Virtually There

Virtually There

By D J Thomas

Copyright 2016 D J Thomas

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this work with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it or have it purchased for you, then please visit your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the time and effort that went into the creation of this story. Your support matters.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - About Me (January 2016)

Chapter 2 - Getting There (February 2016)

Chapter 3 - London Calling

Chapter 4 - Old vs. New

Chapter 5 - Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantisiliogogogoch

Chapter 6 - Autonomy 101

Chapter 7 - Tea with Mrs. Cadwaladr (March 2016)

Chapter 8 - The Llewellyn Curse

Chapter 9 – Digging Up the Past (April 2016)

Chapter 10 - Moelfre or Bust

Chapter 11 - Up in Flames

Chapter 12 - Death Comes Knocking

Chapter 13 - Mistaken Identity (May 2016)

Chapter 14 - Booty Call (June 2016)

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About Me

Before you invest any real time reading about my experiences, checking out my photos or webcam feeds, or exploring the links attached to my blog, I should give you the heads-up about what not to expect...

I’m NOT a pre-teen boy on the verge of discovering magical powers that’ll pit me against some evil force that’s going to keep reinventing itself or threaten humanity. My absentee father is NOT some Olympic god who’s forbidden from acknowledging my existence. I’ve heard Mom say that he probably thought he was a god back in the day, but now he’s just another middle-aged Peter Pan - whatever that means. The truth, dull as dirt, is that my biological father is a salesman in Vancouver. Mom and I really don’t talk about him other than her occasional reassurance that I’m not missing anything by not having him in my life. I trust her view of things there. I mean she’s the one who knew him, and she’s pretty good at reading people. Of course, she insists that she wasn’t always as accurate as she is now: whenever she feels it’s a teachable moment, she reminds me that spotting motives is a skill taught by experience and lots of failure. When I was a lot younger, though, I overheard her tell her friends that she outplayed him somehow. At some point later, when I asked her about what she meant, she promised to tell me when I was ready to go to college.

I hate ten seconds of suspense, let alone ten years of it. And what? Was she afraid of shocking me? Is she still? Hello. I do watch cable TV. HBO and MTV are my go-to channels. Yeah, and there is such a thing as the Internet – and reality shows. I mean, we watch the Kardashians together. What could she have done to put them to shame? She shouldn’t have anything to hide. She’s always been open with me about his existence and promised me that if I ever wanted to meet him, she’d arrange it. Sure, she warned me that I shouldn’t go all Disney and expect too much from him or imagine him to be something he isn’t (he did get outplayed after all! Was that her way of telling me he was a poor sport or a bitter loser?). No matter. At this point in my life, I can honestly say that I don’t wonder about him or his side of the family.

While my family background is not exactly traditional, my friends and I are normal enough – 100% mortal, by the way. We aren’t the cookie-cutter teens or the freaks that you see on TV, but we aren’t exactly that Hollywood collection of misfits who meet during school detention either. There’s nothing 1980’s about my friends or me, except our parents’ taste in entertainment and the odd Halloween costume after we raid their closets. : P

My immediate family, while not typical, is not dysfunctional enough to fill a chapter, let alone an entire novel. Like I said, I live with my mom, who is single by choice. She insists that she was fated to be a spinster when my Auntie J and Uncle D got married. Mom was my aunt’s Maid of Honour, and part of her job was to sign the marriage certificate as a witness. Under the line reserved for her signature, the Justice of the Peace had identified her as Spinster. Look it up. The word literally means unmarried woman, but it apparently comes with a whole lot more judgment, especially if it’s capitalized and used as a label.

