When an orbiting White Hole rolls through Jennifer Arthur's backyard she, her best friend Willa Walker, and her marmalade cat Atta Girl are swept into it. After a dizzying journey they are marooned in another universe, where everything is white, even the girls. Only Atta Girl retains her rich, tawny hues. The three are promptly confronted by the terrible Ghanglers who rule that planet's surface. Led by the vicious Tehrran Tuhlla, the Ghanglers use the power of the whirlwind to enforce rigid planetary standards of conformity, going about their relentless business on the individual tornadoes which serve them instead of feet. As the girls and Atta flee from a gang of Ghanglers, they are befriended by Morgan, the Magnificent Wandering Wohtt. Morgan "resembles a humungous, full-blown dandelion" but his courage and ingenuity make him a lovable and heroic companion. Morgan leads them to refuge in the secret, underground nation of Chrystellea, where the citizens have problems of their own. Their leader, Behrrn the Rememberer, has forgotten The Dream, a dream which the people cherish, of color in a colorless universe. Now though, even the cherished 'memory' of color fades, draining from the White World "like water from a bathtub" The sequel, Jennifer Arthur and ALL THE GONE, will be published in the fall of 2006.

A WHITE HOLE in SPACE

Book One of the Chrystellean TrilogyBy Alice Salerno

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2005 Alice Salerno
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-595-37049-8

Chapter One

The White Hole

When it happened, it seemed like an ordinary day. Willa and Jennifer were just sitting around in Jenny's backyard, leaning against the garage. It was Saturday, June 4th, the first good day in a long time. The breeze was a little cool, but the garage wall had been soaking up sun since early morning, and it was steaming warmth back at them like a heater.

"Just think, Jenny," Willa said, sighing contentedly, "summer vacation starts next week!" Willa lived across the street and down two houses from Jenny. Willa's was a September birthday and Jenny's was in January, so Willa was a whole grade ahead of her in school. She had all the lowdown on high school, while Jenny was still doing time in middle school.

"We can just hang out this summer. And eat lunch in my tree house every day," Willa added, grinning at Jenny sideways.

Jenny gave her friend her fiercest squelch look, but she really couldn't blame Willa for teasing. She realized there really was something weird about a teenager like herself who had never been on a carnival ride that goes any higher than a carousel. She had never ridden the outdoor glass elevator at the Morris Hotel, either. And she even had trouble making herself climb the rope ladder into Willa's tree house. So she guessed she couldn't blame Willa for giving her a bad time about it now and then.

Willa was a good friend to talk things over with, though. Jenny guessed she did more than her own share of the talking, but when Willa did speak up, it was worth waiting for. And she listened, you know, instead of just racing ahead in her brain to see what she wanted to say next.

They'd been talking about some real important things. You know, stuff like how long time is, where space ends, and why they both were born, anyway. It makes you feel kind of opened up wide to think about things like that, but if you do it too long you start to feel dangerous, like you might split wide open. So then you have to hurry back and talk about the sweater in Gilliam's store window and last night's TV programs and what was on at the movies.

"Lunch is nearly ready, Jenny," Mom called through the open kitchen window. "Willa," she asked, still busy at the window, "would you like to have lunch with us?"

"That'd be great. Thanks, Mrs. Arthur." Willa's mom and dad both worked on weekends, so Saturday lunch was usually solo for her.

"Kee-rash!" Jenny's little brother, Warren, kerbanged out of the garage, where he'd been building another monster kite. "Last one to lunch gets rotten eggs," he shouted as he stomped up the back stairs. When it came to food, Warren had some special kind of radar.

"Fine. I'll call you girls in a few minutes." Mom disappeared from the window, but they could still hear her humming in the kitchen.

"I just remembered what the sun does to my freckles," Jenny grouched to Willa. "Whenever I get in it, my freckles spread out and run into each other like pancake batter on a hot griddle." She stood up, looking for a spot of shade. "That's just one of the disadvantages of red hair."

