The following morning, milk dribbled down Nathaniel's chin as he ate breakfast staring out of the kitchen window, entranced by the beautiful November day. He considered the long bike ride to school, and how he wished that someone would give him a ride sometimes. His mind soon shifted to his Masterpiece upstairs in his closet. Oh, great. I hope my closet isn't filled with a bunch of nasty birds crapping all over my clothes.

  He ran upstairs, leaving his cereal bowl half full, and then moved his desk to the side and opened the closet door. To his relief, the closet was still free of bird droppings, the only funky smell coming from his gym socks in one corner. His Masterpiece set just inside, bent forward a bit because it lacked support. He brought it out and set it vertically on his drawing table like before.

  The snow in the picture still fell, but it wasn't any deeper on the ground. That appeared to be permanently fixed, though he knew some things could evolve; he remembered the candle and the lemon tree from Christmas. The little redbird was out of sight, and he wished he could see it, flying around at least. As he reached into the drawing through the window, a rush of wintry wind hit his face, just like before, and he closed his eyes and breathed it in. The scent of his Masterpiece intoxicated his soul.

  He got dressed, grabbed his backpack from yesterday and took it downstairs, where he filled it with more water and food than before. He intended to do some serious exploring. When he returned to his room, he looked around suspiciously, but there were no eye-crows lurking. He passed through the window and immediately walked through the gate and, as he hiked through the field toward the tree line, he kept an eye on the sky, watching for any more of those nasty birds. All seemed quiet, though, like before, and his mind became settled as he approached the trees...

  …until he came across the shredded bodies.

  He stepped back, hand to his mouth. At first glance, he'd thought they were human, but no: they were more panther-like, though they bore a close resemblance to people. Humanoid cats? Black ink stains were splashed on the trees and snow; and in the real world, he figured the stains would have been red — blood-red.

  As he looked closer, trying not to throw up, he realized that some dismembered black birds lay there also. He broke a stick off a tree with a sharp crack, observing that the sound carried well in the Inkworld. He shuddered to think of what he might have attracted the day before with his shouting, if he'd stayed any longer. As he poked at one of the dead birds, confirming that it was an eye-crow, he wondered, What happened here? Whoever did this must be on my side, or else it doesn't like these things either... What the heck is going on in this place?

  Nathaniel climbed a large tree and looked around to see if anyone was trailing him; he saw nothing but the forest receding into the distance on three sides, the courtyard with its well and cottage. He couldn't see anything farther south, if in fact it was south.

  He waited for a while up there, making absolutely sure the coast was clear before he proceeded. It didn't occur to him to retreat to the real world; he just crept on in silence.

  After Nathaniel had walked a good distance through the woods, much farther than the day before, he came upon a small clearing where the sunlight shone into a field of low grass. Of course, the drawing he was walking around in didn't have actual sunlight, like the real world, but an Inkworldian sunlight if that was a thing; the air felt unusually warm, and the grass was welcoming. It was a beautiful day here in the clearing. It was kind of like he had walked out of winter and into spring, which was the most bizarre feeling that he recognized. And he was glad not to see any of those eye-crows and people-panthers in this area. In fact, the glade struck him as the perfect place to rest and drink in the warm air, as long as he was careful to keep an eye out for more of those nasty birds and panther-like creatures. The way it was drawn and shaded seemed a little different from his own style, which made him wonder if he was still in his own drawing, but he really didn't give it much thought.

  He found a nice place in the center of the field, took off his backpack, and laid back, leaning his head against the pack. For the first time, he noticed the air in this drawing was different from that of his world. It seemed to be lighter and thinner, and was definitely free of the chaos of sounds that acted as a background to daily life. There was no television, no radio, no cars, no hustle and bustle of a noisy town. As he took in deep breaths, he also noticed that the air smelled nice, like a newly printed book that had never before been opened. He realized that it was the smell of fresh ink on fresh paper, yes, but with the added excitement of a new book about to be read. For the first time, he understood why Tommy insisted on reading constantly during the Christmas holidays, sniffing the pages as he turned them.

