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I regarded the wall for a moment. A standard-issue hotel print hung there, flowers in a field that could have been anywhere. Finally I said, “Isn’t it about two in the morning on the East Coast?”

“Screw that, man. I can’t put this stuff down. I found some great books on grammar, and I’m beginning to understand how some of these typos keep happening.”

Jane muttered something about radio buttons and turned over in her sleep to dream further web-designer dreams. “That’s cool,” I said, “but—wait a minute, aren’t you supposed to be huddled in a tent in Georgia right now?”

“I’ve been thinking a lot about what we found during my leg of the trip, and I’ve been following the blog since then, and … I don’t think my part in this is over yet. Reading your entries from the last few days makes me all the more sure of that.”

“What do you mean?” I said.

Benjamin whooped into the phone. “You’re slipping off the track! It takes you five days to make ten corrections. From the numbers you just posted, you’ve dipped under fifty-one percent—you’re in danger of dropping below fifty percent corrected!”

“I’m in the middle of nowhere. They don’t cotton much to words out here.”

“Excuses!”

I couldn’t hold back anymore. I spilled all of my doubts and frustrations. I told him about the internal war that the Hawk and the Hippie seemed to be waging in the guts of our mission.

He didn’t sound surprised in the least. “I could already tell that something was different. I’m not sure I have the answers you’re looking for—but we’ll figure them out as we go.”

“We?”

“You heard me, dude,” Benjamin said. “TEAL needs me back on the team. I know that shotgun seat is opening up once your Jane heads back home. So, Deck, I’m putting the Appalachian Trail off for a year. It’ll still be there in 2009.”

I didn’t know what to say. Light began to diffuse into the dark future of the League.

“I’ll see you in Chi-town,” said Benjamin.

TYPO TRIP TALLY

Total found: 276

Total corrected: 140

* The Oxford English Dictionary would expand upon the use of quotations in quantity as well as depth, as the makers of this comprehensive and literally exhaustive dictionary didn’t just add sample sentences to show the words in use, but also worked to track down the earliest written appearances of the words.

* More on Latin specifically next chapter.

14 | The Epic Chapter Wherein Heroes Battle and the Scenery Flashes Past

April 27-May 1, 2008 (Minneapolis, MN; Madison, WI; Chicago, IL; Bloomington, IN; Cincinnati, OH; Newport, KY)

Reunited with his faithful friend and foil, our Hero charges into the last battle for the soul of the League. Taking opposing sides, these Allies spar through the snowy streets of Madison, tread carefully around mental land mines in the Windy City, are nearly mad driven on Indiana roads, and finish Once and For All over the Ohio River.

I shall skip describing the scene at the Minneapolis airport, where Jane and I bade each other farewell, lest the upwelling of your tears streak the ink of these pages and damage this highly collectible book. I returned to Callie, alone for the first time in seven weeks. Perhaps if I could have crawled into some eremite cave, the sudden aloneness wouldn’t have been so loud, but as it was, I had a mission. In the Twin Cities, my destination was clear: the Mall of America, a monument to capitalism and testament to Americanism—complete with roller coaster—that could not be passed over. Unfortunately, the typos therein were all too easy to pass over. I failed to correct a single one of the eight I found, dropping me under the fifty-percent correction mark.

Back in the infinite warrens of the mall’s parking garage, I called Benjamin to find out when he’d arrive in Chicago.

“Hey man,” he said, “if your typo hunting’s done this early, you could always move on to your next stop. That’s Katie and Lisa, right? You sound way down. Madison’s your best bet.”

I set off on the four-and-a-half-hour