“You don’t have to do this,” Delilah says softly. “You’re perfect just the way you are.”
“Well, not everyone feels that way.”
Oliver reaches toward the book and stops when he realizes he can’t offer a reassuring pat anymore. “Frump, there’s more than one girl in the universe, you know.”
Frump just stares at him. “Really, Ollie? Is there?”
Oliver reaches for Delilah’s hand. “No,” he admits. “There isn’t.”
“Then put that stuff into my dog bowl,” Frump says, his voice growing stronger.
Orville ladles the potion into a dish and places it on the floor for Frump. He approaches it carefully as the liquid glows. He looks up at me. “If it doesn’t work . . . you’ll tell her? You’ll let Seraphima know that I tried?”
I nod. The blue mist surrounds Frump’s face. He closes his eyes, leaning in, and then stops. “Oliver?” he asks, his voice very small. “What do you do when you’re scared?”
Oliver meets his gaze. “I remember that my best friend is always by my side. And suddenly it’s not so terrifying.”
Frump lowers his head and laps at the potion.
The floor beneath me begins to rattle, and the walls feel like they’re closing in, although the book is wide open. There’s a deafening roar that grows so loud it drowns out the sound of Delilah and Oliver screaming our names. The laboratory stretches and twists, as if it’s being turned inside out, and the book slams shut with a definitive clap. Then, finally, there’s ablinding flash of white light, and every glass item in Orville’s lab shatters.
It takes a minute for my vision to clear. I look up at the top edge of the page, but Delilah and Oliver are gone. Orville lies on his back, the lenses of his glasses cracked. He sits up, holding his hand to his head. Socks, against all odds and laws of gravity, has curled himself into a fetal position in the sink.
I turn to where Frump should be, but he’s missing.
Holy crap. Did this actuallywork?
“Where is he?” Orville asks, looking around.
“Socks, get out of the damn sink before you break it. I need you to gallop through the pages and see if you can find—” But before I can finish, Orville’s lab coat, which has been tossed aside during the explosion, begins to wiggle.
I crawl toward it and tug the fabric free.
The dog that was in Delilah’s bedroom is happily wagging his tail in front of me. His tongue snakes out, awkwardly rounding to form a word. “Hi, I’m Humphrey,” he says. “Are you my new best friend?”
OLIVER
The book literally leaps out of my hands, tumbling into the sea of ink on the floor of Delilah’s bedroom. I reach down, fishing through a mass of black letters that slip through my fingers like eels, trying to locate the fairy tale.
“Um, Oliver,” Delilah whispers. “We have a little situation here.”
I glance up, ripping off aUthat has leeched itself onto my sleeve, to find Delilah staring down at the dog on her bed.
The dog that isn’t Humphrey.
If you aren’t looking too closely, you might not notice. But this dog is slightly larger and older, and his spots have been rearranged. His collar has a royal seal.
“Frump?” I gasp.
He opens his mouth to speak, but a small yelp comes out instead. His eyes widen in terror.
“Easy, boy,” I coach. “Just take it slow and try again.”
This time, he barks outright.
“Okay,” Delilah says, drawing in her breath. “I’m seriously freaking out, here. How did he get out of the book? And what happened to Humphrey?”
Frump scratches at his throat and then leaps off the bed into the clutter of language on the floor, letters splashing up randomly as he disappears beneath the surface. He bobs up, dog-paddling toward Delilah’s desk, and hops onto her chair. Then he bites a pencil and, gripping it between his teeth, begins to slowly scrawl letters across a scrap of paper.
