by Paul Glennon
“Or the smokescreen or the tire-slashers. The buttons on the centre console. You do drive shift, right?”
“I’m only twelve!” Norman replied. It was dawning on him that Kit actually intended him to get behind the wheel of the silver car.
Kit appeared puzzled for a moment, then seemed to understand. “Your mum won’t let you drive, huh? I should have guessed. So overprotective. I’ll teach you tomorrow. In the meantime, grab the bags from the back?”
Norman was about to reply that he wasn’t a servant, but his uncle had disappeared into the house.
Norman grabbed the bags from the hatch. The first contained a stack of about a dozen personal-sized pizza boxes, the next a giant tin of biscuits. The third was a box the size of a basketball, wrapped in brown paper and inscribed to him: “To my favourite nephew, Norman, with love, Uncle Kit.” He didn’t want to but he couldn’t help guessing.
Even before Norman had ever met him, his uncle had always sent the weirdest gifts—an Indian headdress, strange glowing gems, toy guns that seemed way too realistic. He’d always thought that his uncle was some great world traveller, sending these things back from places Norman had only read about in books. Until he’d experienced the bookweird himself, Norman could never have believed that his uncle was actually collecting souvenirs from the books themselves.
He resisted opening the box. He put all three of the bags on the dining room table and went in search of his evasive uncle.
He found his sister first. She came in from the garden, flushed and excited, starting to talk before she was even in the house.
“You should have seen the waterfall! It must be, like, ten storeys high, and it shines like silver. It really shines, Norman. It does. It glows like moonlight. Raritan says it might be a passage. We’ve been looking all week for a passage. We’re going to try to go behind it tomorrow. Do you want to come?”
“Stop, stop.” Norman held up a hand. “Why are you looking for a passage?”
Dora sucked her lower lip into her mouth and looked around to see if anyone was listening. It was just her brother and the unicorn, who was still close by outside the open door. He cast a wary eye to the kitchen as he grazed on the herbs in the window box.
“We’re looking for a passage back to Diadora. Raritan says he’s spent too long here and it’s time to get back to the Talingi. Only you can’t tell Uncle Kit yet. We want it to be a surprise.”
Just a slight exhale from the unicorn caught Norman’s attention. He looked out to see the animal staring at him with those giant serious eyes. Norman felt like he was being tested. He just nodded at the unicorn slowly.
“Listen, Dora, you said you’ve been looking for a passage all week. How long has Raritan been here? How long have Mom and Dad been gone?” It was hard to keep track of time when you went off bookweirding. Time in the real world passed differently.
A puzzled look overtook Dora’s face, as if she had not really thought about it much and was surprised now that she had.
She had just opened her mouth to talk when Kit poked his head in from the dining room. “Come on, the pizzas are getting cold.”
Norman had never had pizza that good. When he asked where he’d ordered from, Kit just winked at him and grinned. The guy even went to a book for takeout. Norman couldn’t blame him. Pizza in England was pretty bad.
He figured he needed a different approach with Kit. He was getting nowhere with obvious questions. He needed to be a little sneakier, like his sister and her unicorn.
“Are Mom and Dad going to call from Paris?” Norman asked. He purposely did it with a bite of pizza in his mouth, so it would look casual and off the top of his head.
Dora lifted her eyes anxiously from her own pizza. Despite the distractions Kit had brought her, she obviously missed their parents more than she was letting on.
His uncle nodded, and chewed his own slice. “They weren’t sure that their cellphone would work there. They are probably having a hard time finding a phone card. Plus, you know … Paris.”
Norman didn’t “you know … Paris.” He’d been there only once, at night, in a pretty creepy old book.
“Doesn’t their hotel have a phone?” Norman asked.
“Who knows? French hotels. They’re probably staying at some ancient old place. You know Meg. She loves atmosphere.” Kit bit into his pizza to avoid saying more. The more his uncle explained about his parents’ vacation, the more suspicious it sounded.
“They sent a postcard,” Dora contributed brightly. “I think they are taking lots of carriage rides. That’s the romantic thing you do in Paris. That’s what was on the card anyway.”