"If you think that's trouble," Willa said as she got up, too, stretching lazily, "you should try being black for a while."

Jenny sort of knew what she meant. Willa wasn't actually black, of course, any more than Jenny was white. She was a nice, warm brown, about the shade of Jenny's own freckles. But right then it wasn't Willa's problem she was interested in, it was her own. "When it comes to minorities," she insisted, "redheads are in even shorter supply than black people. And everybody's always harping about it, even calling you Red instead of your real name. It's disgusting."

Willa lifted one eyebrow skeptically.

"It truly is," Jennifer insisted, moving toward the back of the yard to lean against the trunk of the big, shady loquat tree. "Like whenever I get a little cranky, somebody says, "`There goes that red-haired temper of yours, Jenny.'" Honestly, did you ever hear of a temper with hair? And if it did have hair, who says it'd be red? Nobody ever talks about blonde temper, or brunette temper."

"Yooowrrr!"

Suddenly a flash of orange dropped from the fence at the back corner of the yard. When they looked, they only saw that Jenny's tabby cat, Atta Girl was standing where she'd landed, on all four stiffened legs at once, with her tail run up like a flag. Her ginger-orange fur was stretched out in all directions. She looked twice as big as she really was, and she wasn't only hissing, she was growling as she stared at a place near the back fence, about three feet to the right of the lilac bush. Her yellow eyes were squeezed up like splinters, and she was making low, mean sounds.

"What is she looking at, Jenny?"

Sometimes people ask you to interpret for your pets, like you have a code you use with them or something. And sometimes Jenny could tell what Atta wanted better than anybody else, better than Mom or Dad, or even Warren. Most of the time, Atta seemed to understand her, too. But Jenny had never seen her cat act that way before. The back of her neck prickled with warning.

"What's the matta, Atta?" Now and then she talked to her cat that way as a kind of name joke, but this time she wasn't trying to be funny.

And it wasn't only Atta's growling that made her nervous. Everything began to seem out of focus—the trees, the fence, the garage—even Willa and Jenny. It wasn't that anything looked different, or wasn't where it was supposed to be. Everything just felt off-kilter ... tilted somehow ... shivery!

"C'mon Atta, don't act so spooky," Jenny pleaded. If she could get her to stop, she thought, maybe the queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach would go away.

"No, wait Jenny," Willa reached out to touch her shoulder. "Atta's right. Something weird is going on!"

"But there's nothing there!"

"I don't see anything, either, but just listen!"

Jenny heard it too, then. Over the sound of Atta's growling, and around it, and through it, there was a rolling, staticky sound.

"What is that noise, Jenny?"

"I don't know, Willa. It sounds like its coming from the Johnson's yard, next door. Only it's getting closer!" Jenny's arm trembled under Willa's hand. Willa was right, Jennifer realized. Whatever was making that peculiar sound was moving. Toward them.

"Willa, do you see what I see?" Jenny could hardly push the words past the knot in her throat. "Right there, next to the lilac bush."

"It's ... it's just light, Jenny. Just a pool of light. But where is it coming from? What's causing it?"

"I don't know. It's all shady here, except for that round, bright spot." At first the light was only a few inches in diameter, but it grew as they watched. By now, Willa seemed more fascinated than frightened, but Jenny was spooked.

"Have you ever seen anything like it, Jenny?" Willa asked excitedly.

"No, I haven't. It looks—like carbonated light!"

"See? There's something—some things—moving around on the other side of it." Jenny saw them, too, but she couldn't make out what they were. All she knew for sure was that whatever they were seeing through that sparkling light, it wasn't the ground, or the lilac tree, or the redwood fence that should have been there. And the creepiest part was that the light didn't shine on the ground, like a spotlight or flashlight would. Instead, it gathered itself in a flat circle several inches off of the ground, at about a thirty five degree angle to it, gushing and sputtering like a nervous geyser.

