Chapter 1

There are good days, and there are bad days. And then there are days when you find yourself hanging off the edge of a cliff.

Charlie Glubson was having one of those days.

The water far, far, far below him billowed and frothed with a blueish fury as it lashed the edge of the cliff's bottom. But Charlie was at the cliff's top, where a small tree clung to the rocks by its roots and stretched one lonely, adventurous branch out into the wide open sky beyond. On the branch hung Charlie’s belt, and inside of Charlie's belt hung Charlie.

He started to unfasten the buckle, then looked downward (to him, upward) at the water again and hiccuped. The branch gently bounced.

He made a quick mental calculation of geometric angles, weight distribution, wind direction, belt friction, and the propulsion force of hiccups to determine whether he could generate enough momentum to bounce backward toward safety.

But then the branch started to sag, and his belt, with him inside of it, slid even further towards the leafy tip.

It wasn't that his Aunt Annaruth was cruel to leave him hanging there; it was just that she was absentminded. Whenever she was writing a story in her head, she stopped noticing what she was doing. And his aunt was always writing a story in her head. She was, after all, Assistant Deputy Muse (Level IV Probationary Status) of Knashville, which was the smallest planet in the Circumstellar Band of Klumph, which was trying to escape the orbit of the Singing Star, which was parked illegally beside a black hole. But that isn't important (just yet).

What's important right now is that she had really meant to hang something quite different–and much more appropriate–on that precipitous tree branch overhanging the Cumbersome Gorge, but she had absentmindedly hung Charlie there instead. And though he had meant to call out to her, he was so surprised by his sudden suspendulation that he hiccupped instead.

For years, he had sharpened her pencils (carefully organizing them by lead hardness, length, and eraser quality) and even figured out the optimal sharpness-to-writing-time ratio so that she was never without a perfectly pointy writing instrument when inspiration struck. He’d collected and smoothed out the crumpled balls of first drafts she’d thrown on the floor and learned, by handwriting slant, how to put them in order again. He’d memorized hundreds of obscure dictionary words just to have on hand when needed (“Charlie, what rhymes with 'precipice'?” Edifice, orifice, artifice, auspice . . .”) And all along he had secretly wished that, just once, she would put him, Charlie Glubson, her quiet obedient nephew, in a story.

And now, he realized, she finally had. Or rather, she had hung him in a story–by his belt.

"And not just any story," said Charlie aloud. "I'm in a cliffhanger!" He thought for a second and corrected himself: "I AM a cliffhanger."

Cliffhangerhangerhangerhangerhanger . . . The last word echoed down the deep gorge, and Charlie felt suddenly exposed and embarrassed and terribly shy. He wasn’t meant for stories. He was meant for pencil sharpening and paper uncrumpling and picnic basket carrying and belt wearing without the uncomfortable intrusion of adventurous branches.

His own echoing voice faded into silence again. Then, ever so softly, ringing out from the constellations far above and mingled with the rumble of waves on the rocks far below, he thought he heard the Singing Star warbling a badly out-of-tune sea shanty.

“Hello?” he said tentatively. Hellohellohellohellohellollollo . . .

“Is anyone there?” Theretheretheretheretherethereheretheretherethere . . .

“HELP ME I’M A CLIFFHANGER!" HANGERHANGERHANGERHANGERHANGER . . .

A breeze set the branch aquiver again, and the straggly leaves at the tip danced even closer to Charlie’s head. His nose tingled. He suppressed another hiccup. And he listened.