The First Chapter

Hello again Steemians! Today, I'm posting the first chapter of Wind in the Arroyo. It's an illustrated fantasy book that was written by my mother and her best friend Peter. I was commissioned to do the Pen & Ink art for the book.

If you didn't read my introduction & prologue post, please visit that page here - Prologue

I will be posting each chapter separately. Wind in the Arroyo is a 200 page book so this will be an ongoing series :) I hope you all enjoy it! Again, keep in mind that it's a first draft and might be a bit rough around the edges.

With that said, let's get straight into it!

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Chapter 1, The Knoll

September's End, Late Afternoon

Chirskimunski Squirrel sat high on a windy knoll. He was well fed and comfortable as he nodded off and on in the intense warmth of the late season sun. He had come to the knoll, as he often did, after visiting the Dine and Doze, a nearby Inn. Chirskimunski Squirrel is stuffed, having had tea, stew, and a particularly good apple and apricot crumble! He dozes there on his knoll, nestled in a perfectly squirrel-shaped indentation in the grass just below the road. The knoll is a small bump on the eastern plateau of the arroyo. There he is afforded freedom of imagination without disruption. It is a virtually forgotten spot. A day dreamer's paradise. That is what he likes about the knoll; pure privacy-with a view.

The knoll is a strolls distance from his home in the historic district of Prospect Park. Anchoring the East Arroyo is the old estate home known as Chateau de Moule. To the north of Chateau de Moule, the eastern plateau of the arroyo stretches towards the narrow pass of Devil's Gate Dam. This is the side where Chirskimunski Squirrel lives. To the south of the Chateau is the dense tract of architectural homes known as Little Switzerland, names for the wood-shingled Craftsman homes built around the turn of the last century. Stretching along the plateau is Brookside Park and the Posy Bowl, all set amidst the wide wash.

regardless of his route to the knoll, what Chirskimunski Squirrel always prefers to do is walk past Chateau de Moule, imagining himself lost within its endless corridors whilst casually sipping a cup of hot tea. He also lusts after the large rooms and hillside gardens, surely affording sweeping views.

Squirrel's knoll offers a superb vantage point for viewing the Arroyo Seco from the Wedding Cake Bridge to the south and across the arroyo floor to the hills of Nimby vista, higher & more densely wooded, and characterized by distinctly modernist homes with stunning easterly views overlooking all of Pasadenland and the San Gabriel Mountains. Though desperately fond of his neighborhood, Chirskimunski Squirrel has always coveted the elevated whereabouts of Nimby Vista.

Chirskimunski Squirrel looks up, finding it hard to keep his eyes open. A small cluster of white fluffy clouds floats above him. The sun is low in the west, and the season is ideal for napping. His head falls to the right, as it usually does, his eyes staring dreamily towards Chateau de Moule. He breathes deeply, catching the soft tones of a wood burning fire. Smells can set in the arroyo, lingering until the distant sea breezes blow them upwards, or the cold mountain breezes push them downwards. Right now arroyo is at a standstill. Soft swirls of air seem to create themselves, playing with the smoke. His eyes trace the wisps of smoke vertically. It emanates from one of the many twisted brick chimney stacks set far behind the high stone walls of Chateau de Moule. Towering trees and complex roof lines virtually disguise the scale of the House.

Squirrel has always been fascinated by Monsieur de Moule's chateau. It is rumoured to be a spectacular home, appointed in the finest manner possible. Perhaps this smoke comes from a fireplace in a lavish outdoor courtyard. It was said that once all the land Squirrel could see from the knoll to the river had belonged to this house. In fact, what was once the carriage house and stables at the foot of the plateau is now owned by Myna, purveyor and proprietress of the vogue Dine & Doze Inn.

Monseur de Moule is reputed to be an extremely wealthy Belgian aristocrat, a Count maybe. What is certain is that he is a recluse. Squirrel knows little about him, except that he owns an architectural redevelopment and construction firm that has built some of the more notable new buildings in the city, and also saved some of the most endangered public and private buildings desperately in need of restoration. regardless, his estate is now long gone and the biggest piece of the land still attached to the house is a vast garden on the hillside leading down into the arroyo and Brookside Park.

