Inkling Read online

  Dedication

  FOR JULIA

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  About the Author

  About the Illustrator

  Books by Kenneth Oppel

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  No one was awake to see it happen, except Rickman.

  He was taking one of his midnight prowls, padding past the bedrooms of sleeping people, hoping to find something interesting to eat. He was nearly always hungry. Against the wall he found a dead fly, a chocolate chip, and a small piece of red crayon, which he also ate. He was not a picky cat. At the end of the hallway, he slipped into Mr. Rylance’s studio. In front of the drafting table was a chair he liked, and Rickman heaved himself up. It took two tries because he was heftier than he should have been.

  On the drafting table, Mr. Rylance’s big sketchbook lay open. Animals and buildings and people jostled on the pages. Some pictures had scribbles through them, some were very sketchy, and others looked like they were ready to make an appearance in one of Mr. Rylance’s finished graphic novels. But these were all just ideas. They had no stories to go with them yet.

  When it happened, it made no noise, but Rickman saw the whole thing.

  The black ink looked suddenly wet, like the pictures had been drawn that very second. The lines glistened, then trembled. From every corner of the sketchbook, the ink beaded and started slithering across the pages toward the crease in the middle. As the ink moved, it left no smear behind it, just blank page. The lines of ink joined other lines, melding into weird shapes, sometimes smooth, sometimes pointy, getting larger. When they all met in the center of the book, they formed a big black splotch, about the size of a fist. For a moment it was motionless, as if resting.

  Normally, Rickman took no interest in the arts, but this was different. He put his paws on the edge of the drafting table and leaned forward for a better view.

  The ink rippled, like dark water with something swimming beneath the surface. Then it was on the move again, flowing down the crease until it reached the bottom of the page. It thickened along the edge, as though it was trying to pour itself over—but it couldn’t. It seemed to be stuck.

  Rickman’s ears flattened against his skull. A thin tendril of ink lifted from the page, maybe half an inch or so, like a tiny arm desperate to escape quicksand. Then it got slurped back in.

  Next a thicker spike of ink rose up, straining, reaching over the edge of the sketchbook, one second, two, before it collapsed back. Almost a minute passed and nothing happened.

  Rickman yawned, showing his still-sharp teeth. This was getting boring.

  All at once the ink rippled, as if a stiff wind blew across it, and then the entire splotch contracted and rose into a little mountain peak. It trembled, tensed, and then sprang. All the ink lifted right off the sketchbook—leaving the pages totally blank—and landed with a small splash on the drafting table.

  Rickman purred low and deep in his throat. This was getting interesting again. This might be something worth eating.

  Already little strands of the ink splotch were being pulled back toward the sketchbook, as if it were a magnet or a black hole. The splotch struggled, fighting its way inch by inch across the drafting table. The book had a powerful pull, dragging some stringy tendrils of ink toward it. But just when they were about to touch paper, they recoiled as if burned, rejoining the main inky splotch.

  When it finally reached the far edge of the drafting table—leaving no trace of ink in its wake—it came to a rest, quivering slightly like something exhausted, but also amazed, and maybe even excited, because it started doing some kind of dance. It swirled round and round, spinning itself into all kinds of strange and beautiful shapes. Like it was celebrating its freedom.

  Rickman’s paw came slamming down on it, claws extended. The splotch went spiky in surprise, then streaked between the cat’s claws and right over the edge of the table. It scurried along the underside, tested a table leg with a black, inky tongue, and then slid itself down to the floor.

  While Rickman sniffed at the drafting table, the ink started flowing across the floor. It had no plan except to get as far away as possible. When it was halfway to the door, Rickman turned and his sharp eyes caught it. But by the time he’d eased himself off the chair, the ink had seeped out into the hallway.

  There was light in the hallway, so the ink made itself skinny and slunk cautiously along the baseboard. Anyone looking would have missed it, or thought it was just shadow.

  But Rickman knew better. He was old, arthritic, and overweight, but he hadn’t forgotten how to hunt. He prowled down the hall, head dipped low, then pounced. The ink must have sensed him coming, because it shot straight up the wall, faster than any shadow. Rickman banged his nose against the baseboard and landed clumsily on the floor. His nose wasn’t the only thing that hurt. Nothing is more important to a cat than its dignity, and he glared up at the ink splotch. The fur on his back lifted. With a hiss, he leapt, claws extended.

  The splotch darted higher, just out of reach, and then swelled itself into a terrifying imitation of Rickman: an enormous black cat, back humped and jagged. Its vast, inky claws shot down the wall to swat Rickman. Yowling, Rickman somersaulted backward, then bolted.

  The ink shrank back into a small blob and jiggled a bit as if laughing. It left no marks on the wall as it moved higher, onto the framed poster of Mr. Rylance’s best-known character, a mutant superhero called Kren.

  But the moment the splotch tried to climb the glass, it slid right back down to the frame. It shuffled along a bit and tried again, with the same result, pouring off the glass like water. There was no getting a grip on this stuff! The ink gave up, moved back onto the wall, and kept going.

