The Fantastic Fable of Peter Able

by Natalie Grigson

  My heart was racing, and I still had no idea what she was talking about, but with that smile, I thought it would be okay.

  “I’m going to go make sure the students aren’t getting too carried away with hazing our school’s new little pets. We should probably just move them into the dungeon, and Uk will need some help doing that,” Merlin said. His outline began to shimmer and fade before he was even finished speaking. A moment later, I heard him shouting from the center of the circle, trying to rein in the overenthusiastic Frat Boys.

  “And I’m going to go round up Gail’s nasty little hobbit friends. I think I saw them hiding near the vending machines,” Silver said, hobbling off, skirting the edge of the crowd. “Good luck!” he called over his shoulder.

  “What do you mean they’ve been pricked?” I asked the woman. She didn’t hear me at first, as she was watching the crowd in rapt attention, muttering under her breath. Again, I heard the distinct CLAP of a paddle being brought down hard, and the woman punched the air in triumph. I repeated my question.

  In answer, she turned toward me impatiently and held up her index finger. At first I thought she was telling me to hold on, which would have been quite rude, but then I saw that she was showing me a tiny, almost invisible red spot on the flesh of her finger.

  “Pricked. By the spindle of a spinning wheel.”

  “Like Sleeping Beauty?”

  She rolled her eyes, ignoring me, and then looked back toward the crowd. They had quieted, though, and I could hear Merlin addressing the students from the center of the circle. Clearly the fun was over for now, and so the woman looked back to me and sighed.

  “Yes, like me. Now, in most of the retellings of my tale, a handsome prince must bestow a kiss upon the enchanted sleeper! But this is wrong. A kiss must be given not necessarily by a handsome prince but by somebody who truly loves the sleeper. Peter, do you love Jenny?”

  I looked over at Jenny. It was the first chance I’d had to really look at her since the evening had taken such a crazy turn. Her light-brown hair fell messily around her face, no longer up at all; her golden dress was streaked with dirt and grime; she had small scratches and greenish bruises welling up on her arms from being dragged along; and her tongue was lolling from her mouth, sporting a few shiny bubbles of spit.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And do you love Randy?” Sleeping Beauty asked.

  “Wait a second here—”

  She shook her head impatiently and gestured at Randy.

  “Not like you love Jenny, Peter. But do you love Randy? Like a friend?”

  I nodded.

  “Alright then, you know what to do.” And with that, Sleeping Beauty walked away elegantly, as though she were simply floating above the trash-strewn floor. At the edge of the group of students, she violently pushed several people out of the way and squeezed into the crowd’s center.

  After a few more muffled words from Merlin, the mass of students and staff burst into renewed cheers, and moved as one through the cafeteria toward another door leading to the dungeon. Uk was joyously leading the group, and the two prisoners, no longer magically connected, but each bound with rope, were slung over his shoulders.

  “You’re DEAD, Peter!” I heard Gail call before she disappeared through the door.

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that before,” I murmured tiredly.

  Once the last of the crowd had trickled out of the room and through the door, I knelt down next to Randy, happy for some privacy for a Moment such as this. Looking down at him, I realized how bad he really did look. The right lens of his glasses was simply gone, beneath which his closed eye was swollen and purple. The dark stubble on his cheeks and neck stood out against his pale skin. What used to be charming patches of gray in his hair were now stark white. He looked so much older, or perhaps he had just grown more descriptive as he’d become a bigger part of my life. I realized how much he’d gone through, largely because of me. And I realized how much he must love me. Not like a friend, as Sleeping Beauty had said, but like a son.

  Okay, enough with the sentimental dribble. I leaned down and gave him a quick kiss on the forehead, hoping that would suffice. Apparently it did; he sat up immediately.

  “—put the needle down!” he shouted, looking around wildly. When his one good eye found me, it immediately welled up with tears, and he pulled me into a fierce hug.