Chirskimunski wakes abruptly. A dark shadow has crossed his vision. His eyes fly open as a deafening whine erupts from nowhere. Chirskimunski stares up frozen in terror. A silent scream contorts Squirrel's face An aeroplane is falling out of the sky towards him like a stone. its bulk is silhouetted against the white clouds above. In a blind surge of adrenalin and fear, Chirskimunski Squirrel leaps to his feet and hurls himself pelt down the slope, slipping and falling towards the safety of the dense trees below. From under the tree canopy he turns. His heart is racing. Just as it seems like it is going to crash into the side of the hill, the barn-stormer (for that was indeed what the horrifying projectile was) pulls out at an impossible 45 degree angle and continues merrily out into the arroyo, flying steadily above the trees as the basin drops below.

Squirrel's heart is still racing. He is struggling for a breath. He is shaking. He stumbles towards a tree stump and sits, desperately trying to collect his wits. He hears the plane's engine getting louder. It's coming back!! Chirskimunski Squirrel lurches to his feet. An irrational fear grips him and he walks as fast as he can, still under the cover of the trees, northward towards the safety of the Posy Bowl. He wants to be home very badly but now he has to cross the asphalt car park, wide open and hot. It is a scar on the once grassy arroyo and Squirrel does'nt like this part. He prefers the walk through Little Switzerland.
Sometimes he takes the short walk, directly through the neighborhood, and other times he meanders around the outer edge and down into Brookside Park itself. The park is nicest during off times, but can present many obstacles as one passes through. The car park can be a zoo if there is an event. It can be an endless desert when it is empty. He feels vulnerable as he briskly crosses the tarmac, but long before the car park's end is in sight, calmness returns to Squirrel. His heart is no longer beating like a drum in his chest.The fear is replaced by a feeling of annoyance, and then by foolishness. He hopes no one has seen him. He realizes the tiny wooden bi-plane that is criss-crossing the arroyo in the distance is the same one he has seen doing stunts and such at the start of the annual Posy Parade on New Year's Day, shadowed by the Stealth Bomber overhead.

Feeling very silly for having been so scared, Chiskimunski smiles, feeling all together much better. He looks around himself. If it wasn't for the endless chain link fences and the sea of parked cars on the tarmac surrounding the Posy Bowl, it would be quite beautiful. Chirskimunski Squirrel whistles now as he makes his way back into the park itself.

He passes the amphitheatre, aquatic center, picnic tables, dumpster, service road, icky chain link...

He brushes the mud and debris from his trousers and stomps his shoes on the tarmac. He veers back towards the shelter of the arroyo's edge at the back of Brookside Park. As he approaches the diminutive Holly Bridge he notices an ancient chain link fence, rusty and overgrown bordering the car park on one side and cutting up the hillside along the columns of the bridge towards Little Switzerland above. He doesn't usually come this way. From the look of it, nor does anyone else. Coiled barbed wire caps the fence. Litter and debris are scattered about. Faded, chipped and bent signs reading ''State Land Keep Out'' are wired to the fences at regular intervals. Some hang upside down, others by a corner, their wiring rusted through. It is a bit forlorn here.

"really, someone should do something about this" he says to himself as he comes out from under the bridge into the last sunshine of the day. He is standing at the base of the immense sheer wall of concrete delineating the lower edge of Chateau de Moule.

While Squirrel was fast asleep on his knoll, he had been oblivious to the distant hum of the biplane's engine as it shot beneath the Wedding Cake Bridge and headed up vertically into the clouds high above the arroyo. As the bright, yellow painted barnstormer began its vertical ascent beyond the bridge, Joyce, the pilot turned and grinned at her passenger, silvery curls escaping from beneath her leather flying helmet in the wind. Both the pilot and passenger sat in open cockpits with only a tiny windshield to divert the wind. Joyce looked quite the part in her flying helmet, sheepskin flight jacket and long white silk scarf streaming out behind her, her smile framed by dark red lipstick. She was known affectionately as "Grandma Biggles" by the other stunt pilots she knew, due to her rather advanced age. Joyce had been flying these tiny aeroplanes and performing daredevil stunts for nigh on 50 years, having started as a teen shortly after the war. Flying was second nature to her, and she loved it.

