by James Riley
And yet, somehow his palms were sweaty again.
“You made it!” said a voice to his side, and Kiel quickly turned to find a girl about his age with light-brown skin, her long black hair held down with a tight black hat, which matched the rest of her dark clothes. She was also grinning hugely.
Kiel instantly flashed a smile at her in return, letting himself fall back into old habits. It felt good, actually. “I did,” he said, unsure what she was talking about.
Before he could ask, the girl threw her arms around him and hugged him quickly. “I thought you’d never show up,” the girl continued, pushing him away. “This is so exciting, isn’t it?”
Ah, a fan. “You must think I look like the dashing hero of the Kiel Gnomenfoot series,” he said, using his smug grin.
The girl laughed. “Nothing you say makes sense. Love it. Never change! Where’ve you been? I’ve been waiting forever for you!”
“I get that a lot,” Kiel told the girl, then winked.
The girl laughed, then winked back immediately.
Kiel paused, not entirely sure what to do with that. He winked again, and she did too.
“What’s happening here?” he said.
“Like I know?” the girl said, grinning widely as she shook her head. “I followed that other guy here, like, a half hour ago, but I thought you got lost or something. But you’re here now, so we can get moving, my handsome little koala! Time to set this plan into motion, am I right?” She winked again.
This was not how these things usually went. “Can we step back a bit?” Kiel asked. “I’m honestly not one hundred percent sure who you are.”
The girl nodded. “You’re so right. Who are any of us? Let’s seriously get moving, though.” With that, she shoved Kiel forward, out into the road leading to the police station.
Kiel immediately jumped back into the shadows. “Wait a second. I don’t know who you are.”
The girl gave him an odd look. “You don’t?” She looked down at herself. “I mean, I’m in my work clothes, but I don’t look that different. Are you just messing with me?” She slowly grinned at him. “You’re totally messing with me. I love this. You guys are so fun!”
Kiel just looked at her helplessly for a moment, then put up his hands in apology. “No, I mean . . . I’ve had some problems with my memory. It’s a whole thing. Magic and all.”
“Oh, totally,” the girl said, and winked. “Magic. Of course.”
“Stop that!” Kiel shouted, then put his hands back up as the girl’s smile faded into a more dangerous look. “Look, sorry, it’s just hard to concentrate when you keep doing that.”
The girl gave him a careful look, then shrugged, the smile exploding back over her face. “No need to apologize. Let’s just get going!” She grabbed his arm and pulled him back toward the police station.
This was clearly another missing memory, so all he had to do was trigger it. Kiel pulled the girl to a stop, then when she turned around, stared her right in the face for a good ten seconds. Then he closed his eyes, focusing on her face, willing the memory to come. Anticipating the pain, he gritted his teeth and waited for the memory to smack him across the face.
Instead of the memory, though, he got an actual slap.
“Wake up!” the girl said. “I think I lost you there. Did you faint? You fainted, didn’t you. You stared at me for a second, then looked like you had to go to the bathroom. Kind of like a koala, weirdly. Is this normal for you?”
Kiel put a hand up to his cheek, which throbbed where she’d slapped him. “Not even a little bit.”
“Then follow the plan, my magical koala.” She laughed, then grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the police station again.
“Um, we’re going to get caught if we get any closer,” Kiel told her.
“Uh, yeah?” she said. “That’s the idea!” Then she turned toward the station and raised her voice. “Hey, cops! Aren’t you looking for this guy? I found him. Kiel Gnomenfoot. Come and get him!”
And with that, every police officer around the station glanced up. Kiel’s eyes widened and he turned to run, only to feel a jolt like lightning hit his side, and he dropped to the ground, twitching.
The girl in black stood over him, a small sparking device in her hand shooting little blue bolts. “Wow, that was fun,” she said. “Hope it didn’t hurt much. Did it? A lot? Sorry. But still, how much do I love my Taser? Anyway, enjoy!”
And with that, she ran off, laughing as Kiel twitched on the ground, police officers surrounding him on all sides.
