Captain Pen and Princess Paper

"How about . . . You know how paper was created years before the first pen right . . . So they stop making paper and because of that pens become useless . . . so then a pen creates a time machine to bring back paper," Kevin said with a frown on his face.

His frown wasn't perpetual, but it kept appearing on his freckled face. He ran his hand through his bright blonde hair. He squinted his tiny blue eyes.

"I don't mean to act like a know-it-all, but I don't think that the kindergarteners will understand what time machine is," I said.

"How about . . ." he began to say.

"How about we don't give this project this much importance and just get it done with?" I said as I picked up the piles of crumbled paper at his feet.

"Oh come on. We have to put in our full effort. We are never going to have this opportunity again," Kevin said.

"You're saying it as if I'm refusing to go to Harvard, Kevin. The assignment is just a homework grade," I said. I rolled my eyes.

"Do you remember that time when your mom or dad would read a Grimm fairytale before you went to bed? Do you remember the time when you would dream of being the characters in those stories? Now my dream is to be Grimm. Don't you want to fascinate little children? Don't you want to watch their eyes grow wider with every word we read to them. Don't—" Kevin said in a pleading voice.

"Okay. Fine," I said, trying to sound like I didn't care.

"So the title that Mr. Ashford gave us is 'Captain Pen and Princess Paper'. Right, Hanna," he said.

I put my phone down, pushed my brown hair out of my face, and nodded.

"Please Hanna. I need your help," he said.

I hated writing assignments. Kevin loved writing assignments. Maybe his talking was a bit annoying, but at the end of the day he would've finished the story on his own. All I had to do was pretend to listen and nod a few times and I would get an A . . . Maybe an A- because of the paper ball fights.

"I'm sorry," I said, trying to sound as meaningful as possible.

I sat next to him and began to read his ideas.

"Read through these ideas when you get the chance, okay," he said as his mom drove up to the curb to pick him up. "Bye Hanna. See you next week!"

"See you too," I said as I waited for the school bus to arrive.

I ignored his brainstorm pages for a couple of days, but then I found myself too curious to ignore them. I began to read them over and over again, trying to find the perfect idea for the assignment. I found myself dreaming about it. I found myself talking about it to my parents and little brother.

As usual I found my brother in the backyard. He was trying to write his name with a pen on the brick fence surrounding out house. The pen worked but the letters came out wiggly and scribbly. A pen can't function properly without paper! I came up with the perfect idea.

When I met Kevin the next week during creative writing, I told him my idea. He was shocked at my enthusiasm and loved my idea. We were the first pair that began to write in out whole class.

Week by week, I started to enjoy the creative writing sessions even more. I started to even look forward to them! Then one week, Kevin rolled into class on a wheelchair.

"What happened," I gasped as I looked at Kevin's exhausted face.

"I . . . I just broke my legs. I . . . Um . . . Was . . . Playing soccer and I slipped," he said.