The Stolen Chapters (10 page)

Kiel Gnomenfoot would never be caught dead in a police station. Not
Kiel Gnomenfoot, Magic Thief
.

The door flew open, and Kiel Gnomenfoot, magic thief, stumbled inside, looking shaken and weirdly twitchy. A police officer smirked at Owen, then closed the door behind Kiel and locked it.

“Kiel?!” Owen shouted, standing up just in time to have the boy magician slump into his arms. “What are you doing here? Did you get caught?”

Kiel gave him a dazed look. “I think? I came to rescue you. But then there was this
odd
girl, and things went downhill from there.”

For some reason Owen suddenly wanted to hit the boy magician, and he briefly considered dropping Kiel to the floor. “You're supposed to be finding Bethany, not rescuing me! Get out of here and go find her!”

“Find her where?” Kiel said, using Owen's shoulders to steady himself. “I had no idea where to even look, Owen. I need your help. You're from around here. Where do we start?”

“We don't start
anywhere
, not now!” Owen said, shouting again. “We're both locked up in the police station, meaning neither of us is saving Bethany!”

“I thought you said this was the right thing to do,” Kiel said, giving Owen a half-annoyed, half-still-dazed look. “Isn't this what you wanted?”

“No.
Yes
. I thought so, but they won't listen to me. They keep saying she doesn't exist.” Owen dropped into his seat in frustration. “They think
we
did it. I have no idea what else to say. How could Bethany not be in their records? I don't get it!”

“Forget about the police,” Kiel said, sitting down thankfully in the seat across from Owen. “Focus on the
enemy
. If we find Doyle, we find Bethany. Have you figured out his clues?”

“Clues?” Owen said. “You mean how he said he did this by the book? All that means is he did things the official way, according to the rules. What does that even mean? There aren't any rules for kidnapping someone and setting fire to a library. And if there are, then I feel like that's really messed up!”

“He also said we'd understand if we knew where we were,” Kiel pointed out.

Owen's eyes widened. “I think I've made it pretty clear! We're in the police station, and we're not getting out!”

“Calm down,” Kiel said, forcing a shaky grin. “You're with
Kiel Gnomenfoot
, remember? I've got this. I'll get us out of here in no time.” He winced. “Assuming I don't have another stupid memory come back.”

Owen's eyes widened. “You got those too? I've had two memories, one of you getting your spell book back—”

“And the other of us using the finder spell,” Kiel finished, giving him a confused look. “Hmm. I must have modified the forget spell I used on us somehow so our memories would return.” He grinned for real this time. “I'm amazing!”

“There has to be a reason Doyle made us forget everything,” Owen said. “There has to be something important that we've forgotten. Like how he got out of his book, or where Bethany is. Or how he knows who we are in the first place.”

“Well, I'm not just sitting here until I remember,” Kiel said. “And neither are you. We're going to escape, and then you and I are going to find Bethany, memories or no.”

Owen just shook his head. “Don't you get it? If I leave now, I'll be a fugitive. They won't stop until they find me, and then I'll go to a juvenile detention center or something. For the rest of my
life
, Kiel. I can't leave. You'll have to go.”

Kiel frowned. “Bethany's life is in danger, remember? Nothing else matters.”

“But
you're
going to save her. That's what you do!”

Kiel shrugged. “Of course I do. And now you will too. You saved Charm, and you basically defeated Dr. Verity—”

“No,
you
did that. I messed everything up.” Owen shook his head. “It's okay, you don't need to pep-talk me. I know I'm sort of the sidekick here. You have magic, and Bethany has her half-fictional powers, and all I have is that I've read a lot of books. Not exactly a superpower, you know?”

Kiel gave him a long look, then shook his head. “You're coming. And you're going to be a hero, just like I am. And then I'm going to wink, and it's going to be amazing.” And he winked, and Owen couldn't help but smile.

“Kiel, this is something you don't come back from,” he said.

