Bookweird (11 page)

Trying not to think about something is a nearly impossible thing. By reminding himself not to think about his book, Norman only made himself think about it more. Where had he left it? Had he just lost it, or had his excursion into the book done something to the book itself? Maybe it was impossible to read a book once you've been in it. If you were making up the laws of the universe, this would be a plausible one. If only there was someone he could ask—perhaps that librarian, the one whose double was a fox abbot in Undergrowth. Once Norman's mind had started wandering, only the most extreme intervention could bring him back. Perhaps only Dora could accomplish this. She came screaming down the stairs while Norman was slurping his cereal.

“Mom, Dad, look what he did. He wrecked my book. He wrecked it!” There was nothing like a hysterical accusation to bring your mind back to the breakfast table.

Standing by the coffee machine at the counter, Norman's father raised his head from his mug.

“Calm down, Dora. What's happened?” Edward Vilnius asked wearily.

“He wrecked my book. He ripped it…”

Norman's dad knew him a little better than this. “I hardly think, Dora, that Norman would—”

Dora continued to sniffle and rage. “He did. He found the most important page and ripped it out. He wrecked it.”

Startled, Norman dropped his spoon.

“Did you see Norman rip your book?” his father asked, taking a calming sip of coffee.

“No, but he's mad at me 'cause he lost his book, and he doesn't want anybody else to be able to read.”

“Dora, that's just silly. Are you sure your gerbil didn't just eat it, like it did your science project?” At this Dora actually stamped her feet. Her father should have known better than to make a joke about it.

Dora completely lost it. “You all hate me. You don't want me to read. You only want
him
to read.”

Their father took a deep gulp of coffee before continuing. “I'm sorry, Dora. I didn't mean to tease you. Let's take a look at the book. Which page is missing?”

Norman couldn't resist taking a look for himself. Dora held the book open, as if it was proof in itself of Norman's guilt. Sure enough, the book went from page 78 to 81. A whole page was missing.

“Hmmm,” their father mused. “You know, Dora, they don't make books like they used to. See this glue here on the spine? That's called ‘perfect binding,' but it's not perfect at all.”

Edward Vilnius knew more about books than they ever cared to hear, especially Dora at this moment, but Norman took up the
idea. He had a queasy feeling in his stomach. This was a little too coincidental, and he very much preferred a logical explanation.

“It's true, Dora,” he said. “I had a book that lost pages like that. They just came unglued. Yours probably came from the bookstore like that. I had to go to the library to read the missing pages.”

“That sounds like an excellent idea.” Norman's mother had appeared again, to be sensible and cheerful.

His father had reached the end of his coffee, and perhaps his patience. “I'm sure Spiny would be happy to take you to the library this evening after school, so that you can read your missing page.”

“Happy” wasn't quite the right word.

 

There was no one at the front desk when they walked into the library. Norman went to the catalogue computer and looked up the title of Dora's book—
The Gypsy's Secret: Fortune's Foal.

How lame, Norman thought, as the listing came up. There were twelve copies of the book in the city library's various branches. Twelve copies—that was crazy. He looked closer at the listing. Their branch alone had two copies. One was signed in. He jotted down the catalogue number and hurried to the shelves. The sooner he got this over with, the better. Five minutes of scanning book spines later, he found the right shelf. He needn't have bothered. Dora was sitting on the floor beneath it, book in hand.

“You knew where it was?” Norman said, exasperated.

“Of course. I've read eight books by this author already,” Dora replied smugly.

“Is the page there?” he asked, worried that Dora's missing page problem might become as complicated as his own.

“Of course it's here,” she snapped testily. “Stop interrupting me. I'm trying to read it.”

“Fine by me,” Norman muttered and wandered away. “I'll see you outside.”

As he detoured by the front desk to throw away the catalogue slip, a too-familiar voice made him jump.

“Hey, Book Boy, you're back.”

Behind the counter stood the strange librarian. He was dressed in black again, his hair was spiked high now, and he'd added a streak of purple.

“Yes, I'm back.” Norman eyed him suspiciously, searching the teenager's pale face for the resemblance to the fox abbot he'd met in Undergrowth. Now that he saw him again, Norman wasn't sure. It had been dark that night under the arches of the ruined church, and Norman had been so tired.

