The Magic Typewriter

It was a very peaceful day. The bright sun was shining down to the ground, tons of people were out walking their dogs and the sky was a no cloud zone. It was a very peaceful day in the state of Maine. On this day, in a very busy shopping mall, there was an antique shop. This shop was filled with old antiques as one would guess. It had old shoes, grandfather clocks and old baseball bat's and other antiques. "I'm not joking mom, this job is so boring. The only interesting part is when the old bat's come in." A teenage girl said on her phone right when an older woman entered the store. The older woman overheard the teenager's conversation and thought she was talking about her and left the store in a rage. "I was talking about this old bat, you know." The annoyed teen said as she picked up the old baseball bat that was in front of her. "Leaf!" A middle aged man with hair on the sides of his head and with a sweater vest on, came out with an angry look on his face. "That's the fourth customer you offended before lunch this week!" The man said with a very angry voice as his head was turning red by the second. "Oh that reminds me, can I go on my lunch break now?" Leaf said with optimism in her voice. "Sell something or you are fired!" The man said as he left the room in an outrage. Just then, three teenagers entered the store. One of them was a tall, skinny boy with short brown hair and was wearing a leader jacket. Another one of them was a shorter girl with orange hair, had black glasses on and had some freckles on her face. The final one of them was also skinny, had blond hair and looked very handsome. "Kass, Bree, Ed? I didn't know you were coming today." Leaf said in a surprised voice. "I wanted to come by and see how you were doing, the boys wanted to come as well." Bree said as Kass and Ed looked around the store. "This place smells like my grandfather's dirty old shoes." Ed said as he looked around and saw a pair of old shoes. "Hey, those are my grandfather's old shoes." Ed said as he then went over to the grandfather clocks. "Say Leaf, I just entered a short story contest and I'm in the market for a typewriter. Does this store have a usable one I can write with?" Kass said as he went over to Leaf. "I have just the thing." Leaf said as she pointed to two typewriters in the far corner of the store. One was a very modern typewriter and the other was a very old, very outdated typewriter with cobwebs hanging from it and dust covering the entire thing. "That one is perfect!" Kass exclaimed as he rushed over to the typewriters and pushed the modern one out of the way and went to the older, duster one. Kass blew most of the dust off and looked at the typewriter some more. "I'll take your entire stock!" Kass said in a very happy voice. "That'll be 50 bucks please." Leaf said as Kass handed her the money. "I'm sure to win that contest now." Kass said right when the door opened and another teenager entered the store. "Not so fast blond!" The teenager said. He was wearing a very dark shirt with lighter but dark shorts and was wearing a basketball hat, covering his black hair. "Carlos!" Kass said with annoyance in his voice. "I just so happened to enter the contest too, and I'm sure to win it." Carlos said with pride in his voice. "Oh yeah? You think your story is better, shorter than mine?" Kass said as he walked over to Carlos. "I don't think so cause I know my story is better." Carlos said. "Oh yeah? My story's so short. It orders a small cup and the cup's much bigger than it." Kass said. "Well my story's so short, you can see its feet on its driver's license." Carlos responded. "My story is so short, it's too short to go on any carnival rides." Kass responded. "Hm, My stories are so short, when it sits on a dime, its feet don't touch the ground." Carlos said. "That's what I was going to say." Kass responded in a weak voice. "I win again blond. That trophy's all mine." Carlos said as he left the store with Kass giving him a death stare. "Don't listen to him, I'm sure you can beat him." Ed said as he comperted Kass. "Thanks Ed. I better start testing this thing out." Kass said as he went over to his typewriter and began to type. "Let's see here, A giant man…eating cheeseburgers entered the store." Kass said as he finished his sentence. A second after he finished the sentence, a giant man who was eating a cheeseburger came into the store and began to look around. Bree noticed this and started to chuckle a little. "What's so funny Bree?" Leaf asked. "A man who's eating cheeseburgers? Kass just typed that." Bree said. "Odd." Kass said as he began to type something else. "A crazy bird appeared out of nowhere." Kass said out loud as he finished his sentence. Just then, one