“Marry a princess?” I say.
“Yeah, but as I said, that’s not going to happen. By the way, Ryder, call me TD.”
“How?” says Rory. “Are you cooking up some potion that can change everyone’s minds?”
He regards her with mild contempt. “I told you, I’m not like that quack the Witch of Wenham.”
“Then how are we going to do it?” I ask.
“You’ve taken the first step, Ryder.”
“I have?”
“Yes. You crossed over. The next step is a stealth attack. A covert operation, a digital hack, but no one will know about it until the movie premiere.”
“You can do this?”
TD nods and says, “I am going to rewrite the computer code for the movie.”
I look at all the ancient books on his bookshelves. Books in many different languages, books on science and medicine and astronomy. Ancient! Not one on computer animation.
“I know what you’re thinking, Ryder. But I can decode. I’ve decoded a lot of languages—Hebrew, Aramaic. And if I can decode, I can encode.”
“Encode?” Rory and I both say.
“Encode!” His eyes light up. “With a little help, I can write a new script for this movie, and stop what is happening to you.”
“But what about what’s happening to you?”
“I don’t mind being thought of as dumb or weird as long as I can have my secret life. I feel a bond with Eli Weckstein. I remember when he was an intern at Starlight. I learned a lot from him by lurking around the portal while he was there.” He pauses a long time and looks at me so hard I get goose bumps. “And as for you, Ryder, you are courageous.”
Then he swings around to face Rory. “And you too, Rory. You crossed back and forth. For all my smarts, for all the books”—he gestures at his shelves—“I couldn’t figure out how to cross over. But you two did. And if you could bring Eli over, that’s the help that we need.”
“E-Eli? Here?” I stammer. “I’m not sure.”
“Eli is brilliant in a twenty-first-century way. My world is post-medieval, pre-Renaissance. A far cry from the digital age. I’m learning as much as I can, as fast as I can, but we need Eli here. Even though I can’t cross over, I can listen in on what the animators are doing.”
“Do you think Eli could get you up to speed digitally on this?” I say.
“Definitely,” TD replies. “And he has a lot of the codes from when he was an intern at Starlight Studios.” Prince TD stretches his arms up high and gives a bit of a shake. “Ahhh, this feels so good!”
“What?” I ask.
“Being off script. It’s like I get to stretch muscles I’ve never used before. I’m always off script in the Glower Tower.”
“It does feel good,” Rory says.
“We have to go off script to change the script,” he says.
“Could we add a new character?” I ask.
Rory and TD look a bit befuddled. “Sure, if it’ll help,” TD says. “What do you have in mind?”
“I’ve got to think a bit. I might have an idea. But how do you plan to do this, even with Eli’s help?”
“I’ll definitely need all of your help. We’re going to have to go together into the Starlight Studios network…” His voice trails off. I get a kind of sickish feeling that maybe he is making this up as he goes along. But what hope do we have? TD takes a step closer to me. “Ryder, do you remember where you were exactly two years ago?”
“No…but I know I was happier. It was before Mom died.”
“I remember,” TD says very solemnly.
“You do?”
“Yes. I’d been hanging around the portal.”
“The portal?” I say. TD looks at Rory. She casts her eyes down.
“Rory knows, it’s how she got out. I didn’t think it would work. But it does. In the real world it’s called an Ethernet port. It has to do with connectors between computers and it allows them to communicate with each other.”
“No, TD, I do not recall where I was two years ago. So…what was I doing?”
“Ryder, it was Take Your Kid to Work Day and your mom and Cassie were going over the storyboards for the movie. And Eli was there too.”
“Oh my gosh, I do remember.” My voice breaks. I feel a sob swelling in my throat. “But I—we”—I glance at Rory—“looked fine in those sketches.” Rory reaches out with her hand and pats my shoulder very gently. Her touch is as soft as a butterfly, light and deeply tender. Tears glisten in her eyes. Tears glisten in my eyes. We are both seeing our mom’s lovely face through a scrim of tears. I’ve never felt so close to anyone in my life as I do to Rory this minute. It’s as if our souls are touching. How can this be?
“You were yourselves. And then everything changed,” TD says.
“It sure did,” Rory says dully.
“That’s the bad news,” TD continues. “But the good news is that we can change it back.”
“You mean we can rewrite the code?”
TD nods solemnly. “If you can get Eli to cross over.”
I take a deep breath. “So, TD, just how do you imagine rewriting the screenplay for Glo-Rory-Us?”
“Tomorrow in the real world is Take Your Kid to Work Day. You’ve got to go with your dad and bring Eli too. You’ve got to get the passwords and…well, I’ll give you a list of stuff. Can you do it, Ryder?” He puts his hands on my shoulders and looks me straight in the eye. In that moment he looks so much like Eli Weckstein. It’s sort of unbelievable that I didn’t notice before.
“Yes, I can do it, but one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Time must be different here. How long have I been gone from the real world? It seems like a long time.”
“About two minutes.”
“That’s all?”
“If that,” TD says.
“How can that be?”
“Film time. Twenty-four frames per second. So one minute is 1,440 frames. Two is 2,880. Much more happens in one second than in the real world.”
