It was early in the morning in Storybrook Village, a place where many fairytale and nursery rhyme characters lived together in a peaceful, loving community. Hardly anyone was up at this hour besides the occasional rooster clucking its morning call. But the sound of faint pit-patter could be heard echoing throughout the empty streets.
The pit pattering came from a young boy, twisting and turning down a familiar path that was well worn into his memory. This was a bit too early for him, yes, but he was on a mission, and no one was able to stop him.
This young fellow was Whyatt Beanstalk: a boy with tan skin, ear-length bronze hair, and piercing blue eyes. He wore his usual blue and green polo-striped shirt with a soft green undershirt, beige khakis, and beige tennis shoes. With his schoolbag strapped around his back, he carried the necessary materials for wherever he was heading. He may just be one of many fairytale kids in the village, but he had a secret, one super big secret he couldn't ever tell.
And he wasn't alone. Just a few feet behind him, his spotted Golden Retriever, Woofster, was right behind him. As he continued to run, it was easy to tell how joyful he was by the swiftness of his tail.
"Come on," Whyatt smiled back at Woofster, "We're almost there!"
It didn't take long for the two to arrive at the secret location hidden in the woods: a clubhouse. It might have seemed normal to the naked eye but it was a book lover's dream. A large open book would serve as the roof while being suspended by four No. 2 pencils and the doorway had a huge question mark dead-centered in the middle.
The two smiled at each other and the boy laid a hand on the doorway. The door opened on command and the two stepped inside.
It may have seemed small on the outside, but on the inside, it was a whole other story. Inside was known as the Book Club, a place where Whyatt usually hung out in his spare time. Hundreds upon hundreds of great-sized books lay on the many shelves that challenged the minds of many. The floor was made up of purple puzzle pieces. On the far wall was a large red and blue computer nicknamed The Super Duper Computer. And right next to that was the main table piece, a human-sized spool of thread.
Surrounding the table piece were five small chairs: a dark blue director chair, a stool with a yellow button for the seat, a purple throne with green jewels, a simple red spinny seat, and a dog bed. Three of them were occupied, and those who sat there were Whyatt's greatest friends.
Red Riding Hood, or just Red, was lying back in her chair and barely kept it on the floor, flipping through some comic books that she brought along. She had fair skin with three freckles on each cheek, big brown eyes, and chestnut hair that was parted into two pigtails. Occupied with a red beret; a loose-fitting hoodie; a pleated skirt; and red skates. All this could explain why her name would be Little Red Riding Hood.
Princess Pea flipped through every page in her fantasy book with a smile, her eyes never leaving the page. Princess Pea had wavy black hair, light brown skin, and soft green eyes resembling the pits of a pea. She wore a soft lilac gown with small green and white patterns, along with a tiara and pearl necklace. As her name spells, Princess Pea was from the tale of the "Princess and the Pea", the offspring of the princess and the prince of that story, the current royal family ruling Storybrook Village.
Lastly, there was the youngest of the group, Littlest Pig. Pig, as he went by, giggled softly as he flipped through a joke book. His appearance was typical of any pig, with pink skin, two floppy ears on top of his head, a snout, and blue eyes. He wore a yellow t-shirt with baby blue overalls, light brown worker boots, and a small yellow baseball cap: the outfit was heavily inspired by his father's construction outfit. He may have been young, but there was boundless creativity in that head of his, just waiting to be used at any given moment.
And if you just happened to put two and two together, you'd find out that these four were superheroes. It's not just superheroes, but Super Readers! Superheroes gifted with jumping into books to save the day! But today, there was no problem or bad guy to fight, rather a day to relax for once. What is the right way to relax? Reading, of course!
"Hey, guys!" Whyatt walked over to them with a grin.
"Hi, Why!" Pig greeted, setting his book down, and waved over at Whyatt.
Red and Princess Pea copied. Princess Pea gave a stern glance at the way Red was sitting. Red quickly got the message and carefully put her chair back in place.
"Good morning, Whyatt, glad you could make it to our grand reading session!" Princess Pea replied, announcing the last words with plenty of enthusiasm.
"You were a bit late, what's up with that?" Red asked.
"Oh," Whyatt dropped the book bag that he'd brought on the floor and knelt beside it. "I just waited until my parents were awake to let me go. Joy got sick a couple of days ago, so things have been a bit hectic there."
