The Stolen Chapters (18 page)

“Oh, that Riley guy isn't real,” Fictional Owen said. “That's what Doyle said, at least. He looked for him for days and found nothing. Said it's a fake name to hide the real person. Probably some nobody.”

This finally pulled Owen out of his fog. “So you do know Doyle?” he asked his fictional self. “Did he say anything about us? About Bethany?”

“Well,
yeah
,” Fictional Owen said. “That's why he came to me. I guess she showed up a few weeks ago hiring him to find her father. Doyle realized he recognized her from the book, which of course he didn't think was real. He just figured someone wrote about her, or she was a big fan and was pretending to be the book's Bethany. But when he started investigating, and it turned out the author didn't exist but that an Owen Conners did, he came to me.” He grinned. “It's a whole story, actually.”

“Let's hear it!” Moira shouted.

“I'm not sure we have the time to waste,” Kiel pointed out.

“This is important,” Owen said to the magician. “Owen . . . can I call you Fictional Owen?”

Owen paused, tilting his head as if considering it. “Um, no?”

“Fowen,”
Moira declared. “There you go.”

Fowen gave her an annoyed look, but she just jumped onto the bed and bounced excitedly, waiting for him to start his story.

“Doyle has Bethany somewhere,” Owen told Fowen. “We need to find her in the next . . . twenty-three minutes, or we're going to be stuck in your world forever. We could really use your help. Honestly, we have no idea where to find either Doyle
or
Bethany. If you know anything about where he might have put her—”

“That's not much time,” Fowen said, glancing at his watch. “And I really don't want to get in trouble if my mom catches me.” He paused, trying not to smile, then laughed loudly. “Ha, don't worry. I'm
kidding
, I've waited my whole life for this. Let's go!”

“Go?” Owen said. “We don't need to go anywhere. You just need to tell us everything you know about Doyle.”

Fowen frowned. “Don't you think that getting out of here would be smarter? Aren't they after you?”

Before Owen could respond, sirens began blaring from down the street. How did Doyle know everything they were doing?!

“Oooh, this Doyle guy is
good
,” Moira said, glancing out the blinds. “How does he always know where we are?”

“That's his whole thing,” Fowen said, pulling on pants over his pajamas and then throwing on a sweatshirt. “He's the greatest detective that ever lived. He can see what you're going to do before you do it. Knows everything about you, from what you ate for breakfast to which movies make you cry.”

“Wait till you see the movie of
Kiel Gnomenfoot, Magic Thief
, ” Kiel said. “There will
definitely
be tears. That's what Jonathan Porterhouse told me, at least. He said he was crying the whole time he was signing the contracts.”

Fowen gave Kiel a weird look, then leaned in close to Owen. “I get that you like him for some reason, but you should
really
read your book. He's kind of annoying, and totally steals all the credit for everything you did. You should have been on the cover, Owen.” He slowly grinned, his eyes widening. “Hey, I bet we're
both
on the cover of this next one!”

“There
isn't
a next one!” Owen shouted, running to the window to peek past the curtains at the cop cars outside. “We're not in a book,
that
book isn't real, and none of this is happening!”

Two squad cars parked in front of Owen's house, while another two sped down the street, then hit the brakes two houses away to both skid perfectly into place right next to the first two. Of course they did.

“We need to go out the back,” Owen whispered.

“Way ahead of you,” Fowen said, handing him a rope that led out his bedroom window. “I've been preparing for this day ever since Doyle told me you guys were real!”

The Amazing (But True!) Adventures of Owen Conners, the Unknown Chosen One

O
wen wanted to scream at the horror before him. But the sound wouldn't come and the nightmare only continued, forcing Owen to ask himself, deep down, one question:

“Can anyone tell me what year the Declaration of Independence was signed?”

Mr. Barberry stood at the board at the front of Owen's classroom, his arms folded, waiting for a hand to raise.

No, not
that
question. The real question was this: Was there anything in the world that could possibly be more boring than history? Owen frowned as Mr. Barberry gave up on volunteers and just picked someone. “Huck? What year?”

Waiting in a two-week-long line for the chance to wait in another line? That'd be pretty boring. But not
history
boring
—

Something hit Owen on the shoulder, and he glanced down to find a folded-up note on the floor next to him.

“1776,” Huck said, then covered a huge yawn.

“That one was easy,” Mr. Barberry said. “Who can tell me
where
it was signed?”

Owen slowly reached down and picked up the note between two fingers, than carefully brought it up to his lap, making sure Mr. Barberry didn't see him.

“Emma?” the teacher said, turning away, so Owen unfolded the note.

Have lunch with me? I have so many questions! —B

Well.
That
was new.

Class went on for another thirteen or fourteen hours before the bell rang, finally releasing them to lunch. Owen stood up slowly to hide his excitement, then walked to the cafeteria with his most confident strut. There, he quickly grabbed some food and sat down at a table, waiting.

Less than a minute later, a girl with long bronze hair sat down across from him.

“So?” Brianne said, smiling at him for probably the first time ever. “Do you
know
him? Are you two friends?”

For some reason, her smile made Owen's mouth dry up, and he had to swallow a few times. “Do I—” he croaked, then took a quick drink of water. “Do I know him? Him
who
him? I mean, who him?”

Brianne's smile faded momentarily, only to reappear as she slammed a book down on the table. “The author of
Story Thieves 
!”

Hmm.
That's
something he'd never been asked before. In his daydreams, when girls admitted they'd always had a secret crush on him, the conversation went very differently.

Still, he could work with this. “Huh?” Owen said, trying to sound smart.