“Oh. Even if we’re off script?”
“Probably faster,” TD says, and Rory nods.
TD presses a piece of paper into my hand. “Take this, Ryder. You’ll know what to do.”
Back in my own room, I can hear the party still going on downstairs. The Rory show has ended and the news is on. Did I really go to Ecalpon? I look down at the piece of paper in my hand from TD. It says:
Get password to Cassie’s computer. Look for the following of the new movie:
1. Storyboards.
I know what storyboards are: a series of panels that show the overall plan for the story of the movie.
2. Layouts.
Layouts are more detailed panels that show the design, the locations, and the costumes of the characters. I’d seen my parents working on both storyboards and layouts ever since I can remember.
3. Model sheets.
Model sheets show all the possible expressions and postures for a character.
4. Animatics.
The animatics map out the motion and time of each sequence….
5. Texture.
Until the texture stage, the characters and landscapes have been more or less naked. Birds don’t have feathers. People don’t have skin, and trees are leafless. No clouds in the sky. This is where the digital texture artists came in. Eli knows a lot about texturing because he likes inventing video games. He’s creating one right now called Coming of Rage. It’s about the miracle of the Red Sea. At first the younger characters were way too wild. The game was unplayable. I called the first version Bar Mitzvah Brats.
Eli’s Rabbi told him the game needs to be an exercise in cooperation and interdependence. No one wins unless the group wins. So Eli went back to work.
It’s going to be good.
—
I look at my list, thinking. All the codes for the Rory show are stored in Cassie’s computer as well as those of the other animators. But Cassie’s computer has to be the mai
n portal because that computer had been my mom’s. It has the original sketches and the very first glimmerings of Super-Rory-Us. If we can get to the code in Cassie’s computer, we’ll have the keys to the kingdom.
The list is five simple words. But there is nothing simple about this. Still, I’ll do it for me, Rory, and TD.
I look at the television set. It seems so normal. Had I really gone inside it? Somehow I passed through the portal TD talked about, that interface between the real and the virtual world that allowed Rory and me to trespass the ordinary borders.
I begin thinking about all the books I’ve ever read where characters in stories go into magical realms. There is of course Alice in Wonderland, where Alice sort of dissolves through the looking glass, a mirror, above the mantelpiece. I get the book from my shelf and find the description. There’s a picture of her climbing onto the mantel and looking at the mirror. She’s talking to her cat. “Let’s pretend,” she says to the kitty. And in the next minute she describes how the glass got all soft like gauze, so they could get through. Then Alice exclaims, “It’s turning into a sort of mist now, I declare!” Within seconds it melts away and bingo—she’s through it, dealing with the Red Queen.
I go over to my new television. I put my hand against the glass. “I declare,” I mutter. “Shazam?” Nothing happens except a sweaty handprint on the screen. How did I do it before? I take a step back and think. If this is really a portal, shouldn’t it begin to get bigger or something? Or maybe it should be like the wardrobe in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe that Lucy passes through to Narnia, in the part where she exclaims, “This must be an enormous wardrobe,” and before she knows it, Shazam! She’s standing knee-deep in snow with evergreen branches brushing her face. My TV still looks like a television.
Then I think about what TD said about the Ethernet port. I go over to my computer. The port is a small plug about a half an inch wide. It’s hard to imagine squishing into that.
Although Rory was vague about how she got out of Cassie’s computer and into my television, it must have been through this portal thing.
I walk over to a table where I have a drawing board set up. I haven’t drawn anything since Mom died. But I clear a space on my drawing board and start sketching, feeling my hand unlock for the first time in two years. Two dark eyes loom out at me from the paper. I make them blacker. The eyes of a barn owl. I can’t forget that moment in Ecalpon when the owl perched on my shoulder and we looked into each other’s eyes as if we understood each other perfectly. No words were needed. Perhaps that was best, because we were completely off script. And I didn’t want anyone to hear, because I felt as if someone was watching. And it wasn’t Rory. And in that moment as I was drawing I heard a spine-tingling echo.
My name is Contentment but I secretly think of myself as Constance.
This owl, so off script, needs to be in the script. I have to tuck her in someplace. Maybe it’s like Mom’s quilt—she could always find a spot for something interesting—bit of lace, an old copper coin, a feather! I feel a tingle in my hand. It wants to draw. I want to draw! This owl needs to be drawn. My mom’s work is not done.
I sketch sweeping lines. The wings spread as if the owl is about to loft herself into the air. I make tiny strokes on the edges of her heart-shaped face with a soft lead pencil. I give the crown of her head more volume as I shade in some of the darker feathers with another pencil. I am drawing again! I feel a flood of happiness. I feel as if I’m almost flying!
There’s a knock on my door.
“Who is it?” I growl.
“Me, Eli.”
I open the door and blink, seeing traces of Prince Thunderdolt Lowenbrow in Eli. Not that he looks like a Neanderthal with a projecting forehead. No, it’s the sparkle in the eyes. That sparkle makes them kindred spirits. TD said, “I have a secret life.” Like Connie! I realize. There are many secret lives swirling around me. My head is still filled with the barn owl. She barely had a walk-on part in one episode. She popped out of the rock and then the last image was the back of her wings spread as she flew off. When I saw her in Ecalpon, she was “off script.” Her story had just begun and now it needs to be completed.