CHAPTER 18
01:18:12
Owen sat in a different room in the police station, this one a bit more comfortable than the interrogation room, but with the door no less locked. It didn’t escape him that there wasn’t even a window. Apparently, the police were taking no chances.
After the last memory attack, Inspector Brown had given him some aspirin and said that his mother was on her way now, which almost made Owen’s head ache even more. Beyond having to explain exactly what he’d been doing in the library (um, not lighting it on fire! ), there was the fact that she’d told the police he was still in bed. What did that mean? Was she trying to cover for him, somehow? He snorted. His mom? But what else could it be?
All of this would be so much easier if he could just remember what had happened before he’d woken up in the library!
Owen growled in frustration and smacked his head over and over, hoping to jar out some more memories. All of this was beginning to feel like one of those terrible stories, where half of it took place in the present, and the rest was told in flashbacks. So irritating. You knew the characters would be okay during the flashbacks because you were seeing them in the present too, so the flashbacks were always boring. Why couldn’t those writers just tell the story the normal way?
Again, a tiny part of Owen’s brain began trying to tell him something, but he couldn’t quite get ahold of it, like it was a slippery water balloon covered in oil. Whatever it was could wait, though. Right now, he needed to remember.
Maybe the flashback thing could help? Sure, it was more of a fictional thing. You didn’t flash back in the real world, you just remembered things. But it’s not like anything was happening like it was supposed to tonight. There was no record of Bethany anywhere, a second Owen was home asleep, and his library had just been burned down by a fictional character.
At this point thinking a little fictionally might help. Besides, what else did he have to do here in the police station? Wait to either be thrown in jail by the cops or grounded until he was a million by his mom?
Owen took a deep breath and focused on flashing backward, trying to mentally push himself into the past. He brought up the first memory that’d hit him, the day when Kiel had gone back into his series to recover his spell book. That’d been a quick memory, just Kiel and Bethany as Charm (sigh . . .) jumping out of the book. But the next flashback had been much longer, when Kiel had used the finder spell to find Bethany’s dad.
But what had happened next? Bethany had told them she didn’t want to go into any more books, and . . . and what?
“Flash . . . back,” he whispered, rubbing his temples. “Flashback! Flassssssh baaaaaack.” Ugh. Nothing. He swung his head in circles, trying to drag the memories to the surface, but that didn’t help either. Finally, out of options, he scrunched his eyes closed, took a deep breath, then banged his head on the table.
“AH!” he shouted, grabbing his poor skull, still entirely memoryless. Clearly, forcing a flashback was just not going to happen.
Not without, maybe, something bigger, at least. Owen glanced around the room for something to hit himself over the head with, but other than the table (which he’d just tried), there wasn’t anything too promising.
Ugh. This was so frustrating! He glanced at his watch, and realized that in another eighty-five minutes or so, Bethany really would disappear. Maybe that’s what had happened? Had Doyle somehow removed all record of her from the police d
atabase? And maybe he’d been the one to put a fake Owen in Owen’s real bed!
But why would he have done those things? Why would he have done any of these things? Owen sighed, dropping his head into his hands.
At least Kiel was out there, looking for Bethany. Kiel the hero would actually get the job done, unlike Owen, sitting here uselessly in a police station, powerless, planless, hopeless. Kiel had been right. He should have trusted the magician, and not turned himself in to the police. That’s what a nonfictional sidekick did, not a fictional awesome person.
Kiel Gnomenfoot would never be caught dead in a police station. Not Kiel Gnomenfoot, Magic Thief.
The door flew open, and Kiel Gnomenfoot, magic thief, stumbled inside, looking shaken and weirdly twitchy. A police officer smirked at Owen, then closed the door behind Kiel and locked it.
“Kiel?!” Owen shouted, standing up just in time to have the boy magician slump into his arms. “What are you doing here? Did you get caught?”
Kiel gave him a dazed look. “I think? I came to rescue you. But then there was this odd girl, and things went downhill from there.”