of the nearby grandfather clocks hit 12:00 as a cuckoo bird appeared out of nowhere as it went: "Cuckoo, Cuckoo!" "Is it noon already? I thought we still had 15 minutes before noon." Leaf said with confusion on her face. "Try something else that doesn't normally happen." Ed said. "I got it!" Kass said as he began to type. "It began to rain chocolate milk inside the store." Kass typed as thunder could be heard, despite it being a very nice day outside. Within a second, the four friends felt something on their heads. They looked up and the store began to flood with chocolate milk from the roof. "Does anyone have a cup at the ready? This is the first time we can drink chocolate milk for free!" Ed said. "Well, that settles it. This typewriter is magic." Kass said who was covered in chocolate milk by this point. "Well that's the end of my shift, we should get out of here." Leaf said as the four of them rushed out of the store with the typewriter in Kass's hands. The four of them headed to their regular hangout spot down by the beach near a pier after cleaning themself's off from earlier. "I'm beginning to think this typewriter can make anything possible now." Ed said as he brushed off the last drop of chocolate milk he had on him. "I still think we should test it out more." Bree said with curiosity in her voice. "Let me think." Kass said as he thought about what he was going to type next. "The typewriter brought those around it a great fortune that would change their lives forever." Kass said as he finished typing. Within a second, A man who looked to be near middle age came rushing down to the four with a piece of paper in his hand. "Great fortune, great fortune!" The man said in a very happy tone. "Dad? Leaf asked as her father came to their table. "What are you doing here?" Leaf asked. "You'll never believe it, I got nominated for the park employee of the year!" Leaf's father said in a very excited voice. "That's amazing!" Leaf said as she and her father hugged. "And the award comes with a huge rise in my salary. So much that it could change the family's life forever." Leaf's dad said. Just then, while Leaf's dad was walking away, Kass typed something else right when he left their table. "Did someone order a giant hot dog?" Leaf's dad asked as a Delivery man walked over to the table and placed down the hot dog. "This is awesome!" Kass said as he took a bite out of the hot dog. "Do me next! I…I wanna date the prettiest girl in the world." Ed said as Kass typed and finished shortly after. "Did someone order a giant hot dog?" A very pretty girl asked. "Oh, I accidentally typed over the last thing I wrote." Kass said. "That's ok, This is better." Ed said as he went over to the girl. "I'm Ed. You like dogs?" Ed said as the girl seemed interested. Over the course of the next few days, everything seemed to be going great for the four friends. Kass got used to the magic typewriter and used it to benefit his friends along with his own life. It became so natural to have his mom or dad tell him to do a household chore, he types the chore into the typewriter and boom, it gets done faster then he could ever do it. His life was becoming easier then it already was and he was looking forward to making it easier day by day. On one very normal day, Kass pushed his luck and then his perfect life was plucked. It started like any regular day for him with the typewriter. He got up, used the typewriter to make him a perfect breakfast in bed, got dressed, brushed his teeth and used the typewriter to teleport him and the typewriter to his school. Once he got to school, he met up with his friends who were in a good mood. "Thanks again Kass for the money tree, now I don't have to work ever again!" Leaf said with a very happy tone of voice. "And thanks for helping me with that audition for the podcast." Bree said with a similar tone of voice as Leaf. "Ladies, you're welcome but you might want to step back, Ed is going to have his biggest dream come true." Kass said as Ed rushed down the courtyard with a basketball that he was dribbling. "It's down to the last three seconds, the score is tied, the team is in need of one last dunk to win the game….and Ed performs his Extreme Dunk!" Ed said as he rushed down the courtyard to where there was a basketball hoop. He jumped up close to 20 feet into the air, right next to the hoop and slammed the basketball into the hoop as he dropped down to the ground. "Man, that was amazing." Leaf said. "All because of the typewriter." Kass said just as someone approached them. "Is that a real money tree?" The person said with confusion in his voice. "Yeah, A leprechaun gave it to me as a reward for finding her runaway unicorn!" Leaf said in a very, very sarcastic voice. "Well there