"Well, that's good," Princess Pea said, "Not about Joy, but that you could make it. You know?" She reiterated apprehensively.
"Yeah, I know," Whyatt responded, shuffling through his bookbag.
"So, what books did you bring, Whyatt?" Red asked curiously, rising out of her seat to get a better look at the young man at the other end of the table.
After a moment, Whyatt pulled out one of his all-time favorite books to read, "Jack and the Beanstalk". The cover illustrated Jack, his older brother, courageously climbing a large beanstalk. He proudly showed it off as his smile mimicked his brother's.
"Ooh, good choice!" Pig smiled gleefully, giving him two thumbs up.
"Is that all you're going to read? Cause, I have some other books you can read in case you get bored," Red offered, pointing to her basket overloaded with books.
Whyatt kindly declined. "I've read this book so many times that I don't mind re-reading it. Plus, who wouldn't want to read a book about your older brother?"
"Fine by me," Red shrugged, scooting over for Whyatt to sit next to her and Princess Pea. Whyatt sat down next to the girls and began to read, savoring that good-old book scent.
Woofster, on the other hand, trotted over to Whyatt and sat underneath the table towards his owner, chewing on a dog bone that he brought along in Whyatt's bag. Gnawing on the bone, he quickly slipped into his small world.
It had been a couple of hours since the group had started reading. Woofster had shifted from imagining chasing squirrels to paying more attention to the others in admiration.
Despite this being a "break day", he couldn't help but notice how focused they all were on their books, dotting every word with their eyes and familiarizing themselves with the many storylines they were reading. For some inexplicable reason, it reminded Woofster of the Super Readers' differences in a way. Sure, none of them were alike physically. He got that message right off the bat from Pig. But, they were so alike in what they had in common, reading.
Of the many categories it opened like spelling and rhyming, they all brought people together, like the Super Readers sitting just above where he lay. He smiled at that. Knowing that they became friends because of reading and solving the numerous problems in the village made him feel at ease that...
They're going to be together for a long time...
Hopefully...
Woofster shook his head and scrunched up his nose in annoyance at that thought. He closed his eyes, about to sleep away from his problems when he heard movement above. His ears perked up and he faced the cause of the commotion.
It was Whyatt who was the cause of the noise, who'd just settled his book down on the table.
"Hey, guys? Could I ask something?" Whatatt sheepishly looked up from his book, breaking the wall of silence.
"Sure, what is it?" Red asked, putting her book down.
"Uhm... so do you guys ever wonder about the Super Readers... or just us being Super Readers in general?" He asked. Despite their confusion, they were also worried that something was wrong with Whyatt. Woofster seemed surprised but decided to stay quiet and let the others talk it out.
"I have, but I've just put it off to the side most of the time. What makes you say that, Why?" Princess Pea asked worriedly.
Whyatt sighed and looked around for the right words to initiate. Being the leader of the group, everyone expected him to be prepared and efficient for anything, so they understood something was bothering him. Finally, after some time to think of the right words to say, he spoke.
"Well, when we became Super Readers, I noticed a lot of strange things that I had never noticed before. Don't you guys think it's strange how it happened so fast? When I open my book, I find Super Letters randomly popping out. As the Big Bad Wolf decides to mess with us, we are randomly selected as Super Readers to stop him. And what about my Super Duper Computer, the Why Fliers, and the Book Club? They just came out of nowhere and there was no explanation for why that happened," Whyatt explained.
"My peas," murmured Princess Pea. "I'd never thought of it like that before. I just thought it was normal."
"Yeah, same here!" Pig added. "How come you're so worried about it, Whyatt?"
"I'm not worried about it, Pig. I'm just wondering why all that seemed to happen to us for no reason," Whyatt explained. "That's what I'm trying to find out!"
"So, how are you gonna figure it out?" Red asked.
"Well, I've already started, beginning with how I met you guys: the sparkly letters!" He then grabbed his "Jack and the Beanstalk" book and gave everyone another look at the cover.
"I searched every library in the area to find if any book had the same sparkly letters as this book when it opened to find any differences between them."
He continued. "All the copies I could find were all the same... no sparkly letters," Whyatt stated sadly, settling the book down.
