The Hand that Holds the Pen

"Come on Alex, open it." Said a middle aged woman in a house dress. You usually don't see woman like this in San Jose, California, but she was different. Her mother taught her to be a house wife. To cook, clean, and take care of the house she lives in. Unfortunately, the typical house wife has a husband to go out and bring home the bacon, she didn't. Her and Mr. Mendosa parted ways when Alex, the young man in front of her celebrating his sixteenth birthday, was only five. As she saw her son now; light tan skin, short straight hair combed conveniently forward so it hung an inch above his eyes, and a body type that can only be described as scrawny, she couldn't help but wish that her lousy ex-husband were here today. Not because she missed him, but because every boy needs a man in his life. Alex wasn't the strongest boy in school, and far from the coolest. He would come home with bruises and bleeding, or missing articles of clothing, or starving because the lunch she packed for him wasn't eaten by him. Instead of hanging out with friends at the mall or talking on the phone, he spends most of his time in his room writing stories about witches, goblins, gallant nights, and beautiful damsels in need of rescuing. He only had one friend to invite to his birthday party, a beautiful young lady named Sarah who has been friends with Alex for years now. Alex had invited Sarah to join him and his mother for his little birthday celebration, but she had gymnastics practice so it was just Alex and his mother 

"Who is it from Alex?" his mother asked, knowing exactly who it was from. Alex didn't answer, he was looking at the sticker on the package that was wrapped in brown, rough paper, tided with brown twine. On that sticker, it read simply from Grandpa, to Alex. 

"It's a present from grandpa." Alex finally answered in a low voice; a small smile grew on his mother's face. 

"Your grandma sent it over to me about a month ago. She was cleaning out the attic when she found that. She dusted it off of course, but basically exactly as she found it." Without even saying another word, Alex untied the ribbon and ripped open the package. He grabbed the tip of the tape that sealed the box, yanking it off and opening the flaps. The box was very misleading for anyone who was trying to figure out what was inside. The box was about a foot tall, but the item was only a forth of the boxes height. It was a bound book with a real leather cover with something had Alex never saw before. The back cover of the book was longer then the front, about seven inches longer. And it had a string of leather through a small whole on the flap, on the inside the string is tied in a knot and the outside of the book the rest of the fifteen inches of string to wrap it around the book and keep it closed. He fell in love instantly; it was like a book a real writer would us. He took the book out of the box, unwrapped it, and flipped through the pages. No writing. The only thing on the pages was lines across so the person writing in it keeps their sentences straight. It didn't have the great, new book smell that he loved so much. It smelt old, dusty. But it wasn't bad. 

"I didn't know grandpa wrote." Alex said sliding his fingers over the black, blank leather cover. 

"I didn't either, but your grandfather was always full of surprises." The whole time, Alex didn't take his eyes off the book. An uncomfortable silence drifted through the room. 

"So what's the first thing you're going to write in your new book?" 

"Oh, I don't know, it doesn't really work like that. You have to kind of have to wait till something comes to you. But you have to help it along by letting your mind wonder around different topics." 

"What about a hamburger that eats the neighbors' dogs?" She said jokingly. Alex laughed lightly.

Later that night, Sarah had called him to apologize for not coming. Alex had told her it was alright, but she felt so bad she didn't stop apologizing. They talked for a half an hour till they hung up. Alex was in his room. He was sitting at a desk, which was just an open table with four legs, in his pajamas, looking at a blank page of the leather writing book. What was he going to write? What ever it is, it had to be good. He wanted it to be good. He took a ball point pen from his pencil holder, his favorite kind of pen, and started writing. He wrote about a man, five hundred years ago, who got cursed by a wizard. The wizard was jealous because the man had the love of a beautiful woman, a love that the wizard desperately wanted for himself. The curse was that at night, the man transformed into a giant dragon and changed back to a man during the day. Even with her love gone into hiding, the beautiful woman still didn't love the wizard. That angered him beyond measure, so he cursed her as well. During the day she turned into a mouse, and turned back to normal at night. The wizard told her if she wanted to change herself back, she has to give her love to him and only him. But when he told her that no matter what, he would never change her love back to normal, she refused. He had to think of what the wizard looked like, and only one reference came to mind. He was the bully from Alex's school, Kevin Arroeborne. He was eighteen, six foot two, with blonde hair and blue eyes. He was on the football team, a typical letter wearing jock, so he was in good shape. But he was a quarter back, so he was on the slimmer side. Chiseled jaw, flawless skin, the kind of guy you hate just because he is so perfect and because all the girls love him. But that wasn't why he hated him, Kevin loved to have a nerd punching bag. And unless someone pissed him off more then Alex does, he was it. So of course the evil villain looked exactly like him. The first paragraph was about how after the lovers were cursed, the wizard