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Mrs. Framish wasn't her real name but it was close enough and would do nicely for this assignment. She'd always liked jobs that had her working with young readers the best so she'd been thrilled when she was offered a plum position working undercover as a reading teacher for a year. Catch them early, before bad habits were ingrained. And the children of Earth were such a pleasure to work with, most of the time.
She hated to think it, but the adults she'd met on MoJuste had trouble working out the simplest concepts without help, all thanks to Thorzuul's father. She'd watched as he'd worked to cut funding to the Mojuste equivalent of elementary schools. Some children still read. The ones who would always be readers, the ones who still visited the last library remaining on the planet. But they were few and far between and it had become almost impossible to locate new potential Storylords on Mojuste. Mrs. Framish knew that was Thorzuul's real plan - to weaken the Storylords so that they could no longer help the people of Mojuste.
The remaining Storylords had conferred. There was only one option left to them. They had always drawn some of their ranks from Earth, now they must work even harder to locate the few suitable candidates to fill their ranks. Lexor had been the one to come up with the plan to rotate Storylords into undercover assignments on Earth, working with the children to improve their reading comprehension skills and, in the process, finding the handful who had the imagination and strength of belief to join their ranks.
It was a risky plan. They were already stretched way too thin having lost a whole generation of Storylords to the lack of early education and sparing even one Storylord from their regular duties would be hard on the others, who would have to pick up the slack. At least until they found new Storylords to train.
Mrs. Framish hated the thought of sending her students into danger, but she knew that some of the newly minted apprentice Storylords would have too great a burden placed on their shoulders way too young. She regretted that it had to be this way, but Thorzuul was an even greater threat than his father, despite his buffoonery.
Wisconsin proved a pleasant place to go undercover. Used to the children of Monjuste's apathy, the eager readers in her classes soon reminded her of the joy she had in sharing her skills. It didn't take long before she'd identified a dozen potential Storylords in her classes, a dozen children quick to grasp the skills that allowed them to comprehend what they read. Not all of them had that extra spark, but some might develop it along the way. A couple who just absorbed all they read and didn't stop to think about the mechanics that came so naturally to them. And then there was Norbert.
Norbert, who had that extra spark from the start. Norbert, who not only loved to read, but loved to discuss how to understand what he read. Mrs. Framish knew after he had been in her class less than a week that he would become a Storylord someday. She hoped that she would have time to give him a proper grounding in what he needed to know. That hope was in vain.
Mrs. Framish hadn't been surprised when Lexor had come to her on Earth asking if she had found a child who could serve as his apprentice. She'd kept up with news of Mojuste and she knew that Thorzuul was building up to something big. Thorzuul was a creature of impulse not intellect. He loved his games and his whims and he never saw that despite being married with a son of his own, he had never matured. An apprentice Storylord, especially one who was still a child, might just be unexpected enough to be his undoing.
Lexor didn't tell her when he'd contact Norby, or how. Best not to know too much about that side of things. She didn't want to be tempted to jump in to protect her student when he needed to fight his own battles. So Mrs. Framish turned a blind eye to what was going on outside her classroom and when he brought Thorzuul's puzzles to her, she didn't solve them for him, she gave him the information to solve them himself. She didn't know when he'd be stuck on Mojuste without her help. All she could do was give him the tools so that when that day came, Norby would be able to figure out the answers on his own.
Still, Norby surprised her more than once. He took to Storylord duties like a duck to water and he never acted like it was unusual that adults couldn't understand the simple concepts that he had mastered. Mandy hadn't been in Mrs. Framish's class, so when the girl had not only followed Norby to Mojuste, but quickly picked up the skills necessary to become an apprentice Storylord herself, Mrs. Framish couldn't help but feel proud of the way he was already passing his skills along to his sister.
The end came way too quickly. Mrs. Framish had left Norby in her room cleaning the blackboards while she checked in with Lexor, and what he'd told her had sent a chill down her spine. Thorzuul had found a way to Earth and Lexor hadn't been able to stop him. She asked a few questions then ended the call. Not daring to run lest someone stop her and ask what was wrong, she made her way as rapidly as possible back to her classroom.
It wasn't until she saw Thorzuul's minion gathering his empty robes from the floor that she'd let out the breath that she hadn't realized she was holding. She knew Thorzuul's true power, as much as he'd wrapped it in simple reading exercises and she'd feared he'd unleash it on the two children. She couldn't help but wonder now if his lack of reading education as a child had made him believe that the puzzles he posed were unsolvable. It would explain so much.
And she had so much to explain now that Norby and his sister knew she was also a Storylord. With Thorzuul defeated, now their proper training could begin. And perhaps someday they would bring their knowledge and training to the children of Mojuste.