The Delta Breeze
The Newsletter of the Delta Mysteries
Webpage :http://www.patmyst.com
Welcome to the first edition of the Delta Breeze, the newsletter for the Delta Mysteries, a series of contemporary children’s novels set in and around the Sacramento River Delta Communities. The first novel Carlotta’s Secret introduces the reader to the small fictionalized town of Willow Springs, California, and to Carlotta Stevens, a newly transplanted New Yorker, her mother and father and the six neighborhood friends who call themselves the Webster Street Gang. In the first novel we also meet Miss Simon, a woman with an unusual past who also plays a part in some of the future novels. Carlotta is eleven years old. She has a secret that will become part of everything she does in the current and future novels. Carlotta’s Secret debuted at Carol’s Books in Sacramento California on March 24, 2001. The attendees at the first book signing heard the author, Patricia E. Canterbury, read from Chapter One.
Chapter One
There was something about the way she said “Welcome” that should have told me to turn around and run as far away as possible. But I didn’t dare. I stood just outside her door looking over at the Webster Street Gang and, especially Timmy Johnson.
I could see Timmy smiling, waiting for me to turn tail and run. I could also hear him saying, “Just what you’d expect from a girl,” one of his favorite phrases. I knew that if I ran away I’d never be welcomed into the neighborhood club. My six new friends, Timmy, Margo Goldstein, Lewis and Randy Williams, Tru Nguyen and
Monroe Jones, who call themselves the Webster Street Gang, a name they chose after seeing a Disney Movie, were making me prove that I was one of them.
They thought that adding "Gang" to their
name made them seem tough and strong when they played baseball. They're
really good. I think that they could beat the Regional Champions. For
the past six years, kids from a tiny school in Galt, California, have
beat the stuffings out of the Webster Street Gang and every other
baseball team from Willow Springs. But that was before I came to town.
Ever since my parents moved to Willow Springs four weeks ago, I'd been trying to make friends. Willow Springs is a real nice, quiet delta town. It's right on the banks of the Sacramento River. At first I didn't think that I would 'cuz I'm from New York City. New York's really busy and filled with lots of people. Here in Willow Springs, you can walk down blocks and blocks of tree-
shaded streets and hardly see anyone but retired people sitting on their porches or walking their dogs. I'm used to subways and taxis and hardly ever walked anyplace in New York. I walk everywhere here in Willow Springs. I'm learning to like walking. Willow Springs' population is barely 3,000. There must have been almost 3,000 kids just in my elementary school in New York. Still Willow Springs has its own charm, as Mom tells Aunt Alicia when they talk on the telephone every day.
Willow Springs is close to Sacramento, California's state capital. Mom and Dad can drive to Sacramento in less than a half hour if they take the freeway. It takes longer if they use the levee road. The levee road is a crooked, narrow road that runs along the side of the Sacramento River between the river to the west and the pear farms to the east. I never knew there were so many pears as there are growing around Willow Springs.
Anyway, I was telling you about standing in front of
Miss Simon's door. Miss Simon's backyard is next to the vacant lot where
I play baseball with my new friends. This morning, standing on her porch
waiting for her to open the door, all I could think of is the first time
I met my friends
But to continue with the information about the