"Maybe I ought to call Mom," Jenny suggested nervously. But as she spoke the light began to foam, erupting suddenly in flashing, shimmering frothy brightness. Directly in front of them. Willa moved toward it for a closer look.

"Willa, wait!" Jenny reached out to catch her, to hold her back. But that's when, without any warning, the eerie, foaming light simply reached out and wrapped around them.

Right away they were swallowed up in the clear, shimmering light. It was thick and bubbly and chilly. Jenny seemed to be standing up in it, but when up and down looked exactly like all around, it was really hard to tell. Especially with that tilted feeling still there, even stronger than before.

"Willa—Willa! Over here!" Jenny could hardly see her friend through the glare that surrounded them. She reached out to grab her hand, and Willa reached back, stretching desperately.

"You're too far, Jen ..."

Jenny hardly heard her, and she was already drifting just out of reach. Willa was almost out of sight, too, in the glittery white. Then Jenny couldn't see her at all. Earth itself shuddered beneath her, like a humungous dragon stretching and waking up under her feet. But Jennifer wasn't moving with the earth, anymore. She just hung suspended above the world, and nothingness spun toward her.

"Willa!" she screamed, frantic to at least hear her voice. "WILLA!" But there was no answer. Cool and moist, the light continued to press against her eyeballs.

"Mom, MOM help me!" she yelled again, but the frothy light swallowed her words. Somehow, she felt Mom wouldn't have heard her, anyway. Oh, Mom was still there, she figured, humming in the kitchen, putting lunch on the table. Jennifer could almost smell the blueberry muffins baking. But she had a purely powerful feeling that she, Jenny, wasn't there anymore. It wasn't as if she'd gone somewhere else. It was more as if somewhere else (or nowhere else) had swept around her and replaced the backyard; fence, garage, lilac tree and all.

"Oh, what's going on here! What is this crazy light?" she asked herself out loud, to sort out her thinking, and for the comfort of hearing a voice, even her own. "Where did it take Willa, and where is it taking me?"

The white was so thick she couldn't see anything at all. She tried groping all around her, but there was nothing to touch. The scariest part was, she couldn't feel anything under her, either! Her feet dangled as if she was standing on nothing. And she was terrified to move, for fear of falling into something even worse. Maybe, she thought, not being able to see through the foamy light was a blessing.

And she felt so strange, as if she was growing—getting larger, and looser. The cells of her body seemed to be losing track of each other. Maybe I've died, she thought. But this sure wasn't heaven, and she figured she hadn't done anything bad enough for the other place.

She tried to figure where her house might be, or the garage, or even the lilac bush. But all she could see or feel was the glaring, white light, and all she could hear was her own heart thumping in her ears. Beads of sweat broke out on her forehead in spite of the chill, and her brain swarmed with fear.

"Hey!" She didn't feel quite so scared when she yelled—"whoever is doing this, I'm telling you," her voice came out in a squawk, "whatever you think you're doing, IT ISN'T FUNNY!"

Her words disappeared into the thick brightness so quickly that she wondered if she'd imagined yelling. It had been about as satisfying as punching a shadow. You squeeze your muscles up tight, and ball up your fist and "Whammo!" there that silly shadow still is, the exact same as it was before.

She still felt as if she were expanding—melting, it seemed, into a whole universe of light. Her feet seemed so far from her head that she could hardly worry about what was happening to them, anymore. The fizzy glare even began to seep into her mind, so that finally she was a part of it, cool and vague. And for a long, long while

there was nothing else.

Some time later, the light finally began to gather itself into shapes and sizes, and at last Jenny felt something beneath her. She was someplace again. It was definitely not her backyard, but someplace was a tremendous improvement over the no place where she'd been.

Chapter Two

Someplace Again

In the top floor of the white alabaster Imperial Tower, Tehrran Tuhlla the Absolute sat at his enormous white marble desk working, as usual, on his Master Plan. A kitchen maid—a human girl—scurried out of one of the many hidden doors which lined the Tower walls. She silently placed a grotesquely carved, steaming mug next to Tuhlla's claw-like left hand. She wondered if, while she was behind him, she might dare to straighten up and stretch for just a moment, before she crouched again to reenter the waist-high tunnel that led back to the Tower kitchens, several stories below.

