The Timeless Tale of Peter Able

by Natalie Grigson

  By the time the little show was done, the entire class had crowded around my table in a tight little circle. Nobody said anything until the bell rang, then everyone grabbed their things, eager to leave the room. I heard one of the frat boys mutter the word “freak.” It didn’t bother me much; I’d heard it before.

  “Peter, can I have a word with you?” Mattie asked hesitantly as I put the last of my creatures back in its original cage with magic. I turned to face her.

  “That was . . . phenomenal.” She looked a little bit pale. “I mean, really impressive. I just . . . well, no offense, Peter, but I’m not sure how you did that. In your first class, you weren’t able to, well, you know. And now, it’s like you’re a different wizard. I don’t even recall you being able to do voiceless magic in your series!”

  “You’ve read my series?” I asked, embarrassed.

  “Of course I have. I read everyone’s stories who I know. It’s like Googling them.”

  “Ah, yes. I’ve read about the Google.”

  “So, tell me. How did you do it?”

  I thought about it, and I thought about it, and I scrunched up my face to see if that might help and thought a little more. “You know, I’m not really sure. All I can think is that it’s been . . . an emotional week. I remember I used to just kind of say the spell and visualize the outcome. But I never felt it. This week I’ve been feeling so much, I guess I just started putting some of that into the spells. I noticed it at first doing the homework. In the beginning I was saying the spells out loud, but then, the one with the paper clip, I had just been thinking about . . . someone, and feeling really sad. So I just kind of took that energy and put it into feeling what it would feel like if the paper clip moved. And it did; it just zipped across the desk.”

  “My, Peter, I think that’s the longest string of words I’ve ever seen from you.”

  . . .

  “Ah, well, had to end sometime. However you’re doing it, Peter, keep it up. I don’t think I’ve seen such progress from first week to second in any student yet. Good job.” She reached out and patted me on the shoulder. In that moment she really felt like someone I could count on; a true friend—

  “Nope.”

  A very close acquaintance.

  “Peter.”

  Someone I could occasionally talk to about things.

  “Peter, I’m your teacher now. If you need a friend, I’d suggest looking at the other students. And maybe see what happens if you put some feeling into working on your internal monologue, hm?”

  I decided to give it a try.

  . . .

  . . .

  . . .

  . . .

  Hey, it worked.

  I was walking briskly down a rather narrow and dark corridor of the main building, headed toward one of the least used exits, just marveling at how much a difference a little emotion can make in magic, when it happened. The hallway around me went all cold, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and all at once, I felt like my stomach had both fallen out of my butt and levitated itself right up into my throat.

  There, at the end of the hallway blocking the door, was Jenny.

  Arms wrapped around the back of a YA vamp’s neck.

  And mouth pressed against his.

  “HOT POCKETS!” I shouted, incoherently. I turned around to run, but, of course, the one other student who decided to use this exit today was just behind me. I banged my head on the young ogre’s stomach and bounced off, toppling backward onto the floor.

  “Peter! Are you okay?” Jenny asked, rushing over to help me up. I looked up. Her face was still less clear than I was used to, but I could see that the area around her mouth was rubbed red and her hair was tousled.

  “I’m fine,” I said, pushing her hands away, instead using the ogre’s pants to pull myself up. He didn’t mind. Contrary to popular belief, ogres don’t usually mind much at all until they’re at least twenty-five. No one knows why.

  “Peter, this is Ed—”

  “I know who he is,” I said, taking in the vamp’s stupid golden eyes, pale skin, and ridiculous mane of hair. He hadn’t been written in a while, but he had the look of someone who had a lot of Fan Fiction going on, perhaps even a mention or two in another book Out There.

  “Nice to meet you,” he said, annoyingly polite. We shook hands, me trying to crush his, him merely watching me curiously, like an odd little bug he might decide to step on if it buzzed too loud.