  “Peter, you’re alive! Oh Peter! When Gail found me, I thought all hope was lost. I thought she and the penguin would . . .” He trailed off, and shook his head in disbelief. “But they didn’t! Where are they, Peter? And what’s happened to Jenny?!” he asked, noticing her for the first time.

  I casually extricated myself from his crushing embrace and quickly explained how we’d found him in the maintenance closet and what had happened since. As he listened, he took off his glasses and mopped his face with his sleeve, wincing as he brushed over his eye. By the time I’d finished, he seemed . . . a little conflicted.

  “So Gail and Pen get to live, do they?” He nodded along as he spoke, as though testing out the sound of the words. “Even after killing an innocent minor character . . .” He kept bobbing his head, staring at Jenny, but clearly in a daze. Finally he looked back at me and smiled wearily. “I think it works. I know I couldn’t have thought of a better ending if I’d been . . .” Perhaps unconsciously, Randy’s hand went to his front pocket, where the very crinkled piece of Plot Paper was sticking out. “Peter, I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you I was the main character of a book. I should have told you,” he said hurriedly. “I just want you to know that since my story began when I was accepted to Detective, I have not once influenced my author. I could have, of course, but honestly, I didn’t even think about it until tonight when I found out what Pen was doing to Christine’s story. I . . . I just wanted you to know that I’d never manipulate things unless you were in danger. But I am sorry I didn’t tell you about my book,” he finished, looking at the ground, his broken glasses sliding down his nose.

  “I know, Randy. It’s okay,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder. “And it turns out we didn’t need any Plot Paper after all.”

  I didn’t want to say because I am a true hero . . . and I am awesome, because that seemed borderline boastful. Luckily, I was still a bit off with my internal monologue, and he picked it up. Right, Randy?

  “Right, hero,” he smiled, looking up at me, and then over to Jenny. “Now wake up Jenny, and let’s get out of here. This story needs a major shift in mood, if you ask me, and this place is just dismal. Speaking of lightening the mood, I have been having the strangest dreams this whole time, and most of them have been about food! I guess I am pretty hungry, because . . .”

  Randy winked at me and continued blathering on conversationally, but his voice faded away, and a moment later the room around me did as well. There was only Jenny, lying there on the floor, scratched, bruised, and smudged with garbage. Beautiful.

  I gently poked her tongue back into her mouth, brushed a few stray strands of hair from her face, and leaned slowly toward her, breathing her in. Somehow she still smelled like cinnamon, and when I pressed my palm against her cheek, it was warm, almost feverish.

  And then I kissed her.

  It did not go quite as smoothly as I’d hoped. Before she’d even opened her eyes, she swung her arm back and slugged me in the jaw. She slid away from me along the ground, scattering plastic cups and pieces of trash, and held her arms in front of her face defensively. After a moment, she lowered them and looked around. She must have realized that a few things had changed since she’d last been conscious. For one, her friend Peter now potentially had a broken jaw.

  “Oh, Peter!” she said, reaching out to touch my face.

  “I’ll take care of that, Jenny,” Randy said. He and the room around us had snapped back into focus the moment The Moment had been ruined with Jenny’s fantastic right hook. With a few whispered words, I felt my jaw go completely slack, and then with an almighty crunch, it snapped back
into alignment. This was not how I’d pictured my first kiss.

  And no, I don’t mean my first kiss with Jenny or with somebody I love. I mean, first kiss, first kiss. That’s right. I am an eighteen-year-old fictitious boy wizard who just had his first kiss. And then got punched in the face.

  Don’t laugh.

  After several reassurances that I was not hurt, angry, or anything other than relieved Jenny had woken up, even if she’d punched me in the face, we stood up to leave. The floor was covered in garbage, discarded shoes and purses, cans, upended punch bowls, and even a few scattered bits of tables, and it took most of our attention just to navigate a path to the cafeteria door. When we finally reached the deserted corridor leading from the school, Randy began telling Jenny what had happened. Of course he was just picking bits and pieces from what I’d told him, and he got most of the details wrong, but I wasn’t paying too much attention.

