The Pyle Inside

Chapter 1

Ca-Ching! Jackson hears the typical sound of his mother’s cashier. Jackson’s mom owned an artifact store that was known all around Canada for all of the rare stuff they sold. They had from thousand-year-old pottery from all around the world to a baseball hit by Babe Ruth in a Yankees game.

“Hi, Honey! How was school?” his mother asks.

“Ok,” replies Jackson in an unsure tone. Actually, he got a D plus on a math test and he lost his lunch. “Have anything I could scrape up from the storage today?” he asked hopefully.

“Well I do have something but I’m not sure you`ll like it,” she responded. “Something is something, said Jackson desperately.

So his mom packed the two things in a box and told him not to open it until he got home. On his way home he wondered what was in the little box his mother packed for him. But when he got home he was very disappointed. When he opened the box all he saw was another box made of glass and a little pencil. He had no idea what he was going to do with the two things. All he could think of was to put the pencil inside the box.

“What a rip off!” Jackson exclaimed. Usually Jackson’s mom gave him cool stuff like comic books or baseball cards, but this time, she didn’t search hard enough, or did she?

Meanwhile, as Jackson did his homework he started to hear some strange noises. Clack! A small noise was coming from inside the room. Jackson jumped from his seat and asked in panic, “Who’s there???”

But as shocking as it sounds, a little voice answered with delight, “Oh, thank goodness you found me. Could you get me out of this dark, door-less room?”

Jackson fainted.

A few minutes later he woke up and remembered what had just happened. A little man was inside the peculiar box his mom gave him and wanted him to get him out. So Jackson carefully crept up to the box and slowly opened it. This gave him a huge shock. He saw no man, but only the little pencil he had put in it, only now IT was a HE!!!!! Jackson was now more shocked than the first time. The little pencil had eyes, ears, nose, mouth, arms, and legs.

“Did I bring you to life?” Jackson asked in horror.

“No. That little box you put me in has magical powers that can bring things such as myself to life. I know what you want to ask, how do I know all of what I just said. Well, I was a secondhand pencil that has gone all over the world and passed through different schools from all around. So right now you can ask me anything you want,” proclaimed the pencil proudly.

Jackson was stunned. He owned a pencil that doesn’t just come to life if you put it in a magical box, it also knew everything.

“So could you help me in school? My grades are kind of bad, but you can help me turn them around!” Jackson exclaimed in delight.

“Your wishes are my command. After all, you did bring me to life!” yelled the pencil in delight. Now Jackson had a super brainy pencil that just came to life. That was a bright, problem free future, or was it?

Chapter 2

The next day, Jackson woke up extremely early so that he could put the pencil in his backpack without it making a big fuss about it being smelly. But on the walk to school it just wouldn`t shut up. At first it started to budge about being uncomfortable inside the backpack, but then, it forgot about the stuff bothering him and so he started to say all sorts of randomly useless facts like when the first pop-up toaster was invented and stuff like that.

When the two of them got to school, they were exhausted, but things started looking up! Apparently, Jackson had a pop quiz on distance measurements which he hadn`t studied for, but he was all covered. The pencil did his magic and started working on the test, meanwhile Jackson read a book inside his desk. And the rest of the day went exactly the same except for last period: science. Science was kind of boring. Mr. Shrookshanks did these super long lectures on the unit, in this case: The Galaxy.

Mr. Shrookshanks was one of those teachers who like to give those super long speeches about our new topics in class. So I entered the white room filled with fancy gadgets and models of plants and animals. Jackson sat down on his favorite chair and waited for Mr. Shrookshanks to start talking. He started by telling us about how important it was to pay attention to the things we learn in class, because you never know when you might need it. Then he told us we were in for a treat, but usually his treats freaked Jackson out because the last treat he gave us were two straight lessons on human reproduction, and the one before was on the food chain. But this time he wasn’t lying. “Kids, today we are going to study all about the weird stuff in nature.”

Jackson was amazed by what he had just heard. Finally, he thought he would do something cool. And the pencil kept his ears open to see if he heard some good information (that’s what the pencil did every time the teacher said something interesting).

Mr. Shrookshanks started by telling the class some boring stories, but, then, something caught Jackson’s attention.

“Some ancient artifacts were enchanted by magic unknown to us today that had powers, and when those powers were put into these items, they became charms that could do miraculous things like bring things to life!” he proclaimed in his sharp clear voice.

But before he could say anything else, Jackson blasted his hand into the air and yelled as if he’d just been shot,” I just got an enchanted box that can bring things to life!”

“Good for you. How about you bring it to school tomorrow?” Mr. Shrookshanks hissed back in a calm but angry tone. He is usually a calm and cool teacher, but today, he really blew up inside out.

The bell rang, and it was time to go home.

“That was quite a day,” Jackson said sweating.

“You can say that again. How about we tell some jokes on the way home? Oh and can you also get me out of here? ” squeaked the little pencil from inside the backpack. So Jackson got the little pencil out of the backpack and went home with a riot of laughter from all of the pencil’s great jokes.

When they got home the pencil got going on Jackson’s homework, meanwhile Jackson grabbed the box and put it in his backpack right along with another pencil he could use as a demonstration to the class for the next day. Just then, his mother got home.

“Hi, Honey! How was school?” she said in that usual silky mommy tone.

“Great! I aced all the quizzes and answered everything correctly!” he boomed down to his mom from his room in pride. But he told her he had a lot of homework to do, so he slammed the door and got going, but by the time he got there, the pencil had already finished. So they went to bed looking forward to the presentation.

