It seems that way. As Oliver flips the pages, I see Pyro breathing fireballs and Frump trotting through the Enchanted Forest as fairies dance in circles around him. I see a tiny illustration of Oliver too, standing at the helm of Captain Crabbe’s ship as the wind ruffles his hair.
I wonder if that very small fictional prince is, at that moment, wishing for someone to notice him and get him out of his own story.
“It makes perfect sense that I couldn’t paint myselfout of this story—because a book isn’t a painting. But you’ve already noticed things that I’ve drawn or written before on the pages—like that chessboard, and the message on the cliff. Perhaps rewriting the story inmycopy will rewrite the story inyoursas well.”
“I guess it’s worth a try,” I say.
“What’s worth a try?”
My mother’s voice sinks through the blanket I’m hiding beneath. I emerge from under the covers. “Nothing!” I say.
“What’s under there?”
I blush. “Nothing, Mom. Seriously!”
“Delilah,” my mother says, her face settling grimly. “Are you doing drugs?”
“What?”I yelp. “No!”
She rips aside the covers and sees the fairy tale. “Why are you hiding this?”
“I’m not hiding it.”
“You were reading under the covers… even though there’s nobody in your room.”
I shrug. “I guess I just like my privacy.”
“Delilah.” My mother’s hands settle on her hips. “You’re fifteen. You’re way too old to be addicted to a fairy tale.”
I give her a weak smile. “Well… isn’t that better than drugs?”
She shakes her head sadly. “Come down for breakfast when you’re ready,” she murmurs.
“Delilah—” Oliver begins as soon as the door closes behind my mother.
“We’ll figure it all out later,” I promise. I shut the book and bury it inside my backpack, get dressed, and yank my hair into a ponytail. Downstairs, in the kitchen, my mother is cooking eggs. “I’m not really hungry,” I mutter.
“Then maybe you’d like this instead,” she says, and she passes me a plate that has no food on it—just a single young adult novel. “I haven’t read it, but the librarian says it’s all the rage with girls in your grade. Apparently, there’s a werewolf who falls in love with a mermaid. It’s supposed to be the newTwilight.”
I push it away. “Thanks, but I’m not interested.”
My mother sits down across from me. “Delilah, if I suddenly started eating baby food or watchingSesame Street,wouldn’t you think there was something wrong with me?”
“This isn’tGoodnight Moon,” I argue. “It’s… it’s…” But there’s nothing I can say without making things worse.
Her mouth flattens, and the light goes out of her eyes. “I know why you’re obsessed with a fairy tale, honey, even if you don’t want to admit it to yourself. But here’s the truth: no matter how much you might wish for it, princes don’t come around every day, and happy endings don’tgrow on trees. Take it from me: the sooner you grow up, the less you’ll be disappointed.”
Her words might as well be a slap in the face. She slides the eggs onto a plate and sets them in front of me before leaving the kitchen.
Sunny side up? Yeah, right.
No one ever asks a kid for her opinion, but it seems to me that growing up means you stop hoping for the best, and start expecting the worst. So how do you tell an adult that maybe everything wrong in the world stems from the fact that she’s stopped believing the impossible can happen?
***
I usually say I hate Biology, but it’s possible we just got off on the wrong foot. My teacher, Mrs. Brown, completely lives up to her name: she is addicted to self-tanner and Crest Whitestrips, and spends a lot of time talking about her favorite spots in the Caribbean instead of helping us prepare for the next day’s lab. I think it’s fair to say I’ll be teaching myself about cell division, but I’m totally set if I need to plan a vacation to the Bahamas.
I spent Sunday in my room, plotting Oliver’s escape with him. Sometimes we forgot the task at hand because we went off on a tangent. I told Oliver things I’ve never been brave enough to tell anyone else: how I worry about my mom; how I panic when someone asks me what I wantto be when I grow up; how I secretly wonder what it would be like, for an hour, to be popular. In return, Oliver confided his biggest fear: that he will pass through his lifetime—whatever that may be—without making a difference in the world. That he will be ordinary, instead of extraordinary.
