The Timeless Tale of Peter Able

by Natalie Grigson

  Just then Jenny dropped a plate onto the black-and-white checkered floor and it shattered, somewhat predictably.

  “Ugh, sorry. You know I make puns when I’m tired,” Jenny grumbled. She pulled her wand from the back of her flannel pajama pants and swept the shattered pieces into the bin. I watched her somewhat jealously—I hadn’t practiced much magic at all since the end of my first series of books. Well, aside from that one time last year when I’d had to magic my way out of being killed by a fat Penguin named Pen and Gail the Assassin/Randy’s ex-wife during a school dance.4 But other than that, the past eight months or so had been magic-free on my part. In fact, they’d been pretty dull, literally.

  Since the last book ended in December, we’d mostly been just going on about our lives, as nonwritten characters do. We went back to school after winter break, we had a semester, Jenny started staying more at my apartment than at her own hazy and never-described home, Randy bought the apartment across the hall, summer break started, and that about brings you up to speed. All the while, we had none of that tingly, being written feeling, no real excitement, and let me tell you, being unwritten is not a good look for anyone. You lose your vibrancy, what makes you unique. Jenny’s light brown hair and vibrant green eyes had gone a sort of imprecise gray; my freckles had nearly completely vanished, and my hair was no longer a messy dark brown; and Randy just looked like some vaguely fatherly figure who lived across the hall.

  But now that a new story had begun, things had regained their color, their magic! (Though not literally, for me anyway.) I could once again see the detail of the 1950s seafoam-green refrigerator, the hand-sewn light yellow curtains; I could feel the warm August breeze coming in through the window. Things could be exciting once again! There would be a story!

  “Have you seen the story on today’s front page?” Jenny asked sleepily from the other side of the table. She pushed the paper across the table in between Randy and me.

  Immediately, Randy said something that made Dach-shund jump up, bark, and run headlong into the refrigerator. Here’s why:

  MISSING CHARACTERS LINKED TO STOLEN BACKSTORIES

  Revealed exclusively to the Fiction Free for All just hours ago, an inside source has come clean about the truth behind the disappearances in Fiction over the past month. According to our source, the disappearances are the result of backstories being brought from the Real World into our own and then being tampered with. The source (who wishes to remain anonymous) confesses that he does not know who the person or persons are ordering the backstories and tampering with them, but he does feel certain that these backstories are not merely picked by chance. The characters whose backstories have been “ordered” seem to have been deliberately chosen. These disappearances have been an act of violence. By whom? We don’t yet know. But our inside source did let us know that “if anyone’s ’ad their backstory pulled all the way from the Real World inta Fiction, it’s cos ’e’s done sumfink to someone. Sumfink bad.”

  With those wise words, we’ll leave you. Keep reading Fiction Free for All for the latest updates on this case, interviews with the Vanished’s families, and, today on page three, the complete book lists for all fall semester Fiction Academy students.

  “I can’t believe Terrill or Ivor would talk to a reporter about the case,” Randy said in a low voice, shaking his head slowly. I, on the other hand, was not surprised.

  “Those two are just looking for the highest bidder; my guess is this reporter offered them top dollar for their input, and they were happy to help.” I got up and opened the refrigerator, took out some eggs, cheese, butter, an onion, and a red pepper, put my ingredients on the counter, pulled a large frying pan from the drawer beneath the stove, and set to making an omelet and some background.

  “Besides,” I went on, back to the room, “it’s not as though they said anything that will hurt the case. People know about backstories now—maybe it’ll be good; they can keep an eye out for suspicious papers or report suspicious activities.”

  “But for the victims’ families—to think that their loved ones had been chosen deliberately, when we’re not certain that’s the case . . .”

  “What do you mean, not certain that’s the case? It seems pretty apparent to me. I mean, after all, s/he had to fill out a specific order form about a particular character s/he wanted offed. My guess is s/he wasn’t just choosing names out of a hat.”

