“Good morning, Peter. Wow, you look terrible,” Randy said, putting the newspaper down on the table. “Trouble sleeping?”
“I guess so.” I glumly sat down at the other end of the table, slouching in my chair.
“Peter, buck up. I know things aren’t going exactly like you want them to right now, but what story does? Besides, you’re really darkening the atmosphere”—he gestured beyond the bay window to the gray skies—“and no one wants to follow around a pouty protagonist.
“So what have you got today?”
“Person vs. Person and Bio . . . with Jenny.”
It started to rain outside.
“So she didn’t come over here for one night, Peter. She probably just had a long first day and needed to, you know, take a break. Clear her head.” But I knew he didn’t really believe this—first of all, he’d gone all white in the cheeks when he said it, like he did when he was nervous, and second, I could hear an uncomfortable shuffling of heavy feet from the pantry. There was clearly an elephant in the room.
“Hey,” Randy said before I could continue moping and perhaps bring about some really severe weather, “let’s head out early and swing by Pip and Pop’s. If that doesn’t cheer you up, I don’t know what will.”
I agreed, reluctantly, but couldn’t seem to muster the enthusiasm to actually get up and, say, put my shoes on. Randy, who was growing more and more impatient with my sullenness, finally went to my room to get my shoes himself.
“I closed your window, Peter, so the rain wouldn’t get in.”
“Yeah, I guess Dach must have opened it in the middle of the night. I was probably cussing in my sleep . . .”
“Ah, bad dreams. Only you must have left it open last night. Dach can’t open windows.”
Ordinarily, I would have shrugged it off and agreed—half the time I slept with my window open to let the sounds of Fantasy and the early morning smells of baking pie sift into my room, but last night I hadn’t. I’d made a point to close the window and the blinds, so I could be especially focused on being sad and mopey.
Fragments of a dream fell into place in my mind—a strange figure, blurry through lidded eyes, moving around in the early morning light of my room, the blinds no longer pulled shut. Searching for something, opening drawers, cabinets, looking in my closet, and then finally coming to rest beside me on the bed.
Then I’d woken up, and just as suddenly, the dream was gone.
But the window was still open.
“Peter, are you all right?” Randy asked, as he shrugged on his rain jacket.
“Oh, mother—”
“Hey now,” Randy said. “I may not be as strict as Dach-shund, but this is an all-ages story.”
“Randy, someone was in my room! I thought it was a dream, but I closed the window last night!” I ran into my room and immediately wrenched open my top desk drawer. My backstory was still there, just as I’d left it before breakfast, still a little warm.
“He must not have come back after I put this away,” I said, holding the pages to my chest protectively.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you mean ‘he’? What’s going on here?”
“I thought it was a dream, Randy, but I know someone, or something, was in my room just a little while ago. It was looking around for something . . . and then it just sat on my bed and watched me.” I shuddered and held my backstory tighter.
“You don’t think it was??”
“Oh, let’s not do this again,” I grumbled, the adrenaline from moments ago fading. I was suddenly exhausted. “What I think is that? is more powerful than you thought he was. I think he’s back, and I think he was just here, looking for this.” I nodded down at my backstory, unwilling to remove it from next to my heart.
“Well, then why didn’t he find it?” Randy moved over to the desk and took a magnifying glass out of his rain jacket pocket. “He’s clearly been opening your drawers.” He continued to look around the room at various surfaces. “He’s opened your closet; he’s rummaged through your clothes, tried on a shoe by the looks of it . . .” Randy held up a red sneaker by two fingers as if the thing smelled. Which, to be fair, it probably did.
“How could he have missed it?”
“Because it was underneath me.”
“I’m sorry, what was that?”
“I said it was underneath me.”
“Come again?”
“It was underneath me! Okay?”
“Okay, okay,” Randy said, holding his hands out. “Listen, Peter. I know you’re struggling with this.”
“No, I’m not,” I said, covering the backstory completely with my arms over my chest.
