Day 26: 44,064 Words

I am barrelling towards the end of my book— only 6,000 words left! I was forced to reveal who Alan is, and it even surprised me: Alan is Garth Ball!

Jorn evidently decided that he didn’t care if it was appropriate or not. “We have to stay focused!” he said irritably.

Abigail looked at him with annoyance, but ultimately agreed.

“Focused on what? On the fact that Garth Ball just kicked a soccer ball at my head?”

“For starters, yes!” Jorn shot back. 

“To clarify, I did not mean to kick a ball at your head,” Garth said placatingly. 

“That’s a relief, I guess?” Abigail said peevishly. “Would you mind clarifying what you were trying to do?”

“I was aiming for the mannequin behind you, to make a dramatic entrance.”

“I thought you were supposed to be good at football. Can’t you hit where you’re aiming?” Abigail rolled her eyes.

“I swear, the mannequin moved closer to the window!” Garth whined.

Abigail rolled her eyes. “I have so many questions, but we don’t have time to get answers to most of them. So, I’m going to ask the most important one. Who is—”

“No!” Cranston cried dramatically. “If you ask the very question that I know you are trying to ask, everything will be ruined!”

...

"That reminds me,” Fernando exclaimed. “I thought that you hated James van der Beek? You kicked a ball at his head on purpose. Or, at least it seemed like you did. There weren’t any mannequins around to mess up your aim.”

“Yeah!” Abigail said. “Aren’t you two feuding?”

“That’s precisely what I wanted you to think!” Garth said enthusiastically. “James and I have known each other for years. Ever since he mediated a secret dispute that I had with Sylvester Stallone while filming Nazi Submarine: Futbolista, I’ve been helping him with the Celebrity Feud Support Group behind the scenes.”

“But you two could have just ignored each other and nobody would have thought that you knew each other. Instead, you drew attention to yourselves—the opposite of what you probably wanted!” Abigail pointed out. “No one would have thought at all about you two. No one would have assumed you knew each other. If anything, you turned people onto the scent rather than turning them off of it!” 

Garth paused for a second, considering what Abigail had said.

“Well, it wasn’t a fool proof plan, clearly,” he conceded. 

“Yes, that much is quite clear,” Fernando said.

“But I stand by everything else,” Garth added.

“Like the mugs?” Fernando asked.

“Mugs?” Abigail repeated.

“Yeah, the mugs!” Fernando said.

“Ah yes, the mugs! That part was my idea,” Garth said proudly. Abigail was confused as to why he would take credit for this idea so readily.

“Remember when we were at the Dawson’s Creek: Legacy wrap party, and we saw that mug that said ‘Don’t Ask Who Alan Is’?” Fernando asked Abigail.

“Uh, I guess,” she replied. “I was more distracted by the mysterious man who ran into you, who was apparently named Alan. Was that you, Garth?”

“I’ll say it again. C’est moi!” Garth said. 

“But I didn’t recognize you!” Fernando cried. “I’ve played on the same team as you for years! How is any of this possible?”

“I was wearing a disguise! I knew that I couldn’t enter the party undetected, since I’m Garth Ball, and I needed to place the mugs at the coffee bar.”

“What? Why? You realize that by placing these mugs in mysterious locations, telling people not to ask about you, you’re just causing everyone to wonder who Alan is who wouldn’t have thought about it otherwise?” Abigail was losing her patience. This had to be the stupidest plan ever. 

“And you knocked over my flan!” Fernando cried.

“I’m sorry that there were casualties. There will be other flans! But the workings of this organization are above your pay grade.”

“But we don’t get paid,” Fernando pointed out.

“This is no time to argue semantics!” Gareth said angrily.

He had a point. It wasn’t. The time to argue semantics was at the annual Department of Social and Political Thought mini-conference at York University. They blessedly were not there. Or maybe that would have been preferable.

“I don’t understand why you did, literally, any of those things,” Abigail said with annoyance. 

“Allow me to explain,” Garth said dramatically.

“I guess, but can you do it quickly please?” Abigail said impatiently. Garth had been chattering on for some time, and they needed to get back to London.

“No!” Garth responded, matter of factly.

Abigail shrugged. She’d lost control of this situation long ago. She figured she might as well just go along for the ride. 

“After James helped me to resolve my feud with Sylvester Stallone, who was being a bit of a diva on the Nazi Submarine set, I became a Celebrity Feud Support Group Supporter. At first, I thought I was a part of a small group, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. You clearly don’t know of the massive, secret network of supporters that James has recruited.”

“A massive, secret network. Really? Doesn’t that seem like overkill for handling two adult men who fight over mini-sticks every once in a while?” Abigail asked incredulously. 

“I don’t think you realize how high this goes,” Garth countered.

“Well if it’s a massive, secret network, isn’t that the point?” Abigail responded crossly.

Garth ignored her.

“This isn’t just Taylor Swift and Kanye West stuff. James van der Beek has Kim Jong-un’s phone number. He manages entire countries. He helps feuding presidents and prime ministers. He won’t deal with royalty, though. He thinks that they are irrelevant and should just accept that.” 

This was a fair point. 

“No offense, but how is Cranston involved?” Abigail interjected. “He doesn’t seem like much of a celebrity to me.”

While it was obviously rude to point out that he was basically the Richard Gere of the whole operation, Cranston just seemed pleased that someone was acknowledging him at all. He had spent so much time in the 24 Hour Jorts and Piquette Emporium, without a single customer. 

“Yeah, fair question,” Jorn interceded. “Cranston used to be in IT.”

This explained, in part, why he had suggested unplugging the jorts and plugging them back in again. But it also didn’t.

Jorn continued. “He was fixing the VIP wi-fi at the Jackie Arms and overheard an entire meeting. No one noticed him because he’s really easy to not notice. Anyway, we needed to keep him quiet so we gave him a t-shirt and we pay him fifty thousand pounds a year to work here.”

Cranston smiled knowingly. Abigail did, too. She was impressed.

“Okay, so to sum up,” Fernando said to Garth, “you’re Alan, you’ve been leaving hints about that all over Ontario as part of an underground network of feud resolvers, and you’re the key to saving The Rock’s life. Does that about cover it?”

“That covers most of it,” Abigail said slowly. “But I’m still wondering what the hell is with the 24 Hour Jorts and Piquette Emporium? Why that specific and un-smart pairing? Why is Cranston being paid to work here?”

“This is where one of the conspiracy theories about this place is actually true,” Jorn smiled. “This is all because of Emilio Estevez.”

“Emilio?” Abigail said in disbelief. Now, she had truly heard everything.

“That was the first feud that James resolved, between Emilio and his brother Charlie Sheen. Emilio is basically the second in command. The network spreads massively throughout England since English people are so unfriendly and rude to each other. We needed a home base here, where we could be left alone. Emilio truly does love jorts, and was constantly having jorts emergencies. We worried that the store might be too popular, though, so we stuck it in the worst neighbourhood possible, in a terrible city, and we added piquette to make it really unappealing.”

Abigail was silent for a moment. 

“Well, after everything you’ve told us, I find this the easiest to believe,” she finally said. 

“So, we’ve found Alan,” Fernando said, gesturing to Garth Ball. “What’s next?”

“Did James say anything else to you about what we need to do?” Ball asked.

“All I remember him saying was that we needed to tell you to initiate Project Vampyre,” Abigail replied.

A big smile spread across Ball’s face.

“Perfect. I know exactly what we need to do next.”