The Journal of Curious Letters (The 13th Reality #1)

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Acknowledgments

I used to think this section was major lame. Why on earth, as a reader, would I give a flying tahooty about the people who helped the author? Well, I’m here to tell you that you should be very interested. Because without the awesome people I mention below, this book wouldn’t be in your hands.

Before anyone else, I need to thank Chris Schoebinger and Lisa Mangum at Shadow Mountain. Despite being an author, I can’t come up with words great enough to express how much they’ve changed my life. Fabulicious. Astoundendicularly whammy. Terrificaliwondershonks. (See, told ya.) Thank you, Chris and Lisa.

Thanks to my wife, Lynette. Always my first reader, she’s not afraid to tell me when something sounds like a two-year-old blurted it out while sitting on the potty.

Thanks to my sister, Sarah Kiesche, for keeping up my Web site during the Jimmy Fincher books and being my number one fan.

Thanks to my agent, Jenny Rappaport, for her work on my behalf.

Thanks to J. Scott Savage. His keen and almost eerie understanding of how to weave a good story has helped me greatly. And our regular lunches to “talk shop” have been invaluable. I do wish he’d use a little more deodorant, though.

Thanks to Annette Lyon, Heather Moore, Michele Holmes, Lu Ann Staheli, Lynda Keith, and Stephanni Hicken. These crazy ladies all read the manuscript and gave excellent feedback.

A huge thanks to the younger folks, whose advice was perhaps most relevant: Jacob Savage, Alyssa Holmes, and Daniel Lyon.

Thanks to Shirley Bahlmann (and her kids), Danyelle Ferguson, and Anne Bradshaw. Shirley is the only one besides my wife who has helped me with every book I’ve written.

Thanks to Crystal Hardman, Tony and Rachel Benjamin, Pam Anderton, and Julie Sasagawa. Eating at Jim’s Restaurant will never be the same.

Thanks to Peter Jackson for making the
Lord of the Rings
movies.

Thanks to the dude who invented football.

Thanks to the many chickens that provided me with spicy buffalo wings over the years.

And last, but certainly not least, thanks to all the Jimmy Fincher fans. Without your loyal following, Atticus Higginbottom would have never been born.

Part

1

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The Fire

Chapter

1

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Norbert Johnson had never met such strange people in all of his life, much less two on the same day—within the same
hour
even. Odd. Very odd indeed.

Norbert, with his scraggly gray hair and his rumpled gray pants and his wrinkly gray shirt, had worked at the post office in Macadamia, Alaska, for twenty-three years, seven months, twelve days, and—he looked at his watch—just a hair short of four hours. In those long, cold, lonesome years he’d met just about every type of human being you could imagine. Nice people and mean people. Ugly people and pretty people. Lawyers, doctors, accountants, cops. Crazies and convicts. Old hags and young whippersnappers. Oh, and lots of celebrities, too.

Why, if you believed his highfalutin stories (which most people quit doing about twenty-three years, seven months, twelve days, and
three
hours ago), you’d think he’d met every movie and music star in America. Though exactly
why
these famous folks were up in Alaska dropping off mail was anybody’s guess, so it may have been a slight exaggeration of the truth.

But today’s visitors were different, and Norbert knew he’d have to convince the town that this time he was telling the truth and nothing but the truth. Something scary was afoot in Macadamia.

The first stranger, a man, entered the small, cramped post office at precisely 11:15
a.m.
, quickly shutting the door against the blustery wind and swirling snowflakes. In doing so, he almost dropped a cardboard box full of letters clutched in his white-knuckled hands.

He was a short, anxious-looking person, shuffling his feet and twitching his nose, with a balding red scalp and round spectacles perched on his ruddy, puffy face. He wore a regal black suit: all pinstripes and silk and gold cuff links.

When the man plopped the box of letters onto the post office counter with a loud flump, a cloud of dust billowed out; Norbert coughed for several seconds. Then, to top everything off, the stranger spoke with a heavy English accent like he’d just walked out of a Bill Shakespeare play.

“Good day, sir,” he said, the faintest attempt at a smile creasing his face into something that looked like pain. “I do hope you would be so kind as to offer me some assistance in an important matter.” He pulled a lace-edged handkerchief from within the dark recesses of his fancy suit and wiped his brow, beads of sweat having formed there despite the arctic temperatures outside. It was, after all, the middle of November.

“Yessir,” Norbert answered, ready to fulfill his duty as Postal Worker Number Three. “Mighty glad to help.”

The man pointed outside. “Simply dreadful, isn’t it?”

Norbert looked through the frosted glass of the front door, but saw only the snow-swept streets and a few pedestrians bundled up and hurrying to get out of the cold. “What’s dreadful, sir?”