Ever since the discovery of the magical world, the children couldn’t have been jumpier. Everyday they would try find a reason to skip school to go to the trapdoor but they never found one good enough.
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“Mom…is it alright if I don’t go to school today?” Zachary asked one time.
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“Here we go again…” Mrs Williams sighed as she took a sip of her coffee.
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“No mom, it’s real this time. I-I’ve been feeling kind of weird. My belly aches every time after dinner and I think I have diarrhea.”
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Daniel widened his eyes. trying to silently tell him that that wasn’t a symptom of diarrhea. Mrs Williams chuckled and put her coffee down.
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“Zachary, dear, that’s not diarrhea, you’re just full! Now hurry up, the bus won’t wait for you.”
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Zachary shot a nervous glance at his annoyed brothers as they walked out of the door.
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“I tried.”
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“Did you, though?”
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Now you might be asking, why can’t they just do it after school? Wonderful question, have faith, they have tried it already. Yet for some reason, it wouldn’t open. The fairy got irritated by their “foolishness” and shot out of her book one more time
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“Honestly, do you guys ever learn? The trapdoor works on solar energy, you fatui! We specifically designed it so that you could only open it from dusk till noon. It is to ensure thieves can’t take advantage of the darkness of the night to sneak in!”
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“That’s so cool,” Daniel said, probably fascinated by their engineering and all their blah, blah, blahs.
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“What are fatui?” Zachary asked.
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**
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So, finally, after a long week of school (especially Mr Don’s lessons which always took an eternity to finish) and a little splash of water from Zachary, Daniel and James got up, changed and headed for the door.
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“Alright, we can finally visit that trapdoor!” Zachary groaned.
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Mrs William loves watching game-show television. She says it is way better all those nature channels and documentaries Mr Williams likes to watch, though she did not say that to him. When Zachary gets bored trying to hatch up ways to annoy his brothers and friends, he sits beside his mother and watches with her. And every time someone loses a game show, they would either stay calm or scream curses upon curses which made Mrs Williams always close Zachary’s ears. Unfortunately, her ear-closing was not very effective.
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They got on their bikes and set off in the direction of North Waters Hill. As they biked, the lamps were starting to flicker on and the sun started to rise in the east, giving the valley a warm look. James saw a little bird on top of one of the lamp posts they passed by and he could’ve sworn the bird’s eyes followed him. Once he was far enough from the bird
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At around 8 AM they arrived at the foot of the hill. They climbed up, Daniel complaining about how his shoes were gonna get dirty. When they finally got up, they could see the whole town. It wasn’t big, it wasn’t like a New York or anything but it was still beautiful. There were some towers here and there, grocery stores, houses, apartments and the beast feature: lush hills surround the town, with the ocean in the horizon. However, they had time for that for some time else, right now, they’re attention was directed at a giant, metal trapdoor. That had definitely not been there before, James though.
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“Since when did metal trapdoors exist in the ancient times?” Daniel said, bending down to examine it.
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And then, as if answering his question, the trapdoor slowly peeled it’s metal “skin” and revealed a wooden one, causing Daniel to jump a bit. The trapdoor had intricate patterns of flowers engraved on it, though that’s what James thought they were since the trapdoor was covered in a bunch of leaves, moss and grass. It had gears like those of a clock on it but they weren’t moving James knelt down and started getting rid of the greenery that was wrapped around the trapdoor
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“Hey, could use a little help here, these things are pretty firm,” James said, looking up at them.
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While they got rid of the wooden trapdoor, James kept on hearing sounds coming from inside of the trapdoor. Trickles of water, the ominous sound of a hollowed out space and weirdly, something moving. When the boys finished clearing the greenery off of the trapdoor they heaved at it, trying to pull it open.
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“Come on,” Zachary grunted, “geez, this is heavy.”
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The trapdoor wouldn’t budge. Then Daniel appeared to have spotted something: one the outer rims on the trapdoor were 4 buttons, each were in the center of one flower, surrounded by their petals.
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“What now?” Zachary asked, scratching his head.
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“Uh-” Daniel called, “try pressing those buttons.”
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Zachary looked at his brother strangely, but in the end he complied.
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After a few seconds of silence, the flower in the center opened a circular hole in its disk and replaced it with a mirror. They saw a beam of sunlight hit it and the mirror scattered the light to hit each of the buttons they had pressed which also replaced themselves with mirrors and when they stepped back to see the full picture, they saw a weird looking symbol. The light was reflected into a square with a sort of star sign in the middle and a circle in the center. That did not make sense. Nor was it possible.
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James shrugged as he saw the trapdoor opening itself, after his experience with the Wonder Cave and the tiny fairy, he was beginning to get used to these openings.