  It wanted to find somewhere safe. When it reached a doorway, it slid inside the darkened room and down to the floor, where it paused. It sensed all the things in the room without knowing what they were. It had no words yet, no names for things like a desk, a bed, and a boy sleeping on the bed in a knotted tangle of sheets that made it look like he’d been battling something. The boy’s feet were on the pillow, and his head was where his feet should have been.

  Beside the bed was a pile of books, and the ink splotch stopped warily. It waited. It sent out a tiny tendril, but these books didn’t try to suck it in. Only Mr. Rylance’s sketchbook seemed to want to do that. The ink slid closer.

  It moved over an open math textbook and erased every word, number, and diagram it touched. It actually slurped the ink into itself. The ink paused, and formed itself into an isosceles triangle, and then a rhombus, before flowing on, erasing as it went. It left a blank trail behind it like a slug trail, except it wasn’t slimy. It was just shiny blank paper.

  Off the math book and onto a novel. It wiped out most of the title and the cover illustration—it was in color, and the splotch seemed to like color because it gave a happy shimmer—and then found itself on a piece of illustration board.

  The board had been divided up into squares and rectangles of different sizes. Most of them had stick figures penciled inside them, but in the very first squares were ink drawings
. They weren’t very good. There were lots of smears. The ink splotch slid across, erasing as it went, and then stopped in the middle of the board.

  This seemed like a good hiding place. The splotch stretched, then made itself as small as possible. It liked it here. The feel of the creamy paper was pleasing. The ink turned itself round in circles a few times, like a dog trying to get comfortable, and then was still.

  Chapter 2

  Ethan woke up worried.

  He’d stayed up late trying to draw, and that never went well. He hated drawing, but he had no choice, because his group had asked him to do the penciling and inking for their graphic novel project. Everyone, even his closest friends, assumed that since his father was a famous artist, Ethan was an amazing artist, too.

  This was not true, and Ethan had known it since third grade. None of his pictures looked like what he was trying to draw. His dogs and cats and cows all looked the same; his people were weird and melty. So he’d stopped drawing altogether. When he was forced to at school, he’d just do stick figures. Everyone thought he was joking around, hiding his genius, that he could draw whatever he wanted.

  So when his friends Soren, Pino, and Brady formed a group for the graphic novel project, they’d voted for him to do the art. Soren was writing the story because he’d seen the most movies, and anyway, he already had an idea about a gorilla who lived in the zoo but was really a secret agent who beat down alien scumbags trying to take over the planet. Pino would color the finished drawings because even in kindergarten he’d never gone outside the lines, and was still very neat in general. And Brady was going to do the lettering because he was a train wreck and no one really trusted him to do anything else, and they thought it was the easiest job.

  Last night, Ethan had tried to draw gorillas, getting angrier and more frustrated with each stroke of his pen. What he’d ended up with looked like a saggy marshmallow with a pig head. He’d only managed to sketch out a few panels before giving up in a rage.

  And today, Ms. D was giving them a whole period to work on their projects, and everyone would see the terrible truth. He could not draw. It wasn’t fair. His father could draw—but Dad wouldn’t even help him, not really. Dad always said he’d help and then after dinner he’d say he was too tired, that he’d had a pen in his hand all day, and his work wasn’t going well, and he didn’t even want to think about drawing.

  Ethan sighed heavily. He peeked over the side of his bed where he’d dumped his illustration board. Maybe it would look better this morning. Maybe the gorilla would look more like a gorilla.

  He squinted. “What . . . ?”

  It was even worse than he’d expected. He knew he’d made some smears, but what he saw was a total mess. Parts of his drawing had been erased, and in the very middle of the spread was a huge black splotch. It looked like ink spilled from a bottle, but that didn’t make any sense. He’d been using fine-tipped markers. And anyway, this ink still looked . . . wet.

  He poked his finger into the middle of it. The blob went spiky as a sea urchin.

  Ethan hollered.

  The ink ricocheted around the illustration board, erasing more of his terrible drawings.

  Ethan vaulted out of bed. The inkblot scuttled underneath it.

  Ethan grabbed his hockey stick.

  “There’s a huge bug in my room!” he shouted.

  Standing as far away as possible, he jabbed the stick under his bed.

  “I think it’s a tarantula!” he bellowed to the house. “If anyone cares!”

  Sarah came in, in her blue-and-pink dolphin pajamas, and said:

  “She wants ice cream.”

  “What?” Ethan said, poking under his bed some more.

  Ethan’s little sister was almost nine, and still talked about herself in the third person, even though everyone had been correcting her for ages. It made whatever she said sound like a story, with herself as the hero.

  “Ice cream. With chocolate sauce,” said Sarah, very slowly and clearly. She was holding a book with a picture of someone eating an ice cream cone.

  “I’m kind of busy!” Ethan said.

  Sarah had Down syndrome, and there were lots of things that were still mysteries to her, like why you couldn’t just eat ice cream whenever you wanted.

  A bedraggled man appeared in the doorway in his bathrobe, his hair plastered flat on one side, spiked up like a rooster’s comb on the other. This was Ethan’s dad, or, as Ethan called him in the mornings, Coma Dad.

