Chapter 2
They walked for hours and hours. Nick had no recollection for how long. He fell asleep and woke up lying on a thorny mattress of straw, in a dark place, where only a handful of rays of sunshine pierced through the planks of the door. He recoiled in a corner, convinced he was in the bookworm closet and it was a matter of time before he could feel them crawl and gnaw on his limbs. Nothing happened. Where were they?
As he waited, still as a marble statue, he noticed that he was dressed differently. Gone were his jacket and shoes. Instead he wore a coarse collarless shirt, mid-calves scratchy pants and scratchy slippers. The report? He fumbled around madly for his jacket. It was nowhere to be found. Mr. Crutchfield had confiscated it along with his report. Although he was grateful the old man had not thrown him to the bookworms, he could not contain his panic. Without the report, he could no longer argue his case in front of the Committee of Revisions. Without the report, he could not prove the strange reversal of which he had been the victim. And if he could not demonstrate that he came from the real world and that everything he had been living since was just a terrible misunderstanding, he was cursed to live in the world of the Grand Library forever. Nick shook his head as though he could shake off the horrible thoughts infiltrating his mind. No way he was going to remain prisoner in Mr. Crutchfield’s universe. He swore to pull himself out of it, make his way back to the Grand Library and find his way back to the real world, the world he was certain he came from, by persuading the Committee of Revisions that he truly did not belong in a world of fiction. Of course all these resolutions rested on providing the committee with the report. If he could never find it again, was he condemned to be a domestic belonging to Mr. Crutchfield? He remembered what Dr. Feelgood had mentioned about finding the way out of the grotesque world of the Grand Library. Somewhere in the vastness of the Grand Library existed someone who had created all the Nick Klaus novels. This someone knew the exit, the way back to the real world. Nick concluded that if the report was lost, finding the creator was his only hope..
Voices of people yelling in the distance distracted him. He got up to peek through the hole of the door and felt the heavy weight of a chain shackled to his ankle restraining him.
“Be careful! You’re stepping on me,” said the voice of a young girl. Her high pitched voice made her sound his age.
“Where are we?” Nick said.
“We are where we should be,” she said.
“I don’t want to be in jail. I’ve done nothing.”
“That’s why we’re here. Because we’ve done nothing. If we had done something, we’d be much different persons.”
Nick felt like saying that this was a silly argument but did not have the heart.
“Who put a chain around my ankle? Is your ankle?” he said. She too was chained, and Nick took care not to step on the girl as he peeped through the skewed planks of the door. He saw a group of domestics in black suits rushing across the lawn surrounded by dozens of boarded-up carriages.
“It looks like we’re in a circus. Mr. Crutchfield’s circus. What a horrible man.”
“Don’t speak this way of Mr. Crutchfield. He’s a lovely man. He wants the best for us. He’s taking care of us and doesn’t have to.”
The girl surely did not sound like a prisoner.
“I don’t want to work in a circus and also have no interest in being a domestic or a clown.”
“I wouldn’t look too long at the door, because Terence loves to poke blades of straw in the holes. It’s very inconvenient to have a piece of straw sticking out of your eye. And it hurts.”
Nick unglued his eye and sat back down next to the girl.
“Who is Terence?”
“Terence’s my brother. Before coming here, he was just like me, a lazy and noisy child. Since Mr. Crutchfield took him under his care and turned him into a perfect domestic, he is very serious. I’m proud of him.”
“That’s not a good thing,” said Nick.
“Of course it is. I can’t wait to become a domestic too.”
“We have to run away from here,” said Nick bluntly disagreeing.