are a lot of short people here." Bree said. "Something's going on here. You've been acting odd ever since that typewriter appeared next to you." The person said in a very questioning voice. "Well Carlos, I think you should mind your own business!" Kass exclaimed. "No, no I don't think I will. Tell me what that typewriter has been doing!" Carlos said as he was approaching the typewriter. "How about this?" Kass said as he began to very quickly type on the typewriter. "Carlos got sent to the front office!" Kass said as he typed the first thing that came to mind. "Hm, I think I have to go to the front office for….something." Carlos said as he left the four of them alone. The four of them then took a huge sigh of relief. "That was a close one." Bree said. "Too close. Could you imagine what he would do if he got his hands on this thing?" Leaf said. "No and I don't want to know." Kass said right when the school bell made a sound that no one wanted to hear. It rang for the first time that day. "Aw man. Not only are we going to miss the carnival today, I have to take a boring test today" Ed exclaimed. "Watch this." Kass said as he typed on the typewriter. "The teachers think that Kass, Ed, Bree and Leaf are in class today and all of their assignments are turned in today." Kass said as he finished typing. "Now who wants to have some fun at the carnival today?" Kass asked. "Let's go!" Ed and Leaf said with excitement in their voices. "But I wanted to go to school today." Bree said in a disappointing voice. "We get to read Great Expectations today." "Well the great expectations I have for today is that we make it a fun day!" Kass said as he used the typewriter to teleport the four of them including the typewriter to the carnival. It would have gone unnoticed if Carlos wasn't walking past them and saw them vanish with the typewriter. "So that's what's been happening! That blond loser could use that typewriter to make him win the contest and make his life perfect." Carlos said to himself in a very mad tone of voice. "When I get my hands on that typewriter, I'll make their perfect lives shatter like broken glass. Oh this will be FUN."

A few hours later…

"I don't know what was more fun, the fact that we skipped school to go to a carnival or the fact that you used the typewriter to rig the games so that you would win." Ed said as he along with the rest of the friend group took a seat in their hangout spot. "What can I say? Claw machine games are already rigged as it is." Kass said. The four friends continued to talk to each other, enjoying their company together until time caught up to them. When the sun started to set far beyond the visible ocean, it was time for the four of them to head back to their homes and this was no different for Kass. He went back home with his typewriter, had dinner with his parents and got ready for bed. Kass set the typewriter down on his desk and fell into a restful slumber. Unfortunately, that very night, Kass made the biggest mistake he would ever make in his life, falling asleep on the lookout. After Kass fell asleep, shortly after, outside his bedroom on the second floor of his house, a stepladder was placed along his window. A masked figure then climbed said ladder and entered Kass's room. "Finally, I made it up here." The figure said to himself in a very quiet voice. "Now where is that, oh it's right there." The figure said as he noticed the typewriter conveniently placed on Kass's desk. "Finally, the typewriter, it's in MY HANDS!" The masked figure said in a louder, yet somewhat quieter voice as he proceeded to laugh in a very evil and villianus way. "Now to get the heck out of here." The masked figure said as he approached the window. However, it didn't occur to him to place the typewriter down so he could check and make sure the ladder was secure enough to descend one handed. When the figure walked down the ladder, he accidently dropped the typewriter on the grass. Luckily, the descent was not enough to break this typewriter as it was in pretty good shape for it's age but the sound was enough to wake Kass from his slumber. "Hey! Who are you? Give me my typewriter back!" Kass shouted as he jumped out of his window and landed on the ground below. "Not today blond! This magic typewriter is all mine!" The figure said as he typed on the typewriter and disappeared, without the typewriter. Kass was in a little bit of shock as he was still processing all of this. He was about to grab the typewriter when the figure suddenly returned and took the typewriter. "I mean, Carlos disappears with the typewriter!" Carlos said as he along with the typewriter disappeared, leaving Kass behind to process everything. "Oh boy. What in Maine am I going to do?"

The next day . . . 

