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Part Original Fiction based on semi-real events and Part Fanfiction based on a Fantasy Book


“Get up!”
“…”
“Now! I have to get to work! Let’s go!” My mom rudely awakens me by turning on the light of my room as I trudge into the bathroom to pee and brush my teeth. I sigh. Today is going to be a long day. I turn some music on and get dressed. I go into my mom’s room, put on my shoes, brush my hair, and fix it in the bun I always wear to school.
“We’re running late,” my mom says. On the clock, it says 6:15. I have fifteen minutes to get our breakfast and lunches ready. Better get started. I plop some waffles in the toaster, grab a TV dinner, two diet cokes, and a yogurt. Mom’s lunch is done. I make a sandwich, grab a cheese stick, a small bag of chips, and a Gatorade. I take the waffles, wrap them up, and stick them in the two bags.
“Alright, let’s go.” I say. My mom is not listening; she is doing her hair, makeup, or something. We have three minutes before we need to leave. I get into the car and a few seconds later she slams the car door. We are off to school. I get there and march for an hour and a half. I almost faint. Today I have to tell Andrew I am his Band Buddy. He has rarely gotten me anything. I go up to him.
“Hey, I’m your Band Buddy. Surprise, surprise, here,” I hand him his garter.
“Wait one second, I have yours in my car.” He goes to get it while I change and put my clarinet away. He comes back carrying a huge red bag filled to the top with what looks like a bag of Goldfish and my mum. I already have one in my hand. I attempt to take both the bag and mum and successfully take them to the shelf. I leave to see if I can get one of my friends to attach my mums to my shirts. After about an hour of work, they are finally secured. I go to my first period class, band. We play through until the bell rings and I end up racing to get to my second period class, English, before the tardy bell rings. I get there just in time. It’s a shorter day today and we don’t have much time for whatever we are doing and sooner than I think, I hear a bell ring and I take off for World History. I definitely do not want to be late for that. Coach D. will bite my head off if I am late.
When class starts, Coach D. begins talking. “Now if you do not want to write a 10-page essay front and back on the history of mums, cowbells, and noisemakers I suggest you make those cowbells stop ringing. If I hear them once, you will write that essay. The first time I heard one of those here, I thought there was a cow in the building, but then I wondered how the kids got it up the stairs. Then I saw this girl walking by smiling and happy about herself sounding like a cow. Everyone here sounds like cows.” We all go “moo” as he continues; “I don’t want to hear them in my classroom.” He keeps going on about cows and cowbells, then the bell rings. Finally, I could not wait until I got out of that mad house. I walk to Chemistry and we go over yesterday night’s homework. I am starving. Tengo mucho hambre. I cannot wait until lunchtime. The bell rings. Tina and I walk to lunch.
We sit at our table and I finally look inside the bag that my Band Buddy got me. I shuffle through the starburst, jolly ranchers, skittles, squishy thing, harmonica, and slinky until at last I find the object of my search. Root beer! Oh, how I love Root beer! I try to open the bottle, but my hand is too slippery and the cap hurts so I ask Chris to open it for me. He does and I take a swig. It tastes wonderful. I close my eyes imagining my first taste of Root beer. It is not as lovely as it is now. I open my eyes and everything is a blur. I cannot see Tina or Alex, not even Elizabeth. I feel like I am falling. I feel lightheaded and dizzy. What is happening? Everything goes black.
“Aaaaah!” I am falling. Right out of the sky, towards a hot air balloon of some sort. It’s being pulled along by something. Not something, some ones, plural. There are people, on cloud-pine branches, pulling it along. It looks like I am in the mountains. “Ow, that hurts.” It looks like I landed. There are people in the balloon with me, and, a polar bear? One is a man. He looks like a Texan, though I cannot be sure. Another is a young woman around the age of twenty-five. She was fair, with bright green eyes; and clad in strips of black silk, with no mittens or anything, though it felt very cold. It was as if she could not feel it at all. One is a boy nearing sleep. His eyes are wary and tired. Another is a young girl fast asleep under a pile of furs. The armor-clad polar bear is also asleep next to the young girl almost like he was protecting her. The Texan does not look surprised to see me but the young woman does. It appears the Texan knows something. All of these people, they seem familiar, like from sometime in a dream. Except this is not a dream. I have already pinched myself by now.
“You arrived right on time, miss. I’ve been expecting you.” The Texan said as he lifted me up.
“Who are you?” I said.
“Lee Scoresby at your service.” He replied. I stared at him in shock. I am dreaming or hallucinating, whichever one. I pinched myself. It appears not.
“You–, a–, and she, you’re, but I thought, I guess not, but they and he–, from my book. Pinch me!” I say pointing at everyone and thing. I cannot make sense of this. The woman pinches me, hard. It hurts. I rub my arm.
“You didn’t have to do it that hard. Ow.”
