Skidge's printing presses have been copying books around the clock for the library. However, somewhere in the copying, mistakes were made. Some aspect of the improbability of Dada, the ambulatory printing press, has allowed characters from many of these copied books to escape. The first hint of trouble happened weeks ago, when Duskrunner and the Winged Folk were attacked by a large, unidentified creature. Defeated by Giuseppe Lorenzo and Xane, it was identified as the Jabberwocky. Assumed to be a one time incident, Skidge thought little of it at the time, even though Dusk had asked her if it had possibly come out of her books. She thought little of it - until it started happening again.
More to come! But the characters are being rounded up using Skidge and Dusk's Deus Ex Machina!
-The Jabberwocky (Lewis Carrol: Through The Looking-Glass.)1)
-The Raven (Edgar Allan Poe: The Raven)
-The Wild Things (Maurice Sendak: Where The Wild Things Are)
-The Big Bad Wolf (Brothers Grimm: Little Red Riding Hood)
-Long John Silver (Robert Louis Stevenson: Treasure Island)
-Puff the Magic Dragon (Leonard Lipton, Peter Yarrow: Puff, The Magic Dragon)
-Ferdinand the Bull (Munro Leaf: The Story OF Ferdinand)
-Patrick Bateman (Bret Easton Ellis: American Psycho)
-Curious George (Hans Augusto Rey, Margret Rey: Curious George series)
-The Feelings Collector
-Martin the Warrior (Brian Jacques: Martin The Warrior)
-Despereaux (Kate DiCamillo: The Tale of Despereaux)
-Fungle Foxwit2)3) (Alan Aldrige: The Gnole)
-Tobias 4) (Katherine Alice Applegate: Animorph series)
-Mary Poppins
-The Baker Street Irregulars (Arthur Conan Doyle: Sherlock Holmes)
-Fagin's Gang of Thieves (Charles Dickens: Oliver Twist)
-Hansel and Gretel (Various authors throughout the years)
-The Pigeon (Mo Willems: Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late, The Pigeon Wants a Puppy)
-Heathcliff (Emily Bronte: Wuthering Heights)5)
-Bartholomew Cubbins (Theodor Seuss Geisel: The 500 Hats Of Bartholomew Cubbins)
-Rikki Tikki Tavi (Rudyard Kipling: The Jungle Book)
-Grendel (Author unknown: Beowulf)
-The Gingerbread Man (Various Authors)
-The White Rabbit (Lewis Carrol: Alice's Adventures In Wonderland)
-The Pokey Little Puppy (Janette Sebring Lowrey: The Pokey Little Puppy)
-The Very Hungry Caterpillar6)7) (Eric Carle: The Very Hungry Caterpillar)
-Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervante: The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha)
-Arthur Dent (Douglas Adams: The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy)
-Iorek the Armoured Bear (Philip Pullman: Northern Lights)
-Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren: Pippi Longstocking)
-Winnie-The-Pooh (Alan Alexander Milne: Winnie-The-Pooh)
-Anita Blake (Laure Kaye Hamilton: Anita Blake series)
-Nyarlothotep (Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Nyarlothotep )
-Peter Rabbit (Beatrix Potter: The Tale Of Peter Rabbit)
-Juliet Capulet8) (William Shakespeare: Romeo And Juliet)
-Robyne Hude (Folklore. Andrew of Wyntoun: Orygynale Chronicle)
-Elephant's Child9) (Rudyard Kipling: Just So Stories For Little Children)
-The Three Musketeers10)11)12) (Alexandre Dumas: The Three Musketeers)
-Holden Caulfield (Jerome David Salinger: The Catcher In The Rye)
-The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery: The Little Prince)
-Roc (Folklore. Sir Richard Burton: The Book Of Thousand And One Nights)
-The Small Yellow Snake (Antoine de Saint-Exupery: The Little Prince)
-Brother Maelcum (William Gibson: Neuromancer)
-Cthulhu (Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Weird Tales)
-Dr. Frankenstein and Igor (Mary Shelley: Frankenstein)
-Rath13) (Carrol, Alice's Adventures Through the Looking Glass)
-Red R. Hood14)
-Thursday Next (Jasper Fforde: The Eyre Affair)15)
Common Grounds
Skidge holds up the book she had been reading. “Look.” The book looks odd; there are bits missing. Beeker looked at the book. “Uh. Why are there pieces gone?”
“It's Moby Dick, but Moby Dick is missing,” Skidge murmured, flipping through it to show him. She flips to somewhere near the end. “He's supposed to show up here. Do you have any idea how odd the book gets when Captain Ahab is supposed to finally find Moby Dick and can't?”
Sinkorswim winces slightly, grinning. “And that book's long enough, even when he CAN find him.”
Skidge nodded. “You're telling me.” She's actually not that big a fan of the book. “Although it does get funny when Ahab starts running around with his underwear on his head.”
Beeker scratches his ear. “Uh, I don't remember that part.”
She flipflips, then shows the scene to Beeker. There it is. Captain Ahab. Underwear on head. “Right after the bit where the whale was supposed to show up, and didn't.” Skidge shrugged finally and said, “Well, there aren't too many books like this. I think Dada may have just been fooling around or something; it's only the copies that have any issues.”
Beeker looks at the page in the book describing the underwear scene. Huh. Was that in there the last time he read it? Sink padded around the library stacks, trying to find more incomplete books. “Hey! Got one! Anna Karenina, where she doesn't cheat on her husband. Much shorter.”
Beeker kept reading the book. “Was this part about the synchronized swimming in here before?”
