It is a little long, I think, but it should be manageable...
Ink
"Jesus, this place is dirty!"
Kevin couldn't help but think so after seeing the ground littered with garbage.
He was a short young man of fourteen years, at five feet tall. He has blonde hair that almost comes down to his eyes, behind his ears, and down the back of his neck. He had a part on the left side of his hair. He has green eyes and his teeth are white with a slight yellow tint.
Unfortunately, he had to walk across the filth as he made his way to school. The whole thing was a prank by the high school students, who had dug up garbage from around the neighborhood and the town and thrown it all over the lawn.
He stepped on a half-eaten sandwich. "Gross!" He yelled. He picked up his shoe to scrape off the sandwich, when he noticed something on the ground. Kevin reached down and picked it up. It looked like a black permanent marker. "Oh cool, a Sharpie!"
He did not see the label, for it did not say "Sharpie". There was a different word on it.
He took it to class with him. After all, he would need it for today's in-class project.
The time came, and he had to use the marker. Lucky for him, it was right before he started he realized he had forgotten to bring his own.
Things started out like normal. He marked paper with their names, he marked the paper with captions to their pictures, marked the paper with lines for decoration, and marked the air with the same lines.
Wait. The air?
Kevin was taken fully by surprise. When he had not been using the marker, it was flailing through the air, and for some reason, the very air had been marked by the marker.
Kevin simply stared at it for a second, and then looked down at the body of the pen. On its grey surface, in big black cursive letters, was the word "Ink."
He quickly looked at the other members of the group. He wanted to see if they had noticed, which they hadn't.
He turned back to the mark in the air. He examined it for a moment, and then reached out. He felt something in his hand as he reached for the line in the air. He found he was able to grab it, and more surprising, was able to move it.
He looked around again, and then jammed the mark in his pocket.
He then tried to put it out of his mind, but he soon found that was near impossible. For the last two hours of school he could not help but think about it. Two thoughts occurred during this time. One was trying to find an explanation for what had happened. Then after that another one struck him. The possibilities of what he could do with it seemed endless.
When school finally ended, he dashed home, eager to try out his new toy. He raced through the door, bolted through the house, and hurried into his room. The door shut firmly behind him.
What he was going to do next had to be kept a secret.
He took out the marker, named Ink, and took off the cap.
Kevin then put it out in front of him, his arm fully extended. He then moved it from side to side. Sure enough, a black line appeared from the tip of the writing device.
Kevin beamed for a moment, a little surprised he was able to do it again; intentionally this time.
Without lifting the marker, he drew another line from the end of the first, downwards this time.
He then went left, and finally went upwards to complete the square.
Kevin then looked at his creation. He was amazed, as it simply floated there, unmoving. He reached out to touch it, but, as soon as he did it fell to the ground with a thud.
He stepped back, startled by the sudden fall. He thought for a moment as his eyes gazed at the drawing that lay on the floor. I wonder...
He decided to test what he was thinking. He drew another line in the air, and just like the first line and the square, it floated there. He reached out and touched it. As he expected, it dropped onto the floor.
That proved it. The drawings aren't affected by gravity until they are touched!
That was when he noticed something odd about the cap. He examined it.
The cap itself was black in color, but the very end was blacker than the rest of the cap.
He guessed it acted as some sort of eraser. Kevin decided to try. He flipped Ink in his hand so that the cap was now in front. He bent over, and put the cap onto the square, and began to rub.
Sure enough, the lines began to vanish. Kevin had been right.
Hmmm... he thought. He continued to erase the square, and did so until it was all gone. He then took the line he had just made and erased that. Finally, he took the line he had accidentally made in class, and erased that too.
Now all the evidence was gone. It was time to dispose of the marker.
He stood up and opened the door, exiting the room. He headed toward the bathroom, and walked toward the trash-can.
He reached down to drop it in, but then froze. He recalled thinking about the possibilities. What would it be like if he actually did that?
A mischievous smile spread across Kevin's face. This is going to be good!
He spent the rest of the day planning on what he was going to do.
Kevin had trouble sleeping that night, far too excited about what he was going to do tomorrow to go to bed.
The next day, he couldn't wait for the bus to get there; he wanted to get to school as fast as possible so he could start the day. For the first time in a long while, he was actually happy for the bus to pull up at the end of the driveway.
He sat impatiently in the back of the bus, fumbling with Ink in his hands. He flipped it this way and that, trying to keep himself occupied and forget how impatient he was becoming.
Then the bus reached the school, and the other kids could not figure it out. He was the first one off.
He hurried to his first class of the day, and quickly sat down, though not before doing something to the teacher's chair.
