The Stolen Chapters

by James Riley

  Owen reached out a trembling hand and took the book from his fictional self. Story Thieves, by James Riley.

  And on the cover was a drawing of Bethany holding Kiel’s hand and jumping with him into a book.

  “Ah, congratulations!” Kiel said, leaning over his shoulder. “Looks like we’re both in a series of books!” He clapped Owen on the back. “Think about all those people who’ve read all about you, Owen. Just think about it!”

  Owen did. And then he threw up right on the floor of his fictional self’s room.

  CHAPTER 27

  00:30:56

  Bethany’s face was the only thing that could still reach above the water. Her chains were on the highest of the shelves, and her arms were so tired of holding them that she wasn’t sure she could keep swimming even if the chains weren’t there at this point.

  There was nothing else to it. What help would she be to Owen and Kiel if she drowned? None. She’d just have to go find them in whatever book Doyle hid them in. She could do it. It wasn’t like what happened with her father, because this time . . .

  This time, she’d brought them in on purpose. That made it even worse.

  Bethany gasped for breath, slowly kicking as she pulled the chains up just a bit more, trying to keep her face above water.

  Could she just jump a little ways out? Just enough to keep breathing, then slip back in it? But the chains would still be there, dragging her back in.

  But maybe she could leave the chains behind?

  She’d never actually tried that. Every time she’d been carrying something or touching someone’s hand, she’d wanted to pull them in or out with her. What if she tried to leave the chains behind, in spite of them being on her wrists?

  She focused hard on just one hand, then took a deep breath and dropped back into the water to stare at it. Instead of thinking about jumping, she concentrated on just that one hand, up to her forearm, rising up out of the pages of The Baker Street School for Irregular Children.

  Her hand began to transform into letters and words, then disappear as it shifted to the nonfictional world, and she could feel the pages of the book on her fingers. She grabbed the pages and held on.

  But the chain was changing into words too, and disappearing along with her hand. NO!

  She yanked her hand back inside the book and, with her lungs burning, pushed back up to the surface, barely able to reach it this time. She gasped for air, kicking desperately to keep her head above water. The water had finally risen high enough that she’d have to hold the chains with her if she wanted to breathe.

  It was now or never.

  She dropped back into the water, let the chain hit the shelves again, and concentrated harder. Only her hand. Only the words “skin, bone, fingers, fingernails, thumb, veins, blood, wrist,” everything that made up her hand, and nothing else. Her hand began transforming again, and disappearing, but this time, before the chain itself could follow, she grabbed the chain and pulled it up and over her wrist, right where her missing hand had been.

  The chain briefly turned into the word “chain” as it passed her missing hand, then solidified back into metal and tumbled down to the bottom of the floor.

  She wanted to scream in happiness, but she didn’t have enough air left. Quickly she brought her missing hand back to the fictional world, then concentrated on slowly pushing her other hand out, her lungs screaming for air.

  Her left hand disappeared, and she immediately tried to yank the chain off her wrist, but it disappeared too.

  Her vision started to blacken at the edges as she panicked, bringing both hand and chain back for another try.

  All she wanted to do was breathe. If she didn’t leave now, she’d pass out and drown. Jump! her brain screamed at her. Jump out! You can’t stay, you’ll die!

  She shook her head and concentrated on her hand. It disappeared more quickly this time, and Bethany frantically tried slipping the chain off her wrist.

  It felt like the chain disappeared, but everything was turning numb, and she couldn’t fight the impulse to just breathe in. Instead, she kicked as hard as she could, barely sure which way was even up, her legs burning with exhaustion, her lungs about to explode.

  Then she felt cool air on her face, and she opened her mouth to gasp for air. She drank it in, sweet breath filling her lungs, and realized there was nothing pulling on her arms anymore.

  The chains were both gone, coiled up at the bottom of the room.

  Bethany let herself float for a moment, her face gently swaying in the water as she breathed in over and over, her body rising with each inhale, falling a bit with each exhale.

