“Just a few more steps!” Ethan told her.
“She’s getting closer!” Sarah hollered.
A few times she stopped and said she was scared, and Ethan waited, and eventually they made it to the other side.
“You did it!” Ethan told Sarah.
He looked across at his dad. There was a smile on his face, but he still looked like his thoughts were elsewhere.
“You’re really good with her,” he told Ethan when he joined them on the other side of the stream.
“Zoo!” Sarah said.
Dad shook his head. “Let’s get home. I want to do a little more work with Inkling before dinner. I’m at this tricky part and I just want to see which way the story’s going to go. Inkling’s probably perked up by now, don’t you think?”
“Maybe.”
“Tomorrow he’s all yours, promise.” Dad smiled and ruffled Ethan’s hair. “I feel like things are really starting to roll now.”
Ethan couldn’t help smiling back. It was good to have Dad like this, even if he was lost in his own thoughts. Maybe his own ideas were finally starting to flow—which was exactly what Ethan had hoped.
The whole way home, Sarah talked about Lucy crossing the stream on the big log. And Ethan thought, Hey, she has a new story to tell, too.
In the sleeping house, Inkling hesitated outside the studio.
He was tired. After dinner, he’d done some more drawing for Mr. Rylance, and even after eating, he still felt watery and weak. But that couldn’t dull the urgency he felt.
Something to find.
He knew, somehow, that it was in the studio. It was something Peter Rylance needed to see. For a while, Inkling had thought that helping Ethan’s dad draw a new graphic novel might be all the help he needed. But he realized that wasn’t it—not the kind of thing that would help the whole family.
It was in the studio.
But Inkling was afraid to go in. Yes, he was scared of Rickman, and the sketchbook, but he was also scared of what he might find. He remembered the feelings that had flooded him when he drew Mr. Rylance’s dreams. So much loneliness and sadness and anger. Was more of that awaiting him?
Inkling shifted nervously on the floor.
Why was everything worse at night? During the day, he could work in the studio with Mr. Rylance. But at night, the idea of the dark space was overwhelming. It was like everything bad that was tamped down during the day broke free and galloped around the house.
His courage failed him, and he turned and slunk back to Ethan’s room.
He curled up inside Danny the Champion of the World, beside his favorite picture, and wished he were braver.
Chapter 13
After school, when Ethan got home, he walked into his father’s studio to see Inkling inside a tall glass vase on the drafting table.
“What’s this?” he exclaimed.
His father had just torn a page from a nearby art book, rolled it into a tube, and shoved it into the vase.
“Hmm?” he said, looking up. “I’m feeding him. This is an Edward Hopper painting—I want Inkling to get a feel for his streetscapes.”
“No, I meant why’s he in a vase?”
“Oh, it’s just easier to feed him . . . ,” said his father, a bit guiltily.
Ethan tipped over the vase so that Inkling could flow out onto the drafting table.
HELLO, ETHAN.
“Hi, Inkling,” he said. He turned back to his dad. “You can’t keep him in a vase!”
“I like to know where he is. And know he’s safe.”
“You’ve got him caged up like a prisoner!”
“Don’t you think you’re overreacting a bit?”
“No!”
“Also, you must’ve noticed: he’s a snacker. You’re right, those trashy comics get him all hyper, and then his drawings aren’t as good, and then he crashes. This way I make sure he’s only getting the good stuff. He had Shaun Tan’s The Arrival this morning. You liked that one, didn’t you, Inkling?”
IT WAS STRANGE AND BEAUTIFUL. THE MAN WAS VERY BRAVE.
“That’s great,” said Ethan, “but, Dad—”
“And then he just gobbled up Mortal Engines,” Dad said proudly.
THRILLING! I LOVE THE WAY THE CITIES EAT EACH OTHER!
Ethan raised his voice. “Dad, did you even ask him if he liked being in a vase?”
“Ethan, a lot of animals—and people, too—like small, cozy spaces. It makes them feel safe.”
Ethan turned to Inkling. “Do you like being in the vase?”
NO. I HATE GLASS.
“See!” Ethan said to his father.
