by Paul Glennon
Norman made another half-hearted search of his room. He knew it wasn’t on the bedside table. The drawer was stuffed with old knick-knacks, postage stamps, cloth crests, postcards, tiny screws and springs, but no book. The window ledge and dresser top were likewise cluttered but bookless. Nor was it under the pillow, or buried in his unmade bedcovers.
He was sitting on the edge of his bed, his head in his hands, when his mother finally called up, “Never mind. I’ll look at it later.” The back door slammed shut.
Norman kept his head in his hands. He didn’t need his mom to show him. He knew she was right. He knew in his gut that the book was screwed up. That stunt in the lawyer’s office was supposed to work. It had been written on George Kelmsworth’s face, in the shock and utter disbelief that it had failed. George Kelmsworth’s schemes weren’t allowed to fail. But how could it be Norman’s fault? Norman hadn’t changed anything in the scene. The only thing that had changed was the lawyer. It wasn’t this Montague character that his mother remembered. How had she described him? A nervous old paper-pusher with white whiskers? That wasn’t Fuchs, or Todd, or whatever he was calling himself in this book. It was Fuchs who had screwed up the book this time. For once, it wasn’t Norman’s fault.
“You’ve lost it.”
Norman looked up, surprised, to see his father peering in through the half-open door. “You’ve lost it, haven’t you?” Edward Vilnius repeated.
Norman’s silence was answer enough.
Edward rubbed his forehead, his lips curled in a grimacing smile. “I don’t know how you do it. For a kid who loves books so much, you sure lose a lot of them.”
“Uh-huh,” Norman agreed sulkily. There was no use explaining that it wasn’t his fault, that there were powerful forces working against him.
“I’ll talk to your mother,” his father said finally. Something in his voice said that he sympathized. Edward Vilnius had lost a few books in his time. “In the meantime, find that book. It’s not just a book to your mother. You saw that. It means a lot to her.”
He closed the door behind him.
All-New Intrepids!
“This is terrible,” his mother declared, looking up from the counter where she was reading. “How could they have let this happen?”
Norman expected her to recount some disaster or scandal from the newspaper—a human rights violation in Burma or a new famine in Eritrea. The only reason Norman knew that Burma and Eritrea existed was because of his mother. If not for her editorializing, those places would have been as fantastical to him as Penwyr and the Ambrosian Republic. His friends back at school gave him funny looks when these little bits of knowledge slipped out, and he sometimes wished that his mom would let him share their ignorance.
Meg Jespers-Vilnius cast around to see if anyone felt her outrage. Neither Norman nor his father had said anything, but both watched her expectantly.
“They’ve completely changed it,” she complained. She held up the book she was reading—not a newspaper at all, but a glossy paperback. Nor man’s eyes lit up as he read the title: Intrepid Amongst the Gypsies.
“You found a new copy!” he exclaimed with a gulp.
“Yes,” she replied, her voice taking on that dry, dramatic tone that wasn’t supposed to be lecturing but was. “Until you figure out where you put the original. I’m still very disappointed that you lost it.”
Norman ducked his head contritely.
“I wanted you to be able to finish the story. It’s one of my favourites from my own childhood, and I wanted to share that with you. Unfortunately …” Here she paused and sucked air through her teeth. “Unfortunately, the good people at.”—she turned the book around to read the publisher’s name from the spine—“the good people at Willow Publishing have different ideas.”
She pushed the paperback across the kitchen counter to Norman. He immediately saw what was wrong. He didn’t need to read a word. The cover told him everything.
“They’ve changed it completely,” Meg repeated. “There are additional characters. The plot is completely different. There aren’t even any Gypsies in it anymore. How stupid is that?”
