The Entirely True Story of the Unbelievable FIB

by Adam Shaughnessy

  “Well, nigh means ‘almost,’ and omniscient means ‘all-­knowing,’ so—”

  “I meant about the danger, ABE! The terrible danger, remember?”

  “Oh! Right, sorry!” ABE ran a hand through his hair. It appeared to be something he did when he was nervous. Pru began to understand why his hair always looked such a mess.

  Before ABE could make any guesses as to what the squirrel might have meant, the sound of splintering wood echoed through the trees, followed by a heavy crash. A flurry of motion in the distance caught Pru’s eye. She looked in the direction of the movement and saw—

  She wasn’t sure what she saw.

  She saw a tree fall. That much she knew. But, for just a moment, she thought she saw something else, too. Something big. Something really big.

  The distance and the density of the trees made it difficult to see clearly, but the thing Pru saw looked like a man, only one who stood at least four times as tall as anyone she’d ever seen before. She only spied him for a moment, and then the figure disappeared behind a cluster of other trees and brush. Pru began backing away.

  “ABE, I think we should keep moving.”

  ABE did not argue.

  Branches blurred on either side of Pru as she and ABE turned and sped off. Pru’s breath clouded before her. Distracted as she was by the inexplicable events that had occurred over the past few minutes, some part of her brain wondered about her clouded breath. It hadn’t been that cold when they left the library, but there in the woods it felt like winter. Mist rose from the forest floor around and before them.

  Pru heard the sound of footsteps behind her as the mist turned to a dense fog that enveloped her and ABE. They were indeed the footsteps of something worrisomely big. The footsteps drew closer.

  Pru had always heard people talk about fear like it was a cold thing. They got “chills,” or became “frozen with terror.” There in the woods, it occurred to Pru that fear wasn’t always a cold thing. Sometimes, fear was a fire. A little spark could start it, and then it could grow to consume you and everyone around you.

  Even in the sudden cold of the forest, fear burned in Pru. It consumed her and spread to ABE. Soon, they were running, sprinting, fast as they could through the trees. The mist made it difficult to see the ground, but they dodged roots and moss-­covered stones as best they could.

  The footsteps followed and Pru did not dare look back. She didn’t have to. She could tell that whatever chased them was close.

  ABE stumbled.

  Pru watched in horror from the corner of her eye, praying that he’d regain his balance—but the stumble collapsed into a trip, and then ABE was on the ground.

  Pru skidded to a halt. Purposely keeping her eyes on ABE (and not the woods behind him), she reached down and grabbed his jacket. Even as she did so, she could tell it was too late. She sensed something move nearby. She knew that if she just looked up, it would be there.

  It was going to get her.

  Before it could, though, the sky exploded.

  The largest boom of thunder yet echoed across the heavens. Pru threw herself to the ground and covered her head. When she dared to look up, she saw that ABE had reacted the same way. She spun around, looking for whatever had been chasing them, sure that it must be right on top of them.

  It wasn’t.

  Pru didn’t understand. Something had chased them, something big and terrifying, and they’d been trapped. She was sure of it! Why did it turn away? Pru rose slowly and looked around again to be sure they were alone and to get a sense of where they were.

  They had come to a stop in a dead section of the woods. Some past disease had robbed the surrounding trees of life and leaves so that the churning sky stood revealed above. The broken trees reminded Pru of a graveyard of ships. They rose from the misty ground like the masts of sunken vessels. Only jagged remains suggested there had once been branches on those wrecked trees, broken booms lost to some unknown storm.

  “What just happened?” ABE asked, also rising to his feet and taking in their surroundings.

  “I don’t know.” Pru was shaking. Her fingers slipped into her messenger bag where they brushed past the mysterious card and curled around her most prized possession, her dad’s badge. She wished more than anything that he were there with her.

  At that moment a man’s voice made itself heard.

  “Well, well,” it said, coming from behind Pru. “Long time no see.”

