Gome World

Alina Joanna Llimona

In Chapter 1 of Twilight Cave: The Scouorge Of Catalonia (Book 1) we are introduced to this spirited young woman who has grown up among the poor working people in Barcelona.  When we meet her she has sneaked into Parc Guell in the evening when the tourists have gone and the park is deserted (... or so she thinks).  She practices her soccer skills among the strange cloistered walkway designed by Antoni Gaudi.  Here is a picture of it. Here is a description of Alina from Chapter 1: 

Slim and willowy, with olive skin, she moved through the city streets unnoticed.  Her honest brown eyes were often downcast or hidden behind her long black hair.  She wore the uniform of Barcelona street kids - scuffed up sneakers, baggy Capri pants and a cut-off T-shirt in the blue and red stripes of F.C. Barcelona, with the number 10 of her hero Gerardhino on the back.  Just another unremarkable alley kid, unloved and unnoticed.  but on the soccer field all that changed.  Alina could move with such grace, change direction so silently and deceptively, that her friends called her Fantasma, the Catalunyan word for ghost.

Alina discovers thieves trying to steal one of the famous and much-loved Gaudi sculptures from Parc Guell.  Here are a few pictures of Parc Guell to give you a sense of what it is like:

   

The view from the top of Parc Guell out over the city to the distant Mediterranean Sea beyond is amazing.  The beauty of Parc Guell contrasts with the squalid alley where Alina lives with her frightened mother and her ugly and evil Uncle Ramon Vasquez.  It is amazing how quickly the scene can change in Barcelona from the beautiful public spaces to alleys that are filled with smelly garbage and mangy dogs:  Here are a few pictures of those:

  As Alina runs away from the danger and tries to get back to her apartment in the alley off Del Carme she runs through the old part of town called the Barri Gotic.  Here is a picture of what this looks like, although it is a lot less scary during the day when it is filled with happy tourists than when Alina has to run through it at night time:

  If you would like to hear me reading the opening chapter of Twilight Cave: The Scourge Of Catalonia (Book 1) you can go to this weblog posting:

http://gomeworld.typepad.com/gome_world/2008/03/the-scourge-of.html

Finnley James Murray McDougall

When I talked to several classes of Middle School students last week in Bend, Oregon several of them asked me if the character of Finn is based on anyone I know.  Is he like I was when I was a kid or is he like one of my own kids when they were that age?  The answer is that Finnley is made up from lots of different children that I have known in my life, and maybe a little bit like I was when I was growing up in the remote and quiet countryside of southwest Scotland.  Finn is the quintessential "nice wee boy!"  He is not all that brave.  He is not all that good at school.  He has a hard time concentrating on his schoolwork but he has a great imagination and is a good-natured and loyal friend.  He is bored with homework assignments about Mesopotamia.  He day dreams in his boring Latin class.  He tries to avoid the school bully, Alex Drivelson.  He tries to stay on his mom's good side.  More than anything Finn longs for adventure. 

Finn shares all of his hopes and dreams with his next door neighbor and best friend, Hadley Kobayashi.  They have set up a unique and very cool communication system.  Their bedroom windows are about thirty yards apart and at the same height.  they have a wire and pulley system so that they can attach notes to the wire inside plastic bags and then turn the pulley to move the notes over to the other person's window.  One of the students at High Lakes began to do a drawing of this system but I think she didn't have time to finish it.  The house on the right is like a ghost house!  If you want to draw me a better picture of what the pulley-note system between Finn and Hadley's houses is like I would love to see it.  If you send it to me at my PO box in Seattle I will scan it and post it on the blog.

Here is another picture of the note-pulley system:

 Finn gets more than he bargains for when his wild and eccentric Great Uncle Hugh McDougall arrives from Scotland and gives Finn a most unusual gift of a dirty, smelly, "very special Scottish paperweight."  When the paperweight comes to life to become Wullie-The-Mahaar-Gome Finn's life turns into the most adventurous roller-coaster of fun and disaster.  Here is a great drawing buy one of Ms. Storey's Talented and Gifted elementary students at High Lakes school in Bend, Oregon, showing Finn walking to school with his best friend Hadley and with Wullie perched on Finn's shoulder.   

