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Old Buildings, Hard Tests and Strange Magazines
by Meredith
Here's
how we started the mystery:
One month ago,
Jasmine had been accepted by Girl's World magazine as a
summer intern. She would take part in brainstorm meetings
about what the magazine would feature in its next issue.
Jasmine was very proud and excited about her opportunity.
Being a tenth-grader made her feel as if she was about to
enter the world of real grown-up jobs.
It was her fist day as an intern and she was walking down
Rosehill Avenue toward the magazine's office building. She
was happy but also a little nervous about how it would all
turn out.
She entered the building's lobby and noticed how old-fashioned
and dusty the furniture looked. There was an old magazine
tossed onto the sofa. It had a girl on the cover dressed
in clothes from seventy years ago. There was no one around.
The light was dim.
Jasmine walked toward the elevators, noticing that they
were the old iron cage type. She pressed the 'Up' button.
It was stuck. She had to really lean against it in order
to make it move. She looked up and saw the big needle moving
downward floor to floor as the elevator descended toward
the lobby.
It arrived with a squeak and a thud. The door scraped open.
A dank musty odor wafted out as Jasmine stepped inside.
******
Winner's Writing Begins Here *******
She pushed the button for the top floor and immediately a terrible grinding noise began. The entire elevator began to shake, making her whole body jerk up and down. Wishing she had taken the stairs, Jasmine grabbed the handlebars and held on. She was ready to wait 5 more minutes for the elevator to reach the top floor , but luckily she didn’t have to. CRACK She could hear the sound echoing through the whole elevator shaft. Everything went dark. After a few minutes of fumbling around and pressing every button that her fingers could find, she remembered her miniature flashlight that the magazine suggested that she bring. She pulled it out and turned it on. It cast an eerie, soft glow. She pointed it right, left, up, and down. Jasmine saw that there was a small door on the ceiling with a handle on it. Once she was finally standing on the railings, her hands pressed against the wall for balance, she grabbed a hold of the handle, opened the door, and pulled herself out.
She was on top of the elevator standing in the elevator shaft. The walls were made of brick and she could easily touch them all around her. On one of these walls were bars fixed to the wall all the way up. Slowly she made her way up them until she came to a door. She opened it and hoisted herself into the floor. She looked around and, seeing no chairs, she plopped down on a box to rest. “This is so weird.” she thought as she looked around the room. It was full of boxes, old Girl’s World magazines, and DUST! “Why would they send me to a deserted place?” she wondered. She got up, studied a few magazines, and read some posters. One in particular caught her attention. Written in brilliant letters on bright papers. It announced, “NOTES, TAKE THEM!! No journalist should forget taking notes about anything, even something not assigned to you, but could be used in the magazine. Use them to help you write, but also to help you solve problems.” “Fine, I’ll take notes. Maybe it will help me figure this out.” she muttered. She wrote on the back of a slip of paper in her purse.
After writing for a few minutes, she heard strange sounds on the floor below. “Well I’m kind of new at this job, but I think that I should investigate. Could be a clue.” She started walking toward the elevator. “On second thought, I’ll take the stairs.” She took the stairs two at a time and reached the next floor just in time to see a man disappear through the door. Without thinking twice, she ran after him, but the man was fast. She all-out sprinted for as long as she could, but she soon needed a rest. The man disappeared behind a corner and she returned to the main room. On her paper she explained what had happened and wrote a description of the man.
Once she was back in the musty, old room, she began to wonder if the desks held a clue. It wasn’t until the 3rd desk that she found a slip of paper. It said “Look up, you’re being watched.” Quickly, Jasmine jerked her head up toward the ceiling. There she saw a high-tech camera pointed right at her. “This certainly doesn’t belong to the building.” she said in surprise. “But it does say that it’s from Girl’s World magazine. This is so confusing! I need to sit and think.”
As soon as she was seated in a comfy purple chair, she was up again. She had heard voices in the next room. Stealthily, she crept toward the door. CREAK!! The old floor screeched loudly and Jasmine froze. Still hearing voices, she continued. Once she was at the door, all she could hear was that the were angry, and the sentence “She’s doin’ fine I tell ya Just watch her on that screen ” A few seconds later, she heard her name mentioned several times. After noting this new discovery, she skulked back to the chair and again sat down to think.
She read over her notes and concluded, “It seems like someone’s watching me to see if I can figure this out. But why would they do that? If that is it though, then this whole thing is a set up. This is the wrong building, or maybe there isn’t a real magazine at all.” At this, her spirits fell, but her mind was soon taken off of it when there was a loud crash in the lobby on the bottom floor. Soon she was back again, racing down the flight of steps. When she arrived, she gasped. There stood two men in business suits. “Hello Jasmine.”one of them began. “I’m Mr. Langstreet and this is Mr. Feldstein.” We own the Girl’s World magazine. You are officially hired as an intern.” When he saw Jasmine looking curiously at him, he explained. “You see, we tell every intern they’re accepted, but they’re not really. They are sent to this address and must prove their detective skills are good enough to be a journalist. Even in a magazine like this you must have some detective qualities. Now, prove that you can write by writing a sample article about this, but officially you are an intern. Congratulations.” “Th-thank you.” stuttered Jasmine. She was pretty proud of herself. After all, she had just earned a place in a famous magazine.
Ten Years Later: Jasmine is now working for Girl’s World magazine as editor and is in charge of testing the new journalists the same way she was.
The End
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