Story in progress by Jen Hight

1

It all happened when someone left the window open. Yesterday the girl in this room had sent lightning onto the walls, but when she returned from school, her room was full of doves.

"Mo-o-om!" she screamed.

Her mother ran in and cried, "Clare, this is worse than when you turned you teachers’ hair blue!"

"It isn’t my fault," Clare cried.

"Clare," her father entered, "we have a letter that you’ve been accepted into Magix High."

"Dad, that would make me a witch," Clare joked.

"You’re a witch," her parents said.

The next day, Clare was packing her things. No one knew where she was going except her parents. Everything she needed was at school. Her mother showed her to old railroad tracks, then disappeared.

Clare suddenly saw hundreds of kids waiting, too. A boy was talking to a girl a bit older than him.

"Hi," a girl called to Clare. "Do you need to know something?"

Clare shook her head as a train pulled up.

"This is strange," Clare whispered.

2

Clare tripped on the steps. Everyone laughed. Clare hated her long legs. Her golden hair fell in front of her face. Plus, she had ripped her favorite jeans.

A boy helped her up. He looked Asian and his hair was spiky.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Sure," Clare growled. "So who are you?"

"Alex," he said smiling. "And you’re?"

"Clare," she snapped.

Silence followed her name. Alex looked stunned. He just sort of stared. A girl suddenly climbed in the train.

"You know we’re leaving," she said matter of factly.

Clare and Alex was in the same compartment. Clare now noticed people wrote on compartments. Clare pulled out her pen and wrote Clare, Alex, and _________. Alex smiled, muttering to himself. The girl from before entered the compartment.

"I’m Briana," she said. "You’re Clare and You’re Alex."

Clare got up smiling and wrote Briana on the door. They watched as the names turned into their favorite colors. Briana’s was sky blue, Alex’s was orange, and Clare’s was violet.

"This is the beginning," Clare announced, "of a beautiful friendship."

3

Clare, Alex, and Briana stood at the station in front of Magix High. Clare stared in awe. The high school was a castle, and it was huge. She felt Briana, who was standing next to her, whisper something about us living in America. A teacher entered wearing a dress from the Middle Ages.

"Freshmen, follow me," she ordered.

Clare boldly was the first to step forward. Every one else followed. They were led up the steps to an amazing banquet room, packed with the older students. Every one ohh’d and ahh’d. Clare was too stunned to talk. The teacher was talking again, but Clare didn’t notice.

"Aroara Briana."

Briana stepped forward and picked up a stick. Clare just noticed Briana was African-American. Now the stock pulled her arm towards a table. Words exploded out of the stick spelling Gryfin.

Several kids passed and Clare knew the tables were Grifin, Basilisk, Phoenix, and Sphinx.

"Alex Chang."

Gryfin.

"Shela Dickinson."

Sphinx.

"Clare Heartwood."

Clare froze as she picked up the stick. Suddenly, it shot out…

4

"Grifin."

The kids at the Grifin table shouted and cheered so loud, Clare thought she was going deaf. Sitting down in front of Alex and Briana, Clare felt relieved. Time just flew by revealing a banquet.

Clare just piled her plate full of food and shoved it in her mouth. A girl from the Basilisk table came over with two more girls.

"Ripped pants is sooo 2005," the lead girl said. "I’m Haley. This is Beth, and this is June."

"Where do we sleep?" Clare said.

"Freshmen," a teacher said, "of Grifin, follow me."

Clare slowly followed her to a portrait of a girl who looked an awful lot like Clare.

"Password," she said.

"Lunestra," the teacher answered. "Girls’ dorm on the right, boys’ on the left. I’m Miss CrabbApple. Good night."

Clare pulled on her pajamas and lay in bed.

"Briana," Clare whispered. "Are you asleep?"

"No," Briana muttered, "I’m dead. Good night."

"’Night," Clare murmured before she fell asleep.

5

Clare continued to read Potions and Poisons. Clare quickly murmured the incantation. Next to her, Alex paractically got the potion right. He swayed on the spot, then was out cold.

"Nitwit," Haley snapped. "It’s mandrake leaf, not mandrake root."

Briana finally lost her cool.

"That’s it," Briana yelled, grabbing Haley’s caldron. "Do us a favor. Shut up!"

Clare helped Briana get the caldron over Haley’s head. Then tipping it, the potion fell all over Haley. Haley fell asleep and pitched forward into her empty caldron.

Mr. Stewerts came in and took one good look at the classroom and smiled.

"100 points for Grifin," he announced, "for friendship and loyalty."

The bell rang and Clare walked off towards History of Magic. If there was an answer, she’d find it there.

6

"It was a dark and stormy night," Clare read, "and the vines entangled themselves around Celina…"

"Go on," Miss CrabbApple ordered.