I hope you will enjoy traveling all over the world with Finn and Hadley as they have lots of exciting adventures involving a lot of wicked humans (and a few nice ones) and an even bigger number of evil and wicked rock creatures (or gomes) who would like to use Finn for a very special and evil purpose.  Wullie-The-Mahaar-Gome and some of his best friends have to work really hard to keep Finn safe from harm.

Marie-Claire Blancmange

I have nothing against France.  Honestly, I don't.  I've got some friends who are French, and they're very nice.  But Marie-Claire Blancmange is NOT nice.  She is one of the villains in the first series of Wullie-The-Mahaar-Gome stories.  She first appears in chapter nine of The Rusty Pelican when she storms past Finn's dad into their house, like a domineering, arrogant, lavender-smelling snob!  I'm not sure why she thinks she is so superior.  Maybe she is trying to cover up the fact that her last name means "tasteless bland milk pudding."  I am not kidding; Blancmange (pronounced Blah-mawnj) means "something white to eat," or something like that.  I remember my mom making it when I was a wee boy, in Scotland.  It was like custard except that it was white and tasteless. If you left it sitting in the bowl long enough it formed a skin on the top that made it even more disgusting.  Maybe I am just not sophisticated enough to enjoy French food.

But let's get back to Marie-Claire.  She barged into Finn's house looking like a deranged black and white cartoon character.  She is tall, thin, and looks down on the world with haughty disdain.  Her face is covered in deathly pale makeup with purple eye shadow and thick black face paint to accentuate her towering eyebrows.  Her hair is jet black, cut short and straight, and plastered close to her skull in a severe style.  She wears a long, black leather coat and black high-heeled boots.  Her wrists jangle with jewelry and she reeks of lavender perfume.  Altogether, she is a striking figure.  Here is a rough sketch that my son, Roderick, drew of what he that Marie-Claire looked like.   

I would love to see what you think she looks like.

What is it with French women and their ridiculous hairdos?  They are not exactly practical.  Here is a poster of a hairstyle I saw in France outside a fancy women's hair salon.  I noticed that there were no women inside getting their hair cut, mind you.  No wonder!  Who, in their right mind, would want to look like this poor woman?  It looks as though the hairdresser made a total botch of it, and so, to cover up the mistakes, placed a dead squirrel on top of the woman's head!  And could somebody please give the poor woman some Duct Tape to fix her blouse.  It seems to be falling off her.  The collar is almost completely detached.  She'll catch her death of cold.

Here's another one.  I saw this one in Paris, which I am sure you know is the most sophisticated, chic, and fashionable place in the universe.  For just a few hundred dollars you, too, can look like this charming woman!

She looks so thin I wonder if she ever eats anything.  Maybe she is just not tempted by the delights of sophisticated French cooking.

Here is a sample of what was on offer in a market near Lourmarin, in the South of France.  Mmmmmmm... tasty!  Two different variety of snails.  The ones in the middle are more expensive because they are "extra slimy."  The word "Maison" is the French word for "House" so perhaps these are the house snails, to be washed down with a glass of the house wine, maybe.  Just outside the market there was a big church with statues and gargoyles everywhere.  I saw these fine specimens looking down from far above.     It looks to me as though they've eaten one too many of the house snails.

In the village square there was a water fountain where the water came out of elegant carved stone spickets that looked as though they were vomiting up green moss.  It didn't exactly give me an appetite.  But maybe I am just not sophisticated enough to appreciate French food.

The most delicious thing to eat in France (if you have any room left after eating a few big helpings of snails and frog's legs) is pate de fois gras (pronounced Patty duh fwuh graaaah, if you want to sound REALLY sophisticated).  This is basically mashed up goose liver with garlic and other mysterious ingredients added so that they can charge you a fortune for it, as far as I can tell.  It is so delicious and sophisticated that even the French geese look snooty and disdainful. 

I suppose I must just be an uncouth Scotsman. I just can't see why I should be so impressed.  But Marie-Claire Blancmange hates people like me with a passion.  As you will see, she hates anyone who isn't French.  She especially hates crass, loud Americans; but she loathes the vulgar Scots even more.  As you will find out in Blackhope Scaur (the second book in the series of Wullie-The-Mahaar-Gome stories) Marie-Claire has particular reasons to hate Scotland.  She hates it so much that she plans to destroy it completely.  It will be up to two American teenagers and one scruffy, rude, bad-tempered little gome to try and stop her...