“Arggghhhh!” Seventeen-year-old Joe Hardy exclaimed in frustration. His year-older brother looked over at him with a hint of amusement is his brown eyes.

“What’s wrong?” dark-haired Frank asked of his blond brother.

“This story,” Joe sulked. “I have to write a story for English and it’s due on Monday.”

“And?” Frank inquired mildly. While Joe wasn’t overly fond of school work, he actually did rather well in school. Frank suspected that his younger brother could easily make straight-As if Joe only applied himself more.

Joe just grimaced, as he ran a hand absently through his hair.

“So?” Frank asked again, baffled by his brother’s behavior. “What’s the problem?”

“Duckling!” The blond boy said explosively.

“Duckling?” Frank shook his head, wondering if Joe just might have finally lost it.

“Duckling,” confirmed the younger boy with a frown. “She simply will not cooperate.”

“Uh, Joe,” Frank began tentatively, regarding his brother with concern as he crossed to his brother’s side of the room.

Joe finally turned towards his brother. “Duckling is a character in my story. And stop looking at me like that.”

“Oh,” Frank replied softly. “Why did you name her duckling?”

Joe fidgeted impatiently and said in exasperation, “I didn’t name her, Frank. She named herself.”

Seeing Frank’s look of concerned incomprehension, Joe reached out and touched his brother softly on his wrist. “I’m okay, big brother,” he said gently, then added with a rueful grin, “So, there’s no need to look at me as if I’ve finally snapped.”

Frank glanced down quickly and blushed. He hadn’t meant to be so obvious. But his brother had been through so much lately, Frank wondered how he managed to stay sane.

Joe leaned against the back of his chair. He could tell his brother expected some sort of explanation. Joe gently tugged on his brother’s arm. When Frank looked up again, somewhat abashed, Joe patted the edge of the bed closest to the desk. “Have a seat,” the blond boy suggested gently.

Frank sat down, his rich brown eyes focused on Joe.

“So, it’s only writer’s block?” Frank asked hesitantly.

Joe regarded his brother thoughtfully for a moment.

“Not really,” he replied at length, “although I don’t think you’ll believe me when I tell you.”

“Try me.”

“Okay.” Joe paused. “You really won’t believe me,” he cautioned again. “But here goes.”

Frank felt himself tensing up. What could be the matter now?

“Duckling is not really a fictional character. I spoke with her for the first time a couple of weeks ago. She says that she’s known us from childhood.” Here Joe paused for a moment and mused, “Of course, childhood seems so long ago; it seems like I’ve been a teenager for ever.”

“Anyway,” Joe resumed, “She said she was a writer, or wanted to be one, rather, and asked if she could write us into some of her stories. I agreed on the condition that she let me use her for one of my English compositions.”

Frank felt a rush of lightheadedness. This is what is was all about? He shook his head with relief. He had been prepared for almost anything, but not something so . . . laughably mundane.

“Okay,” Frank said with a smile, some of his earlier amusement returning. “So how does that bring us to your frustration, and the comment that I wouldn’t believe you?”

“And how does she know us?” Frank continued. “I would surely remember someone named Duckling.”

“I’m getting there,” Joe answered amicably. “Well, you know that each week Mrs. Preston assigns us a different mood, or atmosphere, to write about.

Frank nodded. The English teacher believed in having her students practice writing about various moods in various settings.

“Well, here I have Duckling seated at this lovely little Italian restaurant with this really great guy, and what does she do but run back to her computer and type.”

Frank blinked. There must have been something he had missed.

“Huh?”

“Look,” Joe gestured at his computer screen. “There at the bottom of page three, she and Jeremy, that’s the really great guy, are sitting in the restaurant. Then, I scroll to the top of the next page, and she isn’t there. Where is she but back at her own computer mysteriously typo-ing away.”

“Typo-ing?” This conversation just seemed to be getting weirder and weirder by the minute.

“Yes,” Joe answered, “She can’t type. She’s usually in such a rush to tell her story that she makes a lot of typos, which she has to go back and later correct.’

“Oh,” said Frank. Really, what more could he possibly say?

“So, here’s this really great guy,” Joe continued again, only to be cut off by Frank.

“You keep saying that,” the dark-haired boy stated with a sly smile. “Just what makes the guy so great? That he’s tall, blond and blue-eyed?”

Joe grinned mischievously back at his brother. “He may be all that,” he conceded, “but I was really thinking more of his personality. Someone strong and brave and kind.” Then his face grew softer as he added fondly, “Someone like you, big brother.”