  “She/he. We’ve been over this before,” Randy said. “You’re probably right, Peter. In all likelihood, whoever is behind all of this isn’t just randomly choosing characters, but it doesn’t do any good to tell the public that their friends and loved ones have been singled out until we’re a hundred percent sure. It could cause panic.”

  “I’m not panicked,” I said, a little too loudly and crazily to sound not panicked. “What I can’t believe is that school’s already starting on Monday. It feels like we just ended spring semester. Now, we’re already on year two of three! Time flies when you’re not being written for eight months, amiright?”

  “Peter, are you okay?” Jenny asked as I poured coffee creamer onto my omelet.

  “Sure. Fine.”

  But of course I wasn’t fine. I knew my internal monologue would give me away, as it always did when I got really worked up, so I just let it happen.

  It seemed to be one thing after another for me. During my first series, my author killed my sister, and he’d offed my parents before the books had even started. Then last year, in another book Out There, a sadistic Penguin named Pen and Randy’s ex-wife/assassin/wizard/surprisingly-pleasant-lady-when-she-wasn’t-trying-to-kill-you, Gail, had made it their mission to murder me, going so far as to inspire their Real World author to change the story to end with my death. Luckily, of course, another story was also being written about me at the same time with a much different ending. (As you well know.)

  And now it seemed like someone new wanted me dead. It was almost as though bad things were happening to me just to make for an interesting story!

  “You don’t think it could be Pen or Gail, do you?” I asked, pushing my plate away.

  “No, I don’t, Peter. I checked in with both of them last week as soon as I came back from the Black Market. Gail is still being used as a character fill-in for undesirable roles. I believe in her last book, she played the part of a 1950s housewife.”

  “I bet she hated that,” Jenny muttered.

  “I am almost positive she did,” Randy said with some satisfaction. “And as for Pen, well, she’s been transferred over to . . . Nonfiction.”

  “What?”

  Randy covered his ears. In case you didn’t know, italics in dialogue are very shrill. I lowered my voice. “What?”

  “Yes, she wasn’t doing very well in the dungeons at the school, so they’ve moved her over to Psychology. Perhaps permanently.” Randy sighed. “Her publishing house has already replaced her with an almost identical fat penguin—not that I think all penguins look alike or anything,” he added loudly, looking around the room.

  “Randy, I hardly think penguins are going to be the target audience,” Bob said. He’d swiveled his way over to a patch of sun streaming in through the window. Also having breakfast, I suppose.

  “Either way, Peter,” Bob went on. “As such things tend to go, I imagine this story will unfold in its own time. I don’t suppose you’ll find out who the villain is until at least midway, and I am sure there will be plenty of twists and turns to keep you occupied until then.

  “Now if you don’t mind, I have some decorative sitting to do in the Math building on campus today and I really must be off.” Bob began swiveling his pot, rocking from right to left, slowly edging his way through the living room toward the front door.

  “Bob, hold up,” Randy said. “I need to go into the office today anyway, have a word with Terrill and Ivor. I can give you a lift.”

  “Peter and I will come too,” Jenny said, clearing the plates from the table, careful not to spill my cream-soaked omelet
goop. “Peter, grab the book list, and we can head to the school store to get this out of the way. Then maybe we can do that cauldron ca—”

  Dach-shund yipped from under the table. She usually only interrupted foul language, but if there was going to be a particularly hairy copyright infringement, she’d speak up then too.

  “Er, we can try baking those cakes that your friend from Wizards Anonymous recommended.”

  I told her it sounded great, secretly hoping for something, anything to prevent me from having to spend one more Saturday afternoon baking.

  As you can probably imagine, it’s never a good idea to say something like this in Fiction.

