What Mary-LUE Found There

Mary-LUE logged into the blog’verse and found the others there.

“It’s all right,” she repeated, “I’ve come back.”

“What on earth are you talking about, Mary-LUE? asked atypical.

“Why,” said Mary-LUE in amazement, “haven’t you all been wondering where I was?”

“So you’ve been hiding, have you?” said the Ravin’ Picture Maven.

“Poor old LUE, hiding and nobody noticed! You’ll have to hide longer than that if you want people to start looking for you.”

“But I’ve been away for days,” said Mary-LUE.

The others all stared at one another.

“Batty!” said Beck, tapping her head. “Quite batty.”

“What do you mean, LUE?” asked chickenone.

“What I said,” answered Mary-LUE. “It was just after breakfast when I logged off and I’ve been away for days, and had Starbucks, and all sorts of things happened.”

“Don’t be silly, Mary-LUE,” said blackdaisies. “We’ve all been here and you just left a moment ago and now you’re back. And what is this Starbucks, anyway?”

“She’s not being silly at all,” said MarillaAnne, “she’s just making up a story for fun, aren’t you, LUE? And why shouldn’t she?”

“No, MarillaAnne, I’m not,” she said. “It’s—it’s a magic world. There are people there and weather, and I went on a long drive through the Grapevine and saw Jewel-y in a city called Mo-Des-Tow. I stayed at an Inn called Fairfield but there was no blog’verse connection there. This magic world is called Inreallife.”

“Why, you goose,” said Terri B, “there’s no such place as Inreallife; look! You must have had a power surge.”

Then everyone looked at Mary-LUE’s stats; and they all saw—Mary-LUE herself saw—it had only been a few moments since she’d logged off and then returned. There was no Starbucks and no weather, no Grapevine or city called Mo-Des-Tow, only the blog’verse. “A jolly good hoax, LUE,” Lamont said, “you have really taken us in, I must admit. We half-believed you.”

“But it wasn’t a hoax at all,” said Mary-LUE, “really and truly. I went to Inreallife. Honestly I did. I promise.”

“Come, LUE,” said Alpha DogMa, “that’s going a bit far. You’ve had your joke. Hadn’t you better drop it now?”

Mary-LUE grew very red in the face and tried to say something, though she hardly knew what she was trying to say, and burst into tears.

For the next few days she was very miserable. She could have made it up with the others quite easily at any moment if she could have brought herself to say that the whole thing was only a story made up for fun. But Mary-LUE was a very truthful girl and she knew that she was really in the right; and she could not bring herself to say this.