Have you ever wondered where your lost items could have got to? It turns out that there is another world entirely where they've gone. There, you will find all manner of missing items: stray socks, wayward pins...and children. Yes, children can get lost too, and these forgotten ones fall through the cracks and are gone. Pippa is one of these, and when she falls into the Lost World, she finds true belonging. But all is not well in this junk utopia, and those in charge are not to be trusted. Pippa will soon have to fight for what she has found.

Where the Lost Things Go

Pippa was having the worst day of her life. In school, she had forgotten her homework, become mortified, and cried and from the entire class. the teacher had ignored her distress and reminded her to do work in timely fashion. She had stood, the tears welling up unbidden and hearing the muted whispers of the other children as they stared and whispered. After class she left the school and didn't stop walking until the school was far behind. 


Finally, she sat on a park bench and cried some more. She had always been an anxious child, but lately life had become unbearable. At school she was failing every clasd but art and had no friends, and at home her mother ignored her. She had been nearly useless as a parent, Pippa thought bitterly, so cold and distant to her only daughter. Sometimes she wondered if her mother even loved her. 


Finally, the torrent of tears stopped, and Pippa was in a slightly better state. She pulled out her sketchbook. She had been drawing the March sisters from her favorite book, Little Women. The March girls were smart, and fun, and always had each other's back. Pippa slammed the book shut, the tears threatening to return in force. She had never felt so alone. 


Suddenly, she felt a strange force pulling at her, like she was a magnet. On the pavement, a black hole rimmed with violet opened before her wondering eyes. Before she could do anything, the mysterious force drew her head-first into the hole. Pippa screamed, but she was already gone. 


She fell through black-and-violet limbo, not screaming anymore because she was too surprised. Pippa had no idea what was happening. All at once, the ground rose up in front of her, and she was again on a solid plane. She was surprised to find that she was completely uninjured. 


She rose from the ground to find herself in a junkyard. All around her, odd items were heaped up in large piles, from pillows to tools. But when she looked around a bit more, she found that thr junkyard (if that is what it was) stretched as far as her eyes could see. Beside her, a pair of scissors fell through another black and violet hole, dropping to the ground. The hole, which hung in the air, closed almost immediately. 


"Where am I?" Pippa asked aloud, as she began to walk among the piles of trash. Some of the heaps were so tall that they made small hills, with valleys in between. The light was low, so Pippa guessed that it was nearly night. She picked up an ivory-handled hairbrush that looked like something her grandmother had used before she passed on and her stuff taken away. Then she heard voices. 


Two teens, a boy and a girl, climbed over a pile of junk. "Hey!" The boy called. "What are you doing here? This is our territory." 


Pippa stared at him. The two looked wild, like kids who would beat her up if they got her into a dark alley. 


"Ease up a bit, Harry," the girl, who wore a cotton dress desperately in need of a wash, stepped closer to Pippa. "Which clan do you belong to? Are you lost?" 


"I don't know what the clans are," Pippa said nervously. Was clan what these kids called their gangs? 


"So lost, then," the girl said. She didn't look that scary, Pippa was realizing. She looked kind, under a layer of dirt. "It can be confusing at first. Don't worry, the new ones always learn." 


"What do you mean?" Pippa was still confused. "Where am I? What did I fall into?" 


"You're in the place where the lost things go, and if you're here, it means you're lost yourself."


Falling