Dave Casler
PO Box 98
Ridgway, Colorado 81432
Young Adult Novels by Dave Casler...
I've been told by publisher after publisher that there's no market for Young Adult novels. I think they're wrong! So I'm putting my novels on-line for you. Forget the publisher! Read to your heart's content--it's free! And, I'd like to hear from you, too! Contact Page.
You're reading About Phillip. Be sure to check out About Dan here.
Phillip is a computer nerd who suddenly discovers a liking for track. Everything would be fine except for his father.
About Series Home
About the About Series
Index to All Chapters
Here are all the chapters, disguised as asterisks. Hover your mouse over an asterisk to see the title of the chapter. Click on the asterisk to go straight to that chapter.
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(About Phillip Home) (Last) (Next)
Who's the Mystery Person in the Photograph?
On Thursday afternoon Phillip came home from his second track meet to find Grant Haven waiting for him on the front porch. Grant was a fair-haired, big-boned sophomore who looked faintly Scandinavian. He rose as Phillip bounded up the walk, revealing himself to be about three inches taller than Phillip.
Grant spoke first. "Dude! You’re late! Miss your bus?"
"Team meeting ran off track, to make a pun. I caught the next one."
"Sorry I couldn’t stay for the whole meet. How’d’ya do?"
"Better pacing, but still second on my heat. Third overall. A Longmont guy blew me out of the water. Bad stuff. I got trounced. Everyone else was in our dust, though."
"Bummer. How much time you got before you gotta go to work?"
"No work tonight, so no hurry." Phillip was on the porch now.
"’K. I got about two hours. Got some s’more pictures for ya."
Phillip opened the door and went in first as though clearing the way. Grant followed immediately behind. Carmen was sound asleep in her rocker. Margo poked her head in. She looked preoccupied. She had the portable phone in her hand.
"Hi, honey. Hi, Grant. How was your meet today?"
Phillip fidgeted. "Not real good. I ran a slightly better race than last week, but Longmont was too fast. Grant’s here to help me with my website."
"Oh, doesn’t that cost a lot of money?" she replied absentmindedly.
"Nope," said Phillip. He broke eye contact with his mother and started up the stairs. Grant followed. "Don’t worry, it’s easy," said Phillip over his shoulder, but Margo was already in the kitchen.
Martin jumped up from his homework and followed Phillip and Grant upstairs. Wolfgang bounded between them and reached Phillip’s room before any of them. Phillip let Grant into the room ahead of him. Then Phillip went in, closing the door behind him—in Martin’s face. Martin stuck his foot in the door.
"Hey, I wanna watch. I wanna see how you do it." He pushed on the door.
Phillip relented. "Ok, but don’t get in the way."
"I won’t," said Martin. He sat on the bed.
Phillip kneeled in front of Wolfgang and rubbed him behind his ears. He pulled the dog into a hug while stroking its huge back. Wolfgang’s tail thwacked against Grant’s leg.
"That dog’s tail should be a registered weapon," observed Grant.
Phillip laughed. "Yeah, but he’s getting old. He’s nearly the same age I am. Isn’t it weird that a fifteen-year-old human is young and a fifteen-year-old dog is old? But he’s still going strong. He went for a run with me last Saturday."
"Yeah, weird. And not the dog. You, for running so much!"
"Gee, thanks," said Phillip, standing. He crossed the room, reached down to turn on one of the computers and sat in front of the other one and turned it on.
"Why do you have two computers?" piped up Martin.
Phillip rolled his eyes and turned to face his younger brother.
"Dummy, the file server’s also there for internet connection sharing. You know that."
"But you can do all that from one computer. I think you bamboozled Dad into getting you two just so you can play."
"Martin, you’re getting annoying," said Phillip. "Anyway I paid for the second one with my own money." He turned back to the computer.
"How’s your website coming along?" interjected Grant, directing his question at Phillip and ignoring Martin.
"Well, I got the URL a couple days ago. It’s aboutphillip.com. Pretty cool, don’t you think?"
"Pretty egotistical, that’s what I think!" said Martin. He had moved so he was standing behind the two older boys, looking over their shoulders.
"Martin, shut up or I’ll break your arm!" exclaimed a frustrated Phillip.
"Oh, right. You and what army?" He didn’t move or show any fear.
Phillip grunted and looked back at the computer. "See, here’s what I’ve done so far. Just type in www.aboutphillip.com, and presto! There it is."
"Where’s it hosted?"
"I found a place on the web called ‘Really Cheap Web Hosting Dot Com.’ Only twenty bucks a year."
"I hear they have really cheap security, too," said Grant.
"Oh, well. It’s all I can afford. No one’s gonna hack my site. Look, here’s the home page. I’ve got a bio and a picture already up. I’m going to add a section on why Mormons really are Christians because I’m getting tired of Matthew giving me so much gas. And here’s the stuff on track." He pointed. "Let’s see your pictures."
Grant reached in his pocket and pulled out a memory key. "On here," he said.
He plugged the memory stick into the computer’s USB port. Phillip clicked on the correct icons and soon they were watching Grant’s pictures as a slide show.
"Cool. So that’s what I look like. Am I really the shortest guy on the team? Oops, you got the Longmont guy in front of me. He’s the guy that won, by the way. There’s number ten from Longmont; he’s a snot. Ok, there’s a good shot of me running, maybe we can use that one. Good picture. Yeah, that one’s good, too. Nice work, Grant! Nope, that one’s all blurry. Ok, that one’s good. Yeah, I guess we’re all done at that point. Oh, one more, yeah nice one of my back, shows my number. Maybe we can use it. Huh? Stop the slide show!"
Grant grabbed the mouse. "What’s wrong?"
"Go back one. Yeah, that one. Does your camera have lots of resolution? Zoom in right there. No, there. Yeah. Do you see who that is?"
Grant was puzzled. "That’s Matthew Christiansen! What’s he doing at a track meet? He’s about as athletic as Porky Pig."
Phillip studied the picture. "He’s standing next to someone wearing a Park jersey. But the number is blocked. Do you have any other pictures showing the same area?"
Grant flipped back through the other pictures. They found Matthew in two additional shots. They zoomed in on each.
"I don’t know," said Phillip, "but I think the number is 11. Yeah, it must be. Number 11 is Luke. If that’s really Luke…he’s always been nice to me, y’know, encouraging and all that. He runs the 100 and the 220 dashes, so he’s done before I start. Maybe Matthew was there to see him."
"That’s a relief," said Grant. "At least he’s not there to pester you at track, too. By the way, I didn’t see your dad there."
"I told him last night if he came I wouldn’t run."
"That’s not what he told Mom this morning," piped Martin. "He said he had to see his accountant this afternoon."
"Yeah, likely story," said Phillip.
"Just telling you what he said," protested Martin.