The Actual Account of Peter Able

by Natalie Grigson

  “Yeah, I guess so.” I felt a little dejected for my clone theory. Totally possible, by the way.

  “Hm. Perhaps she’s created some sort of alternate access point; a portal or a device of some kind. After all, she did grow up in Sci Fi; she’s sure to know all sorts of things. Yes, it’s very interesting, isn’t it? It’s very…” Randy pulled a large magnifying glass from his pocket (which yes, if you’ve probably noticed by now was a magically extended pocket—the spell for which is really quite simple, but for legal reasons can’t be inserted here, or else I’d totally tell you.) “…Interesting.”

  “Well ‘at took a while,” Ivor grumbled. Randy ignored him. He just stared out the window, clearly thinking, magnifying glass held up to his chin.

  “Okay, then forget what I said earlier. We have to go back out there now,” I said.

  “What’re ye outta yer bleedin’ mind? Din’tya read tha note? ‘At’s exactly what we shoul’nt be doin’.” Ivor crossed his arms. Even though he was about three feet tall, he still looked pretty menacing just then. Terrill stood behind him, a little uncertainly.

  “I know that, but if we don’t put a stop to it, who’s to say she won’t come into Fiction and turn us all into Real Worlders? Like—”

  Just then, in perfect timing, Alan the Lion stirred for the first time. Because this is Fiction.

  “—like Alan here. We must go out there. And kill her.”

  “Whoa, ho, ho!” Randy had stopped looking dreamily out the window, and instead was looking uncomfortably around the room. “Ah, let’s keep it PG here, Peter. We won’t have to kill her; we can just make sure she’s no longer a danger to others. I do agree, though; we have to do something. If she’s able to get things into Fiction in some other way than the wardrobe, then I don’t know what it is, and I can’t monitor it or prevent it. We’ll have to stop the source—Destiny herself.”

  “And while we’re out there, show Jenny’s author her backstory so he can start re-writing her books,” I added.

  “And find all the other authors.”

  “And go by In-N-Out Burger.”

  “Who said that last one?” I asked.

  No one answered and Randy was making quite a show of tucking the little alarm clock back into his pocket.

  “Well then, I guess we’d better get go—”

  Just then, Alan sat up on his haunches. He glared around the room; something in his eyes was so alien. So wild. This was not Alan.

  “Uh, nurse?” I called out nervously.

  His tail twitched in agitation and he smelled the air. He licked his lips. A low growl rumbled through his body; shook the room.

  “‘Ow ye feelin’ there, mate?” Terrill tried nervously.

  Alan just watched him, hungrily. He didn’t pounce, but he didn’t say anything either. Then he let out a ferocious growl—a screaming, distorted version of the word “help.” He looked angry and scared. He looked like a lion torn between two worlds.

  “We’ll help you, Alan,” I said wildly, having no idea how we could. He jerked his head in my direction and sniffed the air. His eyes narrowed. He stood up on the bed, his weight making the springs sing beneath him. He looked sort of like he was going to jump. Yes, in fact, that’s just what he looked like he might do, and—

  “Peter, what are you doing? Let’s go!” Randy grabbed me gruffly by the shoulder and pushed me out of the room and into the white hallway, where Terrill and Ivor were already waiting. There was a loud thud as not-Alan landed on the floor, then a roar that sounded like “please.”

  “We have to put a stop to this,” I said in a low voice. The three nurses, plus a rather small, gray, and smelly ogre bustled by and pushed their way into the room. I could hear something metal fall to the ground; something heavy thudded against the wall. Then it was quiet.

  “Come on, let’s go,” I said only once the nurses had stepped back into the hallway. (The woman with purple hair gave us a quick nod. “He’s sleeping.”)

  The three of us left the hospital, not talking but barely hearing the screams and cries of the other patients we passed. Turns out, there are much more disturbing things than losing your mind in Fiction.

  She’ll worse than kill you.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Mattie

  Geppetto

  Merlin

  Phil, Willy, and Nilly

  Long John

  Lost Boys (Tootles, Curly, The Twins?)

