Extend the Story - Add a Room

Rebecca was looking through the Young Adult section when she found a slender blue and black volume. She picked it up and rather than starting in the front with page one as she had with other books, she opened it somewhere in the middle. She felt her stomach pull, and hoped she wasn't about to go somewhere bad. It didn't exactly look like a happy book.

Rebecca was in a strange ship, and she watched as the kids around her buckled up. She was a little older than most of them she thought, but she had always been small, and so the difference wasn't noticeable. She pulled the buckle tight around her chest. There was a tall man that looked at all of them. He was talking to a small boy, the last boy in. Adults were assisting other kids that couldn't figure things out.

A film came on a screen ahead, and then they were taking off. Off to where she wasn't sure, except gravity was gone and she was hanging. The big man came in and twisted a flip. The man addressed a smiling boy, who seemed perplexed at the harsh tone. Rebecca couldn't really understand the conversation or the tone.

"There's only one boy on this ship with any brains at all, Ender Wiggin," the man said.

Rebecca felt a shift in her stomach, but not like she was about to be returned to her world, it was a diagonal shift. She was now in a different place, with beds, and locker compartments. Someone pointed her to one, and she sat down on the bed. Everyone around her was talking and laughing until the small boy came in. He was the last one, Ender Wiggin. She watched him talk loftily about being pleased to have the last bed.

Rebecca felt another shift, and this time she was standing in a hallway wearing a suit she couldn't remember putting on. For the first time she felt endangered by the book. The little boys around her had guns. Someone opened a door, and she was pushed out into weightlessness. She went spinning along like all the others defying gravity. She had a gun in her hand, but she didn't really know what to do with it. Finally she made it to a wall, and could reorient herself and observe. A pair of boys on the other side of the room were also on the wall studying. They nodded to her and she joined the. One of the boys raised a gun and shot a helpless floater. The fellow frozen, he couldn't scream or move, but a small gurgle went came from his throat.

"Ready?" the small boy named Ender asked, looking at her, and then at the other boy beside them. She nodded, knowing what he wanted from her. She was a good shot she had always won the water gun battles staged by her brother. "Now!"

Before any of the silly brainless laughing lot floating in the middle could figure out what was going on, Becca, Ender, and the stranger were taking out kids. She liked the game it was fun to freeze them. She felt competitive, and a great sense of accomplishment when they all finished.

Ender, Becca, and the other boy surveyed their work throwing high fives, victory was theirs in that moment. She backed away as she felt the pull in her stomach again. She was leaving. She knew it was real this time. Her body twisted inside, and then she was back in the library. She felt heavy and dazed. She flipped the book over and examined the back trying to put things together.

"Ender's Game," she muttered. "Battle school? They were just kids!"

"Good book," one of the librarians said as he walked past and pulled a different book off the shelf. "Here, check this one out, everyone loves it."

Rebecca wasn't sure if she'd have time to get through another adventure. She carefully memorized the title and went to see what time it was.

Read another book.