Fiction by Matthew J Horne                          

                                                                                                

CHAPTER 1                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         “Red why do you have to be so lazy?” A young skinny girl, with straight brown hair that was still sticking up from not being brushed yet came running out of a huge four-story shop.

Red was a fifteen year old, skinny teen. He had large baggy pants and a baggy green shirt on both there was a large shield on the back. His hair was short, brown, and unruly sticking up here and there.

Red had been asleep on the porch of the huge shop and had just been rudely woken up by a mad girl and a broom. “Ann you know I don’t like to stay at my dads house, why not just let me sleep here?” Red started to stretch and yawn as he got up.

“Because red you sleep too late, we open three hours before you would get up, That’s bad for business you know, if people see you sleeping there every morning with those shirts and jeans on they might think that they will turn into you if they buy our product.”

The large shields on the back of reds shirt and jeans just happened to be the shop’s symbol. Red had got these clothes for his birthday last year and had actually hoped to get an actual shield or maybe a sword from the shop, but his dad had said that he was too young to get any type of weapon. Red didn’t see why he wasn’t old enough to get anything he was fifteen almost sixteen.

“Well come on and help us get the new stuff into the shop, this stuff is straight from Gure,” Ann said with a look of expectance in her eye.

Gure was the local blacksmith he sent in swords, shields, guns, bows, ammunition, and even some blacksmith tools.

Red had always envied Gure. He thinks that Gure was very lucky to have a good job like blacksmithing and he is stuck with working at a lousy store. However, he did like it when Gure finished the stuff he was to give to the store, Red looked forward to this every month because he got to see all the weapons.

“Really! Its here!” Red jumped off of stores porch and sprinted around to the back, the store was just as wide as it was tall so it took quite a lot of energy.

Red came around the corner of the shop, panting, and out of air. He started to think that he needed to work out more. He stood still to take a breath and started to run again. He got around the last corner still out of air.

Red walked up to the cart that had all the stuff in it and looked around it. He started naming stuff that he would someday own. “ Wow! A jewel sword, those are really cool, pretty stout too, I got to get one of those” He picked up a huge broad sword with a big red ruby in the middle of the handle and waved it around, then turned to a gun beside the sword. “Cool! A 740 shot!” He put down the broad sword carefully and picked up a medium sized gun with two huge dragon eyes on either side of the barrel. He stared at it in amazement and started to aim it at a nearby tree, when a huge, stocky guy came around the cart.                                                                                                                                    “Ha, Ha, Red good to see you, I can see that you are still cart shopping, get it, not window shopping , cart shopping!” The man had a deep, strong voice. He looked as stout as an ox, and like Red, had a shirt with a huge shield on the back.

“Gure! How have you been?” Red was smiling and started to stare at Gure. “Hey kid what’re you looking at?” Gure started to look at Red with a mean kind of look. “Remember Red when we are working, we don’t sit and talk now lets get this stuff unloaded.”

Red decided that Gure was right, Ann would be mad at them if they didn’t hurry up. The first time He had met Gure he was so amazed that he and Gure talked for hours and forgot about the boxes. Ann got really mad and started to make Red pay to sleep on the porch.

“Right, then lets start moving them.” They started to pick up the boxes each one was a different color according to the things in them. The guns were red boxes, the ammunition had blue boxes, bows were green, swords were silver, and shields were brown.

Gure could lift five boxes at a time. Red felt a little bit embarrassed when he walked in right behind Gure with only one box. Red decided that Gure just had a lot more practice at lifting boxes.

            After a few more trips they were through and they all started to talk. “So Gure what have you been up to?” Ann asked. “Oh nothing much I’ve been working on these items here for weeks.” Gure said with a relieving sigh. “Well thank you Gure.” Ann said thankfully.

            “So Ann what happened to your mom, I thought she was supposed to be helping out today.” Gure said in his stout voice. “I mean it must be pretty hard you only being fifteen and running this whole place by yourself.” Red added in jokingly.

            Ann looked around the store trying to find a way to change the subject, and then she looked down, closed her eyes and said, “She’s dead.” She died hunting Yur in the military.                                                                                                                                           

 

         

 Matthew J Horne, age 14, contact:  dothack1111@aol.com

 Copyright 2007 Matthew J Horne.

 Reviews and comments requested       

 

 Posted 03/13/2007