November 7, 2017 :: Today's Words: 1,535 :: Total Words: 6,499

Your character has a sudden craving for licorice ice-cream.

Robin was wandering the aisles of that same Safeway. She’d had to pull in again thanks to a random craving for something. She hadn’t figured out what it was yet, but she had a sinking feeling she was going to find it soon.

She turned up the ice cream aisle and there it was.

She wanted ice cream.

Again.

She sighed and walked slowly past the freezer, looking at all of the flavours on the shelves.

Finally she found the right flavour: licorice.

She wrinkled her nose a little as she picked up the container. She’d never really liked the taste of black licorice, but maybe it would be different in ice cream. Anyway, this was what she was craving, so. Into her basket it went.

Craving on its way to being satisfied, she headed over to the bakery section to find dinner rolls.

Your character loses their prized possession: pirates. How do they react?

Timothy sat on the floor in his bedroom looking at his new Iron Man figurine. He had set it carefully on top of his dresser in a post that made it look like he was flying.

“Where did you come from?” he muttered. It hadn’t been his dad after all; his dad had just laughed at him when he told him about it.

Timothy sighed and shrugged. He wasn’t going to get any answers sitting there staring at the toy. He crawled over to his toy bins and reached for the black one.

Two seconds later, he was standing at the door to his room. “Mom!” he called frantically.

She came down the hall from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. “What’s wrong, honey?”

He waved the bin at her. “They’re gone!”

“What are gone?”

“My pirates!”

His mom frowned. “Your… pirates?”

“Yes! Jack Sparrow and all the crew and the Black Pearl and everything, I keep them in my black bin and they’re gone!”

She sighed. “Did you forget to put them away last time you played with them?”

“No, I always put them away.”

“Did you look for them?”

“Yes! They aren’t here!”

“No, honey, I mean, did you look in your room for them?”

“Oh.” Timothy glanced over his shoulder at his room. “No, I didn’t look yet.”

“Okay, well, you look right now and if you can’t find them then I’ll help after supper.”

Timothy sighed and turned to his bedroom. “Okay.”

His mom went back to the kitchen and Timothy started looking for his pirates.

They weren’t under his bed.

They weren’t in a different bin or box.

They weren’t in his closet.

Or were they?

As Timothy was turning away from the closet, he noticed something odd about the shelf where he kept his Princess Luna box. He looked more closely, getting down on his knees in front of the shelf and moving some of the things he kept in front of the box.

Yes, the lid of the box was just a little bit open.

“Weird,” he said, and pulled the box out.

He lifted the lid and his mouth dropped open.

His pirates were all there, including the ship. Princess Luna was all wrapped up the way he’d left her, and the candles were both there, too.

He quickly scooped the pirates and the ship out of the box and dropped them into the black bin. Then he replaced the box in its spot on the shelf and set his bin in place.

He went to his bedroom door and called to his mom. “I found them!”

“That’s great, honey! Where were they?” came the reply.

“In my closet.”

“I’m glad you found them! Dinner will be ready soon.”

Timothy went back into his room and sat down on his bed where he could see the closet door and his toy bins as well as Iron Man.

Something was going on.

A new character arrives, wearing a silver piece of clothing, and carrying banans.

The next morning, Timothy went to school as usual.

He was sitting at his table doing math when the intercom beeped.

“Would Timothy von Stratten please come to the office?”

Miss Carter nodded at Timothy and he put away his math books and stood up. He headed out of the room and walked down the hall to the office. He wasn’t sure what it could be about, since he didn’t have any appointments or anything.

He got to the office and the secretary pointed to the principal’s office. “They’re expecting you,” she said. “Go on in.”

Timothy went to the door and opened it slowly.

Mr Parkinson was sitting at his desk. He was a tall man with grey hair and black-framed glasses. Timothy was always a little bit afraid of him since he was at least twice as tall as most of the kids.

“Um, hi. You wanted to see me, Sir?” he said hesitantly.

Mr Parkinson nodded and smiled. “Yes, Timothy! It’s good to see you. Please come in and sit down.” He pointed at a chair across from him.

Timothy sat down in the chair and looked nervously at the man sitting in the other chair. He was short and round, and he was wearing a silver jumpsuit and holding a big box that was stamped with the word “banans” on it. Timothy wondered what banans were, but didn’t ask.

The stranger turned to look at Timothy. “Ah, excellent. Timothy von Stratten, it is good to meet you finally.”

Mr Parkinson nodded. “Yes, Timothy, this is Mr James Hartman. He is here to talk to you about something very important.”

“Okay,” said Timothy. Mr Hartman’s eyes were crinkly around the edges. His hair was dark brown. He looked about the same age as Timothy’s parents.

Mr Hartman turned his chair so he could look at Timothy more easily. “I work for the government. I want to have you help me with a special project during the day when you’re at school. Would you like to help the government?”

Timothy frowned. “Shouldn’t you get permission from my mom?”

Mr Hartman laughed. “Oh, of course! I will talk to her if you want to help. I didn’t see the point in worrying her.”

Timothy looked at Mr Parkinson, who was just sitting in his chair, looking at him with a big smile on his face. “I don’t… what’s the project?”

“Oh, it’s really simple. All you have to do is come down to the office a couple of times a day and get checked over by a doctor,” said Mr Hartman.

“But… what’s it for?”

“We want to learn some things about how school is affecting you physically.” Mr Hartman shifted in his chair and looked down at his box. “Oh, and if you agree, you get to take this box of banans home with you.”

Timothy eyed the box. “What are banans?”

A nervous chuckle. “Kind of like bananas.”

“I think you should ask my mom, and then if she says yes then I will think about it. I don’t want to do something she wouldn’t like.”

The two adults looked at each other, and Mr Parkinson nodded once.

“Okay, Timothy, thank you for coming. You can go back to your class now,” said the principal.

Timothy got up from his chair and left the office. He didn’t know what was going on, but he didn’t like it and he felt kind of scared.

Did your character just see Fennekin? Or was it something else?

On the way home from school that day, Timothy walked through the park like always. But as he passed by the main clump of bushes near the middle of the large grassy expanse, he thought he saw something moving.

He went closer and caught a glimpse of something orange in between the leaves.

He knelt down and slowly leaned closer, using his hands to gently brush aside the leaves and branches the way his father had taught him the one time they went hunting. Timothy didn’t like killing things, so his father hadn’t taken him again.

There, in the middle of the bushes, sat a fox.

It was a weird-looking fox, though: it had red flames bursting out of its ears, and the tip of its tail was also red flames.

“Fennekin?” whispered Timothy.

The fox—or Fennekin, if that’s what it was—looked directly at Timothy, then turned around three times and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Timothy backed away from the bushes and continued on his way home, trying to figure out why he had just seen a Pokémon in real life.

A new character arrives, wearing a neon pink piece of clothing, and carrying summoned pizza.

Alaina and Jigme sat silently together in his office. His crew were off doing their thing, finding the plans she needed and figuring out what the ice cube thing was.

“We never talked about anything before,” she said finally.

“There was nothing to talk about,” he replied. He sat back in his chair and rested his hands on the arms. “You left. It was a mission, nothing more. I moved on.”

“I had no choice to leave, you know that.”