Hello again. I know a lot of you found the last chapter confusing, sorry about that! (I'm still probably going to write a sequel though. It was just so fun.) Anyway, until then, have a Kenny thing.
In an alleyway in Dublin, on a slightly humid but otherwise nice day, Kenny was slowly regaining consciousness. He winced at the memory of what had just happened to him. That skeleton had a mean right hook. Every part of him ached. Suddenly, his plan to expose magic to the world via his biography of Valkyrie Cain didn't seem like such an appealing idea any more.
It had been an excellent biography, too. He'd secretly gotten friendly with Valkyrie's reflection, who'd found a way to give him access to all of Valkyrie's memories. After seeing them all, he felt almost like he'd lived her life. He used the memories to write the most detailed, accurate biography ever written. He'd left nothing out, not even the (many) bits where Valkyrie was in the shower. He especially liked the love triangle with the vampire and the Teleporter - it was like Twilight, except true. The teenage girls would love it. They'd all be wearing Team Fletcher and Team Caelan T-shirts before you could say 'paranormal romance.' Kenny would be a rich, rich man.
At least, that was the plan. That day, he'd stupidly gone to see Cain and Pleasant to tell them about the book. They'd read some of the completed manuscript. Then Cain had burned it, just like that, with a click of her fingers, and the two of them had proceeded to beat him up and throw him forcibly out of the house.
He groaned and rubbed his back. They were so unneccessarily violent. He thought of his precious manuscript, the biggest scoop of his life... now a pile of ashes. Tears came to his eyes, and he let them fall. He couldn't wipe them away because he was pretty sure his arm was broken.
Suddenly, he heard glorious music - like a choir of angels singing. The alleyway was filled with a blinding light, and he saw a girl walking towards him. The light faded to a heavenly glow, and he recognized the girl's face.
"Muffin?" she offered in an Australian accent.
It was Myra. He'd seen her in Valkyrie's memories. Funny - she'd looked much uglier then.
"No, thanks," said Kenny weakly. "You're Fletcher Renn's girlfriend, aren't you?"
She beamed. "Yes." Then frowned. "How do you know?"
"I'm acquainted with Valkyrie Cain," he said, and grimaced. Speaking was painful. "Sort of. She just beat me up."
"Oh, you poor thing," she said, big brown eyes widening in sympathy. "Is it very painful?"
"Well... yeah. But I suppose I deserved it," he said reluctantly, then thought back to his burnt manuscript and his eyes filled with tears again.
Myra sat down beside him and gave him a packet of Kleenex. "Tell me."
Kenny hesitated, but there was something so kind, genuine and non-judgemental about her eyes that he felt like he could tell her anything. "Well," he said, using his non-broken arm to wipe his eyes, "I'm mortal, like you - a reporter. I found out about magic about a year ago, and I decided to write a book about Valkyrie's life and publish it for everyone to read, so the whole world would know about magic. I'd never really uncovered a big story before, but this was going to be huge. I finished the manuscript yesterday, and I brought it here to show Valkyrie and Skulduggery, and they - they - " The lump in his throat rose again. "They burned it. Then they beat me up." He burst into tears.
Myra patted his arm, gingerly, so as not to hurt it. "There, there. I'm so sorry about your manuscript. That must have been awful for you. After all the hard work you put in..."
"Yeah..."
"But magic is supposed to be a secret, isn't it? That's what Fletcher told me."
"Well, that's what the mages want," sniffled Kenny, "but do you think that's fair? All this magic stuff - it's so amazing. And they're keeping it from us. It's a huge conspiracy. The public have a right to know the truth!"
"And I suppose you would've got a lot of money out of telling it to them," said Myra.
"Well, yeah," said Kenny, "but can you blame me? I'm a shite reporter, Myra. Or at least, everyone thinks I'm shite. I cover all the weird little stories, the quirky ones, the ones that never make it onto the front page. Stuff like that 'ghost boy' - who I'm guessing is now your boyfriend - who was seen disappearing into thin air outside three different nightclubs. Stuff like the pack of monsters who were seen running through Haggard, chasing a twelve-year-old girl, who I see has now blossomed into an incredibly violent young woman. Stuff no-one else took seriously. But me? I knew... I knew it all had to add up to something. And I was right. I've uncovered this huge secret that will finally get me the recognition I deserve, and now I can't tell anyone. I have to go back to my terribly paid job at the newspaper, find something else to report on, die a failure, in obscurity. This was supposed to be my big break, Myra. And now... now it's gone." Kenny burst into a fresh flood of tears.
