Alex and the Ironic Gentleman

by Adrienne Kress

  “Yes, I do—very well,” she said quickly. She hated it when people took too long getting to the heart of the story.

  “Come in, sir, don’t be shy,” spat the little old lady.

  Alex turned to see a very large gentleman with a big bushy beard, dressed in a three-piece suit complete with bowler hat, enter the room. He seemed intensely uncomfortable around so many breakable objects.

  “I heard what you were saying. Keep going,” he said gruffly, eyeing a Ming vase and moving as far away from it as possible.

  “Well, this is the island where Mr. Steele found the Wig-powder treasure,” she continued happily. “Of course, it is only an artist’s rendering of what it might look like, painted many years after the fact. But it is very romantic to look at, isn’t it?”

  “So it doesn’t tell you where the treasure is?” asked the gentleman, which Alex thought was quite a coincidence as she was about to ask the same thing.

  “Oh my goodness, no. This is more a picture of what the ideal treasure island might look like. If you want to know what the island really looked like you would have to see Mr. Steele’s map.”

  “Do you have the map?” asked Alex. The man started and looked at her.

  “No, no. That was lost years ago.”

  “Have you looked for the map?” asked the gentleman. Both he and Alex were now standing very close to the little old lady.

  “I have no use for a map. Now, I think we have had enough learning for today. There are many other wonderful rooms to visit,” she said sharply and gestured for them to leave. The gentleman and Alex looked at each other and then quietly stepped out of the room.

  “Excuse me, excuse me, sir,” called out the little old lady. The gentleman stopped. “You dropped your monocle.”

  The gentleman reached out and snatched it from her hand.

  “Old bat,” he muttered and hurried down the hall.

  “No manners!” called the little old lady after the gentleman.

  Alex visited some more of the other rooms to no avail. The hour passed quickly, and she went downstairs to meet Mr. Underwood in the gift shop. He was in a heated struggle over the last copy of The Glorious History of the Steele Estate with a man who had strangely decided to bring a hammer with him sightseeing.

  “I’m sorry, but I am very certain I did have the book first,” Mr. Underwood was saying.

  “No,” said the man, his greasy red hair falling into his eyes.

  “Um, actually, yes. I had it in my hands, and you snatched it.”

  “Mine!” grunted the man and tugged at the book again.

  Mr. Underwood tugged back. The man tugged again. There was much tugging.

  “Mr. Underwood?” said Alex, approaching him.

  “Hello, Alex.” Mr. Underwood tugged a final time and flew halfway across the room. The red-haired man had let go suddenly. He was staring at Mr. Underwood wide-eyed.

  “Thank you,” Mr. Underwood said to him, pushing his hair out of his face and readjusting his glasses. He turned to Alex. “Let me just pay for this, and then we can go back to your uncle’s shop.”

  “But, Mr. Underwood, I haven’t been up to the top floor yet. That’s what I was coming to tell you,” whined Alex.

  “I’m sorry, Alex, but we really have to get back. We promised your uncle we would help him unload his latest shipment of doorknobs.” He handed over the money to the little old lady at the cash register, who jumped, clasping her hand to her heart, as the register popped open. He turned and almost walked right into the large gentleman with the monocle.

  “Watch it!” the gentleman said.

  “Sorry,” Mr. Underwood replied meekly. “Come on, Alex, let’s go.”

  Alex sighed, and she and Mr. Underwood left the house and headed down the hill, both of them feeling disappointed—of course, Alex more so than Mr. Underwood.

  Because Alex had no idea that these two men were to change the course of her rather pleasant little life in only a few hours, she had paid little attention to them in the shop. However, because we do know how important they are, I think it is only right to leave Alex for a brief moment and go back up the hill to watch what happened after she and Mr. Underwood left.

  “No luck,” the gentleman said joining the greasy, red-haired man.

  But the greasy, red-haired man wasn’t listening. “Under-wood!” he said, pointing through the window at the pair with his hammer.

  “Really?” replied the gentleman, replacing his monocle and squinting after them. “I don’t suppose he said where he was staying?”

  “Shop!”

  “You idiot. Do you know how many shops there are here? It’s a bloody tourist town!”

  The red-haired man’s mouth twitched into a smile. He started to giggle.

  There was a great rush of movement, a bit like a tornado, that caused the little old lady at the cash register to scream and duck behind her desk. Suddenly the greasy, red-haired man found himself swept off his feet and pressed into the wall of the shop. “You got something to say, eh, Jack, old boy?”

  Jack giggled.

  The gentleman raised him higher into the air. “You moron! Say what you gotta say, you pathetic little weasel!”

  “What’s going on?”

  Released, Jack fell to the floor and lay there shaking with laughter.

  “Oh, ah, hey,” said the gentleman, turning to face the man with a black silk scarf tied around his face. “Jack’s being an idiot. He’s got something to say, but just can’t seem to get the word out.”

  There was a pause. Then slowly the third man’s dog guided him to Jack’s side. The man knelt down beside him and brought what remained of his ear close.

  “Tell me, Jack.” The voice was low and smooth.

  Jack was so giddy with excitement that the word came out in barely a whisper. It wasn’t a particularly fancy word. I’m sure you or I could have thought of at least a dozen that were far more interesting. But it was exactly the word the third man had wanted to hear. And this is what it was:

  “Doorknobs.”

  THE SEVENTH CHAPTER

  In which we learn the nature of coffee-table books and return to the Steele Estate.

