Lives Are Not Strikes

There are two counters in The Mirror, and they both go up to three. I knew young readers would mix them up, so I gave the job of keeping them straight to the character who would care most: Jr.

Lives are inside a door. Each world gives you three, shown as a little face in the corner like an old video game. Lose one and you pop back up at the last safe spot. Walk into a new door and you start with three again.

Strikes are in the hallway. There are only three for the whole trip, across every door. Fail a door and one of the red circles above the sixth door lights up. Light all three, and the place keeps you.

Jr refuses to call them the same thing, even when Dakota says "lives" because it's shorter. That isn't Jr being fussy. In a place where the rules can trap you, using the right word is how you stay alive.

The kids the boys meet show why it matters. Marcus came in through the hallway, so he counted strikes, and he ran out. Ellie, who readers meet in Book Two, never had a hallway. She only had lives, and she spent all three on her first day.

Two different counters, two different ways to get stuck, and the same result for both kids: they can walk their world forever, but they can never finish it.

That's what makes every strike in this series cost something. Kids feel it. When a red circle lights up, the whole room goes quiet.

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