It's all about the extracts - 'Reach for the Moon'

The following is from Tuan Ho's Reach for the Moon…

IN A WORLD STILL GROWING, where cars and boats abounded, but not planes or any kind of air travel, a young boy named Jerry was sad, not because he lived in a town where everyone hated his family, but because he couldn’t see his father for a very long time.

His father was taken into the back of a police car and shipped to a secluded island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, one he shared with the world’s most dangerous criminals. And Jerry did not know why. His mother tried to explain what his father did, but he was too young to understand.

Jerry lived alone with his mother. He walked to school each day, not understanding why the other kids teased him. One day, as he was walking home from school, a man he had never seen before stood in his way.

The man was dressed in black with a black cloth wrapped around his face, revealing only his eyes. ‘Are you the boy?’

‘Sir, what boy?’

‘The boy of the father they sent away.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘There’s something you need to know. Your father was a good man, he never did anything wrong. They just didn’t want anyone to know.’

‘Sir, know what?’ Jerry asked.

‘The secret. Here, sit down next to me. I’ll tell you a story, but make sure you don’t tell anyone.’

Jerry sat down on the bench and the man told him why they sent his father away.

Jerry’s father was a man named George. Everyone around town knew of George because he had a special talent. He was born with super-strong shoulders that could carry anything on them: people, cars and even boats. He could hold it all.

And, because of this, he became a very rich man. Normal everyday townsfolk and rich kings and queens from faraway lands paid him lots of money to move things that couldn’t be moved: a giant elephant that fell down a well and a young prince’s car made of solid gold that had become stuck on an icy road, making it impossible for any person or machine to retrieve, and Watson the Whale from the seaside town Sargar, who had become stranded on a beach after being cast out from the aquarium for eating so much and no longer being able to jump through flaming hoops like a circus lion. George faced these challenges without stress and completed them with ease, and his wealth grew through the stratosphere.

One night, while George was lying on his lawn, looking up at the moon, he wondered if humans would ever travel to the moon. This thought excited him so much he sprang to his feet and reached for his phone and called his friends to ask them to call their friends.

The next morning, in the city square, George was surrounded by thousands of people. The following hour, he was joined by thousands more. Once they were gathered together, George told them what they were there for. It was for a historic event. One no one had attempted before.

It was to reach the moon…

About the Author
Tuan Ho is just another human who lives on planet Earth and enjoys doing fun things like feeding ducks, cycling like it's the end of the world, eating delicious food and, most of all, writing. He often stumbles upon inspiration while sitting in silence, listening to the stillness of life, or enjoying a relaxing shower. Other stories strike him like lightning.

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Craig Henderson returns tomorrow with an extract of In Too Deep, runner-up in the 2012 Ada Cambridge Prize for Biographical Prose, and published in the 2012 Willy Lit Fest anthology and Platform magazine.

Thanks for visiting,

Emanuel