How could I possibly know this, you ask? Well, I’ve seen more old documents than you’d probably believe or be interested in hearing about, and I’ve had to endure Mom’s endless loop about how narrow-minded society once was, and still kind of was in the ‘80s, back when she was like young and trying to date. Times change. Social attitudes and values change. Those cultures that don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it or grow extinct. Yadda, yadda, yadda…

Don’t get me wrong; I’m no history buff. As far as I’m concerned, the best part about history class is when the bell rings to end it. ; ) Yeah. Too bad for me, my mom happens to be a genealogist, the worst kind of history teacher possible: she’s ready to lecture 24/7.

Family trivia aside, spinsters were the women who didn’t attract husbands - for whatever reason. Maybe they weren’t totally attractive. Maybe they were too poor or too sickly. Maybe they were intellectually or emotionally defective. Maybe they weren’t moral enough or they belonged to the wrong religion. Just read Jane Austen novels and you’ll understand. As far as I can tell, maybe some of them were Ls before people were open-mined enough to accept LGBT or Qs. Ultimately, they were social rejects or failures because they didn’t live up to others’ expectations. No husband used to mean no babies (no acknowledged ones at least) to carry on the family name. Spinsters who lived their lives unfulfilled generally just grew old and bitter. Okay, I’m sounding too much like my mom now. #HistoryBites.

Back to the wedding story: Mom, being the radical feminist of the family, was reluctant to sign on the dotted line and destine her 24-year-old self to what she thought was a demeaning, archaic label. She protested and asked for the offending word to be struck through or removed from the document entirely. The patriarchal Justice of the Peace refused to see things her way. Ditto the bride. Eventually she capitulated (Mom’s word, not mine. I would have said something like compromised or any word people wouldn’t have to look up to understand). I guess peer pressure is most effective when you’re at a family wedding on a remote island and your older sister is the one dishing it out. I wouldn’t know. I have none – siblings that is, not peer pressure. : ) In the years that followed, my mom never did find her Mr. Right, but that didn’t stop her from bucking social norms and having the baby she always wanted: me!

At some point before I came into the picture, my mom was sort of known for her ability to write - not to mention a mastery of innuendo and a violent distaste for blueberries - but that’s another story. She took her way with words and her interest in solving puzzles and made her mark researching family trees, writing about skeletons in famous people’s closets, and teaching anyone interested about how to stalk the dead. These days she runs a digitizing and transcription service. She sends teams out across the country and around the world to photograph archived materials so they can be transcribed and shared. Trust me, it sounds so much more exciting than it actually is. The only perk to her job is that she can work from home. As much as I don’t always appreciate the history teacher in her, she is there for me when I need her.

My mom and I live in the same neighbourhood that she grew up in. I guess that makes her kind of nostalgic – or territorial. Our place is a much older house that is being totally dwarfed by the luxury new-builds popping up around us. Apparently our 1920’s bungalow was built before people needed their own personal space, closets - or reasonable access to electricity. I’d be generous if I described the rooms as being compact. Even with the upgrades that happened before Mom moved in, there aren’t enough outlets in the entire place for half of our electronics (okay, my electronics). I’m constantly causing the circuits to blow. Everyone else I know can plug in a hair dryer AND a flat iron without causing half of their world to go dark. Talk about First World problems, right? For all its faults, though, I still love the place. It’s home, the only one I’ve ever known.

Other than Mom, I have aunts, uncles and godparents who are family, family and an extended network of aunts and uncles who are my mom’s best friends. None of them are criminal or sketchy. No makings of Lifetime movies there. Okay, my mom’s younger brother Robert is a lawyer, but not like the bottom-feeders or ambulance chasers you see begging for clients when you’re at home sick watching daytime TV. He’s totally respectable...and funny, especially when the karaoke machine comes out at family get-togethers. He and my Aunt Frances fight for the mic to outscore each other. #HealthyCompetition. In spite of differing tastes in clothes, cars, TV, movies, and music, they’re all moral, compassionate, supportive, and self-sufficient adults – you know, good people to be around. If only they didn’t share the same peculiar sense of humour. Quote anything Monty Python, Red Dwarf, SCTV, Bugs Bunny, Scooby Doo, Three Stooges, or Saturday Night Live - and suddenly you’re one of them.

