"What?" Mark asked intelligently. Well, at least he didn't sound like a
total moron.
To his surprise, the wolf stood up on its hind legs and leaned chalantly against a shelf. "I am Won-Tolla," it explained. "I am an Author." "You're a wolf!" "Very astute, young man. Yes, I am a wolf. That's because an Author can do anything he wants, so I thought I'd try looking like my namesake for a while." The proverbial lightbulb lit up over Mark's head. "Oh, The Jungle Book!" he exulted. The wolf nodded. "Am I supposed to ask you "what moves" now?" Mark continued. "Only if you really want to." "Never mind then. What are you doing here?" The wolf reached behind a book on the shelf next to him and pulled out a pair of extra wide pince-nez spectacles which he put on his snout and proceeded to scrutinize the boy through."You appear to be a well read young man," he observed. "Have you read the Neverending Story?" Mark nodded. "Remember the part where Bastian "finds" (by making it up) a library filled with all his stories?" Mark looked at the shelves surrounding them. "Is that what this is?" he gasped. "I don't remember making up that many..." "Not you. The young people's stories are upstairs. These are mine." Won-Tolla reached into a shelf behind him and pulled out a thin book. "My first novel. Well, short novel. What I did was take a book I had lying around, calculate the number of words in it and try to write something of a similar length. Ended up a bit thin anyhow." Mark took the book and looked at it. "It's printed?" "Self published. Small print run, and part of it got lost on the way from the printer. Fortunately he had sent them C.O.D. so I didn't lose anything, and what I did get was enough. I'm not good at selling things." Mark put down the book and looked up at the big wolf looming over him. Sure, the upright stance and spectacles made him look more friendly, but the sight was still rather intimidating. "If you had approached anyone like this I'm sure they would have bought anything you had to sell!" he suggested. The wolf chuckled. "Yeah, too bad I can't do tricks like this in the real world, huh?" Mark handed the book back and turned his attention to a shelf marked "Recent Works". There were no books there, not even a thin one, just a lot of single sheets and thin leaflets. "And now you specialize in short-short stories?" he asked. "Sort of. Those are chapters I have submitted to various build-a-story sites, both Sir Toby's and other sites you're too young to know about. That's sort of the answer to your first question (not counting the "What?"). By putting them in this library I'm making them part of The Neverending Quest. At least they will be when someone here reads them." He looked kind of pleadingly at the young boy. "Oh," Mark said. "So that's why I'm here then? You want me to read some stories?" "If you don't mind..."
|
1/31/2006 2:15:25 AM
21319586 episodes viewed since 9/30/2002 1:22:06 PM.