"Jump? How high?" - a researcher. Multiple researcher. #ftsf 🔐🖋✒️🦋▦

First and foremost and direct from my last [if you read that far down]: Springhole's COMMON BEGINNER WRITER MISTAKES when it appeared on the 15th October was positively providential - in the sense that it could have been written 'just for me'. Of course only universally good writing advice can do that; a bit like the Forer effect which is one you look upon when you try to think critically.

Now to the Jump? How high? part.

One day - 20 September 1990 - in a think tank near you: if you're in Sydney, that is, like Susan and Erik are - those two have been working in the think tank for the better part of two years.

[so the beginning is February 1989 and the end is 24 December 1990 - this is when most of the action of A cage of butterflies by Welsh-born Australian science fiction/young adult fiction author Brian Caswell takes place - as indicated by the first chapter].

I remembered that there was a Jump! part and someone replied How high?

You would think that these people would be ... more sceptical ... especially when we consider who we are dealing with.

A man whose nefarious deeds would have me hyperventilating and perspiring on a day in late March 1996.

So here are those lines from page 78 of A cage of butterflies:

Some setting first. Eucalypts and bark and leaf-grabbing are involved; especially from Susan when she is thinking. The ground is bare; as would be expected from this think tank.

Susan - If I could just persuade him to let me inside 

Forget it - Erik says - No-one goes in except the terrible twosome. How are the other researchers taking it?

SUSAN: THAT LOT? LARSEN HAS THEM WHERE HE WANTS THEM. HE SAYS ‘JUMP’, AND THEY SAY, ‘HOW HIGH’?

BESIDES HE’S ORGANISED IT PRETTY CAREFULLY.

THOSE HE COULDN’T SEND ON WILD-GOOSE ASSIGNMENTS HE GAVE A WEEK’S paid LEAVE.

THEY MUST HAVE THOUGHT IT WAS CHRISTMAS.

This is where the paragraphing and the emphasis diverge.

Here is a Queen Hammer to Fall from six years before the incident in the think-tank took place. [20 September 1984].

And that lot - the researchers - could jump at least as high as the Sydney Harbour Bridge by the time John Larsen is done with them.

Thank you Anna K for this illustration of the Sydney Harbour Bridge which is just right to jump and to climb.

I would quote some of the anniversary parts - the things that happened to the thinktankers and the Babies in 1989 [page 12: 21 October 1989] and 1990 [page 123: 21 October 1990] - some 30 years ago now.

Happy Grandparents' Day! Recently it has been Teachers' Day [25 October 2019] and Children's Day [24 October 2019].

And what a terrible; terrible mindset that is for a young researcher - or really, any researcher.

Here is another JUMP quote:

From high upon the cliff-top; Susan Grace tossed a small black box into the surf below and paused a moment to whisper a few words into the wind. Then she made her way back down into the waiting car; alone. [Caswell: 1992/160].

That paragraph made me think of The wind which Mariah Carey did as a cover in 1991.

And sadly there are no emoji of cages; not the literal kind nor the metaphorical kind. The closest I was able to come was a crosshatch.

All quotes are from the University of Queensland Press edition of A Cage of Butterflies.

I like what Gregory Rogers did with the cover. If you tear the butterfly from the face - you see a super large head. And the markings are very characteristic and unique.

An art project could be to capture the essence of each Baby - like I see Ian as a moth and Phetmany as a fritterary and Ricky as a spotted butterfly - maybe Monarch or Wanderer.

Myriam is the one who leads - and Rachael ...

This is a song which talks about the bond which developed - it is from Kinky Boots [Raise you up/Just be].

There is a great poem that Myriam got the youngest - Katie - to scribe.

In all the jumping; know first thyself. That's what the Delphic Oracle has to say on the matter.

This has been a Finish the Sentence Friday post for the week of 25 October 2019.