APPENDIX
Bertram Livingstone the sausage-dog
becomes President of the United States of America.
Bertram Livingstone the sausage-dog became President of the United States of America, and then James died, and then Lilith died, and then Esther and Byron and Domenic and Blythe and everybody else in the world died[108]. But the sausage-dogs became immortal and ruled the animal kingdom with peace and prosperity. That is, until the Meerkats became unruly and then all the animals died, even the immortal sausage-dogs. Don’t ask me how the effects of the Meerkats’ unruliness extended even to the deepest of oceans – I’m human, I was already dead by this time. Come to think of it, so are you. But it all started with the reign of Bertram Livingstone. Thus the moral of the story is this: always, always be wary of those Dachshunds!
[1] My favourite: Lisa came over one day, and with a half-amused frown said, “Petie says I’m not allowed to come home till I can bring back the next chapter of The Secret Stealer.”
[2] Disclaimer: I am a fiction writer. Don’t take anything I say seriously. Except for this.
[3] In actual fact, The Magician had recently visited the home of a wondrously rich French dignitary, and, upon being grievously insulted by his host, had performed a rather fantastic feat. He stole the interior of the dignitary’s mansion and squeezed it into his own cottage, at the same time placing the interior of the cottage inside the Frenchman’s walls. Believe it or not, magic often does make a popping noise – like the liquidy plink of a bubble as it disintegrates – and with one such ‘pop’ the Frenchman found himself on a rug before a hearth-fire in a disgustingly small room. At the same moment Chrysander Noble found himself in the centre of a very large hall (the very one Louis looked down upon at present).
[4]Most magicians develop some kind of complex, after having discovered their powers. Louis d’Arlend developed a Superiority Complex, whereby he thought himself greater than everybody else in the world. Chrysander Noble, having many talents and being one of the most skilled magicians that ever was, developed a Teacher Complex. This involved a compulsion to punish almost anyone he caught being naughty – by placing a curse on them that would give them time to think over and ultimately regret their actions, thus being taught a vital life lesson.
[5]Because it had bitten him the day before.
[6]It was a very old dog, and had lost several contests of Male Supremacy (even dogs develop Complexes within their lifetimes) and was already in very bad shape. A blow to the head from a pineapple was enough to cause the poor beast to literally keel over and die. Or perhaps it was die and then keel over. Not that it matters, as the ultimate result of a pineapple to the head was DEATH (and, eventually, the grave).
[7] One of the rules of the curse stipulated that it could not be removed by anyone but the Accursee, a fact that Chrysander (very inconveniently) forgot. This particular rule was designed to ensure that Louis did not simply find another magician and have them lift the curse.
[8] For the ever-so-reasonable fee of 50% on all profits from all attempts at bribery, blackmail and extortion.
[9] Their schedules were completely full… of dog-raising and wistful sky-gazing. It was probably just as well that James did not know these details.
[10] In actual fact, he had grown bored with the study of 16th Century English fashions and used that particular excuse to quit the room and visit Esther.
[11] Some parents (who were not at all well-off and whose children were only able to attend the school on the basis of their outstanding academic merit) chose to go so far as to change their surname to include a Roman numeral or two, so that their child would not feel left out. Some of these children were in fact much cleverer than both their parents put together, and hence were stuck with names such as Alexander Lucas XXVI until they were 18 (and allowed to change their name), or old enough that their objections should be taken seriously by their well-meaning but essentially stupid parents.
[12] If there wasn’t to be a Roman numeral attached to a child’s surname, usually the surname was hyphenated. Again, the parents of the scholarship children often overcompensated for this convention by giving their child as many as three or four hyphenated surnames. This was what had happened to poor Jennifer Wadsworth-Barkley-Baker, for example, and it had had about the same effect as adding ‘XXVI’ to a boy’s surname.
