Okay, I’m giving myself away here.

“She’s almost done!” Logan hisses.

“We need to find the coin drop to turn on the mirrors. Do you know where it is?”

The mouse looks at me curiously. Then he starts to retreat. “If you’re an ogre, you should know this.”

“We’re, um, interns, and we’re still learning,” I say, but the mouse still looks skeptical. “Please! I have no time to explain, but this scroll is very important—for the whole kingdom, including mice,” I plead. The mouse stares at me. “Are you hungry?” I reach into my other pocket where I know Corden packed us energy bars. I pull mine out and begin to peel off the wrapper. “If you help, I will give you this.”

The mouse taps his foot impatiently. “This is a serious journalistic endeavor we’re running! I don’t accept bribes!” His little pink nose sniffs the air. “Although that does smell good. Is it cinnamon raisin?”

I slide it toward him. “Don’t consider it a bribe. Think of it as a gift from a friend.”

The mouse considers this. “Okay.” It grabs a small crumb and begins to chew, talking with its little mouth full, which is hard to understand. “The gumball machine doesn’t look like the one outside. When a story is done, you need to put gum in the ogre statue’s mouth. It will light up the mirror and feed the scroll out to everyone who has a Happily Ever After Scrolls subscription.”

“Thank you,” I say. “Enjoy the food!” I run back to the table. “We need to find the ogre statue. It activates the mirror.”

“There it is!” Tara says, pointing to a large ogre statue of HEAS founder, Hershel Ogreton, fashionably dressed in spectacles, a top hat, and a suit. His mouth is open wide, and the plaque below his large feet reads: ALWAYS BE READY TO LISTEN AND BE HEARD, AND ALWAYS SPEAK THE TRUTH. Below the plaque is a bowl of gum. Jackpot!

“Ready!” Sasha says and puts down the quill.

Tara grabs the gum and drops a piece in Hershel’s mouth. The mirror near the roof glows as Sasha’s scroll begins to bounce. Heath grabs it and drops it onto the conveyor belt. The letters glow brighter and swirl, turning the parchment bright white, then black. As the scroll is sucked up the tube, the letters disappear. Seconds later, they reappear in a mirror on the wall that has just lit up blue. The mirror begins typing the scroll line by line.

“You did it!” Kira says in awe. “I can’t believe you actually did it!”

I read Sasha’s writing proudly as it scrolls across the mirror.

“Okay, we’re done. Let’s get out of here before Gangia’s party is over,” Tara says.

“We need to wait till the mirror finishes writing,” Heath says. “We can’t risk anyone seeing what Sasha wrote.”

“There’s not enough time.” Tara looks at the clock. “Lunch is almost over.”

“We need to finish the job,” I argue. “We’ve risked so much. We need to know this works.”