The Canvas Map Adventures Series BOOK ONE

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Chapter One

The Substitute Teacher

            “Wow! It’s true; I’m really here!” Gerry said as he struggled to climb out of a big pile of sugar. He was holding a piece of an old canvas map in one hand and was brushing himself off with the other.

 Only moments ago he had been lying on his bed staring at the small map he held and trying to imagine what it would be like to be in the Sugar Hills of Cookie County in a land called Mydreama.

            But Gerry wasn’t in his bedroom any more. He looked around at the white hills that surrounded him and then tried to stand. But his head hit the low branch of a sugar-covered pine tree and he was showered with sugar. It coated his hair and tickled as it slid down the neck of his shirt. So, he crawled through the deep sugar to get away from the tree and then he tried to stand again. He rose slowly to his feet and shook the sugar from his hair and pulled at the front of his shirt to shake the sugar loose.

 “This can’t be real!” he said loudly as he tried to understand what had just happened to him. As Gerry stood there in the middle of the Sugar Hills he was trying to piece together a puzzle in his mind.

 "How did I get here?" He said out loud, looking around him. Then he thought back to when he had first come home with the map. He could remember his mother’s voice from downstairs.

“Is that you Gerry?” she had called out, and he had answered her, he thought, but had he? Maybe he just dreamed it. Gerry wasn''t really sure because his full attention had been on this little map and the great story he was going to write about the Sugar Hills.

             After school Gerry had rushed home with the mysterious map in hand, and hadn’t even stopped in the kitchen for a snack, which was his usual practice. But then he had been very deep in thought as he ran up the stairs to his bedroom that afternoon. He had bounded into his room, flung the door shut behind him and dove for his bed. He was so excited to start his new assignment that he hadn’t even taken his backpack off before starting to examine the strange canvas map that had just been entrusted to him.

            Gerry looked down at this same map that was still clutched in his hand. He clearly remembered spreading the map out on his bed and he even remembered thinking that the canvas it was drawn on felt stiff and that it had a funny smell.