This Isn't What It Looks Like (26 page)

We’re on the way to see a “camera obscura,” whatever that is. Some kind of dark room. People are joking that it’s a kissing
booth. Really mature, huh? After that, it’s the big joust. Excuse me, the Medieval Days Royal Tournament and Joust. (Sorry,
Medieval Days! Your Belgian waffles rock even if your burgers suck—kidding! No really, the burgers are good, guys. And I’m
not just saying that because they’re paying me. Or am I? Ha ha.)

Anyways, I think I might have to hang by myself for a minute—let’s see, camera obscura or corn dog? No contest, right? If
Mrs. Johnson finds out, do you think she’ll have me beheaded?

Hi again. Tell the truth, did you think the Globster would have the huevos rancheros to ditch the field trip? Wrong!

o(^_^o)

(o^_^o)

(o^_^)o

(does victory dance)

So first I wait behind the hot-dog stand while everybody leaves to go to the camera obscura, which is no big deal except this
guy from school named Max-Ernest almost blows my cover by saying hi really loud. He’s, like, the least cool-acting person
I’ve ever met. Even by Nuts Table standards. (And HE thinks he’s too good to put on a pair of tights? Note to self: if you
ever need a spy or start a
secret society or something, do NOT invite him.) So anyway, after everybody’s gone and I don’t have to pretend to be super-interested
in wind chimes anymore, I go up to the counter of the Regal Beagle. I’m about to order my corn dog, extra mustard, extra relish,
when all of a sudden I smell this smoky barbecue smell. Forget hot dogs, that’s gotta be my pig on a spit! So like the saying
goes, I follow my nose.

I figure I’ll find a bbq right behind one of the food stands but actually there’s this dried-up riverbed and then woods. That’s
it. End of Ren-Faire. I was gonna turn around but then I hear this crackling sound on the other side. I don’t see anybody
but when I look close there’s some footprints leading into the woods. And when I look up there’s a puff of smoke coming from
somewhere deeper in. The bbq!

OK, it makes me a little nervous, but I decided as a fearless chowhound I have to go check it out. I’m telling all of you
now—just in case I don’t come back alive. Ha ha.

Wish me luck! And don’t forget to dine at Medieval Days! “Eat, Drink, and Be Medieval!”

Your official court taster,

—Glob

EMERGENCY POST—PLEASE READ! HELP NEEDED!

I know this sounds like a prank but right now I’m hiding in a cave and scared for my life. THIS IS NOT A JOKE. If nobody ever
hears
from me again, somebody please tell my little sister I lied, she wasn’t really born with a tail. Daniel-not-Danielle, you
can have all my vintage action figures AND my Guinness World Record–breaking snack cake wrapper collection. I know you think
this blog is bogus, but I would seriously consider keeping it up if I were you. You could even expand to movie and game reviews.
Hello banner ads! That could be some serious bank.

Alright, I better catch you up while I still have some power left. On the other side of the riverbed there wasn’t really a
trail but you could follow all the crushed leaves and muddy footprints and stuff. I walk for about five minutes and it’s like
I’m not getting any closer. At first I figured it was a bbq for people who work at Ren-Faire, which seemed cool. You know,
like, insider stuff. But now it’s seeming kind of far for Ren-Faire people. Is it just people camping? Like tramps or outlaws?
I keep going though ’cause I feel like I’m on one of those nature expedition shows and anyway it’s something to blog about,
right?

Suddenly, the smoky smell gets really strong and I hear all this chanting. Not like at a ball game, more like monk-sounding.
You know, like in Latin but probably way older? So I get to this place where the trees have been cut. There’s a big fire in
the middle with lots of huge logs burning. A dozen or so people are standing around in a circle. They’re all wearing these
long cloaks and my first thought is, oh, OK, they’re from Ren-Faire after all and they’re practicing to be monks for a show
later.

