The Fantastic Fable of Peter Able

by Natalie Grigson

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Kindle Press, Seattle, 2015

  A Kindle Scout selection

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, Kindle Scout, and Kindle Press are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  DEDICATED

  to you.

  I did not set out to tell this story; Peter simply insisted on it. It started with a word, and from there this land, these characters, and at one point a severe coffee addiction were borne. The latter I’ve addressed. The rest I hand over to you.

  Take care of these characters as you read into their lives. For as you will see, they are very much real.

  Welcome to Fiction.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  I am a Boy Wizard.

  Don’t laugh.

  Despite the fact that I am eighteen, can grow a full beard if I want to, and have not been called a boy in at least five years, I still can’t seem to get away from the title. The thing is, ever since the world drank the Wizard Kool-Aid, there really is no other term for us here in Fiction.

  I was first written about five years ago. This was at the height of the wizarding book phenomenon and readers were obsessed. They were running around the Real World shouting things like “Abracadabra!” or “Hocus-pocus!” or whatever it is they say in all those other books. To be honest, I’ve never bothered to read the things—most people in Fiction haven’t. Until recently, I hadn’t even read my own books. Not because I couldn’t (we have Fiction in Fiction just like you do, thank you very much), but simply because, well, they’re my books. I mean, would you want to relive your painful adolescence over and over?

  Besides, when you are a Fictional character, reading other Fiction gets a bit dull. I try to stick to stories about the Real World—Nonfiction, Memoirs, a dictionary if I really want to escape. Anyway, when I was first written, I suppose I was a Boy Wizard. I was thirteen. My mother was long dead; my father had just committed suicide; and I was about to embark upon a journey that started out at Payne Academy, a boarding school miles and miles from my one and only relative, my little sister and only real friend, Beth.

  I know authors need to give their characters a bit of backstory, but it just seemed like it was one thing after another for me. There I was at a new school, newly born at thirteen, surrounded by delinquents who treated bullying as a hobby, and I had no family or friends to turn to. So what did I do? Well, as such stories tend to go, I discovered my ability with magic!

  I’d tell you all about how, over the course of the first book, I used my newfound powers to teach those bullies a lesson; how, in book two, I met a girl named Maggie and we became fast friends; and how, by the end of book three, I was the one who learned a lesson (about the magic of friendship). But you can read all about that in the series. It’s called Peter Able: Boy Wizard.

  With the slew of Boy Wizard–Orphaned Child–Magic Saves the Day books that came out at the same time, the Peter Able books didn’t sell all that well, and toward the end of book five, my author made an executive decision: he killed off my sister, Beth, and ended the series. Like I said, I didn’t reread my books for a reason.

  That was less than a year ago. Just after my series ended, I was kind of at a loss. I’d coasted for five years—five books—not needing to make a single decision. What I wore, where I went, who I hung out with . . . it had all been written already. And when it ended, I realized something about myself: I was an eighteen-year-old Boy Wizard who had a crappy backstory and didn’t know how to pick out his own socks. I literally spent two weeks in my bedroom, simply because I could not figure out how to open the door. I was surviving on a box of crackers and some orange juice that tasted more like laundry detergent (okay, it might have been laundry detergent), but then, on what I thought might be my last day in Fiction, I had a revolutionary thought—revolutionary because it was my own.

  Turn right.

  Shakily, I got up from my filthy, crumb-covered bed and crossed the room. The old wooden floor boards groaned even under my diminished weight, and I could hear music floating up from the super’s apartment below. I remember it so clearly. It was my first real memory since being left to live for myself, and it was like coming out of water. I reached for the doorknob, my fingers sticky with sweat, and turned the handle counter-clockwise. The door swung open.

  I walked out into my living room, and it was like seeing it for the first time: the scuffed wooden floors; the worn leather armchair across from the pilled green couch with my sister’s embroidered quilt strewn over its back; and a few framed photos she had taken, hanging on the walls. Instinctively, I listened for her, but then with a stab I remembered that she wasn’t there.

  I plopped myself onto the couch heavily—a decision I was hardly even aware of—and took some deep, calming breaths. Finally, I began to get a grip on myself, and the thoughts and decisions slowly started coming more naturally, more easily.

  A shower would have to come first, because, honestly, despite my hunger, I didn’t know if I could eat with my smell. Once I was good and clean and smelling like shampoo (which I now realize is different than soap), I made myself a sandwich. The lettuce was wilted, the cheese was old, and there was no bread, but it was delicious, because I had decided to make it. And then throw it out. Surprisingly, the decisions were getting easier and easier. I opened my front door, turning the handle the right way on the first try. I stopped on the landing and looked out over Fiction, the summer sun warming my shoulders.

  Fiction is made up of genres. You’ve got your Fantasy (where my neighborhood is), then Sci-Fi, Mystery, Detective, Thriller, Horror, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Young Adult . . . You know, all of the genres. It’s huge. Of course I can’t see it all from my apartment, as it stretches for miles and miles before Realistic Fiction blends almost seamlessly, and in places confusingly, into Nonfiction to the east. But I’ve got a pretty good view of a few of the genres.