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  With the exception of his worries about people-panthers and eye-crows, and the need to remain vigilant against both, Nathaniel felt calm, even at peace. Despite the death that had greeted him at the tree line, the Inkworld seemed serene and pure in every way. He lay there looking up at the pale sky, which held a few faint indications of moving clouds.

  With his hands folded behind his head, he gazed across the field, and his eyes settled on a gigantic sycamore tree with branches that started close to the ground. Being an avid tree climber in his spare time (before he started his Masterpiece, at least) Nathaniel knew that this would be a great tree to climb. The sycamore towered high above the other trees, so he knew the view would probably be great. He grabbed his pack and headed toward the tree, then up, up, up he went — one branch after another, like a fireman's ladder, only natural and better. The tree's limbs had been perfectly drawn for climbing, and he had to wonder: by whom? This wasn't his work; he'd only drawn the first rank of trees in the forest.

  It seemed that no sooner was he off the ground than he stood at the top of the highest climbable branch, which swayed in the wind a bit more than he was comfortable with. When he looked back south, he could see his courtyard in the far distance, but it looked like little more than a faint blur.

  Before he could turn north, he unexpectedly heard human voices in the field below. He climbed down slowly, planning to eavesdrop on their conversation; he didn't know what kind of people these were. After his run-in with the eye-crow, and the pile of dead people-panthers and crows at the edge of the forest, he no longer considered Inkworld a completely harmless place. As he got lower, he realized there were at least two people, and they were talking about numbers. He couldn't make out what they looked like through the foliage, so he sat on a lower branch and listened quietly.

  "No, no, you can't convert that! The numbers just don't add up."

  "What do you mean they don't add up? You said yourself that if we both lifted three thousand pounds of rocks in an eight-hour day, that would convert to 7,200,000 seconds, which makes it 24,000 minutes."

  "Yes, but you didn't figure that if we both lifted three thousand pounds of rocks, that comes to six thousand pounds of rocks, because there are two of us. Because there are two of us, that means that in eight hours we actually worked sixteen man-hours, which converts into 28,800,000 seconds, which makes 96,000 minutes."

  "But that makes no sense! If you just doubled everything, which by the way you did, it would still only be 14,400,000 seconds, which converts to 48,000 minutes!"

  "Not true. Everything doubles. So once you double your 48,000 minutes you'll see that the answer is in fact 96,000 minutes, just like I said."

  "Okay, okay, you got me. But did you figure that since we've been talking here, there's been someone in that tree listening to our conversation, which throws a wrench in the works? Because now we either have to account for his time as time on the clock, or subtract our time from work so we can discover who this onlooker is."

  "Well, if we add his time to the clock — which of course we will — and subtract our time from work, you will discover that, in fact, a wrench has been thrown."

  "I hate when that happens. Hey, you up there in the tree! Thanks a lot for that wrench. Why don't you come down so we can see this wise guy who likes to throw wrenches?"

  Nathaniel saw two skinny figures through the leaves, but couldn't make out any details. "I guess I could take 'em if I had to… I wonder why they're talking about all those pounds of rocks anyway? They couldn't even pick up twenty pounds if they had to," he whispered under his breath, before calling, "What do you mean, wrench? I don't have a wrench, and if I did I wouldn't even know what to do with it up here anyway."

  "Oh, a smarty-pants, Tick. Look, kid, you just being here has made our conversion impossible, because we don't know exactly how long you've been there, so now we have no idea of how much time we should add or subtract."

  "I'm not impressed by your math skills anyway," Nathaniel called down.

  In the outraged silence that followed, Nathaniel pushed aside some branches to get a better look at the speakers. He saw two figures no bigger than himself, except that they were thinner, and both had short curly hair and faces littered with freckles. They seemed unimposing, and their features appeared to be overemphasized, like those of some cartoon characters. Oh yeah, I could take them if things get bad.