Between the lines

I gently touch my finger to the blank space beside Oliver. He reaches toward my hand and spreads his own, pressing it against the filmy barrier between us. I can feel the pressure of his touch, the temperature of his skin.

Before I can lose my nerve, I close the book.

I take a deep breath. Then another one. I spell M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I. Then I riffle through the book until I am on page 43 again.

There’s the cliff, and the sea in the distance. There’s the gravel that was beneath Oliver’s feet. But Oliver is missing.

It feels like a punch. Tears fill my eyes, and I wonder how I could be upset over losing something I never had.

Just then, Oliver pokes his head out from behind a boulder. “It was only a jest,” he says, laughing.

“Not funny.” I start to slam the book shut.

“Wait! Wait, I’m sorry. Truly!”

I let the pages fall open again. “You owe me,” I mutter.

“I promise to make it up to you,” Oliver vows. “The very minute I get out of this book.”

“I really do have to leave, though,” I tell him. “If I don’t go to Algebra, I’m going to get into trouble.”

Oliver nods his head. “Of course,” he says, and then hesitates. “Is Algebra quite a distance away?”

I stifle a grin. “Light-years,” I say. “I’ll come back later.”

“And help me get out of here?”

“I don’t know-”

“Promise?” Oliver asks.

I can’t remember anyone else who’s ever been desperate for me to return. Most of the kids in school are desperate for me to leave, and the ones who aren’t are totally indifferent. There’s Jules, of course, but she doesn’t need me. Not the way Oliver does, anyway.

“Yes,” I say. “I promise.”

* * *

I suffer through Math and English and an embarrassing moment in Social Studies when Mr. Uwenga calls on me, asking for the name of the secretary of state, and I say “Oliver.” Then, finally, it’s my free period. Jules and I always meet at the same table in the cafeteria. It’s the one where the geeks congregate. Jules could probably announce she was the love child of President Obama and a cat and they wouldn’t look up from their Calculus textbooks.

She slides into a seat beside me with her hot lunch tray, sighing. “Four hours, thirty-six minutes, and twelve seconds till we’re out of purgatory for the weekend.”

“Maybe later,” I murmur, still distracted by the day’s previous events.

“So, let me show you how a conversation works. I say something, and then you say something back that actually relates to what I was talking about, as if you were even the least bit interested.”

“Huh?” I say, turning to her. I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I’m kind of out of it today.”

“What’s up?” She pops a grape into her mouth. “Did Uwenga spring another pop quiz on you guys? And if so, can you tell me what’s on it so I don’t fail?”

I desperately want to tell Jules the truth about what happened. I want her to see it for herself, because if she believes it too, then I’m not crazy. After all, if anyone’s going to hear me out and not judge me or call me a freak, it’s my best friend. So I turn to her. “Did you ever wonder what happens when you close a book?”

Jules stops chewing. “Um. It stays closed?”

“No. I mean, what about the characters inside?”

She tilts her head. “They’re just words.” She peers at me. “Is this an English major kind of thing?”

“No. They’re words, but they’re more than words. They come to life in your head, right? So how do you know that doesn’t keep going when you stop reading?”

“Like how little kids think their stuffed animals wake up and party when they fall asleep?”

“Yes-exactly!”

Jules laughs. “Once, I took my dad’s video camera and let it run all night long while I was sleeping because I thought I could catch my toys in the act. I was convinced my Tickle Me Elmo was a closet ax murderer.” She shrugs. “If he was, it never showed up on tape.”

“I’ve got something better than a tape,” I say. I look at the two geeks sitting across from us. They are completely enraptured by their matrices and graphing calculators; Jules and I might as well be on the moon as far as they’re concerned. So I take the book from my backpack and open it up to page 43. “I need to show you something,” I say. “Watch carefully.”

I crack the spine a little bit, so that the book lies open. “What is this?” Jules says, laughing a little. “Did you swipe it from the last kids you babysat for?”

“Just read it,” I say.

Jules raises her brows but starts to read out loud: “Oliver grasped a root sticking out of the rock wall and hoisted himself a little farther up the cliff. With his dagger clenched between his teeth, he swung one arm up, and then the other, climbing the sheer granite, driven by the force of his determination. Seraphima, he thought. I’m coming for you.”

“Fat chance,” I said.

“Did you say something?” Jules asks.

“Just keep watching,” I tell her.

We both stare at the illustration. Then Jules nudges my shoulder. “Delilah? What exactly am I looking for?”

Although the book has been open for thirty seconds, Oliver hasn’t budged, or spoken, or in any way indicated that he is more than just an illustration on the page.

“Say something,” I mutter.

Jules looks at me, baffled. “Um, it’s a nice paragraph?”

The fact that Oliver isn’t talking to us both makes me feel sick to my stomach. For all I know, I’ve only been kidding myself. If I tell her now that I’ve been chatting with a prince in a fairy tale who wants my help getting out of his story, Jules is going to march me to the nurse or call a guidance counselor. Jules, who understands everything about me, just wouldn’t understand this… and I can’t risk losing the only real friend I have.

“I’m still waiting. Is he going to jump out of the page and attack me with that knife?”

If you only knew, I think. I pretend Jules has made the funniest of jokes. “Now, that would be absolutely ridiculous. I just wanted to show you… the description. This writer’s something else, isn’t she? It’s like, when you read the words, it’s actually… happening!”

I laugh again, a big fake laugh, for good measure. Jules looks at me like I’ve grown three horns out of my forehead. “Have you been sniffing Sharpies again?” she asks.

I stuff the book into my backpack. “Totally forgot-I have to go take a makeup test with Madame Borgnoigne.” I silently curse Oliver for making me look like an even bigger fool than usual. “I’ll call you after school,” I say, and I run out of the cafeteria.

* * *

I’m not in the habit of sneaking into faculty restrooms. In fact, this is something I’ve never even thought of doing, but then again nothing I’ve done today is something I’ve ever thought of doing. The bottom line is I need to be alone with this book, and in a faculty restroom I can lock the door and not have to worry about any gossiping girls who might run to a teacher to snitch on the insane student who’s conversing with a fairy tale.

I crack open the book once again to page 43, lean into the story, and whisper, “Hello?”

When Oliver smiles, I catch my breath. “You came back. You said you would… and you did.”