For some reason Owen suddenly wanted to hit the boy magician, and he briefly considered dropping Kiel to the floor. “You’re supposed to be finding Bethany, not rescuing me! Get out of here and go find her!”
“Find her where?” Kiel said, using Owen’s shoulders to steady himself. “I had no idea where to even look, Owen. I need your help. You’re from around here. Where do we start?”
“We don’t start anywhere, not now!” Owen said, shouting again. “We’re both locked up in the police station, meaning neither of us is saving Bethany!”
“I thought you said this was the right thing to do,” Kiel said, giving Owen a half-annoyed, half-still-dazed look. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”
“No. Yes. I thought so, but they won’t listen to me. They keep saying she doesn’t exist.” Owen dropped into his seat in frustration. “They think we did it. I have no idea what else to say. How could Bethany not be in their records? I don’t get it!”
“Forget about the police,” Kiel said, sitting down thankfully in the seat across from Owen. “Focus on the enemy. If we find Doyle, we find Bethany. Have you figured out his clues?”
“Clues?” Owen said. “You mean how he said he did this by the book? All that means is he did things the official way, according to the rules. What does that even mean? There aren’t any rules for kidnapping someone and setting fire to a library. And if there are, then I feel like that’s really messed up!”
“He also said we’d understand if we knew where we were,” Kiel pointed out.
Owen’s eyes widened. “I think I’ve made it pretty clear! We’re in the police station, and we’re not getting out!”
“Calm down,” Kiel said, forcing a shaky grin. “You’re with Kiel Gnomenfoot, remember? I’ve got this. I’ll get us out of here in no time.” He winced. “Assuming I don’t have another stupid memory come back.”
Owen’s eyes widened. “You got those too? I’ve had two memories, one of you getting your spell book back—”
“And the other of us using the finder spell,” Kiel finished, giving him a confused look. “Hmm. I must have modified the forget spell I used on us somehow so our memories would return.” He grinned for real this time. “I’m amazing!”
“There has to be a reason Doyle made us forget everything,” Owen said. “There has to be something important that we’ve forgotten. Like how he got out of his book, or where Bethany is. Or how he knows who we are in the first place.”
“Well, I’m not just sitting here until I remember,” Kiel said. “And neither are you. We’re going to escape, and then you and I are going to find Bethany, memories or no.”
Owen just shook his head. “Don’t you get it? If I leave now, I’ll be a fugitive. They won’t stop until they find me, and then I’ll go to a juvenile detention center or something. For the rest of my life, Kiel. I can’t leave. You’ll have to go.”
Kiel frowned. “Bethany’s life is in danger, remember? Nothing else matters.”
“But you’re going to save her. That’s what you do!”
Kiel shrugged. “Of course I do. And now you will too. You saved Charm, and you basically defeated Dr. Verity—”
“No, you did that. I messed everything up.” Owen shook his head. “It’s okay, you don’t need to pep-talk me. I know I’m sort of the sidekick here. You have magic, and Bethany has her half-fictional powers, and all I have is that I’ve read a lot of books. Not exactly a superpower, you know?”
Kiel gave him a long look, then shook his head. “You’re coming. And you’re going to be a hero, just like I am. And then I’m going to wink, and it’s going to be amazing.” And he winked, and Owen couldn’t help but smile.
“Kiel, this is something you don’t come back from,” he said.
Kiel nodded, ignoring Owen as he stood up and moved closer to the door, pulling out a small wire from his cloak. Kiel inserted the wire into the door, and a moment later, something clicked. Kiel grinned at Owen, then quietly opened the door.
“The hall’s clear,” Kiel whispered. “As soon as I say go, follow me as quickly as you can, okay?”
“Kiel, I can’t—”
“One,” Kiel said, watching the hallway. “Two—”
The door flew open, and Inspector Brown and two police officers stood in it. “Three,” Inspector Brown said. “Grab Mr. Gnomenfoot for me, will you boys? It’s his turn for questioning.”
