Mr. Smee was trembling so much, his knees rattled together. No matter how he put it, he knew the emperor would be furious when he heard the news.
“It escaped!” Smee said. “Somehow it managed to take off its blindfold while it was in its cell! When the pirates went to feed it, they looked it in the eye and were turned into stone!”
Like steam from a teakettle, so much anger built up inside the Masked Man that a thunderous howl erupted from his mouth. He wrapped his hands around Smee’s throat and strangled the pirate. The day had turned into an epic disaster, and unfortunately for him, it was about to get much worse.
A horn was blown outside to announce the return of the Literary soldiers who had been sent after the royal families. The Masked Man dropped Smee and bolted outside to the balcony. The Wicked Witch, the Queen of Hearts, and Captain Hook followed him.
From the balcony, the Masked Man could see the Winkies and card soldiers slowly emerging from the forest. They were all battered and bruised; many couldn’t even walk without the help of another. They had come back with far fewer horses than they left with. The flying monkeys descended from the skies, but looked just as bad as the Winkies and cards, if not worse. They were so discombobulated that many missed the balcony and smacked into the walls of the palace.
Worst of all, there was no sign of the royal families anywhere. The Masked Man grabbed the closest winged monkey by its vest and shook him violently.
“WHERE ARE THE ROYAL FAMILIES?” he roared.
“They escaped!” the monkey screeched.
“HOW DID THEY GET AWAY? YOU OUTNUMBERED THEM TEN TO ONE!” the Masked Man screamed.
“They had a very strategic plan we weren’t prepared for! They had backup waiting in the woods! Men on horses, men in the trees, they even had a boy who flew!”
The Masked Man felt like his heart had fallen out of his chest. If it weren’t for his mask, they would have seen all the color drain from his face. He prayed he had misheard the winged monkey and that his ears were playing a cruel trick on his mind.
“Did you just say ‘they even had a boy who flew’?” he asked.
The winged monkey nodded. “Yes, sir,” it said. “He wore clothes made out of leaves! He flew up from the trees and threw firecrackers at us!”
“PETER PAN!” Captain Hook growled. “You said he’d be trapped inside the book until we retrieved him!”
The Masked Man threw the winged monkey on the floor and clutched his chest. He felt like he was having a heart attack. Every time he thought the situation couldn’t get worse, he was proved otherwise.
“No, this isn’t possible!” the Masked Man said. “If Peter Pan managed to escape, that would mean my niece and nephew did, too!”
The Masked Man turned to the literary villains, and his fury quickly dissolved into fear. The Queen of Hearts and Captain Hook were more furious than he had ever seen them. With Peter Pan and the royal families out of his reach, the Masked Man wasn’t capable of fulfilling his end of their agreements. They had followed him into the fairy-tale world and given him the use of their soldiers and cavalry for nothing.
“Listen, I can still give you what I promised,” he said. “I just need more time!”
Captain Hook and the Queen of Hearts slowly moved toward him, backing him into the railing of the balcony.
“LIAR!” the Queen of Hearts roared. “No royals, no HEADS!”
“And you can’t give me Peter Pan if you don’t have Peter Pan!” Captain Hook said through a clenched jaw.
Afraid he was about to be knocked off the balcony, the Masked Man fell to his knees and groveled at the Wicked Witch’s feet.
“I can still give you the silver slippers!” he pleaded. “Not all is lost!”
“I won’t be fooled by any more of your lies!” the Wicked Witch of the West said. “Your reign ends today!”
The Wicked Witch of the West tapped the floor with her umbrella, and two of her flying monkeys grabbed the Masked Man by the arms. They flew him as high into the sky as they possibly could and dangled him above the forest. The civilians in the dried-up lake alerted one another to the sight, but no one knew what was happening.
“DON’T DO THIS!” the Masked Man cried. “YOU’RE MAKING A MISTAKE! MY NIECE AND NEPHEW WILL DESTROY YOU WITHOUT ME!”