Kiel nodded, ignoring Owen as he stood up and moved closer to the door, pulling out a small wire from his cloak. Kiel inserted the wire into the door, and a moment later, something clicked. Kiel grinned at Owen, then quietly opened the door.

“The hall's clear,” Kiel whispered. “As soon as I say go, follow me as quickly as you can, okay?”

“Kiel, I
can't
—”

“One,” Kiel said, watching the hallway. “Two—”

The door flew open, and Inspector Brown and two police officers stood in it. “Three,” Inspector Brown said. “Grab Mr. Gnomenfoot for me, will you boys? It's his turn for questioning.”

Kiel tried to duck under their arms, but there was nowhere to go, and a second later they had Kiel's hands cuffed behind his back.

“Bring him to interrogation,” Inspector Brown said, gesturing out into the hall with his thumb. “I'll be there in a second.”

The two police officers nodded and carried out a still-struggling Kiel Gnomenfoot. “Don't worry, Owen!” Kiel shouted as he left. “I'll be back to rescue you.”

Inspector Brown shook his head. “That kid's going to be very disappointed. If there's one thing I've learned in my time with Doyle Holmes, it's that no one escapes him.”

Owen's eyes widened as Inspector Brown left, locking the door behind him. Inspector Brown knew Doyle Holmes? How was that possible? How could the nonfictional police know a fictional character, act like they'd known him for years?

And maybe just as important, was Inspector Brown right? Was Doyle that good, like he was everywhere at once?

Holmes . . . everywhere . . .

And just like that, another crystal-clear memory hit Owen, right across the face. Ugh. This was getting a bit ridicul—

Yesterday . . .

O
wen sat at the checkout counter, staring blankly at his math homework. His pencil slowly doodled on his homework, sketching a smiling half-robotic girl.

Sometimes he just felt so useless. It'd been a month since he'd seen Bethany, and Kiel seemed to be getting more and more antsy, being trapped in the nonfictional world and going to school. But what could Owen do? Bethany wouldn't take his calls, and it's not like he really knew what to say anyway. Sorry you didn't find your dad, and that magic thinks he's trapped in every single book in the library?

This was the problem. Owen was just the sidekick, maybe not even that. At least Robin knew how to fight, and he had his own comic sometimes. Owen's comic would be all about Kiel and Bethany rescuing him because he bumbled into some new trap every issue. And it'd be canceled after, like, the third one. Maybe the second.

He sighed, sketching some hair on the half-robot girl. If only there was something he could say to Bethany to cheer her up, make her realize that they were still on her side. Even if they never jumped into another book, Bethany was still his friend, and he wanted to be there for her. To help her.

But how?

Someone placed a pile of books on the counter in front of him, and Owen looked up from his doodling to see a boy a few years younger than him looking annoyed. Owen smiled politely. “Do you have your library card?” he asked.

“Why are there so many Sherlock Holmes books now?” the boy said, glaring at Owen. “He's everywhere. I don't get it.”

Owen shrugged. “I think he's just popular. Things go in waves sometimes.”

“But look at this,” the boy said, sliding a book over to Owen. “Since when is he even in the Bad Time Orphan Bunch series?”

Owen raised an eyebrow and took the book. The Bad Time Orphan Bunch:
Life Becomes Unbearable
. Fun series, but Owen hadn't read it in a while.

“There's no Sherlock Holmes in this,” he said, holding the book out to the boy.

“Open it!” the kid said, pushing it back.

Owen sighed and turned to the first page.

Chapter 1

I hope you're sitting down. I hope you've had your fill of fairy tales and nursery rhymes and stories where good conquers evil, or good sits down with evil over tea and talks out evil's problems, because this is not that. This is an altogether different thing than that. Good does not win. Good doesn't even show up on time for the fight.

Good, my beloved readers, decided to stay home and take a nap instead.

So get a blanket. You're going to need it to hide under. Get a teddy bear or your mother or whatever it takes to keep you reading well past when the fear reaches up your spine and into your brain, teasing out the terror. This is that kind of story. The kind of story I'm shaking just
considering
telling you.