  Pru’s heart leapt cruelly toward hope. But even as she turned to face the speaker, recognition set in. Disappointment immediately followed.

  It wasn’t her dad speaking at all.

  It was the man in gray.

  CHAPTER

  6

  “WHERE DID YOU COME FROM?” PRU ASKED. SURPRISE roughened her words.

  The man in gray leaned casually against a nearby tree. Mist swirled about his ankles and snaked up his legs. In his long coat and hat, he looked like an extension of the fog, as ghost-­like and otherworldly as the landscape around them.

  “I’ve been around. Why? Were you looking for me?”

  “What? No. Listen.” Pru shook her head and tried not to let her voice shake as the memory of her and ABE’s flight through the woods returned. “There’s something out there in the trees.”

  “Is that so?” The man in gray sounded relaxed, but Pru noticed a spark of excitement in his eyes. She noticed something else, too. His nose began to twitch.

  Taking a few steps in the direction Pru had indicated, the man reached into his coat’s inner pocket. He withdrew what appeared to be a magnifying glass and held it before his eye as he gazed into the woods.

  “Is this guy a friend of yours?” ABE whispered, edging closer to Pru.

  “Hardly. He’s some weirdo I met in the museum the other day.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  ABE neither looked nor sounded reassured as the man in gray lowered his magnifying glass.

  “Whatever was out there seems to be gone now. Did you happen to see what it was?” The man glanced back over his shoulder at Pru and ABE as he spoke. His voice remained casual, but Pru was sure of it now—his nose was definitely twitching.

  “No, I . . . I only saw it from far away. But it was . . .” Pru faltered. She couldn’t bring herself to describe what she had seen. Who would believe it?

  “It was big,” ABE said.

  Pru wasn’t sure whether she felt better or worse knowing that ABE had seen something, too.

  “It was really, really big.” ABE continued, “It was impossibly big.”

  “Was it? I’m sorry I missed that.”

  “You shouldn’t be,” ABE said, shaking his head.

  “If you say so. Tell me, did you see anything else in the woods?”

  Pru and ABE exchanged a look. Knowing how ridiculous it would sound, Pru willed ABE not to speak.

  “Well . . . there was a, ah, squirrel,” ABE said, swallowing.

  “A squirrel? In the woods? That sounds normal enough.”

  “Not this squirrel.”

  “ABE . . .” Pru cautioned.

  “It talked!” ABE continued, either not hearing her or unable to stop himself.

  The lopsided grin and laughing eyes that Pru remembered from Winterhaven House returned. “Did it? A talking squirrel? Now, that is curious.”

  “He means it sounded like the squirrel talked,” Pru interrupted. “Someone talked. It couldn’t have really been the squirrel, obviously.”

  “Obviously,” the man in gray agreed. “What did this talking squirrel of yours say?”

  “He warned us of danger,” ABE said. “And I’m pretty sure he insulted us.”

  “Is that so?” The man’s nose, which had begun to quiet, resumed its twitching. “Now, that is very interesting. A talking squirrel is one thing, after all. But an insulting talking squirrel, that’s something else.”

  “Enough about the squirrel,” Pru said. She hated being laughed at, even if it was just with a look. “Who are you, anyw
ay? What are you doing out here in the woods?”

  “You can call me Mister Fox,” the man in gray said.

  “Is that your name?” ABE asked.

  “My name? Of course not. What an absurd notion. No one can own a name. It’s a name, though, and it’s the one that suits me best. Now, as for what I’m doing here, I’m here in town precisely because there is something out there in the woods.”

  “Really?” Pru said. She’d nearly convinced herself that she’d imagined it.

  “Of course. There have always been things in the woods.” Mister Fox looked down his long nose at them. “But you knew that already. You’ve known for a long time. All children do. Think back to all those stories your parents told you when you were little about the things children find in the woods. Wolves. Witches. Giants.”

  Pru flinched at the mention of giants. “What have stories got to do with this?”

