The Stolen Chapters

by James Riley

  Fictional Owen paused for a second, then shook his head and smiled. “They’ll have to catch me first. Now go! Go beat Doyle, and get him to admit to everything he’s done. The police won’t be able to hold me if you win. And you will win, Owen. I have faith in you. Be the hero you’re meant to be. You can do it. I know you can!” And with that, he ran to the ladder and began scampering up it as they saw flashlights approaching through the manhole.

  “NO!” Owen shouted, and tried to catch his other self, but Bethany grabbed his hand and stopped him.

  “We have to go,” she said, pulling him toward Moira and Kiel. “We’ll fix this, and get him out. I promise.”

  Owen just looked at her, and she’d never seen so much doubt in his eyes. But finally he nodded, and Bethany grabbed the hands of the other two and jumped them out of the book.

  She was so weak, they barely made it past the cover of the book, slipping out in a pile to land on the floor of the library.

  One by one, they all stood up, and Bethany faced them each in turn. Kiel, the magicless magician, who still managed to wink at her, though somehow it seemed more forced than usual. Moira, who looked around with wide eyes, then turned back to the book they’d just left in amazement. They’d need Kiel’s forget spell for her, too.

  And finally, Owen, who met her gaze for just a moment, then turned away, shaking his head.

  UGH. She deserved that. But she’d make it up to him. She’d make it up to his fictional self too, and the entire fictional world. She’d fix this, she’d fix all of it. She had to.

  “Hold up,” Moira said, pointing at The Baker Street School for Irregular Children on the floor with a shaking finger. “Did anyone else just see us pop out of that book?” She began to laugh nervously.

  Bethany nodded, too tired to talk.

  Her visitor had been right. Jumping into books was just too dangerous. As soon as she fixed things with Doyle, that’d be it.

  She’d never step foot in the fictional world again.

  CHAPTER 33

  Owen wandered through the library’s bookshelves, partly to pick out books that Bethany might be able to use as weapons if she needed to, and partly just to reassure himself that the library was still standing. In spite of the craziness of the night, he found himself yawning every few minutes and realized how late it must be. Wow, had it been a long night.

  And it was only going to get longer for Fowen now.

  Why had his other self done it? Bethany could have taken Fowen out too. But instead, he’d done the heroic thing, and now he was probably locked up in jail. Or worse, facing his horrified mother.

  And in spite of all that, Fowen still believed in him. In both of them. Why? All Owen had done was mess things up. He wasn’t the hero that Kiel was. He wasn’t even the hero that his fictional self was!

  Through the shelves, Owen saw Moira reading The Baker Street School for Irregular Children, preparing for the break-in. He and Kiel had managed to calm her down a bit since they’d jumped out. They’d even shown her a copy of her own book. She refused to look at it, though, and only had one question: Did it say anything about where her mother was?

  Owen had shaken his head, and since then, she’d just jumped into planning. She’d even come up with a list of tools she’d need, but they’d all been easy to find. In fact, he’d simply had Bethany reach into Moira’s book for most of them. Not that he’d told Moira that.

  “This is all so crazy, isn’t it?” he said to Moira. “That there’s a world where people read about you? I just found out the same thing about me today, so I know what it’s like.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Moira said, not looking up.

  “It doesn’t bother you at all?” Owen asked.

  “You’re bothering me.” There wasn’t a trace of her excited energy now, just annoyance.

  “Think about it. Someone can see into your head,” Owen said. Abruptly, he glanced around, wondering if he could see any readers. And then the worst thing in the world occurred to him. “Wait! What about the bathroom? They don’t read about you going to the bathroom, do they?”

  Moira sighed loudly, but Owen barely heard her. “Maybe that’s why they never show people going to the bathroom in books?” He had to go now, in fact, but like that was going to happen. If necessary, he’d just hold it for the rest of his life. . . .

  “Are you not busy?” Moira said, looking up at the ceiling. “Do you need more to do? Because I can give you a job, or I can shut you up permanently. Those are your two options.”