Now today was a very good day in terms of the weather. It was a sunny day out but Kass was very under the weather, figuratively and literally. He was sad and scared of the typewriter being in the hands of his worst enemy ever. He was sure that whatever happened to him, he could be sure that his perfect life was gone forever. He approached the school and noticed that his friends were looking a little different. Ed was as tall as he was in elementary school, Bree was looking somewhat normal but her voice was turned into the sound of nails on a chalkboard and Leaf was holding a dead plant and she looked like a nerd with a bunch of freckles and she had braces on, even though she got hers removed a few years ago. "What happened here?" Kass asked with worries on his face. "YOU DID THIS TO US KASS!!" The three of them yelled with so much anger and hatred in their voices. "What? Why would I do this?" Kass asked with confusion in his voice. "We went to sweep wooking nowmaw and bam, we woke up wooking wike this!" Leaf said as it was harder to hear her now with her braces. "Look, I have bad news, I think Carlos stole my typewriter." Kass said. "Well….It would be stupid to think you did this." Ed said as he now had to look up to his friends to see them when he was so used to looking down since he was the tallest out of all of them. "Well if what you're saying is true then we need to get that typewriter back! I can't be heard with this voice for my big break!" Bree said in a very panicked and very annoying voice. "I'm going to fix this, just let me find Car-" Kass said as a flash of light surrounded him. "Uh, Kass, that might be hard to do." Ed said as Kass felt something was different about him. "Don't tell me….I was turned into a horse." Kass said with a very annoyed voice. "Yes, yes you are." Leaf said as Kass looked in a nearby window to look at himself. "Well…I could star in a new documentary about horses." Kass said as someone approached them. "How's it going Horse-boy?" Carlos said as he held the typewriter in his hand. "Carlos! What are you doing with that typewriter?' The four friends exclaimed. "Simple, ruining your lives." Carlos said with a very evil smile on his face. "I can see that my plans are already working better than I had imagined." "Well this ends now Carlos. Do your worst to me but leave my friends out of this!" Kass said. "Say another word and I'll turn you into a fish Horse-boy!" Carlos said with very visible anger in his voice. "Well about-" Kass said as Carlos finished his sentence and Kass was turned into a fish in a little tank. "Wow he actually did it." Kass said. "I told you so fish lips! You shouldn't have doubted me!" Carlos said in a very angry voice. "Why are you even doing this Carlos?" Ed asked as Carlos looked to the ground. "You don't remember, do you?" Carlos said. "Remember what?" Kass asked. "Do you even know why I'm like this in the first place?" Carlos asked. At this point, his eyes were filled with rage, sadness and a little pride there as well. "No….No I don't." Kass responded. "Well mr fish lips, I had it all at once." Carlos said as he continued his story. "I had two loving parents, a nice home far into Montana, the best group of friends I ever knew and I was happy, until my worst nightmare became true, leaving it all behind!" Carlos said with some tears beginning to form around his eyes. "Until my father came home and said that his boss let him go due to some budget cuts or whatever. Shortly after, my mother left for some reason, took half of my father's money and we had to move here because he got a new job here." Carlos said with tons of anger all over his face. "I'm…I don't know what to say." Kass said. "You should say 'you're sorry.' for what you did." Carlos said. "But what did I do?" Kass asked. "Do you want to know the man who fired my father?" Carlos asked. "Not really." Kass said. "Well, after I knew about your existence, I figured out that it was your father who let my father go and ruined our lives!" Carlos exclaimed with so much anger on his face. "So…I want you to apologize for your father's actions, Blond." Kass was taken back by this accusation. He knew that his father had to make some difficult decisions in the past because his computer business was hit with a major drop in sales but he didn't know that included letting people off, especially Carlos's family, though he didn't believe him just yet. "So, are you going to say you're sorry?" Carlos asked. "Well…I guess I'm sorry." Kass said as Carlos looked at him with a very evil smile. "That I'm never going to apologize for something like that!" Kass said as his friends were shocked. "Kass. What are you doing?" The three of them cried out loud. "You had your chance Blond." Carlos said as he typed on the typewriter and turned Kass back into his human self. "It's going to get ugly for you and your little friend group. Muhahaha!" Carlos said as he used the typewriter to make himself and the typewriter disappear. "Oh no." Bree said. "Well, we are doomed as we know it." Leaf said. It was a very serious threat indeed but to the four friends' surprise, Carlos didn't pull anything on them in school. In fact, Carlos wasn't even at school today. It was almost as if he was using the typewriter to benefit his life as well. When the sun set that following day, Kass went back home and he was expecting something horrible to happen. Maybe his parents decided to make him do a week's worth of chores, maybe he was cursed