Dad lowered his voice. “I think you’re giving Inkling too many human qualities.”
“He can hear you,” Ethan said.
I MOST CERTAINLY CAN.
“Look, you agree yourself, Inkling sprang from my pen, my ink, my sketchbook—”
At the very word, Ethan saw Inkling tremble.
“—so he’s just an extension of my imagination.”
“Yeah, but he’s more than that!” insisted Ethan. “He plays with Sarah and gives her the puppy she wanted, and he gives me drawing lessons, and he’s making your new graphic novel because you can’t!”
His father’s face hardened, but he said nothing. Ethan knew it was a harsh thing to say, but it was true. Inkling was saving them, and his father was treating him like a prisoner.
“And he’s my friend,” Ethan added, more quietly. “You can’t keep him in a vase. It’s cruel.”
“Still, we need to keep him somewhere safer. Like a place where he can’t get out.”
“He’s not an animal, Dad!”
“Maybe not,” said Dad, “but we can’t afford to lose him. Either of us.”
That night, at the threshold of the studio, Inkling screwed up his courage and slipped inside. He was trembling, but he was on a quest, and he’d read enough stories by now to know that a hero did not fail at his quest.
Even though Ethan had offered him lots of delicious books and artwork earlier, he still felt very tired. Working with Mr. Rylance left him exhausted in a way that not even the brightest colors and crispest text could completely remedy. He was still happy with Danny the Champion of the World, but he probably wasn’t eating as much as he needed because he was slowly savoring the story.
After dinner, he’d told Ethan he could help with his project, but Ethan shook his head and said no, it was okay; he’d rather Inkling just rested. He was a kind boy.
Before gliding deeper inside Peter Rylance’s studio, Inkling checked to make sure there was no sign of Rickman. The enticing fragrance of ink swirled from the drafting table, from the crammed bookshelves—but he felt the strongest pull from the big closet to his left. The sliding door was ajar.
Inside were six deep shelves, crowded with all sorts of things. Inkling wished he knew what he was looking for. He meandered around mugs filled with colored pencils and bamboo brushes, shallow dishes filled with gritty erasers and thumbtacks and paper clips. He slithered amongst spray cans, stacks of dog-eared magazines, rolls of tape, unopened bottles of Chinese ink. Reluctantly he dipped into saggy cardboard file folders filled with boring forms and paperwork.
Near the bottom of the closet things, got even messier. He paused. Go deeper back. He wended his way past an ancient pencil sharpener, an old camera, and a crusty humidifier. Shoved into the very back corner was a blue plastic bin. Inkling froze. A shiver of electricity passed through him.
Without a doubt, this was it. This was what he’d been looking for!
Quaking with excitement now, he poured himself into the open bin. There were reading glasses, a watch, a small zippered pouch, and a couple of paperback books—one that had never been read (the spine was too perfect) and another that looked like it had been read many, many times. It was called The Secret Garden.
Jutting from between the pages was the tiniest corner of a piece of notepaper.
It had a kind of gravitational pull—a bit like the sketchbook,
but this didn’t feel sinister. It felt necessary.
Inkling was about to slide closer when a monster uncoiled itself from the closet and pushed its head toward him. Inkling saw two enormous black eyes and fangs in a narrow jaw. He recoiled in terror.
From his resting place, Rickman lunged.
Inkling felt Rickman’s claws sink into him, and he made himself as small as possible and slithered free. He went straight up the wall of the closet, slipped out onto the studio ceiling, and flowed into the shadow of the light fixture. Rickman slunk around, trying to find him.
The cat didn’t have the stamina to search for long. He ambled back to the closet, plonked down right in front, and began licking himself.
Defeated, Inkling retreated to Ethan’s room.
In the morning, Ethan still thought Inkling looked wiped out. He chewed at his lip and made a decision.
“You’re coming to school with me.”
I BELIEVE YOUR FATHER WANTED MY HELP TODAY.
“That’s just too bad. You need a vacation. We’ll put some good books in my backpack, and you can take it easy.”
SHOULD YOU ASK YOUR FATHER FIRST?