“Our biggest mistake was trusting you!” the Wicked Witch of the West shrieked. She tapped her umbrella again and the flying monkeys dropped the Masked Man. He plummeted toward the earth, screaming the entire way down, and landed somewhere deep in the forest.
“Look, the emperor has fallen!” The Wicked Witch of the West cackled.
It was obvious to the civilians that the literary villains had just staged a coup. Now that the Masked Man was gone, the civilians wanted to cheer, but the emperor’s death didn’t mean their troubles were over.
“If we aren’t getting what we came for, then what should we do now?” Captain Hook asked. “Return to Neverland, Oz, and Wonderland?”
The literary villains thought it over, but now that they had seen the fairy-tale world with their own eyes, their own worlds weren’t that appealing. With the Masked Man gone, they had unlimited power over the strange land, and power is easily addictive when placed in the wrong hands. It seemed the fairy-tale world had much more to offer them than their own worlds did.
“I rather like this world,” Captain Hook said. “There are no Lost Boys, mermaids, or Indians to fight. And if Peter Pan is here, there’s no reason to return to Neverland.”
“There are no White Queens, Mad Hatters, or Cheshire Cats to pester us,” the Queen of Hearts said. “Why return to Wonderland when I have plenty of heads to roll right here?”
“There are no wizards, Munchkins, or Good Witches to stand in our way,” the Wicked Witch of the West said. “And I have more power here than the silver slippers could have given me in Oz!”
The literary villains shared a menacing smile.
“Let’s stay in this world and rule the empire ourselves,” the Wicked Witch said. “Perhaps if we work together, we’ll achieve even more than what the Masked Man promised us.”
The villains turned their gaze to the civilians in the dried-up lake.
From the way the three villains glared down from the balcony, the civilians knew the nightmare was far from over.…
CHAPTER FOUR
A NICE FAMILY DINNER
The Storybook Grill was a popular place for dinner during the week. By seven o’clock each night, the diner was usually filled with families and teenagers ordering their weight in Goblin Fries and Midnight Milk Shakes. There were always loud and energetic crowds, and tonight was no exception.
However, the group in the booth at the very back did not match the liveliness of the other patrons, so they stuck out like a sore thumb.
Cindy, Lindy, Mindy, and Wendy—four teenage girls recently reinstated as the Book Huggers—somberly sipped milk shakes and shared a basket of fries. The girls each had a copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in front of them, but none of them seemed very interested in it.
“We should probably talk about the book if we’re going to be a book club again,” Cindy said.
The other girls nodded, but no one was eager to start. The quartet had recently taken a break from books to focus on other passions—well, passion—and started the Conspiracy Club. However, that club only made them more restless than they already were, and they had been advised to take up reading again.
“Did anyone have a favorite passage they’d like to share?” Cindy asked. “Or maybe a favorite character?”
All the Book Huggers were quiet, forcing Cindy to take charge.
“Lindy, let’s start with you,” she said.
Lindy was awkwardly hunched over her milk shake and staring off into space when Cindy called on her. Wherever her mind was, it wasn’t on Sherlock Holmes.
“Um… I liked the hound?” Lindy said.
“The Hound of the Baskervilles?” Cindy as
ked.
Lindy looked uncomfortably from side to side. “Was there more than one?”
“Did you even read the book?” Cindy asked.
Lindy hunched lower than before and shamefully shook her head.
“Did anyone read the book this week?” Cindy asked.
The other Book Huggers slumped with embarrassment and shook their heads as well. Cindy let out a long and frustrated sigh.
“We can’t revive our book club if we’re not going to read books,” she said. “But if I’m honest, I didn’t read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, either.”
“I started it,” Mindy said. “It was just so hard focusing on a fictitious mystery when the real-life mystery has never been solved.”
The Book Huggers nodded in agreement. No matter how hard they tried to inspire themselves with new interests, new hobbies, and new clubs, or by resurrecting old clubs, the only thing consistently on their minds for the past year was the disappearance of Alex and Conner Bailey.