"What else did you do?" Princess Pea asked.
Next, Whyatt pulled out a sheet of paper from his pants' back pocket, scribbled with several tally marks that somewhat overlapped one another. A number of notes were on that paper but were unreadable.
"My next step was to gather sources from everyone in our village about if anything unusual happened to them during the Big Bad Wolf's attack. For some reason, everyone was either confused about what I was talking about or just how their day had been. No one seemed to remember anything about it, even after I asked everyone almost three times!" Whyatt complained, slamming his fist into the table.
Everyone jumped a bit at this reaction. Whyatt was usually the calmest and most collected of the five, being so controlling of his emotions, so seeing something like this was out-of-the-ordinary.
Taking a few deep breaths, he stared at the ground after his temper had subsided. "I tried everything I could but... it never worked out..." He rested a hand over one of his arms, tapping them in a rheumatic pattern.
"I just want an answer, is that complicated?" Whyatt then rested his head in his palms, a sigh of defeat being heard.
For a moment no one did anything, then Princess Pea got up from her chair and placed a hand on Whyatt's shoulder in concern.
This had to be the biggest Super Big Problem they'd ever encountered!
"Oh Whyatt, that's terrible, just terrible," Princess Pea soothed, trying to sympathize with her friend.
"You're telling me, I spent so long trying to figure out what happened by myself that I just wound up back where I started!" Whyatt remarked. "Now what am I supposed to do?"
"Well," Red Riding Hood proudly stood up from her swivel chair, sending it to the ground with a clang. "You came to the right people to help you find an answer to your problem, Why."
Though Whyatt was startled by her sudden vitality, his expression remained clear on his face. "Really? Then, what are you going to do to help me?"
She crossed her arms, grinning. "You know what we do when we have a problem?"
Whyatt smiled, understanding what she was implying. "We look.."
"In a book!" They simultaneously shouted.
Pig asked, "Which book should we look in?".
"Leave it to me, Pig," Princess Pea got up from her chair and stepped over to the bookshelves, wand in hand. She started to twirl around, chanting a familiar phrase.
"Peas and carrots, carrots and peas, book come out please, please, please!"
Streams of pink light elegantly flew up to pull a book out of the shelves for them to jump into and solve their problem or question.
Well, at least that was supposed to happen.
This time around, it didn't happen. The only thing that came out was a weak spark of light, sputtering out a little bit of pink dust.
Princess Pea looked at her wand with a deer-in-the-headlights expression: what had happened? She'd done this at least a hundred times before and it had always worked, alas some surprises and mishaps, but never a malfunction LIKE THIS BEFORE!
"What the...?" Princess Pea shook her head, tapping her wand to try and readjust it. "It's okay, let's try again." She twirled around again, waving her wand once more.
"Peas and carrots, carrots and peas, could you come out please, please... please...?"
Her wand flustered out some magic, but nothing powerful enough to lift a book.
Princess Pea started to get annoyed. Through her gritted teeth, she did it again. "One more time." She twirled around for a third time, trying to ensure this would work. There was no way around it: three was always an ideal number!
"Peas and carrots, carrots and peas, book come out, oh pretty pretty please..!"
And yet...
Nothing.
Nothing worked. Even with her begging, her wand had nothing this time around and she groaned in defeat.
"Oh split pea!" She yelled. The others immediately ran over to her in concern.
"Hey, why isn't it working?" Red asked, glancing at her wand in confusion.
"I don't know. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong!" Princess Pea replied, hiding her face away from the group in embarrassment. The three's worry worsened once they heard the quiet sniffles from the princess.
"The one time we needed it the most, it just happened to fail!" Princess Pea murmured sadly. Tears were developing in the princess' eyes. Before the waterworks began, Whyatt put a hand on her shoulder to try and settle her down just like she did earlier.
"It's okay, Princess. Slip-ups happen," Whyatt reassured, allowing Princess Pea to give him a comforting hug, but then a sudden realization popped into his head. "But it's odd that it happened, especially now."
As the four continued to ramble on about the princess' dilemma, Woofster snuck out of his spot, staring at the backs of his fellow teammates. Hearing Whyatt's weeks' worth of frustration and Princess Pea's wand situation brought up one question: what was going on?
