He entered a hallway. Surprisingly he could stand upright and, in fact, the ceiling was higher than he could touch. The hallway was wide and the walls were a deep, dark blue. The floor was orange and the ceiling was indescribable. He recognised the shimmering glimmer of the leaves of the forrest trees but, more than that, there were colours upon colours layered through the glimmering leaves, creating a shimmering, changing pattern. It made him slightly dizzy so he looked away.

"Arnold?" This voice was different. While it was still high-pitched by his standards it was deeper than the others he had heard. Directly in front of him stood the tallest pencil man he had seen yet. A full 15 inches, and thicker than any he had seen. Arnie stammered, "ye...yes"

"The leader is waiting. Follow me" and he turned and walked towards a doorway at the end of the hall. Arnie followed without further comment.

Through the doorway at the end of the hall was a large, round room. It was high ceilinged like the hallway and it had the same kind of floor. In the middle of the room was a throne-like chair, but it looked strange in an inexplicable way. Seated upon it was another pencil of a similar size to the one guiding him now. This one gave off the impression of great age. For no physically observable reason, Arnie imagined him to be much older than the others.

Around the room, various pencil men stood alert and watchful. Arnie glanced around warily.

There were small tables with legs (tables having legs is quite a normal thing, except in this case the legs had feet and were even wearing shoes.) He caught sight of one running from one place to another. He looked more at his surroundings, the place was majestic in an Alice-in-wonderland type of way. Portraits hung on the wall, each one of a different pencil.

He looked over to the throne again, the leader, as he assumed this must be, was looking at him. He gave Arnie a clear, piercing look from his tiny, pencil eyes.

"Come Arnold". His voice was not squeaky. It was deep. Arnie moved towards him and kneeled before the throne. This seemed the appropriate thing to do.

"Please, I beg of you, I meant no harm to your people..." Arnie began

"Hush now" the pencil leader cut across him, "I have news for you. But first, if I am not mistaken, you are hungry." He didn't wait for a reply but clapped his hands. The sound was a loud crack, impressive for such small hands. Several pencils entered the room from side doors. A small group were carrying a cushion that they place on the floor behind arnie and beckoned for him to sit. He sat down gratefully just as another group appeared carrying some kind of trays. To his surprise, the trays were normal sized, which was why they needed several pencil men to carry each one. One the of the larger tables ran up and stopped in front of him. His heart skipped a beat when he saw its mouth and eyes - kind of dog-like. It opened its mouth, but all that came out was a kind of purring noise, sounding like a mixture of a happy cat and an angry crow.

The pencil-waiters laid the trays down and scuttled off.

"For now, you eat." The leader said, his deep voice was commanding, but not unkind.

Arnie looked at the trays, he picked up a strange, round, red item and sniffed at it carefully. It smelt like cheddar cheese. He nibbled cautiously. It tasted like cheddar cheese too. He closed his eyes and took a bite. As he chewed and swallowed, he felt a renewed sense of energy immediately and he started to feel brighter and happier. After the red cheddar, he ate hungrily without thought for the weird and wonderful colours and shapes. For despite appearances, it all tasted like everyday, quality food. And so it was that he consumed soft, sqashy, blue "rice pudding" and purple, square "apples" among other things.

He also drank deeply from a goblet of what turned out to be the freshest, nicest tasting water he had ever encountered. The only oddity about it was the deep, pink colour.

After he felt totally satisfied and refreshed, he looked up. The leader of the pencils was smiling at him and he smiled back, feeling a whole lot better.

The table, with the tray on its back, ran off. Amazingly nothing fell off.

"Welcome to Writingshire. We are the pencil people as you have no doubt guessed. We have been waiting for you for a long time, and you were very nearly too late."

Arnie felt confused. "Waiting for me? For what? How?"

"The predictions were written. You would come and lead us to victory. As it is we are losing the war. Our only hope now is you. Only you can save our people and take us to victory."

"I don't know anything about war, I certainly have no plans to fight in one. I really just want to be getting back home now, or even to wake up if that is warranted." Arnie's voice contained a note of pleading, his good feeling from eating was slowly dissipating again.

"You cannot abandon us." The leaders voice was commanding. It was terrifying. But it was only momentary and his voice softened again.

"Allow me to tell you our history - for then you will see the part you play." Arnie nodded, feeling resigned, and the leader began.

"Many pages ago we lived in unison. The penpeople and pencilpeople shared writingshire. We traded and we prospered together. Writing occured in both forms. The old songs and tales tell of a great time of peace, of conquering the paper, of drawing new paths and of shaping this land.

"This harmony stretched on through many, many pages in our history. Our earliest writings tell clearly of cooperation between ourselves and the pens. In fact our earliest writings are written in both ink and graphite.

"But it all changed. And it began with the arrival of a messenger. A tall, bristle haired paintbrush by the name of Lintongeller. Paintbrushes are a small tribe who live on one of the purple hills of writingshire. They occasionally venture down for trade, but generally keep themselves to themselves.

"Anyway, Lintongeller appeared one day and was kind enough to inform us that the pens planned war. He told us that while trading with them, he overheard and saw plans afoot to take writingshire for themselves. They were planning treachery.

"He was worried for his life, and so we gave him a guard of our finest pencil-soldiers to guide him home to the hills. We neither saw nor heard of any of them again.

"We prepared to protect ourselves. We had only a small army as we had not had fighting but we trained all our people to defend our villages. We built walls and fortified our villages. We were ready.

"At the same time, and in an attempt to head off hostilities, we sent a peace envoy to the pens with a proposal for peace. All that returned of that expedition was one soldier. He was unforgivably injured, with his lead removed and he carried a simple message from the penfolk. "You will not take our land".

"We prepared to attack in order to keep the fight away from our villages. We trained our people hard and we won again and again. We took villages and built new defenses in each of our newly captured areas. We avoided killing if we could, we kept prisoners and we kept them safe and well as we were able. And we maintained the upper hand.

"This had continued until only a short while ago. That is when it all changed! The penfolk managed to obtain a new weapon. They have used it ruthlessly, they have regained all of their strongholds. They have taken our villages, taken our people, they have broken the prisons in which we were holding their soldiers.

"You are now standing in the only village we have left. We have fortified it to the best of our abilities, we have populated it with all that remains of us and we are strengthening our defenses all the time. The abandoned village you were taken from had a small placement of the bravest pencils lying in wait for your arrival. The writings had foretold you would come and so they waited. The pens don't like to attack there - as that is washingshire, and is outside of the writingshire boundaries." The leaders voice was sad. Arnie felt a stab of pity and a slight stirring of an unfamiliar feeling, a feeling of wanting to defend these little people. He laughed mentally at himself at the thought. He had been overpowered by a small group of these guys, how could he defend them?

"We cannot stop the inevitable without you. Their weapon is too strong. You are our only hope"

Arnie was stunned. Him? Save them in a war? He had never fought anything in his life. It was ridiculous. His voice was shaky as he asked the next question on his mind,

"Wha...What is this weapon?"

"I will show you."

A group of pencil men brought in what looked like a rolled up piece of paper. Two of them grabbed a corner each and rolled it out. He looked at it in shock.

"That's the weapon?" He asked.

The leader nodded.

He was looking a beautiful pencil sketch. And, the sketch showed in the greatest of detail, with almost photographic quality, a girl of about his own age.

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