The Anybodies
Page 16
This was too much to think about for very long, and it didn’t really matter. Fern knew now that there was a place where she could be herself, where she fit in, where she could feel really and truly at home. She could go anywhere in the world, and these facts would remain true. So her thoughts moved on….
There was something more immediate that Fern was still trying to figure out. Something. She knew her mother couldn’t be shaken from the book. She knew her mother’s body couldn’t ever come back in any transformation. But what about a piece of her essence, her soul? When the Bone was the record player playing a record, it wasn’t just his body, but some other part of him, too, that was sitting in that machine. Fern could hear it in his voice.
Fern put both of her hands on the book with its small leather belt, just as she had the record player; but this time she thought of her mother, swaying to the music on the record player, pregnant and dancing. She thought about how much she loved her. She concentrated with all of her might. And, yes, her hands grew warm and she felt a certain sweetness, a warm-chested ache of love, then an outpouring. And, miraculously, a flood of the scent of lilacs.
THE END
AFTERWORD
WELL, IT SEEMS THAT MY OLD WRITING TEACHER got his hands on this book somehow—anonymously, maybe even slipped under his front doormat in the middle of the night—and he wrote me a letter of response. I have enclosed a shortened version of his letter. I had to cut a good bit of it because it is longer than the book I wrote, but here is the shortened version:
Dear N. E. Bode:
Stop! Please do not continue writing this silly and idiotic nonsense…. [Here he went on for 63 pages categorizing what exactly he found silly and what exactly he found idiotic.]
Firstly, I don’t enjoy being called a “dusty windbag.” Should I remind you of my many various literary awards? [Evidently the answer to this question was yes, because he went on for 78 pages detailing his wondrous career.]
Secondly, you are not a good writer, just as you were not a good student. In fact, you were the worst [here he used a word that I cannot repeat] student I ever had. Always tardy, always shuffling around to sharpen a pencil or get a drink of water. Don’t think I didn’t notice you reading other authors’ books hidden in your lap during class time. Your papers were always stained with jelly and, more than once, I had to wake you up in the middle of one of my most interesting speeches! [Here he included the most interesting speeches that I may have slept through—329 pages.]
Thirdly, you say that this story is true, but who is going to believe you, N. E. Bode? I ask you again: Who will believe? Who indeed!
Sincerely,
I will not reveal the windbag’s name. That would be disloyal. But you know that I know that he knows that we all know there is more to tell. In fact, as Fern starts to learn new talents by reading The Art of Being Anybody, she goes away to a summer camp especially for aspiring young Anybodies. There is a mystery that turns us back to the family of Oglethorp Henceforthtowith, author of The Art of Being Anybody, especially his grandson BORT O. Henceforthtowith. (BORT spells his name exactly as it is written here, capitalized and underlined, and it is pronounced loudly and with emotion. He isn’t Bort. He’s BORT, if you follow me.) Oh, there is much to tell. And in the words of my famous writing teacher: Who will believe? Who indeed!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
SPECIAL THANKS TO: FRED CHAPPELL (WHO IS A magician and not a nervous magician’s rabbit!), Alix Reid (who believes, indeed!), David G. W. Scott (you brilliant rascal!), Glenda (quite an outlandish character in her own right!), Bill (whose imagination is vast and astonishing!), grandmothers everywhere (especially my Southern belle!); and to my smart young readers: Anna Galati, Matthew Marshall, Shana Mattes, Molly, Cece, Phoebe, Finneas, and Theo.
Special thanks to Julianna Baggott, who gave me the go-ahead to go off. (If you’re a grown-up, you should look for Julianna’s books, which are, so far, these three novels: Girl Talk, The Miss America Family, and The Madam; as well as a book of poems: This Country of Mothers. If you aren’t a grown-up, you should wait until you are and then go find them.)
And special thanks to you, yes, you! Are you really surprised? You shouldn’t be—after all, I did dedicate the whole entire book to you. If it weren’t for you, this book would be fairly useless, wouldn’t it? I mean, it could prop up the uneven leg of a chair or something, but that would be a pretty sad destiny for a book! So, thank you. Really.
ALSO BY N. E. BODE
The Nobodies
Credits
Cover art © 2004 by Peter Ferguson
Cover © 2005 by HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
Copyright
THE ANYBODIES. Text copyright © 2004 by Julianna Baggott. Illustrations copyright © 2004 by Peter Ferguson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Adobe Digital Edition April 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-190591-9
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