“Yes, I'm back,” he repeated, “…thanks to you.” It came out somewhere between a statement and a question.

“I'm touched,” the librarian said flatly. “You should come for the books, though.”

Norman laughed a false, nervous “hah” and tried again. “You know what I mean, in Undergrowth.” He sounded less than confident.

The pale librarian stretched his face, as if mildly amused, and passed a pencil through the hole in his ear.

Norman could not stop himself from pushing for an answer. “Did you do something to my sister's book too?”

The librarian smiled indulgently. “You're a crazy little kid, aren't you? You should read less and sleep more.”

“Isn't sleeping what caused all this?” Norman replied.

The librarian looked the other way and typed something on the computer, as if he didn't have time for this. Under his breath, he muttered, “That's funny. I thought it was eating that caused all this.”

“What did you say?” Norman gasped incredulously.

The librarian made another wide-eyed “I don't know what you're talking about” face.

Norman felt a tug at his elbow. “Come on, Norman. Let's go,” Dora whispered at his side. It was such a quiet voice that Norman had to look down to make sure it really was his sister.

“What's wrong?” he asked. Dora looked like she had been crying. “Is everything okay?”

“Let's just go home,” she repeated.

“Is this the sister?” the librarian asked, leaning over the counter
to look down on her. No one answered him. “Pony troubles?” he asked Dora, his forehead furrowed in mock seriousness. “I feel your pain. I've been there.”

Norman opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. What could he say that didn't sound crazy? Dora tugged again at his sleeve. “I want to go now.” She really did sound upset. He led her outside slowly. As he opened the door, he looked over his shoulder at the librarian, who winked just like the abbot back in Undergrowth. He would have to deal with this later.

Dora was strangely silent as they walked. They were nearly home when Norman finally spoke.

“What's the matter, Dora?” he asked, trying to sound as brotherly as he could.

“Nothing,” she replied sullenly.

Norman took a deep breath. He didn't even have to pretend to be concerned. “What happened at the library?”

“It's the book,” she said, not capable of keeping up her silence. “It's all wrong. The book's wrong. They killed Serendipity. That can't happen.”

“What do you mean? Who killed Serendipity?”

“The gypsies,” Dora sniffed, trying not to cry.

Norman tried to be calm, but inside his own throat was constricting with panic. “It's only a story, Dora. Sometimes bad things happen in books.”

“Not in
this
book,” she insisted.

“How do you know?”

“Because it didn't happen the first five times I read it!” Dora glared at him as if he was the idiot.

Norman stared back incredulously. “You mean you are having a fit over a book you've already read…” Then what she was saying hit him. “But it's changed, it's different now?”

Dora just nodded, curling her lower lip to stop it trembling.

Norman didn't like the sound of this. He had no idea how to console his sister. He decided to try to distract her by his usual method of being really, really annoying.

“What is this dumb book about, anyway?”

“It's about a girl and her horse, only it's not just a horse. It's a special horse.”

“A special horse, like one with wings?” He said, intentionally picking a fight.

“Not special like that,” Dora insisted. “It's a therapy horse. It helps people.”

“Yeah, by giving them rides places.”

“No, it helps them when they are upset or not right in the head,” she explained.

“Who needs a horse for that? That's dumb.”

“I'll tell you what's dumb,” Dora countered. “Sword-fighting hamsters are dumb.”

“No way…you just don't get it. Undergrowth is about—” Norman stopped there. How could he explain to Dora that it was more than a book, that it was all real and that he'd seen and felt it?

“Anyway,” Norman said, “you shouldn't worry about it. This is probably just a new version of the book. They do that sometimes when they make a movie. They change it, you know, to make it exciting. You should keep reading and see how it turns out. I'll bet you everything is okay in the end.”

“I don't want to read it anymore.” Dora's voice was so small and pitiful, even a brother couldn't ignore it.

They arrived at their front doorstep. Norman put his hand on the door handle and turned to Dora. “Do you want me to read it and tell you what happens?”

She didn't answer him then, but that night as he was lying in bed, he heard shuffling outside his room, and a skinny paperback was slid beneath the door.