Norman grabbed his cup of juice and hid his face behind a big swig. “Can I see?”
Dora’s face clouded again. “I don’t know what happened to the card. It was on the fridge. Have you seen it, Uncle K.?”
Their uncle spread his own look of confusion across his face. “You know, I can’t say I have. It probably fell down the side or something. I’ll put that on my shopping list for tomorrow: better fridge magnets. In the meantime, I think it’s high time Norman opened up his present.”
He placed the box on the table in front of them.
Norman wasn’t buying it. His parents hadn’t gone to Paris. Kit was up to something again.
The last thing he wanted right now was a gift from his conniving uncle, but he played along. His uncle was trying to keep them happy. That’s why Dora had a crown and a unicorn. And it would be easier to figure out what was going on if he just played along. Besides, he really was curious. With Uncle Kit, there could be anything in the box.
Norman went at the package the way he knew he was supposed to: like an excited kid on his birthday. The brown wrapping paper tore off in strips and floated to the floor. Uncle Kit didn’t seem to mind the mess. He grinned picking up the scraps as they fell. Norman dutifully worked his way through the layers of packaging, the cardboard, the plastic bags, the Styrofoam padding, until he came to what was inside. There were four pieces. The goggles were obvious enough, and so were the gloves. The black box with the plug was probably the main unit and power supply. Norman’s own gaming system was languishing back home. For weeks, he had been begging his parents for something to kill the boredom here in England. This thing looked like it had come from the future, or at least from Japan. It had to be some next-generation thing that only three kids in the world had yet. The regular Norman would have been all over it.
“Try it out,” Kit urged, plugging in the main unit and placing the goggles over his nephew’s eyes. Norman was plunged into a star field. Blue and red streaks of light flashed by in his peripheral vision. A staticky radio voice summoned him. “Pick up that bogey on the right, newbie. If you let him get a bead on you, you’re space dust.”
Kit helped him on with the gloves, and Norman felt the controls of his space-fighter at his fingers. He flicked a finger and the star field lurched, the fighter moving at his commands. It took his breath away. It was the most realistic VR he’d ever seen. He managed to keep his ship flying for about five minutes until one of the bogies sliced his right wing in half and he spiralled down towards an asteroid crater. He didn’t even wait for the crash to remove the goggles.
The disappointment on Uncle Kit’s face when Norman put the goggles down and sighed was so convincing that Norman felt a twinge of guilt.
“This is cool.” He made it sound like he was saying it just to be nice. “Thank you. This may be your best present yet. Better than the blowgun, even.”
Kit didn’t seem to notice Norman’s tone. He took it at face value and brightened up. “Want to play a two-player game?” he asked.
“No, thanks,” Norman replied glumly. He rubbed his stomach and winced as he got up. “I’m going to go outside for a second. I think I might have eaten too much pizza.” He felt his uncle’s eyes on him as trudged out the back door. Good, Norman thought. Feel sorry for me.
Outside in the garden, he caught the looming shape of
the unicorn in the evening light. He hesitated at the back door before he approached it. The animal had done nothing to suggest that it wanted to help or even wanted anything to do with him. Before, in the garden, it had given him a look of pure disdain, but even so, Norman was drawn to it. Raritan seemed to care about Dora. The unicorn was, in fact, the closest thing to a responsible adult in the house.
“Don’t stand behind me like that. It’s annoying.” The deep voice startled Norman. He’d somehow imagined that the unicorn hadn’t heard him. He should have known better.
He approached tentatively. The creature seemed even bigger when you were close to it. Norman raised a hand to pat its neck as he might with a regular horse, but he stopped himself. This wasn’t a regular horse. Stroking its neck was probably about as appropriate as patting the head of your neighbour or your teacher. The unicorn’s sombre brown eyes watched Norman’s confused approach but betrayed no reaction. They stared openly for what seemed like minutes and then blinked. His long black lashes seemed to wave Norman away.
They just stood there silently for a long time, each of them staring out at the woods. Norman was watching the forest for some sign of Malcolm. He had no idea what the unicorn was watching for. Perhaps it was something less fruitless than looking for a stealthy forest creature in the failing light.
