Reality Check

Back To The Fictional World

Undercover (by Fenech-Soler)

"Do you wanna take back that summer? Wanna go undercover? Wanna break out this fever? Wanna make you decide . . ."

___

"So let me get this straight," Liz said, pacing around the room. "You have powers. The power to jump into books. You've been jumping into books for years, looking for your dad, and when you were twelve, you and Owen started going on these adventures into books. Then you got in tons of danger, and a villain called Nobody split you into two halves, and now you're rejoined. Oh, and you defeated him a few days ago, but now he's alive again, and that's why all of the monsters have suddenly attacked our town."

The four of them had gone up to Owen's room to talk, since his mother was currently taking Bark Vadar for a walk. Between Owen, Bethany, and Kiel, they'd given Liz the only explanation that they could. Liz had heard too much already, and it was clear that they couldn't just make up a lie. Owen hadn't been sure whether they could even trust her with this information or not, but he knew that they didn't have a choice.

Either way, he didn't know how he could make up a simple lie about something that big. Escaping the hotel to go back to the fictional world to defeat a faceless man that wanted to wipe out the fictional world? Yeah, that would be hard for anyone to lie about! Unless you were an expert liar. Which, Owen wasn't. And since Bethany had been friends with Liz for a while, he figured she could be trusted. Maybe she could even help them escape!

"That pretty much sums it up," Bethany said, glancing at Owen and Kiel. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her knees brought up to her chest.

Liz stopped pacing, giving her a perplexed expression. "Now, the three of you need to get back to the fictional world to . . . fight him?"

"See, I told you she'd get it!" Kiel said from his spot against the wall.

"Actually —" Owen began, but Bethany cut him off.

"Yep. That's why we have to get back to town," she said in a confident tone. "Tonight, if possible. We don't have another choice. We have to go."

"But . . ." Liz trailed off. "I can still hardly believe any of what you're telling me! But if you're actually going to fight this guy, well, it seems really scary."

Owen nodded. "Yeah, it is. But it's not like we have a choice." He knew exactly what she meant. He was scared to return to the fictional world, but only for the reason of fighting Nobody. Seeing his friends again was what made him partly excited, but he knew that this wasn't going to be a fun mission. Stopping Nobody would be hard. No matter what he tried to tell himself, it would be.

"And you," Liz said, looking at Kiel as if for the first time. She smiled in disbelief. "I can't believe you're not German! This whole time . . . you were actually faking it?"

Kiel winked. "Yep. Beth was the one who figured it out, though. After she found out, she accused me of not being German, and then she also —"

"What?" Owen interrupted, feeling surprised. "When did that happen?"

"Before you got here. It happened in December."

In the almost-two-weeks that he'd been back in the real world, Owen had never heard about Bethany accusing Kiel of not being German. As much as he'd thought he had caught up on, there were apparently still some things that he didn't know about. It bothered him that — once again — he'd missed out on yet another thing. But he was used to the feeling by now. Unfortunately, he'd missed out on plenty of things during his time in Pick The Plot. He really wished he hadn't.