My cousins are like the brothers and sisters that I don’t have at home. I’m the oldest of us, but not the tallest. I’m the only brown-eyed brunette in the lot. They all got the blond hair and blue eyes. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not jealous. I love my hair. I’m growing it out to look like Selena Gomez’. It would be nice to have blue eyes, though. My mom keeps trying to convince me that my eyes are a gorgeous caramel color - unique to me because of my mixed heritage (I’ll have to thank Peter Pan – if I ever meet him face-to-face). I know her praise is genuine, but I don’t take compliments from family very well. They have to say nice stuff, right? I’ll totally admit that my friends’ words have more sway over me. I guess it has something to do with being the same age or something. As for my cousins and I, we share an addiction to the same videogames, YouTubers, and phone apps, but we all have our own thing. Amber is the artist. Her younger sister Kate is the athlete. Thomas – the baby of the family - is the dare devil, and I’m the photographer. Everyone knows we have our fair share of moments, but they blow over. In the end, we have each other’s backs. We are all Joneses after all.

See? You know my family now, and it barely took a page.

So, back to what you should know about me. I’m not crushing on a sparkling teenage vampire or avoiding the advances of a shirtless hottie. Honestly, if I saw a half-naked guy in real life, I’d probably die trying to keep a straight face. Seriously. I’ve caught glimpses of full frontal on pop-up ads, and ROFL like a total reflex. I can trace that reaction back to grade 6. A classmate tried to play show-and-tell with me when we were alone in the cloakroom. My eyes bugged out, and I just about peed myself when I saw what he had to show. Forget tell! Awkward. I squawked like a spastic parrot when he suggested that I touch it. Ew.

Needless to say, I touched nothing, and Scott disappeared with his trouser snake before I was obliged to show him anything of mine. Now that I think about it, he must have spread word about my reaction because no other boys came anywhere near me until late last year. Of course, we all changed schools since then, and I got rid of my glasses and dental gear too. Who knows, right? Things happen when they do for a reason… or so I’m told. ; )

Like I was saying, I’m pretty convinced that I’m ridiculously typical. I’m only a zombie before 10 AM, 11 AM on weekends. My room is my escape, my domain. I’m not dying of some chronic condition or debilitating disease. I am not preparing to face off against an oppressive, dystopian bureaucrat. Or my mom. Like I said, she and I get along okay for the most part. We’re kind of a team that way. At least that’s how she likes to describe us. We know each other’s buttons, and we don’t go out of our way to push them. She has agreed to stop nagging me about leaving clothes all over my bedroom, for example. According to her, though, pestering me is fair game if I leave any of my stuff lying around anywhere else! So we do butt heads from time to time, but not for long. My mom insists on communicating openly and honestly. Sometimes I give in to her just to make her shut up. FYI - there is such a thing as too much sharing.

About TMI, I don’t have an eating disorder, and I’m not bullied at school. I like who I am. Computers and I get along okay… after 10 AM. I have a growing cyber footprint, but I don’t put my whole life online for every nutcase or global pedophile to see. Or my mom. She knows all my passwords until further notice, so I’ve learned to keep really private stuff, really private. While I do plan on creating my own incredible channel one day, my mom kind of laid down the law and said that posting on Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram would have to do until I turn 18 - or I find a way over her dead body that doesn’t involve killing her. In other words, you’ll be able to find me anywhere but Facebook @Keeping Up With D Jones #DarwynRules in twenty months or so. If Dan and Phil, Zoella, and Thatcher Joe can get sponsors to pay them for doing what they do, so can I.

