Between the lines

OLIVER

“BEDSPREAD,” DELILAH SAYS.

“Um… pink.”

“Good. Number of stuffed animals on the bed?”

“Three.”

“Excellent. What are they?”

I close my eyes, trying to remember. “A pig, a bear wearing a strange little shirt, and a duck with quite a sassy look on its face.”

“And the book?”

“Purple leather, with gold lettering that reads Between the Lines.”

It’s odd to think of my story as a physical entity, because obviously I’ve never seen the outside of the tome in which we all live. But Delilah has described it in excruciating detail.

In fact, she’s spent hours this Saturday evening giving me a thorough tour of her bedroom by carrying the open book from end to end. I have read fortune cookie messages tacked onto her mirror; I have met her pet fish-named Dudley; I have stared at a whiteboard she can write upon and erase, which is festooned with small favors from places she and her mother have visited: the Flume in New Hampshire, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream factory, Boston, the Statue of Liberty. We realized that the only error in our plan was that Delilah could not watch the painting actually happen-since that would have to occur when the book was closed and I could meet privately with Rapscullio in his lair.

To this end, Delilah insisted that I memorize every last detail of her room, so that it could be as accurate a representation as possible on that magic canvas. Like me, she doesn’t want to leave anything up to chance.

“How many lamps are in here?” she quizzes.

“Three. One on the desk, one clipped to the bed, and one on the dresser. And next to the lamp on the dresser is a music box you got from your mother for your fifth birthday; and there’s a sticker on your headboard of Curious George that you put there when you were three and could never quite peel off entirely; and right now there are three pairs of earrings that you haven’t put into your jewelry box yet, which are sitting next to your hairbrush.” I smirk at her. “Now do you believe I’m ready?”

“Very,” she says.

“Okay. I’m off, then.”

“Wait!” I turn back to find her staring at me, biting her lower lip. “What if… it doesn’t work?”

I reach up, as if I might be able to touch her, but of course I can’t. “What if it does?”

She traces one finger along the edge of the page close to me. The world beside me ripples. “Goodbye,” Delilah says.

Rapscullio’s lair needs a thorough cleaning. There are cobwebs in the corner, and I am pretty certain a rat runs over my shoe as I enter. “Anybody home?” I ask cheerfully.

“Over here,” Rapscullio calls out. I turn a corner to find him examining a butterfly that’s been trapped inside a glass jar. There are holes in the lid, but the insect’s wings are beating desperately as it tries to escape.

I know how that feels.

“Rapscullio,” I say, “I need your help.”

“Kind of busy right now, Your Highness…”

“It’s an emergency.”

He sets the captured butterfly down on a table. “Go on,” Rapscullio says, folding his long, bony arms.

“I was hoping you could paint something for me. A gift.”

“A gift?”

“Yes-for a friend of mine. A very special friend of mine.”

Rapscullio’s face lights up. “I have just the thing-I’ve been working on a close-up of a long-toed water beetle-”

“I was thinking of something different,” I interrupt. “And maybe a little more romantic.”

He scratches his chin. “Let’s see…” he says. When he stalks into the adjacent room-the studio I’ve been in before-I follow him. Rapscullio pulls three canvases with Seraphima’s face from the piles stacked along the walls. “Take your pick.”

“The thing is… this isn’t for Seraphima.”

A slow, itchy smile twitches over Rapscullio’s lips. “Well, well,” he says. “Our little prince is playing the field.”

“Oh, cut it out, Rapscullio. You know Seraphima and I were never really a ‘thing.’”

“Then who’s the lucky lady?” he asks.

“No one you know.”

He laughs. “I’d say, given the size of our world, that’s highly unlikely.”

“Look,” I say, “just do me this one favor, and I’ll do anything you want.”

“Anything?” He looks at me from the corner of his eye.

I hesitate. “Sure.”

“Will you… sing something for me?”

I’ll be perfectly honest, my singing ability ranks at about the same level as my drawing ability. But I nod, only to have Rapscullio turn aside, move some canvases out of the way, and pluck out a tune on an ancient piano.

I listen to the first few notes. “Do you know it?” he asks hopefully.

“Um. Yes.” I clear my throat, and start to sing: “For he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow. For he’s a jolly good fellow… that nobody can deny.”

