Jack & Tollers: The Star Box (Episode 9)

Welcome to the final episode of Jack & Tollers: Festival of Heroes! I hope you've enjoyed the adventure. It has certainly roamed far outside my normal style, and has become the quirkiest and weirdest story I've ever written. I don't think I've ever laughed so much while writing one of my stories, and I hope you laughed too!

Would you do me a favor and leave a review of Jack & Tollers when you've finished the story? Just click on the link at the end of this episode, and write a few sentences describing what you think about Jack & Tollers, what you liked most about it, and what would be better for the next story. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Episode 9
​The Star Box

​“Choose!” Tollers rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, humming and looking unreasonably pleased with himself. “And don’t do eenie-meenie-mynie-mo like the time you picked your team in the First Trial.”
 
“I don’t want to choose,” Jack said. “The last prizes were a little too interesting, if I recall. Ciprian the water-skiller told stories of daggers shooting out of eyes and cats dying mysteriously.”
 
“Yes, well…” Tollers blushed a little. “I think I got a little carried away with that. But these prizes will be amazing. Honest.”
 
“But they won’t last when you pull me out of the story, so it really doesn’t matter. Right, Tollers?”
 
Tollers rubbed the back of his neck and looked studiously at the grass near his feet.
 
Jack’s tone hardened a little. “Right, Tollers?”
 
“Look, Jack,” Tollers looked toward his best friend, half-pleading. “Stories don’t just evaporate once you close the cover. They stay with you. They become part of you. They change you. So, no, you can’t go back to being the Jack who began this adventure. You’re a different Jack now. The things that you gained from this story, both good and bad, will stay with you forever.” He paused, then said quietly, “I thought you knew that when you agreed to this.”
 
Jack stared at his friend and the tension built between them.
 
Suddenly Jack laughed. “You crazy son of a quill pen, you! Who knew it was so dangerous to have a writer as a best friend?”
 
He turned back to the boxes. “So I get to keep whatever crazy thing pops out of this box? Cool. Do I want an eyeball, a pen, or a—Okay, how in the world would I keep a star? It can’t possibly fit into this little box anyway.”
 
“I’m not sure what’s in there myself,” Tollers admitted.
 
“What? You’re the author.”
 
“It’s not that simple,” Tollers explained, wrinkling his brow and pushing his glasses further up his nose. “You don’t just map out a story in your head and write down every word according to the outline. A story is a living thing. It changes as it grows.”
 
“So you have no idea what’s in this box?”
 
“Nope. But it will come to me as soon as you open the box.”
 
“A star. I like it. Just make sure I don’t fall into the sun and fizzle. I mean it.”
 
Tollers laughed and etched a cross over his heart in mock Girl Scout fashion. “I promise.”
 
“Here goes nothin’!” And Jack opened the box with the star etched on its lid.

​An intense brightness enveloped him and he felt suddenly as if he were falling through eons of time, lightyears of space. Lights flashed by him too quickly to identify, dazzling his eyes. He instinctively contracted into a ball, shielding himself from the eventual impact.
 
He came awake screaming.
 
Wait a minute, awake? When had he begun to sleep?
 
Jack glanced around, but the soft light was too dim to see by, and he had only the vague impression of sleek, metallic shapes softened by draping cloth. What the…?
 
Jack flung the covers off his legs and pressed his hand against the wall to steady himself. Light immediately flared from the walls around him. He gasped and shielded his eyes against the glare. He tapped the wall again and the brilliance receded.
 
Touch-sensitive light wall. Interesting. What was going on here?
 
Jack stood in a wide room with pulsing light-walls, a couch, a small round table with several chairs, and several locker-like cabinets on the wall, plus, of course, the bed that he had just abandoned. He noticed that all the furniture appeared to be set well back from one of the walls, which depicted a forest scene in such detail that he felt as though he could step right into it.
 
When Jack touched the screen, however, the scene melted into… stars? But they did not twinkle as they did from earth. No atmosphere.
 
Jumping Jehosaphat, did that mean he was on…?
 
“Captain?”
 
Jack whirled and found himself face to face with a squat, burly humanoid, with a deeply undershot jaw, large round eyes, and a nose that seemed crushed into its face.
 
“Captain, are you all right?” asked the creature.
 
Jack rubbed his eyes and looked again. “Sherwin Edward Gladdenbury Kerfluffle the Fourth?”
 
“Of course, Captain!” The pug-like face wrinkled into a grin equally hideous and endearing. “From a long and illustrious line of Kerfluffles from the Pugnatori Tribe. But you already know that.” Sherwin peered at Jack. “Are you sure you’re all right? The ship said that you were screaming, so I came to check on you. Bad dream, sir?”
 
Jack ran his fingers through his hair. “The ship said?”
 
“Hello, Jack,” said a familiar voice, echoing ubiquitously around him as though it came from the walls itself.
 
Jack knew that voice. “Tollers.”
 
Tollers’ voice carried the sense of the excited, dangerous grin that Jack knew so well. “Welcome to your newest adventure, Captain Jack.”

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