“Nope.” He knew Dad would be upset when he found out, but he didn’t care. “And look . . .” This part was harder to say. “You don’t have to help me with my project anymore. You’ve got enough to do, with Dad.”
BUT I WANT TO HELP YOU FINISH IT! YOU ARE MY FRIEND!
“Yeah, but you get so tired and I don’t want you . . . getting sick.” He felt a sudden tightness in his throat. He remembered the picture of his mother in her hospital bed.
I AM FINE, ETHAN. TRULY. WE CAN FINISH IT TODAY. AT SCHOO L.
“Are you sure? You have to be sure!”
YES! WE’VE REALLY JUST GOT A FEW MORE PANELS TO DO.
“Okay. Thanks, Inkling.”
AND, ETHAN, THERE IS SOMETHING LOST THAT YOUR FATHER NEEDS TO FIND. I THINK I’VE FOUND IT-
At that moment, his father called out that breakfast was ready.
“I want to get you hidden in my backpack,” Ethan said to Inkling. “Tell me later, okay?”
Ms. D was going to give them last period to work on their projects, but Ethan thought it was too risky to use Inkling with everyone watching. So he asked his teacher if he could stay in the classroom during lunch to work. That way, he’d have the last drawings ready for Pino and Brady to color and letter.
He took out the final spread. He had the classroom to himself. He got out his markers and reached into his backpack. “Inkling,” he whispered. He felt the small breeze as Inkling flowed onto his hand.
He kept his back to the door so anyone peeping through the window wouldn’t be able to see Inkling. Then they got to work.
As always, Ethan knew how he wanted these final images to look, but it seemed impossible that his stupid stick figures could ever transform into the pictures he imagined.
Over the days, he and Inkling had gotten faster working together, knowing instinctively which way the other was leaning. Just having Inkling on the tip of his pen gave Ethan confidence. He didn’t get paralyzed thinking he’d make a mistake. He took risks. But he also thought, day by day, he was getting a bit better.
As they started the final splash panel, Ethan’s heart beat faster. It was a big sweeping picture of the gorilla looking out over the zoo and city as the sun set, mission accomplished, triumphant. When he finished, he was a bit out of breath, like he’d just run a sprint. It was done.
“Thanks,” he whispered to Inkling.
On the edge of the page, Inkling wrote:
YOU DID THAT LAST ONE ALL BY YOURSELF.
“Are you kidding me?”
YOU’VE GOTTEN A LOT BETTER!
Ethan stared hard at the last illustration. In no way was it as good as the others, but it wasn’t half bad by comparison. By himself. He stared at the work a bit longer and felt a swell of accomplishment.
A soccer ball hit the window, and when he stood to look, he saw Pino in the schoolyard, waving for him to come join them. There were still a few minutes before the bell.
When he looked at Inkling, he felt a pang of guilt. Inkling didn’t look as pale as he had first thing this morning, but he still didn’t look his best.
“I brought some good books for you,” he said as he slipped Inkling inside his backpack.
THANKS. I’VE STILL GOT A FEW MORE CHAPTERS OF DANNY. I LIKE HOW THEY LIVE IN A GYPSY CARAVAN.
“Me too!” When he was younger, he’d kept asking his parents if they could live in a gypsy caravan and sleep in bunk beds. “Thanks, Inkling, for all your help. You really saved me.”
YOU’RE VERY WELCOME, ETHAN.
“Do you want me to leave the backpack a bit open so you get some light?”
NO THANK YOU, THAT’S ALL RIGHT.
Ethan knew that Inkling didn’t need light to read or eat or even draw, but he thought it was only polite to ask. He zipped his backpack shut, left it on his hook, and ran out to tell Soren and the others that he was finished.
Chapter 14
Ethan had barely kicked off his shoes when his father appeared in the hallway, looking flustered.
“Did you take him to school with you?”
Ethan nodded. “He needed a break.”
“So you thought you’d sneak him out without telling me?”
“He was really pale, Dad!”
“I lost an entire day’s work!”
“There must’ve been stuff you could do. On your own.”
He shouldn’t have said that, especially the last part, because his father’s face flushed with anger.
“Ethan, this is my work, and I need to get it done!”