  Owen paused for a moment. “What’s bothering you, Moira?”

  The Baker Street School for Irregular Children slammed shut, and Moira’s face appeared on the other side of the shelves an instant later. “Permanently it is!” she said, and a hand shot through an empty space to grab for him.

  Owen leaped back out of reach. “Just think of this as more rule breaking,” he said. “Because you’re totally breaking all kinds of laws of physics just being here!”

  Moira didn’t reply, and instead tried to shove her arm farther through the shelves.

  “Isn’t that your whole thing? You love being bad?” Owen asked, stepping back again.

  “That’s not what this is!” Moira shouted. “Don’t you get it?”

  “No?” Owen asked. Moira’s hand disappeared, and he realized she was coming around the shelves at him, so he quickly circled around, keeping the shelves between them.

  “Before, when I was helping you and my Magical Koala escape, that was fun! I love that kind of thing because it doesn’t matter. If you two got caught again, it’s not like I’d be in trouble.”

  “Hey!” Owen said, moving quicker now as she continued following him around the shelves.

  “But this?” she said. “This is important. I’ve been trying to get my mother’s attention all my life, and nothing I do works.” She stopped abruptly, then switched directions, causing Owen to do the same. “And now we’re trying to break into a place that, if I’m reading it right, has some of the best security I’ve ever heard of. So excuse me if I’m taking this a bit more seriously!”

  Owen gave her a confused look. “So it’s not because there’s a book about you?”

  “Who cares!” Moira shouted at him. “What does it matter if people read about me? They should, I’m brilliant! There should be classes taught in how I commit crimes!” She slowed down and sighed. “I’m sorry, Sad Panda. I shouldn’t be taking this out on you. I always get a little more stressed out when I’m trying something big. And it doesn’t get bigger than this.”

  “But you’re a criminal genius,” Owen told her. “If anyone can do this, you can.”

  “Obviously,” she said, cracking a smile. “But what if no one can? That’s the part that worries me, Owen. And failing on this kind of stage not only is embarrassing, but will get back to my dad. More importantly, it’ll get back to my mom. She might not want anything to do with me after that.”

  “Your mom loves you,” Owen said, coming around to her side of the shelves, still ready to run if necessary. “Your father said so, and he hates her, so why would he lie?”

  Moira snorted. “I don’t need a pep talk. All I want is a way to bypass a security system designed to counter every break-in tool that exists.”

  Owen paused for a moment, then walked over to the science-fiction shelf, grabbed a book, and tossed it to her. “Then it’s good that we can get you things that don’t exist.”

  Moira started to say something, then stopped, staring at the cover. “Huh,” she said.

  “What?” he asked, suddenly nervous.

  She looked up at him, a huge grin on her face. “So Bethany can just reach in and grab stuff for us, right? Anything we might need?”

  “As long as it doesn’t interrupt the story somehow, she can.”

  Moira smiled even wider, then started pulling book after book off the shelf. “This might actually be fun after all,” she whispered, then switched shelves.

  Owen moved wi
th her. “So you have a plan now?”

  “Always!” She threw some books on the floor, and Owen winced.

  “Try to not beat them up?”

  “Eesh, you’re right,” she said, glancing down at the books. “What if by dropping them, I’m causing earthquakes or something in all those stories?” She kicked one, then bent down and put her ear to the cover.

  “I don’t think that’s how it works,” he told her. “It’s just that the better you take care of a book, the longer you get to read it.”

  She laughed. “You’re adorable, SP. You sound like someone’s mom! I love it!”

  That was fair. He did sound exactly like his mother, he realized. “So what?”

  “Sew buttons!” she said, then dropped a pile of books in his arms. “This is going to be so much fun!”

  CHAPTER 34

  Kiel slid down the wall next to where Bethany had collapsed earlier and handed her a copy of What’s to Come in the Future, a book of made-up futuristic inventions. He’d opened to the page about Recovery Pills, which claimed, You’ll feel like you’ve had a week of sleep with just one pill! She reached into the page and grabbed one, trying not to look out the nearby windows at the rising sun.

