Graduating from the School of Badgerbrough was both a delightful and eagerly awaited day for Billobi, but it raised a question he never had given much thought before: what would he do with this new kind of freedom?His dearest friend Tristan "Hum" Beadle had already signed on to the Acorn Afloat, the large sailing vessel that travelled the eastern sea, and Thomas Althorp had bought an old antiques shop in the town of Horsehead (much to his parents distress).
Should he pursue a deeper understanding for all the different types and manifestations of magic? Not according to his headmaster, who told both him and Thomas Althorp on the day of graduation to "never, ever, ever, try to practice what our poor teachers have tried to teach you! Not you two! Never, ever!"
Talking to his father didn't really satisfy his restless and curious soul: "You'll never be a baker, Bill, but anyone can carry a sack of flour! That's the job I can offer you. If you don't want to travel south and work on the farm with your cousin Hamphred..."
It was at this point in his life, when his hands yearned for pen and paper and his feet couldn't feel more restless, that the perfect job opportunity found him - literally. It was the current edition of The Badgerbrough Inquisitive that his father dropped on his face.
"Read it, Bill. They're hiring."
The Badgerbrough Inquisitive was one of the local gazettes, known for their quirky and not always so accurate news from around the country. Working for the paper was frowned upon, but for Billobi it was the opportunity of his lifetime.
Three days later he could entitle himself as an official writer for the Inquisitive. Not that it did impress anyone (except for Thomas Althorp), but it didn't matter. He would travel and he would write, and his first assignment ever was to seek out and interview a man with really large ears just outside of town. He couldn't be more excited.
Get your copy of the Badgerbrough Inquisitive here! (PDF, 0.5 MB).
It's licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
I can't believe I never commented you on this post, because it is one of my favourites. It is just delightful and it makes so much sense in connection with all other stories about Billobi.
ReplyDeleteThank you, antepants! I actually assumed that this post wasn't something that people liked, due to the lack of comments.
ReplyDeleteI very much enjoyed the format and the silliness of the Badgerbrough Inquisitive, and the fact that it is what actually propelled Billobi out into the "real" world.