If you must know, the only drama ruling my present is having to say goodbye to the only life I’ve known. No, I’m not suicidal, just theatrical. I got your attention, though, didn’t I? : P Mom and I are moving out of the country. Not my choice, BTW. Not someplace tropical, or exotic, or even remotely cool either. I wouldn’t mind sampling the south coast of France or a Caribbean island, or even parts of England. I could improve my French or work on my tan, or run into one of my favourite YouTubers. As it is, my mom has to keep up with some Jones of her own – dead ones. There’s some family research that she doesn’t want to put off any more and can’t possibly trust anyone else to handle adequately. So we’re moving to North Wales for the whole spring semester and most of summer. North Wales!

When mom first dropped the guess-what?-we’re-moving bombshell, I Googled Anglesey to see what the place was all about. If Wales were the baby bump on the west coast of England, then Anglesey is the teacup that balances on top of it. Historically, Welshmen are known for their fighting skills and their choirs. King Arthur has roots in Wales and some famous pop singers from the 1960s too. Have you ever heard of Tom Jones? (No relation). According to what I read about him, women in his audiences found him so sexy that they used to throw their lacy panties and bras at him to win his attention on stage. Forty years later, and they still do. Why? Grannies and Victoria’s Secret don’t mix! I can tell you right now, that’s one concert I’d never attend with Mom (even if he has been knighted for services rendered). Luckily, she’s not a fan. My uncle does sing his big hit The Green, Green Grass of Home after enough cabernet has been uncorked at family celebrations, but no undies get tossed (dislodged from butt cracks when people stand to applaud, yes, but never removed).

As far as my generation might connect to Wales, Prince William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, lived in Anglesey for a while. I guess they’re a kind of celebrity, but not my particular cup of tea. Rhys Ifans, the actor who played Luna Lovegood’s father in Harry Potter is a Welshman. Some other famous Welsh actors include Catherine Zeta-Jones (again, no relation to us), whose mental health and marriage to Michael Douglas keep her on the tabloid covers, Christian Bale, and Naomi Watts.

So much for Google and IMDb.

I also spent a fair chunk of time on Google Maps to get a sense of the place. There isn’t a theatre complex or a recognizable corporate franchise to be found. It’s so country. : ( So far, I’ve seen miles of narrow bush-lined roads, farms, fields, sheep, relatively small houses that practically open onto the street, and a series of one-road villages. Did I mention sheep? They outnumber people 4:1 if you believe Wiki statistics. When you zoom out, they look like white flakes of land dandruff. Such a rural place would be perfect if I found Downton Abbey remotely interesting or if I were still into Thomas the Tank Engine. I could pretend that I was living a hundred years ago or that I was moving to the Island of Sodor.

Sadly, I’m not sixty or six. I’m sixteen…and a half.

What am I supposed to do in Wales other than learn a language that is spoken almost nowhere else in the world (and by like only 20% of native Welshmen), get rained on more than I would here in Vancouver, or watch sheep graze? I sure hope that Internet access isn’t expensive there. I plan on spending mega time online with my friends or Skyping and FaceTiming family here in Vancouver. We’ll get over the eight-hour time difference even if it kills us.

TBH, I can’t say that I really want to uproot myself for any reason, but Mom says I’m not a child anymore, so her travelling for work - or play - is no longer out of the question. Regardless of her eagerness about the whole situation, I really don’t like change. My life is pretty good at the moment. I have insanely amazing friends, I’m ahead in school, I just got my driver’s license, and like I said before, I’m starting to get noticed by guys - even by Ford, the one I want to see me.

I did play around with the idea of staying in Vancouver and moving in with my best friend Zoë, but that idea got shot down almost as soon as I suggested it. Mom also vetoed the possibility of me living with my cousins. She doesn’t want her decision to travel to burden anyone else, family or just like family. Or at least that’s her official line. I personally think she doesn’t want to give up her rights over me until she has proven to the world that a spinster has stared down Society and succeeded.

