Strangewood (3 page)

It was a hell of a way to make a living. And besides, he had
created Strangewood, beloved by children the world over. How bad could that be?

The question was bittersweet for him, actually. He made a
lot of money, had a limited amount of notoriety, and a property that would most
certainly outlive him, and possibly his children as well. But the more popular
Strangewood became, the more languages it was translated into, the more
merchandise produced, the less it belonged to Thomas. The less it was his
vision.

Like this thing with Grumbler and Feathertop. When he'd
written them out of the series in
Leaving Strangewood
, he'd meant for
them to be gone forever. He'd wanted to spend time developing some of the other
characters in more detail. But the backlash from kids and their parents —
not to mention film and television executives with an interest in the series
— was so severe that he was practically forced to bring them back.

The books had changed in other ways, too. The central figure
of the entire
Strangewood
series, The Boy, had always been a cypher, a
six- or seven-year-old boy exploring a small wood behind his home which, to
him, contained fantastic otherworlds and extraordinary creatures, both friendly
and not-so-friendly. But more than anything else, The Boy was merely the
reader's window into Strangewood.

Once upon a time, The Boy had been Thomas. But several years
earlier, while Thomas was writing
At the Heart of Strangewood
, that had
changed. The Boy had walked out his back door, his mother, as always, calling
for him not to stray too far. He had followed the Scratchy Path, lined with
pricker bushes, deep into Strangewood's heart, where Grumbler's little cottage
always had a fire burning in the hearth.

As usual, trouble was already brewing. Brownie the Grizzly
had promised to help the scarecrow, Gourdon Squashhead, implement the latest in
his never-ending series of schemes to keep the Crow Brothers out of the
cornfield. But Brownie was lazy, always yawning, and had nodded off midmorning.
Gourdon's corn had gone undefended, and the Crow Brothers had made off with
dozens of ears.

When The Boy arrived, everyone was out behind Grumbler's
cottage, not far from the cornfield, arguing about Brownie's responsibility, or
lack thereof. Well, everyone but Fiddlestick — who was still in his cave
— and some of the nastier residents of Strangewood.

Feathertop and Grumbler were firmly on Gourdon's side. The
hyena, whom everybody called Laughing Boy and who always spoke of himself in
the third person, thought it was all very funny. But he felt bad for Brownie,
who, he said, "couldn't help his sleepiness any more than Laughing Boy can
help laughing." Mr. Tinklebum wasn't the smartest bell-bottom in
Strangewood, but he also thought it was an honest mistake.

They all looked to The Boy for judgment, of course.

While he was making up his mind, Bob Longtooth and
Cragskull, a nasty pair who were thieves and scoundrels and just generally made
life in Strangewood unpleasant whenever possible, moved into Grumbler's home
and claimed it as their own.

After The Boy had decided that Brownie should try to be more
conscientious and should help Gourdon out in the field for the next few days by
way of apology, they were all to retire to Grumbler's for tea. Grumbler, made
excellent tea, despite his grumpy disposition.

But Grumbler's cottage was "gone." In its place,
though it looked precisely the same, was an apparently brand new dwelling owned
by Bob Longtooth and Cragskull. There followed a series of amusingly failed
attempts to find Grumbler's old house or take over this "new" one. After
which, of course, The Boy inspired the others to prevail by using their wits
and convincing the villains that they'd actually taken the
wrong house
.

That was when it happened.

During the writing of this scene, Thomas had realized, for
the first time in more than ten years, that he didn't know what The Boy was
going to say next. Hence, The Boy was no longer Thomas Randall. And Thomas
didn't know who he was. Maybe Nathan? Maybe nobody anymore.

Nobody. That was the thing that disturbed him the most. If
The Boy was a nobody, a noncharacter, how could Thomas even begin to understand
the rest of Strangewood? He'd gone on, continuing to write adventure after
adventure, to fulfill contracts and expectations. But something was missing. Even
if no one else could tell, Thomas could tell. Something vital seemed gone
forever from Strangewood.