“Okay . . . you’re not then. I just don’t want you to get too attached to your backstory. Remember what I said. Changing anything in your backstory could—”
“I know, I know. Have severe consequences on my own life or the lives of others. I’m not going to change it.” A tiny word appeared just in front of my nose. One hand still pressing the backstory to my chest, I batted it away, sending the letters scattering, hopefully before Randy could read it.
L I A R
I A R L
“Peter, you’re a terrible liar.”
Damn.
“Okay, fine. So maybe I am thinking about changing it. Would that be so terrible? I could just tweak the part about my mom dying. If she didn’t die, I probably never would have been sent to Payne Academy, and my sister would still be alive and—”
“And there would be no story, Peter! Don’t you see? If you change even one small thing, everything else changes. If all that hadn’t happened the way it had, your story may never have even been published. You may not exist,” Randy said with finality. “I hate to genre jump here, but everything happens for a reason.”
Easy for you to say.
Randy looked at me sadly.
“It is easy for me to say, Peter. You’re right—I didn’t lose my mom and my sister too soon. But I’ve had my own share of hardships over the years, and you know what? I wouldn’t change a thing, because I know that my life wouldn’t be what it is today if I did. And I like my life.
“Now you might think that the sensible thing for me to do here would be to take your backstory and keep it hidden and safe in my office, but I’m aware that this would make your Person vs. Self assignment rather difficult. So I’ll leave it with you to resolve, Peter, but I must strongly emphasize how detrimental it could be to you if you were to change it. Have I made myself clear?”
“Yes.”
“Good, now let’s get to campus. And Peter, keep that thing safe.”
I put on a raincoat and tucked the backstory securely into the inside pocket, images of my mom and sister still fresh on my mind. I didn’t wonder much what my dad would look like these days. In fact, I didn’t think about him much at all. As far as I was concerned, I already had a dad.
Okay, it wasn’t the most conventional of relationships, but it worked.
Usually.
The second day of school was terrible. You may have noticed that I didn’t take you through my whole day (see previous sentence), but that’s because (again, see previous sentence) it was terrible.
Now I don’t do this often, but the day seemed to warrant a bit of skipping through. So here are the CliffsNotes:
- I saw Jenny on her way to Spellwork when I was heading toward my Person vs. Person class. She waved awkwardly and before I could say anything, dashed off into the first door to her left: the janitor’s closet.
- The entire Person vs. Person class was spent with the other students learning their new conflicts, which meant it was spent with people alternately screaming, crying, running from the room, or as had been the case with me, blinking in confusion.
- After conflict, I ate lunch . . . by myself. I couldn’t find Randy or Jenny and was starting to realize I might need to branch out a little.
- By the time I got to Bio 201, Jenny was already seated at a table of four: her old and vague friend, Joann
e; a YA vamp who looked familiar with, if you ask me, ridiculous hair; and a rather plain man in his forties. They all seemed to be chatting pleasantly, until she saw me. She smiled guiltily and mouthed, “Mets walk master fast.”
- It turned out she’d said “Let’s talk after class.”
- So we did.
- And here’s what happened:
“Hey, Peter.” We were standing in the classroom, everyone else having filed out. Professor Uk, who we’d also had the previous year, left us alone, just requesting we lock the door when we left. As the Bio 101 and 201 teacher—and as the terrifying, giant ex-captain of the Uruk-hai band of Orcs—I am betting Professor Uk knew tension when he smelled it, so he cleared out pretty fast.
“Hey. How was your day? Mine was okay. Bateman kept staring at me all through conflict, though, like he was making sure I wasn’t going to be killed right in the middle of class. There’s also this new kid from Horror who—”
“Peter.”
“Nope.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Listen, Jenny. I get the sense that you’re about to say something pretty bad, seeing as you’ve been kind of distant the past couple of days, and I just want you to know how much I care about you, and, uh, I think you look really good today, and . . .”
