#marble bluff

Howdy

Is this seat taken?

It’s 20 minutes till class, none of them are taken

Yeah but i like this one

Is it a particularly special seat?

You could say that. I’m Kai by the way

Emily

So, Emily. why’d you choose that seat?

Front of the class but not front row. Central i guess, why’d you choose yours?

To introduce myself to you

I’m very flattered

You should be, this is otherwise a terrible seat

Oh, you’re a back of the class type person?

Yep, just blending in

You should have thought about that before you dyed your hair bright red

Yeah but now i can pretend to be an apple

That is an upside

Yeah except its been really hard to see a doctor

And i bet hiding from William Tell is really stressful

It does make life difficult

I’m sure it does.

Sooooooo, they’re showing the new Evil Guy at the theatre downtown this afternoon if you want to judge those seats

I have a sneaking suspicion you’re gonna be partial to the back row

And right there is another thing i like about seat choice, it’s a window into someones mind

Ok then, whats going on in my mind?

Well you’re a diligent student who’s a little quiet, doesn’t want to lead the discussion in class but has a great many thoughts on everything discussed. Though hopefully whats going on up there right now is along the lines of “Wow i can’t wait to go see a movie with Kai”

Thats pretty accurate, i’ll see you there at 4, Kai With Strong Opinions On Seats.

Despite our lack of a proper meeting, you’ll still be hearing a lot from me in these stories.

Oh where are my manners i forgot to introduce myself.

My name is Fate. though The Narrator would probably be a better descriptor of my function to you; and i suppose for your introduction i should be concerned with that. I’ll take you through the goings on of Marble Bluff, a charming little lakeside town in which i am strong. While in the Bluff i can talk to you through the screen. If i was too far out i’d need to be in the same room as you.

Extraordinary things happen in this town and frankly quite boring things happen at the campus just a little over. You should hear Kai talk about it though, like a coffee date is better than the literal magic underneath his nose.

Oh yes our cast!

You’ll get to know Kai and Emily well enough through whatever you get told about the university but thats not my lane.

I’m not weak at the campus see but i’m not strong, magic only ever visits there then we must come back and really who would-

Sorry, i’m rambling, haven’t had any new readers to share our story with in months, not since the redhead.

You’ll meet James and Pip soon enough, once i collect my thoughts a little more

Piper Holloway is a force of a girl. 12 years old, with more enthusiasm than a truckload of clowns (and if you know anything about clowns, you’ll know they can fit quite a few in there.) She is, in this humble Narrator’s opinion, a deeply annoying girl. She has long brown hair, blue eyes and-

Wait if you’re just going to hear about her from me then whats the point of describing her, you don’t need to know what she looks like i’ll helpfully say “Pip” when she appears. Aren’t you happy you have your good pal Fate here to solve these potential confusions.

You still want me to describe her?

Fine. You owe me.

Pip has brown hair and blue eyes and perpetually sunburnt light skin. She is almost always wearing yellow, a yellow shirt with jeans, or a yellow dress.

She is a native of the Bluff, with her mother running the town’s only cafe.

James Roth is also 12, he is a very curious (read:nosy) boy. He has short black hair, brown eyes, and dark skin. He usually wears whatever he finds first in the mornings but he’s partial to a nice dark green.

Are you happy now? Was that really a worthwhile use of my omniscience? To tell you what a random kid looks like.

James was here for the summer with his father, living in an old house just out of town that they inherited. He has recently developed a fascination with the town and is trying (unsuccessfully) to find out why so many strange things happen here

James and Pip met at the cafe and became fast friends. They have resolved to spend their summer “Hanging out and doing cool things.” You’ll be hearing a lot about their adventures

1. There is magic in Marble Bluff

2. Magic gets weaker the further out you go

3.

See the third rule was empty because James hadn’t written anything yet. In more than a month of research he had learnt approximately as much as someone would by looking at the town for two seconds.He was sure he would learn something about the inner workings of magic though. James wanted something beyond the brief glimpses out of the corner of his eye, which was at this point sitting slightly under his elbow so he wasn't glimpsing much of anything.

“There must be some logic to it.” he said, his voice still muffled as he lost his balance and backed into a tree.

This had a strange effect. One of his eyes was suddenly back on his face.

