Edgar #2
“I don’t think she looks radiant,” I point out. “Where’s your space gear?” She’s wearing some silly dress from the Renaissance, with little slippers that look about as substantial as socks and are totally inappropriate for kicking alien butt.
“Oh, do shut up, Edgar,” she says with a sigh. “As if. The aliens haven’t come for us. This is all just a joke. I am a princess. I’m not doing your dirty work for you anymore.”
Frump and I exchange a glance. On her good days, Seraphima is about as smart as a brick.
Somehow, even performing a fairy tale over and over has not clued her in to the fact that she is not actually a princess but only a character in a book.
I thought she would be the easiest to convince, when I came inside, that the story had a new twist, one in which Oliver was an imposter and this fairy tale was a decoy to keep the aliens from Zorg from annihilating our planet.
But when she learned that she would no longer be wearing her royal gowns and getting married to a prince every day, she lost interest.
Rapscullio comes up to us. “Hate to interrupt,” he says, “but I can’t help noticing that everyone here is a little…
shall I say…on edge? I’ve been taking a self-taught course on conflict resolution, and, well, I don’t mean to belittle your contributions, Edgar, but the problem does seem to be stemming from the revisions to the story.
Seraphima has a point—it’s been a while since we had a Reader, and one can only assume that perhaps the changes aren’t appealing to our audience.
Maybe we should try returning to the original version.
You can learn Oliver’s lines, and as for the rest of the cast, we can go back to doing what we do best. We’re pirates and princesses and fairies, not space warriors.
The mermaids know how to scare the living daylights out of sailors.
Socks is a grand master of dressage.” His gaze cuts across the beach to where Snort is setting Biggle’s hair on fire with an errant laser beam.
“And the trolls really should stick to construction. Without power tools.”
It’s easier to change one character than to change thirty. I suppose I could have worked my way into the book by switching Oliver’s name to mine, by deleting him from his own life and replacing him with me. But that isn’t what I signed up for.
What if it turns out I’m stuck here, doing something I never asked to do?
The whole reason I agreed to swap with Oliver was because I’d get a chance to experience adventures and thrills I’d only witnessed on a computer screen.
But every time you play a video game, it’s different.
In this world, it’s like I play a tape of the same game over and over again.
I know what’s around the corner. I know what creature is going to jump out at me.
I know when the aliens are landing, and that I will ultimately kill Zorg.
The element of surprise is gone, and that was the fun of it in the first place.
Now I get why Oliver wanted to leave. But if he knew this was a prison, why would he wish it on anyone else?
“You know,” I say, “what we all need is a breather.”
Seraphima stamps her tiny foot. “I absolutely refuse to put any more gear on.”
“I just mean we need a break.” I turn to Frump. “Do you want to do the honors?”
Frump climbs back onto his perch and barks. Even though in my revised story, he’s been changed from a basset hound back to a human again, I guess you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
“Attention!” he cries. “All characters are dismissed for the day.”
There is a moment of shocked silence on the beach, and then a bustle of excitement and activity as everyone realizes that they’re being left to their own devices. The fairies zip by my face like fireworks.
“Milady,” Frump says to Seraphima, “since we have a bit of a break, maybe you could walk me? Erm, I mean, maybe we could go for a walk?”
The princess’s eyes flicker over him. “Rain check?” She picks up her skirts and floats across the sand, toward the edge of the page.
Frump looks disappointed for only a second, then turns to me. “Guess I’ll head out too,” he says. “Someone has to make Seraphima’s bed before she realizes she doesn’t actually have handmaidens.”
Suddenly a blinding light slices the sky in half.
I wince, raising my hand as a shield. The ground shifts under my feet, and I watch everyone instinctively grabbing the nearest solid object: a tree, a rock, a dangling participle.
I go tumbling head over heels and smack into a troll’s bottom, which feels like the side of a battleship. “Sorry,” I mumble, and Trogg shrugs.
“No worries. We’ve all had a bit more practice.”
The sand stops whirling and the ocean settles as the pages flatten, and I find myself looking up at a giant replica of my own face.
“Oliver!” Frump says, his butt wagging. Seraphima races from the edge of the page to stand front and center, her hands clasped at her chest. Queen Maureen—who appeared on Everafter Beach with everyone else as soon as the book was opened—waves with delight.
The characters, excited about being pulled into place for an actual reader, are even more pumped to see who it is.
Oliver, on the other hand, doesn’t look so happy. “Is everything all right?” he asks. A second face appears beside his: Delilah’s. She looks scared to death.