 

Fortune's Foal

H
aving to read a girl's book was embarrassing even if no one else knew about it. Ponies, fairies and unicorns had no place in real stories. If the unicorns wore battle armour and had sharpened obsidian blades attached to their horns, and the fairies swarmed in squadrons like aerial ninjas, maybe…but that was unlikely. He braced himself for a sickening set of slumber parties and horse shows and sparkly rainbow-riding white unicorns. It took a dozen pages or so to realize it wasn't that bad. It wasn't great, but it wasn't awful either.

Amelie Saint-Saens was the heroine of
Fortune's Foal.
She lived on a farm with her father, Georges, who was the local vet. From what Norman could tell, Amelie's mother had died in a horse-riding accident when Amelie was very young. Georges Saint-Saens was a withdrawn man who rarely spoke. After Amelie's mother's death, he had sold all her horses and had forbidden Amelie to ride.

Fortune's Foal
began with a new birth at the Saint-Saens farm. One of the neighbour's mares had been brought to the Saint-Saens barn to foal. It was expected to be a difficult birth, and the owners wanted the vet to be right there when the horse went into labour. For Amelie, though, there was something special about this particular mare, a big and elegant chestnut. Her name was Fortune, and
she had been Amelie's mother's horse. Fortune was the one horse Georges Saint-Saens could not bear to see sent far away. She had gone to the neighbours, the Ventnors, as a sort of exile. The Ventnors planned to breed her, and Georges Saint-Saens was to take a half share of the profits.

Amelie often accompanied her father on his rounds and had seen several foals born, but the men had barred her from the barn when she tried to join them this time. The foal was tangled in its umbilical cord and wasn't dropping. Even from the house, Amelie could hear the mare's painful sighs through her open window. If Georges Saint-Saens hadn't been such skilled vet, neither foal nor mare would likely have survived. As it was, only the foal made it through the night. The mare was not young. The birthing took a lot out of her, and she had lost a lot of blood. For a while it looked like the foal might not make it either, but the men had spent the night in the barn keeping the newborn warm and fed. By morning Amelie was allowed to come and see the new foal.

They called the foal Serendipity, in part from his dam's name, but also because it seemed to be luck that Fortune had been sent to a neighbour when the rest of the stable had been sold off to strangers. Serendipity rose and stood on four wobbly legs when Amelie entered the stable. He sniffed the air curiously, wrinkling his nose and snorting. They had brought in an old Shetland pony to keep the foal company. The pony moved in between the foal and the girl to protect her new charge, but the young colt's curiosity was not so easily deterred. They played a shuffling game of peek-a-boo from behind the grey pony's back until the pony gave up and Amelie was giggling uncontrollably.

It was obvious that Serendipity was going to be Amelie's summer project. Like her mother, Amelie had always loved horses. No matter how her father tried to keep her away from them, she was drawn to them. And this horse was special. Amelie could tell just by looking at him, the way his bold brown eyes met hers and returned her gaze so constantly. He knew her too. It was like finding your best friend.

Amelie looked after Serendipity for weeks, feeding him, encouraging him to test his wobbly legs and watching him grow into a frisky and fearless little colt. This was a bitter sweetness. Every day that the colt grew stronger was another day closer to the one when he would be sent away. Amelie was desperately attached to Serendipity and would have done anything to keep him. She knew it was impossible, and she didn't dare ask her father, but it didn't stop her wishing it.

Perhaps it was only her anxiety over losing Serendipity, but Amelie was having trouble sleeping. Three nights in a row she was awakened after midnight by the sound of strange animal calls—a low hoot or growl that she did not recognize. Each night she stood at her open window and tried to pick out the animal in the darkness, but every time she went to the window, the noise halted, as if the animal had spotted her. Only once did she hear anything further, and that was just a bit of rustling in the long hay behind the stables. It could have been a raccoon, or maybe even the wind swirling through the long grass.

In town at the grocery store that week, Amelie overheard a strange conversation. A talkative lady who always seemed to be at the cash register was rattling on to the clerk about gypsies. They were on their way through again this year, she announced in her busybody's voice. Better lock up your chickens and hide the jewellery. You know what happened last year. Amelie couldn't help scoffing. She didn't think that there really were any gypsies hereabouts. Amelie had only ever heard of gypsies in movies about carnivals and soothsayers. Her father had some classical music that he called “gypsy music.” He played it so loud sometimes that it upset the animals outside. She hated dad's gypsy music almost as much as the animals did. It jangled and screeched and made you nervous inside, but it seemed to make her dad very happy, so she never complained about it.

