Chapter #2Book section. by: Unknown You climbed out of the car and looked about at the vast array of junk that covered the yard and garage in front of this small home. It was everywhere, covering table after table and filling box after box, often with hand-made signs hanging from the tables or scrawled haphazardly on the front of the boxes. “Each item only $2!” the signs proclaimed in bright red sharpie. People milled about and drifted from table to table, many of them old folks milling about and going to the sale to visit with friends and neighbors as much as anything else. This place sucked.
“Here you go honey!” your mom said gleefully to you as she drew $20 from her purse and handed it to you with a bubbly smile, “Go look around and spend this on something cool okay?” she said as she scurried off toward a table filled with some blouses and make-up. “That’ll be a real challenge, Mom,” you said to yourself as you glanced around at the array of….well…junk that collectively constituted the sale. You began to amble through, struggling mightily to find anything worthy of your attention.
Then, something caught your eye, just barely. Off in the periphery, sitting over next to the garage in the shade, was a tattered old box filled with books. “Hmmm…hope perhaps?” you said to yourself, as you saw a world of fantasy and science fiction that was perhaps contained in the box. Walking over to the box, knelt down and began to sift through it, picking books up one by one. A Midwinter’s Love, Romance in the Sahara, and Passion in the Night were the first three books that you drew out, each a sappy romance novel with some scantily clad chic on the front, along with a man who looked remarkably like Fabio. “Crap, crap, and more crap,” you said to yourself, evaluating the work you saw before you, “okay, maybe I spoke to early about that hope thing,” you declared.
About to stand up and walk away from the box, something else caught your eye. Toward the bottom of the box was an old book. You pulled the thing out slowly and examined it. It was tattered, its leather green cover and many, many pages had seen better days, but the tome had a certain character to it. You dusted it off, revealing on the cover a face that seemed to be that of a wizard, as the face was older with a big beard hanging from its chin and a big wizard’s hat adorning the head…the guy looked like Dumbledore. It was really just a drawing, but the figure’s eyes seemed alive somehow…piercing. “That’s weird,” you sad as a tiny chill ran down your spine.
You stood with the book in hand, determined to buy it. Nearby was a table with a little girl standing behind it and a locked metal box sitting right in front of her. The box was presumably for the money. You walked over to the little girl, who seemed to be about six years old with short blonde hair and a pink dress with flowers all over it. “How much for this?” you asked her as you held up the book and failed to find a price tag. “Oh,” she said, her voice seeming to be of disdain, “that’s just my daddy’s old book…my mommy never understood why he kept it for so long…just $5 I guess,” she concluded. You pulled out the twenty and gave it to her, and she quickly gave you your change, and off you went.
You headed for the car, opening the door and climbing in amidst all the junk your mom had bought. Waiting for your mom’s return, you opened the book. As you turned through it, something struck you…the book was empty! “What the….” you began, flipping more and more pages and finding more and more of them utterly blank, “this sucks!” you said. “Well…at least it was just five bucks, and the cash wasn’t even mine,” you said to make yourself feel better as you gruffly slammed the book closed.
You heard the door open, and you mom got in, weighed down by the bags and bags of clothes she had bought. “Hey honey,” she said, excited as ever, “ooohhh what did you find?” she asked in a voice that told you she enjoyed this process a bit too much. “Oh just this old book,” you said as you opened it just to fake interest in your lemon of a purchase. This time was different though…you flipped to the first page, and there was actually something on it! Suddenly interested, you fixed your eyes intently on the page. Blue writing glowed as letters seemed magically to appear and dance across the page as you watched with rapt attention.
“Something wrong honey?” you mom asked, seeing the amazement on your face. “Oh….uh…no…no, not at all,” you stammered, “it’s just that this book…..it’s…it’s…getting good,” you said, perpetrating the understatement of the century. “Well I’m glad!” you mom said, smiling. The car pulled into the driveway at your house. Without even offering to help your mom, you jumped out and motored in the direction of the house and your room. “I’ll get the stuff honey; just remember I’ll have lunch ready soon!” Too late, you were gone already, bounding up the stairs and closing the door to your room. Huffing and puffing, you slammed the door to your room and threw the book open on your bed, by which time the writing on the page had materialized fully.
As you looked over it, it seemed to be some sort of spell. What did it do?
1) It said something about being able to change your voice.
2) It would let you make yourself invisible.
3) You could make yourself older.
4) You could make people see you as somebody else.
5) It would let you travel into someone’s past.
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