Addergoole Year Nine won the reader poll for “Next Year’s serial;” the story proper will begin the first full week of September.

In the meantime, please enjoy the first of twenty-something character profiles: Wylie.

b. August 10, 1988

Wylie is a middling-heighted boy (5’9”) with middling-brown hair and a middling build, with average grades and an average athletic ability. On paper, he is an entirely ordinary fifteen-year-old boy.

His blue eyes set him apart when one is looking at him; his propensity for puzzles and science set him apart in classes; his utter inability to pay attention to anything for more than five minutes set him apart (or, rather, push him aside) for most of his teachers. He doesn’t like reading but soaks up information when he does, for whatever brief period he can remain interested; he watches TV voraciously and soaks up information, generally while getting half-way through some other project.

His foster-mother, who he believes to be his real mother, and her husband, who he believes to be his father, have long since despaired of his finishing anything; mom Page keeps Legos around by the cubic yard to keep Wylie’s hands occupied (She packed a box of them in his luggage for Addergoole). Father Cedric has found that putting a notepad and pencil in reach of their son’s hands will sometimes generate fascinating things and other times generate complete crap; the rare nightmare-monster drawing is burned before Wylie notices what he’s done.

His best subjects are math and science; he’s rubbish at history and can’t sit through more than five minutes of English without getting distracted, although he likes old historical fantasy (Beowulf, for example, the worse the monster the better).

Physically, he’s pale-skinned and freckles, with pouty lips (not that he pouts much), still out-growing his baby fat in face and stomach, and tends towards plain t-shirts and loose-fitting jeans, or, when Page has been fussing, plain button-down shirts and loose-fitting khakis. If he has to engage in a sport, he prefers lacrosse.

His parents have told him that Addergoole is a school for “gifted” children, by which he believes they mean “screwed up.”

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