The words appeared on Elephant's Child's blog, yesterday. They are given by Hilary Melton-Butcher - as every Wednesday in July.
This meme was started by Delores a long time ago. Troubles led her
to bow out, but the meme was too much fun to let go, and now Words for Wednesday is provided by a number of people and has become a movable feast with Elephant's Child as our coordinator.
Essentially the aim of this meme is to encourage us to write. Each
week we are given some prompts. These prompts can be words, phrases,
music or images.
What we do with those prompts is up to us: a short story, prose, a song, a poem, or treating them with ignore...
We can use some or all of the prompts, and mixing and matching is encouraged.
Some of us put our creation in comments on the post, and others post on their own blog. This fun meme includes cheering on the other participants.
And the more the merrier
goes here as well, so if you are posting on your own blog then please
tell us in the comments, so that all other participants, can come along
and applaud. - - - - -
I am - once again - continuing the story of the mysterious examination in
transformation and using the words in the order they were given.
I'm
still not satisfied with the story or my writing skills. But I want to tell
this story! Bits and pieces are missing. This whole chapter is in for a solid
re-write before making it into the book. But I still want to tell it, so here we go. But first, the Words:
Jubilant
Ginger
Shimmering
Beachcombing
Smudge
Rosetta Stone And/orCharcoal
Wool
Toga
Abyss
Coffee
Leaves"It fits!" Knud was jubilant. His transformed puzzle piece featuring Ayer's Rock fit perfectly into the surrounding pieces.
"Well done!"Jon said. All the other apprentices were already done with their test and were now crowding into the green room, cheering on the green team in their ordeal. Susan could see My's ginger locks above the rows behind, she mus be using the floating spell to see anything a all.
Rósa had picked up the boomerang and it's edges caught the sun. "I'm next," she said, "but I need to shrink, and then transform this to make it fit - even more so than Knud."
"Come on, you can do it!" they cheered her on,and Rósa closed her eyes in concentration, opened them again, looked at the boomerang, swung her wand and murmured: "
Minnka þu!" The boomerang shrank somewhat, but it was still too big to comfortably fit in.
"Once again, Rósa!" Veronika said, "and Kalle and Anna, pull back a little, you're crowding her." Anna and Kalle obeyed and Rósa, now given space to swing her wand freely, shrunk the boomerang. "Phew," she said. "And now for the transforming part. Let me see, blanks on top, and to the left, and tabs bottom and right to fit the hole there. Sandy background, as we're in a desert: "
Boomerang, vertu að bita púsluspils!" The boomerang shifted, shimmered and finally turned into a jigsaw piece.
"Yes!" Kalle cheered. "You did it!"
Rósa sank to the nearest chair, spent, and greedily gulped the water someone handed her.
"Now you," Hilde said and pointed at Susan. "your platypus should fit in there, next to those beachcombing aboriginals. You can see its nest."
"Yes, Hilde," Susan said with a sigh. "We agreed that this is where it would fit. But I still think that changing the stamp from my letter would be easier. It's roughly the right size, and admitted, I'd be sad to transform that small figurine."
"Have you forgotten that they will eventually change back, maybe?" Hilde asked, the triumph clear from stance and voice.
"Yes I forgot," Susan said. "But still the stamp would be the easier way." Susan continued, now a bit stubborn.
"It would," Jon said, "but the easiest solution is not always the best."
Confronted with these words from Jon, Susan had no choice left. She looked at the hole, and looked once again. "Oh," she said, "but there's two empty spaces next to one another down there. Not only one. I'll need to transform both."
She then took the small, beautifully carved wooden platypus in her hand, swung the wand just so and imagining a piece fitting half the hole and blending into the surrounding pieces, and said the words. She felt more than saw the figurine transform and placed it into the left part of the hole. The she freed the stamp from the envelope, leaving behind a smudge of glue. I was easier this time. Susan was happy over all the hours spent together with Heidi and the twins practising transformation, they paid off now. The incident with the clothes peg and the swallow had been a key experience for her, what Gilvi called her Rosetta moment.
In rapid succession Hilde, then Kirstin, Josta, Kalle and Anna did their transformations, pieces with charcoal shadows, emerald green grasses and woollen sheep filled the holes in the puzzle. Marja had some trouble transforming the flowers into a piece, she had to be told that 'a toga' was a Roman dress and 'taiga' the Russian word for steppes before finally hitting the right wording for her spell.
"You need to be more attentive in the Icelandic lessons," Jon admonished her. "I know it's harder for you, coming from Finland, as Icelandic and Finnish are two different language families. But don't make a hole into an abyss. You can learn!"
"I will," Marja said. "But, oh, how I wish I could do my magic in Finnish as Tähti and Taavi do."
"I can smell the coffee," Hilde said. "Lunch will be soon."
"You'll make it," Jon said, "only missing two pieces now, and you have ten minutes to go!"
Veronika picked up the leaves, and cheered on by the atmosphere in the room she transformed them into a piece to fill in the next to last hole in the puzzle.
"Terje, you did the whole puzzle," Jon said. "It's an honour to fill the last hole.
His confidence bolstered by Jon's kind words made Terje smile broadly while picking up the tiny white leaves. Slowly and distinctly he spoke the words enlarging them, and just as painstakingly slow he said the words and waved his wand to make them into a puzzle piece.Nobody drew a breath, nobody said a word as Terje's big hand placed the piece in the very last hole.
Then a lot of things happened at once.The puzzle glowed, shifted and turned into a big, big map of Australia with a zillion teeny tiny details. Everybody let out their breath in jubilant sounds or cheers, only a single cat-call was heard, but stopped before anyone discovered the source. The big bell in the belfry stroke one. The time was up.
"We made it!" Susan said loudly.
