Little Boy Blue,
come blow your horn.
The sheep's in the meadow,
the cow's in the corn.
Where is that boy
who looks after the sheep?
Under the haystack,
fast asleep.
Will you wake him?
Oh no, not I.
For if I do,
he will surely cry.
Little Boy Blue
X.
It hurt when Emma called him crazy, but it makes him angry when Dr. Hopper does. Because Dr. Hopper – Archie – doesn't say crazy, he says psychosis, which is much, much worse than crazy, because psychosis means they can lock you away.
Henry doesn't want to be locked away – it sounds lonely and scary. And he thought he could trust Archie, he thought he could bring him into Operation Cobra, but now, he's not so sure. And Archie needs to be part of Operation Cobra because he is Jiminy Cricket, and Jiminy Cricket is good, and Emma is going to need good on her side in order to break the curse.
Henry storms out the door – he doesn't know where he's going and he doesn't care, he just doesn't want to be there anymore.
He ends up outside Ms. Blanchard's door and smells chocolate and cinnamon and hears Emma's muffled voice. And all of a sudden, he's not mad anymore, he's hurt, he's really hurt. He feels tears prick his eyes and tries to make them stop.
Because Henry is ten years old, so he's not a baby anymore and he's not a crybaby anymore – he tries to stay mad and he pretends like it doesn't hurt, but he is just ten years old and he hates being called crazy and he is so afraid of being locked away.
He knocks on the door and Emma appears, her face scrunched in worry. Kid, what happened?, she asks, and Henry doesn't know where to start and the harder he tries to stop the tears, the harder they come.
And Henry was mad, but Emma is even madder. She's breathing heavily and her hands are on her hips and when Henry says that Archie talked about locking him away, she slams her hand on the table, tells him stay here, and storms out.
Oh dear, he hears Ms. Blanchard murmur. He asks if Emma is okay and she just smiles at him and hands him a mug of hot chocolate and some cinnamon cookies and says it's nothing.
They talk about the fairy tales and Ms. Blanchard is so nice and she never judges him or calls him crazy and he likes it and he likes her. She says it's okay for him to think the fairy tales are real because believing in happy endings is a powerful thing.
Henry keeps quiet and nods, but he really wants to say, what about your happy ending?
And the only way to bring back the happy endings is for Emma to break the curse, and she'll need Archie's help for that because every good story has a hero with a dependable sidekick.
And the only way to make Archie see that he is really Jiminy Cricket is to find proof. Proof, which is at the sinkhole, Henry's sure of it.
His tears have dried by now and he feels a bit better. He thanks Ms. Blanchard for the cocoa and cookies, and lies that he's going home. As soon as she closes the door, he runs outside, toward the sinkhole.
It's nice out today, sunny and bright, but somehow, the hole looks even darker and more dangerous than it did last night.
What would Emma do?, he asks himself. Henry pulls out a flashlight and grits his teeth. She would be brave and strong, and she would check it out, that's what she would do.
She wouldn't be scared.
He takes a deep breath and makes his way inside.
Henry pretends he isn't either.