Stephanie sadly rubbed the stinging bruise on her right rosy cheek, thinking about the wicked mother and her horrible ranting.
She wisely ignored the fierce yelling from earlier in the modern day that echoed in her mind and glued to the previous scrap of the page that is exactly on the prime rib of the valuable book in the glossy cover, where the rip marks were precisely at.
She gently touched the tear marks from the tip and bottom of the page, looking gloomily at the rip in dismay and like magic for some reason, the rip marks on the page disappeared.
Stephanie blinked in bewildering confusion for a precise moment, before shrugging her shoulders and skimmed to the next following page, to the end of the story and noticed that the ending page is fortunately missing.
Stephanie glanced at her right side, where she had cautiously collected all the pages after the wicked stepmother had merely left for the peaceful night to work, and she used up all the pages.
She carefully flipped more of the pages in her book for an unusual moment, realizing not only that story's ending page is missing, the rest of the ending pages were also missing too.
She gently and carefully closed the volume and set it aside for later, and got up to her feet, glancing around for the pages.
Stephanie looked underneath her bed, at the bottom of her desk, and underneath her quilts after merely removing the blankets slightly, not too much to hide the volume much to her dismay.
After an odd hour of frantically searching, she soon discovers the wicked stepmother might merely throw the preceding remaining pages to her book in the trash as a cruel punishment for reading books that she doesn't want her to read.
She sighed wearily and then, her window suddenly opened, without anyone else on the other side to unlock it from the other side of the window.
She glanced keenly at the window in mild curiosity and bewildering confusion, slightly worried about an armed burglar at this time of a typical day.
Stephanie slowly walked over to the window over her desk, before she could close the window, a lightning bolt zapped through the air, making her shriek out in fear and startlement, as she backed up quickly, moving away from the window to not get electrocuted from the lighting.
Then, a frigid blast of gusty wind started to blow in her room, and she cautiously moved some of her hair from her face, sputtering a bit to instantly get the bits of hair out of her mouth.
Then, the pages of the endings of the stories started to fly out from the corner of the room where the wicked stepmother has discarded of her view and went in front of her face, as a dark hole appeared ahead of her, with noxious smoke in the middle.
The pages went willingly into the black hole, revealing shadow figures of someone and suddenly, the last pieces of the ending stories entered the black hole and at that moment, it promptly closed and everything was silent.
Stephanie glanced around in bewildering confusion and in awe, merely wondering what has allegedly happened in the room.
She glanced around for a few moments, until she glanced at her window, thinking about what had happened.
At that time, she noticed a twinkling glittering star in the middle of the sky, and she softly gasped.
"The Wishing Star," she whispered gently, although a little scared from all the hocus pocus that she encountered earlier.
Then, something landed in front of her, and she glanced down slightly, noticing a cricket in front of her.
The cricket is a small and slender, with light green skin, and antennas, like any other crickets, but this one, that Stephanie had not once seen, is wearing clothes, which is a black suit, shiny top hat, white opera gloves, black shoes with yellow spats on them and standing on its hind legs.
"Why hello there." Stephanie gently greeted, ignoring the unusual looks of the cricket. "Are you lost, little one?"
The cricket gently smiled at her with a light blush and gently replied, "Why, no, but, thank you for asking, though."
She blinked in shock and in confusion and shook her head slightly, thinking that the cricket didn't just talk to her and standing.
But when she gently stopped shaking her head, she glanced back at the cricket, and he is still standing there, smiling gently at her.
Her first reaction is to swat the cricket away to her shock and fear, but, she ignored it, knowing that is disrespectful to treat a guest that entered the house, and gently replied, "I'm sorry, did you talk to me?"
He gently nodded his head and Stephanie felt scared to talk again, worried that if she might say something wrong, he might have his feelings hurt.
But instead, he replied, "And the reason why I'm here is to help you gather the endings of the stories that your stepmother had ripped."
She slightly tilted her head to the side slightly and replied, as her left hand was out as she shrugged, "Who sent you and I'm not tryin' to push your buttons, but who are you too?"
He gently chuckled and replied, gently talking to himself, "Where are my manners?"
He hopped up high into the air, carrying his umbrella over his shoulder and landed in Stephanie's left open hand, palm up.
"I am Sir Jiminy H. Cricket, but, you can call me Jiminy Cricket or Jiminy for short." he gently introduced.