For Norman, all this talk about gypsies and bad classical music was almost as annoying as the music was supposed to be. Norman's dad had a few intolerable CDs himself, so Norman could sympathize.

The town gossip about gypsies reminded Amelie of something else. Several times that summer she had seen a young girl playing by the riverbank near the horse meadow. She looked only eight or nine, but she always appeared to be alone. This seemed so unusual to Amelie that she had twice approached the girl to see if she was all right. Each time Amelie had tried to speak to her, the girl had run away. The first time she had run right into the bush on the other side of the river, fleeing as if she were being chased. The second time, though, the strange girl had stopped at the top of the opposite riverbank and stared back at Amelie. Her nut brown face had shown no fear, and her dark eyes had glistened with curiosity. The two girls stared at each other silently from opposite sides of the river until Amelie called across, “What's your name?” The younger girl did not answer, just held her stare a moment longer before slipping into the woods and disappearing.

Amelie dreamed of the girl that night, dreamed about gypsies and about her horse Serendipity. In her dreams, he was already
her
horse, and each time the animal sounds outside woke her, she was saddened to realize that in reality, this would almost certainly never happen.

The whole farm was awakened that morning by the shouts of the farmhands in the stables. The new foal was gone. Amelie bolted from her bed, unsure whether the shouts she'd heard were in her dream or not. Her foal gone? Serendipity? The entire household had congregated down at the stables. The stablehands formed an impenetrable barrier between Amelie and the foal's stall.

“Let me through,” she cried. “Let me see.” But the men did not budge. Georges Saint-Saens turned and shook his head solemnly at her.

“Somebody call the police,” he barked, turning his back again to Amelie. A stablehand rushed off immediately to do as ordered.

“There's so much blood,” somebody whispered.

“Surely the poor thing couldn't survive that.”

“Who would do such a thing?”

“It's sick.”

“I'll bet you it's those gypsies. They've been sneaking around folks' farms all week.”

“This must be one of their rituals. I can't wait until Sheriff Wilkyn gets his hands on those greasy scumbags.”

It was driving Amelie crazy. What had happened in that stall that had outraged them all so much? Finally she squeezed her way through. An arm grabbed her, but it was too late. She stood there gaping at the scene in the stall. Blood was everywhere, soaked into the hay, splashed on the boards of the stall. Vomit surged into her mouth. She rushed blindly from the stable out to the cruel grey morning.

 

Norman stopped reading. Even he could see that this didn't belong. It might happen in one of his mother's creepy murder thrillers, but gruesome murders didn't happen in a little girls' horse book. Small wonder his sister didn't want to read any farther. Norman wasn't sure he wanted to continue himself. This had to have something to do with his Undergrowth book, and the missing page. Had Dora eaten a page of her own book, he wondered? Was it a contagious disease, a mania that caused the entire household to start eating their books? What if Dora had fallen into her book the way that Norman had fallen into his? Once he'd got this idea into his head, he couldn't get it out. What if Dora was there now with those horse-murdering gypsies? Norman got up and tiptoed to his sister's room. She was lying there asleep, twisted in blankets, snoring just slightly. Is that what Norman had looked like while he was in Undergrowth? He crept closer to her bedside and listened to her breathing. She seemed genuinely restful. It was hard to imagine that she was really in a land where people killed horses and knocked kids unconscious with shovels. Well, maybe not too hard to imagine. Norman shook his sister's shoulder.

“Wha…whasamatter?” Dora rolled over, opened her eyes momentarily and gazed at him sleepily, before her lids snapped shut again.

“What are you dreaming about?” Norman asked in an anxious whisper.

Dora grumbled something incomprehensible. He repeated the question. “What are you dreaming about?”

Dora groaned, and answered slowly, in a barely discernable mumble, “Candy.”

Norman felt as foolish as he did relieved. Had he really believed that his sister had been transported into a book? He was beginning to wonder whether it had actually happened to him. As he climbed into his bed, the red LEDs on his alarm clock flashed exactly 2:00.

“I better get to sleep,” he told himself. He wouldn't admit it to himself, but he was a little too creeped out to keep reading in the dark.