Chapter 2 : Ellie's Scratchpad

Elena...our dear little red book...she has lived all her life in a nice house in a nice neighbhourhood. The lawns up front were green...dad trimmed them each weekend...springtime was lovely. Even winters was nice...the whole neghbhourhood was white...it was like someone removed the old and dirty bed sheets after autumn and changed it with a sparkling smooth white one. She especially loved it when dad used to dress as Santa to give the very very excited John and his sister presents during Christmas. John was not too happy when he found out that Santa was not real...atleast that is what he beleives now. She wished she could talk to him about the her world, the world where myths originate from, the world where cartoons are real, the world where dreams are made day and night and handed over to the books to reward the humans. Elena had her world alright...

Books on earth are not exactly books before they get written. Confused? Well...lets just say, that they can be best described as spirits capable of inducing dreams or nightmares...almost like angels...and only creativity and imagination can bring them to earth and only through a printing press can they completely manifest on earth. Hand written notes dont come alive until printed and bound as a book. Its how things work...for good reason too...and it has been that way for a long time. Of course, you can ask how things used to work before the printing press was invented in the 11th century in China. Well, animals used to play a bigger role then in carrying dreams through...when every family had some kind of animal with them...even kings had their pets. But that was an age past...which shall be told in another story.

Coming back to current times, the books once they became books are bound not only by their cover pages but also by many rules which are enforced by a very ancient magic. The only rule which is not strictly enforced is the talking out loud rule because of the sheer enormity of the number of people that books can talk to...and its not possible for Elenas world to directly control humans or recognise their actions. Only a very few special ones are allowed that privilege...Santa for example. But whatever the case, books are not allowed and actually they cant (because of the magic binding them) talk about their world to humans. This made Elena sad each year...that she could not tell John about Santa and how real he actually is...especially about how its a big misconception that his working base is in the North pole...when actually, he works from somewhere close to Pluto. The north pole simply is not cold enough to make all the presents very quickly...its a little hard to explain right now how this works because Elena is not in a very comfortable situation and we need to be with her though this ordeal...

Elena was pretty distraught...she has no idea who she stole her away just before her coming back together with John. She felt very angry one moment and the next she felt like crying. But she was a strong little one our Elena. So, she promised herself...in that damp smelly place where she was in, probably a very old weathered bag, that she would get back to John someday...what come may.

Suddenly she felt her thief slow down...turn around abrutply and start climbing a flight of stairs...it sounded like an old house judging by the wooden stairs which were creaking and groaning under the weight of her thief! Some twists and turns and some zigs and zags and a jolting halt. Someone reached into that dark place and wrenched her out into the light...

She saw herself blinking into the eyes of a fat freckled face of a red haired girl. She was one of Johns friends who came in with him earlier today. She never looked like she was part of his group of friends...in the brief few minutes that Elena managed to notice her, she was standing back from the rest of the crowd and staring at John all the time. Hmmmm...Elena was now wondering what our thieving red haired girl was thinking...

"I dont know what he sees in this book...!! I have been trying to gain his attention for the past week and this stupid book managed it in a few seconds...damn!!" She spat out, the spite in her voice very obvious.

Ah ha! So, that was the girls problem...she wanted John to give her some attention. Haha...Elena couldnt help feel a little proud and blush a little...thankfully her red cover did not make her blushing evident!! Anyway, our fat red haired thief continued looking at Elena for a while...and she threw Elena roughly onto her reading table and flipped her open and startred reading! Elena hated her touch...it was nowhere close to how John handled her...no soft touches, no friendly caresses..nothing. The girl was losing interest already in her now...Elena hoped that she would leave her alone soon so that she can figure a way out of this place!

"Ellie....dinner!!! Come and get it!!"

That must have been Ellies mother...she dropped Elena on a pile of some class notes and unfinished homework and rushed downstairs. Phew...Elena was releived. But soon, panic started creeping in...Ellies room was very different from Johns. It was not neat...papers and pencils all over the floor...posters hanging off the walls...bed unmade still...a very dinghy looking makeup table...and worst of all, many books on the floor...some of them torn in half by a pair of scissors and their pages mutilated and made into paper crowns which she and her terrible friends probably wore on their heads imagining themselves to be royalty or beauty queens or the like! Yikes!!

Its not such a bad thing for a book to be destroyed in a fire or in a flood or simply recycled to be made into other books. This would mean that the spirit which lived in the book can go back to its world and be born later as another book later..but its really horrible to be torn up in half and left alone.

"Hi...hello...over here...huuulllloooo little one!"
Elena heard someone call her...she looked around and saw an entire bookshelf stacked haphazardly with a whole bunch of books. She tried hard to see recognize where the voice was coming from...