  Jenny and I were a few steps behind Randy, our fingers intertwined almost painfully, like we’d never let go. We were headed toward Pip and Pop’s, as Randy insisted that he was starving and that the story should come full circle. I don’t know. I was hardly even aware of Randy’s words, let alone my surroundings, and so as we walked through the tiny portion of Mystery and beneath the green moons of Sci-fi, they passed by in a nondescript blur. All I knew was that Jenny’s hand was warm in mine. Jenny was alive and vibrant and simply glowing as she walked by my side. Jenny. My girlfriend, Jenny.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  By the time we were finished eating, I understood what Randy had meant about the story coming full circle. Just like our first night together, Pip and Pop’s pies had gotten the better of us, and we were all overly stuffed. We sat in our springy yellow booth, idly watching the few remaining customers milling about and the waiters and waitresses cleaning up and beginning to shut down. I caught a glimpse of the rude toad-woman, who was busy making another table feel unwelcome. I was just about to point her out to Randy when he slid out of the booth across from Jenny and me and proceeded to make a really terrible excuse to leave early.

  “I’ve just remembered something!” he announced a little too loudly, placing some money next to his empty plate. And with that, he literally ran out of the restaurant, nearly bowling over the very indignant toad-woman. Okay, it wasn’t so much an excuse as it was just weird.

  And then I realized why Randy had left so quickly: the school’s Obligatory Awkward Good-bye Scene. I had completely forgotten about it, but the second it entered my mind, things got . . . well, awkward. I looked over at Jenny and smiled sheepishly; in turn she smiled coyly. I started tapping my feet on the ground under the table, and they danced right into Jenny’s, who was nervously doing the same thing. She smiled; I smiled. It was all very cute—and by cute I mean incredibly uncomfortable. And so after a few minutes, Jenny and I left the restaurant as well. The night was chilly, and in a bout of chivalry I took off my filthy tuxedo jacket and draped it over Jenny’s shoulders. She smiled again. We walked on. God, it was awkward.

  Despite the late hour and the chill in the air, there were still a few people milling about the neighborhood. In fact, a few yards in front of us, a couple of centaurs I recognized from school were clopping along on their way home from the dance as well. They were holding hands, and the girl, who was a pretty, speckled black and white on her southern half, kept giggling and neighing nervously as the guy, a solid chocolate brown, told a story. I couldn’t make out their words, but I could tell Jenny and I weren’t the only ones facing an OAGS. Jenny seemed to realize it too, and we laughed a little as the couple stopped in front of a little, one-story blue house with a red door.

  “Well, this is me,” I heard the girl say as we walked past. Jenny caught hold of my hand as it swung gracelessly at my side like a heavy pendulum.

  “Glad we’re not being awkward or anything,” she said, nodding toward the centaurs who seemed to have gotten confused with the kiss or hug protocol, and had knocked heads.

  “Yeah, me too,” I said seriously. “So just so we don’t end up injuring ourselves, should we kiss, hug, or just shake hands to end the night? To be honest, I vote shake hands. It’s safer, and plus, I don’t want to get your cooties,” I said, nudging her with my shoulder. Laughing, she yanked her hand from mine and punched me playfully on the shoulder. It still hurt.

  I wrapped my arm around her, feeling a lot more comfortable, and we continued on toward my apartment. The upstairs lights of my unit were still glowing warmly, throwing the patched-up, blackened outside of the kitchen into sharp relief. I could only imagine what kind of Father-Son bonding talk Randy had in store for me, so I slowed down a bit.

  “Look,” Jenny whispered. She pulled me over to the side of the road and crouched down next to the grass. She was pointing at a pair of delicate silver fairies, each no bigger than a finger, who were dancing through the air gracefully. I kneeled down next to her, and we watched them move, dipping and diving as one.