In his more somber moods, Thomas wondered if this distance
from his creation was caused by his age. Had he finally done what he'd vowed he
would never do? Had he grown up, forgotten what it was like to be a child?

He'd always known his way in Strangewood before, as well as
anyone who truly lived there. But now he was just a visitor. Like going back to
your hometown after twenty years away, and discovering that everything has
changed.

It made his heart ache.

But life went on.

"Well?" Francesca asked, and Thomas looked up to
see her staring at him expectantly.

"I'm sorry?" he replied, then shook his head. "Wow.
Sorry, Frankie. I've just got a lot on my mind these days. Being a divorced
father is even more complicated than being a married father."

"You're doing a great job, Thomas," Francesca
assured him. But it didn't really help. She only knew what he told her and
couldn't possibly be in any position to really judge whether or not he was
being a good father. But he was trying, and that had to count for something.

"What were you saying before?" he asked her.

"I was just curious when you were going to ask me about
the negotiations with Disney," she explained. "That was the reason
for lunch today to begin with, wasn't it?"

Thomas grimaced. "I'm afraid to ask."

Francesca sipped at an iced tea that the waitress had
somehow slipped onto the table while Thomas wasn't paying attention. She
paused, inhaled, as if constructing her next few sentences with care and well
in advance. He'd never known if it was genuine, or simply a tactic to make her
seem contemplative. It worked, though. He supposed that was what mattered.

"They want to greenlight
Strangewood
as a
Saturday morning show for two years on ABC, then strip it weekday afternoons
starting the third season," she answered. "I told them you weren't
interested if you couldn't get Nelson DeCastro as the voice of Grumbler."

Thomas waited and widened his eyes as a signal for her to
continue. Finally, he was forced to ask.

"And they said . . . ?"

"They said they can't afford Nelson for this
show," she confessed. "I argued with them, told them our demographics
again, the surveys, and testing numbers. They wouldn't budge. They want Billy
Carroll, from that new Fox sitcom, what's it called?"

Thomas sighed, scratched the back of his head, sighed again.
He took a sip of his Coke.

"Thomas?" Francesca prodded.

"'Crap' is what it's called, Frankie!" he said
vehemently, his voice loud enough to draw attention from several tables. "That
guy isn't funny enough, isn't cranky enough, isn't old enough . . . shit, the
guy's never even done voice-over before!"

Francesca said nothing. Their lunch came, Thomas picked at
it idly. Finally he looked up at Francesca, apology in his brown eyes. Again he
ran a hand through his short scrub of dark hair, the first gray beginning to
creep in at his temples.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly. "It's just, you
know I didn't want to use Grumbler in the first place. Hell, I don't even like
the little shit. But when I hear him in my head, it's Nelson DeCastro, you
know? God, I don't even know why I do this anymore. I should finish that
mystery."

"The one you've been writing for eleven years,"
Francesca said in a mildly sarcastic voice. "I thought you loved
Strangewood
?"

Thomas ignored her, sipped his Coke again. He looked at the
crowd surfing the bar, chatting, flirting, drinking. When they came here, they
left their work behind. Most of them, anyway. But some jobs couldn't be left
behind. Thoughts and ideas lingered, plots begged to be fleshed out and
followed wherever you went. The bar patrons were fortunate from a certain
perspective. But he wouldn't have traded places with them for the world. They
didn't even know what they were missing, what it was like to tell stories. To
entertain.

That was all he ever wanted: to entertain. In particular, to
entertain children with tales of Strangewood, a place he'd dreamt of all his
life.

His gaze drifted out the window, where the shadows had
finally overtaken the sidewalk.

"Did they give us everything else we asked for?"
Thomas asked.

"They didn't even blink," Francesca assured him.

"The money?"

"Not a problem," she confirmed.

Thomas watched the people passing on the street, hurrying
back now from late lunches, or going to meetings across the street or across
town. He didn't even glance at Francesca as he said, "Do the deal." Thomas
reached for his Coke, looked down a moment at the caramel liquid, the ice
cubes, and pulped slice of lime. He faced his disappointment, reminded himself
of his good fortune, and moved on.