Chapter 3

The next day Jackson was bothered, because the other students thought that he had lost his mind and that he had imagined everything about that box, but when Science period started, all of the jaws in the classroom dropped (including Mr. Shrookshanks’, who isn’t that easily impressed).

What Jackson did was that he put the new pencil he brought inside the rare box and left it there for ten minutes. Just then he heard it. So, he opened the box and there it stood. A pencil with eyes, nose, mouth, ears, arms, and legs. No one spoke for the rest of last period except for the new pencil. It started to sing “What Does the Fox Say.” When last period was over, nobody would stop talking about the magical pencil and its radioactive voice for singing.

So on his way home he was really proud. He had aced every test and he amazed everyone in his class. Nothing can go wrong. Or could it?

The next day Jackson had a math quiz. The new pencil started to answer randomly, because he didn’t know anything, but even Jackson knew that the new pencil was incorrect. So he erased what the pencil had put so that the experienced one could do it all over again.

But, then the new one proclaimed in disagreement, “Hey! You can’t destroy my creation! It was perfect, and you disappeared it using that magical erasing machine!”

“It’s called an eraser and I don’t want to get an F because of a moody pencil!” Jackson whined at the fresh new pencil.

Meanwhile the other pencil was working on the test, but suddenly, “Jackson! Who are you talking to?” hissed Mr. Staples: the math teacher.

Jackson hesitated, “Um . . . No one, I’m just talking to myself!”

After that quiz the new pencil stayed inside the smelly backpack for the rest of the day, but he was plotting the biggest robbery that Canada had ever seen. He would steal all the erasers in the country in just one night. But he needed help. He couldn’t do all of this alone. And he couldn’t rely on the two people he knew.

Chapter 4

He needed an army large enough to cover all of Canada in that night. Then a bright idea shone in his mind. He had to wait till night to do all this. And so he did. When school finished at last, he stayed still and stiff as an iron bar. But he got bored on his way to the house so he started to do Jacksons homework even though he knew nothing of the sort.

After that he fell asleep. He was woken up by a huge thud and a hard hit on the back. It was Jackson flinging his backpack across the room. Now all he had to do was go shopping for pencils. He carefully crept out of the room without being seen meanwhile Jackson and the other pencil were redoing the completely incorrect homework.

“What a great distraction,” he murmured under his breath with a grin on his little wooden face. He went from store to store shoplifting all the pencils he could find. But then he figured out that he couldn´t bring them all back on his own, so he took a pencil box that carried twenty-four pencils and brought it home. He left it on the doorstep while he went for the magical box. He was lucky that Jackson and the other pencil were reading a book in the kitchen, so the coast was clear. He snatched the magical box as quickly as he could and ran back downstairs into the doorstep.

He put down the peculiar box and stuffed the fresh, new pencils in it. He closed it, and, in a few minutes, all the pencils were alive.

“Fellow Pencils. We have to create an army. I will later explain what it is for. But if we want to make it, I will need you to go and get all the pencils you can gather and bring them back here. Do you understand?”

All the other pencils were stunned. He sounded like he meant business, so without a question, they all ran off to get as many pencils as they could. By the time they got back, they had over a million boxes mounted up into a little hill as high as the house. So, one by one they put the pencils inside the box and little by little, all the pencils were alive. By the time they were all alive it was midnight and the group was as large as the population of Canada (which is around 35 million, which is not that much).

So he gathered all the pencils at The Peace Monument in Ontario. He climbed to the top of the head of the monument and with a loud clear voice he proclaimed, “Hello to all the pencils from all around Canada. I would like to ask you for a little help on defeating our natural enemy. We create and they erase and destroy our creations, so I am planning on eliminating this creature and ending all this erasing nonsense, but I will need your help. You will recognize this creature for being either white or pink. And remember it can´t harm you because it is life-less. LET’S GO!!!”

The crowd gave a loud, cheerful roar. They got into squads of a thousand pencils each. They would gather back at the monument by dawn to burn all the erasers they found. But what they didn`t realize was that the roar the crow gave was so loud that it could be heard from a mile by the sharpest ears. And that’s what happened.

The little pencil in Jackson`s house was woken up by the loud roar. So he woke up Jackson. He told him that he had just heard a large group of pencils yell at a frequency only pencils could hear but then it hit him.

“Of course! It was that other pencil you brought to life yesterday. Remember how furious he was when I erased his work. And then he did some random things on my homework to use as a distraction, so he could leave the house! This all adds up!” blasted Jackson at the pencil with joy.

“Yeah. But the loud roar that woke me up surpassed the twenty million pencils by far!” the pencil whined in fright.

“Then what are we waiting for,” said Jackson bravely.

So they tip-toed downstairs, grabbed the magical box, and set off in the direction of the sound on Jackson’s bike.

Chapter 5

They got to the key place of the operation at around two in the morning. All the erasers were already gathered in a big pile with acres of land covered in pencils that were looking at the hill of pink and white.

“How do we get in?” asked Jackson in a panic.

“There is one way to stop this. You will have to open and close the box ten times, and after that, everything ever brought to life by the box will automatically burn to a crisp. Even though you will lose me, I made you a sheet that has all the stuff you will learn throughout the school year, so you will do just fine without me,” the pencil said calmly.

So, Jackson did as he was told and right before the erasers were burned, a shiny silver light came out of the box and in a few seconds all the pencils were burned to ash. So, Jackson returned to his house before his mother woke up.

A few months later, Jackson couldn´t stop thinking about the pencil, but then he had to start focusing more on school. Fortunately, with the review page the pencil gave him, his grades went up and he became a straight A student. He thanked the pencil every day for that boost.