"Heartwood’s neck," Clare whispered. "Was the Merlin Clan at an end? But Celina rose and triumphed, knowing a Merlin Clan girl, named Clare Heartwood, would win against a creature far worse."

Clare was relieved when class was over. Briana always was relieved when class was over. Alex was reading a bulletin in front of the school.

"Dance on Halloween," he read. "Halloween’s Friday, and it’s Wednesday."

Briana shrugged. "So we’ll go with Alex."

"Miss Heartwood," Miss CrabbApple whispered to Clare. "I hear you play guitar."

"Yes," Clare muttered. "I even brought my own guitar here."

"Will you play at the dance?"

"Yes!"

7

Clare stared at the stage, getting ready to play. Her black silk dress clung to her body.

Shutting her eyes, she strummed on her guitar letting the music take over. A strange impulse took over Clare. Clare landed in the splits with her pitch black guitar behind her head. Rock-N-Roll exploded from her hands, but she didn’t care. She was having fun!

Looking at the grade clock, she realized it was midnight. But it was worth it.

It was a night to remember.

yeah.

get his picture.

capture his dead cold stare

his pinstripe suit.

erica caught him

in her flash.

a rare smile stretched across his face.

forehead veiled in dark bangs.

his toocool shades

lifted.

Frankie's eyes were blue.

    Ned took up his sixth job at Make Money and Co. who's president was, coincidentally, Mr. Bob. Now before we began this rather wild rendevous, I believe I must make some things clear for our new readers. Ned is a fat youth, with a ratio of height to width of about 1:3. He also idolizes food, so he turns to them for help, advise, and mony. As you can tell, he was not very successful. Why? Because he was lazy and takes things too literal. For example, When Mr. Bob told Ned that "The Grass is always greener on the other side" This started the inevitable "Ned's Paradox" with his famous quote, "But if it zis alvays greener on da odder side, dan they cannot have a greener side!" This caused more contreversy than most because Ned is not renowned for his thoughtfulness, excuse me, babbleness (He babbles, he doesn't think) Anyway, he never passed Kindergarten so it is hard to tell if he knows anything. Another thing he took to literally was "Hit the road" In which at Mr. Bob's insistence after firing him ran outside and punched the road. Of course, he is all fat and no muscle so it kind of bounced off him. Another thing is that he is a crybaby, so he immediately started crying. Unfortunately, this resulted in a humungous fart which desimated all the buildings in a 150 mile radius to be knocked flat, luckily this was in Kansas so not to many people were hurt. These events lead up to him getting the job of telephone operator in the company Make Money & Co. But knowing Ned, I don't think this will turn out that well...



   The first day of Ned's new job...
"Oh, Ned! The president of our company will see you now." The employee pointed to a small office.
"OK, I see." Ned walked over to the office with a small swagger. Unfortunately to everyone else this was a huge swagger as he swatted away the cubicles in his way. Finally reaching the door he entered. Unfortunately, his girth broke off the doorway and left a giant hole. Mr. Bob's eyes got big,
"You are so fat! Wait, are you the Ned the Handyman?"
"No, is there a job of Ned de Handyman? I might be good at it! But I am the telephone operator!"
"OK, I am Mr. Bob your boss. Here is the list of numbers that you need to call. Do it quickly"
"Right"
Ned went into his extra large cubicle and picked up the phone. He dialed all the numbers and then hung up. After that he operated on his telephone and broke it open with a sledge hammer. Than he rewired the circuits to do something he didn't know what it would do. Little did he know, he had just set that any number dialed from his phone in the past would go to Mr. Bobs office phone. Just then Mr. Bob shouted in his office as all the phones went crazy and blew up from the overload of calls. Mr. Bob shouted, "Ahhhh. Stop the prank calls!"
Ned happily resumed his work on eating the 300 large orders of pizza in his office, satisfied that his work was done.

The Second day of Ned's new job...
    Ned was lucky not to get caught, or else he would have been fired immediately. Anyway, the next day, Mr. Bob bought a whole new line of phones as they kept disappearing, being broken, or blown up. As it happened, investors in phone companies suddenly profitted as a new big customer came into view. So Ned was in his office hammering a way at a phone when it rang, giving it a sharp blow, the phone smashed into smitherines as Ned sat on it to get rid of the noise. He then relaxed into the peace and quiet of his fart.
Suddenly Mr. Bob came in (with a clothspin on his nose) And saw the destroyed phone.
"So yours too huh?"
Ned nodded happily.
"Oh, well I guess there goes our last chance. That was the last phone in this building, and I was supposed to get a call just a little earlier than now that would boost our company up a lot."
Ned thought for a moment vaguely recalling the ringing before he smashed the phone. " No, I haven't heard a vring!"
Mr. Bob nodded and walked out of the room. Then, Ned gave an enormous burp and everyone except Mr. Bob fainted dead away.