  “Do you remember when you asked your parents if those stories were real—and don’t deny asking. At one time or another, in one way or another, every child asks if those stories are real. Do you remember what your parents said?”

  “Yes,” Pru said. “They said they were just pretend. They told the truth.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Mister Fox said.

  “They’re just stories,” Pru insisted.

  “I believe we’ve discussed this already. There’s no such thing as just stories.”

  “Are you saying that witches and . . . giants . . . are real?” ABE asked. “They can’t be, though. Right? I mean, they’re magic. Magic isn’t real.”

  He glanced over his shoulder, back into the woods. “Is it?”

  “I’ve traveled around a bit,” Mister Fox answered, pushing back the tail of his long gray coat and then slipping his hands into his pockets. Most of the mist had lifted. What little remained seemed to cling to him as it swirled about his feet. “On one of my travels, I met an old woman. Interesting lady—bit of a strange fascination with chickens.”

  Pru blinked at the change of topic. She’d heard of trains of thought. Mister Fox’s train seemed to have become derailed.

  “But the strangest thing about the old woman was her ideas on magic,” Mister Fox continued, getting his train back on track. “She had this notion that there were whole other worlds out there, worlds of magic. She told me that those worlds are connected to ours by avenues of possibility and perception and that, under just the right circumstances, creatures and beings from those worlds can come here.”

  “That’s insane,” Pru said.

  Mister Fox laughed. “Says the girl who talks to squirrels.”

  “I didn’t talk to the squirrel!” Pru answered. Before she could stop herself, she blurted, “The squirrel talked to me.”

  “And you didn’t answer it? That seems just a bit rude. Is that the sort of person you are? Insane, and just a bit rude?”

  Pru noticed ABE studying her. She fought the temptation to elbow him.

  “Uh, could we get back to the part about magic being real?” ABE asked.

  The man in gray approached ABE. He leaned forward, bending at the waist so he was nearly eye level with ABE. “And what sort of person are you, I wonder,” he said.

  Before ABE could answer, Pru stepped between him and Mister Fox. “This is ridiculous. There’s nothing out there in the woods. I’m sure it was just our eyes playing tricks on us.” She tried to sound confident.

  “And our ears?” ABE asked, behind her.

  Pru ignored him. “If magic was real, people would know. They’d see it. It would be on the news. You’re not fooling anyone.”

  “Very few people can see it. You two, apparently, are among the few who can.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Of course you don’t believe me. That’s exactly how you know I’m telling you the truth.”

  “We’re leaving,” Pru said, shaking her head and trying to clear it of the crazy.

  Mister Fox stretched his arm out. For a moment, Pru thought he might try to stop them. Instead, he rolled his hand in a gesture that they were free to go.

  “I’d follow the main road back,” he advised. “Best to avoid the woods for a bit.”

  Pru began walking away. ABE followed close behind.

  “It’s all about belief,” Mister Fox called after them. “People believe too easily, today. When you believe in things, you close your mind to other possibilities. And magic is all about possibility. It’s the ones who aren’t sure what to believe who can see magic.”

  “Uh-­huh, thanks,” Pru called over her shoulder. But she turned to look back at him once more before leaving. Mister Fox had straightened. He stood with his hands in his pockets once more, watching them go.

  “Be careful when you get back to town,” he called. “Things are happening here. You may think things look normal. Don’t be so sure.”

  Pru began to turn away. As she did, she noticed something she hadn’t seen before, though she didn’t understand how she could have missed it. Just a bit off to the side from Mister Fox stood an old shed of some sort. Or was it a small house? She wasn’t sure. It hardly seemed important. She dismissed it from her thoughts—almost. It stayed with her in the quiet place in the back of the mind, the part where people keep things they are not sure of.

  Ahead, Pru saw the manicured lawn of the cemetery peeking through the trees. With a start, she remembered the mysterious card and the reason for her and ABE’s journey. Quick on the heels of the memory, however, came the realization that she was too tired to explore the cemetery. Her hope of finding her father there seemed foolish and distant to her now. Still, a part of her wondered what—or who—the clue might have led them to.