Skidge bounded over to Sink, then flipped through the book. Anna Karenina vanishes without a trace instead; the rest of the book is actually rather cheerful. She looked up at Beeker then, taking the book from him and flipping through it. She hadn't gotten to the bit about the swimming. Captain Ahab, lacking a whale, takes up other pursuits. “That is so strange.”
Still poking through the bookstacks, Sink came up with another one. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy omnibus edition… with no Arthur Dent. “Huh? But… What?” He flipped through it. flicks through. The book is decidedly weird without Arthur. Ford never comes to earth, Fenchurch stays sedated, Agrajag - well, he ended up here anyway, but, erk.
Skidge looked over his shoulder. “Hrm, wouldn't have expected that from Trillian.”
Sink blushed a little bit, but keeps his mouth shut. It may be a thought that's crossed many a young geek's mind… Skidge didn't seem to notice. She shook her head. “Bet she wouldn't have done THAT for yon Mister Dent.” She picks up another book; it reads, “Where ARE The Wild Things?” She puts it down again.
Sink danced round the stacks with abandon. In the Children's section, there was a pile of rotting fruit, cake, sausage and a single leaf on top. It seems the Very Hungry Caterpillar isn't so hungry. Beeker joins in the search, putting away Moby Dick and picking out another book. It's “Elizabeth and Mary”, but Mary got tired of being queen and quit. Beeker scratched his head. Skidge scooped up a pile of books and flips through them. Harry Not-er? gets her attention. “Oh, no.” It's now a book about two unpleasant people and their one unpleasant son. She slapped the book closed (it's now terrible, and the rest of the series seems to have disappeared).
“Right. Everybody out.” She began shooing Sink and Beeker out, ignoring their protests. “Out of the library until I've got this figured out,” she insists. “Because something very weird is going on here.” She amended it softly, glancing apologetically at one crab-legged bookshelf, “Well. Weirder than usual.”
She shut the corral. Then remembered, vaguely, something Duskrunner had told her. “Love to stay and chat, gentlemen, but there's weirdness to look into.” Especially if- She shakes her head, then vanished into the stacks, disturbed. She has to find both copies of Jabberwock; the original, and Dada's copy. Then she needs to find Dusk.
Common Grounds
Skidge launches off of a bookshelf over the fence in a neat display of quickmoving that ends in an undignified thud. She thought she'd heard the sound of familiar wings. She's got two books with her. Duskrunner glances up at the thud. Ah, Skidge. Actually, just the librarian she wanted to talk to. She waves Skidge over, a concerned look on her face.
The Librarian is intent on the winged woman. When the Jabberwocky had been attacking the Winged several weeks ago, Dusk had asked Skidge if it could have possibly come out of one of the Library's books. Dusk had asked her to check; at the time, she'd just been humoring her, figuring she'd mistaken the Magpie. But now she's not so sure.
Dusk's frown deepens as she sees the look on Skidge's face. Skidge's got two copies of Graham Base's Jabberwocky with her, the original and Dada's. She holds up the original; it's got a lovely illustration of the Jabberwock, looming over the prince sent to kill it. “This look familiar to you at all?”
The Winged woman nods, her frown ever deepening. “It's gone, isn't it?”
Skidge answers by holding up Dada's copy of Jabberwocky in answer; the prince is standing, looking bored and confused, under the Tumtum tree. Alone. flips to the next page; the Prince is returning home, less one Jabberwock head. The king does not look pleased; there is no chortling in glee to be seen. “And changed the plot,” she says with a nod.
She holds up the original, which ends properly. “That's not all. Other books are missing characters.” Macbeth, Harry Potter, Moby Dick, all missing their title characters.
Dusk nods, looking miserable. “The Winged have noticed… well, the Jabberwocky isn't the only thing they've seen lately that shouldn't be.”
They both glance up as if on cue. There is a raven sitting on the corral, staring at her in a manner most creepy. The raven, instead of quorking like its suposed to, tilts its head at them and squawks “Nevermore!”
Skidge eyes the raven, which eyes her back. She is disconcerted for reasons she cannot name. “Yeah?” she asks absently, still in a staring contest.
Dusk nods in the Raven's general direction. “That's one of them. He showed up a few days ago, none of the Winged can actually talk to him, which was when we knew something wasn't right.”
They are silent for a moment. `5“How many books Skidge? How many are missing pages?”
Skidge dodges into the Library. Sure enough, the poem is now about the best night of sleep the narrator ever had. “You've got to be kidding me.” She looks back at Dusk, shrugging helplessly. “The presses were making copies of everything, I haven't gone through them all yet.” Skidge holds the book out to the raven hopefully. “Look, your home.” The raven rap-taps annoyingly in response and croaks, “Nevermore.” Then flaps away. “Dammit.”
Dusk follows Skidge in to the stacks. She pulls a book randomly from the shelf. It doesn't even have a title. She looks confused, flipping through it. “It's about a deserted island. Hmmmm.” Wonders if this was Robinson Crusoe at one point. There is no trace of the title character however, and she isn't certain. She frowns heavily, shelving the book again. “We need to figure out who and what is missing… this…. this could be bad. Are the presses still making copies?”
Skidge nods. “There's usually at least one press in the stacks…I'll go find them.” The Library has gotten quite large in recent times, partially due to the presses' hard work. She suddenly rolls her eyes. “You're aware we're going to have to catch the bloody things and put them back?” How very inconvenient.
Dusk blinks, looking at the book that once held the Raven. “First we need to figure out *how* to put them back! What are we going to do, chase them around and try to clap the book closed on them?” She muses, as much to herself as to Skidge. “First we need to figure out who's missing. Give us an idea of how deep this rabbit hole really is.”17)