NaNoWriMo: Chapter Seventeen: The Plan
chapter seventeen
the plan
Burke was beginning to wish that Berwick had just stayed in Elsewhere in the first place. At least then, he might have kept his rivalry with Mr. Coutler going strong. Everything had been much less complicated when that was the only thing They had to worry about. Burke sighed in frustration, something he had gotten very good at lately.
He was in his office, alone except for Cornelius, and one or two of his collectables that could be considered alive. Between the two men, in the middle of Burke’s desk, sat the Thingamajigger.
Cornelius, who had grown rather fond of the Swiss army knife-slash-hand-held radio over the years, picked it up with utmost caution and reverence. “It’s a good thing I was there when you sent that Sawyer fellow looking for this,” he said, “or else he would have never found it.”
Burke nodded in agreement. “It was a good thing you were able to escape from the mental asylum,” he said.
“It could not have been easier, let me tell you,” said Cornelius, shaking his head. “After all the excitement of Cardboardia, escaping from a mental institution was rather tame.”
“I’m sure it was,” said Burke. He held out his hand, and Cornelius passed the Thingamajigger to him carefully. Burke took it and inspected it, turning it over and over in his hands. “How does it work?” he asked the science teacher.
Cornelius, surprisingly, shrugged. “I never made it to be anything more than a Swiss army knife-slash-hand-held radio,” he said. “You can imagine my surprise when I found out it could save entire worlds.”
“Do you know how it manages to do that?”
“Haven’t the foggiest,” said Cornelius, smirking despite the seriousness of the situation. “Whatever its secret was, I wasn’t able to even use it in Cardboardia, unless I wanted to cut something or listen to the local radio stations. No, it was only Supreme Ruler of the Universe Hika Yakawashi who was able to turn it into an object of salvation.”
“So, are you telling me we can’t use the Thingamajigger against Berwick and Coutler?” asked Burke. “We were counting on you using it to save your world and Elsewhere.”
“Unfortunately, that is exactly what I’m telling you,” said Cornelius, and Berwick sighed in frustration again. Cornelius, however, went on. “Of course, there’s always a chance we could use it if you managed to find someone just as insane as Hika. That, however, is a long shot.”
As Blake put it, the night was lasting “fricking forever!” and even her friends had to agree, though they banned her from trying to start “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall” over again, and had forbidden her from even trying to start “The Song That Never Ends.”
“There’s nothing to do here,” Blake whined. “You’d think you would find plenty of stuff to do in a completely different world, but Eva won’t even let us out of this building! It’s like a prison, I tell you! The walls are closing in around me. I think I’m going insane.”
“You already are insane, Blake,” said Jack, patting her on the head.
“Well, more insane, then.”
At that very moment, fate kicked in and sent Burke and Cornelius walking by the room at that very same moment. They both stopped dead in their tracks in the middle of the dark hallway and looked at each other, automatically reading each other’s thoughts. Both of them leaned closer to the closed door, putting their ears to it and trying to listen in.
“She’s got a point, you know,” said Will. “It is like a prison.”
“You’re just saying that because Ms. Robinson won’t let you start your revolution against Berwick,” said Miles. He was not nearly as bored as the others, mostly because he was reading through his textbooks again.
“Am not!” said Will. “C’mon, you guys, you know you hate this just as much as I do. You especially Blake.”
Blake, who had been hoping she would not have been drawn into the conversation, jumped and gave Will a very desperate look, and he gave her an almost identical one back.
“What are you talking about?” she said. “I like it here. It’s a little boring, yes, but it’s very… comfy. And the people are nice.”
“You obviously want revenge on Berwick,” said Will. “You’ve never liked him, and besides, he brainwashed your best friend! You can’t just let him do that!”
Blake sunk into her chair and refrained from saying anything. She had to admit, Will had a point, but she wasn’t going to let him know that. She also wasn’t going to admit that Berwick had always scared the bejesus out of her, and now Maggie, in all her brainwashed glory, did too.
Will turned from Blake and faced everyone else. “You guys are wimps,” he said. “Maggie was a friend of all of us! And Berwick brainwashed her! He might as well have killed her, because she sure as hell isn’t Maggie anymore.”
Elizabeth made a little noise of protest. “That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?”
