Joey

“Joey!”
         
         “What mom?”

         “You forgot your lunch!”

As Joey walked into the kitchen to get his forgotten lunch he looked at the clock.

“It’s eight o’clock!” Joey said surprised, “Bye mom, I’m late for school, thanks for the lunch!”

Joey ran down the street toward Mountain View Middle School.
MVMS was the biggest middle school in the province, with over 2000 kids and 40 teachers and faculty members.

         Joey lives in a small town in New Brunswick by the coast. Summer vacation just finished and it was the first day of school.

“Joey!”

         Joey turned around and saw his friend Sam running down the street after him.

“Slow down Joey, school doesn’t start for another hour,” Sam said.

“What?!” Joey yelled, “Last year classes started at eight!”

“Well this year they start at nine,” Sam answered.

“Well then why are you here?” Joey demanded.

“To prepare for the chess competition next week, of course,” Sam proudly answered.


It was a brisk fall morning as Joey and Sam entered the deserted school. The hallways were eerily quiet as Joey and Sam headed for the library on the third floor. They opened the doors to the library and stepped in. They turned on the light to see rows and rows of new bright covered books.

“They must have updated the library with newer books,” Sam said glancing around.

“Newer books? The dictionaries didn’t even have the word Computer in them!” Joey said sarcastically. 

“Look!” Sam whispered, pointing at Mr. Craft, the janitor.

Mr. Craft was in the far corner of the library putting old books in shipment boxes. Joey and Sam moved closer to the janitor, creeping along the shelves until they heard Mr. Craft say, “It’s a shame no one knew what these books were,”

Joey and Sam ran for the door as Mr. Craft turned around, picked up his mop and walked out of the room. Joey and Sam were hiding behind a pillar across the hall. They watched as Mr. Craft turned the corner and they carefully sneaked back into the library, over to the boxes of old books. They shuffled through the different books, glancing at the titles, The Great Book of Beasts, Maps of Asgarnia, Spell Book of Enchantments and Incantations.

“What are these?” Sam asked curiously.

“Who knows,” Joey said, uninterested.

“Boys!”

A dark figure stood in the doorway. It moved closer and closer to Sam and Joey, and flicked on the lights. It was Miss Zeeke on her morning patrols of the school.
“What are you two doing in here?” Miss Zeke demanded.

“We decided to come in early,” Joey said, choosing his words carefully, “to catch up on our studying,”

“Y-yes, wh-at he said,” Sam stuttered.

“Yes well you have no business coming in the Library, go to your homerooms, now,” Miss Zeeke insisted.

Joey and Sam jogged past Miss Zeeke and through the halls to their homerooms.


“Now class,” Mrs. Nivette said, “We will begin with some notes on the migration patterns of the American Goose,”

“We should see what’s in those books,” Joey whispered to Sam.

“What books?” Sam said.

“The old books in the library with the weird titles,” Joey responded, in a low voice.

“Oh, those books,” Sam said, “I thought you weren’t interested?”

“Well I am,” Joey said out loud.

All the students in the class turned toward the two boys.

“Mr. Springfield and Mr. Douglas!” Mrs. Nivette yelled, “Is there a problem?”

“No, it’s just that, I have to go to the bathroom,” Joey responded.

Joey stood and kicked Sam in the shins.

“OW!” Sam yelped, “Um, me two,”

Sam and Joey walked and limped out of the classroom. Joey took the lead and ran up the stairs that connected the second and third floors toward the library with Sam limping behind.

“Wait up!” Sam squealed.

Joey ignored Sam’s cries of agony and burst into the library and walked over to the stack of books, there was one small problem, they were gone.

“Joey, look!” Sam turned and pointed to Mr. Craft who was carrying the boxes of books out of the library.

“Mr. Craft!”

The janitor turned to see Joey and Sam running toward him.

“How’s everythin’ boys?” Mr. Craft asked cheerfully.

“We want to look at those books, please,” Sam asked kindly.

A wave of sadness crossed over the old janitor’s face, which turned his cheerful smile into a melancholy arch of sadness.

“You two boys don’t want anything to do with these old things,” Mr. Craft said under his breath.

“Yes we do Mr. Craft!” Joey insisted.

The janitor sighed and opened the top of the first box to reveal a big book.

“The Chosen Light?” Sam said reading the cover, “What’s that?”

“You’ll have to find out now, won’t you,” Mr. Craft said as he left for his office.




The next day Joey woke up, refreshed from the day before.

“Joey, breakfast!” Mrs. Springfield yelled, “You’re late!”

Joey looked at his clock and saw that he slept in until 9:15am! Joey jumped out of bed and flew through his closet looking for something to wear. When he picked out jeans and a white t-shirt he ran downstairs. When he entered the kitchen he saw that his dad already left for work.
Joey’s dad is a lawyer, one of the top lawyers in town. Joey’s mom runs a restaurant called Springfield’s Kitchen. Joey grabbed three granola bars and ran out the door, picking up his jacket and book bag on his way out.

