Inkling Read online

  He watched Soren, waiting for his reaction.

  “I don’t know. I mean, I saw Darren tracing stuff right off his phone. What’s the difference?”

  Ethan nodded. “Yeah! And did you see Susan H’s character? It’s a total copy of Spider-Man!”

  “Exactly! And it’s not like you’re doing nothing. You rough in every panel with stick figures, right? And decide where the speech bubbles go. You’re basically storyboarding the whole thing.”

  “I mean, I could rip up that first spread and start over by myself . . . ,” Ethan said.

  “No, no, no,” said Soren. “Pino and Brady have already started the coloring and lettering.”

  “That’s true,” said Ethan. “It wouldn’t be fair to them.”

  “Not fair at all,” Soren agreed. “You going to tell your dad?”

  Ethan shook his head. “Not yet. And you can’t tell anyone either, okay? Not Pino or Brady.”

  “Of course not!” Soren agreed. “Can I see him draw?”

  “Sure. Hey, Inkling, would you mind drawing a bit for us?”

  Inkling paused, and his sides rose and fell in what looked like a dreamy sigh.

  I FEEL LIKE I’VE JUST MADE A GREAT FRIEND!

  “I’m glad you like the book,” Ethan said. “Maybe I should read it.”

  I URGE YOU TO! ARE WE FRIENDS, ETHAN?

  It was the first time Inkling had used his name, and Ethan felt a surprise wave of happiness. “Yeah, sure, we’re friends,” he replied.

  He took hold of the book to carry Inkling over to his desk. When Inkling flowed right onto his hand, he gave a small gasp. Inkling had never touched him before. He stared at the black splotch on his skin. It felt like almost nothing. Was it a bit cooler? Yes, a little bit like a light breeze.

  I WANT A CLOSER LOOK AT YOU, Inkling wrote on his hand.

  And then he seeped up Ethan’s sweatshirt all the way to his shoulder. Ethan stood very still, watching. Years ago, at an eco-reserve, a parrot had perched on him, and he felt the same nervous wonder now.

  Like a cool gust of wind, Inkling slid onto his neck. Ethan hardly dared breathe. He felt like he was being explored. It was strange to think of himself as something alien, but he supposed he was to Inkling. Ethan walked over to the chest of drawers so he could watch in the mirror as Inkling flowed up over his jaw, past his ear, and across his forehead. It was a little unsettling seeing a big black splotch at the top of his face. He shivered a little.

  Inkling slid down his nose and paused at the bottom, covering his nostrils. Ethan couldn’t inhale, but before he could say anything, Inkling slid down over his mouth, too. His mouth was open, but Inkling’s body was like a black film, stopping air from coming in or going out.

  “Ethan?” Soren said worriedly. “You okay?”

  Panicking, Ethan slapped at Inkling. The ink seemed to understand and quickly bolted off his face, down his arm to the chest of drawers.

  “I couldn’t breathe!” Ethan panted.

  I AM SO SORRY, ETHAN!

  “You can’t just go covering people’s noses and mouths!”

  I DIDN’T KNOW! I WOULD NEVER HURT YOU!

  “It’s okay. It was an accident.” Ethan believed him, but he looked at Inkling with a new respect and a bit of fear. Inkling wasn’t just a magical blob of drawing ink; he was powerful. If he’d wanted to, Inkling could’ve suffocated him.

  PLEASE FORGIVE ME. I AM IN THE DEPTHS OF DESPAIR!

  Ethan couldn’t help smiling. “It’s okay, honest. You don’t have to be in the depths of despair!”

  He looked over at Soren, who had taken several steps back from Inkling.

  “It’s okay,” Ethan told his unblinking friend.

  “Is it? I mean, we don’t really know what else he’s capable of. Who knows what kind of dimension he came from? My brother would know. He’s in high school—he knows about all sorts of stuff like this. We could ask him—”

  “No,” said Ethan. He was already starting to wonder if he should’ve told Soren. “No one else needs to know.”

  “You trust him?” Soren asked, nodding at Inkling.

  “Absolutely. Inkling, are you ready to do another spread?”

  MY HEART THRILLS AT THE IDEA!

  Ethan carried him over to the desk, where a fresh piece of illustration board waited.

  “Wait till you see this,” he told Soren.

