Disclaimer: I do not own The Mr. Men Show or any of its characters, but I do own Elizabeth and the idea for this story.
Jack stumbled forward, almost losing his balance but managing to catch himself just in time. He turned to see the light green character and the human girl Elizabeth coming through as well. He looked around, his familiar surroundings calming him.
I'm home, he thought, deeping out a deep sigh of relief. Then he turned to Elizabeth. "Thank you for rescuing me," he said, a little awkwardly.
"No promise." She seemed just as shy and awkward as he felt. "I'm sorry about all this," she went on. "I never thought they'd willingly show themselves to someone other than me, especially not kidnap that person!" She shot a look at the cartoon, who frowned.
"I'm sorry for taking you," he said, shifting his feet a little. "I didn't want to, for the record. But…"
"Mr. Small wanted you to so you had to." Elizabeth huffed. "You don't have to listen to him, you know."
Mr. Nosy ducked his head and didn't reply.
It was silent for a few moments before Jack said to Elizabeth," Again, thank you. I might be still there if it wasn't for you."
"I'm glad to help," she replied. Then she squeaked, surprising Jack. "I can't believe I'm actually here, talking to you! This is awesome!" She paused before adding," I wished we had met in a different way, but I'm still so excited to meet you!"
Jack smiled at her. "I wished we'd met differently, too, at like a convention or something. You seem cool." He beamed at her which made her squeak in excitement again. He couldn't help but laugh, despite how terrified he had been earlier. He'll remember what happened to him for a very long time. But would anyone else believe him? His friends and family, would they think he was crazy or making all this up?
As if she read his mind, Elizabeth grew serious and said," You know you can't tell anyone about the cartoons, right?"
He stared at her. "I'm not sure anyone would believe me, if I did." He sighed. "I have to come up with an excuse to why I vanished like that."
"I'm sorry to ask you to keep them a secret, but say someone did believe you, they might go looking for cartoons and get themselves hurt in the process." Her eyes darkened, and Jack suddenly remembered what she said in the basement to the small cartoon. He opened his mouth to ask her what they did to her, but before he could, the green cartoon stepped forward and said," We need to go, Elizabeth, before someone notices you're gone."
Elizabeth looked disappointed. Then she sighed. "You're right." She turned to Jack. "It was great meeting you, and I hope to meet you again someday, but you know, not tied up in a cartoon's basement!" There was laughter in her eyes, but Jack shuddered, remembering being trapped in that dark basement. He called out a goodbye as they left and then he was there, alone.
He was heading toward his bedroom, ready to take a long nap, when suddenly he heard his ringtone playing. He poked his head in his computer room and saw his phone on the floor. He ran over there and picked it up. Mark was calling him, but right when he picked it up, the call ended.
Quickly he opened his phone and saw that he had a ton of calls and text messages from Mark. And he noticed a few more from other people. Right when he was about to call his friend back, his phone started ringing again and this time he answered.
"Hello? Mark?" he called into the phone.
"Jack!" There was pure relief in Mark's voice, and Jack has literally never been so happy to hear his friend. "Are you okay?" Mark asked. "What happened? I tried calling you again and again and again. Nobody knew where you'd gone. You just disappeared! What happened!"
Jack opened his mouth to explain what he just went through; then he stopped. Elizabeth said he couldn't tell anyone about the cartoons. But did Mark count as anyone? It was Mark! If anyone would believe him, it was Mark because he knew Jack didn't lie or make up stories. But what if Mark told someone else and it spread and someone did get hurt like Elizabeth believed would happen?
"Jack? You there? Hello?"
Sighing, Jack decided not to tell him. But what could he say? "Oh, I'm fine, Mark. I just got an unexpected visitor for a while. Sorry to go off the grid, but it was pretty important."
"But who was it?" Mark demanded. "Someone spoke on your end and said they were taking you. Taking you where?"
"It was just an old friend playing a trick." Jack was so uncomfortable. He hated lying.
"God dammit, Jack! Don't scare me like that! I thought someone had kidnapped you!" It was silent on Mark's end for a moment, before he said," Wanna hop on a video call so I can see you're really okay?"
"Sure. Let me set up first. Call you back."
"You better."
Jack hung up and let out a long sigh. "I'm sorry, Mark," he said out loud as he approached his computer. He groaned when he saw that some of his wires were unplugged, but nothing looked damaged. He quickly plugged everything back in and turned on his computer, feeling guilty for lying to Mark. But Elizabeth had asked him to keep the cartoons a secret.
Suddenly he realized he never asked Elizabeth where she lived or even got her phone number. He would have liked to see her again to properly thank her for rescuing him and to learn more about the cartoons and other things she might know, but now he can't. He sighed, deciding to push his experience out of his head as he got ready to video call Mark.
Please review!