“You’d think it’d get easier over time, but it doesn’t,” Lindy said.
“We only started asking questions about Alex because we were bored and had read all the books in the school library,” Mindy said. “But every answer only gave us more questions, and the more questions we had, the more infatuated we became.”
“I’ve read books and watched television shows about people with real-life obsessions, but I never thought I’d become one of them,” Lindy said. “It’s all I think about when I’m awake, and all I dream about when I’m asleep.”
Wendy nodded—it was affecting her sleep, too.
“Bree Campbell knows something we don’t,” Cindy said. “But until one of us gains telepathic powers—or waterboarding is legalized—I don’t think we’ll ever get it out of her.”
“She’s been absent from school for almost two whole weeks!” Mindy said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s the next one to get ‘transferred to Vermont,’ as they say.”
Life had become exhausting to no end for the Book Huggers. They felt like mice stuck in a maze with no cheese.
“What are we going to do, girls?” Lindy asked the table. “I don’t want this to affect the rest of our lives! I want to become a psychologist—not need a psychologist!”
“I’ll never be a heart surgeon if I can’t focus in medical school!” Mindy said.
“I’ll never win my first presidential debate if I can’t remember real issues!” Cindy said.
Wendy pointed to the ceiling and made an X with her fingers—implying she would never fulfill her dream of becoming an astronaut.
“It’s gone too far, ladies,” Cindy said. “This is just like Nineteen Eighty-Four, and there’s no use fighting Big Brother anymore. We have to pull ourselves together while we still can. For the sake of our sanity and our destinies, we have to forget about the Bailey twins.”
The Book Huggers raised their milk shakes and clinked them together. They were ready to turn over a new leaf. The undertaking wouldn’t be easy, but it was necessary if they ever wanted to live normal lives again.
Unfortunately, the Book Huggers’ noble venture was about to feel like the punch line of a great cosmic joke.
The front door of the Storybook Grill swung open, and the Bailey twins walked in with Charlotte and Bob. Wendy happened to glance up from her milk shake right at that second and was the first to notice Alex and Conner. For the first moments after seeing them, Wendy was certain she was hallucinating. They had just been talking about the Bailey twins—it was way too coincidental for them to be in the same diner at exactly the same time.
But the longer they stayed in her sight without disappearing, the more she realized they weren’t a mirage—the real-life Alex and Conner Bailey were right there! Wendy was paralyzed with shock. The color drained from her face, and she couldn’t feel her arms or legs.
“I think we should actually read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,” Cindy said. “Next week, we’ll come back to this diner and have a real discussion about it, just like we used to.”
“I concur,” Mindy said. “But can we do it a week from tomorrow? I’m getting my braces off a week from today.”
“Congratulations!” Lindy said. “Will you have to wear a retainer?”
Wendy began humming to get the other Book Huggers’ attention, but she was drowned out by the noise of the diner.
“Just for the first six weeks, then only at night after that,” Mindy said.
“I was so relieved when I finally had mine taken off,” Cindy said. “It felt like handcuffs had been removed from my mouth.”
“My dentist said I don’t need braces,” Lindy said. “It’s probably a good thing—I wouldn’t have the patience for them.”
Wendy couldn’t believe they were talking about something so meaningless when something so extraordinary was right in front of them. She managed to regain feeling in one hand and lightly tapped Cindy on the shoulder with it.
“Wendy, are you okay?” Lindy said.
“You look like you’re going to be sick,” Mindy said.
“Was there something in your Midnight Milk Shake?” Cindy asked.
Desperate for them to see what she was seeing, Wendy used resources she hadn’t used since the first grade—spoken words!
“Alex… Conner… over there!” Wendy peeped.
Her voice was high-pitched and squeaky like a baby bird’s. The Book Huggers were so shocked to hear her make a noise, it took them a second to realize she had actually used words out loud and they had meaning. Once the message was interpreted, they jerked their heads in the direction of the door so fast that they pulled muscles in their necks. Once they all saw the Bailey twins with their own eyes, the Book Huggers went as still and pale as Mount Rushmore.