This time the smile disappeared completely as Brianne gave him a suspicious look.
“Story Thieves,”
she said, pointing at the cover. “You've never heard of it? The book's all about
you 
!”

Owen glanced at the cover showing a redheaded girl and a black-haired boy in some kind of costume jumping into a book. “Um, which one am I supposed to be?” he asked, really hoping it was the black-haired boy.

Brianne narrowed her eyes. “I don't get this. I thought you knew the author or something. I wanted to know what's going to happen in the second book.”

Owen fought hard against his instincts to keep asking questions or just look confused, so instead he nodded. “Right,” he said. “Of course. The second book.” He paused. “Is . . .
this
the second book?”

Brianne growled, and opened the book to the first chapter. “How have you not heard about this? It's about a boy named Owen Conners whose mother works at a library, and—”

“Um,
I'm
Owen Conners,” Owen said. “And
my
mother—”

“I
know
, I'm the one telling you about this,” Brianne said, looking much more irritated now. “There's this half-fictional girl named Bethany, and Owen catches her popping out of a book in the library—”

“A half-what now?”

“That part's all made-up, obviously,” Brianne said. “There's never been a girl named Bethany in our class, but Mr. Barberry's in here too! I thought you had to have known about this.” She paused. “Shouldn't they have gotten your permission? You know, to use your name like this?”

Owen picked up the book and read the back. Apparently the half-fictional girl took him into some book, and then things got clearly
awesome
. “How . . . how is this real?” he asked, though inside he knew the answer. This was
The Sign
. The Sign that said Owen Conners was never meant to live such a boring life, that all along he'd just been waiting for Fate to come along and Choose Him. There was no way someone boring and ordinary would ever have a book series about him. This was it!

“I'm a
hero
,” Owen whispered, staring at the book in awe.

“Uh, not really,” Brianne said. “It's just a book.”

“But I'm the hero of the book!”

“More like the sidekick, honestly,” she said, making a face. “Bethany's the real hero. Her and Kiel. You just mess things up. Listen, Mari's father is a lawyer, maybe you should talk to her about suing this author? He's probably got tons of money. I hear authors are all rich.”

Suing? Because the author had made Owen the not-actually-the-sidekick hero in a book? The
last
thing he'd ever do was sue! “
Story Thieves
,” he said, running a hand over the cover. Why wasn't the Owen character on the cover, anyway? Was that Owen too busy being amazing and doing all kinds of cool things? “Can I borrow this?”

Brianne smiled, and he smiled back. “Nope,” she said. “But let me know if you track the author down. I want to know who Bethany's father is. I think the whole thing with Nobody is too obvious, and it's kind of annoying that she didn't find him in the first book. Way to leave things on a cliffhanger, right?”

“Totally,” Owen breathed as Brianne grabbed the book and walked away.

He had to get a copy, of course.

He had to get a copy
now
.

The school library didn't have one, and a quick phone call to his mother from the payphone outside the school's office told him that neither did her library. That explained why he hadn't seen it. He asked his mother to order a copy, and she said she'd look it up, but why was it so urgent?

“Because I've been waiting for this my entire life,”
he told her.

“Owen,” she said, sighing. “What did I say about you being the chosen one, destined to save the world?”

He rolled his eyes. “That the real world is exciting enough, and that I can find plenty of fun things here.”

“Without . . .”

“Without being the long-lost son of a king or a secret wizard.”

“Or . . .”

“Mom, I have to go!”

“Or . . . ?”

“Or an orphan who grows up to fight crime.”

“That one was always a bit insulting, honestly,” his mom said. “I'll look into this book. Get back to class.”

Owen put down the phone with a sigh. She could say those things all she wanted (or, well, make
him
say them), but it didn't matter. He knew the truth, and right now the truth was that some author had made Owen Conners the hero of a book called
Story Thieves
, and that meant . . .

Well, that meant
something
amazing. Now all he had to do was find out what!

“Bethany,” he whispered out into the school hall. “If you're actually out there, and if you're really real,
come get me
, okay? That's all I ask. Come get me and bring me into your world. Deal?”

No one answered, so Owen quietly whispered in a girl's voice, “Deal. I can't wait to meet you, Owen!”

“You too, Bethany,” he whispered back with a smile.
“You too.”

Later that night Owen sat at the checkout counter of the library, trying to research this James Riley author. There was weirdly very little on the Internet about him, and even his author photo was apparently just an actor or something. That was odd . . . why bother? Who even
looked
at author photos?

“I'm going to start closing up,” Owen's mother said, tapping him on the shoulder. “Start putting those books away.” She pointed at an enormous pile next to Owen, which he'd been ignoring all night.

He started to object, but he saw her face and sighed, then nodded. She smiled at him, and headed into her office, while Owen carefully picked up the pile of books and walked it toward the children's section.

Carefully balancing the pile, Owen had walked it slowly to the back of the library, trying to make sure he didn't trip over anything. The pile was so large, though, it wasn't easy to see around.

“Owen Conners?” said a deep voice from just inches in front of him, and Owen shrieked, dropping every single book.

“You scared me—” Owen started to say, then lost his train of thought when he saw who he'd almost walked into. There, standing in front of him, was a boy in an overcoat, wearing a hunter's hat and a mask with a question mark on it.

“WHOA!” Owen shouted. “You're—”

“Doyle Holmes,” the boy said, extending his hand. “World's greatest detective. And you're clearly Owen.”

Owen's mouth dropped. The incredibly famous detective
Doyle Holmes
knew
his
name! “I . . . I am!” he said, much too loudly, and took Doyle's hand.

“Everything all right in there?” Owen's mom yelled from her office.

“Tell her it's fine,” Doyle said softly, taking a step backward. “What I have to say is for your ears only.”