“You look a little weird,” Eli says.
“So do you….Oh, I mean you look fine.”
“You’re acting a little weird.” He tips his head to one side and studies me. “But maybe I would too if that woman and her daughters were hanging around.”
“Yeah, pretty gross.”
“Is that why you bugged out of the party?”
“Uh, sort of.”
“Can I come in? The party is really boring.”
“Sure,” I say, and scoot over and turn off the TV. I don’t want any surprises. It’s a little odd being back in the real world. Especially since I’m trying to figure out how to tell him that his talents are needed in a make-believe place. When I asked TD if Mom knew of his secret life, he nodded and his eyes burned brighter and he said, “I think so.” But does Eli know? Should I ask him? Should I tell him? Is he meant to know? It’s way over my head. But then again, I’m supposed to recruit Eli. So maybe I should tell him.
“How’s the video game going?”
“Pretty good. My rabbi likes it.”
“He does? Wow!”
“Yeah, you see, all these people are shoving to get across the Red Sea in time, but I built in this move where if you help an old person, you get across quicker. So it’s like…lessons in cooperation, supporting others, that kind of stuff.”
Cooperation, I think, supporting others. Rory, TD, and I could be part of his bar mitzvah project.
“Oh, that reminds me.” I try to be casual. “Tomorrow is Take Your Kid to Work Day. Are you going with your dad?”
“No! That would be totally boring.”
“Your mom? You could go with her.”
“My mom? Are you crazy? She’s an obstetrician. I don’t want to see a baby being born and I doubt the mothers want me there either.”
“Eek! Yeah! I forgot.”
“So are you going back to the party?” Eli asks.
“Nah. I’m pretending to be sick. Well, I did throw up.”
“I don’t blame you.” He looks down at his feet. “I mean, this must be really, really hard for you, Ryder—Bernice and all. Those daughters.”
Eli suddenly looks as if he is about to cry. “I miss your mom too, Ryder.”
I want to tell Eli everything that happened to me and how TD wants me to bring him across. But I can’t seem to find the words. How do you explain something like this? Hey, Eli, I got news for you. The virtual world is not exactly virtual. In some ways it’s more real than the real world. I mean, isn’t this like saying a thousand years ago or so, Listen up, everybody. The world is not flat. It’s round! “Uh, Eli…”
“What?”
“Nothing, I guess.”
“Then I’ll go find my parents. Maybe they’re ready to go. So…”
“Okay, see you around. Good luck on your game.”
“Thanks.”
Eli gives a little wave, and it’s almost princely. No finger waggles, just a slow turn of his palm as if to take in the multitudes when riding by in a coach.
I go back to my notebook and make little sketches, just the way Mom used to when she worked out the design for a character. I do close-ups of the barn owl’s face. I concentrate on getting the light just right in her eyes. There has to be a little glint, a reflection or two. I remember Mom working hard on characters’ eyes. “Eyes are the window to the soul,” Mom would say. I think she was quoting some ancient writer. I want to find the soul that stirs in this owl. And what is soul? A kind of spiritual wireframe? Perhaps a secret life—something unchanging, constant and forever.
I finish the last of my drawings around one in the morning. I should have told Eli last night about crossing over and meeting Rory, but I had no idea that I’d get so far with my drawings of Constance the owl. She’s vital in some way to saving Rory, saving the movie
. I know it. I need Eli to bring Constance to life, in wireframe, and then textured—feathers and all. I spent a good two hours online studying barn owl feathers. Very soft, subtle colors, speckled with white spots.
I text him.
Need help. Need to wireframe and texture. Things are changing in Ecalpon.
I get excited when I hear a bing! It’s not Eli, but Penny—Penelope.
You’ll never guess! I met a prince. Prince Ludlow of Luxembourg. Isn’t that title fab????
I don’t text her back, but I think, I met a prince too. A virtual one, and he’s also pretty fab.
A few minutes pass and no answer from Eli. I wander to the kitchen. There must be some good leftovers from the party. I cram three cocktail weenies into my mouth at once—and right then I hear someone crying in the home theater. I look in and see that it’s Connie, heaped on the floor in a corner. Her entire body is shaking.
“Connie?” No answer. “Connie.” I tap her shoulder. She raises her head. “Are you all right?”
“You’d never understand!” She seems almost angry.
“Why are you here? Why didn’t you go home after the party with your mom and sisters?”
“Because I hate them and they hate me. The only person who ever loved me was my dad.”
“Oh no! Did he get hurt on his science trip?”
“Worse.”
“What do you mean?”
“My email to him bounced back. Then I sent a letter to his last known address. It came back. ‘Return to Sender, Addressee Unknown.’ ”
“I’m sorry, Connie. You must be so upset. Your sisters too.”
“He’s not their father.”
“Oh,” I say.
“Bliss and Joy are from my mom’s first and second marriages.”
“She’s been married three times?”
Connie nods.
“But I still don’t understand. Why did you stay here for the night?”
“We had a big fight. They always side with her.”