Be True

Chapter 02

BE TRUE

CHAPTER 02

After they had worked on the project and Toby had left, Josh checked his Wattpad stats again. “Yay!” There had been one more read. “I wonder…”

He checked in the Who’s Reading section and found a new name. He followed the link to the person’s page. It turned out that she was a fan of Cabaletta. “Oh, I see…” Cabaletta was one of Josh’s earliest friends on Wattpad. Josh didn’t know who she was or where she was from. They never got into that. And it didn’t seem to matter. The similarity in their tastes in books and their love for reading and writing seemed such a dominating force of nature between them, they had become fast friends and bonded within a miniscule period of time.

Josh bounced over to Cabaletta’s Wattpad page just to browse and see if there was anything new going on. “Oh! Look who’s got a new story…!”

The new story written by Cabaletta was one about a lonely little girl left abandoned by her parents in the forest. Not to worry though, because in the way Cabaletta had imagined it, the little girl had magical powers and could level the entire forest in a heartbeat. That was why her parents had gotten scared and felt they had to abandon her in the first place.

Josh finished the whole short story, all nine pages of it in about fifteen minutes. He sat back and smiled. “Nice!” Sitting in the bed, he leaned back on the wall with the laptop still cradled in his lap and began to tap away on the keyboard. He left a luscious comment on the page, complimenting her on the story and in particular, on her unique use of language and imagery. A fine piece of work, all in all. He finished the comment, sent it off and then scrolled back up to the top of the page and voted.

As he clicked back onto Cabaletta’s main profile page, he noticed the date on the story—November 10, 2012. He frowned. The real date today was October 10, 2012.

Josh shrugged. “Well, what are you going to do?” He chalked it up to the same old computer glitch and closed up the laptop.

~~~

The next day, as soon as Josh bounced out of bed, what was the first thing on his mind?

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen—Wattpad!

It was Saturday. Josh sat up in bed, wrapped his comforter around him in a big swirl and opened up his laptop. He checked his page. No new reads on the new story. Oh well.

Hmm. There was a new message from Cabaletta:

“Hey, man. Thanks for the comment but…what are you talking about? The story you kept referring to happens to be a little idea that I’ve been tossing around in my head…but only in my head! I haven’t even put a single word of that on paper yet. I was thinking of writing a scary story about a little girl left in the woods, just because I’d heard a real story like that in the news recently. I was just musing that if I had been her, how furious I would be, and would probably want to level the whole town if I had the power to do it. Oh, and I love the ending you suggested. It’s brilliant! So, really, is this a story you’re working on? ‘Cause if you don’t mind, do you think I could take this idea this time and just run with it?”

Josh lifted his head and looked away from the laptop. He scrunched his eyes. “What?” He reached up and scratched his head.

Then he had another thought.

He bent back to the computer. He began whizzing all around the Wattpad site, clicking away at a mile a minute. He went to all the people he knew fairly well, and for all of those who had a story that was dated in the future, he wrote them an email and asked the same questions.