The Stolen Chapters (12 page)

No one raised their hand.

“Really? No one knows?” Mr. Barberry said. “This was homework, people!”

Owen gasped, but mostly at the boringness of the memory. That one had barely even hurt. What had happened? Had the flashback broken somehow?

“Come
on
already!” the girl said with a huge smile, yanking him forward. “The plan takes exact timing, Owen. Get your silly behind out on that ledge before I kick you off of it!”

Owen stepped out of the window and put a shaking foot out onto the incredibly shallow ledge. Who built ledges like this, anyway? Either they were big enough to walk on or they weren't! Why split the difference?

“This way,” Kiel said from one side.

“Uh-uh,” the girl said, pushing Owen out of her way to climb out as well. “That way gets us caught, MK.
This
way!”

Owen looked down at the police cars below and the flashing red fire-alarm lights. They were so tiny, and so far away, it made them look almost adorable.

Less adorable was Inspector Brown, who stepped outside, looking in all directions, before turning around and glancing up. Then he smiled like he'd just seen through a magic trick or something.

And that's when another memory hit, which was just terrible timing at that exact mome—

Yesterday . . .

B
ethany!” her mom shouted from downstairs. “Owen and Kiel are here.”

Bethany looked up at her bedroom door from where she was lying on the floor, her feet up on her bed. What were they doing here? She hadn't talked to them since, well, the finding spell night. And with what she'd done since . . .

The last thing she wanted to do was face either one of them.

“Tell them I'm busy!” she yelled down, then covered her head with a pillow. They probably wanted to check on her or something, and their sweetness made it even worse that she couldn't face them.

Her bedroom door opened, and Bethany tore the pillow off her face to find her mother staring down at her. “You realize I'm not your butler, right?” her mother said. “Come on in, boys.”

Bethany gave her mom an annoyed look, and her mother threw her one right back as Owen and Kiel stepped into her bedroom. “Don't work too hard on that homework project,” her mom said as she left, leaving the door open.

“We won't,” Owen said, then began to blush. “I mean, we will!”

“Looking lovely as usual, Mrs. Sanderson,” Kiel said, waving as her mom left.

“What are you doing here?” Bethany hissed at them as quietly as she could. “I told you guys I didn't want to talk.”

“I know,” Owen said, taking some books out of his bag. “But something came up that couldn't wait. Something big.”

“What, a real homework project?” Bethany asked, looking at the papers in his hand.

Owen shook his head and handed her the papers. She glared at him, then flipped through them in annoyance. They were all newspaper articles that he'd printed out.

Sherlock Holmes Takes Over the Literary Scene.

The Game Is Afoot: Sherlock Crossovers the New Big Thing?

Sherlock—

She tossed the papers back at Owen, and he fumbled them all, dropping them. “I already said no to jumping into Sherlock Holmes,” Bethany told them, shaking her head. “And I
told
you guys. We're done!”

“Did you read them?” Owen said. “Look.” He picked up the
Crossovers
article. “Sherlock Holmes is showing up
everywhere
right now. Well, at least his great-great-great-something-grandson. Doyle Holmes is appearing in other people's series, Bethany, and the authors say they didn't even know it was happening. Some are even suing their publishers. People think it's one big publicity stunt.”

Bethany's heart almost stopped when Owen said the name Doyle Holmes. “Okay,” she said, taking the article and swallowing hard as she pretended to skim it. “So it probably
is
just a publicity thing for this Doyle Holmes book.”

No, no, no,
no
. What was Doyle
doing
?

“Have you ever heard of fictional characters crossing over into other series?” Owen asked her.

Every mention of a book in the article made her feel worse. The Orphan Bunch books, really?! “How is this my problem?” Bethany said, not looking Owen in the eye. “
We
didn't do it, right?”

“Not yet!” Kiel said, giving her a grin.

Bethany had to swallow hard to keep from throwing up.

Owen pulled a book out of his backpack and handed it to her.
The Baker Street School for Irregular Children.
The same one she'd checked out two weeks ago. “This is the book Doyle Holmes comes from,” he told her. “I think we should go in and investigate. You know, be detectives, kind of.”

“Detectives that take this kid down,” Kiel said, juggling a wand on her bed. “It's way too long since I've had a good fight. I'm starting to get worried I'm not as impressive as I used to be.”

“No fights,”
Bethany told him, ripping the book from Owen's hands. This was the exact same copy she'd used. If Owen had looked in the computer, he could have seen her name listed as checking it out.

“Maybe we can help,” Owen said quietly to her. “Take a quick look and see if it
is
just a publicity thing, or if there's a fictional character who's figured out how to cross into other stories. If it's the second one, don't you think we should do something about it?”

“Why?” Bethany said, realizing how whiny her voice sounded, even to her. “We're not the
story police
, Owen. We don't have to fix every problem.” In her head, she begged Owen to just let it go, leave her alone, so that he and Kiel wouldn't find out what she'd done.

“I vote we're not the
anything
police,” Kiel said. “Let's be thieves. That's a lot more fun.”

“It's up to us because who else can fix it?” Owen said. “I know it's a lot to take in, but I'll handle it all. I'll read up on Doyle today, and have a plan ready for tonight. I'll take care of everything. You just have to jump us in and out.”

“I'll handle the fighting,” Kiel said, back to juggling. “Hopefully there are monsters. Oooh, or dragons! I
miss
dragons.”

“We
can't
do this,” Bethany said, almost pleading with them. “This goes against all the rules.” The same rules that she'd broken. “It'll be interfering with a story.” A story that she'd already
completely
interfered with. “You know I can't do this.”