  Unnamed Ogre from Book 2 – Temporary Best Friend

  Kiki

  Princess Badroulbadour*

  Bob

  Jenny’s dad

  *Look it up.

  I stared down at the piece of paper, pencil hovering at the corner of “Jenny’s dad.” When I looked up and lowered the page, I saw that Randy and Long John had both fallen asleep on the couch across from me, Long John’s grizzly head heavy on Randy’s shoulder. We were in my living room, papers (maps, lists crumpled up and tossed to the floor, favorite Madlibs) strewn about, empty mugs stained dark from coffee on the table, and books—at least two hundred books—stacked in fives and tens, dotted around the room. It was just like my first year at Fiction Academy: for the past three days, Randy and I had been pouring over any books we could get our hands on. We were searching their pages for characters either A) linked to the Erased somehow, B) really brave, C) easily convinced, or best possible, secret answer D) all of the above. We’d also put up flyers all over campus asking for help; Randy had even convinced Detective to offer payment for those willing to venture into the Real World. Long John, who was also the Dean of Fiction Academy, set aside his heavy workload to become a sort of champion for the cause: making announcements at school, helping us with the flyers, and asking his old crewmates, who he knew were both brave and easily convinced. But still, so far all we had were sixteen characters to help, not including Randy and me, and I wasn’t sure that bringing Bob or Jenny’s dad out was the best idea. Bob, because I wasn’t sure what would happen if we brought a talking ficus tree out into the Real World, and Jenny’s dad because… well, I felt I’d caused enough trouble for her family already.

  Something landed heavily on the ground outside, shaking the apartment and causing a rather precariously stacked pile of books to topple.

  “What’s that?” Long John asked blearily.

  “Just the neighborhood dragon,” I said quietly. Almost on cue, I saw orange light up the sky outside of the window and then the smell of burning wool.

  “Keeps this up, Bo Peep’s going to contact Creature Services,” Long John muttered. He stood up and stretched his arms over head, yawning widely. A piece of dried seaweed fell from his beard onto the floor (“Hm. Don’t know where that came from”). He walked into the kitchen, his one wooden leg (a Louisville Slugger) crunching along the hard wood floor. I heard him open the refrigerator just as Randy woke up on the couch.

  “What time is it?” he asked, sitting up.

  “Almost 3:00. Listen, Randy, I’ve been thinking—I don’t think I want Jenny’s dad or Bob to come out there with us.”

  “Well Bob, I can see—I’m really not sure how he’d get along out there. I don’t think most of the plants talk in the Real World, do they?”

  I shook my head.

  “But Peter, Jenny’s dad is perfectly capable of making this decision for himself. He was one of the first to volunteer, after Ed. We can’t really afford to turn down help at this point.”

  “We turned down, Ed,” I noted.

  “You know he sparkles in the sunlight. Besides, we can’t have you two fighting the whole time when we’re on a serious mission.”

  Long John walked back into the living room (step, drag… step, drag…), holding a large plate of chocolate and pixie-blue iced cupcakes that had been sitting in our refrigerator since the day before. Randy’s office had had a party.

  “Talkin’ about Ed?” he asked. “That wouldn’t a worked. Jerry, on the other hand: the man’s made up his mind, Peter. He wants to go, you let him go. You
don’t need to protect Jenny’s family. Didn’t do anything wrong in the first place, you ask me. Here,” he shoved the plate in front of me, “have a cupcake.”

  I sighed and took the cupcake with my free hand, the other still holding onto the disappointingly short list. Of all the millions of characters in the book world, we were down to fifteen now, fifteen, willing and able to help us. Would it be enough to get in touch with the Real World authors? Would we have enough time? Would we be able to capture Destiny safely and prevent her from turning anymore characters into (again, no offense) grotesquely graphic and detailed Real Worlders?

  There were so many unknowns and already I felt exhausted. But we had to keep going.

