The Sharpening Room

The four pencil towers of Pencil Caribou Lodge hummed like a giant fridge. Outside the glass, Tundra Metropolis looked clean and bright, with sky-rails and snowy rooftops.

Ms Pencil Caribou floated into the roof training bay. Her silver cape flicked behind her.

“Okay, big guy,” she said, gripping her giant pencil. “One neat pencil blast. No drama.”

The pencil’s tip twitched. Nothing fired.

Ms Pencil Caribou frowned under her shiny silver mask and tapped the barrel with a yellow glove.

Juniper Rush skidded in, nearly dropping her phone controller.

“Ms P! City Weather Net just pinged me,” Juniper said. She held up her phone. “Ice storm forming. Look.”

A tiny drone feed showed gray clouds crawling toward the lodge.

Ms Pencil Caribou aimed the pencil again. The tip jittered like a picky tooth.

“Fine,” she muttered. “We’re visiting the Sharpening Room, right now.”

The Not-So-Sharp Hour

The glass elevator slid down the pencil tower. Ms Pencil Caribou held the giant pencil across her arms like a grumpy log.

Juniper stared at the tip. “Maybe it’s… scared?”

“Pencils don’t get scared,” Ms Pencil Caribou said.

The pencil’s barrel vibrated.

“I do,” the pencil said, in a scratchy voice. “And I’m not blasting until you draw a better idea.”

Juniper’s mouth fell open. “It talks!”

The elevator doors opened to a bright room that smelled like cedar and clean metal. Rolling sharpeners sat on rails like little carts.

An elderly woman pushed in a wheeled toolbox. “Shoemaker coming through,” she said. Her gray braid bounced over her tan apron.

Ms Pencil Caribou pointed. “Can you fix… that?”

Talla Stitch squinted at the tip. “Cracked. Tired. You’ve been using it like a hammer.”

“It saves the city,” Ms Pencil Caribou snapped.

Outside the long window, sleet began to pepper the glass.

Ms Pencil Caribou lifted the pencil anyway. “One blast.”

“No,” the pencil said.

She forced it.

The pencil jerked hard. The elevator lights blinked. Somewhere above, a loud metal groan answered, and the lodge’s outer storm shutters clanked halfway down, catching three buzzing delivery drones outside