THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE, CATHERINE STREET, LONDON
PRESENT DAY
T he play we're attending in the Theatre Royal is Alice's Adventures Under Ground . It's a new play that has only been running from a week ago when the killings started. I think the Pillar might be right. There is too much coincidence here. We should meet the mysterious Muffin Man tonight.
"The 'Pig and Pepper' chapter where Duchess appears is hilariously funny," the Pillar reads from a local newspaper. Behind us, the chauffeur buys our tickets.
"Really?" I am stretching my tight dress a bit. I am not used to this kind of intimacy on my skin. Neither am I comfortable with my heels. What's wrong with sneakers, or better, being barefoot?
"That's what the papers say." The Pillar looks at the billboards showing "previous attractions." "Damn," he mumbles. "We missed Shrek the Musical ."
"And Coraline by Neil Gaiman," I point out.
"Who's your favorite, Lewis Carroll or Neil Gaiman?" He points his finger playfully at me.
"Carroll." I don't hesitate. "Lewis Carroll or J. R. R. Tolkien?" I shoot back.
"Carroll." He doesn't hesitate either. "Lewis Carroll or C. S. Lewis?"
"Hmm." I love the Narnia books. "Nah, Carroll." I can't resist. "Lewis Carroll or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ?" I am starting to love this game.
"Can't compare an author to a single book, Alice," he says. "Here is a good one: who has a better sense of absurd humor, Lewis Carroll or God?"
I raise an eyebrow. I can't answer that. "Who do you think?" I feel eerily playful.
"God, of course." He waves hi at his approaching mousy chauffer, panting with the tickets in his hands. "Just look at what he has created." He secretly points at his chauffeur. "It can't get absurder than this."
"There is no such word as 'absurder.'" I bite my lips at his blunt sense of sarcasm.
"Who said it's a word? Absurd is an emotion." He winks and welcomes the tickets the chauffeur gives him.
"Eight tickets, like you ordered," the chauffeur remarks.
"Eight?" I grimace at the Pillar.
"My seat and yours." The Pillar counts on his fingers. "Two seats to our left and right, two behind us, and the two front of us."
"Why?"
"Precautions, Alice," the Pillar says. "Who knows what might happen inside? I have a bad feeling about this."
"All seats are also right in the middle of the theatre," the chauffeur elaborates.
"Evil people, such as terrorists, are dumb." The Pillar spares me the burden of asking. "They usually start bombing the back seats if they've intrusively entered from outside. Or bomb the front seats if they're sleeper cells. The middle is just fine."
"Not if the theatre's chandelier falls on your heads in the middle." My knack for opposing him grows in me.
"If something hits you in a perpendicular line straight down from the sky, that's not a terrorist," the Pillar says while he hands a piece of his portable hookah to hide in my dress. "That would be God's sense of humor."
"What is that for?" I look at his Lego hookah.
"They don't allow hookahs inside, and I have a bad feeling I will need it."
I tuck it under my dress, counting on the Pillar to deal with security on our way in.
"So, let me be your guide for tonight, Miss Edith Wonder." He requests I engage him, and I do. "Pretend I am your father," he hisses between almost-sealed lips as we stare at the security gate. "A smile will do wonders, too."
We both smile, but I have to ask, hissing, "Why did you call me Edith?"
"In case something horrible happens, I don't want them looking for you," he says, not looking at me. "Also, your sister has been mean to you. Let's get her in trouble." We keep on smiling at the guards. "Tell the security man on your side that his taste of clothes is exceptionally très chic . That'd be a good distraction."
"But he is wearing a boring uniform," I hiss through my plastic smile.
"And he happens to be in his mid-forties, not wearing a ring, and probably desperate to hear a compliment from a beautiful young lady too," the Pillar says as we close in. "Make him think this a special conversation between you and him, behind Daddy's back."
I do as he says when we enter. The man blushes and doesn't bother checking the tickets. I emit a seductive laugh and turn to the Pillar when we're inside. "It worked. How did you pass your guard? You haven't promised anything you can't keep?"
"Nah." He raises his chin and greets a few ladies he hasn't seen before. "I puffed hookah smoke in his face. It hypnotized him long enough for me to pass."
"Just like that? You didn't show him anything?"
"Of course, I did." He smiles broadly at the crowd. "My middle finger."