Mark Twain had “telegraphy,” and my character Sophia MacGregor has telepathy using Humanish, CatScreech, and RavenSpeak. She has communicated with her human and animal friends that way since the first volume of Sophia of the Bright Red Sneakers series.
In the first book, Mr. O’D questions Sophia’s telepathic ability, so he tells her to telepath Zelda to climb her scratch post.
“Okay, I will.” Sophia gathered all her concentration and fixed Zelda S with a penetrating stare from her blue eye, giving the cat her Do What I Say or You’ll be Sorry look. She used telepathy to give the order in CatScreech. “Go run up your scratch post!”
“Are you kidding me? If any adult finds out that you telepath in CatScreech, you’ll get a one-way ticket to Bellevue!” With that, Zelda flicked her tail like a human snaps her fingers, turned, and swished her way back onto the sofa. She kneaded Sophia’s homework into a comfortable nest and fell asleep.
Sophia failed to convince Mr. O’D that she could telepath with Zelda, but Mark Twain was more successful.
In the December 1891 issue of Harper’s Monthly Magazine, Mark Twain published an article on mental telegraphy. Twain had extensive notes for a book he considered writing in 1878 about the silver rush in Nevada, which he called the “Great Bonanza” book. Around 1881, Twain tried to submit the manuscript to North American Review, but the publisher declared no rational reader would think “telegraphy” was anything more than “coincidence.”
His “Great Bonanza” idea came to mind again in 1888. After many years without communication, Twain wrote a letter to William H. Wright outlining the book. He postponed sending the letter, but several days later, a letter arrived from Wright. Twain recited the content of each letter to a relative who happened to be present. The content was identical.
Speaking of Mark Twain, be sure to see the first video of my reading, "A Connecticut in King Arthur’s Court," coming this Thursday on my Listen to This! series. Next Tuesday, I’ll post a reading from Mission 2: Unexpected Visitors.
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