"Errrr...hello! Who is it?" croaked Elena in a rather weak tone...

"Its me...the history textbook!"
Elena looked up to see a medium sized book about twice her size with curled up corners and a very frazzled attached bookmark. He must have been a new book not a long while ago as the colors still have not faded from his covers...but he had been through a lot...one can tell from his wizened tired voice. But there was kindness in the tone of it...

The time is right to reveal that, books can talk among themselves in an ancient but silent language which can be understood by other books, animals, trees and babies. Of course, some special nice people from Elenas world like Santa can also understand them...and also some not so nice ones...like ghosts. Humans slowly stop understanding this language as soon as they start speaking their own...

"Oh...hello...where am i?"

"We call this place...Ellies scratchpad. Hehe...rather ominous sounding isnt it! Well...you have just been brought in here by Ellie...she goes to the Windsor High for her ninth grade. She is not exactly a good student and does not want to go to school anymore. Aaaaand you might be interested to know, she doesnt like books too much...so, we are wondering whats so special about you...we saw how she was looking at you...could you please tell us what the deal is?"

"Well...my name is Elena. I belong to John Mitchell and Ellie apparently stole me from him...she couldnt bear the fact that John likes me more than her. I am very scared...and...and...i want to go home...but i dont know how!"
She was almost in tears now...

"Well...Elena, pleased to meet you. You dont belong here...its better that you dont remain here for a long time. If you are not any of Ellies school books or anything related to her school, you would end up like those poor souls on the floor beside the table."

Elena gulped hard...she did not want to be torn up and useless anymore...

"Well...Elena...normally, Ellie loses interest in all her books in a short while. That would be your chance to escape...but if you dont suceed, Ellie will start looking at you as raw material...and none of us want that to happen. Unfortunately, we cant leave...as we are supposed to be her school books...and we are supposed to help her do well in school. We try each night...but its tough with Ellie. Sigh...so, it is...so it is."

"Anyway, let me introduce the guys...you can see Bud, the geography book and his wife Sue, the atlas. Moe here is our mathematics expert...and Rudy here is our philosopher...all these crazy latin books are like that....eh Rudy..hehe!!"

"Thats Rudolph and thank you for your kindness in remembering my correct name! Humph! As a history book you should know more about how to appreciate Latin and the ancient scriptures! Ghastly i say...egad!" Rudy had a very british accent for a latin book...but the other books were not appalled by his rudeness...so he must have a good heart thought Elena.

"Oh...and i am Phillis! Anything at all you want to know about anything that happened, you can ask me. I am especially very good at the Iron age...but everyone always ends up asking stuff about the Dinosaurs!! I dont know as much as some of the guys in the hall on that...but i know enough to keep the people happy! Welcome to Ellies Scratchpad Elena!"

Elena did not know what to think...the joy of talking to someone else apart from those old grumpy newspapers was refreshing...but also her longing for Johns touch was overpowering.

"Hi guys! I dont belong here and i want to get back to John...can you help me?"

"Well..." Sue spoke out for the first time... "do you know Johns address? I can probably give you directions and you can find your own way out."

"Oh...i...i dont know...what am i to do!!!!"

Bud looked at Sue and then at Elena and looked a little apprehensive before saying "Well...there is one way we might be able to find out...but...its not easy...aaand it wont be pleasant..."

"Anything...anything...please tell me!"

All the books looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders...just as Bud was about to speak out, Ellie burst into the room...and had one of her girl friends with her.

"Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...time to play! Time to play!! Ellliiiieeeee dahling! Would you please be kind enough to create one of your master pieces...? I would like to be Cinderalla today...sleeping beauty was too...well...sleepy and boring!" screeched Ellies friend...

Ellie threw one disgusted look at her friend...then slowly started smiling as if she has planned this all along. "Humph...whatever...lemme get my scissors...hmmm...here it is. I need some new paper...wait, i got some books which i dont need anymore..."

Ellie got up and started lumbering towards her reading table. Elena was almost pink with fright. Ellie reached the table...a gleaming pair of scissors clutched tight in one hand...and the other hand scrambling through the stuff on her table with the help of her black spots of eyes which were scanning her table with quick and urgent glances. Her eyes rested upon Elena after a few seconds. Oh no!! Ellie then picked her up and started looking at Elena rather differently...there was no more hate in her eyes...but excitement...a look of expectation...Elena was able to see what Ellie was thinking through her eyes...all of Ellies ideas and designs for Cinderellas clothes and jewellery was taking shape...slowly but surely...