  There wasn’t much time before Owen’s mother would be showing up to open the library. If they hadn’t made it back by then, they’d get caught for sure.

  Right now that seemed like it wouldn’t be the worst thing.

  “This can wait, you know,” Kiel said. “We don’t have to go back in just yet.”

  “He’s too dangerous,” Bethany said, not looking up. “The longer he has the books, the more damage he can do. And we need your magic back as soon as possible. Besides, I’m feeling fine.” She swallowed the Recovery Pill, then started to push herself up the wall to a standing position, but Kiel gently put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Just relax,” he said. “Rest for a minute. And don’t worry, we’ll beat him.” He gave her a Kiel smile.

  “Will we?” Bethany said, still looking at the ground. “He’s a Holmes. You think he doesn’t know we’re coming? He’s probably prepared for everything we do before we even do it.” She shivered.

  “You’re afraid,” Kiel said, and he wasn’t asking.

  She nodded slowly. “Our only real way to fix this is to make Doyle forget it all, Kiel. What happens if we can’t get your spell book back? Think of what someone like him could do.”

  Kiel nodded. “I have been. It’s . . . unpleasant. But what made you think you had to go to him in the first place?”

  She dropped her head into her arms. “I just . . . there was no other way. Once your spell failed, what else could I do? It was either this, or just give up completely.”

  “But why hide it?” Kiel asked. “Why not tell Owen and me?”

  Bethany raised her head. “And what would you have said?”

  Kiel grinned. “I’m in?”

  “No, you wouldn’t have,” Bethany said. “You’d have said it was a bad idea. And Owen would have been even more against it. And you’d have both been right. But I had to try one last time. And the worst thing?” She sighed. “I think he might know where my father is.”

  Kiel paused. “Then we’ll get that from him.”

  “He won’t tell us,” Bethany said. “Don’t you get it? Say we outwit him, which we won’t. How do we force him to tell us anything?”

  “There’s magic for that.”

  “Magic that he knows about,” Bethany said, then pushed to her feet. “We need to get going.”

  “We still have time,” Kiel said from the floor, staring up at her. “You’re not telling me something, Bethany. What are you still hiding?”

  Bethany turned away, not looking at him. There was so much she wasn’t telling him at this point. That some stranger had seen her in Argon VI and claimed it was dangerous for her to be in the fictional world. That the stranger knew her father. That she wasn’t sure what she’d do if Doyle offered her the location of her father in exchange for letting him keep his memory.

  That after all of this, she’d decided enough was enough, and she was done jumping into books. Which meant that she’d need to bring Kiel back into his books and say good-bye for good.

  “I’m just exhausted,” she said, forcing a smile at him and giving him her hand to help him up.

  Kiel took the offered hand and slowly stood. “Don’t worry. We’ll get my magic back, wipe Doyle’s memory, and be back before breakfast.”

  “Oooh, pancakes,” Bethany said, her stomach rumbling maniacally. When had she even eaten last? Dinner last night? It felt like weeks ago.

  She led Kiel back to the checkout counter, where Owen was waiting with an enormous pile of books. Moira appeared a minute later from Owen’s mother’s office and tossed The Baker Street School for Irregular Children onto the counter. “That was poorly written!” she said, grinning.

  “What were you doing in there?” Bethany asked her.

  “Research,” Moira said. “I’ve got a plan now. An unbeatable plan!”

  “Before we start, can I make a suggestion?” Owen said, not looking at Bethany. “Whenever people go over plans in books or movies, they always fail. It’s the plans that stay secret that work. So maybe we should just let Moira fill us in as we go.”

  “You’re such an adorable panda, aren’t you,” Moira said.

  “That’s just so the readers can get a twist,” Bethany said, giving Owen a tired smile. “It’s not like we’ve got that problem here. It’s just us. We’re not in the fictional world.”

  “Bethany,” Owen said, still not looking at her. “There’s a chance that someone’s writing about us.”

