Wood Between the Worlds 1 How it began

It all started with my little brother Billy. Well, no, it actually started when we moved from New York to London. The move was for my mom’s job, and she brought me and Billy along with her. Mom and Dad had gotten divorced two years after Billy was born. Since then, Dad had been living in a huge house in California with his new wife and kids. We got a card every Christmas and sometimes a phone call.
We were all over the country. Mom was a producer of shows, and she loved touring. She brought me and Billy along with her. Along the way, she got us lessons in tap, jazz, and ballet, and she got us acting and voice training. Apparently she wanted us to be in “show-biz” too. She even named us after her favorite characters from shows: Billy from “Chicago” and Dorothy from “42nd Street”. Tell me, who has a name like Dorothy? Unless you’re a diva in a Broadway show, breaking ankles here and there, or falling out of the sky and killing innocent witches, who is named Dorothy? Well, me.
When I was 17 we moved to London. Our house was a row house, with many other houses on the sides. We even had a yard to ourselves, something we had never had in NYC or on the road. True, the yard had a big ugly stump in the middle of it, but it was still fine with us. Billy, 7 years younger, no longer shared a room with me. We were in a good neighborhood, with other kids his age, something he had never really had before. We had moved so often that he had never had any real friends.
Not that I had, either. I had plenty of online friends who didn’t care if I moved because we had never met anyway. I had learned my lesson years ago that real life friends could be hard to manage. But I was glad for Billy.
Now, here’s how Billy became important. One day, at the crack of dawn, I heard him running around, playing, in the backyard. So did the rest of the neighborhood. I opened my window to give him The Glare, and he waved “Dot! Dot! Come down! I’ve just met one of the other people in the neighborhood!” I looked, and sure enough there is another little boy, about Billy’s age, playing in the yard with him. I swore silently to myself, and then decided to go down and eat breakfast.
I had just finished a piece of toast with butter when I looked out the window again and saw something that I definitely did not want to see- nothing. My brother and his friend were gone.
I ran outside without bothering changing out of the sweats and tank top I wore to bed. I looked out into the street and saw the two boys talking to an older boy, one maybe my age or older, a few houses down. The boy had a bike and although he was cute, I didn’t like my brother talking to people I didn’t know. As I got closer I noticed a resemblance between my brother’s friend and the older boy. “Brothers?” I asked. The older one nodded. “That’s Norman and I’m James. Mansfield,” he said. I nodded. “I’m Dot, and you’ve met Billy. Rockwell.”
“Billy tells me you came from New York,” James said. I shrugged. “Yeah, but we lived all over. Mom likes to tour.” James looked at the plain row house I had just come out of. “And you live here?” I nodded. “Mom’s producing some show here in London, and she wants to stay with it. And she found a good acting teacher for us.”
James nodded. “Billy tells me you have buried treasure in your yard.” Oh, my god. I hadn’t known this guy 10 minutes and already my baby brother has embarrassed me. “Yeah Dot, do you think we could dig a hole? A small one? Please?” Billy said. Norman looked at me too. I shrugged. “Whatever, if Mom gets mad it’s not my fault.” The two ran off, leaving me with James.
“Do you know London well?” he asked. I shook my head. “I’ve never been out of the country before.” He smiled. “All you know is America?”
“What’s wrong with that?” I asked. “I happen to be an American citizen. What’s wrong with my country?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t mean it like that- I- I- I was surprised. That’s all. I take it you like to travel.” I nodded again. “Only for Mom’s business.”
We were interrupted from this somewhat awkward situation by shouts from my house. “Dot! James! Come see this!”