I don't own any belonging to the 10th Kingdom or the genius Wesley, all I own is Worren, Whitney and whatever original things I come up with.

Generation of New Hope

Chapter 2

Oh man, what am I going to do? My project was due in a little over two weeks and I still had nothing. Not even a ballpark figure of an idea. Most of my friends and classmates had their finished, or were really close to it. This was a tough one.

These were the thoughts going through my head as I got ready for school one magical morning.  I scarfed down some cereal. I'm usually not a big cereal fan, more bacon and sausage man myself, but I didn't have time for leisurely repast that morning. Mom was talking to Whitney about starting dance lessons; I tuned that out. Hey, maybe I could write a fable about that! A boy who tuned out his parents, and went deaf – nah, too lame. Uh oh, Mom's talking to me now.

"What?" She laughed at my response and repeated her question.

"I said, be careful when you go to work tonight. Strange prowlers have been reported in the Park."

"Oh, okay, sure." I quickly finished breakfast, kissed Mom goodbye, and ran out the door. Things hadn't been going so well for me, work, school, friends, but I had a feeling that that day was my lucky day, everything would change.

Whew! Finally! I thought the end of the day would never get here. School seemed to drag on forever. Mrs. Smee, my English teacher, asked me about my project – I lied and told her it was coming along fine. We had a pop quiz in Math, and I'm pretty sure I bombed that – stupid algorithms. But the "best" part of the day, I was eating lunch on the school lawn, reading a book about werewolves when the prettiest, most wonderful girl in school, Cindy Allen, walked by. She was waving to a friend nearby, and not paying attention to where she going, which was straight towards a huge dip in the grass. I called her name and tried to warn her; well, she turned her head in my direction, slipped in the hole anyway. As if that weren't bad enough, when she fell, her tray went flying – right into my lap. Everyone saw what happened, and laughed at me, of course, not Cindy. It was awful. Luckily, I had extra clothes in my gym locker, but still, I'm not going to live that one down easily.

I shook off my "bad luck" today, and started walking towards work. I got there, locked up my bike, threw my backpack in the back, and pulled on my busboy apron. Chad, our boss, saw me and yelled about me not mopping up properly the night before, and the fryer needed cleaning. Oh boy, this was going to be a great night.

The evening was pretty quiet, actually. Out of the shift I worked that night, I had maybe fifty tables to clean up. I finished wiping down the tables, took care of the dishes, trash, my regular duties, and clocked out. Time to go and do some homework! I got my bike, pulled on my pack, and started off for home.

I was riding along through the park, when there was a sudden noise in the trees a little ways in front of me. The wolfish, more curious, part of me wanted to investigate, but the human, sane part, advised me to ride on and get home safely. If only life were that simple.

I continued riding, ignoring the noises, which now became distinct voices arguing about where they were. Probably just lost tourists I thought. Not too smart of them, but not a big problem. All of a sudden, I was attacked. Three people, presumably those arguing moments before, jumped out of the trees and knocked me off my bike. I hit my head, and skinned me knee, as well as injuring a few other parts. Living in New York, you get a sense for how to deal with situations like this.

"Look, if you want money, all I have is twenty bucks," I said, pulling out my wallet, and showing them the sadly scantily filled accessory.

"We have no need of your money, we want information," one of them, a woman by her voice, said as she my shirt and pulled out a very sharp and fierce-looking knife. Oh great, this was not good.

Sorry for the jumping around, I needed to fast forward a bit to get to the real beginning of the story. Anyways, it should flow better now! Hope you're liking it.

J Don't you love cliffies? Heh heh. What do you think? Review and let me know