  For a moment she let the water buoy her, just feeling what it was like to not be chained down. Her wrists still felt like they’d been torn up, but they’d heal.

  And then she caught sight of the countdown on her watch: 00:27:18.

  In twenty-seven minutes, she’d have to leave Owen and Kiel behind forever.

  CHAPTER 28

  00:26:11

  This couldn’t be real. There was no way. Owen opened the copy of Story Thieves and flipped through it. It had to be a joke, some kind of prank.

  Owen thought back to all the books he knew, and what he could remember about the ends of chapters. Most seemed to stop on some kind of ironic one-liner, or a cliffhanger. Cliffhangers would be a bit tough in here, with no cliffs to hang off of, but maybe he could trick the book into chaptering by saying something horribly ironic, and then waiting for it to (surprise! ) happen.

  That . . . that had happened. He’d thought those things, when he’d been trapped by the Magister between pages. How could this author have known that? Was someone seeing his thoughts right now? Was he a made-up character too?

  Was someone reading about him right at this very moment?!

  “Cool, huh?” Fictional Owen said, grinning widely. “You’re so lucky. I mean, you’re not on the cover, and basically Bethany and Kiel do all the cool stuff and are the heroes of the book, and you’re just the jerky guy who messes everything up, but other than that, it’s pure awesome!”

  Owen just stared at his fictional self, his mouth hanging open but nothing coming out. He barely even noticed as Kiel grabbed the book from his hands and gave the cover a quick glance. “A bit stylized, but it does look like me. Glad to see I didn’t stop with just the first series.” He grinned, almost looking like his old self. “These readers just can’t get enough of me, can they?”

  “Someone wrote a book about you?” Moira asked, trying to grab the book out of his hands, but Kiel moved it out of her way too quickly.

  “Wait your turn,” Kiel told her with a smile.

  Fictional Owen gave Moira a strange look. “I don’t remember a Moira in the book, so you must be new. A lot’s probably changed since the first book, I guess. Hey, what’s the title of this one?”

  “Title?” Owen asked, still barely able to follow the conversation.

  “Yeah, I mean, the first one was just Story Thieves, but the second one must have a title, right?” Fictional Owen said. “The book you’re living out now. What’s it called?” He frowned. “Though honestly, I wasn’t altogether clear on who the story thieves were. You obviously were stealing Kiel’s story, but it’s almost like the nonfictional authors are the real thieves, since they’re the ones saying they made up stories, when really they’re just somehow watching fictional people’s lives. There’s no way someone made us up. That’s just ridiculous. The Magister should have realized that.” He shrugged. “Guy needed to relax, honestly. Even if he was made-up, who cares? That’s, like, the first step to breaking out of the story and becoming real anyway.”

  “You’re not . . . we’re not made-up,” Owen said, slowly shaking his head. They weren’t, right? Owen wasn’t, that was for sure. . . . Was he?

  “We’ve been through this,” Kiel said. “Probably in that book right there, actually. How about we hold off on the life-changing revelations until we find Bethany? Then we can all come to terms wi
th whether we’re real or just made-up by someone named Jonathan Porterhouse, of all things. Who’d you get?” He glanced at the book and made a face. “James Riley. Okay, not much better.”

  “Oh, that Riley guy isn’t real,” Fictional Owen said. “That’s what Doyle said, at least. He looked for him for days and found nothing. Said it’s a fake name to hide the real person. Probably some nobody.”

  This finally pulled Owen out of his fog. “So you do know Doyle?” he asked his fictional self. “Did he say anything about us? About Bethany?”

  “Well, yeah,” Fictional Owen said. “That’s why he came to me. I guess she showed up a few weeks ago hiring him to find her father. Doyle realized he recognized her from the book, which of course he didn’t think was real. He just figured someone wrote about her, or she was a big fan and was pretending to be the book’s Bethany. But when he started investigating, and it turned out the author didn’t exist but that an Owen Conners did, he came to me.” He grinned. “It’s a whole story, actually.”

  “Let’s hear it!” Moira shouted.