When I finish, I look up to find Rapscullio wiping a tear from his eye. “That,” he says with a sniff, “was beautiful.”

“Er… thanks.”

He clears his throat. “Sometimes it’s hard being the bad guy, you know?” With one final snort, he turns his attention to me again. “Now,” Rapscullio says. “Your painting?”

“Well,” I begin, “I sort of need it to be painted on the magic canvas. The one you use to bring the butterflies to life.”

Rapscullio scowls. “Do you have any idea how long it took me to re-create my lair perfectly in that painting? I’m sorry, Oliver, I just-”

“You can. Because the minute the story starts again, the canvas will be back to normal-with your original painting on it. Just like always.”

I watch his face as he processes this information. “That’s true,” Rapscullio admits.

“It’s a room. With a bed in it. A bedroom,” I tell him.

“Yes, that’s usually the case when there’s a bed in the room…”

“And it’s very… girlie. The walls are pink.”

Rapscullio picks up a brush and swirls together some pigments. “Like this?” he asks, and Delilah’s walls come to life.

“Yes!” I say. I point to a corner of the canvas. “Right there’s a mirror-no, the wood is more blond than brown. And it sits on a dresser. Can you redo that bit, so that there are five drawers instead of four?”

It is painstaking, asking Rapscullio to re-create a room full of things he has never seen. When he gets really stuck (a lampshade? A clock radio?) I draw a mock-up of the item in the dirt floor with a stick. “And a book on the bed,” I continue. “It’s purple with gold lettering on the cover, which reads Between the Lines.”

He lifts a brow. “As in… the name of our story?”

“Um. Yes. I thought it was a nice touch.” There’s no point in explaining to him why I really need the book to be there. I continue to give instructions, making corrections when necessary: No, the magnet is shaped like a boot, not a circle. And the sheets are more fuchsia than pastel violet.

Finally, when Rapscullio is through, I look at the canvas and see a detailed replica of Delilah’s room. “Well?” he demands.

“Perfect,” I murmur. “It’s absolutely perfect.”

Now comes the hard part. Delilah and I have realized that if I’m to paint myself into this canvas, Rapscullio can’t be watching. It’s just too much to risk-what if I confide my plan to him and he tries to stop me, or tells Frump and the others that I’m attempting to leave the story? I could try to dupe him into simply painting me onto the canvas as part of the gift portrait, but what if he figures out, midway, what is happening and leaves me half in Delilah’s world and half in mine? I am not an artist by any means, but it’s all we’ve got.

Together we’ve devised a plan-with the help of something called Google and a search for rare species of butterflies. If I stick to the script we’ve written, Delilah is certain Rapscullio will leave me alone here-we hope long enough for me to pick up a paintbrush and create an image of myself on that canvas.

“Oh my goodness!” I cry, snapping my head toward the open window. “Did you see that?”

“See what?”

“I’m sure it was nothing. Just a butterfly.”

“Butterfly?” Rapscullio’s eyes widen. “What did it look like?”

“Tiny and electric blue… with a black-and-white border on its wings?”

He leaps toward the window. “An Adonis blue? You saw an Adonis blue? But they’re supposed to be extinct!” Rapscullio hesitates. “You don’t think it was just a Chalkhill blue, do you?”

“No, not a Chalkhill,” I say. “Definitely not a Chalkhill.” What the devil is a Chalkhill?

“Hmm.” He glances out the window again. “Are we all set here, then? Because if you don’t mind, I might take a poke outside with my net to see if I can catch the Adonis before we have to do our next book performance.”

“Go right ahead,” I say. “Perfectly understandable.”

I wave as he sprints out of the room. Then I look at the canvas again. It is a stunning, realistic representation of Delilah’s room. I only wish I had Rapscullio’s artistic talent.

“Here goes nothing,” I mutter, and I pick up the paintbrush that Rapscullio’s left on the palette. I catch my reflection in the window glass-Delilah and I both think with the subject right in front of my eyes, I may be able to at least make an adequate copy, even if I’m no artist. I touch the canvas, leaving a faint mark the same color as my sleeve. I rinse the brush and mix a new color, one that matches my flesh.

But then I hesitate. Putting the brush down, I walk into the adjoining room, where the butterfly is still beating senselessly against the glass jar. I twist the lid, and watch it fly out the open window.

Just in case something goes wrong, at least one of us will be free.