  “We’ll have to make do with the characters we’ve got. Maybe more will volunteer before we leave tomorrow night, but I wouldn’t count on it. Anyway,” I placed the uneaten cupcake on the coffee table and then stooped down to retrieve first one, then two, then three thick, floppy books, placing them on the table by the cupcake. “We still need to find out where half of these characters’ authors live—and from what I gather, the Real World is a pretty big place.”

  “What have you got there, huh?” Long John step-dragged himself to the side of my armchair and peered down at the books. “The White Pages? For four cities? From 1999…?”

  I sighed. “It’s the best I could do. There aren’t many published books listing authors’ names and addresses, and pretty much nobody is listed after 1999. We obviously already know where to find Jenny’s author, Albert, and Randy and I have already found out where the guy who wrote Bill and Banana Tree’s story and the woman who wrote that fairy book live.”

  Randy nodded. “I came across it in my gardening class last week—a published journal all about Real World gardeners. Apparently Bryce Dingsworth and Amanda Woodensby are quite the vegetable gardeners.”

  “Those don’t even sound like real names.”

  “I didn’t make them up. At any rate,” Randy continued, “They’re off in Georgia, about an hour away from each other. So we’ll have to just take a flight from England to Georgia and then drive.”

  “And you’ve got the fake IDs and money?” I asked, feeling just a little embarrassed to be asking in front of Long John—who was a friend, but was also the Dean of my school. He, however, seemed suddenly not to be listening, and was very intently searching through one of the phone books.

  “Yes, Terrill and Ivor came through yesterday—they could only get cash in pounds, but we can just exchange the money when we travel. Here’s your passport,” Randy said, handing me a thin, maroon booklet with gold writing on the front. Inside, was a picture of… me. (Not the best picture, but really, who has a good passport photo?) There was an expiration date, my name (plus an added and totally made up middle name to make it seem more authentic ((Anthony)), and even several stamps for the countries that I had supposedly visited. It seemed fool-proof.

  “How did they—?”

  Randy just held up his hand. “I don’t ask. No doubt it is highly illegal and probably dangerous in at least five ways, but they’re doing us a big favor here.”

  “I think I got something,” Long John said, still staring down at the phone book intently. His gnarled finger was poking into the middle of a page. “Peter, what did you say your original author’s name was? G. E. Wells?”

  “Yes…” I said, feeling a little uncomfortable. This was, after all, the man who had suddenly ended my first series of books by killing off my little sister because he was tired of writing them. I wasn’t exactly a fan. “But that doesn’t have anything to do with the Erased Characters’ authors.”

  Long John stared at me for a moment, still holding his finger to the name on the page. He sighed, closed the book, and then put it on the floor to peruse another one.

  I glanced at its cover: Los Angeles White Pages, 1999.

  We went on searching through the books, often finding multiple listings for the authors’ names, highlighting them all, until very early in the morning. Finally, we decided that we’d done the best we could and gave up to get at least a little sleep before our journey. Long John declined our offer to sleep on the couch (“No offense, but your place has a funny smell to it,”) and headed home. Randy walked, zombie-like, into his room.

  Los Angeles White Pages, 1999.

  I picked up the book—just to see his name in print, really. And there it was:

  G.E. Wells

  907 North Bedford Drive

  Beverly Hills

  Los Angeles, California 90210

  And beneath it:

  310-423-8820

  Without thinking, I tore the page out and slipped it into my pocket before heading to my room to sleep.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Peter?

  Peeetterrrrrrr?

  I knew the voice immediately, and I knew where I was—nowhere: that odd non-location where I was everything and nothing all at once, but Jenny’s voice (sort of) rang out. Words filling the page. I could feel her presence—her very Jenny-ness—more than see her or hear her. It felt like sitting next to her with my eyes closed, but then suddenly, I was aware of more beings; infinite beings, perhaps. And where was this place, really, if not in the world of books or the Real World? What could possibly be beyond, beyond space and time, and the capacity of the human mind to comprehend, and OH MY GOD what if it was all just a story anyway—the Real World, the book world, what if they were all just as real and fake as one another and—

  Dammit, Peter, focus. I need to talk to you.

  Sorry, Jenny. It’s just… weird place you’re living now.