The bell rang, and the teacher entered the room. She headed over to her chair and sat down.
A moment later she bolted upwards, grasping her posterior and yelling out in pain.
She reached down and pulled out something small, and black. Kevin knew what it was. It was a makeshift tack he had made with Ink.
"Gah! Who?!? Wait..." Kevin's teacher looked at it more closely. "The heck is this...?" Apparently she forgot about pursuing the culprit. "Bah." She shook her head and threw it away.
Kevin had difficulty suppressing a laugh. Then, when his teacher tossed the makeshift tack, he eyed it intently. He would need to be able to find it after class, and that would be very difficult if he did know where it landed.
After class, he went over, and checking over his shoulder to make sure the teacher wasn't looking, he picked up the line of the floor. He took out Ink and erased the line.
Yes! I got away with it!
He played similar pranks in all of his other classes. However, they were common pranks. One of the pranks was when Kevin fastened his Science teacher's chair in place, which meant the teacher could not pull it out and sit down.
The first original one was near the end of the day. Before class started, he wrote just shy of the white board at the front of the board. On it was an insult toward the teacher, calling him a rather rude word. He made sure to draw lines to make the text one object, so that when touched the letters would fall to the floor collectively. It hung in the air a millimeter from the whiteboard.
His teacher entered the room, and saw the message. "Seriously?" He was quiet at first, and then the pencil in his hand snapped in half. He slapped the rude writing, shouting "WHO IN THE BLAZES WROTE THIS?!?" The whole class was quiet, which allowed for the sentence dropping on the floor to be heard.
Kevin's teacher was startled when the message on the board suddenly detached from the whiteboard and fell to the floor.
Of course this was because he had touched it, allowing gravity to take over.
His teacher simply looked down at the ground in disbelief, trying to comprehend what had just happened.
Then after about a minute of staring at the message, he reached down and picked it up, and then went over to the trash can. He put it just behind the garbage disposal, as it was too big to fit.
Kevin was on the verge of losing it. That was hilarious![i] He was almost unable to keep his laughter to himself.
He was proud of himself, having successfully pulled off another prank, but also for coming up with an original one.
But as he soon decided on his way home, that was not enough to satisfy him. No, there were still some possibilities to be explored, at least that was what Kevin figured. However, they would only work in a real world setting, an out of school scenario.
He spent that night thinking of other things he could do with Ink, trying to imagine what else could be done. That was when he realized something. He did not know how strong the actual marks were.
Kevin decided he would need to test it out.
Thankfully he was able to test it out the very next morning. Before his dad left for work, Kevin went outside and drew what looked like a triangular prism, except the short side was missing. He placed it under the tire of the car.
Then, as he headed out toward the school bus, which was after his dad left, he noticed something. The shape was completely intact, even though one of the main supports was gone.
That settled it. If it could do that, then the material was unbreakable.
Kevin snickered. [i]Perfect!
The next morning, he snuck outside, ran a little ways toward the school and went to work.
He drew a foot-long line and used it to dig four small holes into the ground. He then built a web across the pavement, which would keep the buses from passing. Once that was done, he drew four rods on the bottom of the net; those would go in the holes and keep the net from moving. After that, he touched the device and it fell into place.
When he was done, he quickly hurried back to his house and flung himself into bed.
Two hours later, his mother came in, and silently declared, "There's no school."
"What?" Kevin asked, pretending to be surprised.
"I heard they can't get the buses out of the parking lot. There is something blocking the way, and they can't seem to remove it."
"Huh. That's weird." Kevin commented.
"Well... have fun." His mother was referring to sleeping in. Kevin didn't answer; he simply lay there and closed his eyes.
His mother smiled, and closed the door behind her.
Once Kevin was sure she was far enough away, he pumped his fist into the air, and grinned to himself. Success!
He rested until noon, a worthy treat for all of his hard work.
When it came time, he got up and had a hearty breakfast, before going outside to start the day. After all, he had no time to waste; there was much to be done.
He started out by heading down the street to the park. There was an old man who lived facing away from the park, and it was common for the neighborhood kids to throw rocks at his house. Or at least, it used to be. Measures had been taken, and the rocks had been removed.
But with Ink, he could make his own rocks.
So he reached the house, took out the marker, and began to draw.
When he was done, his rock floated in the air in front of him. He grabbed it, wound up, and threw it toward the old man's house. It broke a window.
"Oh Fudge!" Kevin said, running. Only he didn't say fudge. What he really said was a lot more vulgar in nature, the grand daddy of vulgar language.
He quickly ran away as he heard rustling inside as the old man went to investigate. By the time the old man was able to reach the window and yell out "You darn kids!” Kevin was out of sight.
