A Novel Nightmare: The Purloined Story

A Novel Nightmare: The Purloined Story — page 5 — The poke from d’Artagnan’s sword in The Three Musketeers was painful And the creepy zombie hands in Great Expectations were actually kind of cool Great Expectations has zombies Matt asked Probably not Carter admitted When I was in there it had been hacked I think the crazy lady with the spider cake really is in it though Maybe I’ll read it sometime Matt said Carter doubted that considering Matt’s view on reading was a lot like Carter’s used to be After spending almost a whole day running from bad guys in the virtual reality story Carter had gone to the library to ﬁnd a real copy of Great Expectations It was so thick He’d gone home with War of the Worlds instead Matt’s voice pulled him back to the moment I can’t believe you kept that VR stuff secret for so long Carter shrugged You know how Uncle Dan 6

A Novel Nightmare: The Purloined Story — page 6 — is At least now I know why you lugged weird books around Matt said I thought you were turning into your cousin for a while Carter gave his friend a playful shove since he wasn’t sure he wanted to admit he was still reading those weird books Comparing me to Isabelle Are you trying to get slugged Hey if the nerd ﬁts Matt said laughing Carter laughed weakly I still wish you could have told me about the suits Matt said wistfully Or let me help You know if I ever talked about any of Uncle Dan’s secret projects I would never get to help him again Carter reminded him I understand Matt said You are the luckiest guy I know I can’t believe you’ve gotten to use the suits so many times Well remember Carter said some of that time the program was all messed up by that computer hacker I was grabbed by zombie hands coming out of a grave I’ve been rained 7

A Novel Nightmare: The Purloined Story — page 7 — on half-drowned and dropped down holes And I’ve been chased by murderers pirates ghosts and killer rabbits Killer rabbits They’re scarier than you think Carter insisted I still bet you wouldn’t want to miss any of them Matt sighed Carter had to admit that was true Even when the virtual reality suits were scaring him half to death it was still the most exciting thing he’d ever done He actually really missed it Uncle Dan took the suits to bookstores and malls now so Carter only wore the suit when they tested the connections He’d mostly turned into the guy who carried in the boxes of cables and stuff For the last two weeks he wasn’t even that He looked down at the closed cell phone in his hand At least Uncle Dan’s call meant Carter should be ﬁnding out what his uncle’s secret new project was I need to go he said Uncle Dan wants me 8

A Novel Nightmare: The Purloined Story — page 8 — at his house They started up the bank away from the water and onto the grassy lawn of Miller’s Park Well promise you’ll tell me about the new project as soon as you can Matt said Hey tell your uncle that I’d be happy to help too I’ll tell him Carter said They walked to the bike rack and unlocked their bikes Are you going back to your house Matt nodded I might as well I still haven’t ﬁnished reading our summer book My mom is on my case about it I don’t know why we have to read long books by guys who have been dead forever Carter didn’t say anything He had ﬁnished the book weeks ago He’d been just like Matt until Uncle Dan’s virtual reality suits Uncle Dan used classic books to create his virtual reality worlds because you didn’t have to get any special permission to work with them At least that’s how Isabelle had explained it Carter had only been half listening to his brainy 9

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