A LINKTON SECRET

This is a story I've been working on for a week.  I like to make stories because then I get to make up different characters and their ages.  I tried to be specific and make lots of details like a real author, although I'm not going to be a writer when I grow up.  I am going to be a witch.  

A LINKTON SECRET

About two years ago, in a little gray house by a quiet stream, there lived four children: Nigel, nineteen years old, Elizabeth, thirteen years old, Jeffrey, five years old, and their three year old brother Ian.  They set off for an adventure because their fairy friend Jennifer had an important task for them to complete. 

There were three things Elizabeth had to do before she could be whisked to the secret palace underground.  #1:Brush her teeth. #2:Wash her clothes. #3:Wash the dishes. She had to do these things all in a row and in order, so she did.

The three things Nigel had to do were #1:Eat fruit. #2:Make his bed. #3:Spill milk on the floor and then clean it up. The younger children were free to get to the palace. Seven and up had to do these chores. Elizabeth’s chores were the girls’ chores and Nigel’s were the boys’. It was a lot like paying money.

There was a flash of light and they realized they were being whisked to the Linkton Palace.  The next thing they knew they were standing outside of the beautiful palace made out of pure gold. 

Fortunately, Nigel had his magic key with him because the door was locked.  As soon as they got inside, they walked down the long, bronze corridors with the satin couches and chairs and beds.  They entered the potion room.  There was the wizard making potions.  They had come to the potions room because they wanted to ask the wizard what the task was.  Jennifer, the fairy, had disappeared before they could ask her what the task was.  (She was very, very busy because she was talking to her mother on the phone.) 

The wizard replied, “You have to find the silver cup that is lost in the palace gardens.  We need it because it has pure magic in it.  If we don’t have it, the really old four hundred year old fairy will die.  She is queen and we have nobody to take her place.  You have to be really ugly in order to be the queen and no young girl in this palace is really ugly.  The cup got lost when Jennifer was drinking from it.  (All of the other cups were in the dishwasher because there was a big party the night before.  The silver cup was the only one left in the cabinet and Jennifer was very, very thirsty.)  She was walking out in the palace gardens and she was also using a watering can to water plants.  When her friend, John, came out, he surprised her so much that she dropped the cup and she ran inside.  An ugly witch told us that a squirrel buried the cup when Jennifer went inside and she will not tell us where to find it because she is bad and mean and she does not want us to find it.  Come on.  I will show you the way.  The ugly witch told us that it could only be found by humans.  We picked you because you are our only human friends.” 

“We’ll have to split up,” said Nigel.  “You know that the mean palace ghosts in the gardens kill three year olds.  Elizabeth, you stay inside with Ian. Jeffrey, you come with me and we can look for the cup.” 

The palace gardens were full of ghosts and Jeffrey and Nigel had to do a huge race and finish first before the ghosts let them into the palace garden.  The ghosts wanted to go inside and kill Ian, but they remembered the rule they made themselves that said they could only kill three year olds if they came into the palace gardens. (Fortunately, they had never killed any three-year- olds because three-year-olds never came into the palace gardens.)                  

Finally, after about eight hours, when they were very, very tired, and it was past even Nigel’s bedtime, Jeffrey and Nigel had found the cup.  Elizabeth and Ian were sleeping in some of the satin beds.  The wizard allowed them to.  But, they had forgotten how to get back home! Just then, Jennifer appeared in the misty gray night sky. “Say ‘Oinka’,” she said. Then she vanished. Fairies are like that. They know when humans have a problem, even if they are not with the human when they are having the problem. So Nigel, Elizabeth, Jeffrey, and Ian all took a deep breath, closed their eyes, and said ‘Oinka’. In a flash, they were home and they climbed into bed.