The Experience of Being Alive

Chapter Forty

Months passed. Binny and her friends remained at Misselthwaite Manor, but its countless rooms were now occupied by many more residents. And the Manor itself had to be expanded to accommodate everyone with sections of the opulent Gatsby mansion, and a dozen separate instances of Number Four, Privet Drive. Despite how cramped it was, everyone wanted to sleep under the stairs.

Some of the more industrious characters had scoured science fiction volumes to create systems that would let Stacks characters find each other and communicate across distances as they pleased. They could let each other know what they were doing, even when they weren’t together.

For a time this system became so popular that the glut of creativity that had flourished in the early days after the change started to wane. Everyone spent so much time chatting with each other and posting what they were doing, that nobody bothered creating anything new.

But quickly everyone came to their senses and decided that the obsession with the new technology was destroying all the gains they had made and threatened to bring a new dark period to the Stacks. It became socially unacceptable to spend all your time posting and chatting, and the overwhelming majority of characters in the Stacks ended up using it only to arrange times to meet and collaborate on new creations.

But the most positive side effect of the technology was all the reunions it effected. Binny’s family and friends from her book all found her in short order. They were all very impressed with all she’d accomplished during her short time in the Stacks and had stories to tell of their own.

Binny’s father Jay in particular was very excited about all the discoveries of how the Stacks actually worked. He and his friends Joe and Sammy set immediately to writing a short story about a machine that let comic book fans enter the world of each comic and meet their favorite characters. 

They weren’t interested in finding readers for their story. Instead, they immediately entered it using one of the Narnian wardrobes and then from within their story used their newly created fictional machine to enter the comic books of their choice. Binny’s brother Zach had described their achievement as ‘hacking the Stacks’. Binny just thought they were crazy.

Days off had become much more frequent since the change had happened. Sometimes on lazy days Binny would pull the old Register from under her mattress and write simple poems and even little sketches on its pages. She no longer needed to hide it from anyone, but she kept it under her mattress anyway. It just felt right.

On a particular day off with an especially beautiful morning, Binny answered the door to Misselthwaite Manor to find a girl her age standing there in a dress that looked like it was from the 1800’s.

“Can I help you?” Binny said.

“I read that you were looking for me.” The girl said.

It took Binny a moment to focus. The girl’s earnest expression, her period clothing. “Laura?”

Laura Ingalls Wilder’s face lit up with a big smile. “I brought us a picnic. There are some of Pa’s sausages in here.” Laura pointed at her basket.

¤

The day had been perfect. They’d picnicked in the summer sun in a field near Laura’s little wooden house. Laura made Binny recount stories of her mother reading Laura’s stories to Binny as a child. Binny peppered Laura with questions about writing and being an author.

Binny and Laura promised to get together again soon. But the next time Binny insisted that they would go to her house in Madrona for breakfast and eat some of her father’s delicious Chocolate Chip Banana Waffles.