Bookweird

by Paul Glennon

  Aha, he thought triumphantly to himself as he fell back on the bed. At least now I can find out what happened. He sighed, and brought his captive prey to his eyes—The Grey-Haired Monocolist? So that’s where that had gone. A few weeks ago he had searched franticly for this book. It was overdue at the school library, and he was gathering the courage to declare it lost. It didn’t matter so much to him now. He would have gladly traded it for The Brothers of Lochwarren.

  He searched his entire room, going as far as transporting the clothes from heaps beside the dresser to a heap in the laundry room and borrowing some strange instrument called a broom to sweep the entire floor, but The Brothers was not to be found. The more he searched, the more frustrated he became, and the more he felt the need to blame somebody else.

  He stormed over to Dora’s room. Without knocking, he swung the door open. His sister, who was lying on the floor playing some game, turned around startled, holding a plush stuffed unicorn in one hand and a painted silver wand in the other.

  “You’re supposed to knock,” she complained.

  Norman knocked.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “I’m looking for my book,” Norman said.

  “So?” Dora began waving her painted wand in circles and whispering annoyingly.

  “Have you seen it?” he asked accusingly.

  “Nope.”

  “You don’t even know which book I’m looking for.” Norman ground his teeth, getting more agitated by the second.

  “I haven’t seen any of them.”

  Norman couldn’t let it go. He had looked everywhere. Somebody else must be responsible. “Have you been in my room?”

  “No.” Her defensive tone gave her away as much as the movement of her body, as if to hide something behind her.

  Norman took two steps forward and Dora moved again, still trying to hide something. “You have been in my room,” he muttered. “Give me back my book.”

  Dora squealed. “I don’t have your book!”

  Norman was close enough now to see what she was trying to hide: a regiment of Spivitski Skirmishers, fully assembled but half painted. Norman needed to buy two more colours of paint to finish them. They stood in formation now, on the floor behind his sister, surrounded by stuffed animals.

  Norman erupted. “I told you not to touch anything in my room! Those are fragile. You could break them!”

  “I was being careful with them. I was only playing. It’s not like you ever play with them.”

  “That’s because they aren’t finished. Now give them back. And my book too.”

  They were both screaming at the top of their lungs now.

  “I don’t have your stupid book,” Dora shrieked.

  “Like I believe you,” Norman scoffed.

  Neither noticed that their mother was at the door. “What on earth is going on in here?” she asked, in a level just higher than her normal, calm voice.

  Dora and Norman answered together.

  “She’s been taking my stuff without asking—”

  “He butted in here, without knocking, and he’s wrecking my game, because he’s mad that everyone laughed at him on the bus—”

  Their mother sorted it out in her usual efficient manner, by reminding them of their chores. Dora was sent to clean the cat litter, Norman to sort the recycling. He was only just allowed to rescue the regiment of Spivitski Skirmishers from the clutches of Nodlow the yellow dino and Sushi the Siamese cat.

  Norman was folding cardboard boxes vehemently when his mother came to him in the garage.

  “What book are you looking for?” Meg Jesper-Vilnius enquired calmly.

  Norman didn’t answer immediately, but his need to find the book overcame his resentment. “It’s one of my Undergrowth books, The Brothers of Lochwarren.”

  “The new one?” his mother asked.

  Norman nodded. It sometimes surprised him that his mother listened and knew things like this.

  “Well, you’ve obviously looked in your room, and your sister promises she hasn’t had it, so it’s best that you sleep on it. It’s amazing how sleep can help your mind solve problems. You look like you could use a good night’s sleep.”

  Norman hated how his mother always gave sensible advice that he didn’t want to hear. He could tell her a few new things now about the power of sleep.

  Surprisingly, after supper and homework and a little TV that night, Norman did sleep, as soundly and as deeply as he ever had. And once again he woke up in his own bed. Undergrowth seemed farther away this morning. He hadn’t even dreamed of it. Dressing slowly and brushing his teeth, he did his best not to imagine what Malcolm was doing now. It was no use wondering if he safer with his uncle or whether Cuilean’s path to Lochwarren was just as dangerous. His mother was right: sometimes solutions to problems did come to you in your sleep, but this was because you let them sneak up on you. You had to try not to think about them.

  Trying not to think about something is a nearly impossible thing. By reminding himself not to think about his book, Norman only made himself think about it more. Where had he left it? Had he just lost it, or had his excursion into the book done something to the book itself? Maybe it was impossible to read a book once you’ve been in it. If you were making up the laws of the universe, this would be a plausible one. If only there was someone he could ask—perhaps that librarian, the one whose double was a fox abbot in Undergrowth. Once Norman’s mind had started wandering, only the most extreme intervention could bring him back. Perhaps only Dora could accomplish this. She came screaming down the stairs while Norman was slurping his cereal.

  “Mom, Dad, look what he did. He wrecked my book. He wrecked it!” There was nothing like a hysterical accusation to bring your mind back to the breakfast table.

  Standing by the coffee machine at the counter, Norman’s father raised his head from his mug.

  “Calm down, Dora. What’s happened?” Edward Vilnius asked wearily.

