Chapter One

My new book is called Here Where the Sunbeams Are Green. It starts out with a girl, I think her name is Madeline, and her nine-year-old sister Roo are riding on a shaky little airplane with their mom and a man named Kenneth Candy. Madeline is the narrator. She's looking out the window with Roo leaning over her to see the two rainbows that are crisscrossing each other next to the plane. Madeline (Mad for short) is glancing over at her mother and sees that Kenneth is whispering something is her mother's ear. Now she's remembering the time when her father brought Kenneth home for dinner, okay so that's where we are: back in time when Kenneth Candy came for dinner.Mad's dad is saying, "Ken's involved in that fascinating development in Central America. The one I've told you about, remember, that opened a couple years ago? It's won the World's Greenest Spa award for two years running. It's an ornithologists's dream!" He pauses and continues, "Of course, it would have been more of an ornithologists's dream a few years back, before the Lava-Throated Volcano trogon was confirmed extinct."  
Mad's dad hates extinction and loves Central American birds.
Her dad started going on dreamily about how beautiful and awesome the Lava-Throated Volcano trogon before it went extinct.

Now we are back to where we started: on a shaky little airplane.I learned something: I can't call Mad Mad neither can you; I have to call her Madeline and I also can't call Roo Roo neither can you; I have to call her Ruby. That is just because Madeline made up the nicknames and only family members can use them. Anyway, after Madeline is finished remembering her memory, Ruby pulls out the The Very Strange and Incredibly Creepy Letter which their dad sent them back in April. Madeline doesn't want to think about it so she isn't. Well not thinking about The Very Strange and Incredibly Creepy Letter didn't work too well with Madeline. She is now telling us about when The Weirdness began, got it? Good. It all began when they received The Very Strange and Incredibly Creepy Letter; it was the last message that her dad had sent them before all of a sudden, he stopped contacting them. Now they are on their way to see him.