  “I’m not sure we have the time to waste,” Kiel pointed out.

  “This is important,” Owen said to the magician. “Owen . . . can I call you Fictional Owen?”

  Owen paused, tilting his head as if considering it. “Um, no?”

  “Fowen,” Moira declared. “There you go.”

  Fowen gave her an annoyed look, but she just jumped onto the bed and bounced excitedly, waiting for him to start his story.

  “Doyle has Bethany somewhere,” Owen told Fowen. “We need to find her in the next . . . twenty-three minutes, or we’re going to be stuck in your world forever. We could really use your help. Honestly, we have no idea where to find either Doyle or Bethany. If you know anything about where he might have put her—”

  “That’s not much time,” Fowen said, glancing at his watch. “And I really don’t want to get in trouble if my mom catches me.” He paused, trying not to smile, then laughed loudly. “Ha, don’t worry. I’m kidding, I’ve waited my whole life for this. Let’s go!”

  “Go?” Owen said. “We don’t need to go anywhere. You just need to tell us everything you know about Doyle.”

  Fowen frowned. “Don’t you think that getting out of here would be smarter? Aren’t they after you?”

  Before Owen could respond, sirens began blaring from down the street. How did Doyle know everything they were doing?!

  “Oooh, this Doyle guy is good,” Moira said, glancing out the blinds. “How does he always know where we are?”

  “That’s his whole thing,” Fowen said, pulling on pants over his pajamas and then throwing on a sweatshirt. “He’s the greatest detective that ever lived. He can see what you’re going to do before you do it. Knows everything about you, from what you ate for breakfast to which movies make you cry.”

  “Wait till you see the movie of Kiel Gnomenfoot, Magic Thief, ” Kiel said. “There will definitely be tears. That’s what Jonathan Porterhouse told me, at least. He said he was crying the whole time he was signing the contracts.”

  Fowen gave Kiel a weird look, then leaned in close to Owen. “I get that you like him for some reason, but you should really read your book. He’s kind of annoying, and totally steals all the credit for everything you did. You should have been on the cover, Owen.” He slowly grinned, his eyes widening. “Hey, I bet we’re both on the cover of this next one!”

  “There isn’t a next one!” Owen shouted, running to the window to peek past the curtains at the cop cars outside. “We’re not in a book, that book isn’t real, and none of this is happening!”

  Two squad cars parked in front of Owen’s house, while another two sped down the street, then hit the brakes two houses away to both skid perfectly into place right next to the first two. Of course they did.

  “We need to go out the back,” Owen whispered.

  “Way ahead of you,” Fowen said, handing him a rope that led out his bedroom window. “I’ve been preparing for this day ever since Doyle told me you guys were real!”

  The Amazing (But True!) Adventures of Owen Conners, the Unknown Chosen One

  CHAPTER 1

  Owen wanted to scream at the horror before him. But the sound wouldn’t come and the nightmare only continued, forcing Owen to ask himself, deep down, one question:

  “Can anyone tell me what year the Declaration of Independence was signed?”

  Mr. Barberry stood at the board at the front of Owen’s classroom, his arms folded, waiting for a hand to raise.

  No, not that question. The real question was this: Was there anything in the world that could possibly be more boring than history? Owen frowned as Mr. Barberry gave up on volunteers and just picked someone. “Huck? What year?”

  Waiting in a two-week-long line for the chance to wait in another line? That’d be pretty boring. But not history boring—

  Something hit Owen on the shoulder, and he glanced down to find a folded-up note on the floor next to him.

  “1776,” Huck said, then covered a huge yawn.

  “That one was easy,” Mr. Barberry said. “Who can tell me where it was signed?”

  Owen slowly reached down and picked up the note between two fingers, than carefully brought it up to his lap, making sure Mr. Barberry didn’t see him.

  “Emma?” the teacher said, turning away, so Owen unfolded the note.

  Have lunch with me? I have so many questions! —B

  Well. That was new.

