Um, so, hi! I’m Cinnamon! (That’s me, below!)
And I’m supposed to tell you that my biographer, Anthony Francis, is working on my third book, ROOT USER, for Camp Nanowrimo! Camp is the sister challenge to the November challenge to write 50,000 words in a month, and that sounds crazy unless you are my brother and love writing words, and are not dyslexic and ADD and whatever, and what was I saying? SO! Anyway. My biographer’s busy writing, or something. So you get me! Except, um, I gots nothin’, except, hey, I’m a teenage weretiger, and this is my third book! The first two ain’t out yet, but this one has monsters and high school and kids straight out of Harry Potter and yummy yummy wereguys fightin’ over the me. Choice! I am awesome, if I do say so myself about myself. Hee hee!
What? Oh! Ok. My biographer is askin’ me to post an excerpt or somethin’, so, here goes:
I glowers. “Fine,” I says.
We steps up to the blockhouse surroundin’ the base of the mineshaft. Nri nods to the guard, makes a funny hand sign. The guard nods, opens the chain, lets us in—but as he puts the chain back, he flips down a sign that says, MAINTENANCE—OUT OF ORDER.
“This elevator seems to be out of order a lot lately,” I mutters. “Your doin?”
“Yes, but why do you care?” Nri asks, pullin’ out a key. “You have a teleporter—”
“Common knowledge, thanks to you,” I grumbles, and it’s true: Nri has no respect for my secrets, none at all, but he’s cagey as a wolf. “Now everyone wants to pop out in my den, every time you’re doin’ whatever you’re doin’—what are you doin’ down here, anyway?”
“Using the elevator’s special features,” Nri says, slidin’ the gate closed.
He inserts the key, turns it—and the elevator starts to go down.
“Hey!” I says, as the blockhouse recedes above us. “I thought this was ground zero!”
“Ground floor,” Nri corrects. “But no, it is not. The Werehold is a basement. This …”
“Sub-basement?” I asks hopefully, as the shaft recedes above us.
“I said I’d tell you on the surface,” Nri says. “I never said the surface of what.”
And then … the world turns upside down.
“Whooaoaaoaa!” I cries, as my feet lifts off the floor—and the elevator keeps descendin. Nri has moved to the side of the elevator, and grips the cage, turnin’ his body a hundred and eighty degrees, so his feet are pointin’ at the ceiling—and then I falls. Up! “Ow!”
Nri’s feet land on the ceilin’. I lands on my noggin.
Ow! Embarrasin’. Why’d you have to call up that bit, Mister Biographer, huh? Rip your face off, I oughtta. Grr. And stop calling me cute when I growl. A tiger, I am, not to be mocked by those who could be morsels—stop touslin’ my hair!
Grrrrr. Enjoy, or whatevers.
-Cinnamon, on behalf of the Centaur