It was a cold, foggy morning as Joey burst through the front doors of the school. He ran as fast as he could toward the Gymnasium. When he got there he noticed that no one was there. <Gym is our first class on Wednesdays, isn’t it?> Joey thought to himself as he ran for his homeroom. When he got in the room he saw that homeroom was empty too. Then he remembered that Mr. Thomas, the principle scheduled an assembly this morning. Joey dropped his things off in his locker on his way by to the Auditorium. Joey opened the large doors carefully and saw that they were watching a movie on school bus safety. He slipped in unnoticed and found Sam.

“You’re late,” Sam whispered.

“Yeah, I slept in,” Joey whispered back.

“Did you look at the book yet?” Joey asked Sam curiously.

“I didn’t get the chance to,” Sam said, “My parents had me watch some clip on Dr. Phil “How to Control your Child’s Behavior”,”

“Well, where is it?” Joey asked.

“In my locker,” Sam answered.

After the long assembly on School Bus Safety Sam and Joey got the strange book and brought it to the library. They climbed the mighty stairs to the second, then third floor. They entered the library to find that there weren’t many people in here today except for the odd kid taking notes for a school project. They went to the far corner of the library, sat at a table and sat the book down between them.

“Let’s see what’s in here,” Joey said excitedly.

Joey opened the book to the first page to find that the page was blank. As Joey flipped through all the pages in the book he noticed that all the pages were the same, blank.

“That’s weird,” Sam said.

“I told you, it’s a piece of junk,” Mr. Craft said as he grabbed the book.

“What is it for?” Sam asked, convinced that the old janitor wasn’t telling the whole truth.

“It’s a notebook,” Mr. Craft said as he turned for the door.

That’s when Joey saw something sticking out of the janitor’s back pocket. It was a dagger. It was small and had small gems fused into the gold around the blade.

“What’s this for?” Joey asked as he pulled the dagger out of Mr. Craft’s pocket.

“Nothing!” Mr. Craft gasped as he reached for the knife.

“Either you tell us what this is all about or I ditch the knife,” Joey threatened as he opened the third floor window and held the dagger out.

“Ok, fine,” Mr. Craft pleaded, “Just give me it, please,”

Joey closed the window and returned the dagger to Mr. Craft. Mr. Craft then motioned for them to follow him. They walked down a hallway until they came to a door with a huge lock on it. Mr. Craft reached into his pocket and pulled out a key, which he used to open the locked door. The three of them stepped into another hallway, which was much darker then the other. Mr. Craft locked the door behind them as they continued down the hallway.

At the end of the long hallway, they came to a door, this door was odd looking. It didn’t have any doorknob or lock. It was just a plain door.

“Greedo Marr,” Mr. Craft whispered in front of the door.

Then as if by magic the door creaked open. They then walked through the door into total blackness.

For a minute we stood there in silence, and then all of a sudden the lights came on. They weren’t lights exactly; they were glowing white tubes that circled the dark room.

“Ok Mr. Craft,” Joey started.

“If that is your real name!” Sam interrupted.

Joey gave Sam a look and asked, “Who are you? What are these books? And why do you have them?”

“I am Victor Freeg. I’m not really a janitor, I work for Dr. James A. Wilson, the leader of the rebellion in Asgarnia,” Victor said.

“Asgarnia? What’s that?” Sam asked curiously.

Victor turned and walked to the far wall and pressed a button, the wall retracted and slid away to reveal a doorway. He walked through it without looking back. Joey and Sam followed him through the doorway, into a colossal library! There had to be millions of books in these halls. Victor climbed a ladder up the fourth shelf and grabbed a thick leather bound book from the top. When he got down from the ladder he handed the book to Joey. Joey unhooked the leather bond and opened the book. Like the other book it was totally blank.

“It’s blank,” Joey exclaimed.

“Oh, yes,” Victor remembered.

Victor leaned in and whispered something under his breath and tapped the book. The pages started to glow a bright yellow then, nothing. Victor sighed and grabbed the book. He pointed it at an archway carved into the wall. Victor murmured word after word in a strange language then a beam of light shot out of the book and into the archway. When the beam stopped a circle of light was in the archway. All of a sudden Victor ran and jumped into the light and disappeared.

“Well we’d better follow him, where ever he went,” Joey turned to see Sam running toward the door. Joey sighed and dragged Sam over to the portal and through him in. Then he jumped.

There was blinding light as his eyes adjusted to the environment. When he was able to see he got his first look at his surroundings. He was in a huge meadow that stretched as far as the eye could see in all directions.

