# Please help me find this sci-fi short story **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 29, 2010, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-find-this-sci-fi-short-story/551868 "2010-08-29T04:54:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Electric\_Warrior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Electric\_Warrior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electric_Warrior)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2010, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-find-this-sci-fi-short-story/551868/1 "2010-08-29T04:54:18Z")
I recall that the story in question was in a collection called “What If?” which I think was geared toward YA audiences. I read it in my fourth-grade classroom. The story is about a young girl with a stutter, who befriends a writer. She wakes up one day to find that her writer friend is dead at the typewriter, having left only this message: “[main character’s name] has enough imagination to power a starship” (or something similar). She takes the paper away and doesn’t tell anyone that the writer had left a note. The next day she wakes up again and her friend is alive as normal; she continues not to discuss what happened. The town where she lives has a strange character known as ‘Beautiful Day’ because he says this to everyone he sees. It turns out that Beautiful Day is an extraterrestrial and the main character, when the time comes, literally uses her imagination to power the ship that takes him back to his home planet. Does anyone else remember this or have any more information? I tried Google and Amazon and couldn’t turn it up, but it’s possible my google-fu is weak. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2010, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-find-this-sci-fi-short-story/551868/2 "2010-08-29T05:31:43Z")
Okay, you read it in 4th grade. When was that? It might help us to be able to eliminate years here. ---
**Author:** ![Electric\_Warrior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Electric\_Warrior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electric_Warrior)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2010, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-find-this-sci-fi-short-story/551868/3 "2010-08-29T05:32:55Z")
2000-2001. I don’t think this is actually relevant though, because my teacher had books both old and new. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2010, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-find-this-sci-fi-short-story/551868/4 "2010-08-29T05:34:22Z")
Well, at least we know not to look at anything published after 2002. That’s 8 years of stuff we don’t even have to consider. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2010, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-find-this-sci-fi-short-story/551868/5 "2010-08-29T05:41:45Z")
_All Summer in a Beautiful Day_ Just kidding. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2010, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-find-this-sci-fi-short-story/551868/6 "2010-08-29T10:33:34Z")
It’s relevant to know the year that you read a story (and not just the grade in school) because there’s a spread of about sixty years in the ages of the posters here. When a poster says that they read a story in fourth grade, that doesn’t tell us much. We need to know if that was in the early 1940’s or the early 2000’s. Sorry to get picky about this, but posters are always doing this. They seem to think that we are all about the same age here. We’re not. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2010, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-find-this-sci-fi-short-story/551868/7 "2010-08-29T10:38:41Z")
The Internet Speculative Fiction Database lists two anthologies with the title What If?: [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?WHTFVLM861980](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?WHTFVLM861980) [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?WHTFVLM871981](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?WHTFVLM871981) Could the story have been in either of these? ---
**Author:** ![Electric\_Warrior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Electric\_Warrior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electric_Warrior)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2010, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-find-this-sci-fi-short-story/551868/8 "2010-08-29T13:40:06Z")
Neither of these, sorry. And I suppose I see your point about age 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2010, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-find-this-sci-fi-short-story/551868/9 "2010-08-29T13:40:10Z")
I found another collection called “What If…” Amazing Stories," published in 2001 and written for children. The contents are here [http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?WHTFMZNGST2001](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?WHTFMZNGST2001) ---
**Author:** ![Electric\_Warrior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Electric\_Warrior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electric_Warrior)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2010, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-find-this-sci-fi-short-story/551868/10 "2010-08-29T14:05:12Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > I found another collection called “What If…” Amazing Stories," published in 2001 and written for children. The contents are here [Publication: What If ...? Amazing Stories](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?WHTFMZNGST2001) This is it, and “Eternity Leave” is the story. Thank you thank you thank you! Guess I really got egg on my face with regard to saying the date I was in fourth grade wasn’t important. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2010, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-find-this-sci-fi-short-story/551868/11 "2010-08-29T14:08:57Z")
> [@Electric\_Warrior](#): > > > [@Andy\_L](#): > > > > I found another collection called “What If…” Amazing Stories," published in 2001 and written for children. The contents are here [Publication: What If ...? Amazing Stories](http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?WHTFMZNGST2001) > > This is it, and “Eternity Leave” is the story. Thank you thank you thank you! You’re very welcome. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2010, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-find-this-sci-fi-short-story/551868/12 "2010-08-29T15:13:57Z")
> [@Electric\_Warrior](#): > > She wakes up one day to find that her writer friend is dead at the typewriter… > > The next day she wakes up again and her friend is alive as normal… So… Did she call the cops? If the coroner came and took the body away, did the friend come back to life in a refrigerated drawer? Or, did she not call anyone, went to bed with the body in the room, and then the body was alive again in the morning? ---
**Author:** ![Electric\_Warrior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Electric\_Warrior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electric_Warrior)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2010, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-help-me-find-this-sci-fi-short-story/551868/13 "2010-08-30T15:14:22Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > > [@Electric\_Warrior](#): > > > > She wakes up one day to find that her writer friend is dead at the typewriter… > > > > The next day she wakes up again and her friend is alive as normal… > > So… Did she call the cops? If the coroner came and took the body away, did the friend come back to life in a refrigerated drawer? Or, did she not call anyone, went to bed with the body in the room, and then the body was alive again in the morning? IIRC, the cops get involved almost immediately. It’s been almost ten years since I read the story so you’ll have to excuse any gaps in my memory.