Excerpt, Plus: Chapter 25 & ?!
Hello, Readers! At last we find ourselves five days from the release of Eucalyptus Street: Green Curse. Hoo-ray! And just in time for Halloween.
Here is your final excerpt, from the last chapter, and the tool the detectives must decipher to search successfully for the Green Curse, namely, The Puzzle Poem.
I hope you enjoy both!
And please click here to pre-order the eBook from Amazon for delivery on October 20. Thanks for your loyal support!
From Chapter 25, “It’s a Wrap”
At the celebration, the detectives share their feelings and hopes:
Moki said, “My only regret about this case is that I didn’t have time to make my famous pineapple-coconut upside-down cake for this party.” He was still wiping melted cheese strings and pepperoni bits from his hands and face.
“My only regret is that our case is over,” Lexi said. “I hope someone else hires us soon.”
“I do, too, BFF,” Rani said. “Plus, your aunt Connie is leaving tomorrow, so no more fancy-pants parties. No more dress up. Life could get pretty boring. And Moki and I might have to return to regular school.”
Moki grinned. “Oh, I don’t know. We don’t do ‘boring’ very well. Something always comes up.” He smiled and reached for another slice of pizza. “I happen to know for a fact that something evil is already unfolding just a few streets from here.”
The Puzzle Poem
“Wishful dreams of bold emerald trappings
From radiant treetop and archaic wrappings;
To find what you seek, you must dash and dart
Only to discover the ending was at the start.
Deep down below a chamber to nourish
The players’ voices, where still flourish
Wooden words helped create the magic:
Sometimes comic and sometimes tragic.
Lions’ threatening stares from their moonlit perches
Warn of danger for would-be explorers’ searches;
But once their eyes are turned down to the floor,
The way becomes clear, it reveals much more.
An artisan’s tilework leads to loftier places
Where there are myriad quarters with timeworn traces.
When the sunlight’s ray strikes the portrait at three,
Look to the jeweled hand that recommends your knee.
Treehouse gardens seen from highest window stained,
Its panes have witnessed material treasures that remain
Dazzling and fine, but now hidden, soon forgotten with time,
Perhaps to be rescued because of this rhyme.
At the end of it all, blackened roses, wicked thorns, and delusions,
So from Gray’s elegy, I ask if beauty isn’t wasted in seclusion?
Searching must continue now but at a funeral’s pace, awaiting the light
That appears however improbably, yet shining green and eternally bright.”