  Jenny looked back and forth between us a few times before awkwardly telling me “we have to be going.” And she said it just like that, all italicized and everything. I watched as they disappeared back up the hallway, willing my ears to make out the words they were saying but knowing that I didn’t really want to know.

  “I’m sorry,” the ogre said from about four feet above me. I’d nearly forgotten about him—his grayish green skin blended in nicely with the stone wall, and there was the fact that he hadn’t moved in about four minutes too.

  “It’s okay, ogre. She needs to go off and do her own thing for a while, learn who she is. Maybe everything is destined to be the way it is—prewritten, you know? Maybe we weren’t written to be together. At least not right now.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. You’re a good listener, you know?”

  And with that, my new best friend, the Ogre and I, walked out the door and into the sunshine.

  When I got home, I realized that my long and heartfelt talk with the Ogre on our way back to Fantasy hadn’t lifted my spirits—in fact, just the opposite. I sat down at the kitchen table and tried to concentrate on my homework: a new packet of notes on levitating larger living things. Luckily, Dach-shund had come in with me, having followed my rather volatile rant all the way from campus.

  But after a few feeble attempts at levitating the sleeping Dach-shund and only managing to lift her long ear, much to her irritation, I gave up. I leaned back in the kitchen chair and thought about how if Randy was here he’d ask me to “please not do that, Peter,” as the chair legs were old and delicate. He’d tell me to take a few deep breaths and then get back to my homework. He might make me some tea.

  Randy wasn’t here, though, and so I was left with nothing but the admittedly darkening thoughts in my head and a sleeping dog for company. I started pacing the room, going over my options.

  I could do nothing and simply wait for Randy to come back home, having arrested the mysterious? or not, but either way, living out my days in Fiction in much the same way—not entirely satisfied or fulfilled but not completely miserable either. Or, I could risk it all and change my backstory. I know I’d been warned over and over that changing the backstory could change everything—but wasn’t that the point?

  The last time I remembered being completely happy, well before Jenny, was when Beth was still alive. I didn’t remember my mother, but I couldn’t help but believe that I’d been happy then too.

  I stopped pacing and was surprised to find my backstory, unfolded but still underneath its odd covering, in my hand. I must have taken it out of my pocket without even realizing.

  What did I have to lose, after all? I wouldn’t change anything major, anyway. I wouldn’t change anything that could affect anything else . . .

  I carefully lifted the flap at the top of the apparently magical but seemingly only plastic folder and slid the pages onto the table without touching them. Dach-shund woke up immediately, jumped onto the chair, and growled at them.

  “It’s okay,” I said, patting her head distractedly, my gaze fixed on the papers. “I know it smells weird. It’s from a weird place. I’m just going to . . .” Without even having to think about it, I held out my hand and imagined the pencil from the counter zipping into it, and it did.

  “Just going to try something,” I finished.

  I scanned the first page, looking for something unobtrusive.

  Born: February 26. 27? 26. 3 a.m. Born to Margaret and Walter Able—a happy couple, newly married. Hospital in small t
own on East Coast.

  More in the hospital, Mom and Dad love each other deeply . . .

  Ah, here we go.

  How did Walter and Margaret meet? College . . . In Northeast. Ivy League School. Both very smart—Margaret studied theater and Walter—electrical engineering? Margaret always more artistic, Walter more practical. Peter takes after both.

  Before I could talk myself out of it, I took the eraser end of the pencil and very carefully, rubbed it back and forth over the top part of the ? after engineering

  Margaret studied theater and Walter—electrical engineering.

  I looked around, almost expecting the apartment to have suddenly morphed into a spaceship, surrounded by glass looking out at the stars, rather than solid walls.

  “You okay, Dach?” I asked as I patted myself down. Everything seemed to be—wait, hold on.

  Yep, everything seemed to be intact.

  It wasn’t until then that I realized I had been holding my breath. I let out a great exhale of relief.

