university, the professors called in my parents. I went with them when they talked with the professors.
“Susan and David, we need to inform you that Freddy has been removed from the program.”
Mommy and Daddy were instantly upset. Daddy placed a hand on my shoulder and asked, “Why? Did he do something he shouldn’t have? We’ll talk to him and straighten it all out.”
“No, he did fine. In fact, he has passed all of the tests and graduated high school. The university wants him to continue with his studies here.”
It was worth all the long hours of study just to see the astonishment in Mommy’s and Daddy’s wide-eyed, open-mouthed faces. You should have seen them; it was priceless. They were totally flabbergasted. I decided right then that I liked surprising people. It was fun. At age four, I started my studies at the university.
At age six, I received my first bachelor’s degree. The university kept it quiet, at the pleading of my parents. Also, I was becoming much more empathic and could sometimes read minds. I could also move objects a little, but no one knew this. I had read the professors’ thoughts about the last person who had showed signs of being “superhuman” and what the government had done. I was getting smarter and hiding my talents, because I didn’t want to be someone’s guinea pig, but I practiced constantly at home, where no one could see me. I just didn’t see anything in there that would cause people not to believe me.
The Gray stated, “This is all interesting, but the reason why they did not believe him is not of interest to us. However, according to his memory, telepathy and telekinesis is not common in this species. Let us move on. Close this door and open another one.”
The Green removed a tentacle from my head, and everything went black, but then the voices returned. The Green said, “Yes, master,” and replaced the tentacle.