Gome World

Baldo-The-Bladderwort

In the last chapter of The Rusty Pelican Hadley and Finn are reflecting on the adventures they have had with gomes. Finn asks, "Are there girl gomes?  I never asked Wullie.  All the ones we've seen were little men."  Hadley replies, "I don't know about Baldo.  The Bladderwort seemed more like an "it" if you ask me."

You might agree with her after reading the description of Baldo-The-Bladderwort crawling out of an oil drum full of water in the cellar of the Rusty Pelican barge.  Baldo lives in the sea where he has not learned to speak English (or any other language) but instead shrieks and wails with fury if he does not get his way.  He devours the shells of shell fish and then throws their flesh and guts away.  Like so many gomes he has grown to look like his surroundings.  He looks like a discarded lobster shell that is now covered in seaweed.  He can move fast in the water, propelled by the flipper feet on his back limbs, but he is very awkward out of the water.  He crawls forward using his two front limbs, making a rhythmic heave-clunk-heave-clunk sound.  For although one arm and hand is vaguely human in shape his other hand ends in a huge lobster claw with jaws of different lengths.  The bottom jaw of the claw extends as a vicious bony spike that he uses to stab his enemies.

He has two large fish-like eyes and a mouth that is a perfect circle made up of several rows of curved needle-like teeth, like you see on blood sucking leeches and lampreys.  The strands of seaweed hanging off his head look like dreadlocks which add to the odd and wild look.  Here is a rough sketch that my son, Roderick, did of what he thinks Baldo might look like. 

I think Roderick put the lobster claw on the wrong hand.  And what happened to the rest of his body?  What do you think Baldo looks like?

Here is a picture of what I think he might look like:

The Weird of Calanais

The third part of The Twilight Cave Trilogy is called The Weird of Calanais.  That's a weird kind of a title for a book!  In this case the word "Weird" is an old word for a witch and the word "Calanais" (which is pronounced "Callanish") refers to a mysterious and spiritually powerful place on the Island of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.  Here is a summary of the story:

Finnley McDougall's fourteen year-old body has been turned to stone.  Barely clinging to life he is transported by sea from Spain to the Western Isles of Scotland to be crushed to rubble amidst the Standing Stones of Calanais.  Dozens of evil gomes and humans will profit from Finn's destruction.  What can Finn's best friend, Hadley, and their scruffy, rude, bad-tempered companion, Wullie-The-Mahaar-Gome, do to save him?  Nothing... unless they can find the gome witch, Varry Doo, survive attacks by her midges and bonxies, catch the biggest trout in Loch Eggerness, sneak past the attack guard geese at Cragganbogle Castle, rip the moustache of a sleeping Spaniard, and survive the embarrassment of Hadley's mother's naked Druid dance under the Midsummer moonlight.  It won't be as easy as it sounds.

Here is the first chapter of the story.  Chapter one is called Schemers In The Mist:

The Depths of Barcelunda

The second part of The Twilight Cave Trilogy is called The Depths of Barcelunda.  Here is a summary of the story:

Finnley McDougall wakes to find himself being held as a prisoner in an underground cave in Spain.  He is surrounded by evil gomes who keep him drugged with weird sludgy food.  Far above, his parents think he had died in a tragic caving accident.  But Finn's best friend Hadley Kobayashi believes that Finn is still alive.  With the help of their scruffy, rude, bad-tempered companion, Wullie-The-Mahaar-Gome she sets off to find Finn and rescue them.  They discover a massive underground city where thousands of wicked gomes and some crooked humans are plotting to use Finn for their evil purposes.  If Hadley can avoid being drowned in underground lakes, branded by molten metal, tormented by Wullie's sarcasm, stabbed by poison-tipped gome spears, or crushed in the Rock Pit of Torture and Justice maybe she can rescue Finn and get them all out alive.

Here is the first chapter of the story.  Chapter one is called Strange New Companions

The Scourge of Catalonia

I have just finished the second trilogy of stories featuring Finn, Hadley, Wullie and their friends (...and enemies).  It is called The Twilight Cave Trilogy and takes them from Seattle to the hot steamy exotic Catalonian mountains in Spain and then to the remote, cold and wet Western Isles of Scotland.  The first part of the story is called The Scourge of Catalonia.  I hope that you won't be put off by that odd title.  You might want to look up the word "Scourge" in a dictionary.  It is a great word to add to your vocabulary so that you can drop it into casual conversation to impress people!

