The Snugglekins Series — Character Spotlight
Joey Roo has a theory about the glowworm caves.
He has been talking about it for three days. He cannot stop bouncing.
Joey Roo goes first. Always. He is the one with the idea, the one who mapped the route before anyone agreed to come, the one already at the meeting place when everyone else is still deciding whether to get out of bed. He is brave and enthusiastic and genuinely, infectiously excited about the world.
He is also, quietly, terrified of the parts of the world that cannot be mapped.
Not dark places — Joey loves adventure. Not hard things — Joey runs toward hard things. The specific terror is the unknowable. The situation where the knowledge runs out and the certainty evaporates, and there is no map, no route and no theory to hold onto.
He goes first, so nobody else has to face that moment.
He has never quite worked out that the moment always catches up eventually.
Joey is a warm golden-brown kangaroo with a green scarf and an orange explorer’s jacket. He carries a well-worn backpack with everything a proper adventure requires — rolled swag, field notebook, compass necklace, and walking stick. His eyes are bright, and his energy is enormous, and he smiles the way people smile when they are genuinely glad to be alive.
His story is called Joey Roo and the Glow Worm Caves.
It is about what happens when the theory runs out. And about a friend who sat down beside him on a cold cave floor and said — just breathe with me. Just that. Nothing else right now.
The Snugglekins Series — coming soon from Lit Wick Press.
Safe. Loved. Heard. Enough.