Kiel tried to duck under their arms, but there was nowhere to go, and a second later they had Kiel’s hands cuffed behind his back.
“Bring him to interrogation,” Inspector Brown said, gesturing out into the hall with his thumb. “I’ll be there in a second.”
The two police officers nodded and carried out a still-struggling Kiel Gnomenfoot. “Don’t worry, Owen!” Kiel shouted as he left. “I’ll be back to rescue you.”
Inspector Brown shook his head. “That kid’s going to be very disappointed. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my time with Doyle Holmes, it’s that no one escapes him.”
Owen’s eyes widened as Inspector Brown left, locking the door behind him. Inspector Brown knew Doyle Holmes? How was that possible? How could the nonfictional police know a fictional character, act like they’d known him for years?
And maybe just as important, was Inspector Brown right? Was Doyle that good, like he was everywhere at once?
Holmes . . . everywhere . . .
And just like that, another crystal-clear memory hit Owen, right across the face. Ugh. This was getting a bit ridicul—
MISSING CHAPTER 4
Yesterday . . .
Owen sat at the checkout counter, staring blankly at his math homework. His pencil slowly doodled on his homework, sketching a smiling half-robotic girl.
Sometimes he just felt so useless. It’d been a month since he’d seen Bethany, and Kiel seemed to be getting more and more antsy, being trapped in the nonfictional world and going to school. But what could Owen do? Bethany wouldn’t take his calls, and it’s not like he really knew what to say anyway. Sorry you didn’t find your dad, and that magic thinks he’s trapped in every single book in the library?
This was the problem. Owen was just the sidekick, maybe not even that. At least Robin knew how to fight, and he had his own comic sometimes. Owen’s comic would be all about Kiel and Bethany rescuing him because he bumbled into some new trap every issue. And it’d be canceled after, like, the third one. Maybe the second.
He sighed, sketching some hair on the half-robot girl. If only there was something he could say to Bethany to cheer her up, make her realize that they were still on her side. Even if they never jumped into another book, Bethany was still his friend, and he wanted to be there for her. To help her.
But how?
Someone placed a pile of books on the counter in front of him, and Owen looked up from his doodling to see a boy a few years younger t
han him looking annoyed. Owen smiled politely. “Do you have your library card?” he asked.
“Why are there so many Sherlock Holmes books now?” the boy said, glaring at Owen. “He’s everywhere. I don’t get it.”
Owen shrugged. “I think he’s just popular. Things go in waves sometimes.”
“But look at this,” the boy said, sliding a book over to Owen. “Since when is he even in the Bad Time Orphan Bunch series?”
Owen raised an eyebrow and took the book. The Bad Time Orphan Bunch: Life Becomes Unbearable. Fun series, but Owen hadn’t read it in a while.
“There’s no Sherlock Holmes in this,” he said, holding the book out to the boy.
“Open it!” the kid said, pushing it back.
Owen sighed and turned to the first page.
Chapter 1
I hope you’re sitting down. I hope you’ve had your fill of fairy tales and nursery rhymes and stories where good conquers evil, or good sits down with evil over tea and talks out evil’s problems, because this is not that. This is an altogether different thing than that. Good does not win. Good doesn’t even show up on time for the fight.
Good, my beloved readers, decided to stay home and take a nap instead.
So get a blanket. You’re going to need it to hide under. Get a teddy bear or your mother or whatever it takes to keep you reading well past when the fear reaches up your spine and into your brain, teasing out the terror. This is that kind of story. The kind of story I’m shaking just considering telling you.
This is the story of fourteen children, each one an orphan, though somehow they formed a family. A bunch, if you will. Like bananas, or a random amount of things. That’s what these orphans were. A random amount of things.
Let me introduce them to you. Here we are, their home, the ramshacklest of ramshackle houses, officially called the Sunshine Home for Happy Kids, but known to our orphans as the House of Moldy Porridge.
You don’t want to know why. But I’m going to tell you.
Here, I’ll open the door for you. Walk on inside, and . . . eh?