  See, I live near one of Fiction’s finest universities, Fiction Academy, and in an effort to keep the school open to all genres, the academy has entrances around campus that connect to each genre. Think of it this way: the university is the meeting point for all of the sections of Fiction. Like fingers reaching for a prize, each genre has at least a street or two touching campus, before opening up into its wider world, or hand. As the genres get farther from campus, their side streets and shortcuts crisscross over and through one another, labyrinth-like, perhaps like the veins on a hand. I’m not sure about the metaphor, exactly, but I know this: it’s a great view.

  Just beneath me, a herd of centaurs, a blur of whites, browns, and blacks, cantered loudly down the center of the road, out on their daily jog. A few streets over, where the bright, almost Techni
color section of Fantasy ended, I could see the tall, glassy black towers of Science Fiction soaring high into the sky, reflecting their surroundings in the glare of the genre’s brighter sunshine.

  The buildings closer to the university just reflected other black buildings rather repetitively. As Sci-Fi stretched back from the school, though, the buildings mirrored the lone, rather out-of-place street of Romance. I say out of place because it was completely separate from the rest of its genre and sandwiched in between Fantasy and Sci-Fi. You could only get there through a rather seedy alleyway (it was, after all, a blend between Fantasy and Sci-Fi), but the rest of the little road was just lovely. The sky there was a constant haze of pink. Birds chirped, cherubs sang, and it always smelled like baking apples. The scent floated tantalizingly across the streets separating the genres, and my stomach began to grumble.

  I decided then, easily and effortlessly, to find something decent to eat. In my haste to follow my nose, I nearly tripped over a huge, teetering pile of mail. Most of it was rubbish and chain letters, which, for some reason, were hugely popular in Fiction. On the very top of the pile of papers was an invitation. It was addressed to “Peter Able: Boy Wizard, Ex-Series.”

  I ripped the envelope open. Even though I didn’t really have that tingling, limbs-all-asleep, ants-crawling-under-my-skin feeling of being written anymore (yes, that’s how it felt, and yes, it was annoying), I sensed this might be an Important Moment. And it was. This was the moment I discovered WA.

  And this was how I met Randy Potts.

  “Welcome to Wizards Anonymous,” a rather squat woman with red hair and thick glasses shouted to me. The WA meetings were held in a small elementary school cafeteria on the wrong side of Thriller. As I opened the door to the space, I thought it must be about the size of a normal cafeteria (it seemed to be the size of Payne’s anyway), and I decided, immediately, that this was far too large for an uncomfortable entrance. Even though I’d taken a few side streets and shortcuts to get straight from Fantasy to Mystery to Thriller, I was still late.

  The group was already clustered at the other end of the room in a circle of little red plastic chairs. The faux wooden tables had been pushed up against the walls, and as I crossed the space, my feet echoed uncomfortably on the tile. The members of WA were a mess of robes, pointy hats, wands, sparkles of all sorts, and, thanks to a certain popular series, owl pellets. Feeling decidedly out of place in my jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers, I pulled over a chair to join the circle and sat down.

  “You must be Peter Able,” the group’s leader said, taking in my telltale “watery blue eyes,” my “disheveled brown hair,” and the “spattering of freckles, like constellations, across my nose.” Hey, I never said my books were written well.

  I nodded silently and, to my horror, she stood up, crossed the circle, and tugged me up to my feet.

  “My name is Matilda. I am a Girl Wizard. This is Peter Able, and he is a Boy Wizard. And we are proud! Aren’t we Peter?”

  In response, I squeaked a little and crumpled back into my seat.

  “Now for those of you who are joining us for the first time tonight, welcome to Wizards Anonymous. We are a support group for any and all Boy and Girl Wizards whose series are no more. Whether your series has been cancelled or discontinued, or you have been edited out, Wizards Anonymous is a safe place for each of us. As we say at WA, we may no longer have plotlines, but we do have each other!” Matilda trilled. When nobody seemed inclined to join in her enthusiasm, she went on, dropping her voice dramatically.

  “As we all know, the world of Fiction is a tough place to live, no matter what genre you’re in. We spend our lives following the whims of our authors, only to be abandoned one day to live on our own! Then we spend countless nights just wondering, will I ever be written again? What will I do now? I don’t know about any of you, but when my series ended, I stayed locked up in my room for three weeks. Because I couldn’t figure out the door!”

  Several people in the group murmured in agreement, and a few even clapped. I felt a little bit better that I hadn’t been the only one. Then a sickening thought struck me: how many people hadn’t ever figured out the door?

  Matilda went on dramatically, cutting across the disturbing images of fossilizing Boy and Girl Wizards running through my head.

  “But I turned that door handle, people! And here I am today, on my own and doing fine! I am a Girl Wizard and proud—and you should be too!” she shouted.