This is the story of fourteen children, each one an orphan, though somehow they formed a family. A bunch, if you will. Like bananas, or a random amount of things. That's what these orphans were. A random amount of things.

Let me introduce them to you. Here we are, their home, the ramshacklest of ramshackle houses, officially called the Sunshine Home for Happy Kids, but known to our orphans as the House of Moldy Porridge.

You don't want to know why. But I'm going to tell you.

Here, I'll open the door for you. Walk on inside, and . . . eh?

“I've got this.”

This is odd. There's a boy in a mask, a mask adorned with a question mark. And he seems to be wearing an odd sort of hat and coat. He's not one of the orphans though. Who might this—

“Doyle Holmes,” the boy says, not sticking out his hand. “Great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Sherlock Holmes. I solved the mystery of these orphans, missing parents. They've all been returned home, and the missing diamonds were recovered.”

But . . . you weren't even supposed to learn of the diamonds for several books yet. This isn't how this tale is supposed to go!

“Don't worry, I know the part you played in this too,” this Doyle boy says. “The police are on their way. Don't bother running, I can track you anywhere.”

The police? What? Sirens blare in the air behind me, and I turn to find several cars pulling up at once.

Is this truly the end, before any of it began?

Um. This was
not
how the book was supposed to go. Owen turned the page, and his eyes widened.

The next page was blank.

So were the next two hundred and fifty pages.

“It's not the only one like that,” the boy said in disgust. “This masked Sherlock Holmes grandson guy shows up in a ton of books. Not fantasy or science fiction, just the regular kind of books. Jason Scout:
International Spy of Pancakes
,
Robin of Sherwood Lakes Subdivision
, and a bunch more.” He sighed. “Is this some kind of stupid crossover? 'Cause I never liked his first book anyway.”

“What first book?” Owen asked, barely able to breathe.

“
The Baker Street
something or other,” the boy said. “Anyway, this is all lame. I don't even want them. But you should complain to the companies that make these.”

“The writers?” Owen asked absently, not even looking up.

“Whatever,” the boy said. “Tell them crossovers are terrible, and no one wants them. I just want the Orphan Bunch.”

And with that, he left, still mumbling to himself.

Owen was out of his chair instantly, practically running to the children's section. He scanned the shelves for a moment, then yanked out the book he was looking for.

The Baker Street School for Irregular Children.

He flipped it over and quickly read the back.

The great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Sherlock Holmes has inherited the family school, named after Sherlock's Irregulars, the group of children who used to help the great detective solve his mysteries. But Doyle Holmes wants to do more than just help troubled children learn from their mistakes. He's ready to solve the biggest mysteries, capture the most dangerous crooks, and share his adventures with his trusty computer, W.A.T.S.O.N.!

The cover confirmed it. There was Doyle Holmes, a boy in a Sherlock Holmes coat and hat, wearing a question-mark mask.
The criminals don't know his true identity, so they can never see him coming,
the cover said.

Wow.
Yikes
. That did not sound good.

But somehow, this Doyle Holmes character was getting into other books, other stories, and solving mysteries, apparently before those stories even started. How was that possible? It wasn't like he, Bethany, and Kiel had ever visited this book, so at least it wasn't their fault. But still!

Wait a second. What was he thinking?
This was his chance.
Not only to distract Bethany from what'd been happening with her father, but also to show that he wasn't completely useless! Maybe that'd be Owen's thing—being the research guy! Finding books with characters who were escaping their stories, and he'd send Bethany in to stop them? Maybe give her all the plans and cool gadgets, then make jokes when they came back, maybe every so often a hug, so Bethany knew he cared. Maybe this was his thing all along, to be the one finding important things for her to investigate!

Or maybe this
was
just some stupid marketing attempt to get people reading the Baker Street series, since it looked like only one book in the series ever came out, and that was years ago.