Something tells me not to go up to them yet though. I look
around expecting to see a table full of barbecue fixings, cole slaw, and whatever. But there’s no food at all. And what’s
really weird is when I look closer at the fire, I see it’s not a bbq at all. There’s no meat, no grill. Just this big glowing
ball. The ball is glass I think, with, like, a white fire inside. It’s so bright it’s hard to look at, like the sun.

The chanting changes and suddenly I can understand what they’re saying. Just the word SECRET over and over. Like if they say
it enough times that glowing ball was going to shoot into the sky or something. Then this woman, who looks like the leader,
she holds up this big goblet and drinks out of it. She’s in a cloak like everybody else but underneath she’s wearing some
kind of white sparkly dress and she’s really pale and maybe the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen, but she never smiles. Seriously,
it’s like her face never moves. She’s kind of scary but she is definitely H-O-T. I better stop looking at her, I think, or
she’s going to notice and like turn me into a statue or something. Ha ha. She passes around the goblet and everybody drinks
out of it and I notice another weird thing. They’re all wearing these white gloves.

OK, now, this is the part you’re really, really not going to believe, but I swear on my snack cake wrapper collection it’s
true. After the goblet goes all the way around the circle, the leader lady holds it up in the air and… just leaves it there.
In the air. Floating. Then guess what happens! The goblet tips and this white liquid that looks like milk pours out for a
second and then disappears in the air. Just vanishes. Gone. I swear there was a ghost drinking
from the goblet. Either that or they were the greatest magicians of all time but who was the magic for? There wasn’t any
audience.

The whole scene is just total spooksville and I finally start backing away. I guess I make a noise or something because that’s
when they see me. It’s hard to describe their expressions, but it was like I was a monster and about to steal their baby.

Somebody goes, “Hey, you, what are you doing there?” And somebody else is all “Get him!” or something like that.

So I start running as fast as I can. I think I hear footsteps following me, but I’m too scared to look back. I’m going so
hard my chest hurts and I can’t breathe. I look for a place to hide. Right off the trail there’s this big boulder shaped kind
of like a hamburger with a bite out of it. Underneath where the bite is, there’s this hole just big enough to fit through.
So I squeeze in. (I know, my stomach isn’t so small, yeah yeah, ha ha, so what.) It turns out there’s a cave. Like with a
dirt floor and stone walls. A
cave
cave. And that’s where I am now. Some people have been here before because there are soda bottles and a corn chip bag. I’m
starving but the bag’s empty, I looked, plus it’s not my favorite brand anyway. (I won’t name it though, just in case they
want to sponsor me someday. Ha ha.) And now—oh wait, this thing is beeping, I better post before it runs out of juice!

C
ass couldn’t get used to seeing so many jester hats.

There were red ones and green ones, velvet ones and felt ones. Some were oversize with long pointed ends stretching out like
antlers. Some were small and economical, not much more substantial than skullcaps. Some had brass bells, others silver.

And yet, as wildly varied as the hats were, they all bore a teasing resemblance to a certain hat that was hovering on the
edge of her memory. The three pointed ends flapping and flopping this way and that—she’d seen a hat flap and flop in just
that way. The bells jingling and jangling at the wearers’ every step—she’d heard bells jingle and jangle with just that tone
and timbre. She was more and more convinced that she must have found the Jester at some point during her journey—why else
would the bells on the hats ring so many bells in her head?—but where? When? What did he say?

Things only got worse when they got to the camera obscura—a small round, windowless structure that stood on a rise near the
center of the faire. Their guide, Opal—or Lady Fool, as she insisted upon being called—was wearing not only a jester hat but
also a diamond-patterned harlequin outfit not unlike one
the
Jester might have worn. (Although, truth to tell,
Cass couldn’t imagine the Jester’s outfit being decorated with rhinestones.) As Opal led their group into the dark interior,
her hat-bells taunting Cass with their jolly jingles, Cass suddenly remembered hearing the Jester’s bells jingling in a similar
room. A dungeon, that was it! The royal dungeon. So she was right. She
had
met the Jester. At least once.

