A Story by, Arthur Ou – Age 9

Ding dong, ding dong!

The doorbell rings at 3 pm exactly. Flora is so excited!

She runs to the door and opens it. 

“Happy birthday, Flora!” Jerry, Jared, Archie, Sara and Emily chime at once in loud, happy
voices.

“Thank you, come in, please!” Flora says with a big smile. 

Today is Flora’s 9th birthday. She has invited her five best friends to her house to celebrate. Everyone is wearing their nicest clothes, and Flora is in her cute pink dress with her name tag on it. 

Fanora, Flora’s younger sister, comes out of the kitchen, holding her magic wand in her hand. 

Happy birthday, sister!” She gives Flora a warm hug, then turns to her friends. “Welcome to my sister’s birthday party!”

Flora and her sister, Fanora, are both fairies with magical powers. As soon as Flora closes the door, they begin to wave their magic wands, and immediately the house is filled with soft, happy, birthday music and a beautiful, huge birthday cake alight with 9 colourful, shining candles appears before them.

After all of the friends sing the birthday song, Flora begins to cut the cake. 

Ding Dong!

Everyone turns to look at the door, wondering who it is. Flora is confused. She did not invite any other people to her party. 

Flora starts towards the door, but cautious Archie stops her and says, “Let’s make sure it is not a bad guy.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s no one meaning harm,” Flora says, going to the door. She opens it, and there stands a stranger.

“Happy birthday, Flora. My name is Baddie, ” the stranger says with a cunning smile. “Follow me, I have a birthday gift for you.”

Archie approaches Flora and whispers, “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

Flora gently pushes him back. “Everything will be fine, Archie. After all, I’ve got my wand to protect me.” 

Flora follows Baddie out the door, past the tall, wondrous trees that surround her home at the edge of the woods, and they both disappear into Firefly forest. 

The clock ticks by, and Flora’s friends and her sister wait and wait. Archie finally stands up, looking serious, and says, 

“We need to go to find her.”

The rest of her friends and her sister, Fanora also stand up. 

“Let’s go right now,” says Fanora, with so much worry on her face. 

The friends go into Firefly forest to start their search for Flora. After a while, Archie hears a little noise ahead, so he runs towards it. As he gets closer, he sees a little cat dressed in pink sitting on the ground.

Meow-meow!

“I found a cat! I found a cat in a pink dress!” Archie calls loudly to all his friends.  

“Who are you? What’s wrong, cat?” Fanora asks, gently approaching the cat. Then, with shock and dismay, she sees that it is wearing a birthday name tag.

The cat begins to speak in a sad voice: “I am your sister, Flora. Baddie stole my soul and turned me into a cat. Thank you so much for coming to find me!” Flora continues, “ I have to get my soul back from Baddie, so I can resume my true form again.” 

“No worries, Flora. We are best friends. A friend in need is a friend indeed,” says Jerry.

“No matter what, we shall find a way to get your soul back to you”, Jared says. 

“Do we have an efficient way to search for Baddie, since the Firefly forest is so big and it is getting dark?” asks Sara. 

“I believe Fanora can do it,” Emily says. 

“Of course, I can,” replies Fanora.  

Fanora uses her magic wand to make an enormous pink unicorn that has a sparkling horn and a long mane. All the friends are so excited to ride on the magical unicorn! With Flora, the cat, in Fanora’s arms, all of them ride on the unicorn’s back to begin their search for Baddie.

Suddenly, they find a golden castle as big as their school hidden on the forest floor in the deep forest. The
castle has a moat and a drawbridge.

“It must be Baddie’s Castle,” Archie says. 

“We need to find a way to get in,” Jerry replies. 

Now they can see the huge entrance door, and they try to push it open,  but it is locked. However, nothing can stop them from trying to save their friend’s soul. Although Flora has lost her magic powers, Fanora still has hers. With the help of her magic wand, she breaks the lock and the door opens. 

The friends begin to eagerly move forward, but Archie swiftly holds them back, silently gesturing to the traps the cunning Baddie has set for them. They see bear traps, swinging spiked balls, slimy goo and robot clones. There is also a zombie clown guard who can turn into an OMEGA BEAST. It will be very difficult for them to pass through these obstacles. 

Suddenly, Baddie appears above them on a large computer screen. He says insolently: “Hello! I have Flora’s soul, but you can only get it back if you can pass each stage of my test.”

Archie retorts, “We did not come here to fight. We just want to get Flora’s soul back. If you refuse, YOU WILL PAY FOR WHAT YOU’VE DONE.” 

“I’ll leave you now. See you, losers!” Baddie says rudely and disappears from the screen. 