  Lost in thought and not watching her step, Pru nearly tripped as her foot caught on something hard. She glanced down and was surprised to discover the crumbling remains of a chiseled gravestone lying flat on the ground.

  They were in the cemetery already. It was clearly an older section, partially reclaimed by the woods, where aged and crumbling headstones had already begun their own journey toward decay and dust. But the fact remained—they’d been in the cemetery all along.

  Pru thought about the possible meaning of that as she and ABE entered the cemetery proper and left behind the older graveyard and the all-­but-­forgotten souls who dwelt within.

  CHAPTER

  7

  EACH YEAR, MIDDLETON HELD AN EVENT CALLED the Explorers’ Fair. People dressed as members of a Viking village, supposedly to celebrate the Vikings’ extraordinary accomplishments as explorers. Pru’s dad had always said that the real purpose of the fair was to humor Old Man Grimnir and his crazy Viking obsession so that he’d keep giving the town his money.

  The fair was held on the grounds of Winterhaven House over Columbus Day weekend to draw attention to the fact that the Vikings traveled to North America long before Christopher Columbus made the journey. There were all kinds of Viking-­related activities at the fair, like tying sailor’s knots and archery competitions. Pru had once suggested an axe-­throwing contest, but no one had taken her seriously.

  In addition to those other, non-­axe-­throwing activities, the Explorers’ Fair also featured a number of booths set up to support the community. The Middle­ton Police Department, for example, always ran a canned food drive to help the hungry.

  All sixth graders were expected to sign up to volunteer at one of the booths. The school called it a community service requirement. Pru called it child labor. Still, with the fair less than a week away, Mrs. Edleman’s class lined up to walk down to the gym, where different organizations had set up tables to recruit volunteers.

  Pru was grateful for the break from routine, and not just because it got her out of math (why would anyone even want to convert decimals to fractions?). It also gave her a chance to talk to ABE for the first time since their trip to the cemetery and their strange encounters with the squirrel, the thing in the woods, and the madman in gray—or Mister Fox, as he liked to be
called.

  He was infuriating, Pru decided. She carefully chose a word she knew well, mostly because people (Mrs. Edleman in particular) would often use it to refer to her. But Mister Fox really was infuriating. He was always saying things that didn’t make sense and laughing with his eyes. And that stupid, lopsided grin! Pru resolved not to give him another thought.

  She wondered if she’d see him again.

  Then she resolved really not to give him another thought.

  Pru navigated the gym until she found ABE in front of a table with a banner that read The Earth Center. Pru had heard of it. It was Middleton’s environmental organization. From what she could see from the flyers on the table, the group planned to organize a recycling drive. ABE held the sign-­up sheet in his hands as Pru approached.

  “ABE, that’s perfect!”

  “Really?” ABE beamed. “Thanks. I think so, too. I mean, we throw away so much stuff that we shouldn’t. A recycling drive is a great way to draw attention to that and—”

  “Yeah,” Pru interrupted, stepping closer to ABE and taking the clipboard from him. “My thoughts exactly. Also, it’s totally an excuse to go sneaking around town investigating.”

  “Right, and . . . wait. What? Investigating what?” ABE looked at her with raised eyebrows.

  “Shh.” Pru gestured at ABE to keep his voice down. “Something weird is going on in this town, and you know it. The squirrel? The thing in the woods?”

  “But you said we just imagined those things.”

  “So? I say things. It’s what people do. They say stuff. That doesn’t mean you should believe them. Trust me.”

  “Oh. Okay. Wait . . . am I supposed to believe you now?”

  “Obviously! Look, the point is that something strange is happening. I’m not saying for sure that I think the squirrel talked or that I saw . . . anything . . . in the woods. Those could have been tricks or something.” They’d seemed so real at the time, but how could they have been? “There’s other stuff. Trust me, someone needs to investigate. And looking for recyclables for a couple of hours after school is the perfect excuse to snoop around town.”