Okay. I'm writing this mainly because Entertain the End didn't leave enough closure for me. I mean, really! Nothing ends. That blew me out of the water. So…I'm going to introduce a new character, a few flaws in the fabric of the Old World, and the aftermath of the Great Battle, as it will be remembered for centuries to come…
And no, I don't own David, Jalil, April, Christopher or any of the other characters, except for Lauren, and all that entails her character. K. A. Applegate (may she live forever) owns the Everworld gang and it's probably going to stay that way.
Chapter One
The icy winds blew off Lake Michigan as I locked my car, a green rusted-out '97 Chevy Blazer, and stuffed my hands into my pockets. I hunched my head down below my coat collar and ran as quickly as I could towards the door. I entered McDonald's, and the familiar scent of grease enveloped me. I didn't wrinkle my nose in disgust; mostly I was accustomed to it.
I adjusted my visor as I slipped past my coworkers, greeting a few of them, and hung my coat in the crew room. Rubbing my hands together to warm them for a moment, I shivered and headed for the time clock.
Work was the same as always. Everything was normal here; nothing ever changed. Occasionally there was an accident in the busy intersection outside of the giant complex of parking lots, but in the neighborhood where I lived things were even less likely to happen.
My dad and I lived over a storefront in a sleepy section of North Shore, Chicago. Dad owned the place beneath us, an antique shop that was known for its rare finds. He'd found a bowl in someone's garbage that was worth over two hundred dollars once. That was the only embarrassing thing; he enjoyed digging through other people's trash. Our apartment was littered with rotting window frames, antique dresser knobs (not all of them on the dressers, either) and curios that Dad said had "character". Whatever that was.
To me it was just junk. He would always argue that it paid for our meals, but I knew the real truth. He'd always told me that my mother was dead, that she had died fifteen years ago. I'd been only two and a half. But she couldn't be dead; she sent him checks every month. It wasn't court-ordered child support because they weren't divorced. Or at least he claimed they weren't. Mom had apparently waltzed off one night when I was little. Dad won't tell me the reason because he is still trying to make me believe she got cancer and died when I was a toddler. Right.
I kicked the wall in frustration when I looked at the battle plan. I was in the back booth again. Those idiots. They might as well have turned me into Popsicle. I could hear the TV anchor now: "Local North Shore resident, Lauren Kale, is frozen into a solid block of ice after being banished to the chilly first booth of the Edwards Street McDonald's…"
I grumbled as I grabbed a headset and turned it on, grimacing at the familiar, but incredibly annoying beeping that held my attention. Someone was at the drive-up.
One of my coworkers answered the beeping with an amazingly under-enunciated "Welcome to McDonald's. How may I help you?" It sounded more like "Welgum do MgDonals. Howmay I helb yo?" The customer gave her order, and after changing her mind three times as to the special instructions on her hamburger, decided she wanted chicken instead. Then she pulled ahead and complained to me that I sounded like Charlie Brown's mother on the speaker. I tried to explain that it wasn't me, but she still seemed a bit disgruntled.
The rest of the day was like that, stuck in the Antarctica of first booth, with naught but a cranky space heater and yon small cup of blessed cappuccino.