  Chapter 6

  At night, when everyone was asleep, Inkling explored some more.

  Along the shadowy hallway, he slid cautiously, keeping an eye out for Rickman, who also kept night hours. To Inkling, the entire house smelled of ink and paper, especially the studio at the end of the hall. Was what he was searching for in there?

  During the day, Inkling avoided that room—and Mr. Rylance. The sketchbook was there. And Inkling hated that sketchbook. It wanted to drag him back in. It was angry and sad—and Inkling sensed that Mr. Rylance was angry and sad, too. Still, the studio tugged at him.

  He was getting closer when Rickman stepped out through the doorway and paused, ears pricked. Inkling shrank back against the baseboard. He feared that fiendish cat almost as much as the sketchbook. He hated the way his sharp claws could pierce him—and even though Inkling could just flow around them, and the little rips healed instantly, they still caused him pain.

  Rickman sniffed the air. Inkling quickly retreated and slipped into the nearest room. He didn’t want to stay too near the door, in case the cat came in, so he moved closer to the bed. Mr. Rylance was snoring. He moved around the clothes dumped on the floor and climbed the leg of a night table. On top was a phone, a book, and a tumbler that held the sticky remnants of a strong-smelling liquid.

  Mr. Rylance turned over in his sleep, bringing his face within inches of the night table.

  Inkling was startled to find himself suddenly drawing. He didn’t seem to have any control over it. One of his inky tendrils was frantically sketching on the table: faces, rooms, everyday things—all so quickly that he was drawing one thing over the other, as if trying to keep up with . . . with what?

  He realized he must somehow be seeing Mr. Rylance’s dreams. Except that he wasn’t even seeing them—he was just drawing whatever was circling around in Mr. Rylance’s sleeping head.

  For the first time, Inkling understood that he hadn’t just come from Mr. Rylance’s sketchbook; he’d come from Mr. Rylance himself.

  How else could he be frantically sketching his dreams?

  Suddenly there was a bed.

  This was important—more so than the things he’d already sketched. Why was it so familiar? Yes, he’d drawn a bit of it, that time when he’d been doodling and Ethan had walked in and seen him. It was an unusual bed, with high sides and a railing around it. It had a green blanket—nasty color—over it, and from the ridges and wrinkles it was clear there was someone lying underneath.

  Inkling stayed very still, concentrating, hoping for more of the picture to come. But at that moment, Rickman jumped up onto the bottom of the bed and glared right at Inkling.

  Fast, Inkling erased his drawings and slid down to the carpet. He made a dash for the door. Behind him, he heard Rickman land heavily. Into the hallway Inkling bolted and pressed himself flat against the baseboard. He knew he had a few seconds and shaped himself into a dish, same as the one he’d seen Rickman eating from.

  Rickman emerged from the room, and his eyes locked onto the dish against the wall. His dish was never there. And yet, it was undeniably a dish, and in a dish there was usually food. He forgot about the hunt and padded toward the dish.

  Inkling watched him coming closer. Over the past couple of days, he’d done a lot of reading, and one of the things he’d learned was what cats were most afraid of. When Rickman was just a few inches away, Inkling swirled himself into the shape of a cobra and sprang like something from a jack-in-the-box.

  Rickman lifted straight up off the floor, ricocheted off the wall, and hurled himself down the hallway into the kitchen.

/>   Inkling formed himself into a happy face on the wall and jiggled around a bit. That was very satisfying, but he was tired now. He slid back to Ethan’s room. Underneath the bed, he found a blank piece of newsprint and sketched the image from Peter Rylance’s dream.

  Afterward, he found his copy of Anne of Green Gables and settled comfortably amongst the pages. As he erased the words, it wasn’t because he was hungry anymore; he just wanted to read. It was the pure enjoyment of being told a story before bedtime. He read many pages, each one more slowly than the last, before he finally slowed to a halt and was still.

  Ethan woke up to a flashlight shining directly into his eyes and a small hand joggling his shoulder.

  “She is sorry to disturb you,” Sarah whispered.

  “What’re you doing?” Ethan said, pushing the flashlight to one side.

  “Are you awake, Ethan?”

  “I am now!”

  “Where is Lucy?”