All but one knew that and that lay in the hands- er... paws of the group. Woofster.
He knew the reason why her wand wasn't working, and it wasn't because it was broken. She is using it correctly, yes, but not in the right area.
Woofster scanned the perimeter of the book club, seeming to be looking for something.
"Come on, come on, where is it, where is it?" Woofster asked himself, double-checking his surroundings.
He knew it was here. The place looked the same, wasn't it? Woofster scoffed at himself. How could he be this forgetful? He continued to scour the book club, ignoring his fellow teammates in the back.
"It was probably misplaced." Red lifted her arms in a guess. "That could be why the book isn't showing up."
"In the book club of all places, there's no way. Books are assigned to shelves with a code on their spine in alphabetical order. That's how librarians find books so easily," Whyatt explained to the brunette, her expression shifting curiously at the young boy's knowledge. "I don't see how it could be missing, let alone on another shelf. There are more shelves than all of our fingers and toes combined."
Whyatt explained, pointing up at the never-ending spiral of shelves filled with books. It made them all feel a bit uneasy, knowing there could be thousands more they hadn't been into. It is possible that they were preparing to solve some upcoming problems.
"Wait a minute, I only have 6?" Pig asked in confusion, staring at his fingers and wiggling them.
Red chuckled at his sudden comment, shaking her head. "I think Whyatt meant it figuratively, Pig."
While Red and Pig had a light chuckle, Princess Pea gazed at her wand with curiosity and speculation, then stared up at her friend with perseverance. "Wherever this book is, we're going to find it somehow, magic or no magic."
"But, how exactly?" Red asked. "Your wand isn't working, and I don't think we can climb up to the top to find a book that fits our problem," Red stated, pointing again at the sky.
"We may already have a solution, Red." Princess Pea replied, pointing her now-defective wand over to the table. The books that they had brought along were still laid atop and beside the table. There were many books scattered on the ground while others were still untouched in the bags they brought.
"Maybe the book we're looking for was right underneath our noses all along. Come on!" Princess Pea commenced, raising her wand proudly into the air with sheer satisfaction and eagerness.
The group nodded collectively and raced over to the overcrowded table, grabbing as many books as they could hold. They began to toss one book after another, their eyes darting up, down, and all around, with a small pile of books being created for the four after some time.
Then it caught him.
He nearly lost track when he saw it again but stood still once he was sure it was correct.
On one of the books on the many shelves, the Super Readers logo melded easily into the rest of the books. The only difference was the small yet noticeable curled punctuation mark on the book's spine. Woofster's tail wagged eagerly.
"There it is!" He ran over the large book, trying to reach out and touch the symbol. He whined softly, lifting a paw and batting it against the thick spine of the book: no use.
"Darn, forgot how high up that is." Woofster huffed and got up on his hind legs, gradually adjusting to standing upright, something he wasn't used to doing. Even with that, he was still a little short, about a couple of inches or so. A small grunt came from the dog, shakily setting himself back to standing up on four paws. His eyes did not lose focus on the symbol, staying put.
"Shoot, if only I was a foot taller!" Woofster lay on his stomach, still focused on the mark.
"But, what can I do? If only the others were- wait...of course, how could I have forgotten them?"
He finally brought his attention away from the book and shifted it towards his friends, who were now back at the table, looking at books at a seemingly quick pace then tossing them aside like they were rubbish: rinse and repeat.
Woofster was a bit surprised. This surely wasn't what he expected them to do in a situation like this, but that didn't matter at the moment.
Right now, he needed to get their attention.
Whyatt was at the moment checking through some of Red's comic books when he heard the familiar sound of barking. He dropped the comics and turned to the source. Woofster was barking quite loudly in a far corner of the book club at one of the large books aligned on the wall.
"Looks like he needs help," Whyatt thought to himself, picking himself up from the ground. "Wonder what he's barking at though?"
"Hey, guys, I think Woofster found something!" Whyatt called out to his friends, their heads shooting up like prairie dogs in alert of a predator.
Dropping the books they had, they made their way over to their canine friend. Red skated near Woofster, kneeling at his height. "What is it, Woofster? What is it, boy?"
Woofster barked in response and shifted his body to the book in response. The group exchanged confused glances as Woofster whined softly, realizing why they were so confused.
