He walked us to the door, and just as I was saying good-bye, the professor stuck out his wooden leg, barring my way. I banged my knee into the thing and turned to face him, calmly resisting the urge to scream, cry, or tell him to go take a shower.
“Peter, I do have some advice for you,” he said, lowering his voice and glancing behind me at Randy. Randy didn’t seem to be listening, though. He was crouched down in the wet grass, examining a caterpillar with a magnifying glass. Detective stuff, you know.
“Assassins Seeking Revenge want only one thing, and will not stop haunting you until they get it.” He put his hand on my shoulder, pulling me in close to his face.
I could almost taste his warm, foul breath. Sorry, gross, I know.
“Do you know what they really want, deep in their heart of hearts?” he whispered.
I shook my head slowly, forcing myself to look into his eyes.
“They want revenge, you idiot! I thought I just said that,” he laughed, clapping me on the shoulder. I heard Randy murmur something from outside, evidently still intent on his bug research.
“So my advice is this, Peter. When this Gail woman catches up with you, which she will, I’d bet my good leg on it, so when she does, and if you happen to survive, remember this: go for the Louisville Slugger. Best decision I ever made.”
I nodded dumbly, not quite sure what to make of the whole thing, and walked out the door before he could say anything else. Even though I was pretty sure there had been no greater meaning and the scene had been a total waste, at least the rain had lessened to a drizzle and I was feeling a little bit better. When I asked Randy what the point of all of that was, he just shrugged.
“Character development?”
He was probably right. Besides, every story needs a bit of a lull before something really terrible happens.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Something terrible has happened,” Jenny said by way of greeting as I opened the door the next morning. It was not even seven o’clock yet, and a few brave stars were still shining in the purple sky above. It was an unusually chilly morning for so early in the fall, and Jenny stood shivering on the landing before me as I wasted time with description. Was I subconsciously punishing her for leaving me behind yesterday? Or was I simply building anticipation?
“Peter, I’m coming in,” she said impatiently and ducked under my arm, which I’d been resting ever so coolly on the doorframe. “I thought you said you were working on your internal monologue?” she called from the kitchen. I could hear dishes clanking around. Apparently she was making herself some coffee and getting comfortable, while I was still standing stupidly in the doorway wearing my boxers.
“I am. Or I was,” I said, rubbing my eyes as I sat down at the table. Mere seconds later, a cup of coffee that was made far too quickly, and smelled far too good to not have been magical, was plunked down on the table. Gratefully, I picked it up and inhaled. Cinnamon.
“Jenny, where were you yesterday?” I asked sternly, putting the cup back on the table. I didn’t want to come off as the strict older brother, so I added, “I could have really used a friend, and you just left.” Great, now I sounded whiny. Rather than dig myself further into an emotionally vulnerable hole, I just sipped the coffee and burned my tongue.
“I’m sorry, Peter,” Jenny said as she pulled out a chair and sat down. “It’s just, well, you know how my friend Joanne works for the Fiction Free for All?”
I’d had no idea as I generally tried to tune out all Joanne-related topics. I nodded.
“Well, she told me that they were going to be running this article in today’s paper, and that it was kind of important, well, really important, I guess, and that it might just have something to do with GP, A . . . but she said she wouldn’t tell me anything more about it unless I walked her to the office. You know Joanne, she’s so manipulative and insecure and—”
“Jenny, what’s wrong?” I asked, putting my hand on hers. In response, she pulled her hand away and reached into a large jacket pocket just over her chest, pulling out a thin, folded up piece of paper. Trying not to dwell too much on this little detail, I watched as she unfolded the front page onto the table and pointed at a headline.
Famous Boy Wizard Caught Buying Illegal Potions on the Southern Border of Fantasy
I looked up at Jenny in confusion, wondering if I should really be all that concerned. She looked down to where she was pointing.
“Oops. Not that one,” she said, moving her finger down to the headline beneath the rather embarrassed-looking, dark-haired boy with glasses. “This one.”