  “He wrecked my book. He ripped it…”

  Norman’s dad knew him a little better than this. “I hardly think, Dora, that Norman would—”

  Dora continued to sniffle and rage. “He did. He found the most important page and ripped it out. He wrecked it.”

  Startled, Norman dropped his spoon.

  “Did you see Norman rip your book?” his father asked, taking a calming sip of coffee.

  “No, but he’s mad at me ’cause he lost his book, and he doesn’t want anybody else to be able to read.”

  “Dora, that’s just silly. Are you sure your gerbil didn’t just eat it, like it did your science project?” At this Dora actually stamped her feet. Her father should have known better than to make a joke about it.

  Dora completely lost it. “You all hate me. You don’t want me to read. You only want him to read.”

  Their father took a deep gulp of coffee before continuing. “I’m sorry, Dora. I didn’t mean to tease you. Let’s take a look at the book. Which page is missing?”

  Norman couldn’t resist taking a look for himself. Dora held the book open, as if it was proof in itself of Norman’s guilt. Sure enough, the book went from page 78 to 81. A whole page was missing.

  “Hmmm,” their father mused. “You know, Dora, they don’t make books like they used to. See this glue here on the spine? That’s called ‘perfect binding,’ but it’s not perfect at all.”

  Edward Vilnius knew more about books than they ever cared to hear, especially Dora at this moment, but Norman took up the idea. He had a queasy feeling in his stomach. This was a little too coincidental, and he very much preferred a logical explanation.

  “It’s true, Dora,” he said. “I had a book that lost pages like that. They just came unglued. Yours probably came from the bookstore like that. I had to go to the library to read the missing pages.”

  “That sounds like an excellent idea.” Norman’s mother had appeared again, to be sensible and cheerful.

  His father had reached the end of his coffee
, and perhaps his patience. “I’m sure Spiny would be happy to take you to the library this evening after school, so that you can read your missing page.”

  “Happy” wasn’t quite the right word.

  There was no one at the front desk when they walked into the library. Norman went to the catalogue computer and looked up the title of Dora’s book—The Gypsy’s Secret: Fortune’s Foal.

  How lame, Norman thought, as the listing came up. There were twelve copies of the book in the city library’s various branches. Twelve copies—that was crazy. He looked closer at the listing. Their branch alone had two copies. One was signed in. He jotted down the catalogue number and hurried to the shelves. The sooner he got this over with, the better. Five minutes of scanning book spines later, he found the right shelf. He needn’t have bothered. Dora was sitting on the floor beneath it, book in hand.

  “You knew where it was?” Norman said, exasperated.

  “Of course. I’ve read eight books by this author already,” Dora replied smugly.

  “Is the page there?” he asked, worried that Dora’s missing page problem might become as complicated as his own.

  “Of course it’s here,” she snapped testily. “Stop interrupting me. I’m trying to read it.”

  “Fine by me,” Norman muttered and wandered away. “I’ll see you outside.”

  As he detoured by the front desk to throw away the catalogue slip, a too-familiar voice made him jump.

  “Hey, Book Boy, you’re back.”

  Behind the counter stood the strange librarian. He was dressed in black again, his hair was spiked high now, and he’d added a streak of purple.

  “Yes, I’m back.” Norman eyed him suspiciously, searching the teenager’s pale face for the resemblance to the fox abbot he’d met in Undergrowth. Now that he saw him again, Norman wasn’t sure. It had been dark that night under the arches of the ruined church, and Norman had been so tired.

  “Yes, I’m back,” he repeated, “…thanks to you.” It came out somewhere between a statement and a question.

  “I’m touched,” the librarian said flatly. “You should come for the books, though.”

  Norman laughed a false, nervous “hah” and tried again. “You know what I mean, in Undergrowth.” He sounded less than confident.

  The pale librarian stretched his face, as if mildly amused, and passed a pencil through the hole in his ear.

  Norman could not stop himself from pushing for an answer. “Did you do something to my sister’s book too?”

  The librarian smiled indulgently. “You’re a crazy little kid, aren’t you? You should read less and sleep more.”

  “Isn’t sleeping what caused all this?” Norman replied.

  The librarian looked the other way and typed something on the computer, as if he didn’t have time for this. Under his breath, he muttered, “That’s funny. I thought it was eating that caused all this.”

  “What did you say?” Norman gasped incredulously.

  The librarian made another wide-eyed “I don’t know what you’re talking about” face.

  Norman felt a tug at his elbow. “Come on, Norman. Let’s go,” Dora whispered at his side. It was such a quiet voice that Norman had to look down to make sure it really was his sister.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. Dora looked like she had been crying. “Is everything okay?”

  “Let’s just go home,” she repeated.

  “Is this the sister?” the librarian asked, leaning over the counter to look down on her. No one answered him. “Pony troubles?” he asked Dora, his forehead furrowed in mock seriousness. “I feel your pain. I’ve been there.”

  Norman opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. What could he say that didn’t sound crazy? Dora tugged again at his sleeve. “I want to go now.” She really did sound upset. He led her outside slowly. As he opened the door, he looked over his shoulder at the librarian, who winked just like the abbot back in Undergrowth. He would have to deal with this later.