As he lifted the glass to his lips, Thomas looked back
toward the front of the restaurant, past the bar, and out the window, where he
could see several people passing by.

One of them was a dwarf in a green felt fedora.

The glass clinked against his teeth and stopped there,
frozen. He put it down slowly.

"Thomas, what is it?" Francesca asked with
concern.

He was already standing, pushing his chair back.

"Give me a second, will you?" Thomas mumbled,
feeling rather ridiculous but unable to restrain himself. "Be right
back."

As he strode past the bar, his gait quickened. He shoved
through the glass door and stood staring west, head darting left and right as
he tried to see past the people flowing along the sidewalk. His lack of motion
disturbed the human tides all around him, and so he started off in the same
direction he'd seen . . . the direction his quarry had been walking.

Grumbler.

Thomas sped up, moving around people now, and stopped again
at the corner of Broadway. Self-conscious, feeling more than a little bit
foolish, he glanced north and south, then peered west one last time. Of a
smart-mouth dwarf with a penchant for green felt fedoras, there was no sign.

Not that he'd actually believed he'd seen Grumbler. He'd
been in therapy before, but that was
de rigeur
for creative types, not
because he was psychotic. But still, even from the glimpse he'd gotten of the
man who'd walked past the restaurant, the resemblance was intriguing. In that
flash, and wearing a green felt fedora which implied that others had made the
comparison, he'd looked more like the Grumbler in Thomas's head than any
artist's rendition ever had.

It had been kind of eerie, actually.

But as he walked back into Live Bait, to see Francesca
staring at him expectantly, the possibilities that had occurred to him the
moment he'd seen the man walk by began to play themselves out. If a vertically
challenged pedestrian with a sense of humor could make the man who created
Grumbler take a second look . . .

"I just had a brainstorm," he said, picking up his
Coke glass once more.

"Is that what you call it?" she asked archly. "I
would've thought you'd seen your car about to be towed or something."

Thomas smiled, mind working. "What about
live-action?" he asked. "Why haven't we ever really discussed the
possibility? I mean, I know what they'll say, 'Oh,
Willow
had a dwarf in
it, and that tanked!' But Grumbler's just one character."

A man rising from his seat behind Thomas bumped his chair
and didn't bother to apologize. Thomas barely looked at him, engrossed in his
own thoughts. Francesca was contemplating, looking at Thomas over steepled
fingers.

"I know what you're going to say," he preempted. "'It's
too expensive.' But with the digital computer tech these days, it wouldn't cost
that much. No more than animation, probably."

"They never did
Winnie the Pooh
live-action," Francesca finally said, allowing a thick strand of red hair
to fall across her left eye. She didn't brush it away. Too focused.

"Not true. They did it once, but very cheaply, and very
badly. Nobody ever really invested in it, but that's because the Pooh
characters are supposed to be stuffed animals, which makes suspension of
disbelief even harder than usual," Thomas countered. "This is
different. All the creatures in Strangewood are intended to be flesh and blood.
It's magical, but it's a real place."

Francesca looked away, then. Her eyes scanned the restaurant
for nothing in particular. Thomas had known her too long, and this particular
reaction meant she had something to say that she didn't think he'd want to
hear.

"What?" he asked. "I don't understand why
this idea isn't working for you."

It was several moments before she faced him once more. She
chewed her lower lip in a way that might have been sexy if there were any
physical attraction between them. Instead, it only frustrated him because she
was holding back.

"Frankie, what?" he pleaded.

"I'll pitch it if you want," she relented. "But
I don't know if anyone will go for it."

"For God's sake, why the hell not?" he asked,
incredulous. "It's the most popular series of children's books in decades.
Why wouldn't somebody pick it up?"

"They may," she explained. "But — and again,
this is just me — I think that
Strangewood
in live-action might
actually be kind of frightening to some kids, and I worry that the studios will
feel the same."