[13] Which declared: “DON’T SMOKE becauSe you are a DERTY DERTY BOWGAN if You DO” with a stick figure surrounded by what was (presumably) a cloud of smoke and flies, and holding a brown paper bag – although could have been a stick figure surrounded by mist and magic glitter and holding some kind of rodent.
[14]He was more than late, James thought, he was just plain rude. Not only had he shown up late for every family dinner in James’ recollection, Uncle Ralph (Yvette’s older brother) now did not even bother to show up at all. At the last family Christmas dinner prior to James’ coming to Westcott, Uncle Ralph had neglected to appear, and halfway through the evening James had asked his mother if Uncle Ralph was late again – at which point Yvette Winchester looked rather upset but said nothing. Seeing as how Uncle Ralph’s being late all the time made his mother so very upset, James became a firm believer in severe punctuality. He now made a habit of arriving ten minutes early to anything and everything. If ever he was less than ten minutes early, he became very annoyed with himself.
[15] Like the Trunchbull’s ‘Chokie’ from Roald Dahl’s Matilda – now there was a woman who knew how to discipline a child! (“Use the rod, beat the child; that’s my motto!”)
[16] This, of course, is known to most people as ‘anger’. Being a very passive and thoughtful child, it took James until nine years of age to come across this feeling.
[17] James’ hypochondria always seemed to kick in at the most convenient moments.
[18] Although James’ attempts at logic (as we ourselves have seen) often led to disastrously incorrect conclusions, at this point in time James was exactly right. Someone had been in his room.
[19] To dive under one’s bed was an extreme act of cowardice, in James’ mind. In truth, he was not exactly sure what ‘cowardice’ meant, but he knew that little girls were very often guilty of it, and he was not about to have anyone accuse him of behaving like a little girl.
[20] As a child I, like James, could never like the story of Rapunzel. Because, I figured, if some girl was confident that her hair and her neck muscles alone could support the weight of a fully grown man, she must have (a) been very stupid or (b) had neck muscles to rival Arnold Schwarzenegger, in which case she mustn’t have been very attractive (in fact she mustn’t have been at all attractive – unless you like the female body-builder look), and therefore I thought the story’s logic fatally flawed. (I myself was a logical child.)
[21] James was not aware that Magic has its own peculiar kind of logic, that is not at all like the logic you and I are familiar with. It takes several years and much theory and practice in the art of magic before Mogic (yes – like ‘logic’ but with an ‘M’; the magician to coin this term was spectacularly uninventive) becomes like second nature. Thus, though this conclusion is not at all logical, it was mogical. James’ strange leaps of logic were peculiarly in tune with the mogical way of thought.
[22] Mind you, James would have used even a paper-cut as an excuse to go see Miss Mason-Smith. For all he knew, the cut might become infected with Ebola and he might die.
[23] Based on their constant petty bickering.
[24] Based on their lack of constant petty bickering.
[25] James had a secret love for movies such as Anastasia. Apparently it was a ‘girls’ movie, so James never acknowledged to anyone his love of similar movies – like Beauty and the Beast, and The Little Mermaid. James was far ahead of the other boys in his class, in that he did not think girls were infected with such things as Cooties. James instead thought that girls were very pretty creatures, and that he wouldn’t mind holding one’s hand sometime, if only one of them would ever take notice of him!
[26] Which always seems to be the largest shred, when it comes to angry females.
[27] Yes, Miss Mason-Smith is in fact even cooler than she has been letting on so far. And not just because of the Mini. Though a souped-up, shiny old green Mini is incredibly cool.
[28] Women who wear too much make-up do not like to be told that they look like they are wearing too much make-up. James is only nine, however, so we must forgive him. And, really, applaud him, for only a child could get away with statements like that without being slapped.
[29] No, this isn’t the correct conclusion I was talking about. In the event of anyone losing their cool with Andrew, the wretch invariably proceeded to beat them up. But this wouldn’t be a quality daydream if it ended with James being beat to a pulp, now, would it?
[30] Woohoo! Correct!