She startled nervously, though, as Tuhlla drummed his fingers impatiently on the desk's polished surface, and the whirlwind, which wound around the place where his feet should have been, began to sputter with stinging sparks. Suddenly she was sure that a relaxing stretch, even behind Tuhlla the Terrible's back, would not be worth risking his wrath. She scrambled back through the small door, still crouching, and still aching.

As she pulled the small, heavy door closed behind her, a look of sly satisfaction crossed Tuhlla's pasty white face. He narrowed his vertically slitted eyes. Slaves, he felt, were necessary to ensure that his and his Ghanglers' needs and wants were seen to instantly. But that did not mean he had to look at the creatures. The tower's many tunnels protected his privacy, and the tunnels' three-foot height kept the slaves on their knees, where Tuhlla believed they belonged.

He went back to work, scratching things out on his Master Plan, making new entries. It was not enough that he was Absolute Ruler of the "proud" Ghangler Nation. Tuhlla would not be satisfied until he was Absolute Emperor of all the Peoples of the White World. His face assumed a pious expression as he told himself aloud, "For the people's own good, of course."

Suddenly, a small light on his desk began to blink urgently. Tuhlla checked which light it was as he rose to his full eight-and-a-half foot height. "GUARDS!" He roared. "There is a disturbance in the perimeter. Find out what it is—and who is responsible!"

Meanwhile, in the field outside Tuhlla's dismal city, the shimmering light which surrounded Jennifer began to settle into a fizzy white mist. Through it grass and trees and rocks and sky, or things like them, began to be recognizable. But they were all eerily white; bone white, snow white, ivory white. All white. Insects that resembled ivory crickets were creaking, but their delicate, bell-like sound was nothing like the chirping of home-style crickets. A white bird twirp-twilled an unfamiliar song. Otherwise, everything was quiet.

"Yikes!"

A peculiar white animal scrabbled over her left foot, and she turned to watch it run into its hole a few feet away. The ground it burrowed into was as clear as old glass, and she watched the creature's underground journey to its nesting hole. Although the ground was mostly clear, there were many tunneled patterns beneath its surface, with an even more delicate laciness in some places, where little silvery worms were at work.

Meanwhile, the last trace of the bubbling, crackling light dwindled to nothing and disappeared with a final, small sputter.

Jennifer Arthur was all alone in a weird, white world.

Hot tears slid down the side of her nose and leaked salt into her mouth. "Oh Mom," she whispered, "how will I ever get home to lunch from here?"

She'd never been so scared and lonely. "If this is a dream," she said out loud, "I want to wake up—NOW!"

"Jenny! Oh Jenny, is that you!"

Incredibly, amazingly, wonderfully, Willa was running toward her. She was the most welcome sight ever. Jenny was so glad to see her that at first she didn't even realize that–

"Willa, you're white!"

"I'm what?" Willa stopped just short of a hug to look down at herself, frowning. Jenny had never seen her frown that way before, except when Harold Miller was tying tin cans to a kitten's tail. That time, she was truly fee-ro-shus. Now, she was frowning at the whiteness of what she could see of herself. Even her neat, tight hair was white, and her eyes, if she could have seen them as Jenny did, were misty, not the crisp, clear black they should have been.

"Jenny!" Willa exclaimed, her eyes going wide as she looked back at her friend, "You're white too—really white, I mean."

Sure enough, Jenny's blue jeans and yellow sweater were as pale and colorless as everything else in that extraordinary place. Her hands and arms were an all-of-a-shade-white. Even her freckles were gone!

(Continues...)

Excerpted from A WHITE HOLE in SPACEby Alice Salerno Copyright © 2005 by Alice Salerno. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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