She leapt out of bed, and was about to get dressed, when there was a rather large explosion behind her. She spun around and sighed.  Her bed had exploded. Again.  That's what you get for using an old WWII bomb for a bed. She figure something else out later. Right now she had to...

You did say it was okay to make the story wild, so there! I rather like explosions!

Cappie say pagw. Now what could that mean?...

I think this is called an RR.  But anyway.

---

"You can't seriously be writing this again, can you?" my English teacher pushed the manuscript across her desk and looked at me. "Alice.  This is all I've been getting from you for months.  It's the same story, and everyone's writing the same thing.  You can do better than this.  And until you write something that has merit, I'm not reading beyond the first sentence."  The bell rang, and I turned away to leave. 

I had been writing this really good story, and it was exactly like all the other books I read, so it must be good.  But honestly, couldn't she just give me a break?

"Writing issues again?" my best friend, Ilene, who the English teacher loved, walked up to me.

"Yes.  That old bat's not even reading my stories any more.  And you know how much I've been wanting to be a writer.  It's just not working."  I sighed, and leaned against my locker.

"Tell me about the story.  Not what you've written, the story."

"It's about a girl and it's the first day of school in a new town.  And in the middle, something happens." my brain freezed up. "And in the end, th-" I had forgotten the conclusion that was for my novel. "Andintheendthere'sanending." I finished really quickly.

"That sounds great.  Except for the first part.  About the girl and the whole first day of school bit." She told me.

"That's the only part that I've thought of." I admitted.

"I noticed.  But knowing what you did during NaNoWriMo, you can make this work.  The novel with the beginning, middle and end." she reassured me.

"I don't have anything, though."

"What you did have, was the first thing every single writer thinks of." Ilene told me. "So tomorrow you can come over to my house, with all the stories you wrote printed out, and we'll go over them.  Okay?" she didn't wait for a reply and walked down the hall to the bus.

"Okay?" I said to myself. "I've got a failing grade in any writing at all, and I'm going over to Ilene's house to do nothing.  That sounds great."

Right now she had to get ready for school. "Hmmm," she thought as she looked through her closet, "what am I supposed to wear?" She finally decided on a pair of dark blue jeans and a green shirt. She slid her brown hair into a fashionable side ponytail and added a white hair band. Then, she slid down the bannister to go get breakfast, but when she arrived...

"You realize this is all going to get edited out anyway, don't you?" I told Ilene.  I had decided to actually go to her house and try and play along.  It wasn't exactly inspiring the next War and Peace.

"I know.  But having a bomb for a bed... that's a good idea.  For a story."

"Although the way I have it I think Kelsey Rose could be persecuted for destruction of historical artifacts.  Besides, weren't all the World War Two bombshells, like bombed?" I started to erase.

"NO." Ilene took the eraser out of my hand and threw it in the trash. "NO GOING BACK ON THE FIRST DRAFT."

"But it's so baaaad." I whined.

"Who." Ilene said, "Cares."

"Good point."

Ooh, meta! I like this.

--

...but when she arrives, all she can see for miles at the bottom step is a wasteland. Rocky desert stretches for miles, with no sign of stopping. It is broken only by the irregularly-spaced tables, each set for two with crystal and silver. Some of the tables are occupied by couples deep in polite conversation.

Even when Kelsey looks back up the stairs from whence she came, she can't see the top floor of her house for the enormous cliff rising from the single step her feet rest upon.

Kelsey sighs anxiously, searching for the side table. Where did Andy leave that stupid remote this time? She finally finds her brother's remote control in a niche roughly hewn from the stone cliff.

"Andy!" she yells. "What did you do to the house this time?" Kelsey picks up the remote. The screen currently holds a mirror image of the scene surrounding her. She flicks through the channels until she finds one that mirrors her house as it should be. Pressing the button at the top marked 'Activate', she watches as the world slowly shifts back to normal.

"Kelseeeeeeey, stop it! I was in the middle of something!" Andy complains, surfacing from behind the paisley couch. His dirty blond hair hangs over his face, telling his older sister that he had likely slept back there, on some adventure or other.

Kelsey tosses the remote back onto the side table. "Yes, you were keeping me from my breakfast," she says drily. Blocking out Andy's complaints, she continues on to the kitchen.

--L (Yava says zatt.)

Thankfully, breakfast went smoothly. Kelsey had a normal breakfast of Corn Flakes, OJ and an apple. Then, she packed a cold lunch just in case the new school's cafeteria had gross food like inchworm salads and frog burgers. Ick!

She tossed on some bright blue sneakers and slung her new pink backpack across her shoulder. Kelsey said a hurried good-bye to her parents and Andy, so that she could make the school bus.

As she waited at the bus stop... 

"ILENE!" I shriek.

"What is it?" she cries, head lifting quickly from where it had been resting on her government textbook. "What happened? Where's the fire?"

I run my fingers through my hair agitatedly. "I don't know!" I complain. "I have no idea what to do next! When she went downstairs, it was like a desert, but she changed the settings back to normal. Then she went to school and all, but at the bus stop there was a bear! And now it's taking her to an Unknown Location to eat her. Now I don't know what to do."

Ilene glares at me. "Alice, what are you doing asking me about this?"

"What do you mean?"

She leans back in her chair. "Everybody knows that when your MC meets a bear and it takes xir to an Unknown Location to eat xir, you're supposed to have xir retaliate. The only question is how."

"Then how should I?"

"Be quiet! I'm thinking. Let's see. We can have her be a ninja and knock out the bear so she can make a Speedy Escape."

"No, I don't think so."

"What about talking to the bear and convincing it to put her down so she can make her Speedy Escape?"

"Sue-ish."

"Having a branch fall out of a tree, knock the bear on the head so it falls unconscious, so she can make her Speedy Escape?"

"Too improbable."

Ilene looks at me, exasperated. "So you just want some Unnamed Deity to strike down the bear In Its Tracks so your MC can make her Speedy Escape?"

"That's it!" I exclaim, scribbling down the idea frantically. "Thank the Unnamed Deity for a deus ex machina."

--

Oh geez, how I love the ridiculousness.

Yava says arzt.

--L