Two Worlds (Written by a 10-year-old author, 62,000 words, 72 chapters)

Chapter 4: A war has begun

Two days later, the main elf city was overrun by little people. The warning came in the form of a bell ringing loudly. Lily scrambled out of bed. "Lily!" Jake stood at the doorway. "We need you downstairs, now!" Lily grabbed her bag of weapons and rushed out the door, Jake trailing behind. The alarm bell kept ringing, which was becoming really annoying. A crowd of elves surrounded the main city. The intruders shoved their way through, occasionally pausing to use their supply of sleep powder. Lily grabbed a random grenade from her bag, keeping her eyes on the enemy. The first attacker who emerged from the crowd hit Tara with a sleep bomb before she could punch him. She collapsed, unconscious. Lily threw the grenade.

ZAAAAAAAPFWOOM! Lily instantly knew something was wrong as lightning shot out of the grenade. She watched in fascinated horror as the writhing guy was enveloped in crackling light. The lightning dissipated and the attacker collapsed. The crowd gasped. The rest of the attackers immediately ran back the way they came. Jake ran to the person's side and checked his heartbeat. After a count of three, he stood up. "The attacker was a dwarf," he said. "By killing this intruder, we have destroyed our peace. A war has begun." Oops.

Even though Jake kept saying it wasn't Lily's fault, Lily could tell he was distressed. After Tara regained consciousness, she came to talk to Lily. "Lily," she said. "It's going to be okay. It's not entirely your fault. We should've been more aware. The war can't be stopped, but we've found something that might help." Tara led Lily down several halls to a closed door. She knocked on the door. A woman with blond hair came out. "Lily, this is Stacy," Tara said. "She works in the control center. "Come in," Stacy said.

The control center was a replica of the NASA space center. There were just too many computers. The electronics crowded the room, filling the air with beeping sounds. Most of them had elves sitting in chairs, working. Stacy went to the nearest idle computer and plugged in a USB drive. "So," she said, typing furiously, "We are in a war with the dwarves. We have to create a powerful weapon to assist us in the battle. The problem is, we don't have a dwarf with us at the moment to test on and we need something with the same DNA. The only other beings with similar DNA are ..." Stacy spun the computer around to face Lily. She squinted at the picture. "A penguin?" "Exactly!" Stacy continued to type. Lily couldn't push away the thought that dwarves were related to penguins. "Your home planet, Earth, has no location that we know of with penguins. And becau..." Stacy continued.

"Stacy?"

"What?"

"What about Antarctica?"