  “I’ll just put this away for now,” I said to Dach-shund, who frankly looked a little bewildered that I was still talking to her. “I’ll see if anything is different tomorrow at school and then try another experiment if it’s not.” For some reason, I felt calmer and more certain than I had in a long time. There were no more questions about what to do, or what not to do, and even though my action didn’t seem to have done anything at all, I no longer felt torn in two directions.

  After I tucked the pages of my backstory safely back into the folder, folded it up and put it back into my pocket, I sat down and was able to focus on my homework completely, starting with Mattie’s assignment (much to Dach-shund’s disappointment) and then a ten-page entry in my journal for Person vs. Self. I felt like I was finally making some progress.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The next day, I woke up ten minutes before my alarm went off, still feeling slightly cheered by my decision to make a decision. I laid in bed for a few minutes, just glorying in this fact, when I heard something from the living room. Thinking it might have been Randy, I jumped out of bed and ran down the hall.

  There was no one there—not even Dach-shund, who I’d let out late last night when she’d picked up on a rather impassioned argument happening down in Romance. All of the pillows were in the same place on the couch I’d remembered them being the night before, the throw blanket was still strewn over the top, a half-finished glass of water on the table. Nothing was out of place inside the room.

  Just on the other side of the window behind the couch, though, there was what looked like a hand print. As I walked closer, it looked more like a smudge from a dog’s nose—it could easily have been something left behind from Dach-shund. As I got even closer, it looked more like a large, bear-sized paw. I moved to the left of it, it looked like claw marks, and I moved to the right, it vanished into tiny scratches, like a tree might make blowing against the glass in a storm.

  Reflexively, I reached into my pocket to feel that my backstory was still safely inside. I was certain this was the work of?, and if it hadn’t been for Randy’s protective spells, he might have gotten in.

  I pulled my wand from my pocket and summoned the small red emergency phone Randy and I kept in the kitchen.

  “Yeah, hi, Ogre? Would you like to walk to school together? Okay, meet you downstairs.”

  He may not have been much of a conversationalist, but at least he was ten feet tall and intimidating.

  That day in Person vs. Person, I couldn’t just skim over the details of class, because something important actually happened.

  “Guys, listen up. Today something important is happening,” Bateman growled as soon as I took my seat. I’d been the last to arrive, as the Ogre insisted I walk him all the way to his Math class, since he’d agreed to pick me up outside of my apartment. He was scared of the fountain fairies.

  Perhaps not the best bodyguard, but I digress.

  “Peter, are you listening? Because this message pretty much pertains directly to you,” Bateman growled, rapping his leather-gloved knuckles on my desk.

  “Today, class, we’re going to go over Person vs. Person dynamics. Now, in every story you’ve got a conflict . . .” The class, as a whole, started fidgeting, grumbling, or otherwise losing interest. “Which, yes, you already know. BUT,” he shouted, “did you know that because you’re in THIS class, you have a Person vs. Person conflict?!”

  “Yes,” I said, since he was still staring at me. Really, this main character thing . . .

  “RIGHT!” he boomed, turning away sharply, his cape catching me in the eye. Even though it looked cartoonish and rather two-dimensional, it still hurt. Once he got back to the front of the room, he turned to us dramatically. “Everyone’s Person vs. Person conflict is different, though. Myself, I’ve had many. And today, class, you’re going to meet some of my personal ENEMIES!”

  Bateman then marched purposefully over to the classroom door, wrenched it open, and with a flourish of his gloved hand, in marched a man whose face was painted completely white, except for his blood-red lips and the black around his eyes, making him look skeletal. His hair was bright green, his eyes yellow, and just like Bateman, he was a little too colored-in looking.

  This could only be . . .

  “The Prankster!” Bateman said, pointing at the man as he walked across the front of the room, closer to the gray stone wall. “And here we have,” Bateman continued, as someone else filed in through the door, “Half Face!” This cartoon man was wearing a three-piece suit; his hair was neatly parted to one side, but straight down the middle of his face was a jagged line of scar tissue, separating his burned and deformed left side from his perfectly normal right.