“It’s the truth,” said Will. “The only difference between Maggie being dead and Maggie being brainwashed is that because she’s brainwashed, we might just be able to bring her back. But nothing’s going to happen if we just sit here doing nothing!”
Everyone was looking at the floor. Even Miles had put his book down, but his eyes were still lowered. No one wanted Will to catch their eye.
“This is ridiculous,” said Will, shaking his head. By now he was pacing around the room, waving his arms hysterically and messing up his hair. “We’ve never been scared of Berwick before. You guys threw frickin’ newspapers onto his lawn without so much as a second thought. And we went through that portal to rescue Jack the second we all knew he was in trouble. Now all of a sudden, you’re scared? Maggie’s not the only one that’s going to get brainwashed. We left a whole school of people behind, and whether we liked any one of them or not, are we really just going to stand back and let them all get brainwashed while these old men dick around and pretend to be saving the world? They don’t even care about our world! All they care about is if their dentures are able to stay in, and besides…”
Blake tried to concentrate on a coffee stain in the carpet, but she couldn’t help but be completely taken in by Will’s words. He was definitely going to get an A in speech class next semester, she thought to herself. He sure was a top-notch persuader. Before Will could finish his rant, Blake stood up. She wasn’t afraid to meet his eyes anymore, and suddenly, she wasn’t afraid of Berwick either.
“You’re right!” she shouted at him. “Damn right! There’s no way Berwick’s going to brainwash my best friend and get away with it! Screw him being an ‘evil mastermind!’ I’m going to kick his ass.”
Will gave her a high-five. “That’s the spirit!” he yelled back at her.
“You two are nuts!” said Russ, shaking his head. “Absolutely nuts.”
Before the others could undergo passionate transformations themselves, Cornelius and Burke chose that very moment to burst through the door. Everyone in the room immediately jumped and turned toward the two men. Will gave them a nervous smile. He hoped Burke hadn’t overheard the comment about the dentures.
Burke had, of course, heard the denture line, but he refrained from saying anything to Will and instead turned toward Blake, a solemn look on his face. “Ms. Dennell,” he said. “I think you should come with me.”
“Uh… um… what?” Blake had definitely not been prepared for something like that.
Burke ignored her stammering and turned next to Will. “You as well, Mr. Bailey,” he said. “There’s something very important we need to discuss.”
No more than ten minutes later, Will and Blake were seated in chairs around the same conference table they had fallen on early that afternoon. All seven of Them were there, as well as Eva and Cornelius. All were looking extremely serious, which is probably what worried Blake the most. Blake hated it when people were serious. Nothing ever good happened when people were serious, and everyone around her was looking like they had just come from a funeral.
It didn’t take long before Burke spoke up. “We have a plan,” he announced.
“About time,” Will muttered under his breath; if anyone had heard him, no one showed it.
Eva looked nervously from Burke to Will and Blake. She seemed to have some sort of idea what was going on, at least vaguely, and it didn’t seem like she liked whatever that idea was, either.
Burke continued, oblivious to anything else. “We have a device that we know will defeat Berwick and Mr. Coutler once and for all. Of course, we do not know how exactly how it works, but we are confident we will succeed.”
Will and Blake looked at each other, and Will raised an eyebrow and turned back to the rest of the table. “Well, that sounds wonderful,” he said sarcastically.
Burke gave him the evil eye, but didn’t chide him verbally. Instead, he reached into a pocket and brought out the Thingamajigger. Neither Blake nor Will had seen Cornelius’s invention before, and both were equally confused.
“What the hell is that?”
“Is that a Swiss army knife?”
“I think it’s a radio.”
“This,” said Burke loudly, interrupting them, “is the Thingamajigger. This is what saved Cardboardia from almost certain doom.”
“I invented it,” explained Cornelius, a proud smile on his face. “It was supposed to be a Swiss army knife-slash-hand-held radio, but it turned out to be something quite different.”
“A hand-held radio-slash-Swiss army knife?” asked Blake.
Cornelius blinked, and then shook his head. “No,” he said, “It wasn’t a hand-held radio-slash-Swiss army knife, or a Swiss army knife-slash-hand-held radio. No, the Thingamajigger, when used by the right person, has the potential to become an extremely powerful and extremely useful weapon. Especially against evil.”
Will nodded, clearly impressed. “Well, that’s pretty cool. But how are you supposed to use it if you don’t know how it works?”
