The Mysterious Matter of I. M. Fine Read online

  I stood there in the midst of all that bedlam, wondering what to do. I couldn’t find Zoë or J.D. Beamer offered to give me a ride home, but who knew when his dad would arrive? I was on the verge of freaking out.

  “Thanks, Beamer,” I said, “but I need to get out of here now.”

  So I walked home.

  8

  I was sitting at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of cereal, when it hit me. You’re probably way ahead of me here, but please understand, it had been a pretty traumatic experience.

  It was I. M. Fine again.

  I thought about it and thought about it—and I couldn’t stand not having somebody to tell. Finally, the phone rang. It was Beamer.

  “I bet I know what you’re thinking” was the first thing he said.

  “Yeah, I bet you do,” I answered.

  “Sinister Serpent Surprise. Kind of a coincidence, huh?”

  “Do you believe me now?”

  There was a long pause on the other end. “Well,” he said, “let’s just agree that it is an amazing coincidence. Worth looking into.”

  “Thanks for that vote of confidence, Beamer.”

  “What about Zoë and J.D.?” he asked. “Are they okay?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, “Nobody’s home. And I can’t reach Mom on her cell phone, either. I bet she’s gone over to school to pick us up.”

  Just then, I heard a little beep. Call waiting.

  “Maybe that’s her,” I said. “Let me call you back.”

  I clicked over to the other line.

  “Franny, are you all right?” It was Mom.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “It was pretty awful over at the school, so I walked home. I hope I didn’t scare you.”

  “That’s all right. Your teacher told me you left. I just wanted to make sure you got home safely.”

  “Did you find Zoë and J.D.?”

  “Yes,” she said. “They’re here with me. But, Franny, we’re over at the hospital. Zoë had some kind of strange episode. . . .”

  “Zoë!” I practically screamed.

  “Franny, calm down. Quite a few kids are here with the same thing. Well, you were there. You saw what was going on.”

  “The hissing and slithering . . .”

  “Yes. They thought it might be some kind of seizure, but her EEG is perfectly normal. They may run a few more tests, but the doctor seems to feel it’s not serious.”

  “Okay,” I said numbly.

  “I need to hang up now and call Dad. I’d like him to come get J.D. and take him home. There’s no telling how long this will take. And don’t worry. Zoë is going to be fine. I’ll keep you posted.”

  She hung up. I finished my cereal, then went into the living room and turned on the TV, switching channels for something to do.

  Dad and J.D. came home after a while and joined me in front of the TV.

  Mom called again to say that Zoë was much better. She was a little groggy, but she was resting peacefully. They would be home in an hour or two. She suggested that maybe we should order in some pizza.

  So we were sitting there, flipping channels, when suddenly I froze. There was a news lady, reporting live, with a crowd of kids in the background. Several of them were lying in the grass, hissing and slithering like snakes.

  “That’s our school!” J.D. yelled.

  The camera panned in for a close-up.

  “Ambulances are being diverted to outlying hospitals,” the reporter was saying, “due to the massive number of cases that are coming in.”

  “Look!” J.D. said. He had seen it at the same moment I had. There were letters on the side of the brick building. They said WILL ROGERS MIDDLE SCHOOL.

  “It’s not our school!” I said. “This is happening other places!”

  The phone rang. It was Beamer.

  “Turn on the news!” I said.

  “I did,” he replied breathlessly. “It’s on CNN, too.”

  “You’re kidding. It’s not just in Baltimore?”

  “No, Franny, it’s all over the country!”

  I gasped. I said a bad word.

  “Beamer—”

  “Yes.”

  “Zoë’s in the hospital.”

  “With the snake thing?”

  “Yeah. But Mom keeps saying she’s fine. It’s really creepy, though.”

  “Gosh, I’m sorry, Franny.” I could hear voices in the background. “Wait a minute—hold on. My dad’s yelling something.” There was a pause. “Turn on NBC.”

  “Okay,” I said, and hung up.

  There was a man in a white coat standing behind a podium, talking to reporters. Letters at the bottom of the screen identified him as a professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

  “No,” he was saying, “we feel certain that there is nothing here that points to terrorism. At the moment, we are treating it as some sort of mass psychogenic episode, though, to be honest, we have never seen anything quite like this before, so we are just trying to stay calm and not jump to any conclusions.”

  There was a hubbub of voices, lots of reporters asking questions at the same time. The doctor nodded his head slightly, indicating that he had heard at least one question that he could decipher, and then started talking again.

  “Well,” he said, “the symptoms are quite genuine; let me emphasize that. But the trigger could have been emotional rather than physical. Which is what we mean by ‘psychogenic.’ There have certainly been cases of this before, one as recently as 1998, when a large number of children fell ill at a school after someone thought he smelled fumes. However, no physical agent was ever found.

  “The good news is that the children we have seen here have recovered on their own, with no perceptible ill effects. Nevertheless, the widespread nature of the outbreak and the degree to which it has been limited almost entirely to elementary and middle school children suggest that we need to explore the matter further. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will undoubtedly be looking into it.”