As they stood there, Norman could almost feel Raritan’s annoyance. His huge breaths sounded like gigantic judgmental sighs. Raritan obviously knew something was wrong. He had been brought here somehow. He knew he didn’t belong. He probably knew that Kit was behind it, but he suspected Norman too. Why? Had Kit said something, or could the magical creature sense the other magic? Did he know about the bookweird?
“Sir,” Norman began, not sure how to address the magnificent creature. “Mr.… uh, Raritan, can I ask you a question?”
Raritan turned his head just barely to acknowledge him and blinked the slightest blink. Norman wondered how to begin. Raritan might distrust him, but it was because he knew something about the bookweird, had been a victim of it. It made the unicorn a potential ally and the only one he could really confide in, but it was difficult to know how much to tell him. Telling people that they belonged in a book usually didn’t help much. Unicorns probably didn’t like it any more than anyone else.
“I know Kit brought you here,” he began. “He did the same to me. I’m supposed to be somewhere else, helping a friend who needs me.”
Raritan had turned away again, but from the way his ears flicked, Norman could tell that he was listening.
“Thank you for looking after Dora. She needs someone to look after her. I think Kit sent my parents away. He claims they’re on vacation, but I don’t believe anything he says.”
A loud exhale from the unicorn seemed to indicate that he agreed vehemently with this last statement.
Speaking his suspicions aloud somehow made it worse. He had no idea what Kit had done or how he could have done it. Kit had messed up a book before, but to mess up real life … well, that was something new and dangerous. Just how much had changed at the Shrubberies?
“How far have you been from here with Dora?” he asked the unicorn. “Have you been to the village? Have you seen other people?”
Raritan turned and regarded him for a long time. Norman watched for any little movement, but when he spoke, the unicorn hardly moved his lips. Only his nostrils moved, as if he used them to speak.
“Dora keeps us away from the village,” he snorted. “The little one who holds the tiara has some sense.”
Norman bristled at the implication but suppressed an argument.
“Have you seen any other talking animals?”
“Other than your sister and your uncle?”
Norman twisted his mouth. It wasn’t easy being scolded by a unicorn.
“I mean forest animals. I’m looking for my friend Malcolm … King Malcolm.” He hoped that his knowing animal royalty might make up for his last gaffe. “King of the stoats.”
The unicorn stared back for a long time. His huge, unblinking eyes seemed to take Norman in. It made him wonder if unicorns could read minds. He tried to fill his mind with all that he needed the unicorn to know—about Malcolm and his rivals for the throne back in Undergrowth, about the map that would resolve his claim for good, but mostly about Jerome trapped in the burning tower at San Savino by Black John and his knights.
Finally the unicorn looked away. If Raritan could read minds, he didn’t seem to care what was in Norman’s.
He could think of nothing to convince the unicorn. Dora could probably talk to him, but that would mean explaining the bookweird to her. That was not something he was ready to do.
“Goodnight,” Norman said finally, giving up on his watch and his attempts to befriend the unicorn. Raritan exhaled dismissively but kept his words to himself. Norman returned, defeated, to the house.
Uncle Kit’s idea of chocolate eclairs for an evening snack was tempting, but Norman had committed himself to playing sad. If Kit wanted him to be happy, Norman wasn’t going to oblige. It put the ball back into his uncle’s court. He said goodnight to his sister and to Kit and climbed the stairs dolefully.
About an hour later, he heard his sister go to bed. Kit seemed to putter around the house for a while longer, but eventually he too climbed the creaky stairs to bed. By that time, Norman knew what he had to do. He couldn’t wait around for Uncle Kit to feel sorry for him and put things right. Kit was useful sometimes, but he never put things right. His specialty was putting things wrong.
No, Norman was going to have to bookweird himself out of this. He needed to find The Secret in the Library and get back to Jerome in San Savino. Norman had seen the flaming arrows of Black John’s archer setting the wooden towers of the library alight. The boy monk had lived hidden in that library all his life. He wouldn’t think to leave before it was too late. It was up to Norman to save him.
