Jodi Picoult - Between the lines

“No, a cl-Never mind.” I get up from the bed and start pacing in front of it. “If there was a way, though, to get a painting of my world into Rapscullio’s lair, then maybe-”

“I thought you might need some comfort food…” At the sound of a voice, I whirl around to find my mother standing in the doorway with a dinner tray. There’s a grilled cheese sandwich and a glass of milk. She peers around the room. “Who on earth are you talking to, Delilah?”

“My… a friend.”

My mother glances around again. “But there’s no one here…”

“Oliver’s on the phone,” I say quickly. “Speaker phone. Isn’t that right, Oliver?” He doesn’t answer, of course, and I feel myself blushing furiously. “It’s a pretty bad connection.”

My mother’s eyebrows raise. It’s a boy? she mouths silently.

I nod.

She gives me a thumbs-up and-leaving the tray-backs out of my room. “That was close,” I tell him, and sigh.

He grins. “What’s for dinner?”

“Can we be serious here?” I say. “I don’t suppose you’ve taken any art classes?”

Oliver laughs. “Those,” he replies, “are for princesses. ”

“Oh yeah? Tell that to Michelangelo. Let’s say that someone painted over that magic canvas so it isn’t a portrait of Rapscullio’s lair… but instead a painting of my bedroom. And then you happen to start to paint yourself onto it. Logic says that-”

“I’ll wind up in your bedroom!” Oliver’s eyes shine. “Delilah, you are amazing!”

When he says those words, a shiver runs the length of my spine. What if he did show up right now, sitting on my bed? Would he high-five me? Hug me?

Kiss me?

At the thought of that, my cheeks burn like they’re on fire. I hold my palms up against them, hoping Oliver hasn’t noticed.

“Ah, now I’ve embarrassed you,” he says. “All right, then. You are not amazing. You’re perfectly ordinary. Run-of-the-mill. Completely dismissible.”

“Shut up,” I say, but I’m smiling. “I want to try an experiment. Have you got your dagger?”

“Of course,” Oliver replies. He draws it from its sheath. “Why?”

“Draw a picture of me. On the rock wall.”

He blinks. “Right now?”

“No, next Thursday.”

“Oh, good.” Oliver starts to put the dagger away.

“I was joking! Of course right now!”

Is it my imagination, or does he look a little green? “Right,” Oliver mutters. “A portrait.” He poises the tip of the knife over the granite. “Of you.” He steps forward, blocking my view as he begins to etch on the rock. Twice, he looks over his shoulder to peer at my face.

I think of all the beautiful paintings hanging in museums around the world-muses captured on canvas: the Mona Lisa, the birth of Venus, the girl with a pearl earring. “Voilà,” Oliver declares, and he steps aside.

Carved onto the rock wall is a disproportionate figure with bug eyes, snake hair, and a flat line of a mouth. Apparently, to Oliver, I look like a Muppet.

“Not bad, eh?” he says. “Although, I don’t think I quite captured your nose…”

No wonder; he’s drawn it as a triangle.

I hesitate. “No offense, Oliver, but you might not be the ideal choice to paint a picture of my room.”

He frowns at the portrait he’s drawn of me, and then smiles. “Perhaps not,” Oliver says, “but I know just the fellow who is.”

Prince Oliver dreamed that one of the mermaids was still kissing him. He was fighting to pull away from her, struggling to breathe-and then he opened his eyes. No mermaid was kissing him, just Frump, licking his face as Socks whinnied and stamped his foot a few feet away. Oliver sat up, damp and bedraggled, on the ocean shore. He had no recollection of the mermaids bringing him to the surface, and he might have considered it all a nightmare, except for the fact that in one hand he was clutching his compass, and in the other he was holding a sack that contained the flotsam and jetsam the mermaids had claimed to be treasures.

One hour into their journey, Oliver and his faithful entourage reached the River of Regret, a mile-wide whitewater fury that had claimed the lives of many who’d tried to cross it. The only hope for passage was the Bridge of Trolls, which-it had to be said-was nearly as perilous.

It is a well-known fact that trolls either always tell the truth or always lie. And that every day they build two bridges-one safe and one designed to collapse at the first hint of weight.

Oliver dismounted, patted Frump on the head, and walked to the edge of the cliff. He could see three small, squat men shuffling about with hammers and nails on the far side. One of the bridges appeared rickety and weak; the other was strongly fashioned-but Oliver knew that looks could be deceiving.

“Helloooo?” Oliver called, but the trolls continued working, unable to hear him over the roar of the water.

Oliver turned and dug the megaphone from the mermaids’ treasure collection out of his rucksack. “Helloooo!” he yelled again, and this time the trolls all looked up. “My good men,” Oliver said. “Which bridge should I use to cross?”

The first troll, Biggle, glanced up. When he spoke, Oliver had no trouble hearing him; trolls were known to talk in decibel levels that could shake the Earth. “Why, what have we got here? Some fancy man with his fancy horse, and what’s that? A big rat or somethin’?” Biggle stroked his long gray beard.

“Sir, I do see you’re working quite hard,” Oliver said with a smile. “I would greatly appreciate your advice.”

Snort and Trogg, the remaining trolls, started to laugh, grunting and holding their bellies. “Ye can only ask one of us to choose for you,” said Trogg, the chubby one. “Make yer pick.”

Oliver thought about this. If trolls always lied or always told the truth, how to find out which troll was trustworthy? “Do you tell the truth?” he yelled through the megaphone.

Biggle replied, but at that moment, the water between them roared, so that Oliver could not make out the answer.

Snort cupped his hands near his mouth. “He said he always tells the truth!”

“No, he didn’t,” called Trogg. “He said he was a liar.”

Oliver glanced from each hideous face to the next. Biggle, he realized, must have said he was truthful. This would have been his response if he was indeed truthful, because of course he’d say so; but it also would have been his response if he was a liar.

Which meant that Snort’s statement had to be the truth.

In other words- he was the troll to trust.

“You!” Oliver said, pointing to the short troll in the middle. “Which bridge?”

“This one,” Snort proudly answered, pointing to the rickety bridge.

Oliver mounted his stallion again and, without a moment’s hesitation, crossed the bridge Snort had indicated.

“That’ll be a guinea,” Biggle grunted.

Oliver patted down his pockets and saddlebags, but all his spare change had fallen into the ocean when he was with the mermaids.

The mermaids.

The trolls advanced, menacing, ready to pound him into the dirt.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “do you know what’s more precious than gold? True love.”

“We’re trolls,” said Trogg. “Or hadn’t you noticed?”