She gently smiled towards him, feeling warmed by the gentleness from a tiny creature that she had found, gently making her worries fall away.
"Stephanie Nova Rose Allen, is my name, Jiminy." Stephanie introduced back gently. "Or you could call me Steph or Stephanie for short."
He gently chuckled and lightly nodded his head, blushing slightly.
"My what pleasant manners you have," he replied.
Stephanie's cheeks gently tinted pink slightly as she glanced away, rubbing the back of her neck with her right hand.
"And the second question that you asked is that I was sent by the Blue Fairy herself," he replied, tilting against his umbrella to the side.
She glanced back at him in curiosity, remembering the name "Blue Fairy" and remembered the picture of her from one of the stories inside the book that she had.
She asked, out of curiosity, "Are you from the story, Pinocchio?"
He glanced at the book on Stephanie's bed and glanced back at her and replied with an "Hm-hmm." before standing up straight.
"And the ending to Pinocchio is ripped out too. All we need to do is to find the villains that took the pages to the book before something horrible happens to the heroes," he explained.
"The villains of the story? You mean the shadows that I saw before you got here were the villains?" Stephanie questioned.
"'Shadows?'" he questioned, before remembering the moment that he was with the Blue Fairy, watching the shadows danced in the room, seeing a figure wearing a blue sweater. "You were that figure in the room?"
Confused, she slightly cocked her head to the side from his question and asked, "You saw the whole thing from inside the Blue Fairy's crystal ball?"
"Yes, she did," Jiminy answered.
"Then, yeah, the figure was me," she answered to his question earlier.
Then, Stephanie went quiet for a moment and reached over to the book on her bed with her right hand, still carrying Jiminy in her left hand, and gently picked the book up, gazing at the golden cover for a moment.
"So, you're sayin' that the villains in the book escaped with the endings of the stories and went into their own loving dimensions, while the real heroes are getting hurt?" Stephanie asked, in her own words to understand what Jiminy is saying.
"Yes, I'm afraid. That's why your father gave you that book for safety." Jiminy replied. "Since the villains are so bent on getting their own happy ending, they decided to find a book that is filled with never-ending stories that never end. But, your father, who was the creator of the book, hid the book and gave the book to you. Now that the endings are gone, we need to find them before any worse ideas come to their heads."
"Oh, my goodness gracious," Stephanie replied, gently face palming herself with her right hand, with the book in her hand, shocked to instantly understand what is going on inside.
"But, we have to hurry, before the worst things come in life," Jiminy replied.
She gently nodded her head, before gently placing the book down on her desk and Jiminy jumped from her left hand, right next to the cover.
She was going to open the book when Jiminy rose his hands up.
"Wait! We don't need to open the book inside; we need to open the book outside," he replied, making a mention with his hands.
"How?" she asked in confusion.
"I'll show you." he gently replied.
He turned over to the cover and pointed at the cover with his umbrella curve.
"Haven't you noticed that the cover is a door?" he asked.
Stephanie was quiet in confusion, before pushing her glasses into place, staring at the cover for a moment, before imagining a normal door that she encountered a couple of times, and she softly gasped.
"It is a door! Dad gave me a door on a book the whole time!" she softly exclaimed.
"Well, then, let's open the door," Jiminy replied, jumping on the cover.
"Err, I don't mean to be rude, but, how?" she asked again. "I know I've said that a couple of times, but, can you really open a door from a cover?"
He gently chuckled and glanced over his shoulder, looking at Stephanie.
"Well, you don't judge a book by its cover, don't you?" he asked.
She rose her first finger to say something, when she placed it down, thinking to herself.
"Fair point." she only replied.
He gently smiled and turned back around to the book and knocked on the door cover of the book a couple of times with his right hand, before the door unclicked from the cover and slowly opened, revealing an entrance, shining brightly in a luminous golden color.
"Holy moly guacamole. That is awesome." Stephanie softly whispered in awe.
"Yes, but you have to say the name to the story that you want to go first," he explained, hopping onto her shoulder. "Then we are off into a different world!"
She was silent for a moment, before replying, "Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, please."
The whole book glowed in a light golden color and Stephanie, along with Jiminy Cricket on her shoulder disappeared, as the book on her desk closed, as the pages inside stopped glowing too.