[31] The Anti-Pretentious Peoples Organisation. Given, the APPO contained only Sebastian Pritchard. But it was a force to be reckoned with all the same.
[32] And possibly the sausage-dogs. But they know everything.
[33] The domestic helpers of Pritchard Manor were well aware of their employer’s thieving ways. He just liked to keep in practice. Occasionally they would trick him by putting messages in their pockets (such as: ‘Good try Mr Pritchard. Mr Harding wants you to call him back on 42 710873’), or, as in today’s case, a small rodent. The workers invariably found their pilfered belongings returned to their rooms by the end of the day, so they did not object to his thieving too much.
[34] Soon after moving to England Blythe had befriended a particularly fierce policeman with a certain talent for interrogation. After a rather disastrous first relationship (which had started when she was 20 and ended terribly one year later), whenever any of her boyfriends became semi-serious Blythe would have her policeman arrest the man in question and interrogate him to the end of locating the known man-killer Blythe Pritchard, aka ‘the Pitchfork’ (“So named for her choice of weapon,” the policeman would say and watch his interviewee gulp). If the man divulged her location, then it was simply not meant to be.
[35] Incidentally, her real name was Esther Pritchard. The surname ‘Mason-Smith’, as you may or may not have guessed, was simply an affectation, designed to make Esther fit in better with the crowd of hyphenated females at Westcott School for Boys and Girls – and also to make it harder for Blythe to find her, should she ever desire to track down her only sibling and enemy.
[36] Down by the pretentious row of manicured trees on the pretentious lawn of Sebastian Pritchard’s pretentious neighbours.
[37] As bizarre as this train of logic sounds, it is remarkably correct!
[38] There had been one occasion in which Andrew Harrison VI had accidentally made himself useful after Mrs Bartlett-Cooke used reverse psychology on him. But that had not benefited James in the slightest.
[39] Zoolander: But why male models?
[40] Particularly about topics such as ‘necrotising fasciitis’, or ‘ischaemia’ or ‘phenylketonuria’.
[41] Oh, come on – you must have done it at least once. That is, told a ludicrous falsehood to a child (or is it just me, after all?). For example, one which I recently told my seven-year-old cousin is that dwarfism is caused by not eating one’s vegetables. It’s no wonder children say such bizarre things sometimes, what with all the fibs we cruel adults tell them!
[42] Because, being invisible, he couldn’t be slapped, could he?
[43] Just in case you were wondering, this is what happened. The man in question had intended to blow himself and the Departures crowd to kingdom come with the explosives that were strapped around his belly and back, and the detonator which sat in his left pants pocket. However, Blythe Pritchard persuaded him to abandon this particular mission and carry out a new one instead: to return to his headquarters and detonate the explosives there. Not to worry, however – Blythe had made some alterations to the explosives as the man had walked away, so that detonation would produce only a flash-bang (that would burn the words ‘al Qaeda’ on the exterior of the building and alert every policeman within a 5km radius) and a spray of fluoro-coloured ropes that would snake themselves around the ankles and wrists of every person in the building and cause them to sing ‘Heartbreaker’ by Dolly Parton. Perhaps a little excessive, you may think, but we must remember that Blythe Pritchard is a woman with very little patience, and anything or anyone that wasted her time (by, say, blowing her up) tended to make her quite angry.
[44] Or resorting to becoming a witch in order to secure a broomstick (which she’d have to learn how to fly, anyway).
[45] Ridiculously good looks, at times, have the most curious ability to obliterate character flaws.
[46] No, it wasn’t that they were wonderful, lovely, deep, soft eyes or any rubbishy thing of that sort, thank goodness. Read on, read on.
[47] This particular song, by the Spice Girls, obviously did not have the proper beat to lend itself to tango dancing. But thankfully, by the words ‘get your act together we could be just fine’, Esther had managed to extricate herself from the arms of the besotted Gables and retreat to the safety of the girls’ bathroom, into which no sane man, cursed or no, would ever venture. He did, however, wait outside the door, so that she was forced to use the window as a means of escape, which – though it involved a rather painful and embarrassing fall into the car park dumpster – was ultimately successful.
