The Wordsmith - Chapter Two

(Chapter One is here)

Ava thought the man looked very silly. 

He was wearing a big pirate hat with a picture of a kitten on it, a big red shirt with 7 pockets sewn on the front, blue jeans, and on his feet were one sandal and one cowboy boot.

"You look silly" Ava said.

"Nonsense.  I look perfectly acceptable.  It's you who look silly, you've got no hat!"  He reached into on of his shirt pockets, and pulled out a jump rope.  He held it out to her.

"No thanks Mr. Wordsmith.  I've already worn one of those today.  I didn't like it."

"Very well.  How about some tea instead?"  Ava sat down across the table from him and took the cup of tea she was offered.  She took a sip and found it surprisingly sweet.

"Who are you?"  Ava was curious how he was in the story with her, even though she'd never read about him before.

"I'm the Wordsmith, protector of literature and hunter of Musings.  You know all about Musings, of course."

"Not really" Ava said, sipping more of her tea.  "What are they?"

"Ah!  Musings are little creatures that get into stories and change them around.  Some of them are harmless, others can do horrible things, like turn good guys into bad guys, or even erase characters from the entire story!"

"Wow, they sound bad.  How do you find them?"

"Well, if you know the story well enough, you can pick out things that have changed from the original story.  For example, I know there's a couple musings in this story, but I don't know the story very well.  It was written before I became a Wordsmith.  Which is why I pulled you in here with me.  You know this story word for word, don't you?"

"It's my favorite book!  We're at the part where Fred Finch is thinking about who left the mysterious package in his room, just before the train starts speeding up.  He notices it because the soup he's having starts shaking and spills on his jacket."

"Did you say soup?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Soup?  You're absolutely sure?"

Ava thought hard.  In her mind she went over the words from the chapter again, and she definitely remembered Fred having soup.  But now that she thought about it, when she saw him right after she arrived, he was eating steak!