  The journey to campus took only about ten minutes by foot and even less by car—which was kind of a shame. This was the first I’d been outside since my new story began (as you well know), and I’d been looking forward to seeing everything all bright, shiny, and new. But, you know, Bob moves pretty slowly, and Randy had only just gotten permission to use the siren and was still pretty excited about it. So we drove, and Fantasy5, Sci Fi67, and Mystery89 all passed by in a blur of colors.10

  We arrived at Fiction Academy, by way of the south entrance, only minutes after leaving the apartment. Randy’s office was located in the Detective building, just inside the entrance. We pulled into the lot next to the square, plain building, which was dotted with square, plain windows, and parked next to the other various cop cars, many of which were undercover cars—you could tell because the word “undercover” was painted across their doors.

  “Okay,” Randy said, switching off the siren. “I’m headed in. Bob, how long are you sitting in Math?” He turned around and faced Bob in the backseat.

  “Oh, this whole week, I suspect. First week of school, they’ll want the lobby area to look nice. I’d better be off, then. I can make it from here. Thank you for the ride, Randy.” And with that, Bob slipped one of his branches beneath the door handle and let himself out of the car.

  Randy hurriedly said good-bye to Jenny and me, set his face into a scowl, and headed beyond the blood-spattered yellow tape and into the building, little angry words trailing behind him.

  “I’d hate to be Terrill or Ivor right now,” Jenny said as we made our way toward the school bookstore. I grunted in response, though really, I wasn’t paying much attention. I was looking around, reveling in the feeling of being shiny and vibrant once again.

  Even though school hadn’t quite started yet, there were still some other students milling about—a couple of goblins, a few Stereotypical Sorority Girls from YA, and several nymphs—many of them sporting bulging canvas bags with the words “Fiction Academy Bookstore.” As we walked through the stone courtyard, we saw that several of the benches were occupied by more students chatting, catching up on their summers, and at one of the picnic tables on the outside of the courtyard, a group of YA vampires were having a meal—which was gross, so I continued to look around the courtyard.

  The whole square was surrounded by buildings of various sizes, shapes, and colors. The largest of which, the main building, was similar to the Detective building in that it was rather boxy, made of bricks, and looked like it was probably built during the 1950s. Next to it, there was a section of dense trees, which, I knew from last year, hid a trail that led to the Creative Inspiration classroom—a small log cabin and one of the most bizarre places on campus.

  To our right were the Math building—a little castle made of old gray stone, complete with towers and a moat—and a bit farther back, the Science building, which looked a lot like the Math building, only smaller.

  There was, of course, much more to campus, but I couldn’t see it from where I was, either because it was farther back from the courtyard or because it was underground (many classes were actually held in the dungeons beneath the main building. It was also starting to get weird that I’d just been standing in the same spot for about five minutes describing things, so we’ll get to that later.

  Jenny and I walked past the little coffee shop, where inside I could see several familiar faces from Wizards Anonymous meetings, most of whom were dull and had been long since abandoned by their authors, but one of whom, Daphne, was looking quite shiny—apparently her author had decided to finish writing her trilogy after all. I gave her a small wave as we passed the window, rounded the corner, and came up to a short line of students outside of the bookstore.

  “Hm,” I observed, as we took our place behind a nondescript girl in black. “I’ve never seen a line here before. I wonder what’s going on.”

  “They’re only letting in twenty students at a time this year,” Jenny said. She was looking down at the page from the newspaper with our book lists. Apparently an article had accompanied it.

  “It says here that because there’s a new headmaster, he wants to meet all of the students individually. That’s weird. I didn’t know there was a new headmaster.”

  “Yeah, I feel like a lot of things were kind of glossed over between the end of last book and now.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Anyway, I guess whoever it is will be in there waiting to greet everyone, meeting the new students, making everyone feel welcome.”

  “Yeah, or really uncomfortable,” I murmured. Maybe I was a little paranoid, you know, after the multiple attempts on my life, but to me, it felt less like a friendly gesture and more like a way to size everyone up.

  Once we got inside, I knew I was right.

  “Peter, Jenny!” Long John Silver boomed across the room as soon as we’d entered the door. “I thought I might be seeing you today!”