“Joey!” Joey turned around to see Victor and Sam running up to him, “Isn’t this amazing?”

“Where are we?” Joey asked confused.

“This is Asgarnia,” Victor said, “We’re in The Sanctuary, a wildlife preserve,”

“What wildlife?” Joey asked curiously.

Victor pointed to the right, as Joey walked closer he realized that they were on a cliff that was overlooking an even bigger valley filled with what looked like wild horses! But unlike normal horses these horses had spots with stripes in the spots. There were a variety of different colors and sizes.

Victor motioned for us to follow him. We walked down a steep cliff staircase that wound all the way down the face of the cliff. When we got down to the Wildlife Preserve a tall man strode up on what looked like a lizard. It was a blackish-blue kind of color with a spoon looking beak. This creature walked on its hind legs like one of those raptors on Jurassic Park.

“Victor! How are you?” The man asked as he jumped off his lizard.

Sam backed away from the strange lizard and asked, “What is that?”

The man looked over at us then back at Victor and burst out laughing.

“You’re telling me that you have never seen a Springer? They’re the main transportation in Asgarnia!” The man laughed.

“This is Max. He is the main supervisor in The Sanctuary,” Victor explained, “I have known him since I was a boy,”

“Is that thunder?” Joey asked.

Max looked alert and spun around and came face to face with about 5000 horses! Joey looked to see the source of the stampede; there were thousands of men on horses armed with swords barreling down the hill toward us!


Max grabbed his Springer and charged toward a massive building in the middle of The Sanctuary. We ran after him, not being able to take our eyes off of the soldiers heading toward us in the distance. We made it to the building and ran inside.

“Prepare for battle men!” Max yelled to his soldiers.

They were all dressed in blue leather like material. Every soldier had two maces, a sword and a bow and arrows. Some only had bows and arrows and were headed to the top floor of the building. Everything was utter chaos in this building. Even though it was massive, the army was even bigger.

“Follow me,” Victor whispered to us.

We followed him past the soldiers and down into the lower level of the building. He unlocked a few doors and we appeared in a huge library.

“Stay here and keep quiet until I come back and get you,” Victor yelled back to us as he hurried out the door, locking us in on his way out.

“Why did he lock us in here?” Sam asked while curiously checking the door.

“I don’t know, but I am not staying here,” Joey said as he looked at a window at the far end of the room.

Joey walked over to the window and examined it. He picked up one of the chairs that was at a wooden desk to his left and hurled it at the window. The window smashed as the chair came crashing through it; Joey grabbed the window sill and hoisted himself up and out the window.

Joey looked back at Sam, “You comin’?”

Sam ran to the window and let Joey help him out of the dark library. They were on the west side of the building now. They walked to the corner and looked around. There was a huge battle going on just outside of the building. Then they spotted Victor. He was barreling up the hill on a red Springer swinging a sword that gleamed in the sun. He swung at a bandit and struck his mark, the sword went through the bandit’s chest and he fell off his horse to the ground.


All of a sudden a hand grasped Joey’s shoulder.  Joey spun around and came face to face with a bandit. The bandit clasped his free hand over Joey’s mouth and dragged him back around the corner. Joey looked around for Sam; he saw that he too, had a bandit holding him hostage.

“Do not speak or we will kill your friend here,” the bandit said while pointing to Sam, “Come with us and everything will be fine,”

Then Joey heard something whiz right past his ear, it was an arrow. It shot directly into the bandit’s chest. Another arrow shot into the other bandit’s back, both bandits collapsed at our feet. Then two dark figures came toward us with bows in their hands.

“Come with us,” one said with a strange accent.

The people turned and started to run toward a small forest near the south of the building. We ran after them, but it was no use, they were way faster then us.

We finally made it to the forest’s edge to see the people standing there waiting for us.

As the strange people took off their hoods, we saw that their skin had a purple tint to it. Their ears were pointed and long, and they were surprisingly tall.

“Who-oo are you?” Sam asked scared to death.

“We are Milko and Daina,” One said.

That’s when we noticed that one of the figures was a girl.

“We are forest elves,” Daina said.

“Forest Elves?” Joey said curiously.

“Yes, we are elves of the forest, we protect this land from invaders and bandits,” Daina responded.

“Follow us,” Milko said, as he took one great leap and landed on a branch of a tree. He hopped from tree to tree, headed towards a village in the distance.
Daina stayed and walked with us, leading us to the village. That’s when I noticed her eyes. They were a purplish-blue and gleamed in the sun-light.

         Daina noticed I was watching her and said, “Follow this path towards that village, Milko will be waiting for you near the fountain in the center of the village,”

         As she said this she hopped on a branch and headed to our left, bouncing from tree to tree until she was out of sight.




-----------------------------------------End of Chapter 1 & 2--------------------------------------------------