The Lost Story

by Meg Shaffer

The box contained all the stuff in it you’d expect from a dreamy thirteen-year-old girl. Fantasy novels—The Last Unicorn, The Hobbit, Dragonsbane, The Clockwork Raven. A plastic toy horse, black with gray and white painted spots, and a flowing mane. A single polished moonstone in a velvet bag, something she might have bought in a museum gift shop. Old VHS tapes with garage sale stickers on them—The Princess Bride. Matilda. Mulan. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. The NeverEnding Story… Fritz crawled out of her hood, down her arm, and trotted over to the piles of books and things. He tried to climb onto the horse toy but only managed to knock it over. “Kind of breaks your heart a little,” Emilie said as she gently stroked Fritz. “Her sad little treasure chest. A rock. A toy. Some old fifty-cent VHS tapes from garage sales. Library discards falling apart.” She ran her fingers over the ratty spines of her sister’s Chronicles of Narnia books held together with old rubber bands. She knew it was a seven-book series, but Emilie counted only six. A notecard tucked inside one book read, Discard, missing book. Her sister had gotten the series for free because one book got lost. Meanwhile, Emilie had owned the entire series in beautiful hardcovers, and she never even read them. Her mother had eventually given them away to a neighbor’s son.