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The lights stopped and the next phase was up. The stalks that held up the strangle of flowers soon began to connect with each other and formed a large circle. It turned and turned until it made a full turn and stopped. They watched in silence.
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“Show off,” Zachary muttered at the trap door, “wait, was that it?”
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“No, I think it’s waiti-”
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BAM
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The boys jumped backward.
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4 flaps started to open slowly, splitting the trap door in quarters. Once the flaps stopped, there came another awkward silence. Looking down, they felt a cold breeze brush against their faces as they exchanged from what was once excited to worried glances.
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“Didn’t know it would be this dark,” James said, dropping a stone into the hole.
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There as a small thump milliseconds after the stone was dropped. It wasn’t deep, James thought, probably the height of a normal room. Zachary pushed James in, and he himself jumped in, pulling Daniel with him. They fell with a thud as they heard the trapdoor come to a close.
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“Ouch,” came a hurt voice in what seems to be to James’ right.
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“Where are you guys? I can’t see a thing.” James said, reaching out in the darkness.
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“Thank you for stating the obvious James…” a voice from their back called out.
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The children, in a desperate act of reuniting, swayed their hands in the air and each of them touched each other.
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“Get your hands off of my shoulders Zach.”
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“I’m not even holding you, you take your hands off my shoulders!”
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“Guys, guys..” James said, holding metal object suddenly glowed: a lantern.
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“We’re not holding each other,” James said nervously, looking at the pair of hands touching his and Daniel’s shoulders, he slowly looked up and the face of a girl appeared.
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“Hey boys, wha-”
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“AAARGH” Daniel shouted, giving the face a good punch.
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The girl fell to the floor and groaned.
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“HEY! WHAT IN THE WORLD WAS THAT FOR??” she said.
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James shone the light towards her. There, on the floor, lay a blonde girl, she was wearing jeans and a red, long-sleeved top, the rest of her features weren’t too visible in the dark with just a dim lamp. She was holding her hand against the exact spot Daniel had punched her in.
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“You just punched a girl…” Zachary muttered.
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“Well you jsut appeared out of nowhere!” Daniel reasoned, “I’m sorry.”
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The girl slowly sat up and removed her hand. The boys’ faces contorted.
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“Is it that bad?” she asked.
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“Uh-no, not to bad…” Daniel said. “Maybe-maybe just a bit of (he lowered his voice)… blood.”
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“I’m bleeding?!” she asked, her tone tensed.
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“Your nose is, it’s kind of different from quote on quote bleeding…”
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“No, yeah, you’re bleeding. Daniel does that when people surprise him, totally normal” James said, followed by the laughter of Zachary and the girl.
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“Haha…” Daniel said weakly, gesturing her to lean against the wall. “Who are you?”
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“And how did you get here?” James asked.
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“A “sorry” and a tissue would have been better.” she pointed out.
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Why am I still here, she thought. They had punched her in the face, but I guess if she were in their position she probably would have done the same.
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“Right, Daniel you go find something that can help,” Zachary ordered.
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“Why-” Daniel stopped himself, remembering he had punched her in the first place. “Wait, I don’t have tissue.”
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“Oh, I have some,” she said, taking a pack out of a sling backpack.
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Daniel rolled his eyes.
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“Did a er-how do I explain this-tiny woman with wings by any chance told you about this place?” James asked, now kneeled down in front of her and sounding like someone who just said ‘hey, my bacon grew wings and flew out of the window this morning’.
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“Yes,” she said surprisingly, touching her nose every once in a while. “She came out of a book, nearly gave me a heart attack.”
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“That happened to us, too,” Zachary told her.
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“How did you, uh-take it? You know, knowing there’s another world out there?” she asked them, “oh and with magic.”
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“Shocked but not shocked,” James said, “some of us tried slapping each other to make sure it wasn’t a dream,”
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“I did the same,” she admitted.
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“I’m Sarah, and you?” she asked, standing up
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“James,” James said. “That’s Zachary and the people puncher”
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Daniel raised his hands in defeat.
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“Alright, did this ‘tiny woman with wings’ also tell you about the library ?”
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They nodded.
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“Well then, I guess that’s that, let’s find a way to get into it,” she said, starting to look around.
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The brothers, now accompanied by a girl, started exploring the dark and enclosed room, the only light coming from James’ lamp. They burst into conversation with her and they were starting to forget Daniel punched her because she was a very likable person.
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“What’s your view on not giving this town enough recognition?” Zachary asked, he had suddenly grew a burst of patriotism.
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“I think that’s horrible,” she replied, they sensed a smile coming from her though they couldn’t see too much, “I love this town.”
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After 20 minutes of talking, introducing themselves and barely actually searching, they found something etched on the wall. They had realized this room was completely empty. It was circular, with nothing inside except for all of those weird drawings on the wall of people, mythical creatures like dragons and giant serpents and all kinds of other fantasy-related stuff. What was weirdest was the fact that some of those people were holding sticks, shooting lines (probably resembling blasts) at a flying dragon.