And Then There Were Two
Famed murder-mystery author, Tabatha Christine, is working on a new novel, sure to thrill and chill even her most jaded fans. The novel, due out in the Real World by Christmas, is nearing completion. In a recent interview with a Real World publication, Christine says that she is just taking care of a few loose ends, but that the editing process is set to begin in two weeks. When asked if she could give us any hints about the book, Christine coyly responded that readers had better be prepared for a very wicked “GP, A.” Well, whatever she means, the new book, simply entitled And Then There Were Two, is sure to be a big seller in the Real World. So congratulations to all of those in Fiction who played a part! For a complete character list, see next week’s paper.
“Tabatha Christine is the author? Tabatha Christine is having me offed?!” I tried to stand up from the table, but my legs were shaking too badly, so I wound up doing an odd little hop and collapsing back into my chair. Tabatha Christine was notorious in the Real World for her particularly gruesome novels and almost sadistic ends to her characters. In her last murder-mystery, she’d had a busload of nuns crash into a swamp filled with alligators and large snakes. And that was just in the opening scene. These days, the bus can still be seen. It is several miles south, but I’d heard of students making the trip there to pay tribute to the nuns and stare in awe at Christine’s creation.
“Two weeks . . .” I said, staring at the page but not taking in a word.
Jenny got up and stood behind my chair, wrapping her arms around my neck, breathing warmly into my ear. She was kind of choking me, but I decided if I was going to die anyway . . .
“Peter, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I left you alone yesterday, too. I never would have gone with Joanne unless I thought it might help you.” I felt a warm tear trickle from her face onto my shoulder. Well, either that or she was drooling, and I liked to think it was the former.
“We’ll fix this, somehow. We’ll—”
She stopped talking and jerked up suddenly as footsteps approached. It was Randy, looking bleary-eyed and still wearing his muddy clothes from the night before. On our way home from campus, he’d said he needed to stop by the office. Apparently it had been a long trip.
“Everything okay in here?” he asked, hesitantly making his way over to the table. Jenny sat back down and seemed very interested in examining her fingernails all of a sudden. I pointed to the open page in response, and Randy stood, hands on the table, reading the article. As his eyes darted along the page, he made several hmms and my words.
“I can’t believe it,” he finally said.
“I know,” I agreed.
“The border situation is really getting out of hand.”
“Randy!” I snapped. “Tabatha Christine? Two weeks?! I’m dead!”
“No, not for another two weeks—you just said so yourself,” he pointed out, as he picked up my coffee and sipped it.
“*&$#*!!!”
“Alright, calm down. This is good, Peter. We already knew Gail was trying to kill you, but now we know by when she needs to kill you and who she’s working for. All we’ll have to do is somehow get this Christine woman to drop the murder-mystery idea for the book and just settle for a nice romance or something.”
Evidently, Randy didn’t know much about the author. I shuddered as I remembered the nuns.
“I just don’t understand why Peter is
included in this book,” Jenny said, staring at me almost accusingly. “I mean, I’ve noticed that he’s been a little, well, brighter and more detailed lately, like how his eyes are getting bluer and bluer, and his hands feel more callused and rough, and how he has this distinct smell, kind of soapy and sweet . . .” She looked over at me and blushed. “But I just thought that was from him being written before. Ididn’tthinkhewasbeingwrittenagain,” she finished quickly, again examining her nails.
Randy looked between the two of us, smiling way too broadly for seven o’clock in the morning. I glared at him.
“Too true, Jenny,” he said, suddenly all business. “I don’t know why Peter would be involved in a Christine novel either, unless she’s gotten some new inspiration to write a parody or something. I’ll do my best to find out. But really, borrowing characters from other Fiction? So tacky.”
Still slightly flushed from Jenny’s words, I muttered something about having a tutoring session with Merlin for an upcoming test on Smaug from The Hobbit.
“Jenny, you ready?” I asked.