“I’m terrible sorry, but Serafina is a bit strong for humans to handle.” Lee apologizes.
“No, no that’s okay. It’s just um that I read a story about, well you. Three stories actually. They’re books.” Serafina looks skeptical. Lee is nodding. “I understand perfectly. You are suffering from brain damage little one. There have been no stories written about us, yet.”
“No, but it’s true! I saw them. Phillip Pullman wrote them!” Lee looks at me, shocked. “Excuse me? Did you say Phillip Pullman? Why that, double-crossing, backstabber, friend of mine! We were supposed to do that together.”
“What?”
“Phil and I were colleagues at Oxford University where we worked. He always wanted to write about my adventures, but I didn’t want the public to know yet, about my adventures, I mean. He promised he’d wait until I was there ready for first person accounts on it.”
“But in the books I read, you di–“ Wait. I can’t just tell him he’s going to die. That’ll change the whole story, even though I cried when I read that I cannot change Pullman’s book more than I already have. What am I going to do and how am I going to get out of here? “I mean in the books I read, I read this exact part with Lyra, Iorek, and Roger in the balloon with you and Serafina going to Svalbard. By the way, the books are mostly about Lyra, he only has you in for a little while. It’s more Lyra’s adventure than yours.” Lee gets wide-eyed. He grabs something.
“Why! She stole my thunder, that ignorant girl! I’m going to kill her!” He looks as if he is going to strike when Serafina stops him. “Lee, you know how important this girl is to us. To our mission. If you kill her now, there’ll be no hope left for the rest of us.”
“But,”
“No buts. Now I think it is high time that you get some rest Mr. Scoresby. There’s no telling what tomorrow will bring. By the way, what’s your name girl?”
“Kayleigh, I’m obviously not from here.” I say. Lee is getting some furs together and is trying to make himself a bed.
“I can see that, but how did you get here?”
“I don’t know. One minute I was at school eating lunch and the next I’m falling out of the sky.”
“Well, we’re going to have to find a way of getting you back, because we cannot have you getting in the way of our plan. If you have truly read about us as you say, what are we going to do at Svalbard?”
“Iorek is trying to reclaim his rightful place as king of course. He and Lee have known each other for a very long time, too.”
“Well, still we cannot have you here when Lyra wakes up.” Too late for that. As soon and her name rolled off Serafina’s tongue, Lyra’s eyes flutter open.
“How far are we from Svalbard?” Lyra said.
“If we meet no winds, we shall be over Svalbard in twelve hours or so.”
“Where are we going to land?”
“It depends on the weather. We’ll try to avoid the cliffs, though. There are creatures living there who prey on anything that moves.” I shivered. “If we can, we’ll set you down in the interior, away from Iofur Raknison’s palace.”
“What’s going to happen when I find Lord Asriel? Will he want to come back to Oxford, or what? I don’t know if I ought to tell him I know he’s my father, neither. He might want to pretend he’s still my uncle. I don’t hardly know him at all. And who is that girl in the weird clothing, and what is she doing here?” she said, gesturing to me.
“He won’t want to go back to Oxford, Lyra. It seems that there is something to be done in another world, and Lord Asriel is the only one who can bridge the gulf between that world and this. But he needs something to help him. This is Kayleigh. She’s from another world also. That is why we need to get to him.”
“The alethiometer!” Lyra said. “I bet it could help him. I can probably read it as good as anyone now.”
“I don’t know,” said Serafina Pekkala. “How he’ll do it, and what his task will be, we can’t tell. There are powers who speak to us, and there are powers above them; there are secrets even from the most high.”
“The alethiometer would tell me! I could read it now….” I know she isn’t going to read it now because it is too cold. She can’t manage it. I still don’t know how I’m going to get back. Serafina said that I’d have to go to Lord Asriel; I never read anything about that. I never even read about this. I’m thirsty.
“Um Serafina? Do you think I could have something to drink? I’m parched.”
“Sure, but all we have are spirits left over from when the men stole Iorek’s armor.” She said as she ruffled through some fur coats looking for a water skin.
“That’s okay. Thanks.” I say as she hands it to me. I take a gulp. It oddly tastes like Vodka. The world around me begins to spin. I can’t see. It’s blurry again. I feel lightheaded and dizzy, like I’m falling out of the balloon. Not again. Everything goes black.
I hear voices all around me. It’s a bit blurry. I think I’m in the band hall. So, it was just a dream. I think I fainted.
“Kayleigh, Kayleigh, are you okay? Guys hush, she’s awake!”
“Huh?” I reply. I still can’t tell who is talking to me. I think it’s Tina.
“Are you awake? You fell pretty hard. You fainted. What happened? Was the Root beer bad?”
“I don’t know.” I reply. It’s about time to go to the pep rally and I wonder, before we leave, whether or not I was really in “The Golden Compass” I think I’ll have to check those chapters when I get home and hope I don’t faint again.

Finished (No sequel)