Between the lines

The one immediate challenge to that strategy is that in order to leave the house, I have to walk downstairs, right past her.

I’m not the most graceful person-okay, I’m a bona fide klutz-but again, desperate times call for desperate measures. If I think it’s unlikely that my mother will agree to a four-hour car ride, it’s even more unlikely that she’d let me go with the unlicensed Jules as my chauffeur. So I throw open the sash of my bedroom window, eyeing a tree with branches close enough for me to reach.

I used to have romantic fantasies about a guy throwing pebbles at the window, climbing up to my room, kissing me in the moonlight, stealing me away.

Wrong fairy tale, I think wryly. I’m the one who’s going to save the prince.

I grab the notepad on my desk and rip off a sheet of paper. I write:

Be back soon. Don’t worry.

I’m fine.

Really.

Love,

Delilah. xoxo

My mother is going to worry anyway-but at least when she finds me missing, Dr. Ducharme will be there. And maybe he can keep her calm long enough for me to explain why I had to do this. After all, if it works, Oliver will be here-alive and three-dimensional and very, very real-and he’ll confirm this whole crazy story.

I dig around in my underwear drawer for the small jewelry box I use to store my allowance and the money I have from babysitting: three hundred and twenty-two dollars. It’s not a fortune, but I tuck it into my backpack, then grab the book and stuff it inside too. I look around my room to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything and catch sight of myself in the mirror. I look like I’ve lost a fight. If I show up at Jessamyn Jacobs’s house like this, she will probably run away screaming. In my closet, I find a knit winter hat that covers my forehead perfectly. It’s a little warm for the season, but maybe I can pull it off as a new fashion trend.

I open the window and stretch a leg out. I swear the tree has moved. Like, three feet away.

Taking a deep breath, I jump from the windowsill, and to my great shock wind up hugging the trunk tightly. I shimmy down, thinking of Oliver, who has to climb a cliff wall every day.

With a thump I hit the ground and tiptoe down the block, to the cul-de-sac where Jules is parked and waiting, just like we’d arranged. She looks weird sitting behind the steering wheel of a car. When she sees me, she grins and lowers the power window. “You owe me big-time,” she says.

I never would have guessed it based on her personality, but Jules drives like an old lady. She putts along ten miles below the speed limit and puts on her turn signal miles before she actually veers off the exit. “So,” she says, when we have been driving for ten minutes on the highway, “when are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

“Wellfleet,” I say. “On Cape Cod.”

Jules nods, flexing her hands on the steering wheel. “Okay,” she says. “Why are we going?”

I take a deep breath. “What I’m about to tell you isn’t going to make a lot of sense,” I say. “But I need you to listen to the whole story and not judge me, okay?”

Wordlessly, Jules holds up her right hand for a pinkie swear.

I start, well, at the very beginning. I tell her how I got a shock the first time I touched the spine of the fairy tale, and how even though it was a kids’ book, I couldn’t manage to put it down. I tell her about Oliver, the prince who grew up without a dad, like me. I explain how, one day, the illustrations changed before my eyes, and how without even trying, I could hear Oliver speaking to me-words that weren’t written for him but that came from the heart.

I tell her about the spider and how the book caught fire and how I wound up getting sucked into it and then ejected.

I tell her that I might just be in love with Oliver.

When I’m done, Jules keeps staring straight at the road, completely silent.

“So?” I say.

Jules doesn’t respond.

“You think I’m crazy.”

Jules shrugs. “No.”

“That’s it?” I ask, incredulous. “You believe me?”

“Well,” she responds, “I believe you believe it. And I’m your best friend. So that’s good enough.”

For the next few hours, everything seems almost normal. My best friend is my friend again; I don’t have to pretend that this book means nothing to me. It’s like old times. Jules and I play I Spy and eat a whole bag of Cheetos that she’s brought along from home. Finally, the GPS tells us we have arrived at our destination. Jules pulls over on the side of the main street of Wellfleet, Massachusetts, hitting the curb with her tires.

“You just failed your driver’s test,” I joke.

“But think of how many hours of practice driving I’ve got under my belt now,” Jules says. She looks into the rearview mirror. “So where are we going?”

Well. I haven’t quite figured that part out yet. I don’t have a street address for Jessamyn Jacobs, just the town in which she lives. But this much I know-I have to go by myself. Jules has already done enough for me; I’m not going to drag her into this mess. “Not we,” I say. “Me.”

“I’m not leaving you down here by yourself.”

I shake my head. “Jules, your parents are already going to kill you for stealing your father’s car.”

She laughs. “That’s my master plan. I’d rather be in reform school over the summer than with Aunt Agnes.”

She unhooks her seat belt and gets out of the car as I grab my backpack. “Are you okay driving home by yourself?” I ask. “It’ll be dark soon.”

“Piece of cake,” Jules says.

I give her a tight hug. “Thank you,” I whisper, and I watch her get into the car and put on her signal in preparation for pulling out of the parking spot.

Before she does, though, she unrolls her window. “I hope you find him,” Jules says with a smile. “Your prince.”

* * *

There’s a tiny coffee shop in the center of town. A bell rings when I walk through the door, and a waitress looks up at me. “Is there a restroom I could use?” I ask.

“Sure.” She points down the hall, and I lock myself into the small room and pull the book out of my backpack. I suppose I could have talked to Oliver in the car, but it was nice to spend some time with just Jules. I’ve missed that.

As soon as I open to page 43, Oliver starts yelling. “Where have you been? You left me hanging in the middle of a very important conversation. This Jessamyn Jacobs woman-”

“Lives here,” I interrupt.

I see Oliver peeking over my shoulder, taking in the scenery behind me. “Where are you?”

“Well, in a bathroom. She doesn’t live here. But I’m in her town, and I’m going to figure out how to get to her house. If anyone knows how to get you out of the story, it’s going to be the woman who wrote it.”

Oliver scowls. “You can’t very well walk up to her and say, ‘I’ve fallen head over heels for one of your characters.’”

I smile. “Oh yes, that Socks is a sexy beast.”