Edgar nods. “Well, sure. Otherwise I couldn’t score as high as I do.”
“No…. I mean, do you ever wish you wereinsidethe game?”
At first I am afraid to look him in the eye, but when I do, I find Edgar staring at me intently. “Sometimes,” he admits quietly, “it’s like I can hear the commanders talking to me, telling me what to do next.”
I put my hand on his arm. “Edgar, can I show you something?”
I run to the room next door and crawl onto the guest bed. The book is still open to page 43, and Oliver is lying on his back, snoring. “Oliver,” I whisper, leaning close to the binding, and then I shout,“Get up!”
He startles, smacking his head on a low branch jutting out of the cliff. Rubbing it, he winces and looks up at me. “Just for clarification, when you say you’ll be right back, then you mean sometime in the next millennium?”
“I got distracted. But Oliver, listen, there’s someone I want you to meet.” I grab the book and carry it toward Edgar’s bedroom.
“What? Do you really think this is a good idea? No one ever sees me, and it just makes you look even more insane.”
“Thanks,” I say sarcastically. I turn the corner and enter Edgar’s room again. “I have a gut feeling about this.”
“About what?” Edgar asks.
I set the book on the desk. “I wasn’t talking to you,” I explain. “I was talking to him.” I point to Oliver, who smiles.
Edgar glances at the book, and then up at me. “Seriously? You think my mom’s fairy tale is talking to you?”
“Just wait a second,” I urge. “No one ever hears him talk—but that’s because no one ever listens hard enough. But based on what you told me about your video game, I think you might be different. Please? Can’t you try?”
“He’s not very attractive,” Oliver says, miffed.
“Oliver, he looks identical to you,” I murmur.
Edgar folds his arms. “Look, pretty boy, my mother drewyoubased off ofme—”
I gasp. “You heard him? You heard Oliver speak?”
Edgar’s eyes widen, and he steps away from the book as if he doesn’t want to get too close to it. He hits the side of his head with the flat of his hand, as if he’s gotten water in his ear and is trying to shake it out. “No no no nono,” he says, under his breath. “That didn’t just happen.”
“Itdid,” I say, grasping his arm. “I know it seems crazy and impossible, but you have to believe me—it’s real.He’sreal. And I promised I’d help him get out of this book.”
This is huge. If I’m not the only person who can hear Oliver, then there’s somebody else in this world who can help me save him. And yet, I feel the tiniest twinge in my chest, thinking that if I’m not the only person who hears Oliver, it makes the connection between us a little less special.
“What isthat?” Oliver’s eyes gleam. I follow his gaze off the edge of the page to the computer screen, which has rebooted and shows a massive army of aliens attacking Earth.
“Battle Zorg 2000,” I reply. “It’s a computer game.”
“How did all those little people get inside the box?”
I’m not about to give Oliver a tutorial on electronics. “I’ll explain it later. All you need to know is that that little box is the machine Jessamyn Jacobs used when she wroteBetween the Lines.The original story is still in there.”
“So what?” Edgar and Oliver speak simultaneously—and then look at each other.
“Oliver,youcouldn’t change the ending of the book. And Jessamyn Jacobs may not bewillingto change the ending of the book.” I wait for him to meet my gaze. “But I’m going to try.”