  “Story Thieves, I know,” she said. “I’ve been trying not to think about that. Maybe fictional authors can see us like our authors can see fictional people?”

  “So what if we’re in a sequel?” Owen asked. “I’m just saying, we have to be careful, especially giving plans away. If someone’s writing this up, then that means anyone could find out about our plan. Just think of it as not jinxing ourselves.”

  “Like a baby panda holding a teddy bear!” Moira said.

  Owen sighed. “Maybe if we are in the Story Thieves sequel, it’ll change chapters right now and skip over the plan. If that happens, at least we’ll still have a chance.”

  CHAPTER 35

  Okay, here’s the plan,” Moira said, grabbing some paper. She quickly sketched out a box with big, intimidating lines in front of it. “This is what I like to call the Baker Street School,” she said.

  Owen raised one eyebrow. “Seriously?”

  “I really do call it that, yes,” Moira said, nodding at him.

  He sighed. “And that’s the fence?”

  “You have an eye for detail, my little panda!” Moira said, and quickly started marking spots around the box. “There are cameras every five feet surrounding the courtyard, as well as inside the school. The gate is ten feet tall and electrified. The walls are eleven feet tall, just to be different, and topped with barbed wire, which is also electrified. But that’s the easy stuff.”

  “Which part of that is easy?” Bethany asked.

  Moira laughed. “The challenging part is the computer system. It sounds like it handles security for the school and helps Doyle solve his cases. It’s got some weird acronym that doesn’t mean anything.”

  “W.A.T.S.O.N.,” Owen pointed out. “Because that was the name of Sherlock Holmes’s best friend and assistant, Dr. Watson.”

  Bethany groaned and smiled at Owen. He forced a smile back, then looked away.

  “In spite of W.A.T.S.O.N.’s adorable lineage,” Moira continued, “it sounds like the computer is basically our worst nightmare. It monitors all the cameras as well as a whole suite of motion and thermal detectors. So basically if anything moves or even just exists at a higher temperature than seventy-two degrees, then W.A.T.S.O.N. knows it’s there.”

  “How are we going to get past it, then?” Bethany asked.
/>   Moira winked at her, then patted the pile of books. “You can thank my Sad Panda over there for the idea. We’ve got it covered.”

  “Thanks, Sad Panda,” Bethany told Owen, and smiled at him again. This time he didn’t return it.

  “What does W.A.T.S.O.N. do if it detects you?” Owen asked, still trying not to look at Bethany.

  “All kinds of fun things!” Moira told him. “Every door in the school can be electrified. Even some floors, it sounds like. The book was a little vague. It can also release sleeping gas in any room in the school, alert the guards, call the police, anticipate your next move, wake you up in the morning, and I think do the laundry. That part was vague too.”

  “You mentioned guards,” Kiel said. “How many?”

  “You don’t remember them yet?” Bethany asked.

  Kiel shook his head. “Should I?”

  “They’re enormous,” Bethany said, shuddering. “They’re all big and bald and look exactly the same.”

  “They’re ex–British Special Air Service, the SAS,” Moira said. “Like our navy seals. Top of their field, the toughest of the worst. And Doyle has about thirty of them, all armed to the teeth.”

  Owen swallowed hard. This had sounded good when Doyle had been describing it in the book as a way to keep the hardened criminal kids he caught locked away in his rehabilitation school, but from this side it felt a lot less comforting and a lot more impossible.

  “Why don’t we just jump into a page already inside the school?” Kiel asked, flipping through the book.

  “Because those scenes all take place before Bethany went in the first time,” Owen told him. “If we’re going to get your magic back and erase Doyle’s memory, we need to go in after she hired him.”

  “Can we talk about this whole wiping his memory thing?” Moira said, giving them a suspicious glance. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed how it keeps coming up. You don’t plan on doing that to me, do you?”

  Bethany, Kiel, and Owen all stared at the floor.

  “What?!” Moira shouted. “How could you! I thought we were all friends!”