"They can't understand me, of course." Woofster huffed. "Now how am I going to explain what I need to say?"
His eyes then caught the attention of Whyatt once again, but this time he was looking down at his right palm.
"Make your mark known..."
"I wonder..." Woofster mindlessly trotted over, playfully licking Whyatt's dominant hand, or at least the hand he's seen Whyatt use the most while writing.
Whyatt laughed, as he tried to get Woofster away from his hand. "Alright, Woofster, that's enough!"
With a few more giggles, Whyatt managed to pull his hand away from his dog's tongue, peering now at his slobbering palm. His hand was covered in drool that dripped like a leaky faucet.
Grumbling in disgust, he wiped his hand clean on his pants. The others glanced in confusion once Whyatt turned his attention back to his friends.
"Sorry about that guys. Must've been the sandwiches I had this morning. Or maybe it was the dog treats?" Whyatt looked down at the ground in thought, tapping his chin with his non-slobbered hand. Red sighed loudly in annoyance, gripping the bridge of her nose.
"Well, now we're back to square one again, just great," Red complained.
"Red, be nice to Woofster. He was only trying to help us out," Whyatt stated, coming to Woofster's defense.
"I'm not mad at him, Why. I'm just really frustrated with this stupid problem, it's driving me crazy," Red explained, pulling her hair in frustration.
"It's driving all of us crazy Red. We understand how frustrated you are," Princess Pea empathized. "Now, let's try to look at those books again. We still need to check your comics, don't we?"
Red sighed. "Yeah, I guess we sh-"
Suddenly, Red screamed at the top of her lungs. Her scream vibrated throughout the Book Club, causing Princess Pea and Whyatt to cover their ears. Princess Pea noticed Red's eyes were locked on the ground; she couldn't see any object that caught her eyes, but she did see weirdly neon-green light shining down on the floor. Curiously, she tracked where the light source could come from and her facial expression twisted similarly to Red's.
Whyatt began to catch up on what his friends were doing with a skeptical brow. "Uh, guys? Is something...wrong?"
"You-Your hand!" Princess Pea managed to croak out, shakily pointing her finger at Whyatt.
"My hand?" Whyatt, though, didn't understand what she was trying to convey. Was the dog drool that nasty?
He took a look at his palm expecting the messed-up moisture of his contaminated palm, but he wasn't expecting a blaring green light to nearly blind him. Blinking away from the light, Whyatt gasped in horror.
On his dominant hand, his hand was glowing brightly with a question mark. In an attempt to clean away this bizarre problem, Whyatt used his opposite arm's sleeve. Though he would have thought the question would wipe away cleanly, it seemed as if it did not want to go away. No matter how forceful, it seemed to be engraved into his skin. The group's expressions deepened with dread once they figured out Whyatt's dilemma.
"Whyatt, what happened to your hand?" Why is it glowing? What did Woofster do?" Princess Pea asked, beginning to back away from him and Woofster. Pig copied her actions, hiding behind her as Whyatt's mark grew brighter.
"I don't know! I never saw this on my hand before!" Whyatt yelled. Not a lie apparent in his tone.
Even worse, the more he panicked, his hand became increasingly illuminated, an eerie pitch enlightening. All this insanity caused the group to panic as for all they knew, a laser could pop out of his hand at any moment if they didn't do something.
Red instantly took charge when her leader was stuck: she was second-in-command for a reason. Trying to find a solution, her eyes caught sight of the book Woofster was barking at. A small question mark began to glow just like Whyatt's hand.
"Over there!" Red exclaimed, pointing her finger at the book's spine. "That's the source!"
Whyatt turned to where she pointed, locking her eyes on the glowing question mark. He gradually made his way over whilst clutching his hand, rising onto his tippy-toes to reach the symbol. The two question marks touched, the green light absorbing the group as they shielded their eyes.
The light soon faded away after a moment and the group reopened their eyes to see what they were facing. There were two things. Whyatt's light dimmed dramatically from before. And two, whatever Woofster had found... was nothing short of a surprise.
The book's spine split in half and slowly opened by itself to reveal a small door in between, similar to the Book Club's. Whyatt stared intensely at the door, spotting another question mark symbol. He gently placed his hand on it, which glowed green in response.