“This isn't about saving the Magister this time, Bethany,” Owen said. “I promise. I'm being completely up front. I just want us to take a look and make sure it's not something horrible and world-ending. Think what would happen if a character like that got out into other stories. He's the world's greatest detective—”

“I thought that was the Bat guy you like,” Kiel said.

“And there's no end to the stories he could ruin,” Owen finished, then nodded at Kiel. “You're right, my mistake.
Batman
is the world's greatest detective. Sherlock Holmes was the world's greatest Victorian detective. Huge difference.”

“Thank you,” Kiel said, nodding at him.

They weren't going to let this go, and a part of Bethany realized they were right not to. It did look really bad, honestly. The only thing was, she knew something they didn't.

She knew that it was all her fault.

“I'll go alone,” she told Owen, trying not to hyperventilate. “There, satisfied? I'll check it out and let you know what I find.”

“Never!” Kiel shouted, and jumped up from the bed. “One for all and whatever else that musketeer guy told us. You need our help.”

“Don't worry, I'm going to be useful too,” Owen said, and his hopefulness almost broke her heart. “I've totally got a plan. I've even got a
backup
plan.” He gave her a guilty look. “It's a bit weird, but when you go up against a Sherlock Holmes character, it doesn't hurt to have a little help on your side.”

“Just let me just do this,”
Bethany said, not sure what else to say. “Please?”

“Nope,” Kiel said, hugging them both. “We're in this together, until the dragons come, at which point I call the first two. No, first three!”

Owen smiled nervously at her, and Bethany sighed. “All right. Tonight at the library. But you guys have to do
exactly
what I say.”

“Deal,” Owen said.

“Deal!” Kiel said. “There's no way this can possibly go wrong!”

01:04:23

B
ethany sat shivering on the back of the chair, her chains curled up on the seat beneath her as the water slowly rose up toward her neck. Soon she was going to have to move, and there weren't that many more places to go. The shelves nearby rose another few feet higher than the chair did, but even they didn't get close to the ceiling.

Not only that, the water seemed to be flowing in faster now, as if it'd doubled at some point. Perfect.

As the water rocked her back and forth, all she could think about was the day before, when Kiel and Owen had come to her with
The Baker Street School for Irregular Children.
Why hadn't she just called it off? Doyle could do whatever he wanted, as far as she was concerned. And then none of them would be in this mess.

Except she wouldn't have let it go, because it was already too late by then. She'd have gone back into the book anyway, and been caught. Though at least then, it'd have just been her.

Jump,
part of herself said.
You're going to by the end anyway. Kiel and Owen are never going to find you. Why put yourself through this?

Because she deserved it.

You
don't
deserve this. You did the only thing you could to find Dad.

And look what had happened.

Two weeks ago . . .

M
r. Holmes will see you now,” said a giant bald man wearing a white shirt printed with the words
THE BAKER STREET SCHOOL
. Despite having arms thicker than her head, his heavy English accent somehow made her feel a bit more comfortable as he held open a thick wooden door. Bethany nodded at him, then stepped inside the headmaster's office.

The entire room was covered in wood and leather. Chairs so deep you could dive into them sat in front of a roaring fireplace, which was topped with a violin hanging above the mantle. A pistol in a glass case labeled
THIRD ACT
also sat on the mantle, probably some sort of trophy from a previous case. An enormous desk filled the far part of the room, and a tall leather chair was currently turned around, facing a wall of monitors behind it.

Each of the monitors showed either a classroom or what looked like a cellblock, and the images switched so fast that Bethany could barely keep up.

“Yes?” said a voice from behind the chair's tall back. “State your business. I have little enough time as it is.”

Bethany frowned. Maybe this hadn't been a good idea. She could have at least found a nicer detective. Still, a Holmes was a Holmes, and there was no one better. Except maybe Batman, but that was something else entirely. “I came to hire you to find a missing person,” she said quietly.

“Obviously,” said the voice, and the chair swiveled around, revealing a boy wearing a question-mark mask, a Sherlock Holmes hat, and a big brown overcoat. Bethany grimaced in spite of herself. Seriously, a question-mark mask? Who wore that?

Doyle Holmes snapped his fingers, not even looking up from his desk. “Give me whatever information you have.”

Bethany stepped closer and laid down a folder full of photos on the table, most from before she was born, a few from after. Doyle ignored the folder, instead glancing up at her.

“I've seen you before,” he said quietly. “But not like this. You looked different somehow. And there's something very
off
about you.”

“I'm not from around here,” Bethany said, taking a step back nervously. This was already breaking all of her rules,
every single one
, about not interacting with fictional characters, let alone the main ones. But this was the end of Doyle's only book, right? It's not like there'd be any more to come. And things seemed to have gone okay with EarthGirl, so maybe it'd all be fine!

But honestly? Even if this messed up Doyle's entire story, she was just beyond caring. If he helped find her dad, it'd all be worth it.
Be more fictional,
Kiel had said. Well, here she was, throwing out all of her responsible rules and careful plans.

And if even after all this, she
still
couldn't find her father . . . no. She wouldn't even think about that. This boy would find him. He was a Holmes.

Doyle stared at her for another moment, then opened the file and flipped through the pictures before pushing them aside and turning back to her. “Missing father. Mother has same odd quality that you do, something off about her, as well. Just more so. Something I've never seen before.” He glanced up at Bethany. “And that's not something I say lightly.”

“I've heard you're very good at what you do,” she said, trying to change the subject. “Do you think you can find him?”

“Of course,” Doyle said, sitting back in his chair and steepling his fingers. “That is, if he's still alive.” He paused. “I'm sure I've seen your face before. Not a photograph, though. A drawing. A book.” Another pause, then he abruptly sat straight up in his chair, his hands slapping the desk. “
Story Thieves 
!”