[48] Esther had, as it happened, watched an episode of NCIS only two nights beforehand, and was feeling particularly Gibbs-ish at this moment.
[49] She was slightly horrified by the mercenary nature of her own thoughts at this moment, but eventually decided that James’ becoming the new Secret Stealer was a greater evil than her taking advantage of Byron’s accursed state – and she was, after all, going to pay him a large amount of money for his services.
[50] Or mogical.
[51] Well, maybe it wasn’t arrogance, as he actually was very good-looking. But it was arrogant to say it out loud. One just doesn’t say such things!
[52] James had, somewhere along the line, learned from his heinously rich parents that scruffy-looking people are probably evil, whilst people who look presentable and well-off are all lovely, lovely people. Though this theory had been somewhat damaged by James’ time at Westcott, it had not yet been damaged quite enough to make him capable of thinking ill of anyone who looked so thoroughly suave as Domenic Mancini.
[53] The careful deliberation and respect with which Blythe Pritchard said these words meant that they could not appear in James’ mind as ‘the book’, but ‘The Book’.
[54]Especially in the case of the Curse of the Secret Stealer…
[55] Oh-oh. Ba-bong. Note to all males: if a female is in a particularly bad mood, run away from her, just as you’d run from a clock that seems to be sitting on something that looks like plasticine and is ticking down, down, down. She will expect you to know exactly why she is unhappy, and when you inevitably do not know, the clock will hit zero and all that will be left of you will be your smoking shoes.
[56] Blythe’s apprentice was rubbish anyway. His grasp of mogic was feeble, even at the best of times, but Blythe tolerated his presence at Manor d’Arlend because he had a certain way with the dachshunds. Which, by the way, were still bred by both Protectors and Deceivers – though more as a matter of tradition than anything else. Dachshund-breeding may have worked as a front several centuries ago, but not in the ever-so-complicated context of the modern world.
[57] Incidentally, the freezing point of ethanol is –114.1°C. So that’s a pretty cold stare. I was going to say ‘a look that could freeze lava’, because it sounded quite cool, but on a whim I decided to check the solidification temperature of lava. And basalt lava, for example, cools at 800°C, meaning this would have been the most inaccurate and misapplied analogy in the history of literature. Thank God for Google, I say.
[58]And within the confines of dignity – Blythe Pritchard refused to look gangly and awkward, even when fleeing from mortal danger.
[59] Domenic had seen a small amount of modern television, and knew roughly what to expect from this situation.
[60] Riding a mini-tricycle was number 13. These were scribbled on a piece of paper that Domenic kept in his pants pocket. Some of the others included: #3: Do an absolutely ridiculously massive (or silent-but-deadly) fart in an elevator full of prim-looking business people, just as the door is about to open, and then run away. #7. Get rip-roaring drunk to remind self of why not to get rip-roaring drunk, etcetera.
[61] Esther was beginning to realise that she was the unwitting cause of all James’ current problems. At the same time, she was not perfectly sure of whether to be horrified or amused by his misapplications of logic.
[62] Except initially, when James became distracted by the pen as it first moved in response to his words. “Oh, look, it’s writing what I say! Aren’t you clever, Miss Mason-Smith! Oooooweeeeeeooooooooo ba ba ba ish doo baaaa ni boooooo.” Gables began to laugh uproariously at this and Esther, hushing the pilot with a deadly glare, replied, “Thank you James. Now, keep going. Don’t play with it.” James looked very disappointed, but reverted to plain English nonetheless.
[63] Well, if it was true that people who loved each other fought a lot, then Mr Gables and Miss Mason-Smith must really like each other, James thought. It had been one argument after another for the last few hours. He was almost surprised that lemons and extension cords hadn’t yet surfaced in their arsenal of bizarre things to bicker about. All that James needed now was a plateful of potatoes to shovel into his mouth and he believed he would have been perfectly content.