Myra's own eyes brimmed with tears of sympathy, and she gave him a hug. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
Kenny looked at her thoughtfully, wiping his eyes again. Was there? After all, she had quite an interesting story of her own - not quite as exciting as Valkyrie's, maybe, but exciting enough. The mortal girl who'd been living an ordinary life until she'd gotten trapped in a burning building and a mysterious, hot Ghost Boy had teleported her to safety. And as an added bonus, the Ghost Boy wasn't even made of ectoplasm, so they could still shift and everything. It was a win-win situation.
"Actually," he said, "maybe there is..."
Half an hour later, they were at Fletcher's penthouse apartment in Australia.
"You want to write a book about me?" he said, eyes shining.
"Well," said Kenny carefully, "technically Myra would be the main character, but you'd be the real star, Fletcher. To the book's mostly female readership, anyway."
Fletcher folded his arms. "OK, it sounds tempting, but I can't let you expose the secret of magic. You think you got badly beaten up? It's nothing compared to what would happen to me."
"Nonsense," said Kenny. "Valkyrie wouldn't want to ruin your pretty face. Trust me, I've seen her memories. But I can present the book as a work of fiction, if you want. All I'd have to do is change your names... hmm, what about Bella and Edward?"
"No," said Myra and Fletcher as one.
"Katniss and Peeta?"
"No."
"Clary and Jace?"
"No."
Kenny was running out of young adult urban fantasy couples. "Mickey and Minnie?"
"No!"
"Fine, give me some suggestions," Kenny snapped.
A dreamy look came over Fletcher's face. "Well, when I was younger, I always wanted to be called Fletcher... oh, wait. Never mind."
"Well, what was your name before you changed it to Fletcher?" Kenny asked him impatiently.
Fletcher went red.
"Go on, tell us," said Kenny, intrigued now.
Fletcher mumbled something inaudible.
"Louder," said Kenny.
"Norman."
"Norman?" echoed Myra and Kenny incredulously.
"Yes!" he snapped. "My name was Norman! Go on! Ridicule me!"
Myra slipped an arm around him. "I'd never ridicule you."
He looked at her gratefully. "I'm so glad you're not Valkyrie."
Kenny cleared his throat. "I'm afraid Norman isn't quite the sexy and romantic name I had in mind for my male lead. Maybe I'll go with something else... like Kenny."
Myra and Fletcher just looked at him.
"No?" said Kenny. "Fine, fine. God, you two are so hard to please. OK, Myra, what would your dream man be called?"
"Fletcher," said Myra.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," he sighed. "Besides Fletcher."
"Erm..." Myra struggled to think. "Casper?"
"Casper?" said Kenny.
"Casper?" said Fletcher.
"What?" she said defensively. "I think it's a nice name."
"Actually, I can see it working," said Kenny. "Casper the Sexy Ghost. I think I'll go with that. Now we just need a name for Myra. Any ideas?"
"Olive," said Fletcher.
"Olive?" said Kenny. "Why Olive?"
"Because I like olives," said Fletcher.
Kenny looked at Myra.
"I'm happy with Olive," she said.
Kenny shrugged and wrote it down. "OK, then. The beautiful love story of Casper and Olive. Now I just need you, Myra, to tell me the story of how you met Fletcher, and I'll write it down, and voila." He smiled. "Instant young adult bestseller."
Three weeks later, the book was almost finished. Kenny had considered adding Caelan in, or possibly an attractive werewolf, to create an incredibly original love triangle, but he had a feeling Fletcher would object so he decided not to. Instead, he added in Casper's jealous, leather-clad ex-girlfriend Valerie to add a bit of drama and violence to the story. Then he decided on a title - Muffinlight - and sent it off to nineteen different publishers.
Just three days later, he got a letter from one of them.
Dear Mr. Dunne,
We at Generic Books were very impressed by your novel, Muffinlight. A normal girl meeting a hot, mysterious boy who introduces her to the secret world of magic? Groundbreaking! We have never, in all our years of publishing young adult fiction, seen a novel with that plotline before. We predict it will be the next Twilight, except better, because it has muffins in it.
We would be delighted to publish your novel, and would take you on for a sequel (or several) if you choose to write them. Please meet us at our office in London for further discussion.
Yours sincerely,
Pamela Spratt
Soon enough, he received letters from the other eighteen publishers, all saying more or less the same thing - they all wanted Muffinlight. Kenny thought long and hard about the decision, taking everything into consideration. Eventually he chose Generic Books, because he'd looked Pamela Spratt up on Facebook and she was surprisingly hot for someone called Pamela Spratt.
Soon enough, Muffinlight had a cover - a picture of two hands holding a muffin, like the cover of Twilight except with a muffin instead of an apple - and the following blurb.
"I knew three things about Casper. One, he was a Teleporter. Two, there was a part of him - and I didn't know how strong that part might be - that could teleport. And three - I was completely and irrevocably in love with him."