  Half Face smiled and waved, walking toward the Prankster, who he embraced in a half hug, before standing next to him, looking out at the class a bit uncomfortably.

  Bateman had just gone to close the door, when someone stuck a sketchy green shoe between it and the frame.

  “Ah, was someone else scheduled to come?” Bateman asked Half Face over his shoulder. He only half shrugged in response, so Bateman opened the door wider.

  “I’m sorry, can I help you?” he growled as politely as he could. Granted we couldn’t see most of Bateman’s face, but from what I could tell, he looked utterly perplexed. Whoever was on the other side of the door must have said something, very quietly, because Bateman leaned in, head out my line of sight, to hear. When he stepped back, he was frowning slightly. “I’m sorry, I really don’t remember that . . . Maybe it was in an earlier edition or some early-on sketches? Well, come on in, if you’d like.” Bateman stepped aside, and the figure walked into the room.

  Like the rest, he was clearly a comic book character—but he didn’t quite look finished. He was wearing a tight green body suit, a green mask from his nose up to his dark hairline, and again, green knee-length boots. He was built like any cartoon superhero—thick lines defining his six-pack, muscles the size of a normal man’s head—but none of it was completely filled in. Rather than being dull like an unwritten character, he was simply incomplete; the green of his outfit was only half sketched in, his outlines were only half-connected in some areas, and where his eyes should have peeked out from behind his mask, there was nothing. His artist simply hadn’t gotten to them.

  I’d never seen anything like it, yet there was something terribly familiar about the man.

  An image, unbidden, popped into my head. It was my dad—just a brief flashback that must have been mentioned in the beginning of my first book, though for the life of me, I couldn’t remember ever having seen it before. “Always trust your gut,” he said. And that was it.

  I didn’t waste time wondering where this new memory had come from, I knew with an un-Peter-like certainty that this was the advice I needed at the moment, and so without further ado, I jumped up from my seat and ran out of the room, out of the Conflict Hall, and up the steps, holding my hand firmly on my backstory all the while.

 
; I didn’t stop running until I found myself unable to keep running—as I was unexpectedly flying through the air. It was such a strange change of events, I suddenly had the idea that I was flying! My author had finally written me to fly!

  But no, almost as soon as the thought crossed my mind, I was descending! Descending! And head-first into a large stack of papers I went. I pulled myself out and looked around. Apparently I’d run to the end of a corridor somewhere upstairs in the main building and fallen into a large pile of papers to be recycled.

  “Peter.” The word was barely legible, much less audible. I spun around, and there was the superhero from Bateman’s class. He was even less filled in than he’d been in the classroom, as though when he ran after me some of his details had trailed behind, like a scarf caught in the wind.

  I couldn’t move. I just stared as he advanced, arm outstretched toward the center of my chest. Was he going to rip out my heart? Was I going to stand here and talk about it while he did? It looked like it.

  But then, another new memory popped into my head.

  “I always knew I wanted to be an engineer,” my dad said in a flashback scene from the beginning of Book One.

  Something clinked heavily in my brain, a little voice that seemed to groan and say, No, you idiot, not that one.

  Then something else sprang to the foreground of my mind—an image of my mother holding a wand up toward the heavens, leaves blowing around her face madly, her hair whipping around violently, as she brought lightning crashing down and thunder to shake the earth. I’d never seen this; it had been a dream. But it got me thinking, rather than stand here talking to you guys . . .

  “Shove OFF!” I shouted, pointing my wand in the center of the advancing collection of loose details. I know it wasn’t exactly a spell, but I poured all the feelings I could—feelings of missing a mom I didn’t even know; feelings of injustice at constantly being attacked; feelings of Jenny with her new vampire; feelings of really having to pee and not being able to. I imagined these feelings as though moving from the center of my chest through my wand arm, and the force of it blew him away.