Her passenger, and best friend Myrtle, grinned back. friends of old, Myrtle had accompanied Grandma Biggles on her joy rides a myriad of times. Similarly dressed, with a pearl necklace peeking out under her flight jacket, her well-powdered face glowing from the wind, she is perfectly at ease and gives Joyce a thumbs-up sign.

"Hang on darling" says Joyce over the radio. " This should be fun!" joyce turns back to the controls: all the traditional switches with a few modern additions, GPS not the least amongst them. She pulls back on the joystick and the plane climbs higher and higher heading nose first into the sky, speeding toward a little cluster of clouds that are suspended high above the eastern edge of the arroyo. Higher and higher they climb, finally disappearing into the clouds.

The sound of the engine dies as they appear nose first above the clouds, back in the sparkling sunshine and cold air. There is absolute silence as the plane seems to hang suspended in the blue sky. Myrtle has a camera in her hand and leans over the left side of the cockpit. She photographs the mountains from her seat.

"Let's do this!" she shouts to Joyce. The barnstormer starts to fall under the effect of gravity. Dropping down tail first, then slowly the plane tips backwards, almost in slow motion. back farther and farther, until the nose is pointing straight down to the earth. The mountains accompany this half-turn dance, turning opposite the plane. They plummet down, back through the cloud, down into sunshine, down silently dropping like a rock. Quickly approaching is the windy knoll. The engine cuts back in loudly as they fall, seconds from the earth. At what seems like a moment too late, Joyce yanks on the controls. Just as it seems they will certainly crash into the knoll, the barnstormer does a 45 degree turn and heads sedately over the treetops towards the other side of the arroyo like a little yellow bee, the buzzing of the engine disappearing with the distance. Joyce turns to her friend again. Myrtle smiles and waves her camera in the air, indicating that she got some good photographs on their "death dive".

Great snapshot!

Joyce expertly guides the biplane in a low zigzag pattern, back and forth across the bottom of the arroyo. Both ladies have an excellent view of all the buildings and parkland below them. They fly over the Posy Bowl several times, traverse the hills of Nimby Vista and take in the symmetry of the ancient formal gardens once belonging to the Chateau de Moule. The features are fabulous from the air and create a canvas that should be seen by all. For the better part of an hour they cross back and forth towards Devil's Gate Dam, finally turning south and heading along the river to the Italian Wedding Cake Bridge. Just before the bridge, Joyce switches on the white stunt smoke and flies the plane in a perfect loop-de-loop, then, as if in a salute to the whole arroyo, she flies through the loop and plunges back below the centre arch of the bridge. She cuts out the smoke having tied a perfect knot! With that, they fly back towards the sea and the airport whence they came.

By this point, Chirskimunksi Squirrel is almost to his street. He happens to turn at the right moment, seeing the little yellow plane in the distance, framed by the centre span of the bridge, tie its vapor knot and disappear. He smiles then turns up his street. He imagines that the pilot is practicing for the upcoming Posy Parade. He reaches his iron gate. "Villa La Mesa" reads the hanging sign from the wrought iron arch. He steps though his gate leaving the knot in his stomach behind. He is so glad to be safely home behind a locked gate.

He prefers the top streets, as it is a neighborhood of neighbors. He leaves for the knoll early, dines early, and returns to his home at dusk because he enjoys the opportunity to watch the beautiful homes when lit, displaying their inhabitants before curtains are drawn

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Well, that concludes the first chapter. It sure took a long time to get the post ready. I hope you all enjoyed it. Feel free to comment and leave feedback. I enjoy hearing what the community has to say about the book and the illustrations

Thank you so much for reading the first chapter of Wind in the Arroyo! Don't forget to upvote and follow me if you like what I'm doing here on Steemit.) Take care and see you next time :)