  With a sigh, Ethan sat up and looked at his bedside clock. It wasn’t so bad. His alarm was set to go off in ten minutes anyway.

  From underneath the bed, Inkling bounded out in the shape of a puppy.

  “Lucy!” said Sarah. “You came back! We were so worried about you!”

  Inkling capered around on the floor, and Sarah giggled with delight. A speech bubble appeared from his mouth, and inside was the word:

  WOOF!

  “She said woof!” Sarah exclaimed. “She is a very clever puppy.”

  “She sure is,” Ethan agreed.

  No one saw Rickman enter Ethan’s room. Rickman was not the smartest cat in the world, but he was fairly sure that the inky puppy on the floor was somehow connected to the inky thing that had scared him half to death last night. Now he wanted revenge. He wanted to catch something just once in his life. He prowled closer, then pounced.

  The moment Rickman’s claws sank into Inkling, the puppy collapsed into a small, terrified blob. Inkling poured around Rickman’s claws and bolted across the room. Rickman pounced again, missed. By this time, Inkling was out into the hallway.

  “Icklan!” hollered Sarah. “You naughty cat! You have hurt Lucy!”

  Ethan dashed after the cat and scooped him up. Rickman twisted for a few seconds, and even showed his teeth, but Ethan looked stern and puffed air on him, and the cat eventually went boneless. It wasn’t worth all this effort. He was old, after all. Food didn’t have to be so much work. Maybe he’d try again when he had a better chance.

  Ethan looked around the hallway but couldn’t see Inkling anywhere.

  “Inkling,” he called softly.

  “Lucy!” Sarah shouted.

  Obviously, Inkling was scared enough to go into hiding for a while, but Ethan wasn’t happy. What if he decided to make an appearance in front of Dad?

  As if on cue, Dad zombie-walked into the hallway.

  “So . . . all right, let’s . . . ,” he said, and disappeared into the washroom.

  As Ethan got dressed, he checked in the most likely places for Inkling, without luck. There was nothing he could do right now. He had to help Sarah pick out her clothes (which took a long time because she had very strong opinions about her wardrobe), then start the coffee machine going and set the table for breakfast. Mom had never asked him to do all these things, but Dad expected him to help more.

  He looked around the hallway one last time, but still no sign of Inkling. Ethan figured he’d just have to hope Inkling stayed hidden.

  When Ms. D left the classroom during their work period, Vika walked over to Ethan’s table and stood with her hands on her hips, gazing at their new spread. Pino was coloring some of the panels, and Brady was inking in the lettering—more neatly than anyone had expected.

  “Pretty great work,” said Vika, nodding.

  Ethan looked at her carefully, not sure whether she was being sincere.

  “You guys should have a look at this,” Vika said to the class. “It’s amazing.”

  “Thanks!” said Brady, who liked everyone, including Vika.

  Ethan started to feel nervous. Heather Lee and a bunch of other kids came over to have a closer look.

  “But you know what’s weird?” said Vika pleasantly. “I’ve never seen Ethan actually draw anything in this classroom. Not a single thing.”

  “He works better at home,” Soren said.

  “True,” said Ethan, feeling sweaty.

  “Makes me wonder if you work at all,” she said.

  “Get lost, Vika,” Ethan retorted, but he watched her nervously, especially her right leg, that same leg that had tornado-kicked him into the garbage can.

  “And look,” Vika said, “you don’t even have any ink on your fingers.” She held up her own hands so everyone could see the smudges. “If you draw, you get inky.”

  “Maybe I just wash my hands better than you,” Ethan retorted, and some kids laughed. Vika was right, though. His fingers were totally unstained. His dad’s were never this clean. He should’ve thought of that and dabbed some marker on them.

  Vika just smiled at her friend Sandra and said, “Told you.” The two girls shared a knowing smirk.

  Ethan looked around at his classmates, and Heather. They were all watching him. Did they think his father had done the artwork? He wanted to erase that smirk on Vika’s face.

  “You want to see me draw?” he said rashly.

  “Ethan,” said Soren, putting a nervous hand on his shoulder, “she’s not the boss of you. You don’t need to—”

  “No, let’s do it!” said Ethan, glaring at Vika.

  “Awesome!” said Vika, and she slapped a blank piece of paper down in front of him. “Go for it!”

