A LOT OF STRANGE THINGS can happen while you’re writing a story.
You can start thinking your characters are real and begin to talk to them.
You can feel bad when they’re trapped, or excited when they’re rescued, or happy when they meet somebody who might be a friend—even if you made these things happen by writing about them.
Your story can get very weird and begin to haunt you. Or very scary and begin to scare you.
Or very real and begin to come true.
A couple of days after that night of writing in the bathroom, I’m walking out of school when a hand touches me on the shoulder. A voice whispers, “Sh-sh! Don’t make a sound. Just walk in front of me.”
The hand steers me off to one side, behind some bushes around a corner of the school.
“Hey, what’s up?” I yell. I hadn’t been feeling very well that day. Being surprised like that made it worse.
“Sh-sh, Archie. You want the whole world to see us?”
It’s Raven!
“Well, what do you want?”
“To tell you something.” She glances around to make sure nobody is watching.
“Listen, you got trouble on your head. Cat Man is after you.”
A sort of cold snap went through me when I heard that. It had been about a week since I’d done the job at Garden Street. I’d begun to think I’d made a clean break.
“He’s mad you never came back,” Raven said. “He’s got Ralphie and Ringo out looking for you right now. They’re around here somewhere. Cat Man found out where you go to school. He knows when you get out.”
I looked over my shoulder. A sick feeling was in my stomach. I thought I might be coming down with something.
“What are you going to do?” Raven asked.
“Go home, I guess.” I was trying to think which home I was supposed to go to that day, Jupiter or Saturn. Everything was a little fuzzy.
It’s funny how, when something really scares you, your brain doesn’t work too well for a few minutes. It goes off on other lines of thought because it doesn’t want to face up to the real situation.
The line I went off on right then was Amory Ellington. The Mysterious Mole People story had been on my mind a lot lately. I thought how I should put in the point I just figured out, that Amory’s brain wouldn’t work too well for a few minutes when he got scared. It would be a good touch in the story tell readers something they’d maybe felt themselves but never put into words before.
“Archie!”
“What?”
“What’s the matter with you? You’ve got big problems!”
“I know.” I stared at Raven. Then I sneezed.
“You’re sick,” she said, totally disgusted. “You can’t even think straight. Come on. I’ll get you out of this.”
“You will?”
She nodded. “Come with me over to Garden Street before Ralphie and Ringo find you. We’ll check in with Cat Man. I’ll tell him you were sick but now you’re better. He’ll think you meant to come back all along and let you alone.”
“But I don’t want to go back!” I cried. “I don’t want those jobs. I could GET CAUGHT.” I sneezed again.
Raven looked at me as if I was some pitiful child that didn’t know how to take care of itself.
“You should’ve thought of that before you came the first time,” she told me. “You bought into the Night Riders. Now you’ve got to deal with them.”
Well, my heart sank when I heard that. It just sank down to its lowest level and lay there.
“What if I’m really sick, which I think I am. I could stay home from school a few days until it blows over.”
Raven shook her head. “It won’t work. Nothing blows over with the Cat Man. That’s how he gets everybody. He gives you a job, then he expects you to work for him. If you don’t come back, he’s real mad. Then he gets you like Tommy.”
“Who’s Tommy? What did he do to Tommy?”
“Got him picked up. Cat Man set him up. Tommy didn’t want to work for him anymore. Now he’s in juvenile correction.”
All the time Raven’s talking, I’m trying to swallow, but my throat is kind of sore. When I hear about Tommy, it gets completely stuck. I can’t swallow, can’t talk. I never meant to get into any of this. All I ever wanted was to find Oggie’s wallet and give it back to him.
“I guess I’ve got to go see Cat Man,” I whispered after a while.
“You’ve got to.” Raven nodded. Suddenly, she looked happy. “Don’t feel bad. I’m in the same fix. Maybe now, with two of us, we’ll be able to figure something out.” I could see she was glad to have me on her side.
“Has anyone ever gotten away from Cat Man?” I asked.
“Not that I know of,” Raven said. She gave me this big grin. “But there’s always a first time.”
We started sneaking around the back of the school, heading toward Washington Boulevard. The big cement playground was in our way. We crouched down behind a Dumpster to check it out. We didn’t want Ringo and Ralphie to catch us.
“Listen,” Raven said. “This is what we’ll do. I’ll go first, slow and easy, and take a look around. When I get across, I’ll signal back if the coast is clear. Then it’s your turn.”