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“Why would the fairy just lead us to some room? She said it was a library.” James said, frowning.
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“I’ve got a theory, maybe we’ve all just gone mentally insane!” Zachary replied.
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Then-
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“Hey guys, I found something,” Daniel said from the other side of the room.
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James turned the lamp towards him. He was against the wall, his finger on a the shield of a warrior mounted on one of the dragons. But the shield was bulging out of the wall. It was a button.
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“Push it!” Zachary suggested.
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“I don’t think that’s a good i-” Sarah tried, but failed.
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Daniel pushed the button and the ground beneath them shook. Al the drawings in the wall had started to glow.
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“How do we know that wasn’t a death trap?” Sarah asked nervously, “you know, lava beneath us or something.”
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“You’re very negative-minded,” James said, earning himself a glare.
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“I was being precau-”
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BOOM
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The ground beneath slowly sank. James had thought that was it, they’d die, but it wasn’t. The rock descended slowly as if it were floating, which he soon came to realize was true. It was still dark but the air around them told them that they were now in a much larger space than the one before. Daniel could hear the trickling and gushing of water and the swaying of leaves from a tree. How could this be a library?
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Soon enough, torches burst to life around them, illuminating the entire place. A building with a cone-shaped roof, its walls filled with what was perhaps centuries old worth of knowledge. Now they could see it, all around them were books big and small, some of them even flying. They were in the Porte Library.
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Their mouths were stuck open. The library was massive. The space they were descending in was perfectly circular. It was at least as long as a football field, with a roof the shape of the interior of a pyramid. What stood this library aside from the others, however, wasn’t its size. No, it was the facts that the books and landscape weren’t normal at all. Some books were flying above them as they descended, flapping their halves like a bird, some were rearranging themselves in the bookshelves and some of them were swimming in the lake below them.
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The architecture of the library was absolutely mind-bending. The books were on wooden, marble, stone and golden bookshelves. Some bookshelves could even move out of there spots and glide, in midair, towards another spot. Daniel, being on the edge of the platform was able to take a book out of one of these floating bookshelves.
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In some parts of the walls were little reading spaces that had couches, fireplaces and tables with a view of the beautiful lake below them, anyone who read there could very easily forget that this was actually a library. The lake was a quite small and had fish swimming in it and had a little island in the middle with a tree that looked exactly like the tree from wonder cave they explored just a week earlier. Beside that tree was a hole that seemed to fit the platform they were standing on. Daniel looked around and predicted the library’s measurements and the amount of time needed to build it and almost fainted.
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“Look, the tree!” Zachary shouted.
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Their platform landed with a THUMP in the hole, as predicted, and the children took some time to admire the view.
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“It’s beautiful,” Sarah said, admiration in her eyes, “but it’s also crazy!
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“Yeah, it is,” Daniel said, he was quite light-headed.
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“Please don’t faint,” James pleaded, looking around.
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“I won’t,” he replied, “it’s just a lot to take in. Magic exists…”
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Daniel was right. It was overwhelming but they had no one to ask their questions to. Unlike other magical stories they had to figure this out on their own….for now.
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“OK, so what do we do now?” Zachary asked, he was waiting to finally see the magical world.
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“I guess we find a green book….on a desk,” Sarah replied, remembering what her own fairy had said. Though those were clear instructions, how would they know which book on desk was the right one? It was very general. The library could have a lot of green books on tables
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“OK, let’s get off this island first,” James said, almost stepping into the water when a stone emerged from the water, giving dry ground for him to step on.
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“Sometimes I still think all this magical nonsense is a dream,” Daniel said, following James on the magical stepping stones.
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Once they had all gotten off the stepping stones, they decided to split up, again.
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“When you’ve found the book, just shout out some random thing and we’ll come straight to you,” Sarah said. “But maybe we should go in pairs…you know, knowing this is a magical library, anything could happen.”
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She was probably scared because of the sheer size of the library and thought it be best to go in groups. But she definitely didn’t look like it, maybe a better reason was because splitting up meant more area can be covered. Yeah, seems like it, James thought.
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For the next hour, they were all silent in their own separate rooms to discover, Zachary and Daniel had entered an armory room. Zachary was very pleased he didn’t have to look through books, he and Daniel examined the armor stands, spears and bows
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There were very rusty sets of armor but also black sets that looked like they just came out of the furnace. They were spotless and looked indestructible. Zachary looked at Daniel slyly and took a war gong stick he found and pointed it at the armor. Daniel shook his head violently. Zachary banged the chest plate but was hit with instant karma. As if it were magic, which it probably was, the stick landed on chest plate with a bang, but was shot back immediately when a shock wave formed, shooting both the stick and Zachary away.