Archie comforts Flora and says, “don’t worry, Flora. We will pass his test and get your soul back.” Archie already knows that there will be different levels to Baddie’s test, each with increasing difficulty, which they must pass to reach Flora’s soul. He knows all about  cruel Baddie, as his dear friend Shera had had her soul stolen by him, and she had been fighting for a whole year to get her soul back.

It had been a very hard battle.

Archie then gives instructions to his friends: “Follow me, and we’ll be safe.”  

First, they approach the spike balls swinging quickly on a rope. Archie draws his sword and cuts the ropes, clearing the way. Next, they approach a tightrope with lava underneath it. 

“What can we do?” Emily asks with a worried voice. 

“No worries. Let me solve it,” Fanora answers. She uses her magic wand to transform the tightrope into a platform that is wide enough for them to walk on, so they won’t have to worry about falling off into the lava. 

Beyond the platform is a sea of goo. Baddie appears on another large screen suspended above them.

“Step into the goo, if you dare,” he says ominously.”

Just as Fanora begins to walk towards the goo, Archie stops her and pulls her back. “Don’t go in. He might be tricking us,” he says. Then they try to walk around the slime, but the slime moves in front of them wherever they go. 

Baddie laughs, saying: “Nice try!. Do you think it looks that simple?” 

Jared looks up and sees a camera suspended above the goo. He realizes that Baddie uses the camera to direct the slime. Jared says, “We need to destroy the camera, so Baddie cannot direct the slime to block our way.” 

“Let me do it,” Emily says. She picks up a stone and throws it at the camera. With a big crash, the camera breaks into pieces, falling into the slime. Without the camera, Baddie can no longer control the slime, and so it stays put while the friends successfully walk around it. 

Once they escape the pool of goo, Baddie appears on another television screen, warning, “Here comes a  battle for you. Good luck, you will need it!” 

Fanora, Sara and Emily are so scared to see 20 giant robot clones in front of them. Archie keeps a brave face,  although inside he is frightened. “We must fight as hard as we can, even if it’s the last thing we do. We fight to save our best friend Flora,” he says with determination. 

After hearing Archie’s courageous words, the friends all become less scared and a little braver.

Jerry says to Fanora, “since all electronics, including robots, are afraid of water because they can short circuit, your magic wand can provide us with powerful water guns, right?” 

“Yes!” Fanora agrees enthusiastically. She begins to wave her magic wand, and there appear 6 powerful water guns. Each of them takes one. Then they all start to shoot water at the 20 giant robot clones. Their bodies, like lightning in the sky during a summer thunderstorm, light up in sharp flashes as they short circuit.  

The friends cheer as the robot clones gradually become a pile of useless scrap iron.

Next, the friends find themselves encircled by a group of Baddie clones! Archie guesses that they must all have the same strength as Baddie. Fortunately, Fanora remembers the magic spell for flying, so she helps all of them fly over the circle. 

At last, the friends reach the final and most treacherous level of Baddie’s test: a zombie. Archie knows the zombie is poisonous, so if they get bitten, they will die.

“Fanora, I need a bomb,” Archie say. 

“Ok,” Fanora answers. She waves her magic wand and creates a bomb. She hands it carefully to Archie. Archie lights it, then throws it at the zombie and kills it. Or so he thinks …

But suddenly, the zombie’s body transforms into an Omega beast! 

AGHHHHH!

Archie feels his heart sealed tight with fear, but in order to save Flora’s soul, he will do his best. He examines the beast and sees there is a hole in his back. “It must be his weakest spot,” he tells his friends. 

He gives his friends each a sword from his backpack, and they all strike the hole together with their mighty swords, using their best strength, and the beast flees in agony. 

The friends then come face to face with Baddie himself. In his backpack is Flora’s soul. 

“If you can defeat me, you can get Flora’s soul back,” he says angrily. Then he begins to shoot lasers from his eyes, but Fanora grabs a piece of glass and reflects the lasers back to him. As the lasers strike his eyes, Baddie cries out in pain, but he does not give up! He begins to shoot fireballs at them. Archie kicks all the fireballs back to Baddie as quickly as he can, and the fireballs start to burn Baddie’s body. 

“Help! Help!” he cries. “You can have  Flora’s soul back. Please save my life!” He begs the friends pitifully, with tears in his eyes. 

Fanora uses her magic wand to create a stream of water, which puts out the fire on Baddie’s body. Meanwhile, Jerry grabs the backpack with Flora’s soul in it, opens it, and releases Flora’s soul. It rises up in a shower of golden light and surrounds the cat in Fanora’s arms.

Success!

Flora is back to her own self with magic power again. With great happiness, they all ride on the unicorn back to Flora’s house to continue to celebrate her birthday. They believe Baddie might not do bad things again, at least not for a little while…

THE END