Annie Gomez and the Gigantic Foot of Doom

Preface

I think it's safe to say that life is unfair, adults are the cause, and young people are the solution. It's safe to say because I'm hiding behind this book and no one can throw anything at me.

I've been a teenager now for over 50 years so trust me when I say that it's intense. One minute I'm ecstatic about some cool thing that I've figured out how to do and the next minute I'm a trembling idiot because I have to talk to someone who is actually looking at me.

Please forgive me if I'm honest enough to say that I'm smarter than almost everyone I know and I don't get why they don't like me. Why can't they just accept that they're inferior? This is one thing I haven't figured out yet.

As Annie discovers, it's great to have friends who get you and who are smart in their own ways (though probably not as smart as me). So I'm grateful for our family's dog, Baxter, who is highly creative, very hands-on, and loves to have his butt scratched. How can you not love a friend like that? Baxter knows the words "walkies" and "mailbox", which puts him ahead of a lot of people I know. I'm also grateful for my human friends, whose names I've forgotten for the moment.

I think you're going to like Annie and her friends. Annie is that girl in school who's taller than you, cute, smarter than you (but not smarter than me), says funny things without even knowing they're funny, and who you'd like to hang out with but who you're afraid to talk to. Take my advice. It's like a rattlesnake. She's just as afraid of you as you are of her. So go ahead and say something to her. You'll both probably make idiots of yourselves but at least you will have tried. Just like rattlesnakes.

Annie has put together a sort of club. She calls it a "coterie". It includes a handful of her best friends. Actually her only friends. But, hey, as with rattlesnakes, quality is more important than quantity . And her friends have really amazing quality.

So sit back, relax, and find out how Annie deals with the fact that two different sets of aliens are each claiming that the other one is trying to destroy humanity. How will she figure out which is which? How will she stop an entire alien race with powers far beyond those of mere mortals (probably even me)? What will she do when her last resort fails? Not to mention the question of whether true love is possible between beings from two different dimensions.

I think that in this book I've finally proven that the world should be run by teenagers, for a number of reasons, not the least of which involve pizza and not having to wear pants. Enjoy life! It only gets better!

Jay Cutts

Albuquerque, NM

January 14, 2015