But even as I struggled to finish that sentence (which, as you can see, I didn’t), I watched her face grow almost imperceptibly blurrier. Her once brilliantly green eyes, the first thing I’d ever noticed about her, were fading to a sort of greenish gray. Her cheeks were still flushed, but the outline of her face was not as sharp. She was fading from my story, and I couldn’t seem to do a thing to stop it, so I just looked at her, trying to keep her there.
“I’m sorry, Peter. It hasn’t just been these past two days—though it hasn’t helped. You’ve just been so distant lately, so . . . sorry to say, but you’vebeenkindofapainintheass. You’re always complaining. And I feel like we’ve just become sort of more like roommates than a couple. And, well, I’m only eighteen! I’mtooyoungtobeinsuchaseriousrelationship!”
“Does this have anything to do with your Person vs. Self conflict?”
“Well, yes, but I already knew that this was bothering me before yesterday. Didn’t you know what yours was before then?”
“Uh, yes.”
“Listen, Peter, I’m really sorry. Maybe someday we can get back together, but right now I just don’t think it’s a good time. I hope we can stay friends, though.”
By this point, her face looked washed out and blurred, as though I’d just put on Randy’s glasses (which I only did sometimes when I was trying to look like a certain other boy wizard. It didn’t work). She wasn’t sticking around as my girlfriend or a friend—not now anyway.
Briefly, I thought of using Plot Paper as I had the previous year to influence the story in a different direction—but then realized how incredibly creepy that made me and quickly shifted my internal monologue so Jenny wouldn’t know what I’d been thinking.
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked
If Peter Piper picked a peckle—
“DAMNIT.”
I heard a loud thud on the other side of the door.
“Dach,” I grumbled. “Listen, Jenny. I understand.” I could tell she was looking at me with concern—maybe alarm. It was getting harder to tell. “I don’t like it, but I understand. Now if you don’t mind, I think I’m going to skip things forward a bit. It’s been a long day and . . . well, it’s really hard for me to be with you right now. Maybe we can be friends someday soon, but I just need to be alone.”
- She said okay.
- I went home.
- And then hit myself over the head with a frying pan.
By the time I woke up, it was about four in the morning. I was on the couch, my sister’s old blanket was neatly draped over me, and there was a tray of milk and Fictnewtons on the coffee table. Randy was sleeping in the chair opposite, his feet propped up on the table and a book balanced on his stomach: a Webster’s Dictionary.
Head throbbing, I tried to get up quietly to get some water but stumbled dizzily into the table and sent the tray flying to the ground with a clatter.
“Check under the chicken house!” Randy shouted, jumping to his feet. He’d reached for the closest weapon at hand and pulled out . . . a giant magnifying glass from his coat pocket.
“Oh, good, Peter, you’re up,” he said, taking in the spilled milk and cookies. He reached into his other pocket and pulled out his wand, righting the tray, arranging the cookies on top of it, and quickly siphoning up the milk and pouring it back into the cup. “I wouldn’t drink that.”
“Thanks, Randy. Sorry if I worried you . . . I just needed . . .”
“To speed things up a bit?” Randy asked with a small smile. I nodded.
“Tell me what happened.”
So I told him all about how low I’d been feeling already—unable to perform even the most basic of spells in class the day before, an unidentifiable and mysterious figure trying to steal my backstory and kill me, me struggling with my own thoughts on what to do with my backstory, and now, Jenny breaking up with me.
“And you know how you were saying you wouldn’t change a thing in your backstory if you could, Randy? Because you like your life?” My eyes were fixed on the dog-hair-and-carpet-fuzz-filled milk, but I knew he was staring at me intently. “Well, I don’t know if I do. Like mine, that is. It’s just one thing after another for me, and it seems like now I have this big opportunity with the backstory to fix a lot of that stuff, and . . . well, what have I got to lose at this point?”
I looked up at him defiantly, expecting an argument. But he just looked sad. Without a word, he got up from the chair and laid a hand on my shoulder.