She nearly toppled her chair over as she stood and zipped up her jacket. We said our good-byes to Randy, who just smiled knowingly, and made our way outside, hoping to leave all awkwardness at the table. Now, we all know that never works, but fortunately I had a maximum of two weeks until another attempt was made on my life, and so we had more important things to discuss.
“Jenny, I—”
“Pie?” she asked, smiling too big. “I don’t know about you, but I am just starving. I hear Pip and Pop have this special on snozberry pie on the weekends.” She kept chatting nervously as we made our way down the street, the smell of baking snozberries looming closer. Finally when we were outside the restaurant, she turned toward me abruptly.
“Peter, I know we never really finished talking about my conflict the other day, what with the train and all, but I just want you to know that I’ve decided not to be in love with you anymore.” She was nodding along as she spoke, clearly trying to convince herself as well. “So . . . conflict resolved then! We can just stay friends!” she finished lamely and actually chucked me on the shoulder.
I could feel my heart in my throat—which in Fiction is not completely figurative and is quite unpleasant—but I just shrugged casually. If Jenny needed to believe she didn’t love me anymore, I could play along.
“Conflict resolved then,” I said. “Whoopee.”
She smiled at me gratefully and gave my hand a squeeze, and with that, Jenny and I walked into Pip and Pop’s. As friends.
Other than us and a few employees, the restaurant was completely empty, but I suppose it was still early on a Saturday morning. The building was newly renovated, as it had burned down a few years ago when Pip and Pop had been in a more experimental phase. Apparently Flavor Explosion pie was no metaphor. Anyway, the new wooden floor was still relatively unscratched and shiny, the wooden chairs all boasted clean, fluffy, checkered cushions, and the yellow vinyl booths were still taut and springy. We sat down at a booth near the window, and it screeched in protest, alerting a waitress in the back of our arrival. The rather squat and toadlike woman shuffled over to us, a look of pure exasperation on her face, and took our orders indignantly.
“What would you do if you only had two weeks left to live?” I blurted as soon as the waitress was gone. To my surprise, Jenny answered promptly, ticking the items off with her fingers. Apparently she had given this some thought.
“Go east to Nonfiction, travel to the very north of Fiction, and hike the Metaphorical Mountains . . .”
Which, naturally, were not mountains at all.
“Find an old friend from my backstory who still owes me money; get in touch with my author and ask her why a young Girl Wizard would be loaning out money in the first place, which I never really understood; and finally, I’d . . .” she faltered, “I’d . . . uh, visit the Robinson house.”
“What was that?” I asked a bit louder than I meant to. The waitress popped her pudgy face out from the swinging door to the back and shook her head angrily, as though I might be disturbing all of those other customers.
“The Robinson house? The Swiss Family Robinson house. I hear it’s really cool,” she said, not meeting my eye.
“No, before that,” I said, ignoring the bright blush on her cheeks. “Can you get in touch with your author?”
Her face went from embarrassed to incredulous. “Yes, you can get in touch with your author, Peter! Haven’t you ever heard of a ‘story writing itself’? You know, how authors are always going on about how the words just come to them, that they just appear on the page and then all of the sudden, voilà!” She slapped the table, clearly happy with the change of subject. “There’s a story there! That’s the character communicating with the author. I can’t believe you didn’t know that . . . No offense, but no wonder your series was so conventional.”
I decided not to get too offended, because, let’s face it, my series had been a bit conventional. The orphaned-child-finds-magic story had been told time and time again. As a matter of fact, it was because my story was so similar to Jenny’s that hers had been canceled in the first place. I decided it wouldn’t be wise to bring that up, and I curbed my internal monologue quickly.