“Back in Cardboardia,” Cornelius said, “there was one woman who could use the Thingamajigger for its true purpose, and that was Hika, the Supreme Ruler of the Universe. I’m under the impression that it was only her who would use it because she, nice of a woman as she was, was the most insane person I have ever met, save for one person, and that person is here in this room tonight.”
Will and Eva figured it out right away. Eva gave a shout of protest, and Will merely stared, wide-eyed, at his friend. Blake, however, merely blinked and looked at Cornelius, waiting for him to continue. She was insanely curious to find out who this person was.
“Actually,” said Collins, glancing at his watch, “it’s just after midnight, so technically, the person is here in this room this morning.”
Cornelius blinked at Collins and was about to correct himself when Eva sat up from her seat, pounding her hands on the table. “You can’t seriously be planning on sending Blake back to destroy Berwick and Mr. Coutler, can you?”
Blake was extremely taken aback by this, now having finally figured the situation out. “I’m supposed to do what?”
“She’s only sixteen years old! The girl can barely drive, how can you expect her to save the world?”
“I’m supposed to save the world?” Blake screeched.
“This is the stupidest plan I have ever heard, Burke,” snapped Eva. “Sending a young girl out to save your own skin, are you?”
“She’s the only one capable of doing it!” Burke shot back. “Now, we have two options. We can muster an army and send that through to the other world. We can fight bloody battles with gods-know-what they have for troops for gods-know-how long.” Burke through his hands up in the air. “Or, we can send Blake through with the Thingamajigger and she can defeat both Berwick and Mr. Coutler with one measly little object in a matter of minutes.”
Eva still wasn’t convinced. “This is way too dangerous a task for a young girl to have to do.”
“Ms. Dennell will be perfectly safe, Eva,” said Burke. “You’ll be with her, as well as Cornelius. She’ll be very well protected, I’m sure.”
“What about me?” said Will. “Am I coming with? Or did you just bring me here for no reason at all?”
“You can come too,” said Burke, waving a hand distractedly. “Eva tells us you’re a bit of a revolutionary, and we’re not going to deny you a chance to help.”
“What?” Eva said, pounding her hands on the table again. “No, you cannot come,” she said to Will. “I don’t want to put one of you kids in danger, much less two.”
“Burke said I could!” Will whined.
Blake, in the meantime, was still trying to take all of this in. She had been silent for a long time, trying to comprehend exactly what Burke was saying. Finally, she got it.
“You seriously want me to go, like, use this Thingamajigger and go… you want me to kill Berwick and Coutler?”
“It won’t kill them,” said Cornelius, shaking his head. “Chris Podima wasn’t killed when Hika used the Thingamajigger on him. Not even close. But he sure wasn’t in any shape to try and take over the world ever again.”
Blake was shaking her head, hardly believing what she was being asked to do, killing or no.
“What exactly does the Thingamajigger do, Cornelius?” Eva asked.
Cornelius grimaced slightly. “No one is quite sure how, but when used properly, the Thingamajigger will release vast amounts of some powerful force, rendering the enemy incapable of fighting back.”
“That’s a pretty vague definition,” said Eva with a groan.
“If I had time to study it, I would,” Cornelius said, sighing. “But by the way it sounds, we had better not worry about just how exactly the Thingamajigger works right now. If we take too much time, Berwick and Mr. Coutler could become immensely powerful in our world. We need to stop Berwick and his brainwashing before it gets out of hand. And right now, Blake’s our only hope.”
Blake shrunk down in her seat. “But I don’t want to be your only hope!” she whined. “I wanted to help, and I wanted to save Maggie, but I never wanted to be relied on this much!” She shook her head. “I’m not a reliable person, just ask Will! I forget things, and, and, I’m lazy, and…”
Everyone in the room was looking at Blake sympathetically, even Burke, who usually only had two emotions (angry and impatient), was feeling sorry for her.
Eva sighed and placed a hand on Blake’s shoulder. As much as she hated the idea, Cornelius and Burke were right. “You’ll do just fine,” she told her. “Trust me.”
Blake nodded, but she still didn’t seem very convinced. Slowly and dramatically, Cornelius took the Thingamajigger from Burke and handed it to Blake. She took it reluctantly, and held it by the very tips of her fingernails as if she was holding someone’s dirty underwear. This, she thought, was a very, very bad idea.