  The reporters shouted questions again, the word snake clearly audible from several.

  “It has been mentioned that the behavior of the children was snakelike, by which I mean falling to the floor and moving in a slithering sort of motion, combined with emitting a hissing sound. This could also be explained by mass hysteria—if I may use that term. And I would like to point out that such behavior is nothing new, historically speaking. Three hundred years ago, in Salem, Massachusetts, there were instances of perfectly normal children getting on all fours and barking like dogs. Their sincere belief that they were being possessed by demons took any number of bizarre forms. Fear can have a profound effect on vulnerable individuals such as children.”

  He went on like that for a few more minutes. There wasn’t really anything new to say, and soon the reporters started bringing up the usual crackpot theories—like maybe Iraq had sprayed America with Ebola virus, or the kids had been poisoned by genetically altered food—all of which the doctor denied. He began to look exasperated and brought the press conference to a close. The station switched back to the footage taken at Will Rogers Middle School earlier in the day and repeated the basic story for those who had just tuned in.

  “Call me when the pizza arrives,” I told Dad, and headed upstairs to think.

  9

  Things had definitely changed. For starters, I was now absolutely, positively sure there was a direct connection between the Chillers books and the strange stuff that was going on. Three books in a row, and all of them having some unusual widespread effect on the kids who read them. . . . A coincidence? Uh-uh.

  What was even scarier, no accidental effect could be that consistent. This was being done on purpose. And that being the case, it followed that we were talking about a real, actual person, not a committee of ghostwriters—well, not unless that committee was part of a conspiracy, and even I wasn’t ready to be that paranoid.

  The other thing I couldn’t help noticing was that these weird events
were escalating. In a pretty short time, we’d gone from a harmless candy fad to ambulances rushing kids to hospitals, my own sister included. What would happen when the next book came out?

  All of this left me pondering the big question: What could I do about it?

  See, the whole business sounds so off-the-wall when you actually put it into words—like something out of the X-Files. So it wasn’t all that likely that the police or the president or anybody like that would believe me. I mean, my own parents hadn’t. Even Beamer hadn’t believed me at first. J.D. was the only one who’d really swallowed my theory outright, and he was only ten.

  So it looked like anything that got done would get done by us: me and Beamer and J.D. Not exactly the FBI! But you work with what you’ve got. And somehow, we had to find I. M. Fine and convince him to stop.

  We began by writing him a letter in care of his publisher. Just a regular fan letter—to smoke him out. Then, while we waited for the reply, we got on the Internet.

  On his publisher’s website, we found a complete list of his books, but no biographical information. We looked for him on the list of authors with personal websites and in the section on how to get an author to visit your school. I’m sure you’ve already guessed—he wasn’t in either of those places.

  Next, we tried to track him down through several “find a person” sites on the web. We were glad his name wasn’t Robert Smith or Michael Johnson. After all, how many people could there be named I. M. Fine?

  Well, none, as it turned out. We did find quite a few people named Fine with first names that began with the letter I. There were lots of Irvings, several Irvins, plus a sprinkling of Ivys and Isaacs and Irises and Irenes. There was an Isidore, an Inca, and an Ilona. Several were just listed as I. Fine, and a few with two initials: I.D., I.F., and I.B.—but no I.M. They lived all over—from Pompano Beach, Florida, to Van Nuys, California, and everywhere in between.

  If we had wanted to—and if we’d had a credit card and $39.95 to spend—we could have found out all kinds of things about these people: every one of their previous addresses for the past ten years, their physical descriptions as listed on their driver’s licenses, the names of their family members, the names and phone numbers of their neighbors, what property they owned (and how much it was worth), what kind of car they drove (and how much it was worth), and whether they had ever been sued in court or had filed for bankruptcy.

  All of which I find extremely creepy, if you want to know the truth. We looked up my dad’s name, just out of curiosity—and there he was, along with our home address. So anybody with $39.95 who wanted to play private eye could delve into our private lives. They could find out my mom’s name and my name, and Zoë’s and J.D.’s, too. They could find out what color my dad’s hair and eyes are, how tall he is, and that he has to wear glasses to drive. They could even phone our neighbors and ask questions about us. It’s like something out of a spy story, only it’s real. Some weirdo could look you up, too. Think about it.

  Okay, I realize that I’m in no position to complain about people snooping on other people, since that was exactly what we were doing. But I think you will agree that we were doing it for a very good reason.

  “Surely you’re not planning to contact every one of those people and ask them if they wrote the Chillers books?” Beamer said.

  It did seem pretty pointless. After all, if he wasn’t listed in Something About the Author and didn’t have his bio on his books, then he was probably trying to protect himself from his fans—truckloads of mail, kids ringing his doorbell, that sort of thing.

  “Beamer!” I said. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before. You know where they get all those names, don’t you? From phone books all over the country. I. M. Fine isn’t going to have his number listed. Famous people never do.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Beamer agreed. “We sure wasted a lot of time.”

