Doctor Sandstorm: Chapter 1: Clara

So this is the first chapter of my first novella "Doctor Sandstorm". The version of the chapter used in the final novella was in fact my third or fourth try at writing the opening chapter, and was written in early September 2012. Original titles for the chapter included "The Strangest Stranger Of Them All" and "Strapped to the Operating Table".

Clara Green was by no means an unlikeable girl, nor an unusual one – in fact, she was a normal English schoolgirl, chic, stylish and craving for attention, chocolate and boys, twelve years old, twelve years of temper tantrums followed by sweet smiles wrapped up inside a beautiful dark-haired package, made in Lancashire. So it came as a great surprise to her when she woke up on an operating table at seven o'clock in the morning.

She smelt the musty air and looked around at her surroundings of stone staircases, trays crammed with complex instruments and potions, and mysterious electrical devices in the corner. Everything was silent. Two turquoise-clad surgeons in mouth masks and turquoise tunics surveyed her intently with glinting, malevolent eyes. At least, Clara presumed they were surgeons, albeit gloomy, shifty-looking ones. And she presumed they had eyes. Maybe that was why she remembered feeling a bit funny before she appeared on the operating table – she'd passed out and Mrs. Marple, her form teacher, had taken her to hospital.

Clara thought – a practice she didn't engage herself in very much – whilst the surgeons murmured quietly through their masks at each other. She was on a school trip with 29 other children and three teachers; as an End-of-Year Treat at Cantlebury High, pupils from each class went to a foreign country for a week. Due to budgetary reasons, only one class would be living the dream in New York for seven days in July 2012, and after picking the name out of a cap, 7D, Clara's form, had been chosen.

The trip was going fairly well, all things considered. Macy LeBouche, a rather podgy, arrogant girl who Clara immensely disliked, had tried to hit it off with Joe Felton on the first night, and rumours regarding Mr. Snagg becoming excessively drunk on the second night flew around the corridors and stairwells of the lavish five-star New York hotel. The gossip was excellent.

7D had rented an entire floor of the hotel, and stayed up very late at night, much to the dismay of the other residents of the hotel. There were thirty children in the class, split into six dormitory-style rooms of five children each. Clara got on well with quite a few of the girls in her class, but there were some who she didn't like and they didn't like her either.

She had a habit of saying what was on her mind, without caring for anybody else's feelings or desires. She was a very open-minded girl and very sceptical. She didn't believe anything until she could see it, and got very annoyed with adults who tried to patronise her.

It was for this reason that Clara didn't like all the girls in the class, including Macy LeBouche. She supposed that it was only fair, even though Macy LeBouche had a pig-like snout nose and very large feet. In fact, it was Clara's noticing of her animal-like features that made her and Macy enemies.

In Clara's large, spacious dormitory were four other girls, fortunately not including Macy LeBouche. Whereas Clara got on well with girls in her class, she didn't have any special friends, but luckily the four girls in her dormitory were her sort-of friends, people she got on well with. Alexandria Spraggan. Lucy Polizzi. Nigella Alley, and Amelia Hall.

The adventurous class, each with a bubbling, vibrant personality, were in the vast expanse of Central Park when Clara blacked out. Day 4 of 7. No doubt everybody would be wondering where she was. But where am I? she thought. She realised that she really didn't have a clue. No sunlight came from the broken window and everything appeared to be made of stone and dust. It didn't sound promising. It didn't sound like New York. Were they underground hospitals in New York, with stone staircases and secret basements and mysterious surgeons? Hmm.... no. Mysterious. And where were the teachers?

Clara's beautiful, round green eyes wandered over to an elaborate mahogany hand mirror positioned to the left side of the blue operating table she was sitting on. Clara scrutinized herself in it. She looked a mess.

Her black jacket had been taken off, as had her jet-black Doc Marten boots. Her lengthy black hair was all messed up, flying everywhere, and also apparently waging a war with her facial features, by the looks of it. It looked like it was trying to fly. She had huge bags under her eyes, and her pretty face looked tired and dishevelled.

The surgeons had finished their confuddling exchange of whispers and one now carried a small glass phial, the other a beaker of orange liquid. Clara suspected that it wasn't orange juice. The liquid emitted traces of steam, not a lot, but still steam, indicating that t it was hot, and it was soon poured into the phial, and then back to the beaker. Then back into the phial, then to the beaker, then in the phial, where it stayed. Hmm... thought Clara, three times... that's got to be significant...

The first figure, the first mysterious surgeon, raised the phial and walked over to Clara.

“Drink...” it rasped, hoarsely. Clara didn't do a thing. The drink could've been poison for all she knew. She had, by now, decided that her situation was an extremely dangerous one and she was in a very unsafe place. It wasn't a hospital, it might not have been New York, and there was nobody she knew or could trust, anywhere. Maybe this surgeon was qualified, just eccentric with unusual tastes. And was the hoarse rasping voice its natural voice, or did it have a throat problem? These were the things going through Clara's mind as she sceptically surveyed the masked menace.

The surgeon raised the phial to Clara's lips...

BANG! The massively splendid trays of medical and surgical instruments exploded, sending potions and phials flying. The door crashed down to the floor insignificantly, and in burst a figure in a purple tailcoat, plum trousers and a green frilled shirt, topped off with a plum top hat with a green ribbon on it, and a pale, pasty, white pumpkin-shaped face framed by copper brown hair, reaching to the figure's – lady's? shoulders.

She raised a hand. Out flew blue energy, like beams of light all flowing to one of the surgeons. The surgeon's body glowed blue and shattered like glass. She outstretched her other hand expectantly but no light came out. She looked crestfallen.

“Damn,” she uttered. “Must speak to Aldred”. So she produced, in her other hand, from nowhere, a long black wooden walking stick. She pulled out the top of it and instantly the second surgeon flew into it, his body convulsing and wriggling before turning into pure blue light. The woman snapped the cane shut as the last of the remains of the surgeon flew into it.

“Wraiths. Never could stand them. But Selecta, you got style”. She noticed Clara and jumped, as though startled, as though she had no idea Clara had been there.

“Oh. Hello. I don't think you'll have met me before, though I think I met you once when you were a baby. Well, welcome to Transylvania. I'm Doctor Sandstorm. And so the adventure begins”.

It's shorter than the other chapters, and really was just written as an introductory chapter. I hope you like it. If people say they like it, I might put more chapters up, but it's not a priority.
NEXT TIME ON THE BLOG: Summary for "Resurrection of the Golden Era" - synopsis and plot details.