The teacher locked up the classroom at the end of the day. As soon as

she left, an aura of magic overwhelmed the classroom. Books’ pages

ruffled. Color pencils slowly drew themselves to a "standing" position.

Binder papers flew out of their binders and danced around the room.

"Stop!" squeaked a little Magic Rub eraser who was standing next to

her mother, Mrs. Ima Schoolwide Planner. "Everyone, calm down!" called

out Magi, gathering up strength from the encouraging squeeze of her

mother’s pages. "The pencils are coming out soon!"

The color pencils, who were distantly related to the #2’s, snapped to

attention. Dry Erase markers, who were Mrs. White Board’s grandchildren,

swirled nonsense on the board while their grandmother giggled herself silly.

Mr. Teacher’s Desk (though everyone called him T. D. for short)

began squabbling with the Mini Desks over who was talking

more loudly—him or them. In the end, their quarrel was cut short by the

loud ringing of Ms. Dial A. Number. She spoke in a loud and obnoxious

voice, much like the sound of her rings.

"MAGIC MARKERS, ANNOUNCE THE ARRIVAL OF THE

PENCILS!" yelled Ms. Dial. As the commotion began again, everyone

ignored her. That was, except the Magic Markers Babies, who were very

intimidated by the black phone who would flop about screeching at

everyone when she was excited.

"STEREO!" shrieked Ms. Dial. The stereo began playing quiet,

peaceful music. Ms. Dial wasn’t happy, however. "WE NEED

INTRODUCTORY MUSIC!" she hollered. "I CAN ALWAYS

DETACH YOUR MODULES . . .!"

Hurriedly, the stereo’s assistant corrected his error. A little forgotten

water bottle (by students, but not by the class objects) balancing a tape on

top of its cap bounced over to it. A stapler pushed the tape inside,

and the Mr. Boom Box/Stereo (he married twice, and it is stereos’ tradition

to be named after their wives maiden names), shut the tapeholder.

"MUUUUUUSIC!" yelled the imperious telephone. Because of her

agitation, she hadn’t noticed some Post-Its playing with her cord. Yet.

Under T. D., a long roll of paper had been stretched out, making a sort

of "curtain" for the performers to hide behind. The star ballerina, Pink M. E.

Chanical, reloaded her lead nervously.

"I am completely going to blow it," she confessed to her best friend,

Violet Hiliter, who was nodding sympathetically and attaching little strips of

paper to Pink. The strips would serve as ‘costume.’

"Oh dear," Violet said, as she realized Pink’s lead was rising. Pink

was going to be violently sick in a few minutes, which would mean that

Violet should get a lot of pencils out of the way. "Everybody hustle!" she

said, "Pink’s got stage fright."

"Again?" an unfortunate little two-pointed pencil (sharpened on both

ends—he had very good balance) moaned. He was quickly silenced by his

elders, who understood Pink was at the height of her ‘youth’. Only having

been newly bought, she was subject to what humans called mood swings,

and what pencils called lead eruptions. There were two different types: quiet

eruptions, and explosive eruptions. It looked like this would be an explosive

eruption.

A minute later, the top of Pink blew off in an expulsion of black

pieces of lead. Violet darted everywhere, trying to catch them so she could

insert them right back into Pink. No such luck.

Mortally embarrassed, Pink leaned against one of T. D.’s legs and

groaned, "There is no way I can do this. I feel like I’ve got the Leedies."

The Leedies were what pencils called the flu—everyone got it once in

a while, only it was worse for pencils, because their only food was lead.

Pencils need lead, and it’s very expensive to come by. A pencil can die very

easily when it doesn’t have lead. Also, when it lies forgotten in their

owner’s pencil bag, not even being conscious of the conversation of the high

lighters, erasers, glue stickers, white-out, etc. already in there. Since lead

was their only meal, when pencils got the Leedies, they just had to eat the

expelled lead over again . . . and that wasn’t very pleasant.

The Number Twos were almost immortal, since they could last for a

lasting time while they were "dull"—though you could hardly have an

intelligent conversation with them then. The #2’s murmured

sympathetically amongst themselves for a short while. Then one spoke up,

saying decisively, "There is no way we can force Pink to star in this ballet.

It must either be cancelled . . . or we must find a new leading ballerina."

Everyone immediately swiveled around and stared at Violet,

eyelessly, but obviously all the same. Violet looked around for a minute

before realization dawned on her. "No way! No, I can’t be—" but another

mechanical pencil was already taking Pink’s strips away and sticking them

onto her, with the help of a Mister Glu Stic.

"Nonononononono!" the squeals of the purple high lighter were heard

from outside, where absolutely chaos had erupted, and Ms. Dial was at the

peak of her temper. Suddenly Pink ran outside and croaked, "Everyone,

please be quiet. We have a mechanical difficulty. It should only take a few

short moments before we are ready to begin. I would appreciate it if

everyone behaved during those moments." She looked especially hard at

Ms. Dial and the Magic Markers. The M. M.’s blushed modestly and went

to amuse Mrs. White Board, while Ms. Dial simply rung impudently at

Pink’s already turning back.

Suddenly, everyone went silent. The doorknob was turning. Faster

than lightning, everything was in its proper place. The teacher walked back

into the classroom and turned on the lights. Her classmates were following

her, saying, "Now we can’t go on our field trip! What was the use of that?"

"We can just stay and learn something instead, since this happens to

be an year-round boarding school." Every object in the room struggled to

conceal its disappointment. It was obvious what the teacher’s mistake had

been.

She had forgotten her keys.