Word count thus far: 44,165
Less than 900 words to go tonight. Phew.
the plan
Burke was beginning to wish that Berwick had just stayed in Elsewhere in the first place. At least then, he might have kept his rivalry with Mr. Coutler going strong. Everything had been much less complicated when that was the only thing They had to worry about. Burke sighed in frustration, something he had gotten very good at lately.
He was in his office, alone except for Cornelius, and one or two of his collectables that could be considered alive. Between the two men, in the middle of Burke’s desk, sat the Thingamajigger.
Cornelius, who had grown rather fond of the Swiss army knife-slash-hand-held radio over the years, picked it up with utmost caution and reverence. “It’s a good thing I was there when you sent that Sawyer fellow looking for this,” he said, “or else he would have never found it.”
Burke nodded in agreement. “It was a good thing you were able to escape from the mental asylum,” he said.
“It could not have been easier, let me tell you,” said Cornelius, shaking his head. “After all the excitement of Cardboardia, escaping from a mental institution was rather tame.”
“I’m sure it was,” said Burke. He held out his hand, and Cornelius passed the Thingamajigger to him carefully. Burke took it and inspected it, turning it over and over in his hands. “How does it work?” he asked the science teacher.
Cornelius, surprisingly, shrugged. “I never made it to be anything more than a Swiss army knife-slash-hand-held radio,” he said. “You can imagine my surprise when I found out it could save entire worlds.”
“Do you know how it manages to do that?”
“Haven’t the foggiest,” said Cornelius, smirking despite the seriousness of the situation. “Whatever its secret was, I wasn’t able to even use it in Cardboardia, unless I wanted to cut something or listen to the local radio stations. No, it was only Supreme Ruler of the Universe Hika Yakawashi who was able to turn it into an object of salvation.”
“So, are you telling me we can’t use the Thingamajigger against Berwick and Coutler?” asked Burke. “We were counting on you using it to save your world and Elsewhere.”
“Unfortunately, that is exactly what I’m telling you,” said Cornelius, and Berwick sighed in frustration again. Cornelius, however, went on. “Of course, there’s always a chance we could use it if you managed to find someone just as insane as Hika. That, however, is a long shot.”
As Blake put it, the night was lasting “fricking forever!” and even her friends had to agree, though they banned her from trying to start “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall” over again, and had forbidden her from even trying to start “The Song That Never Ends.”
“There’s nothing to do here,” Blake whined. “You’d think you would find plenty of stuff to do in a completely different world, but Eva won’t even let us out of this building! It’s like a prison, I tell you! The walls are closing in around me. I think I’m going insane.”
“You already are insane, Blake,” said Jack, patting her on the head.
“Well, more insane, then.”
At that very moment, fate kicked in and sent Burke and Cornelius walking by the room at that very same moment. They both stopped dead in their tracks in the middle of the dark hallway and looked at each other, automatically reading each other’s thoughts. Both of them leaned closer to the closed door, putting their ears to it and trying to listen in.
“She’s got a point, you know,” said Will. “It is like a prison.”
“You’re just saying that because Ms. Robinson won’t let you start your revolution against Berwick,” said Miles. He was not nearly as bored as the others, mostly because he was reading through his textbooks again.
“Am not!” said Will. “C’mon, you guys, you know you hate this just as much as I do. You especially Blake.”
Blake, who had been hoping she would not have been drawn into the conversation, jumped and gave Will a very desperate look, and he gave her an almost identical one back.
“What are you talking about?” she said. “I like it here. It’s a little boring, yes, but it’s very… comfy. And the people are nice.”
“You obviously want revenge on Berwick,” said Will. “You’ve never liked him, and besides, he brainwashed your best friend! You can’t just let him do that!”
Blake sunk into her chair and refrained from saying anything. She had to admit, Will had a point, but she wasn’t going to let him know that. She also wasn’t going to admit that Berwick had always scared the bejesus out of her, and now Maggie, in all her brainwashed glory, did too.
Will turned from Blake and faced everyone else. “You guys are wimps,” he said. “Maggie was a friend of all of us! And Berwick brainwashed her! He might as well have killed her, because she sure as hell isn’t Maggie anymore.”
Elizabeth made a little noise of protest. “That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?”
“It’s the truth,” said Will. “The only difference between Maggie being dead and Maggie being brainwashed is that because she’s brainwashed, we might just be able to bring her back. But nothing’s going to happen if we just sit here doing nothing!”
