Chapter Twenty Four

Blueth Mendoza's POV

"Why hello there, cutie. What are you up to?" I said as I leaned closer to one of the characters of the story who was carrying a watering can.

"Cut it out Blueth. We're here to find the Mistake in this story. We are not here to make friends with the characters." Ms. Val said as she looked around for a possible hideout of the Mistake.

"But who couldn't resist this little cutie? He's so cute and round and plump. Can we keep him?" I said as I hugged the character like a teddy bear.

"If you did that, then the story would become one character short."

"Well, what about it when a story is a character short?"

"It means that if a character is missing, the story won't progress and it'll end in disaster. To make it simple for you, don't take one home."

"Okay, fine. But it's amazing how the author of this book described its characters as this walking dumpling things." I said as I place down the character to the ground and it continued walking with its watering can in its hand. "Oh, it's so cute."

"The less you pay attention to it the more you'll stop wanting to take it home."

"But I already let it go!"

"You're trying to put it into the jar as we speak Blueth. I can tell."

I stopped crawling behind it with the jar open in my hands. "Fine, I'll stop trying to bring it back home with me."

"Good, now, stay focus, we need to find where that Mistake is hiding." Ms. Val said as she started walking. I followed her and started walking beside her.

"So, you don't like romance genre stories? Why?"

"Kid, when you're at my age, you'll know why I feel this way towards romance genres."

"Feel what?"

"Feel, disgusted."

I looked at Ms. Val with confusion on my face. "Why would I feel disgusted by love?"

Ms. Val let out a sigh as she kept walking. "You'll know when you'll know kiddo."

Ms. Val and I kept walking around the town, looking for possible hiding places for the Mistake.

"Hi there, little guy. Have you seen a big smoke thing floating around your small town? It's a big monster thing called a Mistake, we need to get rid of it so your story will be safe and perfect." I leaned forward to the little character as I asked it questions, asking if it has seen the Mistake and if it knows where it is hiding.

"Stop it Blueth, asking the characters won't help us in finding the Mistake. Characters in stories can't see the proofreader."

"What are you saying?" I asked as I looked at Ms. Val.

"I'm saying is that you can do this." I looked at Ms. Val, trying to process what she said. Then, Ms' Val leaned towards one of the characters and started making funny faces in front of it. I gasp at seeing Ms. Val disrespecting the characters like that.

"Ms. Val! That's disrespectful! You might hurt their feelings!"

"Ah don't worry about it, kiddo, as I said earlier. They don't see proofreaders. We're invisible to them like the Mistakes in their story."

"So, we can do funny faces in front of them?"

Ms. Val chuckled as she held out her hand, giving me the signal to try making funny faces in front of the characters so I would know. "Well, if they won't see me, then let me try, but just this once." I leaned towards one of the characters who was peacefully watering its garden. I started doing funny faces in front of it.

Thinking about it, I'm starting to look bad by doing funny faces to these little guys. I should stop. I'm going to stop.

"So, where should we look now? We are nearly at the end of the book and we still haven't found that Mistake." I asked as I walked towards Ms. Val.

"Well, to tell you the truth, I don't know where we should go looking for it. Maybe the Mistake is hiding near the end of the story. You said that you read this story before, right?"

"Uh-huh, I honestly think that I'm about to finish reading all of the books lying around the house."

Ms. Val had this worried look on her face as she was looking at me.

"What's wrong? Is something behind me that I should be worried about?" I looked around me to see why Ms. Val's face had this worried expression on it. "You okay Ms. Val?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just worried about you."

"Why?"

"You're about to finish all of the books around the house?"

"Yes."

"The books that we are proofreading? The mountain-sized pile of books to be proofread? You're nearly done reading them all?"

"Oh yeah. I think I'm 92 percent done in reading all of them."

Ms. Val repeatedly blinked her eyes as she kept looking at me. "Do you even sleep Blueth?"

"Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depends on how hooked I get on a story really."

"Okay? Anyway, I don't know why I didn't ask for this earlier but, you read this book right?"

"Uh-huh."

"So, you know how big the Mistake will be?"

"Oh yes."

"Okay, good. How big is it?"

"Not that big."

"You didn't check the errors while reading, didn't you?"

"Nope, you said that we were going to proofread them by going inside them so I didn't pay attention to the errors of the book."

"Well, that was a waste of valuable time." Ms. Val said as she started walking away.

"Well, excuse me for following what you told me. You said that we shouldn't proofread them the normal way, so I didn't proofread them the normal way."

"Blah blah blah." Ms. Val said as she was a fair distance away from me. The nerves of that girl. She said not to proofread them the normal way, so I didn't proofread them the normal way. And now she acts like this because I didn't check how many errors the book had when I was reading it. Honestly, I don't know if the reason she's in a bad mood is because of the romance genre or because I didn't check the errors, either way, she's mad and I don't know why.

As I kept looking at Ms. Val slowly walking away from me like a baby, I noticed a huge shadow rise behind me. My eyes suddenly grew wide as I realize what it could be. I turned around and my hunch was not wrong.

"Uhh... Ms. Val? I think I know how big the Mistake is."

-End of Chapter-