Chapter 50

Sean was grounded as were a dozen of his classmates. Principal Charmers had informed the parents of a number of students that they had left school without permission. Although a few parents were overjoyed that their children were taking a sudden interest in poetry they weren’t quite so pleased with the direction that interest had taken. It appeared that the seductive powers of poetry had been missed by an entire generation. Thanks to the dedicated efforts of Ms. Woodhill, the current generation would enjoy poetry and all of the consequent benefits.

Sean’s mother and Mrs. Emery had taken the news about Sean and Suzie skipping school without batting an eye. It appeared that neither Sean nor Suzie were the first members of their respective families to skip school. Rather than yell or scream, the two mothers first looked through the book of poetry. There was a bit of an argument as to who would remain in possession of the book.

Sending chills down his spine, his mother said, “My husband will read this to me.”

“You can’t do that,” Sean said turning green.

Suzie nearly passed out when her mother said, “I want a photocopy so that my husband can read it to me.”

“I know. We’ll have our husbands take turns reading it to us,” Sean’s mother said with a wicked grin.

“Not that! You don’t know what will happen,” Suzie said.

Mrs. Emery said, “We could force the kids to watch.”

“That would kill us,” Suzie said horrified at the idea.

“You can’t do that!” Sean shouted.

“Why not?”

“There are laws against it,” Sean said.

“What laws?” his mother asked.

“It is a cruel and unusual punishment,” Sean said.

Feeling woozy, Suzie said, “That’s right.”

It was about that point that the real discussion concerning their punishment began. It ended with a simple grounding, but it could have been worse. Sean’s mother was arguing that they should use the young couple as Leprechaun bait. Sean wasn’t sure what that entailed, but he didn’t like the sound of it. The horrible cackle that had accompanied her announcement had really worried him. Suzie had quivered in fear on hearing it.

Terrifying Sean, Mrs. Emery had just voted for a trip to the vet. Suzie didn’t seem so worried about that prospect until it was mentioned that Sean wouldn’t be the only one getting a treatment. Sean had found himself in the strange position of arguing to be grounded. It was only through negotiations that would have made a Leprechaun proud that he had managed to get them to settle on a simple grounding.

Depressed, Sean had gone to his room to read while Suzie returned to her home under the watchful eyes of her mother. With nothing to do, Sean decided that it was time to read a little of his history book. Opening the book to a page at random, he found a chapter about the discovery of America.

He said, “Imagine discovering a whole country. I bet someone got a Nobel Prize for that.”

Reading about the voyage of Columbus, the image of Columbus steering his way across the ocean using a compass came to Sean’s mind. In terms of mundane things, a compass was actually a pretty magical item in the way that it always pointed north. It got him to wondering if he could do the same kind of thing using magic. Of course, rather than having the compass point north it would be nice to have it point to something that he wanted.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a paper clip. Unfolding it so that it became a nice pointer, he set it down on his open book. He ordered it to point at the nearest letter ‘e’ and was quite surprised when it spun around so that the pointer was right over the proper letter. Thinking that he may have influenced it, he closed his eyes and commanded it to point to the letter ‘f’. Opening his eyes, he saw that the pointer was right over the correct letter.

Smiling, he said, “This is perfect.”

Sean stared at the bent piece of paper clip thinking that it wasn’t really all that good for his purposes. He thought about the statues he’d made, and realized that he could make a proper device that would allow him to find things. He pulled out a small ball bearing and a small piece of clear plastic from his pocket. Grinning, he went to work ordering them to form themselves into proper shapes and joining together.

After half an hour, he sat back and looked at what he had built. It was a lot like a compass, but with a triangular pointer instead of a long thin needle. It was actually quite nice looking. He had ordered the base to have artistic etchings a lot like an old-fashioned compass. There were even elaborate letters corresponding to the cardinal directions despite the fact that they were useless unless he ordered it to find north. The transparent plastic formed a nice cover.

Deciding to give it a try, he looked around the room trying to think of something to find. His eyes settled on his nightstand. He said, “Find a condom.”

The needle swung to point towards the bedside nightstand. He walked towards the nightstand watching the needle with each step. He opened the drawer and the needle was pointed directly at the package of condoms. He stepped to a side and it continued to point to the condoms. He smiled and said, “It works.”

Thinking about his problem getting gold, he knew that he held the solution in his hand. He decided it was time to put that problem to rest. He looked at the pointer and said, “Find the closest gold.”

The needle turned around and pointed off to the side. He looked at the wall and said, “That’s a problem. I guess I’ll have to go around it.”

He walked out of his room and slowly followed the needle. He kept his eyes on the needle getting excited by the idea that it was actually working. Grinning, he said, “I’m going to find some gold and then I’ll get the next gift of magic.”

A few minutes later, he stopped in the middle of the kitchen. Looking up from his detector, he spotted the gold ring. He reached out to grab it and then realized that it was around a finger. Tracing the finger to the arm and then to the face, he found his mother glaring at him. He realized what had happened and said, “This isn’t good.”

“What are you doing?” Sean’s mother asked.

“I’m looking for gold,” Sean answered pointing at her ring. He realized that there was a major flaw in his plan. Although he hadn’t thought about it, he was surrounded by gold. Married people wore gold rings. There was a ton of gold jewelry everywhere. People even had gold teeth.

“You’re not getting my ring,” his mother said covering her hand. She figured that it was time for her to give him his allowance. She knew that he hadn’t been desperate for it since he still had a stack of bills in his desk drawer.

“I know,” Sean said feeling depressed. He realized that his detector was about as useless as a compass in a magnet store. Even his truck was covered in gold.

“Aren’t you supposed to be grounded?” his mother asked.

“Now that you mention it, yes,” Sean answered.

“Well.”

“Well what?” Sean asked.

“What are you doing out of your room?” his mother asked.

“I’m not grounded to my room. I’m just not allowed to see Suzie,” Sean said.

“Oh. That’s right,” his mother said. She muttered, “I still say we should have used them for Leprechaun bait.”

“What does that involve?” Sean asked. He couldn’t imagine how he and Suzie could be used to attract Leprechauns.

“You don’t want to know,” his mother said with an evil grin.

“You’re probably right,” Sean said.

“Well, get out of the kitchen. I’ve got to finish cooking dinner,” his mother said.

“What are we having?”

Sean’s mother answered, “Meatloaf.”

“Awk,” Sean said as he turned green. Holding his hand over his mouth, he headed towards the hall bathroom hoping to make it in time. Just the idea of eating meatloaf made him sick to his stomach.

Watching him run from the room, his mother said, “I wonder what is wrong with him.”

She followed him down the hallway to the bathroom. The sounds coming out of the room were not natural. She frowned and knocked on the door. Sean shouted, “Go away! I’m dying in here.”

Sean’s mother knocked on the door again and asked, “Are you okay?”

“No,” Sean answered swearing that he could smell garlic. He wiped his mouth hoping that was the end of it.

“What’s the matter?” she asked wondering if he was suffering from food poisoning or something.

“The idea of eating meatloaf makes me sick,” Sean said. It was amazing that just mentioning meatloaf was like an instantaneous return to how he felt that night.

“What’s wrong with meatloaf?” Sean’s mother asked. Outside of that one little failure, she felt that she made a pretty good meatloaf.