Between the Lines (21 page)

Suddenly we hear a high, off-key tune floating over the meadow. The unicorns bleat and scatter. “Oh, Oliver…”
Seraphima trills. “Are we playing hide-and-seek, my darling?”

“Oh, that’s good, that’s really good,” Frump whispers, glancing at my face. “You look really sick.”

“Focus,” I hiss. “Fr… ump…” I gasp. “Help me…”

Seraphima races across the field, but when she sees me fallen and bloody, she shrieks. “Oliver!”

Frump leaps onto my chest. “Hang in there, my friend,” he says. He turns to Seraphima. “One of the unicorns went berserk. Oliver’s lost a great deal of blood.” Frump presses his paw down in the center of the wound. “Take off my collar,” he orders.

“I beg your pardon!”

“For a tourniquet,” Frump says.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Seraphima stare at Frump in a way I’ve never seen her look at him. But it’s not adoration I’m seeing.

It’s competition.

She lifts him up with two hands and hurls him off my body. “Out of my way, puppy,” she grunts, and she kneels in front of me. “Don’t go with the angels, Oliver!” she cries. “Stay with me!”

With that, she leans down and seals her lips over mine in a massive huff that is supposed to be artificial respiration but feels more like a sloppy, wet kiss. Sputtering, I sit up and push her off me.

“I did it! I saved you!” Seraphima cries, pulling me into her arms. “Oh, Oliver. I don’t know if this is life imitating art or art imitating life…. I’m just so glad to know that you and I will have our chance to live happily ever after!”

I groan. “Where’s the unicorn….”

“Far, far away, my love. Why?”

“I was hoping it could run me through again.”

Frump shuffles closer, his tail between his legs.
Sorry,
I silently mouth.

Seraphima plops herself down on the ground beside me and starts tearing the bottom of her skirt to make bandages. “We need to get you to Orville for a poultice….”

The last thing I want is for Seraphima to stay here playing nursemaid—or worse, to treat me for an injury I’ve never had. Thinking quickly, I frown and whip my head to the left. “Did you hear that?”

Frump barks.

“Right, old buddy. It
did
sound a lot like Rapscullio….” I know that will put Seraphima into a panic. For someone who can’t tell the difference between real life and the story, Rapscullio is a constant threat.

“Rapscullio!” Seraphima gasps. “What if he finds me?”

“Quick—run away.” Steeling myself, I give her a fast, firm peck on the lips. “Your life is more important
than mine. I’ll come as quickly as I can. Frump, can I trust you to keep Seraphima safe?”

Frump smiles slowly. “It would be my honor and my privilege, Your Highness,” he says. “My lady?” He holds out a paw, and after a reluctant moment, Seraphima takes it.

I watch them hurry across the meadow, a delusional princess who can’t distinguish reality from fiction, and a lovesick basset hound. Well, there have been stranger couples, I suppose. “Good luck,” I whisper to Frump, although I know he cannot hear me. “I’ll miss you, if I ever get out of here.”

Not
if, I tell myself.
When.

*   *   *

As I’m changing into clean clothes, I wonder about the seeming discrepancies of my life in this book. Why is it that I have a closet full of tunics and doublets I am never seen wearing during the course of the story, but Frump, who by text used to be a boy, is never seen in that form? Why is the barn where Socks lives stocked with geese and chickens and cows who play no other discernible role in the fairy tale but Seraphima doesn’t recognize that the part she plays isn’t necessarily who she is? These are contradictions I don’t understand and, to be honest, haven’t considered before. Before meeting Delilah, that is.

I am still mulling over this when I hear Frump call a full-book alarm. “All fairy-tale personnel, report immediately to the stables,” he commands. “I repeat, this is an emergency—not a drill!”

On the way down the castle staircase, I nearly bump into the queen. “Oliver, dear,” she says. “Do you have any idea what’s happening?”

I don’t. But my heart is pounding and my hands are shaking… and I am hoping like mad this has nothing to do with me and Delilah. Has Rapscullio discovered the book is missing? Have the fairies figured out more from our earlier conversation? “I don’t know,” I tell the queen, “but I don’t like the sound of it.”

The sound actually gets worse as we approach the stables. There is a frantic snort and a series of low grunts. Overhead is the telltale sliver of light that indicates the book is about to be opened. But if that’s the case, why are we all just milling around?

Because I am a main character, I am able to push my way through the crowd to the open stable door. There, Frump paces back and forth on a clot of hay as chickens scurry and flap to get out of his way. “Frump, what’s this about?” I ask.

He turns. “Thank goodness you’re here.” He glances up at the slice of sky that is growing wider. “It’s Socks. He’s talking about a strike.”

