I used to think this section was major lame. Why on earth, as a reader, would I give a flying tahooty about the people who helped the author? Well, I’m here to tell you that you should be very interested. Because without the awesome people I mention below, this book wouldn’t be in your hands.

Before anyone else, I need to thank Chris Schoebinger and Lisa Mangum at Shadow Mountain. Despite being an author, I can’t come up with words great enough to express how much they’ve changed my life. Fabulicious. Astoundendicularly whammy. Terrificaliwondershonks. (See, told ya.) Thank you, Chris and Lisa.

Thanks to my wife, Lynette. Always my first reader, she’s not afraid to tell me when something sounds like a two-year-old blurted it out while sitting on the potty.

Thanks to my sister, Sarah Kiesche, for keeping up my Web site during the Jimmy Fincher books and being my number one fan.

Thanks to my agent, Jenny Rappaport, for her work on my behalf.

Thanks to J. Scott Savage. His keen and almost eerie understanding of how to weave a good story has helped me greatly. And our regular lunches to “talk shop” have been invaluable. I do wish he’d use a little more deodorant, though.

Thanks to Annette Lyon, Heather Moore, Michele Holmes, Lu Ann Staheli, Lynda Keith, and Stephanni Hicken. These crazy ladies all read the manuscript and gave excellent feedback.

A huge thanks to the younger folks, whose advice was perhaps most relevant: Jacob Savage, Alyssa Holmes, and Daniel Lyon.

Thanks to Shirley Bahlmann (and her kids), Danyelle Ferguson, and Anne Bradshaw. Shirley is the only one besides my wife who has helped me with every book I’ve written.

Thanks to Crystal Hardman, Tony and Rachel Benjamin, Pam Anderton, and Julie Sasagawa. Eating at Jim’s Restaurant will never be the same.

Thanks to Peter Jackson for making the Lord of the Rings movies.

Thanks to the dude who invented football.

Thanks to the many chickens that provided me with spicy buffalo wings over the years.

And last, but certainly not least, thanks to all the Jimmy Fincher fans. Without your loyal following, Atticus Higginbottom would have never been born.

Part

1

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The Fire

Chapter

1

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Master George and Mistress Jane

Norbert Johnson had never met such strange people in all of his life, much less two on the same day—within the same hour even. Odd. Very odd indeed.