Absurdist J Fic

On Career Day Lily visited her dad's work with him and discovered he worked for a mad scientist who wanted to rule the earth through destruction and desolation.

Thus starts Whales on Stilts, the first of M. T. Anderson's Thrilling Tales by M. T. Anderson (J Sci Fi). Our main character is Lily.

Most people didn't know that Lily herself was interesting. She watched things a lot, and thought about them a lot, but she didn't say much, except to her closest friends. She hid behind her bangs. When she needed to see something particularly important, she blew on her bangs diagonally upward, either from the left or the right side of her mouth. Her bangs parted like a curtain showing a nose-and-chin matinee.

Lily believed that the world was a wonderful and magical place. She believed that if you watched carefully enough, you could find miracles anywhere. The town's baseball team had a secret handshake that went back to the time of the settlers. A professor down the street had a sekeleton hanging in his vestibule. Behind the dry cleaner, some ladies held newt races. There were interesting things like this everywhere, waiting to be noticed. Though Lily thought that she herself was too quiet and too boring to ever do anything interesting, she believed that if she just was watchful enough and silent enough--so silent that no one could even tell she existed--she would eventually see marvels.

On Career Day she discovers her dad works in a secret laboratory hidden inside an abandoned warehouse, with armed guards who shoot anyone too curious about what is going on. Her boss wears a sack over his head, has rubbery, blue hands, and pours brine all over himself in the staff room. And mentions something about taking over the world. Her dad, though, is unaware that his job is out of the ordinary or that anything might be amiss (as are all the adults).

"You know who you should ask about this? My pal Ray, who works with me. He could tell you all about this." Lily's dad nodded. "Except he was taken out of the office a few days ago with his hands tied behind his back and a bandanna tied as a gag on his mouth." Her father thought for a second. "Huh. He hasn't been in to work since. I wonder if he has the flu."

So Lily enlists the help of her two best friends. Katie Mulligan lives in Horror Hollow and is the star of a series of books called Horrow Hollow about her experience with zombies, werewolves, flesh-eating viruses, and other horrors that constantly attack her. Japer Dash, Boy Technonaut is also the star of his own book series and is an intrepid adventurer and inventor.

Several men can in. They were thin and nervous.

"Oh no," said Katie. "It's the writers from Harcourt. They're here to find out what happend so they can write the next Horror Hollow book."

"Miss Mulligan?" one said. "We'd like to find out a few details to use in the upcoming book."

"Hi," Katie said. "We're kind of in the middle of a conversation right now."

"We'd like to get started writing," said the writer. "Could you just fill us in on a few details?"

"Miss Mulligan, how did you fight off the whale?"

"Miss Mulligan, why are whales out to get you?"

"Miss Mulligan, when you crept up the stairs, was it timidly or intrepidly?"

The writers waited. One had his laptop computer open and turned on. His fingers quivered over the keys.

These oddities only hint at the absurdist humor Anderson brings to this story about how Lily and her friends try to save the world from an invasion of whales on stilts (with laser-beam eyes).

Lily told her about what had happened so far. (If you're interested, you can go back to the beginning of the book and read all the way through to this point again.)