Jack has a test in five minutes and he can’t find his magical pen called Penny. He left her at home.

Jack pretends he’s sick and he runs home to get Penny.

“Why didn’t you hop in my bag?” asks Jack.

“I was asleep and you didn’t wake me up,” replies Penny.

He gets on his bike and cycles as fast as he can to school. He thought he knew shortcut through the forest, but he fell down the hill and Penny slipped out of the bag.

A squirrel comes along and picks Penny up. It bites Penny and her ink falls out. When Penny doesn’t have ink, she cannot talk.

Jack gets worried and tries to find Penny.

“Penny! Penny!” shouts Jack.

“Jack! Jack!” whispers Penny, but Jack can’t hear her.

Penny has a dream that she is a human. But she has actually turned into a human and was stuck up in a tree!

Jack follows the trail of ink in the forest to a tree. He looks up and he sees a girl stuck in a tree . . .

“Penny, is it really you?” asked Jack, looking up at her.

Penny still couldn’t talk so she nodded her head. Jack helped her to get down from the tree.

Jack still tried to talk to Penny, but she still wouldn’t answer. She pointed at her throat and mimed. Jack suddenly realised that she couldn’t speak. He went to the river and got her some water but when Jack returned Penny was gone!

Jack noticed some paw-prints on the mud and broken branches close by.

“Hmmm, what could that be?” thought Jack to himself, “This could be the work of a wild bear!” Jack set off to rescue Penny and he followed the tracks all the way back to the school yard.

Jack heard people screaming. He ran towards the principal’s office and told him what happened. He was panicking and hesitating when he spoke.

“Are you joking,” laughed the principal with a smirk. He didn’t believe this story – about the bear and the pen turning into a human.

Just then they heard stomping coming towards the office. The ground started to shake. In one split second the door was knocked down. A big brown bear barged through the doorway. He had smashed the door down with his head and Penny was in a bear hug in his paws.

The principal screamed and Jack froze. Penny was still finding it hard to breathe. She pointed at the jar of ink on the principal’s table.

Jack grabbed it and threw it towards Penny. The bear was stunned and dropped Penny to the floor.

Penny picked up the jar of ink and drank it. She started to shrink into the form of a pen. In five seconds she was no longer human – she was back to being a pen. Jack ran over and picked up his magic pen.

Meanwhile, the principal had called animal control to come and get the bear. The school was wrecked by now! Everything was ruined by the chaos. All the lockers were busted. Everyone in the school was outside, except for Jack.

Just then there was an announcement on the intercom.

“Everyone can go home. There is no school today and no school for two weeks,” announced the principal. Everyone in the school yard cheered and ran home.

Jack was relieved.

He looked at Penny and said, “This was a tough day.” He smiled. “I’m sorry for what I put you through Penny, at least we have two weeks now to study for the test, let’s go home.”

From that day on, Jack always remembered to bring Penny to school with him and the principal believed everything Jack said!