Chapter 1: Mechanic Shirley
I tied my blond hair to a ponytail as I slid on my loose black overalls. I hurriedly brushed my teeth and raced towards our huge workshop. Much work has to be done, so little time.
It was another exciting day for learning.
My name is Shirley Medici, a sixteen year old tomboy working as Master da Vinci's assistant. Although I'm not quite as good as my mentor, I'm not leaning on the worst noob category yet. My father owned a great debt to the artist, and as a way of paying.
HE SOLD ME TO HIM. HE SOLD HIS ONLY DAUGHTER TO A WEIRDO!
As I can remember vaguely, I was tending our weed infested garden when my sourpuss of a father called me in for dinner. There he explained in a rather comical way that I should pack my things and leave before twilight to the great inventor's house or he'll kick my ass out literally.
I can feel his great fatherly love touch my soul.
To show my heartfelt appreciation I showered him with a multitude of swearing and bad fingers, spouting them faster than lightning. And to complete the finale I gave a whiny teenage tantrum, stomped my way to my room and shut it tight with a bang.
I've done the details right.
Alone in the empty corners of my room, I broke down and cried without stopping to breathe. I was going to miss our garden, our fat dog, and our thin pigs wallowing in their own shit. I began to pity myself greatly like some push-over heroine on a fairy tale. But then I thought: If da Vinci is a rich weird dork I might just mooch myself to his bucks, nab his bank and run away laughing. Realizing my once in a lifetime chance I dried my tears and emptied my tiny wardrobe while humming a cheerful tune.
Using his creaky wagon, father drove me to da Vinci's manor established beside the shoreline. As soon as I climbed out of the vehicle, he cracked the reigns and left me biting the tumbleweed. Over a distance I can hear him say "Good riddance!"
"I hope you get eaten by a kraken!" I screamed back with traces of longing in my voice.
The sky suddenly turned grey and thunderclouds rumbled. A giant red tentacle with numerous suction cups popped out of the seawater and crushed the wagon in three pieces. The arm then searched among the wooden ruins and grabbed something squirmy in its airtight grasp. The kraken then dragged his worthy prey down his watery realm.
The sky cleared up again.
Time to get a move on, nothing interesting happened.
The manor was huge, my jaw dropped to the ground and I had to pick it up again before I went inside.
I entered his service as a maid but I soon won the heart of the artist, but not in the romantic sense. He had a workshop underneath his colossal home where he designed and build war armours for nobles. I accidentally stumbled upon it as I pulled a particular book from the library's twenty-third bookcase. The shelf pulled back and revealed a spiral staircase which led to the secret lab.
My life was about to undergo a major change.
I saw Master da Vinci pondering in deep thought. He was apparently fixing a strange apparatus from a giant white robot which he called Quo Vadis. Then he started rambling strange scientific gibberish about the robot's mechanical horse failing to operate.
The blue haired inventor kicked the machine in a fury and left.
After making sure he was gone, I tiptoed to the broken contraption and inspected it carefully. It was a wonderful machine that resembled a horse, albeit a futuristic one. I opened it up and saw the all the wrongs. There were a couple of unfastened screws and wires that got stuck and loose, etc.
Talking like an expert.
Grabbing a nearby screwdriver, I fixed it without mechanical knowledge.
I just said to myself. "Just scram if it explodes."
When all was done I screwed the machine shut and switched on its circular green button. The colossal metallic horse levitated in the air.
It worked!
I heard clapping from behind.
It was from Master da Vinci.
He shook my grease covered hand in congratulations and offered me to be his apprentice.
And that my friend is the story of how a seal developed flippers. The End.
I smiled as I reviewed a complex blueprint while nipping the back if my pencil.
"Someone's feeling rather cheerful today." Master said, munching a bit of day old French toast. "Do you want to draw a card?"
He was going to perform the magic bogus that fails every time. He rapidly flexed his left hand and a bunch of cards appeared. "Choose one."
I noticed a small box underneath his puffy dark yellow sleeve. "You're playing tricks on me." I pouted. "I can see a box there."
"What box?" He laughed as he shook his arm in an effort to hide it. Smooth recovery technique 101.
As he tried to conceal the evidence, a brightly painted case fell on the floor. It had a TAROT CARDS FOR DUMMIES metallic print on its cover.
"Mon signor has been eating spoiled food lately." I commented nonchalantly. I have a theory that the spoils are going in his head. "I can cook, ya know."
"That was a trick!" He kicked the box away. "What's that in your ear?" Master reached over my ear to reveal a tarot card 'hiding inside'.
"I just cleaned my ears today. No cards in it."
"You haven't cleaned enough my dear!"