“Whatever you need to do, Peter.” He returned to the room with a glass of water and some Advil Migraine Extra Strength Liqui-Gels confiscated from the Black Market for my throbbing head. I watched him go into his room, thinking about how it would look these days if Beth was still there. Randy could stay in the living room . . . or we’d all just get a bigger place. Maybe Randy and my mom would like each other. She’d be a bit older than him, I suppose. I wondered what she’d look like . . . blonde like my sister, probably . . . not like me. Or my dad. Or Bateman . . . why would she look like Bateman? Would she wear a cape? These pills must have been really strong . . .
And with that, things really skipped forward, because the next time I woke up it was early Friday morning, and I was most certainly not on my couch anymore but in a narrow, white-sheeted hospital bed.
Peter.
A blurred figure, morphing from one thing to the next—fire, a man, a nurse, a centaur, a plant . . .
Peter, can you hear me?
The words bounced around clumsily in my head, their borders unclear. Everything unclear.
Petercanyouhearmeeeeee?
Jenny? But I couldn’t get the quotes going to say the word out loud. I felt stuck and sluggish in my own head.
Once I finally opened my eyes, the room was empty. I must have imagined it all, I must—
“Oh, hey, Peter,” Randy said, backing into the room with a tray of food. “I just stepped out to get a bite to eat. Are you hungry?”
I blinked a few times, and he came into focus. Bob was in the corner blending in nicely. Across the room from me, there was a much larger hospital bed, mostly covered up by its occupant, a thick centaur, with dark brown skin, black hair, and obvious burn marks all along his exposed side. After Randy, a nurse bustled in, carrying a vase of flowers.
“Oh, hello, Peter! I’m glad you’re awake.” She set the flowers down on a table near the window and walked over to my bed. “You’ve been out cold since Wednesday—it’s Friday morning, in case Randy hasn’t told you yet. Honestly, I’m surprised you didn’t sleep longer, taking medicine from the Real World. Tut, tut. Should have known better.”
“Iw wa Wandy’
th idea,” I tried to say, with a tongue compressor in my mouth.
“Yes, I know, he told me.” She shot Randy a nasty look as he busied himself looking at the newly arrived flowers. When he looked up, he no longer looked ashamed.
“Well, nurse, I think he’s good now, don’t you? I’ll get some food in him and then we can be on our way. Thanks a lot, okay, there you go.” He was edging the nondescript but flustered nurse out of the room. “Bye-bye now.” He waved and shut the door behind her.
“What, Randy, was that all about?” Bob said from beside the door, ruffling his leaves.
Randy looked around the room, dropped down to his knees, checked under the bed, rolled onto his back, jumped up, pulled out a magnifying glass, and checked the spaces between my bed and the wall.
“Okay, it looks like we’re alone.”
“What about the centaur in the bed literally five feet away from mine?” I asked, feeling he may have missed something.
“He’s fine—he’ll be out until tomorrow. Came in on fire this morning—work of the neighborhood dragon. Complete accident, of course, but you know, he’s heavily sedated.
“Look, Peter. These flowers came with a note. It just says ‘?’.”
“Does it say ‘?’ or??”
“Oh, let’s not do this again,” Bob said brusquely. He pivoted over to the vase of flowers, plucked the note from the string tied around the narrowest part of the vase, and pivoted over to the bed, holding it out in front of me with one long limb.
?
Ah.
“Why would? send me flowers? I have a feeling it’s not because he wishes me a speedy recovery.”
“No, he probably just wanted to remind us that he’s still around.”
“Yeah. I thought at first they might have been from . . . Well, you know.”
“Algernon?” Bob asked, looking at me curiously (I think).
“No, Jenny. We broke up.”
Bob nodded sagely and didn’t press the issue. As soon as I’d said Jenny’s name, the atmosphere immediately darkened. The room seemed dark and unfamiliar; I felt heavy, alone, and again wondered, what exactly did I have to lose?
The Timeless Tale of Peter Able Page 9
