He had saved Pin before any of the others could reach his friend. General Dargero! they had all cried. We await your orders!

Stand by, I will kill him!

And so he had! He’d seen the man fall, but he’d had to retreat as those other two men came racing toward him. One was dressed as a policeman, but they might have been evil generals. He knew they would take him back to the asylum if they could. So General Dargero had quietly slipped away under cover of darkness, until next he was called upon to defend all girls against the powerful and wicked forces who so relentlessly pursued them.

Pin had fought so bravely! It was she who had slain that evil man with her blade, even though they claimed the policeman had done it. Brave Pin, brave Vivian! Was there a better name? Why had it taken so long for him to think of it?

He got out his manuscript, his pencil and votive candles, his sheaf of creased newspaper clippings, last of all the faded newspaper photograph of Elsie Paroubek. He pulled out Saint Dymphna’s scapular and kissed it, sharpened the tip of his pencil with his knife. For a long time he sat and stared at the title page of his book. He reached into the drawer for a sheet of blank paper, smoothed it on top of the desk, and began to write:

THE TRUE ADVENTURES OF THE VIVIAN GIRLS,

WHO FOUGHT BESIDE THE GEMINI

IN THE TIME OF THE TERRIBLE WAR STORM,

CAUSED BY THE REBELLION OF THE CHILD SLAVES

By Henry Joseph Darger

The Author Of This Exciting Story

He turned to the first page, frowned, and crossed out a few words, then began to write.

It was dark and the Vivian Girls were still awaiting the return of
Violet.

Even as the light paled and he heard Sister Rose’s footsteps in the corridor outside the room, he continued writing. It would be a very, very long time before he stopped.

Chapter 103

Chapter 103

PIN HATED SCHOOL. She hated everything. There had been no reward. Riverview’s owner, Mr. Baumgarten, had given Fatty Bacon and that reporter five hundred dollars apiece. They were the heroes: she was only the one who’d needed to be rescued.

And when Baumgarten learned she and her mother had been living in the shack behind the Kansas Cyclone, he’d evicted them, though he didn’t call it that. He gave her mother two hundred dollars and told her it was for new school clothes for her daughter, and any incidental expenses they might have. She and her mother now had rooms in a boardinghouse, the same one where Fatty Bacon lived, with a nosy landlady named Mrs. Dahl. Fatty was courting her mother, no doubt about that. Pin didn’t speak to him unless her mother ordered her to.