It would be easier with Malcolm at his side. The stoat king knew his way around a medieval siege. He could sneak into strongholds no human could penetrate, and he was deadly with a longbow. Norman’s gut told him to find Malcolm first. He had promised to help Malcolm retrieve the treaty map from Jerome’s library, although maybe his gut was just afraid to face the siege of San Savino and the machinations of Black John of Nantes alone. But where to start? Kit had brought Norman home to the Shrubberies. Did that mean he’d sent Malcolm home to Lochwarren?
The best place to start was with some paper. It was crucial to Norman’s ingress. An ingress was how you got into a book. It was Uncle Kit who had taught Norman the word, and who had told him that his ingress was unique. Norman could get into any book. All he had to do was eat a page.
It wasn’t an exact science. The bookweird had a mind of its own sometimes. It didn’t like being messed with. When you altered a book, you altered the universe, and that sometimes affected other books. All too often, Norman woke up in the wrong book. He was getting better at it, or so he told himself. He had even been able to write his way back to reality. He’d written himself out of the siege of San Savino in The Secret in the Library after Black John had caught him, mistaking Norman for Jerome. The vengeful knight had left him tied him up in a tent while he commanded the siege. Norman had managed to scrawl a description of the Shrubberies on some borrowed paper and then had eaten that. The bookweird might not be predictable, but he felt safer with a stash of paper and a pen in his pocket.
When he judged it safe, he flicked the light back on and opened the drawer of his bedside table. There should have been a notebook in there. His mom had bought it for him to use as a travel journal. So far he had used it only to play dots and boxes and to draw pictures of castles, but he could put it to better use now … if he could find it. The drawer was as cluttered as ever, but there was no notebook. Where had he left it?
He climbed out of bed as quietly as he could and began rummaging. The notebook was nowhere to be found. The backup plan would have to be to go into another book—back to Georg
e at Kelmsworth in the Intrepids series, maybe, or to Undergrowth to look for Malcolm—except that he couldn’t find any books either. This was weird. He’d brought a couple of Undergrowth books with him on the trip, and his mom was always bringing new books from the town bookstore. Where were they now?
It finally dawned on him that the reason he couldn’t find The Secret in the Library—the reason he couldn’t find any book, and the reason the library was locked—was that Kit knew it was his escape route. Kit was trying to keep him trapped here. His crazy uncle had locked up the library and hidden every scrap of paper in the house. It had taken Norman all day to realize it, but that’s what was going on. The gaming system was supposed to distract him. Kit knew that a book would have done a better job, but he also knew that every book was an escape hatch for Norman.
It was hard to hate Uncle Kit more. He’d messed up a lot of books before, but to take all the books away … well, that was low even for him. And to think that he’d believed Norman could be distracted with a gaming system. That was insulting.
The thought of the gaming system downstairs triggered a memory for Norman, and a triumphant grin began to spread across his face. This contest wasn’t over yet. Uncle Kit hadn’t thought of everything. He had made one mistake.
Norman didn’t bother about the creaking step as he descended the stairs. Uncle Kit could say what he wanted if he caught him. If Kit wanted to admit that he was keeping them captive here, that was fine. Norman’s mood became more defiant the closer he came to the dining room. He knew exactly what he was looking for, and he knew exactly where to find it. Uncle Kit’s mistake had been to wrap his present.
The gaming system was sitting exactly where he’d left it, the main unit on the floor, the glove and goggles discarded on the table. The Styrofoam and plastic packing was still there in a pile beside the main unit. But the cardboard box that had held it all was nowhere to be seen. Nor was the brown wrapping paper that he’d shredded so enthusiastically for Kit’s benefit. Did Kit actually clean up? Norman rushed to the kitchen to check the only garbage can he knew of. It was filled with pizza crusts and chocolate eclair leftovers. There wasn’t a single pizza box or scrap of wrapping paper to be seen. He circled the kitchen anxiously and racked his brain. Was there another garbage can, or even a recycling box? He circled the bottom floor, checking the pantry, the bathroom, the front foyer.