Karaoke Night

Disclaimer: If I list everything I don't own, I'll use up all the space on the hard drive. If I own something, I'll let you know.

Story: I can't wait to read book three of the Bartimaeus Trilogy, Ptolemy's Gate, but for reasons beyond my control, won't be able to for a while. So I'm writing this rubbish instead. Enjoy!

Chapter One: Thanks, Kitty

Across the universes, all the people of the worlds were enjoying a small breath of peace and tranquility amidst the trials and tribulations their authors put them through.

Leave it to John Mandrake to botch it up.

He wasn't quite sure why his head was hurting, or why he was tied to a chair in a basement of a library, or why a gargoyle was drifting several feet off the ground, talking to him. But this rather prickly gargoyle assured him that he was fine; that a girl named Kitty had just hit him upside the head and tied him to a chair because she just needed to talk to the gargoyle for a few minutes. He had no idea what the apparition was talking about and told him so. If it's possible for a gargoyle to look stunned, it did.

"What do you mean?" it asked. "Did you forget Kitty already? She did save your life. Kids today."

John informed it that right now, he didn't know his own name. He assumed that was a bad thing.

"Oh, great," the gargoyle moaned, becoming an Egyptian boy. "I'm stuck with an amnesic for a master."

Perhaps so, but the amnesic got a wonderful idea. "Why don't we throw a karaoke contest?" he asked.

The boy looked at him as if he had three heads. He might, he had never checked.

"And he's crazy, too. This'll be fun."

"No really!" he insisted. "In fact, we could invite a bunch of people who hate singing and make them sing!" A look of glazed bliss entered his eye.

Poor Bartimaeus had to obey, no matter how insane Mandrake was. "Thanks a load, Kitty," he muttered.

After acquiring a karaoke machine, auditorium, prison chamber and stereos, (Bartimaeus decided to do the thing right) he was at a loss of what to do next. Who exactly was he to force to sing? So, despite his better instincts, Bartimaeus asked his befuddled master whom he was supposed to find. Nathaniel was still tied to the chair, by the way. If nothing else, it gave Bartimaeus a strange kind of joy to see the brat bound.

"Uhh…" Mandrake said. The knock to the head seemed to have damaged his cognitive functions even more than the already were.

"Focus!" Bartimaeus snapped. The whole deal was fraying his last nerve.

"Well, I read this book once, and there was a guy in it who wouldn't want to sing," Nathaniel rambled.

"Could you make a list or something?" he asked impatiently. "You still remember how to write, right?

"Yeah!" Mandrake shouted defensively. It's gonna be a long day, Bartimaeus thought.