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The Mask Maker

    Four hours into constructing the stage for the Festival of Parth and I was exhausted. Each time I went to hammer another nail into a board, my arms creaked and popped under the strain. Things would have been easier had we all been allowed to use our magic, but the precedent had always been that the group from Parth School would build the platform for their graduation performance with their hands. Perry insisted that no magic was allowed. Although everyone around me groaned about the workload, we all knew it would be worth it come the following week. With graduation comes the chance to practice magic without supervision and no more training sessions with Perry.
    "Come on, you lazy bunch of incompetent dogs. If this thing doesn't get up, then we're never going to have a festival, and I know how crushed you'd all be about that," Perry, giving yet another pep talk, called from his comfortable seat on the grass. His green robes splayed out and caused him to take up twice the amount of space than he normally would.
    Had he been helping us, perhaps the job would have been done sooner, but he chose instead to dictate our every move with the waving of his hands and the barking of his voice. Truth was, though, we all would have been crushed if the festival was canceled. Then again, we still had a few days to finalize everything, so I wasn't all that worried about it. The other boys didn't seem to be either because they only laughed or made a few rude gestures in his direction.
    The only fortunate thing about being out in the heat, hammering together a wooden platform in the middle of a random field was that I didn't have to do it by myself. The other members of my class were with me, the seven of us in our matching brown cloaks. Unfortunately, I was also subjected to listening to their gossip about anyone and everyone in our town. When clumped together and forced to work, it never failed that someone would mention a rumor that they had heard and then it would snowball. This time was no different, and the subject was an old favorite:  the mask maker.
    "I heard that he only comes out at night and, when he does, he eats the cats that families have left out for the evening," one classmate said.
    "Well, I heard that he put a hex on Old Lady Chuff and that's why she smells like cabbage all the time," said another.
    A third piped up, shaking his head. "You're both crazy. I was told that he turned his father into a puppet and that's why we haven't seen him around much either."
    The group laughed and I couldn't help but smile a little. Even though I was used to hearing the rumors about the mask maker, the puppet idea was a new concept. Perry roared behind us, getting up and storming over to our half-finished stage. "Really? Again with all this talk? This is nonsense. You've been on him for days, and I'm here to tell you that there is absolutely nothing wrong with that boy. So he likes to spend most of his time in his shop! Is there something wrong with that? The boy has good work ethic in my book."
    Pat put down his hammer and looked at Perry. "Alright that might explain why we don't see him around, but explain why we've heard all of this other stuff. There's some truth behind rumors, you know."
    "Pat, I've got a theory about this. You've heard this because you're all young and stupid and you like to make up stories about things that you know nothing about. Why you lot don't find something better to do is beyond me. But since we’re on the topic of better things to do, who wants to pay the mask maker a little visit?"
    His question was met with silence. I knew that no one was going to volunteer for the chance to see him. The stories that had been created about his life had turned him into a terrifying legend amongst the younger people in the town. Pretending not to hear the question, I watched a beetle land on one of the planks I had just put together. It had a remarkable zebra pattern, and I couldn't help but notice how much