Rebecca searched her room. She checked under the bed. She looked inside her closet. She was panicking. She cried, “Where's my broom? I'm going to be late to witch academy.” Rebecca grabbed her spellbook and rushed out of her house.
When she opened the front door, she wished that she wouldn’t meet the old man with no face along her way to the academy. She used to hush the old man away with her broom. She knew that it was not polite. But the man’s no-face scared the hell out of her. She didn’t even know whether the old man was still alive or it was just the zombie of him. Life was full of scary things.
The story behind the man with no face was that he once loved a witch. They spent everyday together and were very much in love. However, the man was caught kissing another lady. And so, the witch decided to take away the man's face so he could never look at or kiss another lady.
There was only one road Rebecca could take now and she saw the old-man-with-no-face was standing down the road. She sighed. As she walked, the man approached her and reached out his hand. She was about to raise her broom to shoo him away but suddenly came a blue spark from the man’s hand. She was so frightened.
The man said, “I can make you a better witch. Just shake my hand, and you'll be stronger than ever.” Rebecca ran past the man. Her mom always told her to never talk to strangers. Rebecca made it to her classroom. She walked in the classroom and the bell rang. Rebecca yelled, “I made it on time!” Mr. Trip looked at Rebecca. The students got up and exited the classroom. Mr. Trip said, “Class just ended. You have detention after class. You too, Eggs.” Eggs replied, “Another boring day.”
“Hi, see you again, Eggs,” said Rebecca, smiling politely.
“Yeah, yeah,” Eggs replied, passing her swiftly. His voice had never sounded so cold. She didn’t understand what she’d done to him, but she would by the time they got in the detention room. She knew she must keep very still while she waited. As soon as she walked into the room, she took a deep breath and said to Eggs, “I saw the old, faceless man. And he talked to me to shake his hand.”
“Wait, you actually saw his face?” asked Eggs.
Rebecca nodded her head.
“Well, if he doesn't have a face, how could you see it?” asked Eggs. “And how could he talk without a mouth?!”
Eggs moved to another desk far from Rebecca. Rebecca sat there with a blank look on her face. She didn't know how the man talked to her. Rebecca waved her pointer finger around at Eggs.
Eggs looks at Rebecca and asked, “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” replied Rebecca after realizing her magic was too weak.
Rebecca had spent many years in the witch academy but she didn’t seem to learn anything. She wasn’t even able to fly her broom. Had she known how, she wouldn’t be late this morning because flying was always faster than running. Outside the academy, her broom was useful only for cleaning her bedroom and hush the faceless old man.
“Hey, Eggs,” Rebecca broke the silence.
“What?” Eggs seemed bothered.
“Can you teach me how to ride a broom after this?”
“Nope. I only ride vacuum cleaner,” Eggs snapped.
“Please,” cried Rebecca. “Pretty please?”
Rebecca made a puppy dog face. Guilt filled Eggs’ face.
“Fine,” answered Eggs. “I'll help you.”
Eggs scribbled on a sheet of paper and gave it to Rebecca.
“Meet me in the courtyard after detention,” read Rebecca.
“Don't read it out loud,” cried Eggs.
“It's not a love note or anything,” replied Rebecca. “And you don’t even need to write it on the paper. There are just the two of us in this room. Why don’t you just say it.”
They didn’t realize that Mr. Trip was standing at the door the entire time and listening to their conversation. He cleared his throat and they both turned their head, taken aback. “Really, Rebecca, you don’t know how to ride a broom?” said Mr. Trip. Rebecca grinned to him. “I knew that there’s something wrong with this education system,” he sighed while mumbling to himself before coming to them. “Well, let’s go to the courtyard. Eggs, you teach Rebecca until she can do sprint-flying around the courtyard for 12 minutes and I’ll be watching over you two.”
But then something strange happened in the detention room. An explosion came from out of nowhere. Smoke filled the room. No one knew what was going on until Eggs said, “Sorry, my beakers spilled into each other and caused a chemical reaction. Mr. Trip, clean up in aisle four.” Mr. Trip got angry and shot a green lightning bolt at Eggs. Eggs flew back. “Teachers give orders. Not you,” said Mr. Trip.
Rebecca stared at them without blinking. When did Eggs do something with his beakers? As far as she was concerned, they got into the detention room together and sat straightaway. She didn’t see Eggs hold any breaker. And she even had no idea that there were breakers in the detention room. She felt sorry for herself that she always missed things. And Eggs must be very good at magic that he could do something without her realizing it.
Rebecca turned her look to the window and she screamed. The old man with-no-face was there! Mr. Trip shot a lightning bolt from his hand towards the old man. The old man dodged and teleported in front of Mr. Trip. The old man swept Mr. Trips foot and Mr. Trip fell down. He held onto Mr. Trip and teleported both of them away. Rebecca screamed. She didn't know what to do. She looked for Eggs, but he was gone too.
To be continued ....
This is the second story I wrote with Sam Pham, someone I met on Bottled. He initiated the first paragraph, as before.
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