The cover held all of Norman’s attention. The new edition had a glossy illustration of the Intrepids standing shoulder to shoulder, with the Cook children either side of George Kelmsworth, who stood just a little farther forward. George was the same but different, his dark brown hair a little longer and shaggier than when Norman had met him. He posed like a rock star in front of the Rook, glaring out from the picture, his arms crossed defiantly across his chest. Gordon, beside him, was wearing his school uniform and wielding a cricket bat menacingly. They’d made Pippa look prettier. She gazed affectionately towards George. It was impossible to tell whether her eyes rested on George or the furry creature on his shoulder.
Meg was still waiting for someone to share her outrage. “Are they allowed to do this?”
Edward, sitting at the kitchen table with a stack of papers, shrugged, bemused. “To do what?” he asked, apparently enjoying her agitation. Meg Jespers-Vilnius’s constant calm and cheerfulness could get irritating.
“To change the book like this.” Her voice rose as she flourished the paperback. “To reissue the book fifty years later with so many changes.”
Norman’s throat was dry. He couldn’t take his eyes off the cover. “Maybe they’re making a movie,” he croaked. “Sometimes they change the book when they make a movie.” He halted to gulp some moisture into his constricted throat. “You know, to match the movie.” He looked nervously from his mother to his father, hoping someone would agree that this must be exactly what was going on.
“It’s called a tie-in,” his mother explained, “and the movie studio’s name would be all over it—‘Now a major motion picture starring’ blah, blah, blah.”
“Do you notice that they never advertise minor motion pictures?” Edward asked playfully. One sour glance from Meg was enough for him to straighten his face.
“It still wouldn’t justify changing the book like this. There’s a talking weasel in it now, with a very poor Scottish accent. How do they get away with it, Edward? Shouldn’t copyright law stop them?”
Norman realized he had never seen his mother quite so upset. Why should she care? To her it was only a book.
“Copyright law protects the copyright owner, not the reader,” Edward replied. He was using his professor’s voice now. “Whoever owns the copyright can do what they like. They can send your Intrepids to space. They could enlist in the CIA. They could have magical powers.” He spouted a few more ideas, amused by his own suggestions, but it wasn’t helping. He wasn’t used to being the reasonable parent. It was usually Meg who had to talk him out of some outrage or manic funk, not the other way around.
Meg tapped her fingers on the counter forcefully. “On principle, though, this seems wrong,” she declared. “There’s a bond between readers and the story. This breaks the bond. It’s like a contract has been broken.”
It was not how Norman would have said it, but he felt it too. It wasn’t right. It was wrong to change someone’s whole life by changing his story.
“You know, this idea of textual purity is a relatively new one,” Edward continued, in full lecture mode now. Both Meg and Norman regarded him suspiciously, but he could not stop. “This idea that there is only one version of the story, and that it is the property of the author, doesn’t occur until books start to be published in large quantities. Before that, stories were a sort of a shared inheritance. They changed and evolved with the generations. King Arthur starts as a minor historical chieftain. He’s fictionalized in some Breton troubadour songs, then somehow gets tangled up with the Grail legend. Mark Twain sends a Connecticut Yankee back in time to King Arthur’s court. Monty Python has Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table fetching shrubberies and clapping coconuts to make the sounds of horses’ hoofs.”
Norman’s mother didn’t answer. His father’s literary lectures never helped. In fact, Norman had nev
er seen her look so sad. She put the book down on the counter and busied herself with the rest of the contents of the bag. Her lips were folded tight and her eyes focused elsewhere. Norman and his father didn’t need to be told to drop it.
As casually as he could, Norman pulled the paperback across the counter towards him and flipped the pages. He expected his own name to leap out from the book. That would be the culmination of the disaster.
Edward Vilnius was now helping unpack the shopping, trying to cajole his wife back to good humour. Norman slipped off to his room with the new version of Intrepid Amongst the Gypsies.
There was no time to read the whole thing again. He skimmed the first part before dinner. It was much the same. The Intrepids were troubled by the appearance of the poacher. They tracked him unsuccessfully from the Rook. There was no mention of Norman. It was always like that when Norman had been inside a book. His presence was felt, the changes he’d made remained, but he disappeared or blurred into the background. The fiasco in the lawyer’s office went on as he’d witnessed it. Mr. Todd watched the mice scatter harmlessly once more. Norman knew that wasn’t his fault now, at least not directly. The plan had failed because Fuchs, now Todd, had replaced old Montague as the lawyer.
