Liesl & Po (26 page)

Authors: Lauren Oliver

BOOK: Liesl & Po

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Sticky snorted. “A princess? So that’s the story she’s cooked up for herself, is it? Princess of flounder, maybe. A fisherman’s daughter, no more and no less. Used to help pick the bones out of the sardines.”

“Well!” The old woman shook her head. “Well, I never. A fisherman’s daughter! Very out of the ordinary.
Quite
unheard of.”

The Lady Premiere was so enraged she could hardly speak. “Shut up!” she screamed. “Shut up or I’ll—”

“Or you’ll what?” Sticky interjected, stepping so close to his sister they were practically nose-to-nose. “I’m not afraid of you anymore. If you want to keep your fishy little past a secret, you’re going to have to pay.”

The Lady Premiere suddenly seized Sticky by his left ear. He let out a yowl of pain.

“Listen, you squirming, squiggling little vermin,” she hissed. “If you think I’ll let you bully or blackmail me—”

“Let go of me!” Sticky twisted out of his sister’s grasp. She darted forward and seized his right elbow. Sticky shouted, “Stop it! Stop pinching me!”

“What? What’s that? You want me to
keep
pinching you?”

“No! Stop! No!” Sticky was backing up the hill, swatting at his sister’s hands, as she continued to try and pinch and pull and tug at his earlobes, cheeks, and elbows.

“It’s opposite day! No means yes!”

“Then yes! Yes—please keep pinching me!”

“Oh? You want more?
More
pinching?”

The two siblings were drawing farther and farther up the hill, hopping and twisting and slapping each other. From a distance they looked like two large, overgrown crickets performing a bizarre dance. When they reached the top of the hill, Sticky reached out and tugged sharply on the Lady Premiere’s bun. She screeched, and made a lunge for him as he scrabbled over the stone wall.

Then they disappeared from view. It can be assumed that they spent the rest of their lives bullying and badgering, and teasing and tormenting, and irritating and insulting each other, until the end of their days; and furthermore, that they made each other quite as miserable as they both deserved to be.

For a moment there was silence, as Mo, Will, Liesl, and the old woman considered all they had seen. Then the old woman sniffed loudly.

“Harrumph. That’s that, I suppose.” She nodded once, sharply, then stalked rapidly up the hill, staking her cane in the ground in front of her.

Only Mo, Will, and Liesl were left.

“Well,” Liesl said, feeling shy again.

“Well,” Will said, shifting his weight uncomfortably.

“Well,” Mo said cheerfully, looking from Will to Liesl, and back to Will. “Warm out, isn’t it?” He removed his hat.

Will and Liesl nodded. They were feeling too timid to speak.

“I suppose it’s too warm for hot chocolate,” Mo said thoughtfully. A new idea had worked itself into his brain.

Those kids look like they could use some taking care of. Yes. Two lost children, about the same age as Bella was when she disappeared. A nice hot meal; a change of clothes; a place to lie down. Out loud he said, “But maybe some chocolate milk. Yes, I think chocolate milk would be nice. Don’t you?”

Will and Liesl looked at each other and smiled. They bobbed their heads vigorously.

“Good. Very good.” Just like that, Mo’s already enormous heart expanded even more, enough to enclose the two children and hold them safely there forever.

(And this, really, is the story-within-the-story, because if you do not believe that hearts can bloom suddenly bigger, and that love can open like a flower out of even the hardest places, then I am afraid that for you the road will be long and brown and barren, and you will have trouble finding the light.

But if you
do
believe, then you already know all about magic.)

“Come on, then,” Mo said, and called for Lefty, who shot a last, regretful look at the very clever butterfly and came trotting back to Mo, to be settled in her sling.

Will and Liesl walked very close together, with their fingers barely touching. Mo placed a hand on Will’s shoulder, kindly.

“Why do you call her Lefty?” Will asked as they walked up the hill: Mo, Lefty, Will, and Liesl.

