Good evening.

I began this story in the summertime of 2007, shortly after finishing Derek Landy's wonderfully creative story of a skeleton detective and his young accomplice.

It was originally very dull. Somewhat funny, but nevertheless, dull. I became bored with the one-page story I had written down, and crammed the paper into an old folder containing orchestra music, where it would rot for almost a year.

The glorious summer of 2008 came around, I discovered a sequel from Mr. Landy, I read it, I cleaned my room, and what do you suppose I found whilst cleaning? Yes, my children, it was-dun dun DUN!-the very boring Skulduggery story. I took it out from where it was, squashed between the march from "Carmen" and the fourth movement of Telleman's "Viola Concerto in G Minor".

I read the story and reminded myself why I had put it in such an odd place: it was like a funeral dirge in words. But I was determined to make it as great as I had originally imagined it only a year before!

So, I sat down on the floor with the paper, and fixed and mended all the boring parts, and wrote even more than I had intended for the story. Originally, the story had left off right where our heroes arrived at some mysterious island. There was no Nigeria, there was no delicious sand, and there was no civil rights case in the making. But when I sat down to write, I made all those things possible.

When I finished, I laughed my head off at it all. It was so much better. It was not so serious and hum-drum. Immediately, I rushed to the computer, typed it up, and posted it. As for the original, I…threw it back into the orchestra folder, but I put it there with more care. And the folder went into a drawer where I keep my poems, drawings, and other incomplete stories.

I hope you were entertained, if even for just a moment. And now the curtain shall close.

Insignia13

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