He backed away once he heard creaking on the other side and the group huddled together to witness the door slowly open to reveal a pitch-black entryway. Not only that but a cloud of possibly decades of thick dust greeted them, causing them to cough like a long-term smoker.
Once their eyes adjusted to the darkness and the dust storm settled down, they noticed the secret entrance's flooring pattern was different from the Book Club. It was a white and dark grey checker-patterned floor that looked like it hadn't been cleaned in years. The rest of the hallway was too dark to tell.
The group stayed quiet for what seemed like forever, staring at the darkness.
"Should… Should we... enter?" Red asked, before letting out a cough from the dust. Instantly, she gained some stares from her friends: a mix of "Are you crazy?" and just straight-up fear.
"The first thing that came to your mind when all of that happened was if we could venture in there and explore. Who knows what's in there?" Princess Pea scolded, pointing her finger at the pitch-black corridor. It made her instantly uneasy just glancing there.
"Hey, it was just a suggestion! I mean, what else are we supposed to do? Ignore it and pretend like this never happened?" Red reverted her gaze and put her hands on her hips. The two girls gave each other nasty looks until Pig got in between the two.
While Pig was trying to settle the girls down the same way he dealt with his bickering older brothers, Whyatt was busy looking at his palm in shock. The mark was missing, but the feeling when Woofster licked him stayed.
Strange. To think all of that happened from a simple lick from Woofster... wait a second…
"Uh, hey guys? Has... has anybody seen Woofster?"
Red and Princess Pea's faces turned white in shock. A thick silence followed. When he asked that question, his friends looked around the area for the spotted Golden Retriever. He wasn't over by the Super Duper Computer, nor the table, or hiding behind anything. It was like he never existed in the first place.
"He... he was just here, wasn't he?" A worried Princess Pea asked, coming back from behind the Super Duper Computer.
Red skated back over to the table and stood by Whyatt's side. "Yeah, I saw him right by you, Whyatt. Unless he… oh no…"
Red gulped at the sudden realization, gazing at her new surroundings. The four looked at the barren hallway in horror. If you were just quiet enough, you'd be able to hear the faint pitter-patter of a dog running farther into the distance.
"He didn't…" Pig gasped.
"Woofster! Come back!" Whyatt shouted, running into darkness without a second thought.
His calls for his loyal retriever grew farther and farther away, slowly fading from the others' sight. Princess Pea and Pig both called out to Whyatt, trying to convince him to come back to them. However, they both stopped when they saw Red skate up to the door's frame.
"Oh, don't you leave as well, Red! We can't lose three Super Readers that easily!" Princess Pea warned the brunette, who gave her one last look of concern.
"They both haven't got that far, we can still try and catch up with them if we're quick. Now, let's roll!" Red pumped a fist into the air and quickly sped into the dark, her wheels the only thing heard.
"Well, I guess we better catch up, huh Pig?" Princess Pea glanced to her side only to find nobody beside her.
"Pig?"
Her surprised expression shifted to the door, witnessing Pig run into the darkness.
Sighing in defeat, she nervously walked over to the door, letting out a grunt of disgust once she faced the floor. So much dust and grime was left on the floor that she could manage to see the prints of her friends scattered across. Princess Pea lifted her dress by the tips to avoid the dirt below from staining the lilac fabric.
"Hopefully they're okay in there…" Princess Pea gave one last look at the Book Club and wandered into the darkness, increasing her speed once she got far enough from the entrance.
She was a quarter into the hallway when her ears picked up the sound of creaking. She quickly looked behind her and noticed the doorway slowly closing behind her. Forgetting about her dress, Princess Pea tried to reach the entrance, but she was too far behind. Her heart sank hearing the door closing and locking in place, setting her in total darkness.
"Oh... split pea..."
Author's Note: Hey everyone, I hope you enjoy this chapter. It was a blast to write. Seems like our Super Readers got into one sticky situation after they found a secret entrance to the Book Club. What'll happen next, who knows? That will be in the next chapter of SW: The Lost Pages! Also, thanks to sputterput on Wattpad for helping me out with the beginning and re-reading of my work. I greatly appreciate your help! Don't be shy to comment and like my story, or even give me advice! I'd love it.
(edit: fixed some spelling mistakes and edited the text)