Here is a summary of The Scourge of Catalonia

A beloved sculpture is stolen by an acid-spitting gome in Barcelona.  A smart, brave, fourteen year-old girl deals with her father's ditzy girlfriends in Seattle.  A doleful sandstone gome battles guard geese at Cragganbogle Castle on the Western Isles of Scotland.  When Finnley McDougall's Seventh Grade class is invited to spend a vacation in Spain these unlikely events are drawn together in another mystery adventure featuring Finn, Hadley, and their scruffy, rude, bad-tempered companion, Wullie-The-Mahaar-Gome.  If Finn and Hadley can survive bullies, grumpy teachers, evil Spaniards, stinging sculptures, weird food, squealing bagpipes, and dangerous caves without fighting with each other and falling out maybe they can figure out what is going on.

Here is the first chapter of the story.  Chapter one is called Poisonous Graffiti

Here is the second chapter of the story.  Chapter two is called The Messed-up Celtic Love Knot

The Edinburgh Military Tattoo

If you are planning a trip to Scotland during August when the Edinburgh International Arts Festival is on try to get tickets to go and see the Tattoo.  I describe it in quite a lot of detail in The Doomed Castle which is part three of The Blackhope Scaur Trilogy.  You often have to book months in advance.  Here is the official website http://www.edintattoo.co.uk/ .  I have been to see the Tattoo several times during my life and have never been disappointed.  When you tour the castle during the day in summertime you can see the bleachers that have been erected on the esplanade:

It is impressive enough during the day but at night time the whole place takes on a magical appearance.  With multicolored floodlights casting images on the massive castle wall, and fireworks and smoke and laser shows piercing the night air you feel as if you are truly in the middle of a memorable historical event.  And when the gates from the upper castle open and hundreds of kilted pipers march out playing in unison the night is filled with the deafening noise of that most traditional Scottish instrument.  Depending on your musical taste you may feel trapped by the crowd and unable to get away!  Spare a thought for the ancient English armies that came across the border to fight the Scottish army.  Bagpipes were used to put fear into the enemy troops for the wailing sound could be heard by the enemy from miles away, long before they could see who they were fighting. 

So imagine that you are sitting there among the bleachers late in the evening on the last night of The Tattoo wondering whether gomes might be attacking the castle, plotting to steal the crown jewels or blow the whole place up...

Touring Edinburgh Castle

In the chapter called "Gathering Storms at The Castle" in Blackhope Scaur Finn, Hadley, and Finn's family take a tour of Edinburgh Castle.  If you ever get the chance to visit Edinburgh I highly recommend that you take such a tour.  It is impressive enough from the outside but when you get inside it truly feels like a whole little ancient village with cobbled streets and strange buildings.

Finn enjoys pretending to be firing one of the cannons on the Argyll Battery launching a cannon all the way across Princes Street Gardens to hit the monument that stands on Princes Street in honor of Sir Walter Scott.  Here is the view Finn got sighting along the barrel. Both Hadley and Finn get a fright when the One-O'clock Gun is fired.  That really does still happen every day at 1 p.m. and can be heard all over the city.

The gun that fires at one-o'clock is fairly modern, as you can see, but they really do have the ancient siege-gun that was built in the 1440s.  It could hurl a metal cannon weighing almost a ton for over two miles and was used to smash castle walls.  Here is a picture of a modern-day tourist leaning against it with a pile of cannons sitting nearby.  Each of these cannons is about the same size and shape as Big Tek in the story. 

There really is a Crown Square and the Palace that holds the Scottish crown jewels.  I hope you can imagine a helicopter landing in Crown Square and an unpleasant French woman in a long black coat and high heeled boots struggling across the square with a suitcase. 

It is easy to let your imagination go wild when you are touring Edinburgh Castle.  Take a look at the tourists walking across Crown Square and try to imagine which of them are really spies, murderers or aliens in disguise...

The House at Moray Place

At the opening of Blackhope Scaur part two of The Blackhope Scaur Trilogy Finn and his family arrive at the house that Uncle Hugh McDougall is renting for the summer in the center of Edinburgh at Moray Place.  Although I invented the details of what the house was like on the inside I kept as much as I could of the details accurate.  Moray place really exists and presents an austere facade to the world.   As you can see it is a monotonous gray color and all the houses look much the same as each other.

At the entrance to each house there are steps going up to a large solid wooden door.  I say in the story that all the doors are painted a slightly different shade of green, which isn't exactly true.  Here is one that is blue!  You can see that there are basement  rooms set below the level of the street. Finn gets to sleep on that room during his stay and is unsettled by the sounds and sights and smells of the place.  There are solid wrought iron railings on the fences that line the street.  They look a bit like spears and give Moray Place an even more unwelcoming feel, as if the houses are very well defended from outside intruders.

When Finn and Hadley leave to go exploring they go through the back garden, out a lane and head for the corner.  Wullie scampers along keeping himself hidden beneath the kerb.   Here is a picture of a small back garden at Moray Place and the corner where they set off for their late evening adventure following The McCrones.  This garden is smaller than the one I describe in the book and does not have a fountain containing a bad-tempered moss-covered gargoyle, so you will just have to imagine that part.