I stuck my index finger inside the auditory canal and showed the results to him. No earwax. "Squeaky Clean."
Master smiled and scratched his blue hair and some white stuff fell. He hasn't had a proper bath for days. "Would you like me to translate that?"
The enthusiastic artist revealed the card, the tower. The card held a macabre image of a blond couple falling off a burning tower struck by lightning. "I see an explosive transformation, a realization of truth!" He narrated in a powerful voice while reading a manual. "Crisis and Awakening!"
I was dumbfounded. I'm just a hillbilly content with them tools and nuts. "Can I use that to buy dinner?"
"Oh I almost forgot!" Master da Vinci face-palmed, a sly look sketched upon on his bearded face. "Can you run to the local blacksmith for some nuts and bolts? Add a transmitter too while you're at it."
"Yes Boss." I tipped off the corner of my bullcap.
Before I left he gave me about a thousand bling which I hurriedly stuffed in my overall's pocket. For the first time it felt heavy.
Damn, I feel rich.
"Thanks Uncle Blacksmith!" I beamed happily as I said goodbye. The kind guy gave me a new shiny wrench for free.
He stopped his iron-smelting and waved at me. "Be a good girl now Shirley and don't go talking to strangers!"
"I will!"
I raced across the busy market streets in a jiffy and almost got run over by horse drawn carriages a few dozen times.
All for the sake of my favourite afternoon show. It was a slapstick comedy where clumsy clowns get to do all sorts of crazy pranks.
I dodged a passing watermelon cart and accidentally bumped into somebody, spilling the gunk all over the person in the process.
The person's white Victorian uniform got covered in black oily grease.
Uh oh.
Fuck.
A guard yelled and pushed me towards the muddy streets. I lost balance and landed on my butt. I scrambled to get up but I humiliatingly slipped and fell again, much to the guards' amusement. Damn it I want to give those jeering tin cans the beating of their lifetime. I was going to do all that.
But I sprained my buttocks.
"Leave her alone." A low, smoky voice commanded.
"But general!" One of the knights reasoned out. "The peasant ruined your clothing!"
"Can't you see you have insulted the lady?" The nobleman lectured angrily. "As knights we should always protect and respect women. Be gone before I strip you of your knighthood!"
The guards mumbled a few things among themselves and left one by one.
"What's wrong now cowards!?" I jeered back. Shit, sweet taste of revenge. "Running away because ya' got scolded like schoolboys?! Well I'm not finished with ya'll motherfuckers yet!"
"Are you hurt?" He held out his gloved hand. I took it.
He helped me pick the tools up, further dirtying his uniform. I shyly muttered a few words of thanks and cast the dirt off my clothing. I looked over at my saviour. He had beautiful snowy hair, pale skin and serious steely blue eyes. An ornamented ivory mask covered his left face, giving him a Phantom of the Opera look.
"I must apologize for my knight's churl treatment."
"That's okay buddy." I replied casually.
"May I know your name?"
I can hear uncle's warning echoing inside my brain. Either that or I'm a schizophrenic. "I shouldn't be talking to strangers." I said aloud.
I clasped my mouth shut as soon the words spilled out. Damn it, I'm already talking to him for ten and a half minutes!
The aristocrat laughed. "You're one weird kid."
"I'm not a kid!" The oversized bullcap fell on my face, covering my eyes and nose. "I'm a teenager!"
"You're a weird teenager then." He concluded humorously.
"No I'm not!"
"Yes you are."
"No I'm not!" I repeated childishly. My eyes burned red from unshed tears. A masked man was teasing me and I need my mommy badly. Better yet I need my hammers and drills.
"Yes you are."
"NO I'M NOT!" I ran away like a crybaby kindergarten bullied by a senior. I kept running until I reached Master da Vinci's manor. It was almost night time; the sun was setting down the horizon, shading the clouds a dark orange.
I sat on the house's stairs to catch my racing breath. My heart pounded against my ribcage.
Once I calmed down I began to check my belongings. Everything was in place, the screws, the drills and the batteries.
Except for my new wrench!
I frantically emptied my shopping bags and pockets.
It wasn't there.
I wanted to go back to the market place to search but the image of the laughing stranger came across my mind. He might still be there, laughing.
"That cocky bastard!" I stomped my foot in anger. That hypocrite sermons about chivalry but he's no better than his underlings! "I hope he perishes!"
He called me weird!
Weird! I can't believe it!
Wait, he called me weird?
I blushed in realization that I made a total fool of myself. I can never show my face in public again. People will gossip about it and it'll spread across town. Then they'll call me Shirley Mcweird and have it engraved across my tombstone! My life is ruined. I hope he's happy!