The twins were all eyes as they looked around at the diner’s fusion of fairy-tale and 1950s decor. They knew Cinderella’s stepmother and stepsisters had opened a restaurant after moving to the Otherworld, but this was their first time seeing it.
Rosemary was in the middle of taking an order when she saw the Baileys out of the corner of her eye. The waitress abandoned the customers in mid-sentence to greet her old friends.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in!” Rosemary said, and hugged the twins.
“Hi, Rosemary,” Conner said. “This place looks great!”
“Are Petunia and your mom around?” Alex asked.
“Mother has the night off and Petunia got another job, working for a veterinarian,” Rosemary said. “Good riddance, if you ask me—she was a lousy waitress! I’ll be sure to tell them you stopped by! Are you coming for dinner?”
“Yes,” Charlotte said. “Table for four, please.”
“Right this way,” Rosemary said.
The stepsister grabbed four menus and sat them in a booth directly next to the Book Huggers. The girls quickly grabbed their copies of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and covered their faces with them, but Alex and Conner weren’t paying attention. The twins were so amused by all the art and knickknacks throughout the diner, they didn’t even notice their former classmates.
“How’s Cinderella doing?” Rosemary asked the twins once they were settled in their booth.
“Well, actually—”
Alex was about to tell Rosemary the truth when her mother gave her a stern look. Anything that might get them off the topic of nice family discussion wasn’t allowed at dinner tonight.
“Just fine,” Alex said. “Hope’s growing like a weed.”
“Wonderful. Please give them my best,” Rosemary said. “I hope you enjoy the food. When you’re ready to order, just wave me down—oh, we’re out of the Beanstalk Salad tonight.”
Rosemary went back to the customers while Alex and her family looked over the menu. It referenced so many people and places in the fairy-tale world, it was absolutely aggravating not to talk about the current crisis. The twins hoped their nice family dinner would end as soon as possible.
“So kids, what’s new?”
Charlotte asked. “How are your friends doing?”
She was so calm and casual, Alex and Conner knew she wasn’t referring to the truth. They shared a curious look, and it suddenly dawned on them what their mother was doing. Their nice family dinner was a chance for Mom to pretend they were a perfectly normal family, living perfectly normal lives. The twins felt like they were in a play they didn’t have the script for.
“Good,” Conner said. “Um… Goldilocks and Jack are expecting their first baby!”
“That’s wonderful,” Charlotte said. “Do they know if it’s a boy or a girl?”
She knew as well as he did that the fairy-tale world didn’t have ultrasounds, but he continued playing her game.
“Nope,” Conner said. “I guess they’re waiting to be surprised.”
“Your father and I did the same thing when we had you,” Charlotte said. “We weren’t sure if we were having two boys or two girls, we just knew there would be two of you. Imagine our surprise when we had one of each—we didn’t have to return any of the baby clothes.”
Conner found this fascinating. “Really?” he said. “What would you have named us if we were two girls or two boys?”
“The firstborn was going to be an Alex no matter what,” Charlotte said. “I’ve loved that name since I was a little girl—it was the name of my favorite doll. But if Conner had been a girl, his name would have been Sarah.”
“What a coincidence! Before Margret passed away, we were planning on having a baby, and if it was a girl, we would have named her Sarah, too,” Bob said. “Were Alex and Conner an easy delivery?”
Charlotte let out a long laugh as the memory came to her.
“Giving birth was easy compared to the days that followed,” she said. “Their grandmother was so excited to have grandchildren, she visited us every day with someone new from the fairy-tale world. The first day she brought Mother Goose, who almost mistakenly switched Conner’s bottle with her flask! Thank goodness I was an overly protective first-time mom and saw it happen! The second day we had the whole Fairy Council in the house. They were lovely, but kept magically upgrading our belongings into nicer things. By the time they left, we didn’t even recognize our house!”