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A Place Within the Sphere

by Tanis Morran

194 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #00-0091; ISBN 1-55212-426-6; US$19.50, C$22.50, EUR16.00, £11.50

The story follows the friendship between two girls, one of whom has autism. When one girl has to move, can these two individuals stay close?

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about the book      about the author      sample excerpt      catalogue info

About the Book "Images swirled by - horses, mirrors, stars, guitars, chocolate bars, water, bicycles, tigers, visitors from afar." What did Esmeralda really see when she gazed into the crystal sphere, to its absolute centrepoint? Was this what Savannah, the delightfully mysterious girl who has autism, saw when she seemed hypnotized by the glass ornaments on her tree? It all begins as young Esmeralda Mrky of Cowichan Lake finds herself concerned about how she compares to others and how she can avoid being lonely. She wants answers. When she meets Savannah, she finds herself in bewilderment as new questions come rapidly. Through spending time making music, telling stories and exploring the outdoors with Savannah, however, she starts to look at the world differently and she ponders the notion of freedom, image and friendship. When Esmeralda has to move, Savannah gives her a spherical crystal ornament. With this gift she can look for more answers as she uses it to travel (in her mind) to events and places such as a triathalon, India, outer space, Arizona and someplace chocolate. Additionally, she attempts to grab onto the hovering "turquoise triangle" while flying with a winged tiger and, later, while conversing with a spellbinding rock star who is in what he calls "retrograde motion," she finds out why it is not such a good idea to touch the triangle. All of this happens as she journeys on a different mini-adventure every year - adventures that explore parts of Esmeralda's own life and dance with issues such as the threatened environment, addictions and romance. These short stories weave together to form a tapestry that shows how the concerns of growing up blend and yet take turns in the spotlight as time goes by. These adventures parallel the real-life situations that are presented as Esmeralda battles a new loneliness and befriends a group of teens known as "the planaria" which is led by Carmela, a spiritual, holistic, individualistic environmentalist. At age nineteen, Esmeralda returns to her old home at Cowichan Lake with the hope of seeing Savannah again, and comes to realize that there will always be stories within her and she can listen to them without the help of the sphere. Embellished with gentle poetry, and spiced with unique yet real characters and embarrassing and heart-warming situations, A Place Within the Sphere is a joyous exploration into what life is like for the friends and family of a person with autism.

About the Author Tanis Morran lives in Victoria with her husband and two children, one of whom is a teenager who has autism. Although her search for enlightenment often leads to bewilderment, she loves the adventure she receives as she is led on a romp back and forth between the world of autism and someplace more typical. She is currently the secretary of the Victoria Society for Children with Autism. She has a bachelor's degree in education, but has had a fondness for writing ever since she was a young girl who spent part of her summers in her parents' bookstore. This is the first novel she has completed. More could be on the way. "You never, never know."

Sample Excerpt

MURKY-LOOKING MRKY

The presents of the past. Which were of more worth, the questions or the puzzles? Or was it the way that poetry could find its way into almost any situation? Through the mind of a nineteen-year-old these thoughts roamed as she retrieved memories of the last eight years. Am I remembering correctly? With her fingers bent, she strummed through water as if it held hundreds of strings. She let her blistered feet pluck each plank of the dock that they slid over. Briefly, she listened to Desdemona the dog bark from inside the house, neither fierce nor friendly. It seemed like that was the only sound that had changed since she lived at this lake years ago. How did all these strange events happen? Why? And how did I, Esmeralda, end up back where I started from? She dipped her toes in the water and closed her eyes and let herself be a child again.

The face was not perfectly clear. But neither was the water, as a frame of ancient western red cedars surrounded the reflection‹a still lake portrait of an eleven-year-old. At the end of a dock stood Esmeralda Mrky, the subject of the reflection. A breeze arrived, uninvited but welcome; yet even with the shimmering of the surface water and the swaying of the trees, the face appeared undefined, unadorned and unequivocally unattractive. At least, that's how Esmeralda Mrky saw it.