Norman had a funny feeling that Fuchs was in this book because of him. Maybe Fuchs knew about the poacher—Fuchs had entered Intrepid Amongst the Gypsies to fix what Norman had broken. Or was it his own mistake he was fixing? Fuchs was hard to figure. He’d helped Norman out before, but he was never obvious about it. He knew a lot more about the bookweird than Norman, and he liked it that way. Norman needed to talk to him.
Norman was exceptionally quiet at dinner. He wanted to apologize to his mom for losing the book, but he had no idea what his father had told her. At least she was back to her usual self now, cheerful and optimistic.
“I wouldn’t read that new version if I were you,” she advised.
Norman just looked at her.
“Wait until your dad manages to get the original back.”
Norman peered quizzically at his father. Edward stared back meaningfully, as if sending a message telepathically, but Norman wasn’t receiving it.
“It’s not the first time he’s done this, you know,” Meg continued. “He once mailed his tax return to The Journal of Fantastical Literature. We might never have known if I hadn’t checked the tax envelopes and found his paper on the tradition of the unicorn in European poetry. So dropping your book off at the university library book return is par for the course.”
When Norman glanced again at his father, Edward passed a hand over his chin as if rubbing his goatee, but the fact that his fingers covered his lips conveyed the message that telepathy hadn’t.
“Your mother’s right. I’d leave the new version alone for now,” Edward agreed, changing the topic. “A reinterpretation is all well and good, but you want to know the original first.”
“How are you liking the Intrepids, anyway?” Meg asked. “The real Intrepids. You never answered me.”
“It’s okay,” Norman replied cautiously. “I hadn’t really gotten into it yet.”
“You should actually read them in order, the way your uncle and I did. The story about his father being in jail will make more sense.”
“Speaking of originality,” Edward added, a fork suspended between plate and mouth, “I’m pretty sure that plot about the father being in jail was stolen from The Railway Children.”
Meg Jespers-Vilnius gave him a warning look, hard but playful. Edward smirked, as if this was exactly the reaction that he wanted.
“Oh, I forgot, I shouldn’t say anything against the Intrepids,” he told Norman. “George Kelmsworth was your mother’s first love, you know.”
Meg just rolled her eyes. She was not easily teased. “Jealousy doesn’t become you, Edward,” she replied. “Besides, how can you compete with a dashing, dark-haired English lord who single-handedly saves his family from ruin?”
Norman’s face wrinkled in distaste. He knew what it felt like to admire someone in a book to the point of obsession. But he had met George Kelmsworth.
Edward put his palms together in mock contrition. “You’re right. I wouldn’t even know how to single-handedly save my family from ruin.”
Meg smiled. “Well, you and your son can start by washing the dishes.”
It was bedtime before Norman got back to the paperback version of Intrepid Amongst the Gypsies. Even skimming, it took time to catch up to where he had left the story. George and the Cook children returned to Kelmsworth Hall from London and renewed their pursuit of the poacher. Their well-planned trap in the forest was sprung again, and George was soundly beaten again by a criminal who was way out of his league. It almost made Norman angrier to read it than to experience it.
In the new version it was Pippa who suggested they find the poacher’s encampment and free the animals. Norman was sure that had been his idea. He had to skip back to figure out how they knew that the intruder was capturing animals, not just killing them. Sure enough, the scene at Dodgeworth’s was different than he remembered. The monkeys were in a frantic state when the Intrepids arrived. Dodgeworth put it down to the previous client, who had come in claiming to have a talking weasel. The children recognized the poacher from his description. Norman’s changes to the book remained, even if he was missing.
The raid on the poacher’s camp went just as he’d experienced it, except without him. The poacher was away checking his traps, and the Intrepids managed to get in and get out without detection. In this version Malcolm lay silent in the cage while George rescued him. He must have been dying to get out of that cage, but he kept his mouth shut and continued to feign injury.