[64] Doug Winters could have said, “You might as well strangle him now, ’cause your love will never be this perfect ever again,” and it would have seemed like a good idea at the time (c.f. Robert Browning’s ‘Porphyria’s Lover’).
[65] What? Don’t look at me like that. I’m feeling tired. And you got the idea, didn’t you?
[66] Pronounced like ‘Emily’, mind you. This is another one of those rich-people things.
[67] Something should be noted here about Esther Mason-Smith’s perception of the difference between upper and middle-class schooling in Australia. As far as Esther was concerned, of the above list of features (‘swearing, violent and neglected deviants’), only ‘swearing’ did not apply to the children found in Westcott. Miss Gerson-Clay was very strict about language in her school. (Saying ‘I need to pee’ would get you a month’s worth of detentions.)
[68] The idiom ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ is excruciatingly appropriate in this instance. To be sure, Lilith Palmer had certain inexplicable charms, but such poetry as this was a gross exaggeration of her qualities. Boys quite often mistake changefulness of mood as complexity of character, whereas in fact girls with constantly changing moods can be summed up in one sentence: “I am exactly not what I was two seconds ago” – which quickly becomes tiresome. You try getting along with someone who loves and then despises the same thing in adjacent seconds. Fortunately for all concerned, however, Lilith was destined to outgrow her constant inconstancy, and would eventually be able to be summed up as “I am exactly not what I was yesterday”, which is actually quite bearable.
[69] Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Dreamland’.
[70] As a result of her ability to instil in all males (particularly those unfortunate enough to have had to live with her) a certain fondness for strong ropes, with loops at their ends.
[71] This involved Lilith cooking all his meals for him (well, Andrew certainly couldn’t be expected to do such a thing – after all, he was a man), but occasionally punching or kicking him when he least expected it.
[72] Many would argue that this is not an accurate picture of God. They may be right. But we are, at present, talking about Blythe’s perception of God, so get over it and keep reading!
[73] In Barbados. The two had made a mad dash for the nearest departure gate after Domenic discovered that the Rumbling Man had left the door to the white-room completely unlocked. Barbados simply happened to be where they ended up.
[76] Barbados is, we must remember, 14 hours behind Sydney.
[77] For a Secret Stealer, James was awful funny about invading privacy.
[78] Would that all males were as wise as James Winchester IV. The world would be a much happier place.
[79] There was a ‘magic bumblebee’ saying ‘I so HAPPY it is!’ on the front cover of Lilith Palmer’s diary, so she had taken to addressing her diary entries to ‘Mr Magic Bumblebee’, instead of to ‘Diary’, like the vast majority of diarising females.
[80] It should be noted that there was nothing wrong with this particular establishment. It was simply that Walter Winchester was accustomed to marble floors and walls, and bellboys with funny hats, and waiters who immediately offered iced beverages upon one’s entrance.
[81] The heart, for those not up to speed on human anatomy.
[82] The orphanage cat, named Snowshoes for the white socks that contrasted her black fur.
[83] The orphanage dog, named Hitler, not due to any dictatorial nature, but for the strange way his sleek black hair parted on his head and the odd black oblong-shaped birthmark beneath his nose.
[84] “We’ve been through this… it’s a ROBE!” (Kronk’s shoulder angel, The Emperor’s New Groove.)
[85] It wasn’t that the girls liked Nadine, Madison, Ophelia or Lucy, or felt protective of them. It was more like this: “Hey – new girl – we’ve been imagining making those girls cry for years now. You’ve done it in a matter of three days. We don’t applaud you for taking our glory.” Primary school can be so brutal and illogical at times.
[86] Lilith’s brain worked in very, very strange ways.
[87] Andrew assumed that quiet children, as they spend less time talking, must spend more time listening, and must therefore be good at schoolwork. James was quiet, but spent all his time thinking rather than listening, and jumping to dreadfully inaccurate conclusions, as you and I have seen. He was not, as Andrew supposed, overly fantastic at schoolwork.