“That’s a good question,” Mo said, “and it’s a funny story. I never was any good at leaving people to their own business, you know. Mrs. Elkins—that’s my landlady, you’ll meet her soon enough—is always telling me to mind my beeswax. . . .”

And so Mo spoke, and Will and Liesl listened, and Lefty purred, and the sun shone.

They passed the place where Liesl’s house had once been. Out of the ash, she knew, flowers would grow.

She spelled the word
ineffable
in her head, just once.

Author’s Note

I wrote
Liesl & Po
during a concentrated two-month period. It was different from anything else I had ever written; I didn’t know what it would be, or whether it would be anything. I certainly didn’t think it would be publishable.

I knew only that I needed to write it. At the time, I was dealing with the sudden death of my best friend. The lasting impact of this loss reverberated through the months, and it made my world gray and murky, much like the world Liesl inhabits at the start of the story. The idea for the book came from a fantasy I entertained during those months: I dreamed about unearthing my friend’s ashes from the decorative wall in which they’d been interred and scattering them over the water, the only place he’d ever felt truly at peace.

And so my fantasies were transformed into the figure of a little girl who embarks on a journey not just to restore the ashes of a loved one to a peaceful place but to restore color and life to a world that has turned dim and gray.

Only in retrospect did I realize that I was writing about myself—that Liesl’s journey was my own.
Liesl & Po
is the most personal book I’ve ever written, and even though it takes place at an unspecified time in an unspecified place and features magic and alchemists and ghosts, it is a confessional.

Additionally,
Liesl & Po
is the embodiment of what writing has always been for me at its purest and most basic—not a paycheck, certainly; not an idea, even; and not an escape. Actually, it is the opposite of an escape; it is a way back
in
, a way to enter and make sense of a world that occasionally seems harsh and terrible and mystifying.

And, of course, it is a way of finding a happy ending—even, or especially, when the happy ending is denied me in real life. Let it be an escape for its readers. For me, it is a way of not letting go.

This book means a tremendous amount to me. And I hope it has meant something to you, too.

About the Author and Artist

Lauren Oliver
’s first novel was the
New York Times
bestseller
Before I Fall
, a
Publishers Weekly
Best Book of the Year. She followed that up with her thrilling
Delirium
, which debuted on the
New York Times
bestseller list and is the first book in a trilogy.
Liesl & Po
is Lauren’s first novel for younger readers. A graduate of the University of Chicago and New York University’s MFA program, she lives in Brooklyn, New York. Lauren is also the co-owner of Paper Lantern Lit, a book development company. You can visit her online at www.laurenoliverbooks.com and on Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace.

Kei Acedera
is the art director and co-owner of Imaginism Studios. She is known for her imaginative character designs for Tim Burton’s
Alice in Wonderland
and for her illustrations for bestselling children’s books, including Alec Greven’s
How to Talk to Girls
. Kei’s designs will be featured in upcoming films with Sony, Warner Bros., and Universal Studios. You can visit her online at www.imaginismstudios.com.

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www.AuthorTracker.com
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Credits

Jacket art © 2011 by Kei Acedera

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Oliver, Lauren.
   Liesl & Po / by Lauren Oliver ; illustrated by Kei Acedera. — 1st ed.
      p. cm.
   Summary: A mix-up involving the greatest magic in the world has tremendous consequences for Liesl, an orphan who has been locked in an attic, Will, an alchemist’s runaway apprentice, and Po, a ghost, as they are pursued by friend and foe while making an important journey.
   ISBN 978-0-06-201451-1 (trade bdg.)
   ISBN 978-0-06-210739-8 (international edition)
   [1. Magic—Fiction. 2. Ghosts—Fiction. 3. Orphans—Fiction. 4. Future life—Fiction. 5. Voyages and travels—Fiction.] I. Acedera, Kei, ill.
II. Title. III. Title: Liesl and Po.
PZ7.O475Lie 2011
[Fic]—dc23

2011019372
CIP
AC

11 12 13 14 15 LP/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First Edition

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