Ethan felt something break free inside him. “But it’s not even your work! You’ve got someone doing it all for you. And you don’t even care if you kill him!”
His father started to say something, then checked himself and took a breath. “Obviously, I’d rather be doing the work entirely on my own. But I can’t right now, all right? I’m still having a lot of trouble.”
Dad slumped a little, and Ethan felt some of his own anger leave him.
“He helped me finish my project at school,” he told his dad. “But I did the last few pictures on my own.”
His dad’s smile was weary but genuine. “That’s great. I’m proud of you.”
Ethan shrugged. “Why? Mostly I cheated.”
“Sounds like you tried to make it right, without letting your friends down.”
For a moment neither of them said anything.
“I do care about Inkling,” Dad said. “And I’ll try not to lean on him so heavily. How is he now?”
Ethan unzipped his backpack. “Inkling?”
He put his hand inside and waited for the cool gust against his skin. It didn’t come.
“Inkling?”
He opened his backpack all the way, pulled out Danny the Champion of the World, and flipped through the last few chapters. Maybe Inkling had fallen asleep. The pages still had words on them, which meant Inkling hadn’t read them yet. But there was no sign of him.
In alarm, Ethan dumped everything onto the floor. Textbooks and binders and crumpled handouts and ancient tests and sticky food wrappers. He started sifting through it all but couldn’t see Inkling on any of it.
“You didn’t keep him in a jar or anything?” Dad asked.
“No!”
“You said he wouldn’t run off!”
Would Inkling do that, just run away? An even more terrible thought occurred to Ethan.
“Could he have . . . died?” he asked Dad urgently.
“How could he die?”
“What if he just ran out of ink altogether! It was sort of like blood to him! Maybe we worked him to death!”
“I’ll drive you back to school,” Dad said. “That’s the last place you saw him, right? Maybe he wandered off. You said he did that once before, right?”
Ethan nodded gratefully. “The art room, yeah. Let’s go.”
&n
bsp; The school hallways were deserted, except for a solitary janitor who pushed a long pink broom, sweeping up a day’s worth of crushed juice boxes and plastic spoons and lone sneakers. Some of the classroom doors were still open, including the one to Ethan’s homeroom, and he ran inside.
“Inkling?”
He checked in the desks, the bookshelves.
“How would we find him?” his father asked, looking around, bewildered.
“Just look for any movement. Like shadows.”
But what if he was too pale and dried up by now? Ethan thought miserably. Would he even show up? He couldn’t see any sign of him—no erased book covers or wall posters. Surely Inkling wouldn’t have been able to resist them. Was he too weak even to eat?
In the library, he and his dad walked up and down the aisles, but if Inkling was nestled inside the pages of a book, they’d never spot him. Especially if he wanted to stay hidden. Maybe he was sick and tired of Ethan and his whole family. Maybe he just wanted to be left alone.
Back in the hallway, Ethan asked the janitor if he could unlock the art room, but the janitor said he couldn’t unless they had the principal’s permission. Ethan cupped his hands and peered through the window, watching for any sign of motion.
“We’ve got to go pick up Sarah,” Dad said.
Ethan was quiet all the way home. It was a miserable evening. Sarah kept calling out for her puppy, Lucy, and didn’t understand why she wouldn’t come play. Ethan told her that she was gone for just a bit. He hoped he wasn’t lying.
As his jar was finally lifted out of the darkness, Inkling looked all around.
Where was Ethan? This was not his room.
Peering through the glass at him was Vika. Behind her stood a man he’d never seen before.
You greedy idiot, Inkling told himself. This is all your fault.
After Ethan had put him back inside his backpack, he’d been grazing contentedly on his book, enjoying the ink, and especially the story. And then he’d felt himself being lowered to the floor. The top of the backpack opened just a little bit, and a piece of paper slipped inside. He could practically taste the red ink. He left the book and slid onto the colorful piece of paper. So much red! The more he ate, the more he wanted. He swept higher and higher up the paper until he was outside the backpack. Suddenly there was another narrow strip of newsprint before him on the floor, luring him with its comic-book colors.