It appeared like any ordinary fruit bowl, a rounded clay dish molded by unskilled hands.

(But to be fair to its maker, the man never claimed to be an artist. He was in fact a very talented , very charming magician who just happened to dabble in pottery)

It was uneven around the edges and bore a slight fissure on its side that crept from base to lip. The paint, a turquoise wash that had turned green with time chipped along its surface and-

(Okay, we get it. The bowl was ugly, but can we move on? Why don’t we tell them how awesome and wonderful it is aside from its appearance?)

Understood.

See, however unappealing this bowl may appear, Charlie Kreps had discovered at the ripe age of seven years old, that the fruit bowl was no ordinary bowl. It might very well have been a magic fruit bowl.

It had been any other boring day of the summer holidays and Charlie and his his older brother had taken it upon themselves to reenact a rather mediocre game they liked to call ‘living room skate park’. Though the name was rather self explanatory, this game required artful draping of cushions and bedsheets as well as a flimsy piece of card box that with the right imagination, could almost look like a skateboard.

All Charlie needed now was a helmet. The empty fruit bowl poised near the garbage can looked like it would be almost too perfect. Their mother had grown to dislike the thing anyway, vowing to toss it out with the trash the next time she took out the garbage.

What was the harm in simply borrowing it before it headed out the door?

(Okay, what happened next? Come on, let them know what happened when he put the bowl on his head!)

Once the bowl, flipped upside down, touched Charlie’s head, his scalp erupted in an odd tingling sensation. The feeling spread, coursing down his shoulders and along his arms. It felt as though a thousand tiny ants were marching across his skin, they little feet slapping on the hairs of his arms in careless synchronization.

Charlie squeezed his eyes shut, his fingers already reaching up to remove the uncomfortable headpiece.

But when the bowl had returned to his hands and his eyes had snapped open he realized two things.

1) He was no longer in his living room and

2) He had somehow ended up with a view of the seafront, the whooshing blue waves careening up, up in the air before crashing down. Right towards him.

(…..)

(…..)

(Hello….?)

(Are you planning on continuing?)

(You’re missing out the best part, tell them what happens next)