Read Me a Bedtime Story
Splendid Auction Finds
Chapter 1
Jonathan Joy
The Ashland Beacon

12-year-old Lulu Campbell mows lawns in the summer. She shovels snow in the winter. She has set up a lemonade stand on many hot August days.
With the money she saves, Lulu buys storage units.
If you’ve seen the Storage Wars TV show, you know the deal. Would-be treasure hunters gather to bid on abandoned storage units that are being auctioned off to the public.
Lulu likes to flip storage units located near Splendid, West Virginia. The town is rich in supernatural happenings and sometimes the items discovered in these units are quite magical.
Recently, Lulu outbid her much older counterparts and spend a hundred dollars on a unit that contained some old toys, books, Christmas décor, and…
…”Cool shoes!” Lulu exclaimed when she spotted the vibrant red and silver shoes at the back of the unit. “And they are just my size.”
She piled her winnings into an old wheelbarrow borrowed from a neighbor. “I can donate these books to the Little Free Library near school. I’ll give these Christmas decorations to Grandpa. He likes to decorate every room of the house in December. The old toys may be worth something. I’ll need to get these checked out. I might be able to double my money on them at the Inner Geek. The shoes are mine.”
The walk home, pushing a heavy wheelbarrow, was surprisingly faster than Lulu expected. She made it back in record time. “Must be the shoes.” Lulu said to herself, only half seriously.
Two days later Lulu’s neighbor Donnie challenged her to a foot race to the bus stop, and Lulu left him in the dust. It was the first time she had ever won such a race, and she was ten full yards ahead of Donnie. “Maybe it really is the shoes.” Lulu wondered.
Lulu had an extra spring in her step all day. She moved from one class to the next faster than usual. She was excited to be the first to the bus after school, instead of, as usual, being the last and having to talk someone into sharing their seat.
“These shoes are powerful.” Lulu was convinced she had unearthed something quite special in her auction win.
In the coming weeks, Lulu put those enchanted shoes to the test. She set a new high score on the Dance Dance Revolution game at Old North Arcade. She ran a 5K in under twenty minutes, almost half her usual time. She volunteered for a community trash pick-up day at the park and covered twice as much ground as her friends.
While the shoes clearly possessed unique powers, Lulu knew from years of reading Spiderman comics that, “with great power comes great responsibility.”
Lulu decided that these amazing, one-of-a-kind shoes shouldn’t be used for everyday tasks. They were too extraordinary for that.
“They’ll be safe here…until I really need them.” Lulu hid her shoes amongst the many Christmas decorations in the attic of her grandpa’s house.
Lulu ended up selling the toys that came in that unit - a bunch of antique wrestling figures, a G.I. Joe tank, Madballs, and a creepy old Dolly Dearest doll - for a hundred and twenty bucks, eking out a twenty-dollar profit.
She set that cash aside for her next big storage unit auction. What she’d find at that auction is something completely out of this world. But that, readers, is a tale for a different day.
Splendid Auction Finds Chapter 2 coming soon.
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