Or was her mind playing tricks on her?

The camera obscura was about the same size as the dungeon cell in Cass’s memory, but much more crowded—there were about three
classrooms’ worth of kids—and here one wall was illuminated with an exact image of the world outside. Opal stood in front
of the wall, holding a stack of cue cards.

“You are now inside a camera—a big camera,” she read, her nasally New York accent in full effect. “In fact, this was the first
kind of camera ever invented.”

Cass blinked. As she looked at the image on the wall, she had the sense that she was hanging from her feet, looking at the
world upside down. The ground was the sky, and the sky the ground. Costumed faire-goers in wizard capes and fairy wings walked
around on the dirt sky, apparently weightless.

“Is that picture upside down? Or am I just dizzy or something?” she whispered to her friends.

Yo-Yoji grinned mischievously. “What are you talking about? Looks right-side up to me.”

“That’s not funny,” whispered Max-Ernest, who, although a month had passed, still half-expected Cass to fall back into a coma
any second. “What if she really was dizzy? It could be a sign that something was seriously wrong. I think it’s supposed to
be like that, Cass….”

“Oh,” said Cass, only somewhat relieved.

She hadn’t wanted to tell her friends, for fear they would make her go home, or worse, go to the hospital, but she really
was not feeling like herself. It wasn’t just the jester hats. All morning, ever since she’d woken up from the dream about
the green eye, she’d had the sensation that she was in two places at once. Or maybe that she was between two places. It was
hard to pinpoint the sensation exactly.

“You see that little hole—?” Opal pointed to a quarter-sized hole in the wall opposite her. Light streamed out of it in a
cone shape, as if it were the lens of a movie projector. “Light travels in a straight line. So when light rays pass through
a small hole like that one, the rays cross, flipping an image upside down.”

“I bet you could make one of these yourself,” said Yo-Yoji. “It might be helpful in a stakeout.”
^*

“Silence!
We
will not tolerate any more noise!” said Mrs. Johnson, who was standing on the side of the room, flanked by Amber and Veronica,
her ladies-in-waiting. “Pray continue, Lady Fool.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” said Opal. “Such rudeness in your royal presence momentarily shocked me into silence.”

The secretary bowed and continued reading. “In the Renaissance and after, artists—even many very famous ones—used camera obscuras
in order to paint more naturalistically. They traced the image it projected….”
^*

Somebody gasped dramatically in the darkness. “They traced it? So you’re saying all those famous artists cheated!” she cried
out.

It was Amber. She didn’t seem outraged so much as gleeful at the thought.

In fact, this was what Max-Ernest had been thinking. But hearing Amber say it made him wonder if it might not be wrong.

What is the cheating?
Pietro’s words rang in his head.
There is no cheating in magic, only in poker.

A few feet away, Benjamin Blake coughed and started mumbling. “… yellow… cheating… pencil… orange… oven…”

“What’s that, Benjamin? Did you have something to say to your schoolmates?” asked Opal.

He mumbled again, and the crowd of students tittered.

Max-Ernest started pushing his way through to Benjamin. Ever since the night Cass woke up from her coma, Benjamin had been
trying to talk to Max-Ernest as well as to Cass and Yo-Yoji, but they all had given him what is known as the cold shoulder.
For obvious reasons. As far as Max-Ernest could tell, however, the blow to the head from Yo-Yoji’s guitar had “cured” Benjamin.
He was no longer the suave and insouciant dandy; he was his old, inarticulate, artistic, synesthetic self.

Hopefully, this meant he was no longer under the Midnight Sun’s spell.

“I don’t know why I’m doing this for you,” Max-Ernest whispered. “You owe me.”

Then he started translating for the room at large:
^*
“Ben says the artists didn’t cheat. A camera obscura is just a tool. It’s like a writer using a computer instead of a pencil.
Or a cook using an oven… I guess as opposed to a campfire—?”