“Strike? What did he strike?”

“No, he’s
on
strike. He refuses to come out of his stall for the next telling of the story.”

I hesitate. No one in this story has ever resisted the telling of it. That is, every time the book opens, characters scramble into position. I’m the only one I know of who’s ever defied it in any way—and I know from experience that the book will correct itself and yank Socks into position whether he likes it or not. But if I admit that out loud, I’ll create an even bigger stir, because everyone will realize that I have been actively resisting the book too.

“What’s the worst that could happen?” I say lightly. “So I’m missing a trusty steed. No one will ever notice.”
No one will ever notice,
I think,
because the minute we’re all back on page one, Socks will have been dragged against his will to meet us where he belongs.

“We can’t take that chance. We’re trying to buy some time.” Frump jerks his chin up to the corner of the barn, where Orville teeters on a ladder, pointing his wand at the crack of light.
“Obscurius manturius…”
he intones, and a shower of sparks creates a gummy seal across the line of light, falling to the hayloft and igniting several small fires that Rapscullio, standing below, stomps out.

“Someone’s opening the book even now, Oliver,” Frump says. “I don’t know how long we can hold it shut.”

I am knocked sideways as the trolls lumber past me
into Socks’s stall. “From the back, boys,” Frump orders. “Give him your best shove.”

I approach the open stall door. Socks is standing with his face in the corner, head ducked. “Socks?” I murmur. “What’s going on, buddy?”

“Just go away,” the pony sobs.

“Whatever it is, I’m sure we can work it out. I’m here for you. We’re all here for you.”

He tosses his mane. “I am a hideous, monstrous beast. Please let me wallow in my own misery.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Socks. I mean, a lot of people are counting on you. We’ve got a story to tell. And you—you’re one of the stars of the show.”

He hesitates. “I… I am?”

“How else would I get anywhere?” I say. But there is a part of me wondering if I’m right about what will happen if Socks just stays in his stall. Will he be ripped into position on the page, like I was? Or will he do what I so badly crave: change the way this story goes?

“Ein… zwei… drei… stoß!”
the trolls shout, and Socks whinnies as they shove at him, trying to make him budge.

“Frump,” Orville shrieks, “I’m afraid I can’t make this hold any longer!”

I glance up. By now, long streaks of light are falling on the floor of the barn. “We’re on it!” Glint calls. A
battalion of fairies flutters up to the corner of the scene. Like an acrobatic circus troupe, they arch their bodies over the growing gap, their small faces twisted with determination as they struggle to keep the pages shut.

Stepping into the stall, I sink down to the ground so that I can shimmy underneath Socks. He immediately averts his nose. “I can’t. I can’t.”

“Socks,” I beg. “Please. At least tell me what the problem is so that I can fix it.”

“It’s too horrendously embarrassing.”

“As embarrassing as the time I fell overboard on the pirate ship?”

“Worse,” Socks groans. “I have… I have… Oh, I can’t say it out loud.”

“Chicken pox?” I guess. “Poison ivy? Heartburn?”

“A zit,” Socks bursts out. “A huge, red, swollen zit on my nose.”

“Horses don’t get zits, Socks,” I say gently.

“Oh, great. So now I’m a zoological abnormality with acne.”

“Let me look.” Gently, I pull his velvety muzzle down to my face. I scrutinize from nostril to nostril, finding no blemish of any kind. “Socks,” I say, “there’s nothing there.”

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better!” he wails. “I cannot go out in public with a big red clown nose, Oliver!”

There is a commotion as Captain Crabbe comes through the crowd. He is wearing his dentist’s coat and carrying a blue-paper-wrapped pack of sterilized instruments. “Did someone call for a surgical consult?” he asks.

Socks’s eyes widen. “Surgery! Who said anything about surgery?”

“Don’t worry, my little horseshoed friend. You’ll only feel a pinch,” Captain Crabbe promises.

He motions the trolls out of the way and stands directly behind Socks. As he unwraps the sterilized tools, several points of light shimmer from the corner of the scene onto Socks’s back, dappling his hide. “Frump,” Sparks grits out from the top edge of the page, “it’s T minus ten…”

Is Delilah wondering why the book is stuck? Is she attributing the trouble to humidity, faulty binding, a smear of jam?

Captain Crabbe brandishes the dental scraper, a blinding silver hook.

“Nine,” Ember says.

He holds it up to a shaft of light, examining the point.

“Eight…”

Socks twists his neck, looking at the tool with dread.

“Seven…”

I swing my leg over the pony and lean down against his mane. “It’s your call, Socks. You can do this your way, or his way.”