The Mysterious Matter of I. M. Fine Read online

  “A few.”

  “Wow,” I said. “It’s like you got your past back.”

  “Yes, Franny, that’s exactly what it’s like. Both of us got our past back.”

  She just looked at us for a minute, with her head tilted a little and a thoughtful smile on her face. Then she got to her feet.

  “I hate this, you two, but I really have to go. Promise you’ll come back soon?”

  “Sure,” we said, following her out of the room and down the hall.

  “Do you need a ride home?” she asked.

  “No thanks. We have our bikes.”

  “Bye, then, you two. Don’t be strangers.”

  A couple of weeks later, Beamer and I went to the library. (I think I mentioned before that our school library is currently without books, which makes it pretty useless except as a place to do your homework during lunch period.)

  Anyway, I was sitting at the big library table, trying to decide whether to check out The Adventures of Tom Sawyer or Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, when our friend the librarian came over to chat.

  “Franny and Beamer, right?” she said.

  “You have a very good memory,” I told her.

  “Not really. I just remember the interesting people.”

  “Are we interesting?”

  “Definitely. Tom Sawyer, huh? Good book. Have you given up on I. M. Fine?”

  “Yeah. That’s all over now.”

  “Yes. So it seems,” she said.

  “What do you mean,” Beamer asked, “‘So it seems?’”

  “Well, it’s really very odd. Those books used to be so popular with the kids. And then all of a sudden, no one is reading them at all! And that newest one? The Avenging Word? I swear, not a single kid has finished that book. They get about halfway through and then they bring it back and say it was really boring. I mean, it must be really bad. I’m tempted to read it myself, just out of curiosity. But I can tell you—it has completely turned the kids off the whole series.”

  “Good,” I said.

  I decided on Tom Sawyer—I’d read Twenty Thousand Leagues next, maybe. I was standing there, fishing for my library card, when the gift arrived.

  “And you know what else is strange?” the librarian said. “Kids come in now, and they walk right past all those Chillers books—and you know what they ask for? You’re not going to believe this: David Copperfield! We can’t keep it on the shelf! I’ve had to order twenty more copies!”

  Ida was right. We knew.

  Back Ad

  About the Author

  Photo courtesy of the author

  DIANE STANLEY is the author and illustrator of beloved books for young readers, including SAVING SKY, which ALA Booklist, in a starred review, called “beautifully written” and noted that “parallels to our contemporary times appear on every page. . . . The young people manifest a courage few can emulate”; BELLA AT MIDNIGHT, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and an ALA Booklist Editor’s Choice; THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF THE ALLBRIGHT ACADEMY; THE MYSTERIOUS MATTER OF I. M. FINE; and A TIME APART. Well known as the author and illustrator of award-winning picture-book biographies, she is the recipient of the Washington Post–Children’s Book Guild Nonfiction Award for the body of her work.

  Ms. Stanley has also written and illustrated numerous picture books, including three creatively reimagined fairy tales: THE GIANT AND THE BEANSTALK, GOLDIE AND THE THREE BEARS, and RUMPELSTILTSKIN’S DAUGHTER. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. You can visit her online at www.dianestanley.com.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  Credits

  Cover art © 2002 by Joanne Scribner

  Cover design by Andrea Vandergrift

  Cover © 2002 by HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

  Copyright

  The Mysterious Matter of I. M. Fine

  Copyright © 2001 by Diane Stanley

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Stanley, Diane.

  The mysterious matter of I. M. Fine / by Diane Stanley.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Noticing that a popular series of horror novels is having a bizarre effect on the behavior of its readers, Franny and Beamer set out to find the mysterious author.

  ISBN 0-688-17546-5 — ISBN 0-06-029619-4 (lib. bdg.)

  ISBN 0-380-73327-7 (pbk.)

  EPUB Edition MAY 2014 ISBN 9780062044587

  [1. Magic—Fiction. 2. Books and reading—Fiction. 3. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Title.

  PZ7.S7869 My 2001

  00-054040

  [Fic]—dc21

  CIP

  AC

  * * *

  First Harper edition, 2002

  Visit us on the World Wide Web!

  www.harperchildrens.com

  About the Publisher

  Australia

  HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

  Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street

  Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

  http://www.harpercollins.com.au

  Canada

  HarperCollins Canada

  2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor

  Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada

  http://www.harpercollins.ca

  New Zealand

  HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand

  Unit D, 63 Apollo Drive

  Rosedale 0632

  Auckland, New Zealand

  http://www.harpercollins.co.nz

  United Kingdom

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  77-85 Fulham Palace Road

  London, W6 8JB, UK

  http://www.harpercollins.co.uk

  United States

  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

  195 Broadway

  New York, NY 10007

  http://www.harpercollins.com