“I’m not leaving the domestication circus ever!” she said raising her voice with a tinge of hurt. No matter what Nick said to the girl, whose name was Jessie, she contradicted him. In fact he regretted having told her about his desire to run away. She was delighted to be chained and happy about being trained to become a domestic. Unless Mr. Crutchfield had hypnotized her, she did not appear to be aware of just being a character in a new novel. So he grew quiet and never shared with her about his own troubling troubles. She would never understand if he told her that he was about to be set free, that he was on his way to find the creator who had written his series of books, so that he could be cured once and for all from his acute case of realitytitis profoundis, the nagging illness that kept him stuck in a fictional world of books and forced him to deal with situations and people like her, with whom he had little interest in dealing. Unlike Jessie and everyone else, he knew he was not just the product of some clever and twisted writer’s mind. He felt sorry for her, that she could not see what he could see and could not understand what was so obvious to him. No wonder she was in awe of Mr. Crutchfield and his pretending kindness.
“I can’t wait for you to meet Terence. You’re going to like his domesticated ways,” Jessie said pulling on her chain. Nick remained silent. Someone who poked people’s eyes did not sound very likeable. Other concerns occupied his mind. Why was he there? What was Mr. Crutchfield going to do with him? Why would the new story he had been assigned to place him in such a situation? What was he supposed to discover and learn? He could not find a single answer. Jessie seemed to dislike his silence. She tugged his shirt.
“I can’t wait for the day you and I wake up dressed like a domestic.”
“I have no intention of becoming one of them,” Nick blurted out in frustration.
“Don’t worry, it’ll happen and you won’t even notice it. It happens during your sleep.”
“If that’s the case, I’ll never go to sleep.”
Jessie laughed. “You’re funny,” she said, shifting her chain. “You remind me of Terence when we got here. He was so touchy, so upset with everything, but within days, he was docile like a lamb. Which was a relief, because I was getting tired of fighting with him all the time. You should learn from him. He’s a great model for all of us. So don’t make me fight with you!”
“How did Mr. Crutchfield capture you?” Nick said to change the subject.
Even though they could barely see each other, Nick sensed her hesitation. “Where are your parents?” he asked softening his voice. “They must be looking for you and your brother?” He heard her take a long deep breath and sniffle. “I’m sure they’re coming to rescue you.”
“Terence and I are orphans, she said. “Our parents died in a car crash when we were ten.”
Nick frowned in disbelief. What? Was she making fun of him? That was his past not hers. How could they have the same past? With a voice shaking with dread, he asked her about her parents’ professions.
“My mother was a chef in a restaurant.”
“Just like my father!” Nick hurried to say with a short-lived relief as she added: “And my father worked as a librarian in our hometown library.”
He had trouble calming himself again. “Are you sure?”
“Terence and I disagree. He remembers dad being a chef and mom a librarian. Of course he would think that way, he’s a boy. What about your parents?”
Nick could not find words to answer her and mumbled something un-understandable. The coincidence was just too overwhelming. Learning that she had the same past as his re-awakened that nasty feeling that he was not real, and that his case of realitytitis profoundis deserved immediate attention.
“We grew up with our grand-parents,” Jessie said. “I miss them so much. My grandma loved to
take me shopping with her. She always bought me a candy or a treat. And all my grandpa ever did was read the newspaper and grunt. But he was very kind to us.” Lost in her recollection, she fell silent. Nick experienced a sense of envy. He could not even remember anything about his grandparents, either from his mother or father’s sides. Were they kind, funny, generous, mean? Of course the fact that he could not even remember their names led him once again to the same unbearable conclusion . . . that he was not real.
Perhaps I just forgot, he told himself as he got up to stretch. He twisted his chain around Jessie’s just as someone unbolted the door. The shadow of a domestic with a thick neck kicked the door open.
“Everyone up! Now! Time for domestication time!” roared the shadow cracking a whip.
“Morning Terence,” Jessie said cheerfully. “You sound like you’ve slept well. I had an awful night. The floor was hard and the straw pricked at my back.”
“Then keep on sleeping, little twerp!” said Terence cracking his own whip for no reason.
“Are you sure? Thank you, Terence, such a lovely manner you have.”
The darkness inside prevented Nick from seeing what Jessie looked like. But in the feeble light bouncing off the door, Terence appeared to have the face of a vicious wild cat with little piercing eyes. His mouth, which was encircled with bitter wrinkles, would not stop moving as if he were chewing a prey.