  Ethan grabbed his fine-tipped black marker. He’d been watching Inkling draw their gorilla character over and over. He could probably do a pretty good copy.

  But when he uncapped his marker and touched the point to the paper, he realized how much trouble he was in. What was he doing? He couldn’t draw anything!

  “Oh, man,” squeaked Soren.

  “Come on!” sneered Vika. “Draw!”

  At first, Ethan thought that the black dot growing from the tip of his pen was just the marker bleeding into the paper. But then he saw the dot give a familiar shimmer and lean just a little bit in one direction. Inkling! Quickly, Ethan moved his pen the same way. The bead of ink kept going, just a smidge ahead of the tip of his pen. Ethan kept pace.

  Inkling was on his pen! Ethan didn’t know how, and he didn’t care. Inkling sped up and Ethan matched him, hardly daring to blink in case he slipped too far behind and someone noticed that the gorilla was drawing itself.

  “You’re so fast!” he heard Heather Lee say, and his heart gave a happy squeeze.

  Ethan felt like he was in a trance. He wasn’t even seeing the gorilla take shape because all his attention was on the line that was seeping away from his pen, moving, moving—

  And then suddenly stopped. Ethan inhaled sharply and lifted his hand from the paper.

  “Gorilla!” he proclaimed, and saw the picture in front of him for the first time. He tried not to look amazed, because it was truly fantastic.

  “That’s incredible!” Heather said.

  A few people actually clapped. Someone gave him a high five.

  “Way to go, buddy!” said Soren, whose eyes were still wide with terror. He looked around at everyone defiantly. “See what my boy did?”

  “You can apologize anytime now!” Pino said to Vika, who was staring from the drawing to Ethan, her eyes narrowed meanly.

  Ethan looked around. He felt fantastic. This must be how his father felt all those times people clapped for him in bookstores and conventions! He could see the admiration in everyone’s eyes—and the brightest were Heather Lee’s.

  “That was amazing, Ethan,” she said.

  “What’s going on?” Ms. D said, coming back into the room.

  Everyone scattered to their own tables.

  “You’re supposed to be working with your groups. Come o
n, guys, you aren’t in kindergarten. Let’s focus! Back to work, please.”

  Vika gave Ethan one last suspicious look and turned away.

  Ethan wasn’t the only one giddy with triumph. Inkling was revved up, too. He’d never drawn for an audience before, and he liked the applause and cheering. He’d wanted to keep going. He would’ve done all sorts of fabulous things. But Ethan had already lifted the pen away from the paper.

  Inkling quickly moved into the shadows of Ethan’s palm, then up his wrist and onto the sleeve of his dark sweater. Inkling made himself thin as thread and weaved his way up the arm, then back down toward Ethan’s jeans pocket, where he’d spent most of the morning, peeping out and taking everything in.

  After Rickman had attacked him earlier that morning, he’d found the perfect hiding place in Ethan’s backpack. There was even a good book inside, called The BFG, to keep him occupied. Plus, he got a trip outside the house! He was seeing all sorts of new things.

  Just as Inkling was about to slip back inside Ethan’s pocket, he glimpsed Soren’s sneakers. They were the brightest red he’d ever seen, brighter even than comic-book red—and he wanted it. He couldn’t help himself. He poured himself down the seam of Ethan’s jeans. There were lots of feet down here, all restlessly squeaking and nudging the gritty floor. A quick slither and Inkling was on Soren’s left shoe.

  He surged across the canvas sides first, trying to absorb every last drop of that delicious red. But nothing was happening. The red stayed on the shoe. What Inkling didn’t know was that dye was an entirely different thing from ink. In consternation, Inkling swerved to the top of the shoe, but that red also stayed fixed in place.

  He was about to try Soren’s other shoe when the lunch bell rang. Instantly, everyone was on their feet, and chair legs were being pushed around, and Soren was walking.

  Inkling thought it best just to hold on for the moment.

  Ethan, meanwhile, was panicking. Where was Inkling? He’d lost track of him after they finished the gorilla drawing. While his friends packed up their backpack, Ethan poked his hands into all his pockets, hoping to feel the gusty chill of Inkling. He looked on his chair, his clothing. Down on his hands and knees, he checked the floor. He wanted to call out but was worried someone would overhear.