Fabian's Fables

“Fabian. Fascinating and Brilliant in Anything New……” “Hey, what’s up, FAKE-ian?” And the big bully pushed him aside. He fell and nearly knocked down the rack of keychains with names on it. “N-nothing,” Fabian whimpered. “I-I’m just looking at my name, that’s all.” “Your name? Hahaha.” The bully looked at the keychain. “They spelled it wrong. It should F-A-K-I-A-N. Yeah, that’s right.” The bully stormed off, cackling, leaving poor Fabian cowering on the ground. The timid young lad got up, dusted himself off, and ran to hide in a corner. Peeping out from behind some shelves in the shop, he could see his friend Charlie, who saw the whole thing, confronting the bully. He inched closer to them and strained his ears to pick up their conversation. “Why do you have to pick on him like that? He not even doing anything to you! And why do you have to call him such names?” “Because, Charlie-Brown, that he loves making up fables. It’s another word for stories. And all of them are so fake!” explained the bully. “He thinks he can become a good writer, but whoever heard of magical talking pixies who ride corgis and little animals and talk to mermaids and stuff? Who would wanna read all that dope? Total bollocks.” “He’s a writer. He can write anything he wants.” “Charlie sighed. “Look, Marcus. Just because you prefer reading only a certain type of genre doesn’t mean you have to insult writers who write other genres. There are people who like reading fantasy. Deal with it.” The bully scoffed and stormed off, giving Charlie the evil eye. Charlie turned his back and walk to the corner where his bestie was hiding. “You ok?” He knelt down by his friend and gently touched his arm. Fabian nodded. “I’m fine. I just don’t get why I’m bullied so much for writing fantasy. It just doesn’t make any sense!” “Maybe because they’re just jealous that they don’t have an imagination as wild as yours,” Charlie smiled. Fabian began to feel better. He smiled, too. “Maybe.” They both crouched in the corner until Fabian got up and moved to a reading area in the middle of the bookstore. Charlie followed. “Wanna read some of my stories?” Fabian asked. “Sure. Fantasy’s kinda cool.” “But you mustn’t show anyone, though. I’m not done with all of them yet, and I don’t want anyone copying my ideas.” “Ok,” Charlie nodded. They both looked around to see that no one was watching them among the shelves. Then, Fabian pulled out a large, thick notebook from his backpack and placed in on a table.” “Ok, here we go!” As Fabian slowly opened the notebook, the spine began to glow, much to Charlie’s surprise. The colourful words and pictures in Fabian’s handwriting sparkled on the pages as he flipped through the book. And suddenly, they were no longer in the bookstore.