  I was beginning to feel that coming to WA may have been my first bad decision, as Matilda marched around the circle, jerking wizards from their chairs. After she’d done this to about four people, the rest had gotten the idea and reluctantly started standing up on their own. After a few minutes of others’ embarrassing themselves, I felt myself relaxing, and, oddly, kind of tingling. It was not nearly as strong as when my series was being written, and it dissipated almost immediately, so I passed it off as first-day jitters and began to look around at the other Wizards Anonymous. We were all crumpled awkwardly, legs bent and curled at odd angles in the tiny chairs, which made me feel even better. When I realized there were some familiar faces in the crowd, I almost felt comfortable.

  First there was Daphne from the cleverly titled Daphne the Wizard series. Her author had planned on writing a trilogy but had stopped after only two books just over a year ago. She told us that she’d spent her first few weeks without a plotline jealously spying on her neighbors who were still being written. They had that telltale glow that important characters in a story-in-the-works have. No, not a happy, metaphorical glow. They really are a little brighter, bolder, and a bit more detailed than the rest of us. It’s sometimes referred to as being “shiny.” I’d never noticed the “shininess” while in my series, but I guess that’s because I didn’t know anything other than being written then.

  Anyway, Daphne’s written neighbors laughed, danced, and gazed into each other’s eyes until late into the night. Of course, Daphne lived in Fantasy, but just next to the lone street of Romance, and her neighbors were the subject of a new, steamy “fantasy” story (not this kind of fantasy.) As Daphne watched the young couple, she pined for the days of being written, of tingling, of shining. The two lovebirds were carefree and thoughtless. It had to be stopped.

  So Daphne (the Wizard, remember) made her first big decision. She put a curse on her neighbor, the heroine of the story, and Trixi was never heard from again. Needless to say, her author suffered a sudden spell of writer’s block, and Trixi’s Tricks was never published, arguably for the better.

  “I realized then what a blessing it can be to be a Girl Wizard, especially without an author. I don’t need to shine to be a shining star!” she said in an overly cheery voice, beaming around the room. Until she looked at me.

  “You! You’re still . . . shiny!” she said, pointing at me angrily. I looked down at my hands dumbly, not knowing what she was talking about.

  Luckily, Matilda hopped up just then. “Peter has just been released from his series, Daphne. I’m sure it’s just residual.” Daphne didn’t look convinced, but she leaned back in her seat, still staring at me. Next to her, a freckled boy with flaming red hair scooted his chair farther away from hers. I hadn’t realized it until then, but he did look a little bit, well, dull. Not boring, but just kind of hazy and nondescript. Everyone did.

  The boy timidly introduced himself as Roland, a character that hadn’t quite made it in the editing process. He’d been written with some pretty powerful magic, and even had a few good scenes in one of the books of a series, but he was cut from the plot. After his tragic tale, all eyes were on him, even Daphne’s. I almost felt worse for him than anyone else. He was a Boy Wizard deep down, but nobody would ever know it.

  As it turned out, several of the people in the circle either had played very small magical roles or had been edited out at the last minute from larger books. There were several rather hazy, longtime ex-Gandalf-like wizards who couldn’t compete with, well, Gandalf himself; there wa
s a group of less blurry, gossipy high school girls who’d more recently played a small role in Belinda Goes to High School; and sitting next to them, looking utterly out of place and just a bit too detailed for the group of ex-characters, there was Randy Potts.

  Randy looked to be about forty or fifty. He had neat brown hair, slightly graying around the temples, and sported a pair of thin-rimmed glasses atop his handsome and kind features. He was wearing a brown business suit, and his red-and-blue striped tie was slightly loosened, hanging beneath his unbuttoned collar. He looked like a man who’d had a long day at work and had finally just gotten home to relax. In fact, that was exactly what he was doing: relaxing.

  “It’s your turn, dude!” one of the high school girls said, jabbing him with a rather nondescript wand. He looked up from the book that he’d just conjured, and seemed mildly surprised to find himself in a circle of curious faces. He took it in stride, though, and closed the Webster’s Dictionary with a snap. I knew I liked him then and there.

  “Hello, group. My name is Randy Potts and I am a Boy Wizard.”

  “Hi, Mister—”

  Mr. Potts stopped the group’s response with a simple wave of his hand: A Dismissive. This is not only a powerful gesture in Fiction but a tricky spell in the old Randy Potts Adventures series.

  “I am not here to bemoan having been written as a Boy Wizard. My series was created nearly thirty-five years ago, and only lasted for two books before my author ran away with his secretary. He couldn’t be bothered to finish the story, and he left us all waiting around, just hoping to be picked up for another book, any other book, really . . .” Mr. Potts shook his head and resumed speaking calmly. His voice was slow and clear, and nobody dared interrupt.

  “But I am not bitter. I am grateful to have been written as a Boy Wizard. It was through Wizards Anonymous, almost thirty years ago, that I met my wife, Gail. Gail was . . . well, she was my life. We grew up together just after our series had both ended. We were each other’s support, best friends, we . . .” he broke off and dabbed beneath his glasses with a handkerchief conjured from thin air. Then he cleared his throat and went on. “Gail and I were lucky enough to have several good years of marriage and two children—both going to be wizards themselves, proud to say—and then, when the children were just four and six, a house fell onto my wife.”