Though my story had been a bit unoriginal, I never imagined that I could have done anything to change it. I’d always thought I was more a piece in the game than a player—a puppet on strings, a . . . Boy Wizard in a crappy book. However you’d like to put it, I’d always felt that the story was not in my control. If what Jenny was saying was true, the possibilities were endless! I could see Beth again! I could change the story and have a father! I could—
“Peter, I’m sorry, but it doesn’t really work that way,” she said, watching me sadly. “I was just kind of being hypothetical earlier. I couldn’t really get in touch with my old author, and neither can you. Those series are over.” She moved her hand across the table as though to put it on mine, but the waitress walked up and set our plates down on the table roughly.
“Snozberries,” she said, and huffed off and slammed the back door. It was a swinging door, so it didn’t really have the desired effect.
“But listen, while an author is still writing a story, the characters can sort of . . . suggest how they’d like things to turn out. I’ve never done it—obviously, or else I wouldn’t have leant that Suzy Bell fifty dollars in the first place—but I’ve heard about it.” Jenny leaned forward excitedly, and her words blurred together. I put down my fork and watched her lips carefully so I could follow along. “You know, apparently BilbowastheonewhocameupwiththeTrollscene? The author was having trouble getting the story going, so Bilbojustkindofmovedthingsalongforhim, and BAM! Trolls!”
I nodded, smiling just a little at her enthusiasm, trying not to think about how cute she was when she was excited, or happy, or angry, or, well, you get it.
As we ate, she continued explaining how different characters had influenced their authors. Apparently, a whole lot of what they called “creativity” out in the Real World was just a fancy way for an author to take credit for the character’s work. But the one thing she didn’t seem to know was how to influence a story when death (mine) already seemed to be written (damn).
After I paid for our pies and left the waitress a generous tip (a note that suggested she get a new job), we decided to take a bit of a walk. The sky was deep blue, the sun was well out, and Fantasy was waking up all around us. Large toads, perhaps distant relatives of our rather brusque waitress, were basking in the sun on gleaming stones in the road, turning from brown to green with the warmth. Nobody else seemed so relaxed, though. With the breeze, it was rather chilly, and the air simply buzzed with the energy of early autumn in Fiction—which I hear is just like early autumn in the Real World . . . if the Real World were on acid. The leaves on the trees along the road were turning orange and red right before our eyes, and rustled happily like they were whispering amongst themselves. I was so content just watchin
g the world go by—the bright fairies buzzing around chasing each other; the Neighborhood Dragon soaring high overhead, his stake hanging from its chain and dipping and swinging wildly beneath him; and the sound of Jenny’s footsteps next to mine, our hands lightly brushing from time to time—that I hardly noticed where we were going. In fact, I only vaguely registered that we were passing through Science Fiction because I nearly tripped over a young cog waiting outside a flavored-oil shop. The next thing I knew, Jenny and I were walking beneath the southern archway to campus.
“Where are we going?” I asked, realizing that it was probably a little odd that I didn’t clearly remember getting there. My fingers were tingling madly, and as I looked over, I saw her shaking out her own hands, as though they’d fallen asleep.
“I’m not sure . . . This way I think,” she said vaguely. Something weird was going on.
We made our way to the large courtyard area, which was mostly deserted since it was a weekend. Too late, though, I saw that we were not completely alone, and we nearly walked through a group of ghosts who were almost invisible in the sunshine.
“Oh, sorry!” I stammered, peering past them, looking for something. I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“I am the ghost of Christmas . . .”
I quickly grabbed Jenny’s arm, which really was tingling and hot, and guided her away from the overly theatrical phantom. We didn’t have time for Dickens—our plot was thickening, I could feel it.
We jogged a bit until we could no longer hear the howling ghost and were just along the edge of the square nearest the forest. I put my hand on a lamppost to catch my breath, and when I pulled it away, I found a big glob of blue sticky tack on my fingers. The post was littered in papers—a makeshift bulletin board—and front amongst them was the very flyer that had led me to Fiction Academy:
Do you dream of becoming a Main Character, but you’re not sure how? Do you fantasize about taking control of your Fantasy Fiction, but you don’t know where to begin?
The Fantastic Fable of Peter Able Page 11