Next, he went downtown. A child was standing with her mother waiting to cross the street. The little girl was holding a red balloon over her head.
On the spur of the moment, Kevin had an idea. He took Ink and marked the air with a small straight line. He went a little easier on the end, which meant less ink appeared. It had the effect of making the end pointed and sharp.
Kevin flipped over the marker so that the cap was in front now. He would need to move quickly, he then switched it over to his left hand and grabbed the mark with his right.
In one seamless movement, he took the makeshift needle, and stabbed the balloon. At the same time his left hand came up toward his right. He brought the needle back and moved it leftwards, toward the cap. In a single moment he brushed the cap against the mark, erasing it entirely. The whole thing occurred in less than a second.
Before the girl realized what was going on, Kevin had turned a corner and was gone. Though, after a few seconds, Kevin could hear the little girl's cry pierce the air as she put together the picture. His only reaction was a mischievous chortle.
Later, he pulled yet another trick. Against the brick of the grocery store was a bicycle. Kevin walked up to it and looked around to make sure no one was watching him
He then went to work. His idea spurred from when a stick was caught between the spokes, and rammed up against the frame, the wheel would stop turning. He did this between the spokes on both sides of the frame greatly restricting the movement of the wheel. He then connected the two so they could not be taken off.
He then ran away and hid just as the owner of the bicycle exited the store. He came, and hopped on to ride away but found he could not move forward. He also some came to find he could not move backwards either.
Kevin's prank had worked. He ran away laughing.
Yes, Kevin was having the time of his life. He came up with many pranks, at least twenty. On one of them, however, it turned out he didn't need Ink at all, so he didn't use it, just for that one.
And then there was one incident where he used it to fix a problem. While playing outside with a few friends of his, the only ball they had went sailing onto the roof of a nearby building. Dejected, they all turned away, except for Kevin.
He was already thinking ahead. He drew Ink from his pocket, and immediately began drawing.
He made two sets of parallel lines about a foot from each other. The lines themselves were at least fifteen feet long. After that he drew rungs, each a foot apart.
He was done. He put the cap on Ink, and jammed it into his pocket.
Looking back up, he positioned the ladder onto the roof, and climbed up. Kevin grabbed the ball and threw it off, and watched as it bounced on the ground below. With a nod, he climbed back down and without another thought he went to work on erasing the ladder.
When that was done he grabbed the ball and ran to his friends. Needless to say they were surprised he had got it back, but didn’t argue. Their game resumed.
After all that was said and done, he had another idea. It was a wonderfully awful idea. He would play a prank on his sister. And he knew exactly what he was going to do. However, he would need to wait for the perfect opportunity.
And it came much sooner than he thought. His mother and father left for a couple of hours, leaving Kevin and his eight-year-old sister alone.
He immediately went to work. He constructed a square measuring two feet on each side. Then he drew so that the square was now a column four and a half feet high. He then drew eight bars on the top most square, turning it into a ceiling. He then made eight more bars on three of the long sides. Lastly, he drew eight bars on the bottom, making a floor.
He called his sister to come down the hallway, who happily came bounding down the corridor. She rounded the corner right into the structure. She ran into the back wall head on, which disoriented her for a moment.
That was all the time Kevin needed. He worked quickly, drawing a line down the middle of the fourth long side, and then drew a line in between the new line and the edges of the box, separating the side into fourths. He then separated the side into eights, drawing lines in between the lines.
He was done, the cage was fully constructed. It was just in time, his sister was recovering from the blow.
She quickly turned around and grabbed a hold of the bars. "What?" She gasped. "W-what is this?" Kevin's sister looked around. It was a little calm at first, and then it became more frantic as his sister grasped the situation.
"What? Why? Why are you doing this?" She shouted, wondering why he was doing so, not even concerned with how he did it.
"That's for putting that lizard in my shoe." Kevin crossed his arms.
"L-let me out!"
Kevin sneered. "I'll let you out when I feel like it." He meant he would do it after his game of football with the neighborhood boys, which would be before his parents came home.
So he went outside and played. While he was doing so however, Ink fell out of his pocket and lay there in the grass, long after Kevin went inside.
It was ten minutes before his parents were scheduled to return home.
He reached into his pocket to take out the marker. Kevin's heart sank when he realized it wasn't there.
He frantically searched his pockets, jamming his hands into each one and digging around trying to find it.
Then a thought struck him. Maybe it fell out while I was playing football! He raced outside, and quickly combed the grass for Ink.
He saw his parents go by. "Dammit!" He cursed aloud. Then he saw it. The boys he had been playing it moments before were riding their bikes home. They were taking their time however, so they didn't make much progress along the road.