  “Jenny, tonight when you . . . well, there was a moment when I thought,” I stammered, still watching the fairies. This wasn’t coming out right. “I thought you might be dead for a minute there.” No, not coming out right at all. “But clearly, I mean, you weren’t. Aren’t. What I’m getting at here is, for that one moment that I thought you might not be okay, I was . . . terrified.”

  I could tell she was looking at me, but I was still watching the fairies as they circled through the air, giggling lightly like tiny bells.

  “I made a promise to myself that I would make things happen in my life,” I said, slowly at first. “I told myself I would really start living, in honor of my sister . . . But when I think about losing you, I’m not so sure I could keep doing that. And it scares the hell out of me,” I finished, finally looking over at her.

  She was not crying or laughing happily, or whatever it is girls usually do in big sappy moments in Fiction. She was studying me intently, her clear green eyes slightly squinted as though she were thinking hard. And then she finally said . . .

  “Peter, you’re an idiot.” She put her warm hands on the back of my neck, and looked me right in the eye. “I’m not going anywhere. And after tonight, it looks like you’re going to be around for a while too.” She smiled and pulled me a little closer.

  “I’ve decided that life is just too short to be scared all the time, whether it’s about ruining a friendship, or making things happen, or whatever it is.”

  “Bugs,” I responded stupidly. She raised her eyebrows and pulled me closer still. I could feel my whole body tingling, though whether it was nerves or something else, I didn’t know, or particularly care. I leaned forward, and with my hand lightly beneath her chin, our lips met, lightly and delicately . . . at first.

  “Do you mind?” someone trilled what must have been several minutes later. We broke apart, and I realized the voice was coming from the little silver fairies who had stopped dancing and were staring at us indignantly. With a last scathing glance, the dancing duo flitted off into a purple bush nearby.

  “Jenny,” I said, smiling unashamedly.

  “Jenny,” I repeated a bit louder. Jenny what? Stupid brain.

  “Girlfriend,” I said dumbly. Okay, now I was starting to sound like a caveman.

  She burst out laughing and stood up, smoothing out her stained and wrinkled gown.

  “Me like you too, Peter,” she grunted, pointing archaically at herself and then down at me. She continued laughing as she took off the jacket I’d lent her and handed it to me, or rather, draped it over my shoulder like a coat rack, as I was still on my knees, staring up at her and quite unable to move. I couldn’t stop smiling; I felt like I had a coat hanger in my mouth.

  “I need to get home,” she said, running a hand through my hair. She leaned over and kissed me once more, lightly. “Goodnight.” And with that, she walked away.

  I watched her make her way down the street, listening to the sound of her footsteps on the river rock road and the rustle of tree branches
in the cool breeze. At the corner of her street and mine, she turned around and waved, and as she disappeared into the undeveloped void beyond, I could hear her laughter fade away.

  Finally, I stood up and made my way down the road and up the stairs to my apartment, still not quite sure what had just happened. But I did know one thing for sure: as far as Obligatory Awkward Good-bye Scenes went, that was not so bad. In fact, we might have to do that again sometime.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Breaking News: Peter Able, Boy Wizard, Saves the Day

  Peter Able, famed for the late Peter Able: Boy Wizard series, may want to add “hero” to his resume after his acts of bravery three weeks ago.

  As discussed in a recent article, Tabatha Christine’s latest gruesome mystery was set to include Able as one of the characters. Our readers were not privy to the role Able would play in the upcoming book, but apparently it was not his finest. In fact, it would have been his final role had the book continued as planned. It was curtains for Able.

  As it turned out, though, Peter Able managed to capture the book’s main character, Pen the Penguin, and prevent her from influencing her innocent author any more than she had already. Gail, the character hired to assassinate Peter in the book, was also captured. Neither Pen nor Gail will play a role in this book. In fact, nobody will.

  Just two days ago, Tabatha Christine announced that she had decided not to go forth with the editing process, and would instead start work on a new and completely different book. Working title: Murdering the Alphabet.

  Christine would not reveal why she had suddenly abandoned the nearly completed book, but according to close sources, a slight coincidence is to blame.