Frump tugs at the hem of his shirt. “We’re fine!” he says, cheery. “You know how it goes. Business as usual. I mean, granted, we haven’t had too many Readers lately….”
Their faces relax. “Then who sent the note?” Oliver asks.
I frown. “What note?”
“Hold on tight,” Oliver says, and the world spins again as he gently lifts the book, turning it away from him.
It seems to be a girl’s bedroom, blurry, the way things look underwater.
I see a crapload of pink, and as things slowly start to come into focus, I can make out a collage of pictures over the bed.
Most of them are of Delilah with a girl who looks like a pierced hedgehog.
I mean, a really pretty pierced hedgehog, but still.
I don’t understand why Oliver’s showing us Delilah’s wall, and then I notice the floating letters.
COME HOME.
“What is that?” I ask.
The book tilts and rights itself again, so that Oliver hovers above us. “I assumed you would be able to tell me.”
“Well, I didn’t write it,” I say.
“Rapscullio?” Oliver asks. “It came from your easel.”
“Sorry, Ollie. The only thing I’ve drawn lately is a teinopalpus imperialis. Gorgeous specimen, with iridescent wings…normally found in India and—”
“Perhaps someone else has been using your easel,” Oliver interrupts. He peers at each of the characters in turn.
We all start glancing at each other nervously, wondering who is unhappy and unwilling to admit it.
Guess I’m not the only one.
Could it be Frump, missing his best friend? Maureen, missing her fictional son? Could Rapscullio’s comments about the new version of the story not working out be only the tip of the iceberg? Could Seraphima—stuck with a guy like me—be dreaming of the prince she used to have?
It’s hard to believe that I could be just as much of a disappointment in the world of this book as I was in reality.
Frump clears his throat, the way he does when he is commanding us to start rehearsal. “It appears that all of us are just fine.” He tilts up his chin. “But enough about us. How are you?”
A slow grin stretches over Oliver’s face.
“This place,” he says, “it’s everything I dreamed of.
There are so many people in this world I can’t name them all.
When I talk to them, I have absolutely no idea what they’re going to say.
Every day since I’ve been here has been different—there are so many scenes you could spend your life trying and never see them all.
” His eyes cut to Delilah. “And of course,” he says, “the company is rather enchanting.”
Oliver takes Delilah’s hand and kisses the back of it. To my right, I hear Seraphima draw in her breath, and Frump moves slightly closer to her.
“How’s my mom?” I blurt out. Until I’ve said that, I don’t realize how much she has been on my mind. I wonder if she can tell that Oliver isn’t me. It’s really hard to think that I’m missing her but she has no idea she’s supposed to be missing me.
“She’s perfect. Except when she tells me to clean my room.”
My chest gets tight. “She does that. A lot.”
A strange expression must cross my face, because Oliver’s gaze narrows on mine. “Edgar,” he asks, “are you all right?”
I open my mouth, about to tell him the truth: I miss my mom. I miss my home. Nobody likes me here; nobody likes my story; nothing is going the way I planned. But all that comes out is “Great!” My face tightens into what might pass for a smile.
“Well, if you’re sure…,” Oliver replies.
“Delilah’s mother is about to serve supper.
” He hesitates. “I miss you all. I miss you…a lot. There are many people in this world, but none like you.” Then he tosses us another smile.
“All right, then. Hang on tight.” As he starts to close the book, as we tumble through the pages, I hear his voice fading away: “I promise I’ll read you later. ”
As the characters disperse, I listen to their chatter. Socks walks with Captain Crabbe. “He looks great, doesn’t he? So handsome.”
“He looks happy,” Maureen adds. “What more could a mother ask for her son?”
The mermaids slip into the shallows of the water. “I guess you can eat, breathe, and sleep true love,” Kyrie says, “but I’d go for the chocolate, the oxygen, and the featherbed instead.”
Seraphima is the only one frowning. She walks off the page slowly, her arms wrapped tightly around her body, as if she’s hoping to hold herself together.
I sit down on the beach, tossing the remaining sand dollars from the poker game into the water. When Frump comes up behind me, I’m surprised. I thought I was alone.
“You did a good thing, Edgar,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not the only one hiding something to make him happy.
” Frump turns around, lifting up the back of his shirt, to reveal a long brown-and-white tail.
He faces me again, sober. “Rapscullio may be more right than he knows. It’s not just the characters who want to return to the original story. It’s the book.”