He sprinted toward them, yelling "HEEEEEEYYYYY!" He was desperate to get their attention.
They didn't hear him, so he kept running and shouting.
They looked like they were about to take off, and he put on an extra burst of speed. He then yelled one final time. "HEEEEYYYYY!"
One of the boys seemed to take notice, and turned his head to see what was coming. His head then snapped back to his friends and said "Hey guys! Kevin is coming!" He looked back over his shoulder.
His friends also looked back as Kevin came over to them. In a moment he was there, panting heavily.
"H-h-hey guys." He stammered.
They could tell right away that something was wrong. "What's up?" one of them asked.
"Did you guys find a marker... ya' know, on the grass?"
They were puzzled for a second, then, one of them gave a surprised "Oh!" The speaker reached into his pocket and grabbed Ink out. "You mean this?"
Kevin was ecstatic. "Y-yes that it!" He said, grabbing the marker. "Thanks man!"
They were confused over why he was acting so weird. It's just a permanent marker...
Kevin ran back home.
He bolted into the house, expecting his parents had already found his sister. And he was right; he could hear their cries and shouts from the foyer.
"I can fix that! I can fix that!" He shouted, running through the house.
He came to the cage around his sister, his parents looked at him, too distraught and distracted by their daughters dilemma to get angry at him.
He rubbed furiously, quickly getting rid of the bars in front. His sister scrambled out, shouting "Mommy!" and hugging her mother tightly.
His father also came in for a hug. They all clung to each other for dear life, not daring to let go.
Kevin just stood there for a second, and then slumped against the wall. He sat for a second, then buried his face in his hands, and began to weep. A frightening realization suddenly washed over him.
His father got up, and Kevin did not have to look up to tell he was very cross. His father came up to him and yelled "Do you realize what could have happened?!?"
Kevin looked up. "I-I do, b-but I don't t-think you do." He tried.
"Don't you give me that lip boy!" His father said warned.
'It's permanent marker Dad. I know what could have happened."
"I said-" Then he stopped, taken off guard by Kevin's statement. "What the hell does permanent markers have to do with this?"
Kevin took a deep breath. "Everything." He took Ink in his hand, and drew a line in the air, to show his father what he meant.
His father was taken aback. "What the hell?" Without looking away he called, "Honey... come look at this."
That was when his mother came, her eyes still filled with tears. She looked down at Kevin with a look of disgust, but was then distracted by the line in the air in front of him. "W-what is that?"
Kevin began to explain. "This is Ink." He said. He drew another line in the air. "It's a marker that allows you to draw in the air." He said. He went on to explain the rules of the marker. How the objects floated until touched, how the cap could be used to erase the lines, and how strong the lines were.
It was then his parents realized the predicament his sister had really been it. The only way to destroy the lines was with Ink, or else she would be trapped forever.
Then he told them what had just happened. How he had lost the marker in the grass, and how he came to get it back.
After all was said and done, his parents were silent for a moment.
Then his father scowled, "You are really damn lucky someone found that. She could have been trapped in there forever had you not got it back." His father paused. "You really need to think about what could happen before you do something Kevin." He shook his head with a furious expression on his face. "Give me that." He snatched Ink away from Kevin. "Go to your room. You are grounded!" He snarled.
"Yes sir." Kevin replied softly, unable to form a different response. He slowly walked away. They could hear the door shut from around the corner.
First, he approached the mark in the air that Kevin had made, and though he was a bit hesitant at first, he switched the marker around so that the cap the facing forward. He rubbed away the line.
He was astonished at first. But then, he turned, and began to work on getting rid of the cage.
"So what are we going to do with it?" she asked finally.
He was silent for a moment. Then he said. "Well, we got to get rid of this thing. It sounds like it has caused too much trouble." He thought for a moment. "We can't bury it, because someone will find it someday. We can't give it away, because then someone else will be able to use it."
"Why not break it?" She suggested.
"No no..." he shook his head. "That probably won't work. If the pen’s ink is really strong, I'll bet the marker is really strong." Kevin's father continued to work. Then he stopped, having an idea. "We should probably donate it to a museum. After all, that is where this thing belongs."
Kevin's mother nodded. "Yes of course. But, we'll have to have Kevin repair the damage he's done first."
He chuckled. "All right. We'll get him to fix his misdeeds, and then we'll give it away."
As soon as the cage was gone, the preparations were underway. They worked very hard to get rid of the problems. Afterwards the went to a nearby museum to donate it. It took some convincing, during which they had to use the marker's power during the persuasion, but in the end they were successful. Their story was later heard around the world.
Please don't hesitate to tell me what you think!