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Daniel laughed at his brother.
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James and Sarah on the other hand, were in a library. It was quite boring since it looked like a normal one, but to Sarah, it was heaven. He went through the rows of books and long bookshelves while Sarah “started searching” by looking through each book “just to make sure”. James did the same, there might be some extra information about magic within these books so they would look around and if they happen to accidentally stumble upon it, they would call the others.
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“Hey look,” she called, “you’re gonna want this one.”
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She tossed a book at James. He caught it and read the title: Enchanting your Face in 11 Easy Steps. James chuckled. Now that they weren’t in the dark anymore, he could see Sarah more clearly. She was about as tall as him, with long and wavy blonde hair. Her eyes were hazel brown and the expression on her face was warm on default.
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As James searched, he dragged his glance across bookshelf II. He looked at the books. Magically, the names of the books on the spines that were originally in who-knows-what language started to translate themselves and turn into English. James grinned and shook his head. Magic was so cool.
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Wizards, Witches and Warlocks of the 16th Century, by Grendell Goswell
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Golden Age of Rome, Mariah Bell
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101 Facts about Tigers, by Samuel LeSaw
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The title of the last book made James think these books get restocked yearly because there was no way “101” books were in whatever century this library was made in. He pulled that book out and opened it. He turned the first page and a translucent tiger jumped out. Aside from the being translucent part, it had all the features of a normal tiger: orange fur with black stripes, a dangerous face and menacing teeth. Before James could react, it jumped up the the bookshelf and began jumping from bookshelf to bookshelf.
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“What was that?” Sarah’s distant voice asked. 125Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlAQffl7pgk
“Uhh, nothing,” James lied, frantically looking around the rows of bookshelves to find any signs of the tiger.
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He ran to bookshelf IV and saw a flurry of orange and white past by the row from the other side, he ran towards it and skidded to a halt when he saw the tiger and where it was. There she was, Sarah, standing beside a bookshelf, rummaging through the bookshelves while reading an opened book in her left hand. She turned around and saw a panting James.
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“James, right?” she said, “come look, I found this interesting book, it’s got a lot of information about this so called other world!”
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“Yeah…yeah…” he said weakly, his eyes locked on the tiger.
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“What are you looking at?” she asked him, looking up at the bookshelf.
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But it was too late, the tiger jumped off the bookshelf and was inches away from her. Instinctively, James threw the book in his hand above her and the caught the tiger mid-air. The book crashed against the shelf and fell down to the ground, pages crumpled. The color in Sarah seemed to have been drained out because she was a s white as snow.
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“Er-sorry?” James apologized, for some reason, he was scared of what she might do.
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She slowly looked down to the ground and then at James.
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“Was that a tiger?” she asked dangerously.
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“Yeah…”
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James turned around and saw what he would later on remember it as his life-saver. There, at the end of the row, was a table and atop it was a green book. There could be no mistake: this was it.
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“There it is!”
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“I FOUND THE BOOK!” James shouted, his voice echoed through the library and out of their room.
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James ran to the book, a quite angry Sarah behind him.
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Zachary quickly turned his head around to see if Daniel was looking and grabbed the swiss army knife, put in his pocket and started off to the room where James was in, Daniel in front of him. They arrived there, panting, and gathered around James and Sarah, she looked like she was about to explode.
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“First you guys punch me, now you set a tiger on me?” she said quietly but furiously, “you guys are very confusing.”
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Zachary and Daniel laughed.
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“I did not set it on you-”
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“Is that it?” Daniel asked, pointing at the book. “It looks like it was built with the table, doesn’t look like we can detach it.”
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“Alright, who’ll draw the sign?” James asked.
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“Huh?”
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“You know, the sign to activate the book.”
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“Let me,” Sarah said.
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The boys cleared the way and she began drawing, wherever her finger had dragged an imaginary line on, a real line appeared. Then, once she completed the drawing, it shone and the drawing stuck to the book. They heard the sound of gears turning and rumbles rising. Soon, they realized what was happening. Some bookshelves were all moving to one wall. They had to do a weird dance to avoid crashing into the bookshelves. Finally, the bookshelves were all facing the wall and each other and they began merging, everytime there was no space, a part of them would fall off to make space for the other bookshelves. Then, after all the loud banging they could see a gate-shaped book shelf that was against the wall opposite to them.
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“WHOA” they shouted in unison.
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The bookshelf began to open like a gate and revealed a shocking surprise.
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The fairy was right.
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Now, a town was in view and people were bustling here and there. But it wasn’t only people, ogres, trolls, fairies and even pointed-hat wizards were there, too. The lampposts were being lit by mini dragons and in the sky were 2 suns. Their mouths were stuck open once more.
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