  Dora was strangely silent as they walked. They were nearly home when Norman finally spoke.

  “What’s the matter, Dora?” he asked, trying to sound as brotherly as he could.

  “Nothing,” she replied sullenly.

  Norman took a deep breath. He didn’t even have to pretend to be concerned. “What happened at the library?”

  “It’s the book,” she said, not capable of keeping up her silence. “It’s all wrong. The book’s wrong. They killed Serendipity. That can’t happen.”

  “What do you mean? Who killed Serendipity?”

  “The gypsies,” Dora sniffed, trying not to cry.

  Norman tried to be calm, but inside his own throat was constricting with panic. “It’s only a story, Dora. Sometimes bad things happen in books.”

  “Not in this book,” she insisted.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because it didn’t happen the first five times I read it!” Dora glared at him as if he was the idiot.

  Norman stared back incredulously. “You mean you are having a fit over a book you’ve already read…” Then what she was saying hit him. “But it’s changed, it’s different now?”

  Dora just nodded, curling her lower lip to stop it trembling.

  Norman didn’t like the sound of this. He had no idea how to console his sister. He decided to try to distract her by his usual method of being really, really annoying.

  “What is this dumb book about, anyway?”

  “It’s about a girl and her horse, only it’s not just a horse. It’s a special horse.”

  “A special horse, like one with wings?” He said, intentionally picking a fight.

  “Not special like that,” Dora insisted. “It’s a therapy horse. It helps people.”

  “Yeah, by giving them rides places.”

  “No, it helps them when they are upset or not right in the head,” she explained.

  “Who needs a horse for that? That’s dumb.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s dumb,” Dora countered. “Sword-fighting hamsters are dumb.”

  “No way…you just don’t get it. Undergrowth is about—” Norman stopped there. How could he explain to Dora that it was more than a book, that it was all real and that he’d seen and felt it?

  “Anyway,” Norman said, “you shouldn’t worry about it. This is probably just a new version of the book. They do that sometimes when they make a movie. They change it, you know, to make it exciting. You should keep reading and see how it turns out. I’ll bet you everything is okay in the end.”

  “I don’t want to read it anymore.” Dora’s voice was so small and pitiful, even a brother couldn’t ignore it.

  They arrived at their front doorstep. Norman put his hand on the door handle and turned to Dora. “Do you want me to read it and tell you what happens?”

  She didn’t answer him then, but that night as he was lying in bed, he heard shuffling outside his room, and a skinny paperback was slid beneath the door.

  Fortune’s Foal

  Having to read a girl’s book was embarrassing even if no one else knew about it. Ponies, fairies and unicorns had no place in real stories. If the unicorns wore battle armour and had sharpened obsidian blades attached to their horns, and the fairies swarmed in squadrons like aerial ninjas, maybe…but that was unlikely. He braced himself for a sickening set of slumber parties and horse shows and sparkly rainbow-riding white unicorns. It took a dozen pages or so to realize it wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t awful either.

  Amelie Saint-Saens was the heroine of Fortune’s Foal. She lived on a farm with her father, Georges, who was the local vet. From what Norman could tell, Amelie’s mother had died in a horse-riding accident when Amelie was very young. Georges Saint-Saens was a withdrawn man who rarely spoke. After Amelie’s mother’s death, he had sold all her horses and had forbidden Amelie to ride.

  Fortune’s Foal began with a new birth at the Saint-Saens farm. One of the neighbour’s mares had been brought
to the Saint-Saens barn to foal. It was expected to be a difficult birth, and the owners wanted the vet to be right there when the horse went into labour. For Amelie, though, there was something special about this particular mare, a big and elegant chestnut. Her name was Fortune, and she had been Amelie’s mother’s horse. Fortune was the one horse Georges Saint-Saens could not bear to see sent far away. She had gone to the neighbours, the Ventnors, as a sort of exile. The Ventnors planned to breed her, and Georges Saint-Saens was to take a half share of the profits.

  Amelie often accompanied her father on his rounds and had seen several foals born, but the men had barred her from the barn when she tried to join them this time. The foal was tangled in its umbilical cord and wasn’t dropping. Even from the house, Amelie could hear the mare’s painful sighs through her open window. If Georges Saint-Saens hadn’t been such skilled vet, neither foal nor mare would likely have survived. As it was, only the foal made it through the night. The mare was not young. The birthing took a lot out of her, and she had lost a lot of blood. For a while it looked like the foal might not make it either, but the men had spent the night in the barn keeping the newborn warm and fed. By morning Amelie was allowed to come and see the new foal.

  They called the foal Serendipity, in part from his dam’s name, but also because it seemed to be luck that Fortune had been sent to a neighbour when the rest of the stable had been sold off to strangers. Serendipity rose and stood on four wobbly legs when Amelie entered the stable. He sniffed the air curiously, wrinkling his nose and snorting. They had brought in an old Shetland pony to keep the foal company. The pony moved in between the foal and the girl to protect her new charge, but the young colt’s curiosity was not so easily deterred. They played a shuffling game of peek-a-boo from behind the grey pony’s back until the pony gave up and Amelie was giggling uncontrollably.