Chapter 1
There Was A Time
"Come on! Come on! I need inspiration!" i was saying to myself as i stratched my head while sucking on a pencil. "Ralphie, sweetie, careful you don't choak on that pencil you have in your mouth!" the sound of my Mom came from behind me as she was bringing in a basket of washing into my bedroom. I took out the pencil out of my mouth and spun my chair to face her "Sorry Mom!" i told her. Mom was always very protective of me, it was proberly the doctor in her. She was just looking out of me as she does with her patients. "What are you working on honey?" she asks me as she made her way towards me "Oh nothing..." i answered her nervously as i knew she was about to catch me out. I tried to hide a piece of paper underneath a book but she was too quick she managed to snap up that piece of paper that i was trying to hide. I glupped as she began to examine it "The Adventures of Weatherman and the Spooky Castle of The Vampires, Ralphie...this is not homework!" she said raising her eyebrows. "Um...um...yeah...i was taking a break!" i nervously told her as i knew i had been busted! She then placed my paper back on my desk "Great title Honey but where's the rest of it?" she asks, "Oh, ah well i'm stuck for inspiration, you see i am entering a comic competiion and i can always think of great titles but then get stuck for a great story to go with it!" i told her. She smiled as she sat on the bed "I remember when you were younger, i remember you use to come up with these amazing stories from the Field Trips you use to go on with Valerie & Felicity Frizzle! They always seemed weird and wonderful, almost magic!" she says in a dreamy voice "Haaahaaaa...well yeah..." i answered to her nervously as she never really did believe what really happened on those Field Trips. Those were the times! Field trips in high school now seemed so ordinary, almost boring. I would give anything to exprience one of the Frizzle sister's field trips again on the Magic School Bus. "Ralphie! Earth to Ralphie!" i heard Mom's voice during my fantasy "Ha? Oh sorry Mom! Does this mean i am grounded?" i asked her. Mom got up from the bed and sighed "Ralphie, promise me that you will get that homework done before Monday? I do not wish to receive another letter from any of your teachers!" she says in a serious voice "I promise Mom but i am catching up with Keesha and Jyoti tomorrow and i have a baseball game on Sunday!" i answered back to her "Well you better get a move on then! Good Night Ralphie" i hear her say firmly as she leaves my bedroom.
It was Friday night and always felt it was cruel how teachers particularly high school teachers gave their students homework over the weekend. Weekends are for having fun and sport not having to be cooped up in books! I was midway through high school now and still haven't got use to the idea of having homework over the weekends! Anyway i better do this school work before Mom catches me again! Even if it takes me all night. I placed my competition paper for my Weatherman story to the side, thankfully Mom didn't take it off me. I opened my math book and started to study as there were math problems i had to solve. After managing to get through a couple of the questions my mind was starting to distract itself and was going else where. I wanted to focus more on the story then the school work. I keeped slapping myself in the face to keep focussed but it wasn't working. Thank god my Mom is a doctor in case i do myself an injury! I also couldn't stop thinking about what Mom had mentioned when we were having our conversation eariler, you know about the field trips i want on when i was younger. There was a time were magic was real and that my class and i would climb aboard a Magic School Bus and go on wacky field trips whether it would be going to outta space, to the bottom of the ocean, become reptiles or salmon or going back in time. All of the field trips were undertaken by our teachers the Frizzle sisters Valerie and Felicity. Valerie took us in for some period of time before she become a Professor and then Felicity her younger sister took over. We were all elementry school students back then 8-9 years old, seems like ages go and i am now 16 years old! I do have to say as much was the field trips were a little weird, they were educational and fun. We have nothing like that now that i am in high school.
"There finished finally! Phew!" i shouted as i penciled in the last answer of the last math problem. As i finished i turned to look at the time "Geeeesss 1am!" didn't realise how fast the time went. Surprised that i hadn't fallen asleep at my desk which i have done in the past! I closed my math book and popped my pencil down. As i got up from my chair and yawned, i saw from the corner of my eye the paper for my Weatherman story. I grabbed it and looked it it as i laid on the bed. I was all out ideas. Had a great title as Mom pointed out but i was struggling for a start, middle & end for this comic story. Inspiration just wasn't coming to me and thats why tomorrow (well today) i am catching up with Keesha and Jyoti who have offered to help me. When i thought of the title it made me remember of a field trip in particular all those years ago. It was parents night and we were studying nocturnal animals (creatures of the night as Valerie Frizzle use to say). I had a kid fansination with vampires back then and still do as you might have guessed! Ms Frizzle, who was not only dressed like a vampire had been speaking in a vampire like accent and had made all the parents get on the bus and drove them to an old creepy castle. They dressed up like bats and drank tomato juice. How did i know about this? Well...Keesha and i clashed because i was convinced that bats where vampires and that if you got bitten by one you would become a vampire. Yep, i know what you are thinking! She was just trying to explain to me that bats are just mammals like us and don't drink blood etc. Well i saw that after the unexpected field trip that myself, Keesha and the rest of the class got ourselves into that same night. With the help of Liz the classes pet lizard we followed our parents to the castle. The class and i felt really uneasy about this and we wanted to get closer to them to spy. With the fear of being caught we climbed aboard the magic school bus that was parked outside and i...well..i pressed a button and the bus became a large bat. It flew around with us inside, i still remember the pinging noise to this day that it kept making and eating a very large moth. To try and make it stop i pressed another button while still in a fight with Keesha which then magically transformed us all into bats including Liz to my dismay! We did receive the full top bat experience that night, learning about the darker the night the safer the flight and how bats communicate by sound. Thankfully we managed to find our parents and they were not having their blood sucked by Ms Frizzle (I hope that our parents didn't spot us as we flew through them as they were getting themselves down from that chandelier). I apologized to the rest of the class as i then realised that bats are really mammals not vampires from my comics that i use to read. We were changed back into kids and met up with our parents who were just exiting the caslte unaware about what we were just up too. So yeah that's what came to mind when i thought of the story title for my next Weatherman adventure (Weatherman was my made up superhero that i made up also when i was in Ms Frizzle's class).
Those field trips really did bring back memories, i really did miss the magic school bus. Never ever have i come across another bus with those kind of powers since. Just plain old ordinary buses these days. I guess you can say that there was a time where magic was real but now that we are older all the magic dries out and its now kids stuff. No, i don't think that! I never stopped believing in magic, esspecially after those experiences i had on or with the magic school bus. Magic is real if you just believe! I turned to face my clock again and now it said 2am "Gosh, time flies when your deep in thought! YAWWWWNNNNNN!". I turned off my lamp and snuggled down into the covers. Closed my eyes and hoped to start dreaming for an inspiration for my story. Maybe Valerie or Felicity might come to me in a dream and to help me! Magically! You never know! I need ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...
End of chapter