Frank felt the heat rise up in his face, but he returned his brother’s affectionate glance with one of his own.

“So,” Frank picked up where Joe left off, “You have this really great guy . . . .”

Both brothers smiled.

“Yeah,” Joe took over. “So I have this really great guy, who is about to take Duckling’s hand in his own, look into her eyes and . . . what? What’s so funny?” Joe broke off abruptly as his brother convulsed with laughter.

“You . . .you’re righting a romance?” Frank spluttered in question.

“No!” Joe denied vehemently.

“But . . . your . . .story,” Frank gasped out, still laughing.

“But I have to,” Joe wailed. “Mrs. Preston assigned us a ‘romantic interlude’ as this week’s theme.”

Frank was laughing so hard now, that tears streamed down his face. Finally, he composed himself enough to hear his brother out.

“Okay,” he started, then stopped quickly as a giggle escaped him. “So, here you have a great guy, about to spill his guts out to a girl and?”

“And that’s just the problem, Frank!” Joe declared in agitation. “Duckling isn’t there to hear it! Here sits Jeremy, longing to pour out his soul to her, and she’s not there!”

“And she agreed to be a character, too,” Joe wailed pitifully. “I was much more cooperative than she’s turning out to be.”

Frank couldn’t help but burst back out into laughter. A glance at Joe’s unamused face however, sobered him up relatively quickly.

“You must admit, Joe,” Frank stated more calmly, wiping his face with the back of his hands, “that the whole situation is rather funny.”

Taking a deep, calming breath, the older boy continued. “But I can see where you would get frustrated. It doesn’t sound like your friend Duckling is performing the part you’ve scripted for her.”

“Not at all,” Joe declared sulkily.

“Well, you know,” Frank began thoughtfully, “You could work her rebellion into your story. Let her go off and typo away, as you put it. Focus on Jeremy, and what he must be feeling. I mean, romance isn’t all white tablecloths and candles.”

Joe stared at his brother for a moment before he broke out into a wide grin. “Frank!” He exclaimed happily, “You’re a genius. That’s just what I’ll do.” Joe bent back over the keyboard to continue writing.

Frank just grinned in amusement. Only his brother could make writer’s bloc so dramatic.

“But Joe,” Frank said, “You still haven’t told me why I wouldn’t believe you and how this Duckling person knows us.”

“Oh, that.” Joe sat up and relaxed his fingers. Leaning back against his chair again, he looked up at his brother. “That’s the part I don’t think you’ll believe.”

“You see, Duckling told me that she knew us from childhood, meaning her childhood. I didn’t understand her, so she explained that we were fictional characters that she had first been introduced to as a child. According to her, Frank, we don’t exist. Bayport doesn’t exist. We’re just figments of someone else’s imagination.”

Frank just stared at his brother in disbelief. Fictional characters? Perhaps Joe had been out in the sun a bit longer than was good for him.

“I knew you wouldn’t believe me,” Joe said simply, as his brother made no response.

“But you do? Believe her, I mean?” Surely Joe wouldn’t believe nonsense like that.

Vibrant blue eyes met his own. “I don’t know Frank. At first, I didn’t; not at all. But then, after I got to thinking about it, thinking about all the things that have happened . . .” the blond boy trailed off.

“Well,” Joe continued, “It just seemed more probable. I mean, it just makes it easier to deal with, knowing, or thinking rather, that none of this stuff is real. Just some long, complex dream that someone else is dreaming.”

Frank’s open stare had narrowed to concern. Did Joe actually buy that?

The older boy’s thought must have communicated itself to Joe because the blond boy answered: “I don’t know Frank. All I can say is that generally, no, I don’t believe it. But sometimes, it actually explains some things, and makes it a bit easier to deal with. I’m sorry,” the blond boy shrugged. “That’s the best I can explain it.”

Frank nodded his head. He could see, if he tried, Joe’s point of view. The harrowing experiences they had shared, and had gotten out of, had at times seemed unbelievable even to him.

“Anyway,” Joe said suddenly, “Whether you believe it or not, I have to get back to writing. Thanks again bro, for the suggestion. I never even thought of focusing on Jeremy.”

Frank smiled as he settled back down to his own homework. Joe and his writer’s bloc. For a second, Frank entertained the possibility that perhaps he and Joe were indeed mere fictional characters. But if that were so, then his whole world, his whole existence was a lie. Shaking his head as he dismissed the thought he picked up his book and smiled. Fictional characters? Nah . . . .

The end