[88] It’s just after the one about kids not being allowed to do unsupervised cartwheels and other ‘gymnastic movements’ at school.
[89] The family was, after all, in Australia – a country ‘entirely peopled with criminals’ (Vizzini, The Princess Bride) – so Walter Winchester I felt he could do as he damn well pleased.
[90] What actually went through Blythe’s mind as she wore that expression was this: ‘Thanks for your input Mr Tact, but shut up.’ Domenic understood her perfectly and shut up.
[91] Blythe appreciated the gesture, but did not exactly know what Domenic meant by it. If a fight were to ensue, she rather suspected that a bucketful of earthworms would be more useful than that tall, thin and thoroughly unintimidating husband of hers.
[92] Think of it like this: something must always come from something – except in the case of the very first something. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction; all cells arise from pre-existing cells; neither energy nor matter can be created nor destroyed, simply changed into other forms. Except the problem with these concepts is: where did the first matter come from, the first action, the first energy, the first cell? Everything must start somewhere. I am not saying that there were no children prior to Andrew who were nasty, but simply that, in the case of some children (like Andrew), a nasty character is not the opposing reaction to some previous action – it just began. It simply was, is, and shall be, forevermore.
[93] And furthermore, by Esther Mason-Smith’s own previous logic (or, at least, the opposite application of it), because Byron could see the secret-seeing boy, the rescue attempt had been successful, and his ‘reward’ was assured. YES!!! thought he.
[94] It’s actually a very interesting facial expression. Let’s hope, though, that you don’t ever have the occasion to use it. Because it first requires you to have done something very stupid.
[95] The odds are actually very high – please now refer to Lesson Eleven.
[96]Anchorman: Luke Wilson (after losing his only remaining arm): “Oh, come on! This is gettin’ to be ri-goddamn-diculous!”
[97] And, I must add, this certainty was not ill-founded.
[98] Again, she was correct.
[99] Well, the first one was simple. The second one, as a Protector, was slightly more complicated.
[100] Well, maybe a teensy bit.
[101] Byron: “Dear God, I hate clingy women. Well, maybe ‘hate’ is too strong a word – maybe ‘really really dislike’. Pleeeeease find me a woman who is happy to see me when I am actually in the country and doesn’t demand that I work less and doesn’t get offended when I occasionally can’t spend time with her. And please God, let her be attractive, because children get half their genes from their mother and half from their father, and I don’t know if I could bear having an ugly son or daughter, even if they are only half ugly. I’m sorry if that sounds cruel, God, but is it too much to ask? I’m good-looking, after all, and I’m pretty nice.” (Pause). “Amen.”
[102] Byron: “Oh, and PS. Please don’t let her be someone who says ‘I love you’ too soon in the relationship and then gets pissed off when I don’t say it back to her. Amen. And PPS. Sorry for saying ‘pissed off’. Amen.”
[103] Due to his childhood morbidity, which surprisingly was not relieved when he passed the age of 11 without incident, James, by the time he was only 20 years old, had locked away in his brain the understanding, the symptoms and the treatment of approximately half of the diseases known to man (which is a lot).
[104] The name ‘Lilith’ may look nice on paper, but you try saying it very fast 20 times over without hurting your tongue and/or degenerating into gibberish. Bet you can’t.
[105] Now that Esther was married, he couldn’t really call her Miss Mason-Smith, could he? But at the same time he couldn’t seem to bring himself to call her Mrs Gables.
[106] “Ugh, you puerile-brained, absurdly long-legged creatures – this is what I have been trying to tell you all along! Now give me that tasty treat this instant or there shall be hell to pay!”
[107] What? Don’t look at me like that. They do alternate endings all the time on DVDs, so why not in books? If you hate it, just re-read the Epilogue and leave me alone!
[108] I did stipulate that you should only read this alternate ending if you were a sadist. Perhaps I should also have specified ‘partially insane’.