"So, when do I turn into that beautiful swan?" Esmeralda asked herself out loud. "There should be some truth in that tale or they shouldn't tell it. It's about time for a change."

Stepping off the dock, she pounded the earth with her feet, trying to make an impression on its pottery, cracked and unforgiving. "Would only be fair. But why am I thinking the world is like a fairy tale. I know about fiction‹has nothing to do with reality. That's why they keep fiction and nonfiction on separate walls in the library, right? Separate ends of the bookstore, cashier in the middle as a guard to make sure no book crosses to the wrong side."

She shook her head. "Why? Why do I bother wondering about such things? I wonder about the swan, any swan, 'cause I'm tired of looking like a Christmas freak‹red hair, green eyes, snowy skin which they say is so 'happily decorated with ornamental freckles.' At least they gave me a name that fits." It held true that she could not be called a breath-taker, a moonmaker, a moveshaker, or any other phrase one might use to describe a radiant beauty. The short, thin girl had an excessively turned-up nose that perched for attention between colossal cheeks, cheeks that contradicted her delicate bone structure. People called her "cute" and "dear" and even "winsome," but Esmeralda thought it was because they were trying too hard to be kind.

She grimaced at a knobby oak tree, spotting a squirrel in its upper branches. "Squirrel? Yeah, you're the one. I bet you don't try too hard to be kind. I sure don't 'cause I've got to be real‹that doesn't mean you can see me as 'defensive' or 'sarcastic' like my Uncle Stan always calls me. I suppose, being a squirrel, you can't help being realistic."

Esmeralda paused. "I look innocent, but the world has to face the fact that I'm not naive. I'll show... when people give me compliments? Know what that means? Means I owe them one of those hard, skeptical looks I'm famous for. Those acorns still call me 'cute,' though. I can't win. Can't win? I've something more to worry about. If anyone saw me taking my complaints to a squirrel they would surely think I'm a mystery, not to mention a complete loner. I know I'm not crazy. So, what's the story?"

The squirrel chattered out a scolding. The tree quietly cackled through its drying leaves.

Cowichan was the name of the lake Esmeralda lived beside, a Vancouver Island body of water named after the Cowichan tribes of First Nations people. Honeymoon was the name of the bay that rested just a ramble from the small green crate of a house where she lived with her lookalike (only obviously older) mother Maxine, and her dark-haired, average-looking father, who everyone called Bill even though his real name was Vladislav.

Now Esmeralda peered across the lake. The time arrived to give those huge cedars a good hard stare. With her eyes naturally focusing on the lushest sections, she thought about the long hikes, "bird searches" as they were called, that she had taken with her mother the previous summer after canoeing to the other side of the lake. How they had trotted through valleys that held cavalcades of wildflowers and sweet fragrant grass! Just looking at the craggy hills and sharp mountains beyond caused tiredness to hit her legs. She thought about the climbs over the turrets, spires and towers, and down labyrinth staircases to the dusky cave dungeons of this granite fortress of the lake. She remembered how, after the challenging descent, they had passed through tree canopies, and then tunnelled through bush that seemed to protest them finding their canoe.

Esmeralda shifted her glare to a bare patch near the opposite shore. "Is that where I am now, only on the other side?" She wondered why her mother no longer wanted to go anywhere, why she spent most of her time reading or staring off with a confused expression of combined distress and worry.

She would have spoken to her father about this, but Bill Mrky, an obsessed hardwareman, spent most days and many evenings at his store, The Town Plier, which was down the road a short pedal in the town of Lake Cowichan. The times that she did visit him, small talk was the most they could speak in between customers. She would not head there today.