“Oh my gosh” said Pip. “Keep walking backwards”

So he did, and that got the other eye back, but it stopped there.

James hadn’t quite gotten it yet but Pip had figured it out

“James james james” she said “You just have to do things in reverse!”

James then tried to stand on his head. Were I not omniscient I wouldn't know that because what he actually did was slam his face (and the arm sticking out of it) directly into the dirt. Through what looked a great deal like telepathy Pip somehow understood this goal, and she helped hold James at a slightly weird angle, as to keep his arm out of the way. And stay out of the way it did, both his arms snapped back to the sockets they normally sat in.

James put on his thinking face. This usually looked about the same as his normal face but about twice as punchable. This time however, it looked like two brown eyes and not much else.

“Backwards sentence this saying I’m.” he said

At that, something snapped back. He looked like himself again, though he’d go on to swear his hair got lighter. (It did not, it just got a little sunbleached over the summer.)

Pip nearly knocked James over with a hug

“Careful Pip, I don't want to be upside down again.” said James with a smile, this time actually from his face.

“Ok, ok, ok. But I’m glad you’re back.” Pip replied

“I am too, because…” James began, writing frantically in his notebook. “I’ve got this!”

James had filled in the blank. He had written a third rule

3. Magic makes a weird type of sense

One eye was on the top left of his forehead, the other on his chin. His mouth was square in the middle with his nose under it. One eyebrow was slightly higher than the other which made him look very sceptical indeed. Pip screamed, as I imagine we all would in this situation before James started to explain.

“So I was walking in the woods, trying to find something magic to write about-”

“I still think we should call it Wackiness” Pip said.

“Fine. Something Wacky to note down ” James replied. “So, anyway, I saw this mushroom. It was purple and glowing and just, stuck out. The light hit it just right I guess. Then I saw a leaf fall onto it. And then it… fell upwards? I don’t know what else to call that.”

The mushroom James was talking about is called a Reverse Nightcap. And saying that a leaf “fell upwards” is an immense oversimplification of the Slingshot phenomenon as seen through that fungus.

“So I did what any good investigator does and I picked it up” James said quickly.

“You picked up the purple, glowy, ObviouslyWackyCauseItSentALeafFlyingy mushroom?” replied Pip

“Yeah, and now I’m stuck like this forever” James said as he sat down on his doorstep.

“But you need your eyes in the same area for depth perception!” Pip exclaimed “How will you be a detective if you can’t properly use a magnifying glass?. Oh! You could be a cyborg detective armed with th-”

“I’ve tried everything Pip. Put my face under running water, ate garlic, I even asked Eve!” James said, then laid down, his head in his hands “Its hopeless”

“Isn’t that for vampires? James, your face is not a vampire” Pip said

“Then what can I do?” James asked the universe

James could do a lot of things, some of which would solve this problem. One thing you can do is go away. I’ll tell you the rest of this story later

Yes Em?

Isnt this all a bit cliché?

How do you mean?

You know, two teenagers sitting on a roof looking at the stars talking about life

Sometimes cliché’s are cliché because they’re great.

And here we have the manic pixie dream boy who brought me up this ladder

Not really a boy

Sure but manic pixie dream person doesn’t exactly have the same ring to it

Fair. But isn’t the point of a manic pixie dream whatever that they save someone from a dull greyscale life?

Well… there’s me?

Shut up, nothing you do could ever be dull

And yet you’re the one who brought me up here, saving me the dullness of a night by myself

i think the ladder did most of the work there really, i just got out of its way

Wow. So modest

Yeah i just thought i oughta give this overlooked ladder its dues, working class hero

Remind me again why i put up with you?

Cause of my ability to be a cliched teenager

And your access to our rung based kings of course

writing in general will be tagged #sparknotes

and the broad setting that most of the characters i have laying around live in will also be tagged #marble bluff

North Lanark Marble Quarries Co and Marble Bluff

In March of 1909-A marble block weighing several tons was lost in the Clyde River a few days ago. It was being hauled to Clyde Forks from the quarries of the North Lanark Marble Quarries Co., and while crossing the ice at the “Stretch” the sleigh broke through, the large block slid off tha sleigh and was deposited in about 4 feet of water. Mr. Stewart Houston of Drummond was the teamster, but he…