It wasn’t until they were back in the cottage that Malcolm revealed himself. The stoat king waited for George to open the cage and for Pippa Cook to lift him gently out onto a cushion. She might have missed the wink he gave her as she let him down, but she couldn’t ignore Malcolm’s dramatic return to life. She leapt back in surprise as the stoat rose to two feet on the cushion and waved his arm in a flourish as he bowed.
“I thank you, Lady Pippa,” he purred in his most regal tone.
This was about where Norman had left off, and where he had to jump in. If he could get back into the book here, he could limit the damage. His mother’s reaction to the revised version of the Intrepids had made Norman even more sensitive to the changes he was making. He was wrecking things for thousands of readers. He had to do whatever he could to restore it. That meant dealing with the poacher. But first it meant getting Malcolm out of there. Guilt gripped him as he thought of the stoat king. He had meant to bring Malcolm with him. If Norman’s ingresso didn’t work for Malcolm, he’d need help … Fuchs’s help.
Norman dug out George’s sweater from the wardrobe, where he had stuffed it. He could always explain losing clothes. He did that all the time. Explaining where extra clothes came from was harder. He pulled the sweater on over his head, laced up his shoes, then took a deep breath. Here he went again, back into the grips of the bookweird. Taking the book deliberately in his hand he tugged the page free of its glued spine. He did it slowly, delaying it, not sure if he was ready, but the page came away in his hand suddenly, coming unglued along with a dozen pages either side of it. Norman cursed. Dad always said they didn’t make books like they used to. He stuffed one page under his pillow and did his best to put the other pages back in order.
The door to his room opened, and a voice called out, “Have you brushed your—”
His mother saw him there, sitting on the side of the bed, fully dressed, a handful of pages of his new book in his hand. She stood there silently stunned for a moment. “Norman, what on earth are you doing?”
Norman’s mouth opened, but no words came out. His mother stepped into the room. “Did you just rip those pages out of the book?”
He opened his mouth to deny it, but his mother stopped him with a raised finger. He wasn’t a very good liar.
“W
hy would you do that?” Shocked more than outraged, she snatched the pages from his hand. Frown wrinkles crept across her forehead as she read. “It’s the first time the weasel talks in the book.” She gave him a deep, searching look, her eyes softening. “Is this because of me?” she asked. “Is it because I was upset today?”
Norman shrugged. What could he say? Meg put the pages down on his bedside table and sat down next to him on the bed. “It’s just a book, Norman,” she consoled him, putting her arm around his shoulder. “It’s not your fault.” It only made Norman feel even guiltier. It really was his fault.
Her hand squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. She started to say something but stopped, feeling the coarse grey wool at his collar between her fingers.
“Where did this sweater come from?” she asked.
“Ummm …” Norman stalled. “The closet, I guess.”
His mother regarded him closely, one eyebrow raised ever so slightly. She took her arm from around him and picked up the book again. She stared at it for a moment, then stood up. Taking a step back from the bed, her eyes flicked from Norman to the cover.
“It’s the same sweater that George is wearing.”
Norman stared up at her, but he could think of no reply.
“It’s his school sweater, his St. James school sweater,” his mother continued, her voice rising and quickening. She leaned in closer and reached around the back of his neck, curling the sweater back to see the label. Norman had no idea what was written on it, but his mother inspected it for a very long time. Norman grew increasingly uncomfortable, sitting there with her looming over him. When she stepped back her face was contracted into a deep frown. He had never seen her look so conflicted. His mother always knew what to do and what to say, but now she stood there in front of him, her arms crossed, her weight on a back foot. Her lips pursed and her face tightened as if to conceal the argument she was conducting with herself.
“Norman,” she said finally. Her voice was even and measured, warning him to be careful what he answered. “I’m going to ask you a question and I need you to tell me the truth. It’s very important. Can you do that?”