Time for leaving the dock. Esmeralda decided to journey down the road to another bay, Gordon Bay, home to a provincial park, in search of some form of entertainment. Anything. In some ways she resented the goings-on at the park‹she could understand why her Uncle Stan called it "the vast parking lot of the disposable, the disposed, the predisposed, the possessed and the obsessed; of J-Cloths by the dozens, jet skis that throw people away and those dang Cheez Whiz sandwiches that don't have to be finished." But at the same time, the park often provided excitement when no place else could. This was where she met her "one-day" companions - she would see them for one day; perhaps they would meet again one day.

Finding it odd that no one-day kids could be found as the travel home array lay in stalemate this particular August Wednesday, and since she had spent enough time watching the sun's light and the clouds' shadows play hopscotch, checkers, and "how many rectangles can you find in this picture" over the cozy "campsites," Esmeralda decided to hike on home and see if anything amusing would magically appear. All that was left. For a moment her thoughts returned to Uncle Stan, a nineteen-year-old advice-dispenser who often made half-wise and half-wiseguy comments to her like his most recent one: "Esmeralda, here you are approaching your teen years and you still haven't decided what you're gonna be. You must've seen them all‹the ozone depletes and the narcotic psychotics, the keen-ackies and those we call the noser-sleazes, the cowkiddings and the country bummerkins, the future AAs of Canada, the 'one pimple ruins my week' gang and the shedding clothes goats and, what they call my group, the wearanybees. Better choose your destiny before it's too late." Considering Stan her best friend, even though she was probably not his, Esmeralda had listened carefully to his words. Now she wondered why she let anyone's nonsense bother her. "I've got to find something better to think about!" she told herself.

Almost home, she passed a house, an appealing little dome-shaped cabin with cedar shake siding and artistically carved deck railings, nestled in a lawn covered with wildflowers‹daisies, buttercups, clover, plus the occasional stem of rose-purple fireweed, nothing unusual, yet a display obviously not discouraged. Two old willow trees stood as rotund sentries at the front corners of the lawn.

From her years of investigating, Esmeralda knew that a short narrow path led from the back of the cabin through a mini-woodland of dogwood and garry oak trees straight to a sandy beach of the lake. She had been told by various neighbors that she should stay away from this cabin because a very strange family visited there frequently. Sometimes, when she roamed through the adjacent field, she would hear funny sounds coming from the house‹mainly short, high-pitched screams. She believed that what people said must be true. Still, she felt at home on this piece of land.

On she wandered, through that very field, trying to think of something to do; trying to imagine places, people, animals or maybe some enchanting situation in which she could picture herself. She became more and more caught up in her thoughts, endeavouring to make them become remarkable and mysterious and engaging. Continuously she surveyed the softly blown dry grass looking for inspiration, until, suddenly, she jumped as she saw what looked like two big brown hazelnuts floating in a tall patch. Up popped a laughing face with big nut brown eyes and ragged straw-coloured hair that stuck straight up in several places, a face that had that mischievous look of a nine or ten-year-old boy. He did not say a word, just kept looking and releasing an impertinent little laugh, and with each release she could see his straight, but gapped teeth and a large piece of weed stuck between an eyetooth and a molar that he frequently tugged at. Esmeralda looked around, wondering where this boy had come from. Then she noticed a pair of big blue eyes attached to a pretty little face that was still hiding near the earth.

"Come on up, Savannah!" yelled the boy. "It's okay, she's just a funny kid." The pretty girl slowly rose and reached her arms up toward the sky, then started jumping up and down waving her arms as though she were ready to fly. She was taller than Esmeralda and more muscular, but just as slim. She wore a swimsuit, bluejean overalls and a continuous grin of elation and seemed to be so delirious with joy that she could not possibly be real. Eye-catching long golden brown hair swayed across to brush and tickle her bare back as she moved, and her features were so delicate and flawless, and her skin seemed so perfect that she looked like an old-fashioned doll‹the kind only a very privileged girl would have on her dresser.

Esmeralda could see no mechanisms for winding, strings to pull nor any other toy parts, and the girl's colouring looked so real, but she could not help but say out loud, "Oh, boy, don't tell me I got stuck within my imagination and I'm not going to come out!"

Catalogue Information