Ned's third day at his new job...
    After Ned destroyed all the phones in the company, its stock was going down. In fact, its debt had surpassed the nation's! Mr. Bob, in desperation, ordered one last shipment of phones to the company. This is where we join our hero, excuse me, ZERO.
   Ned came to work one day and sat in his office, his pockets, laden with cookies. He munched on them and began his daily routine of breaking open his phone and rewiring it in weird patterns. This time, he arranged the wires in a smily face and then dialed his assigned numbers. Unfortunately, this pattern yet again back fired as it forced all the numbers on the phone to be changed into funny messages. Now he rearranged his second phone which hooked up to the first in the same pattern he had on the first day. Soon after, Mr. Bob came out of the room steaming mad.
   Mr. Bob was sitting at his office biting his nails when suddenly the phone said, "Ba da ba ba baa, I'm loving it!" Intrigued, Mr. Bob walked over to his phone. Then something else, "Knock Knock!" Another phone rang, "Who's there!" Then the first phone rang again, "The person", then the second "The person who?". Then finally the first, "The person who is listening to this has serious issues!" And all the phones rang, "HAHAHA!" And then blew up.
   Now Mr. Bob was carefully noting the behavior of all the employees and found something very strange. All of them were complaining about their phones, except for Ned. So, Mr. Bob called Ned into his office for another meeting. WHen Ned came in through the specially enlarged door, Mr. Bob fired his finger at him. "Are you blowing up the phones?"
Ned who was looking in his pockets found no cookies left and began to cry.
As stern as he was, Mr. Bob somehow felt sorry for the fat blubbering Ned and said, "Oh, I'm sorry for accusing you, I just thought... Oh, never mind. Uhhh, here have a cookie."
This cheered Ned up some and he walked away scoffing the treat up.
Soon after, Mr. Bob got the report that Ned had not successfully called any one during his job and that he had caused unneccessary repairs and reconstruction of the cubicles. So, Mr. Bob called Ned back yet again.
"Ned, I'm disappointed that you had not called anyone right. So I think we ought you to do this properly."
Ned nodded understandingly, "I'll be vright back!"
Soon after Ned came in dressed up like a proper surgeon: with the hairnet, gloves, mask, and everything! Mr. Bob looked at Ned quizzicly. "What's with the..."
But that was as far as he got. Ned rolled up his sleeves and let out an enormous burp. Mr. Bob almost fainted immediately, but stayed conscious just in time to see Ned walking into the cubicles, blasting them away to make room for himself, and breaking open the telephones. Then, he saw no more.
When Mr. Bob woke up, it occured to him what had happened. He groggily looked up and saw Ned making the final wire transplant. When Ned saw Mr. Bob up, he said, "All done! All surgeries and operations were successful, don't worry!"
Mr. Bob looked around at the wrecked headquarters of Make Money & Co. Then he started sobbing.
Ned looked compassionately, "I know, its so happy it kind of makes you vant to cry! All the happy little phones with their phony families and..."
"AAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH"
Mr. Bob's rage was let out in a single scream. He then picked up a chair and hurled it at Ned. Luckily for Ned, it hit his thick blubber and crashed into the ceiling, and began its trip to the moon. Ned saw foam coming out of the angry Mr. Bob's mouth and thought he could have rabies so he tried to run, no waddle to the stairs. Finally he reached it, and just in time too for Mr. Bob was already after him ranting, "You're fired! You are soooo fired!"
Fortunately, stairs going down were Ned's specialty. Tucking his head, arms, and legs into his body, he began rolling down the stairs. Unfortunately, there were 53 stories and Mr. Bob had the sense to use the elevator. Mr. Bob waited for Ned at the bottom of the stairs. Fortunately for Ned, he was bowled over by flying girth. Unfortunately for both, they rolled over the embankment on the other side of the road. Doubly unfortunately, it was a very steep hill that they rolled down. Tripley unfortunately, they came to a stop on a highway.
Anyway, when they came back from the hospital with broken arms, legs, and other stuff like that, Mr. Bob shouted, "I know who you are now! For sure, you are Ned the Handyman!"
"Is dat a type of cheese? I dink I heard it before from a please officer."
"I was that officer! I am Mr. Bob! Now get out!"
Ned went to the parking lot and Mr. Bob came to see him to good riddance.
"Now," Mr. Bob said, "Put the pedal to the metal"
Ned complied and took the nearest pedal from the nearest car and ground it into fine metal powder on the road. Unfortunately, this was Mr. Bob's car.
Mr Bob then shouted and told Ned to just go away.
So, Ned agreed and went away to another state, looking for another job.