  She ignored this, but I could imagine (somehow) her rolling her (non) eyes.

  Peter, what are you thinking going back out into the Real World? I told you, you can just let us go. You’re putting yourself in more danger than you know.

  What—Destiny? Jenny, I can handle Destiny. Besides, I’ll have help.

  Not Destiny, Peter. It’s not just Destiny…

  What do you mean? Jenny, you keep …ing right when you’re about to tell me something really important. Why… Oh dammit, now here I go…

  That’s just the way it works, Peter… Creating suspense…

  Jenny, wait…

  …

  …

  And then it was gone. It didn’t feel like I woke up in my bed, so much as dropped back into my body; back into the world of books. I pushed the thought away that said, “Wow, Peter, that sounds an awful lot like you just died in your sleep for a minute!” and slowly raised myself up. I was still wearing my clothes from the night before and, apparently, had fallen asleep on top of a half-eaten yogurt, which was affixed to my jeans. It was almost noon.

  “Randy!” I tore away the covers, jumped from the bed, and dashed into the living room—three very strong verb choices, I might add, so I felt a little dizzy for a minute. Randy walked calmly from the kitchen into the living room, where I was leaning against the wall.

  “Too many strong verbs?” he asked, ever the detective. I just nodded.

  “Okay, that’s fine. You won’t have to do much today, action verb-wise; until we get out into the Real World, of course. We’ll leave here in a few hours to meet the group. Then we’ll all bus out to the Black Market together. And then—”

  “Then out to the Real World. I know,” I mumbled, still a little woozy.

  “Yes, but…” He looked around the room and then sighed. “Ah well. I suggest we take it easy today. You know, maybe do a whole lot of nothing in great detail; really take our time in getting going. Tonight will be plenty exhilarating; we certainly don’t need anything exciting to happen today.”

  “Randy, I wouldn’t say that…”

  “Don’t worry, Peter. Today will be a breeze—nothing will happen for hours.”

  “Randy, seriously; every time you say something like that—”

  The phone rang.

  A moment later, Randy reappeared in the living room. I no longer felt out-verbed, but still leaned agai
nst the wall. I was sure the call was bad news.

  “Jesus Christ,” Randy announced, pale-faced.

  “What happened?”

  “No, no. That was Jesus Christ—the Christian Comics version, actually. He called to tell me that we’re too late. She’s gotten another one.”

  I stood away from the wall.

  “She’s gotten another one what…?”

  “She’s gotten another one—Jessica Jones. She’s gotten another case that she just can’t seem to wrap her head around. She’ll need some help. But really, I do think we’re too late…”

  Again, my heart started beating faster; my stomach seemed to drop.

  “Too late for…”

  “Too late for the block party in Comics! It’s the third Sunday of every month, and it only goes until about 1:00. I suppose we could make it over if we hustled. I could whip up a plate of cranberry pinwheels...”

  Randy kept talking and I allowed his words to trail off and blur softly around the edges. I sank down onto the couch, not even aware that I’d walked over to it. The last thing you ever want to say in Fiction is something like “well at least it can’t get worse,” or “we sure don’t need anything exciting to go on today!” It’s the kiss of death, and I’d been sure that the call would have been ours.

  After a few moments I realized that Randy’s voice was not soft and blurred any longer, but clipped and serious.

  “What do you mean? How could she possibly have gotten it all the way into the Academy?” He paused. I sat up on my knees on the couch, facing the kitchen. He was standing there, one hand holding his little work cell phone to his ear, the other pressed against his lips. He was as white as he’d been visiting Alan in the hospital. “Yes, of course. We’re on our way.”

  He walked into the living room’s entryway and holding his phone out as if offering it to me said:

  “She’s gotten Bob.”

  Randy drove us to campus, sirens wailing, descriptions sparse, and dialogue minimal. We were in a rush. But all I kept thinking was just how familiar this feeling had become. It felt like last week we were rushing off to stop his ex-wife, Gail, the then villain; just moments ago that we set out to stop ? from erasing characters. And now some other evil was once again threatening Fiction and had, once again, hurt my friends. How much could one main character take?