Do you believe in magic?
In a young girl's heart
How the music can free her
whenever it starts

And it's magic
if the music is groovy
It makes you feel happy
like an old time movie
~Aly and AJ, Do You Believe In Magic?

Stephanie Tanner, eight, wasn't quite sure when it happened — or exactly how it happened, either. All she knew was that she loved to read books, as well as write in a notebook of her own whenever she got the chance or time to do so.

But this — well, she knew that this definitely took the cake. That Saturday morning, as she sat on her bed looking at the mysterious note she had found on her nightstand, she reached down and her fingers brushed against the multicolored dress she was wearing. Yellow socks and black Mary Janes completed her outfit. In her opinion, the dress, the socks and the Mary Janes not only fit her perfectly — they also looked great on her.

The note said,

"I sense you have a thirst. Not the thirst everyone else has for water, soda pop or wine. Instead this is a thirst for knowledge. And I like that.

For every literary world you desire to enter,
I offer to show you a new one.
For every dream you have,
I offer to help you analyze it.

~S.K."

As Stephanie looked at the message, she let a smile she usually kept secret cross her face (which, she had noticed when out walking with her older sister Donna Jo (who preferred to be called ‛D.J.'), thirteen) many people had called ‛cute', although some had called it ‛beautiful') as she memorized the note a little at at time until she was sure she could memorize it from memory before putting it in one of her books; after putting the book under her pillow, she then pulled her pink notebook out of her backpack (also pink), opened it, and then picked up a pink #2 pencil. Finally, she began to write, the lead scraping the lined paper.

Dear Diary,

Today is just going to be an odd day; I just know it. I don't know how I know, though. Probably women's intuition, of course.

But anyway, when I woke up this morning, I found a note on my nightstand. Exactly how it got there, or who put it there, I have no idea. But I do know that whoever it is, I will be very grateful to them whenever I discover (a new word for "find") a new literary world upon opening a new book.

Here is the text of the note:

"I sense you have a thirst. Not the thirst everyone else has for water, soda pop or wine. Instead this is a thirst for knowledge. And I like that.

For every literary world you desire to enter,
I offer to show you a new one.
For every dream you have,
I offer to help you analyze it.

~S.K."

It sure does sound quite awesome, as well as very intriguing, too. This definitely sounds like a mystery to me, and I intend to find out the identity of this ‛S.K.' person.

Keep you posted!

After Stephanie closed her notebook, she put it back in her backpack. She then reached into her backpack, pulled out Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and opened it to the page marked by a bookmark with a picture of a blue dragon.

Instantly, as of their own accord, her blue eyes followed every word in every sentence in every paragraph, although the French phrases were a bit hard to read at first. Luckily, she took care of that by looking them up in a French-English dictionary.

When she felt she had gotten enough to read for now, Stephanie then closed Jane Eyre and after putting it aside, began to think, her legs crossed and her chin on her right knuckle. This was how she looked when she was busy contemplating things. Her mind was racing at the pace of a racehorse when the horse is in top running condition. Only that didn't even come close enough, in her view.

After a few moments went by in silence, Stephanie sighed, feeling a bit... well, bored out of her mind.

It was then that a voice said, "Hey there, kid. Looks like you're bored. I can tell."

Stephanie blinked in puzzlement. "Who said that?" she queried.

"Over here," the voice replied.

Stephanie looked, and who it was she saw almost made her fall over in surprise. Luckily, months of dance classes had left her leg muscles quite strong. There the voice's owner stood. He — for it was a teenage boy — simply stood there, his hands behind his back. Something told Stephanie that this person looked... awfully familiar...