It also had a few words of praise from other authors:
"Almost as good as my own books" - Derek Landy
"Amazing. I wish I'd written it. Actually, for some reason, I kind of feel like I already have" - Stephenie Meyer
But Kenny's favourite part of the cover was the words KENNY DUNNE written in large letters across the bottom.
Then the book was printed and distributed to bookshops all over the world. It was an overnight sensation. Almost immediately, it had a fandom to rival Twilight's. Girls were walking around in T-shirts saying TEAM OLIVE and - less frequently - TEAM VALERIE. There were ferocious shipping wars between the Colive shippers and the Casperie shippers. The books sold like hotcakes and more had to printed. After one month, Kenny was a millionaire. His time had finally come.
Unfortunately, not everyone was so pleased.
Three months after Muffinlight first hit the shelves, Kenny was relaxing in his new penthouse apartment in Dublin. It was almost as fancy as Fletcher's, but unfortunately it was lacking a couch shaped like an ice-cream sandwich like the one Fletcher had in his living room (Kenny had looked everywhere, but he couldn't find one.) So he was lying on his ordinary, boring, couch-shaped couch and watching Irish Celebrity Meltdowns on his ninety-six inch flatscreen TV when Fletcher, Myra and Valkyrie appeared out of thin air in front of him.
"Can I help you?" Kenny asked, somewhat startled. He muted the TV.
"Oh, is that Irish Celebrity Meltdowns?" Fletcher asked, turning around, but Valkyrie pulled him back to face Kenny. "Focus, Fletcher, focus."
"We're here about Muffinlight," said Fletcher. "We think we should be getting some of the royalties."
"What?" said Kenny. "But you gave me permission to use your story. And I didn't even use your real names."
"Yeah, but there's a picture of us on the back cover," said Fletcher. "And anyway, you've become a millionaire just from writing down everything Myra told you and turning into a book. Technically, you didn't even write that book. She did."
Kenny looked at Myra, who was glowing with her usual heavenly light. "I thought you were too saintly to care about material things like money," he said to her.
"I wouldn't," said Myra apologetically, "but I am a college student, and it is a recession. We don't want much, just like two per cent of the royalties. Do you think that would be fair?"
Kenny hesitated, but it was very hard to refuse Myra. It would have been like giving a wedgie to Mother Teresa. "OK, fine," he said, and took out his chequebook, scribbled the cheque and handed it to her.
"Thank you so much," she said with such genuine gratitude it made him want to cry.
"Welcome," he said gruffly. "Now why is she here?" he demanded, looking warily at Valkyrie.
Valkyrie folded her arms. She was wearing her usual skintight black leather, and her boots looked especially pointy and dangerous. He remembered the damage they'd done to him a few months previously. "I don't like the way you portrayed me in Muffinlight."
Kenny tried to play dumb. "What? But you weren't in Muffinlight."
Valkyrie raised an eyebrow. "I'm not stupid, Kenny. Valerie, Casper's violent ex-girlfriend who was jealous of Olive and wore leather the whole time? It doesn't take a genius to work out that she was based on me."
Kenny picked up a copy of Muffinlight and pointed to the disclaimer on the inside cover. "Any similarities to any person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental."
"Kenny, don't make me beat you up again," Valkyrie sighed.
Kenny gulped. "OK, OK. It's too late to make any changes to Muffinlight... but I'm currently working on the sequel, New Muffin, where Olive nearly chokes to death on one of her own muffins and Casper thinks she's dead, so he throws himself off a cliff."
"Wow, this series got dark very fast," Fletcher commented.
"Well, anyway, Valerie saves him by grabbing him and pulling him back just as he's about to jump, and while Olive is in hospital recovering from... er... throat damage, they get to be friends again despite their traumatic breakup where Valerie cheated on him with a vampire named Covo - "
"Covo?" said Valkyrie, frowning.
"Yeah, he was a chav vampire."
"...Right."
"So then," Kenny continued, "Casper has to choose between her and Olive."
"Well, I know who I'd choose," Valkyrie muttered, earning her a hurt look from Myra.
"So who does he choose?" Fletcher asked, looking worried.
"Can't tell you," said Kenny. "Spoilers. My point is, I may have portrayed Valerie in a slightly negative light in Muffinlight, but she completely redeems herself in New Muffin. So don't worry. Now, are we all happy?"
"I suppose," said Valkyrie sulkily.
"Me too," said Myra, but as the others turned to leave she leaned over to him and whispered, "He does end up with me though, doesn't he?"
"Of course," Kenny whispered back. "Colive is endgame."
Myra smiled, and all three of them vanished.