  He muttered, “What’s, um . . . is everything . . . ?”

  Ethan knew his dad hadn’t had any coffee yet, because he wasn’t finishing sentences.

  “There’s a huge bug, or tarantula, or something under my bed! It messed up my graphic novel! Probably peed all over it or something! See?”

  Dad zombie-walked across the room, tilted at the waist like a hinged toy, and peered down at the messy illustration board. He glanced right and left for no apparent reason, then sat down on Ethan’s bed. “Well, I’m not seeing . . . I think it’s . . .”

  “You hardly looked!”

  Sarah walked over to Coma Dad and put her hands tenderly on either side of his face. Shaking his head gently, she gazed into his eyes and said, “Ice cream.”

  “Um,” Coma Dad said to Ethan, his head and voice wobbling, “tarantulas, yeah, aren’t even all that toxic . . . so it’s not a big deal. . . .”

  “With chocolate sauce,” Sarah added firmly, giving her father a concerned look, like she really, really wanted him to understand this very simple idea, and why was this so difficult for him?

  “Not a big deal?” exclaimed Ethan.

  Coma Dad stood, took Sarah’s hand, and headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Ethan demanded.

  “To the kitchen . . . to, um . . . get ice cream.”

  “Thanks, everyone!” Ethan shouted at his empty room. “Thanks for helping!”

  Ethan gave underneath his bed one last jab. Whatever it was, it was gone. Maybe he’d squashed it. Or maybe not. No way was he going to sleep in that bed before checking. When he got home from school, he’d drag the bed away from the wall and pull all his junk out so he could be sure it wasn’t hiding, waiting for him.

  He looked down at the illustration board and felt saggy. He couldn’t show this to his friends. It looked even more terrible now. Everyone would know. He’d leave it at home and say he’d forgotten it.

  The walk to school was only three blocks, and when he was alone, Ethan could do it in six minutes. But with Sarah it took fifteen or sometimes twenty because there were babies to admire, dogs to pat, and squirrels to holler at. Also, Sarah didn’t like school, so she walked as slowly as possible. Holding her soft, starfish-shaped hand, Ethan felt her leaning backward. He was practically dragging her.

  “Sarah, can you walk a little faster?” he asked.

  “Of course,” she said agreeably, and her steps, if anything, became tinier.

  “We’re going to be late!”

  “You naughty squirrel!” she bellowed at an innocent rodent that was just trying to scrounge a meal.

  Finally they reached the schoolyard, and Ethan steered Sarah carefully around kids throwing tennis balls, kids shooting hoops, kids doing yo-yos. His friend Pino was playing monkey in the middle near the gym, and Ethan wanted to get over there. He spotted Sarah’s educational assistant, Mrs. Hunter, and led Sarah toward her, pulling pretty hard. Then he felt mean because Sarah insisted on kissing him good-bye twice, and hugging him. She locked her arms around his neck so tightly he had to gently pry her loose.

  “I’ll just be upstairs from you!” he told her, like he did every day.

  “Have a good day, sweetie,” Sarah told him. “Be safe!” And Ethan felt a hard squeeze in his throat because this was what Mom used to say to them.

  When he turned to go join the game, his best friend, Soren, was standing right behind him, looking startled. Soren always looked startled. He hadn’t blinked since fourth grade. His ol
der brother, Barnaby, had let him read too many scary comics and watch too many horror movies, and now it was like Soren was afraid to blink in case something crept up on him.

  “How’s the drawing coming?” Soren asked.

  “Great! It’s going great!” When you were lying, it was important to repeat yourself and add exclamation marks. “Except some weird bug peed on it. Messed it up a little. But I’ll fix it.”

  “Do bugs pee?” Soren asked.

  “Sure! Sure they do!”

  “Maybe it was Squeaker,” said Soren without blinking.

  Squeaker was the hamster Ethan had when he was ten. Squeaker lasted exactly four days before Dad left the cage open and the hamster escaped somewhere into the house. Squeaker was never seen again, but Ethan sometimes wondered if it had survived in the basement and was getting huge and strange.

  “It wasn’t Squeaker,” Ethan said. “I saw it.”

  “Weird. So can I see the drawings?”

  Ethan winced. “I forgot them.”

  Soren’s eyes widened even more. “But we’re getting first period to work on it! The inking is due end of next week, you know.”

  “Plenty of time!” said Ethan. “Don’t worry!”

  He always felt like he had to reassure Soren so he didn’t have a heart attack or something.

  “Well, I guess we could work on the story some more,” Soren suggested.

  “Great idea,” said Ethan as the bell rang.

  After announcements, everyone arranged themselves into their groups. Some people were inking; others were already coloring and starting on the lettering. Ethan felt bad about letting down his group, but mostly he was just relieved he wouldn’t have to do any drawing in front of them.

  “I didn’t think bugs peed,” Pino remarked after Ethan explained why he didn’t have the artwork.

  “I think it was the hamster,” said Soren.

  “My cousin had a hamster that escaped and ate all their suitcases,” said Brady.

  “Why don’t we work on the story,” Ethan said.

  “Yeah. I think the ending’s weak,” Soren said.