Did I tell you that my mom gets her way a lot? It must have something to do with being a writer. She can rationalize just about anything. You’re a year ahead of your friends in most of your classes so a little time away won’t hurt you academically… Look at our time away as an adventure... Living away from home, you can truly experience another part of the world... You can see where an eighth of your family has its roots... I’ll get you a new laptop if you want to take more online classes. You could volunteer over there or work part-time for me… I could use a good research assistant... Think of the photos you could take… We could buy Vespas or a used Mini to get around. Right-hand drive! Can you imagine driving on the other side of the road? We can take side-trips around Britain and Europe too. You know, play tourist or just shop…I promise I’ll have you home in time to graduate with your besties.

I hate mom logic almost as much as I hate it when she tries to talk like she’s part of my generation. Only she could find a way to use my being ahead in school against me. All those weeks of summer in poorly ventilated classrooms - wasted! All those weekends completing online assignments for what? I was - stress was - lining up to have the easiest senior year in the history of senior years. W-A-S. Did I say, Was?

Don’t tell her that she had me at shop.

So we’re off to Wales sooner than I care to admit. In the meantime, I have to pack up everything that I don’t want the house sitters to touch while we’re away. That’s one compromise I got. How many teenagers get storage lockers to call their own? I’m glad that we have people staying in the house, though – for our cats’ sakes. I wanted to take Ninja and Mojo with us, but Mom pointed out how unfair it would be to uproot them at this point in their lives. Uprooting me is no problem, but not them! They know the threats and have marked their territory here (as if I haven’t). They would be fish out of water in Wales (and I wouldn’t be?). Easy prey. Leaving Vancouver would mean six months of kennel life for my babies or inviting strangers into our home. Put like that, the decision was a no-brainer.

You know, if my Mom didn’t have the job she has, she’d probably make a great travel agent. She’s a pro at sending me on trips to Guilt City. #FrequentFlyer. Too bad there’s no club to join or points to collect for something I actually wanted.

Speaking of flying, I know that the next few weeks are going to fly by - and not because I’m going to be having fun. Other than shopping for some wicked new technology with Mom and signing up for a couple of online courses to get credit for documenting the whole Wales experience (Creative Writing and Photojournalism), I have to pack away my life and make the rounds to exchange contact info, verify email addresses, and say my goodbyes - or as I prefer to call them, the see-you-real-soons.

Before we hand over our keys to the Dodge-Bentzes, though, we have to clean. Gross. If I were a true conspiracy theorist, I’d swear my Mom came up with this trip just to make me tackle my room! Being confronted with over five months of mess, I realize that I should’ve bargained for a padlock on my door or maid service somewhere in the deal instead of storage. Note to self, right? I’ll know what to negotiate for when it’s time to move home.

Personally, I don’t care if there is a thin layer of dust, an empty glass, or the odd dirty sock lying on the floor. So what if my clean clothes pile up on my bed? So I occasionally eat in my room. Mom insists on comparing me to Oscar, not the garbage can Grouch from Sesame Street, FYI, but half of an odd couple from a classic TV show that went off the air a quarter of a century before I was born. O-o-o-o-o-o-h burn, right? Get the SPF 5.

As far as I’m concerned, our fridge magnets define us; specifically, our home is clean enough to be healthy, but dirty enough to be happy. I think my mom would generally agree on that front (she bought the magnet because she was attracted to it), but she doesn’t want to be judged by Mario and Iris. Forget Yelp. Iris is acquainted with my Aunt J. Mom’s worried about the stories they’d share if we don’t leave our shared space spotless for them.

I pity her generation. So worried about keeping up appearances! That or she’s watched a few too many shows on HGTV and TLC. You know the ones: people selling or renovating houses, or being out-ed as hoarders. When I was in pre-school, she was obsessed with a BBC show called How Clean is Your House? I think it made her feel better about her cleaning habits by seeing people who were complete slobs. It’s kind of like hanging out with older people to feel younger or fatter people to feel thinner. When push comes to shove, though, she doesn’t want to be the one who people point at to feel better about