Everyone was looking at the floor. Even Miles had put his book down, but his eyes were still lowered. No one wanted Will to catch their eye.
“This is ridiculous,” said Will, shaking his head. By now he was pacing around the room, waving his arms hysterically and messing up his hair. “We’ve never been scared of Berwick before. You guys threw frickin’ newspapers onto his lawn without so much as a second thought. And we went through that portal to rescue Jack the second we all knew he was in trouble. Now all of a sudden, you’re scared? Maggie’s not the only one that’s going to get brainwashed. We left a whole school of people behind, and whether we liked any one of them or not, are we really just going to stand back and let them all get brainwashed while these old men dick around and pretend to be saving the world? They don’t even care about our world! All they care about is if their dentures are able to stay in, and besides…”
Blake tried to concentrate on a coffee stain in the carpet, but she couldn’t help but be completely taken in by Will’s words. He was definitely going to get an A in speech class next semester, she thought to herself. He sure was a top-notch persuader. Before Will could finish his rant, Blake stood up. She wasn’t afraid to meet his eyes anymore, and suddenly, she wasn’t afraid of Berwick either.
“You’re right!” she shouted at him. “Damn right! There’s no way Berwick’s going to brainwash my best friend and get away with it! Screw him being an ‘evil mastermind!’ I’m going to kick his ass.”
Will gave her a high-five. “That’s the spirit!” he yelled back at her.
“You two are nuts!” said Russ, shaking his head. “Absolutely nuts.”
Before the others could undergo passionate transformations themselves, Cornelius and Burke chose that very moment to burst through the door. Everyone in the room immediately jumped and turned toward the two men. Will gave them a nervous smile. He hoped Burke hadn’t overheard the comment about the dentures.
Burke had, of course, heard the denture line, but he refrained from saying anything to Will and instead turned toward Blake, a solemn look on his face. “Ms. Dennell,” he said. “I think you should come with me.”
“Uh… um… what?” Blake had definitely not been prepared for something like that.
Burke ignored her stammering and turned next to Will. “You as well, Mr. Bailey,” he said. “There’s something very important we need to discuss.”
No more than ten minutes later, Will and Blake were seated in chairs around the same conference table they had fallen on early that afternoon. All seven of Them were there, as well as Eva and Cornelius. All were looking extremely serious, which is probably what worried Blake the most. Blake hated it when people were serious. Nothing ever good happened when people were serious, and everyone around her was looking like they had just come from a funeral.
It didn’t take long before Burke spoke up. “We have a plan,” he announced.
“About time,” Will muttered under his breath; if anyone had heard him, no one showed it.
Eva looked nervously from Burke to Will and Blake. She seemed to have some sort of idea what was going on, at least vaguely, and it didn’t seem like she liked whatever that idea was, either.
Burke continued, oblivious to anything else. “We have a device that we know will defeat Berwick and Mr. Coutler once and for all. Of course, we do not know how exactly how it works, but we are confident we will succeed.”
Will and Blake looked at each other, and Will raised an eyebrow and turned back to the rest of the table. “Well, that sounds wonderful,” he said sarcastically.
Burke gave him the evil eye, but didn’t chide him verbally. Instead, he reached into a pocket and brought out the Thingamajigger. Neither Blake nor Will had seen Cornelius’s invention before, and both were equally confused.
“What the hell is that?”
“Is that a Swiss army knife?”
“I think it’s a radio.”
“This,” said Burke loudly, interrupting them, “is the Thingamajigger. This is what saved Cardboardia from almost certain doom.”
“I invented it,” explained Cornelius, a proud smile on his face. “It was supposed to be a Swiss army knife-slash-hand-held radio, but it turned out to be something quite different.”
“A hand-held radio-slash-Swiss army knife?” asked Blake.
Cornelius blinked, and then shook his head. “No,” he said, “It wasn’t a hand-held radio-slash-Swiss army knife, or a Swiss army knife-slash-hand-held radio. No, the Thingamajigger, when used by the right person, has the potential to become an extremely powerful and extremely useful weapon. Especially against evil.”
Will nodded, clearly impressed. “Well, that’s pretty cool. But how are you supposed to use it if you don’t know how it works?”