  Aside from Long John, who was half sitting, half standing on a tall stool in the front of the bookstore, there were just two cashiers on the other side of the shining wooden counter behind him, who both winced visibly at his volume. The bookstore was not generally a place of yelling.

  As the other students fanned in, unsure of what or who they’d find to greet them, Jenny and I wound our way through various tables covered in books and up to the front. Long John got up from the edge of his seat and walked the remaining few steps to greet us, his Louisville Slugger baseball bat leg clunking along the wooden floor.

  “Peter,” he said, grabbing my hand forcefully and giving it a shake. To Jenny’s dismay, he gave her an enveloping hug. Not that it wasn’t a nice gesture. It’s just, Long John smelled. A bit of seaweed that had been in his beard came away in Jenny’s ponytail, and unashamedly, he picked it out.

  “Whoops, sorry about that!” He stuck the salty green leaf back into his long, matted gray beard and guided the two of us to a nearby table, empty of books and surrounded by chairs. These round tables to the left of the shop were usually reserved for studying or small student meetings, but today the table had a tea set, a few cakes, and a laminated sign that said “Welcome to Fiction Academy.” A few nearby students looked up from their shopping to see what would happen at the table.

  “So how the hell are you two? I haven’t seen you since last December! Well, aside from around campus during spring semester, which, let’s be honest, is all pretty vague. Are you two getting ready for the second year?”

  Long John poured three cups of steaming tea and passed around three plates, each with a small slice of cake on it. It was definitely from Pip and Pop’s—it smelled rich in vanilla and thick cream; it only partly masked the smell of the ocean coming from Long John.

  “Yes, well, we’re picking up our books today.” Jenny gestured toward the bookshop, where now more than a few students were peering around bookshelves to see what they’d be in for.

  “Nothing to see here, you lot!” Long John shouted. “Get your books and once you check out, come see me!”

  “Long John, I didn’t know you were the new headmaster,” I said once he’d sufficiently scared the students. “When did that happen? And what happened to . . . uh . . .” I looked over at Jenny, who looked a little embarrassed herself.

  “You know, I don’t think the old headmas
ter was ever named, was he?”

  “I don’t think he was,” Jenny said.

  “Nope, he wasn’t,” Long John said through a mouthful of cake. “Clearly they needed a more dynamic character in the role, so they moved me from Basic Conflict to the big office. They brought in old Atticus Finch to teach the first years; I figure he knows as much about conflict as anyone. Which conflict are you two taking this year?”

  “Person vs. Self,” Jenny answered for us. Every year at Fiction Academy, students of all genres are required to take at least one conflict class and a total of six before graduating. During first semester, everyone just takes Basic Conflict. From then on, you have the choice between Person vs. Self, Person vs. Person, Person vs. Society, Person vs. Destiny, Person vs. Nature, and Person vs. Supernatural.

  Last spring I skipped a semester of conflict, the thought being I could use a break after nearly being killed a few times in my first semester. This year, I’d have some catching up to do if I didn’t want to fall behind.

  “Actually, I’m taking Person vs. Self and Person vs. Person,” I said, avoiding Jenny’s eyes. I hadn’t told her—she tended to worry about me being killed. Her reaction was as expected and caused several students to turn back toward the table and stare.

  “HEY! Get back to your books, you little squirts!” Long John yelled, stomping his fake leg on the floor. “These first-years,” he said in an undertone, pointing at a group that included a green forest nymph, a short goblin, and a tall and lanky twentysomething-year old. “They’re a little too jumpy for my liking. And dull too, eh?”

  He was right; most of the students were clearly not important characters. So back to us, then.

  “Peter, I have to admit, I’m impressed with your fortitude. It’s moronic, but still, it’s nice that you think you can handle two conflicts at once. You just let me know if you need any help—though, in Person vs. Self, there won’t be a whole lot I can do for you two . . .”