  Class went on for another thirteen or fourteen hours before the bell rang, finally releasing them to lunch. Owen stood up slowly to hide his excitement, then walked to the cafeteria with his most confident strut. There, he quickly grabbed some food and sat down at a table, waiting.

  Less than a minute later, a girl with long bronze hair sat down across from him.

  “So?” Brianne said, smiling at him for probably the first time ever. “Do you know him? Are you two friends?”

  For some reason, her smile made Owen’s mouth dry up, and he had to swallow a few times. “Do I—” he croaked, then took a quick drink of water. “Do I know him? Him who him? I mean, who him?”

  Brianne’s smile faded momentarily, only to reappear as she slammed a book down on the table. “The author of Story Thieves !”

  Hmm. That’s something he’d never been asked before. In his daydreams, when girls admitted they’d always had a secret crush on him, the conversation went very differently.

  Still, he could work with this. “Huh?” Owen said, trying to sound smart.

  This time the smile disappeared completely as Brianne gave him a suspicious look. “Story Thieves,” she said, pointing at the cover. “You’ve never heard of it? The book’s all about you !”

  Owen glanced at the cover showing a redheaded girl and a black-haired boy in some kind of costume jumping into a book. “Um, which one am I supposed to be?” he asked, really hoping it was the black-haired boy.

  Brianne narrowed her eyes. “I don’t get this. I thought you knew the author or something. I wanted to know what’s going to happen in the second book.”

  Owen fought hard against his instincts to keep asking questions or just look confused, so instead he nodded. “Right,” he said. “Of course. The second book.” He paused. “Is . . . this the second book?”

  Brianne growled, and opened the book to the first chapter. “How have you not heard about this? It’s about a boy named Owen Conners whose mother works at a library, and—”

  “Um, I’m Owen Conners,” Owen said. “And my mother—”

  “I know, I’m the one telling you about this,” Brianne said, looking much more irritated now. “There’s this half-fictional girl named Bethany, and Owen catches her popping out of a book in the library—”

  “A half-what now?”

  “That part’s all made-up, obviously,” Brianne said. “There’s never been a girl named Bethany in our class, but Mr. Barberry’s in here too! I thought you had to have known about this.�
� She paused. “Shouldn’t they have gotten your permission? You know, to use your name like this?”

  Owen picked up the book and read the back. Apparently the half-fictional girl took him into some book, and then things got clearly awesome. “How . . . how is this real?” he asked, though inside he knew the answer. This was The Sign. The Sign that said Owen Conners was never meant to live such a boring life, that all along he’d just been waiting for Fate to come along and Choose Him. There was no way someone boring and ordinary would ever have a book series about him. This was it!

  “I’m a hero,” Owen whispered, staring at the book in awe.

  “Uh, not really,” Brianne said. “It’s just a book.”

  “But I’m the hero of the book!”

  “More like the sidekick, honestly,” she said, making a face. “Bethany’s the real hero. Her and Kiel. You just mess things up. Listen, Mari’s father is a lawyer, maybe you should talk to her about suing this author? He’s probably got tons of money. I hear authors are all rich.”

  Suing? Because the author had made Owen the not-actually-the-sidekick hero in a book? The last thing he’d ever do was sue! “Story Thieves,” he said, running a hand over the cover. Why wasn’t the Owen character on the cover, anyway? Was that Owen too busy being amazing and doing all kinds of cool things? “Can I borrow this?”

  Brianne smiled, and he smiled back. “Nope,” she said. “But let me know if you track the author down. I want to know who Bethany’s father is. I think the whole thing with Nobody is too obvious, and it’s kind of annoying that she didn’t find him in the first book. Way to leave things on a cliffhanger, right?”

  “Totally,” Owen breathed as Brianne grabbed the book and walked away.

  He had to get a copy, of course.

  He had to get a copy now.

  The school library didn’t have one, and a quick phone call to his mother from the payphone outside the school’s office told him that neither did her library. That explained why he hadn’t seen it. He asked his mother to order a copy, and she said she’d look it up, but why was it so urgent?