“Back in Cardboardia,” Cornelius said, “there was one woman who could use the Thingamajigger for its true purpose, and that was Hika, the Supreme Ruler of the Universe. I’m under the impression that it was only her who would use it because she, nice of a woman as she was, was the most insane person I have ever met, save for one person, and that person is here in this room tonight.”
Will and Eva figured it out right away. Eva gave a shout of protest, and Will merely stared, wide-eyed, at his friend. Blake, however, merely blinked and looked at Cornelius, waiting for him to continue. She was insanely curious to find out who this person was.
“Actually,” said Collins, glancing at his watch, “it’s just after midnight, so technically, the person is here in this room this morning.”
Cornelius blinked at Collins and was about to correct himself when Eva sat up from her seat, pounding her hands on the table. “You can’t seriously be planning on sending Blake back to destroy Berwick and Mr. Coutler, can you?”
Blake was extremely taken aback by this, now having finally figured the situation out. “I’m supposed to do what?”
“She’s only sixteen years old! The girl can barely drive, how can you expect her to save the world?”
“I’m supposed to save the world?” Blake screeched.
“This is the stupidest plan I have ever heard, Burke,” snapped Eva. “Sending a young girl out to save your own skin, are you?”
“She’s the only one capable of doing it!” Burke shot back. “Now, we have two options. We can muster an army and send that through to the other world. We can fight bloody battles with gods-know-what they have for troops for gods-know-how long.” Burke through his hands up in the air. “Or, we can send Blake through with the Thingamajigger and she can defeat both Berwick and Mr. Coutler with one measly little object in a matter of minutes.”
Eva still wasn’t convinced. “This is way too dangerous a task for a young girl to have to do.”
“Ms. Dennell will be perfectly safe, Eva,” said Burke. “You’ll be with her, as well as Cornelius. She’ll be very well protected, I’m sure.”
“What about me?” said Will. “Am I coming with? Or did you just bring me here for no reason at all?”
“You can come too,” said Burke, waving a hand distractedly. “Eva tells us you’re a bit of a revolutionary, and we’re not going to deny you a chance to help.”
“What?” Eva said, pounding her hands on the table again. “No, you cannot come,” she said to Will. “I don’t want to put one of you kids in danger, much less two.”
“Burke said I could!” Will whined.
Blake, in the meantime, was still trying to take all of this in. She had been silent for a long time, trying to comprehend exactly what Burke was saying. Finally, she got it.
“You seriously want me to go, like, use this Thingamajigger and go… you want me to kill Berwick and Coutler?”
“It won’t kill them,” said Cornelius, shaking his head. “Chris Podima wasn’t killed when Hika used the Thingamajigger on him. Not even close. But he sure wasn’t in any shape to try and take over the world ever again.”
Blake was shaking her head, hardly believing what she was being asked to do, killing or no.
“What exactly does the Thingamajigger do, Cornelius?” Eva asked.
Cornelius grimaced slightly. “No one is quite sure how, but when used properly, the Thingamajigger will release vast amounts of some powerful force, rendering the enemy incapable of fighting back.”
“That’s a pretty vague definition,” said Eva with a groan.
“If I had time to study it, I would,” Cornelius said, sighing. “But by the way it sounds, we had better not worry about just how exactly the Thingamajigger works right now. If we take too much time, Berwick and Mr. Coutler could become immensely powerful in our world. We need to stop Berwick and his brainwashing before it gets out of hand. And right now, Blake’s our only hope.”
Blake shrunk down in her seat. “But I don’t want to be your only hope!” she whined. “I wanted to help, and I wanted to save Maggie, but I never wanted to be relied on this much!” She shook her head. “I’m not a reliable person, just ask Will! I forget things, and, and, I’m lazy, and…”
Everyone in the room was looking at Blake sympathetically, even Burke, who usually only had two emotions (angry and impatient), was feeling sorry for her.
Eva sighed and placed a hand on Blake’s shoulder. As much as she hated the idea, Cornelius and Burke were right. “You’ll do just fine,” she told her. “Trust me.”
Blake nodded, but she still didn’t seem very convinced. Slowly and dramatically, Cornelius took the Thingamajigger from Burke and handed it to Blake. She took it reluctantly, and held it by the very tips of her fingernails as if she was holding someone’s dirty underwear. This, she thought, was a very, very bad idea.
Word count thus far: 44,165
Less than 900 words to go tonight. Phew.