  About a week later, the letter from the publisher came. It was a form letter, very cheery and pleasant, basically saying that I. M. Fine was a shy person and didn’t wish to be in the spotlight, and that he was too busy writing those wonderful books to make public appearances or to write to children. At the author’s specific request, no biographical material was ever released. However, information on all the past books in the series was enclosed, along with exciting information about the next book, to be published in June. It was going to be called The Ghost of Creepy Hollow.

  “Where’s Creepy Hollow?” asked J.D.

  “It’s a joke,” I explained. “You know—like ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.’”

  “Where’s Sleepy Hollow?”

  “I don’t know, J.D.—nowhere. The author made it up.”

  “Oh,” he said, disappointed.

  “All right, guys. Let’s focus. What have we accomplished?”

  “Nothing,” said J.D.

  We all sat there looking glum. We needed a new plan, and nobody had one.

  After about ten minutes, during which we all stared into space, Beamer made a suggestion.

  “How about the library? There must be books besides Something About the Author that have stuff on famous people. Maybe he’s listed in one of them.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s worth a try. Who’s Who and like that.”

  So, since that was our one and only idea, we headed for the library.

  When we got there, I showed J.D. the section where all the I. M. Fine books were kept. I told him it was his job to go through the books in a systematic manner and check the backs for biographical material. I figured that would keep him out of trouble while we were in the reference section. Then we went to find the nice librarian I had talked to before.

  “Hi,” I said. “Remember me?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “Still interested in I. M. Fine?”

  I nodded. “That’s why we’re here, actually. Some stuff has happened, and it turns out we were wrong about that committee of ghostwriters. I. M. Fine is definitely real.”

  “Oh?” she said. “What kind of ‘stuff’?”

  “Well, you remember when everybody got that snake sickness? It was on the news and all?”

  “The seizures? Yes, I remember.”

  “Well, do you also remember the name of the I. M. Fine book that came out at the very same time?”

  “No . . .” she said slowly. “I don’t actually.”

  “Sinister Serpent Surprise!” I said, knowing even as I spoke that she was not going to say “Wow!”

  “Really. . . .” She was trying not to smile. “And you think there’s a connection?”

  “Never mind,” I said. “We just want to look him up in some of your reference books—besides Something About the Author. What else have you got?”

  “Come on,” she said, and led us to the reference section. “I’ll show you.” She pulled out a book called Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults and another one called Who’s Who Among North American Authors. “That’s all I have,” she said, “but there will be others at the central branch.”

  We thanked her and settled down at one of the big library tables.

  “It’s probably best if you don’t try to explain it to people, Franny. They’re just going to think we’re nuts.”

  “I know,” I said defensively. “It just sort of slipped out.”

  Beamer shoved Who’s Who over to my side of the table and leaned back in his chair. “You’re the designated reader,” he said.

  For better or for worse, I realized, this wasn’t going to take all that long. I mean, there were only two books. And if we came up empty, we were clean out of ideas.

  I opened Who’s Who and turned to the F section. I double-checked just to be sure, then heaved a big sigh.

  “Not there?”

  “Nope. Man, this guy is really, really determined to be mysterious.”

  “This is true,” Beamer agreed.

  “Hand me Major Authors and let’s get this over with.” I didn’t have
very high hopes. Still, I had to go through the motions.

  I thumbed through the pages. Farley . . . Feelings . . . Feiffer . . . FINE!

  I couldn’t believe it. Fine, I. M.—right there in black and white!

  The thrill lasted about two seconds. Under his name, where I should have found his date and place of birth, name of spouse and children, educational institutions attended, and all that other interesting stuff, was a single statement: “Personal information withheld at the author’s request.” There followed a list of his published works, and that was it.

  “Well, great!” I said, slamming the book closed and causing several people to turn and stare. “Just great!”

  Beamer had slid so far down in his chair, I thought he might disappear under the table. “Maybe we should forget this and do something else,” he said. “Start a rock band. Take up racquetball.”

  I got up and put the books back on the shelf.

  “Let’s get J.D. and go home,” I said. “This is too depressing.”

  We found him exactly where we’d left him. He was sitting on the floor, surrounded by a pile of ratty paperbacks with lurid covers. He was gazing at one particularly hideous illustration of a disembodied mouth the size of a van, with a huge tongue protruding from it. Spit was oozing out onto the sidewalk, where several terrified children were reacting more or less as you might expect. He looked up as we came over and grinned.

  “Hey, check this out!” he said.

  “J.D., that’s gross.”

  He shrugged and put the book down.

  “We’re getting out of here,” I said. “Come on, we’ll help you clean this mess up.” Beamer and I got down on the rug and started gathering up the books and putting them away on the shelf.

  Suddenly, J.D. turned to me with a big grin and said, “Oh! Guess what!”

  “What?”

  “Wim-ber-ly, Penn-syl-van-ia!” He rolled the words off his tongue like he was playing Shakespeare.

  “Say again?”

  “Wimberly, Pennsylvania,” he repeated. “That’s where he lives.”