into reading for the rest of his life or anything of that sort. When he got home, his parents seemed to act normal and nothing was out of the ordinary. Kass had dinner, went to sleep and still nothing bad happened…. For that day at least. The next day just happened to be the weekend and a very important day for Kass. He had been working on his short story for quite some time now and it was finally ready to be presented at the short story competition at school and if it was good enough, it would be sent to the international competition from around the world. He woke up, got dressed which he was starting to get used to after Carlos stole the typewriter, had breakfast and headed off to school. It was kinda weird going to school on a weekend for him but he didn't really care that much. Kass then arrived at his school with his friends waiting for him. "Hey guys. I wasn't expecting to see you here." Kass said in a surprised voice. "Well we weren't going to miss your story." Ed said in a normal voice. "Not to mention Carlos could mess things up as well." Bree said in a slightly scared voice. "That's true but we should head in now." Kass said as the four of them headed into the school. They found their way into the auditorium where the stories would be presented. The four took their seats as more and more people started to come into the auditorium. So far, there was no sign of Carlos, the typewriter or anything else that the four friends feared would happen but they were sure something was coming. They were right, very right. "Good morning everyone. Welcome to the short story competition. First up is Kass." The principal said as Kass went up to the podium. "Good morning everyone. My story is called, Major Chan-" Kass said as he looked at his paper where he "had" his story. The papers were now completely blank as if he never typed on them. "Carlos! Now what am I going to do?!" Kass shouted in his head. Fortually, due to his very good sense of memory, he had remembered all of the important details of his story but not word for word that is. "Major Changes is the name…for my story ... .Um" Kass said as he cleared his throat. "Here we go." Kass said under his breath as he began to "read" his story. "She…She could have called on anyone in the room. A bunch of people had their hands up, ready to answer the question she had asked…but she had to call on me." Kass said as he was looking down at the blank sheets of paper in front of him, pretending to read his story when suddenly, the lights went out. Kass then noticed a certain someone in the back row with the typewriter on his lap. "Carlos!" Kass exclaimed as he pointed to his enemy. Just then, the principal went over to Carlos. "I'm sorry but we have a strict rule of no devices while presenters are presenting." The principal said as he took the typewriter from Carlos. "Hey! Give that back!" Carlos shouted as he and the principal tugged on the typewriter. Kass saw this as his chance to get his typewriter back. He rushed over to the two as fast as he could. While the two were playing tug of war with the typewriter, Carlos accidently let go of the typewriter and it was sent flying. "NOOOOO!" Carlos shouted as he rushed over to the typewriter. "Not today Carlos!" Kass said as he jumped into the air and caught the typewriter in his hands. "NO, I NEED THAT TYPEWRITER!!" Carlos shouted as he was running to Kass, ready to fight to the death. "Carlos, your story is about to get even shorter!" Kass said as he typed and finished his sentence on the typewriter. Carlos then stopped dead in his tracks. The room around him then began to get taller in his eyes as he started to panic a little. Kass then picked him up by his tiny shirt and placed him in a nearby cup. "Man, you shrunk me!" Carlos said in a very high pitched voice. "Hm, now you kinda look cute." Leaf said as she along with the rest of the friend group rushed over to Kass. "I knew you would come around eventually." Carlos said in the same high pitched voice. "Can someone explain this to me?" The principal said. Now rather than the four friends telling the entire story to the school, Kass just simply typed that everyone would forget everything that happened in that room. To which it worked out rather well. Kass presented his story which was loved by all in that auditorium and it even won first place and was sent to the international competition. As for what happened to the pipsqueak Carlos, no one knows what happened to him but all we know is that he escaped the school not long after everyone had left and that's all there is to say about him. Now we cut back to the four friends in their regular hangout spot. "So, what are you planning to do with that typewriter Kass? Ed asked. "You know, after today, I think I realized something." Kass said as he began to explain what he had learned. "I didn't need the typewriter to win that contest and if I didn't need it then, I don't think I need a magic typewriter to make my life easier now. I think we can make our own dreams happen on our own instead of relying on some 1868 technology." Kass then typed on the typewriter and it disappeared into thin air. "Well said Kass." Ed responded with a calm voice. "Now then, I have some cash burning a hole in my pocket, why don't we take a little trip down to the ice cream shop and get ourselves a little treat?" Kass said as each of his friends agreed with him. They then rushed to the ice cream shop as the sun set beyond the vast ocean. 

The End.