  Coffee-table books make whatever their content is infinitely attractive. This is because coffee-table books have glorious pictures in them with saturated colors. Often coffee-table books can make the dull or most disgusting subjects romantic. Like mold. A coffee-table book about mold would have glorious pictures of emerald-green, glistening mold shining in the morning sun. You could be convinced that there is nothing quite so wonderful as having a good old-fashioned bowl of mold for a snack. Which would be very, very wrong of you. Another thing that could be made to look romantic in a coffee-table book is a deteriorating old building that sits atop a hill and was once owned by a philanthropist. And that was exactly what The Glorious History of the Steele Estate did.

  Alex was having a sleepless night. She was wholly dissatisfied with the events of the day. But she had high hopes of the coffee-table book she was now reading by the small lamp on her bedside table. To be more precise, she was looking at the pictures. Now it isn’t that Alex didn’t like to read—on the contrary, she quite enjoyed the activity—but her picture-looking was due, once again, to the nature of coffee-table books. Coffee-table books are written to be so extremely dull that you can’t do anything but give up and look at the pictures. And you always start by reading the book, you always really, really try, but it is no good. No matter how hard you focus, your eyes will start to glaze over, your mind will begin to wander.

  So Alex was looking at the pictures. She had stopped on the chapter about the library, where the story about the master’s mistress had been told. In the bottom corner of the left-hand page was a picture of the lady of the house’s portrait, and taking up the whole of the right was a picture of the Secret Door, a close-up of the bookshelf. Alex felt certain her hypothesis about the secret door was correct. She had noticed that the titles of the books on the shel
f had one common theme. Mutiny on the Bounty, Kidnapped, Robinson Crusoe—all involved the sea and ships. What else would one hide behind such a door?

  The only problem that remained was sneaking past the little old ladies. They might be small, but they were tough. That thought caused Alex instinctively to rub the bruise she had developed on her shoulder from when the little old lady in the library had gone barging into her side. She stopped. She furrowed her eyebrows. She had an idea. It was absurd, but it just might work. Quickly she turned off the light and curled up under the covers. She had now completely made up her mind that tomorrow, first thing, she would return to the house to investigate.

  She sneaked out early the next morning, toothbrush firmly secured in pocket (as, of course, we know she never went anywhere without it, and it was quite possible she would be out of the house until after lunch, when she would need to use it). Alex knew Mr. Underwood wouldn’t be keen on going back to the house so soon, and her uncle wouldn’t let her go without him, so she had no choice but to sneak out. It would be a perfect day to look for the map. The house on the hill closed early on Sundays, and there would be far fewer people visiting.

  She went to pay for her ticket and was again greeted by Poppy, who eyed her suspiciously. “Where’s your adult?” she asked slowly.

  “I am supposed to meet him in the Library,” Alex lied.

  Poppy looked at her carefully. There was a tense moment before:

  “Well, all right, dear,” said Poppy, taking her money. “Now, here is your map, and there are guides in each room, so you can ask them anything you want, and remember: don’t touch anything, and stay behind the red ropes.”

  Alex nodded and headed up to the library. She decided that she didn’t like Poppy. The old lady definitely gave her the creeps.

  Alex entered the library, startling the little old lady sitting in the corner reading Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

  “Oh my,” she said, putting aside her book. “Well, aren’t we early this morning?”

  “I just really like history,” said Alex awkwardly.

  “I see,” replied the little old lady, her tongue grazing the base of her upper teeth to make sure they were still in place. There was a long silence. “Any questions, dear?”

  “No, thank you. I just want to look.” And Alex moved to the red rope and stood silently staring into the room. The plan was to stay this way until the little old lady forgot she was there, just like the last time when she had bumped into her. She would stand still until she became invisible.

  “Well, dear, I’m just going to sit back with my book then. You let me know if you do have any questions.” She sat down again and continued with her reading.

  At the start, Alex could tell that the little old lady was looking at her occasionally, but as the minutes ticked by, she could sense her settling back into her novel. No one came in. And neither of them left. So the two of them continued in this way for a good hour, standing and reading.

  Now standing perfectly still is exhausting and goes completely against the nature of a ten-and-a-half-year-old, but Alex knew it was absolutely necessary. She could feel her neck get stiff and sore and her feet start to hurt. However, she was also the sort of child who, when she put her mind to it, could do anything, and boy, she wanted to get behind that door. There was a treasure map on the line, as well as Mr. Underwood’s inheritance at stake! Eventually, and I do mean eventually, her patience paid off. Two hours later, in came another little old lady.

  “Tea, Grace?”

  “Oh good. I need a little something after reading that last bit.” And the two laughed in a way that Alex thought sounded an awful lot like the way she imagined witches would laugh. But they both left, neither of them noticing she was still there.

  Maybe their vision is based on movement, thought Alex as she stepped over the red rope carefully. Because of all their warnings, Alex half expected a cage to fall from the ceiling and trap her. But nothing happened, not even an alarm, and Alex quickly went over to the secret door.

  Without waiting—as she knew well enough that, in stories, if you wait or think for too long, you get caught—she pushed the button, and the door opened. Stepping through it, she stopped on the landing. As the door closed automatically behind her, she waited slowly for her eyes to adjust to the dark. Anyone else might have felt slightly nervous at the prospect of heading down those rickety old stairs to the unknown below. But Alex was too excited to consider her situation particularly dangerous.

  She went down the stairs and found herself in a small, square room with a window way up at the top of the far wall. The room was very plain. To one side there was an old wine rack with a few dusty bottles of wine, the surfaces of which were covered in a thick dust with the odd fingerprint. On the right side was a small door, sealed with a rusty padlock, that Alex assumed was used by Mr. Steele’s mistress. And in the center was a table laid out as it might have been back in the olden days. A lead candlestick stood in the middle, and two places were laid with two sets of cutlery. Why it was arranged like this when none of the public would see it, Alex didn’t understand, but that thought was put out of her mind when she saw a dusty old book lying on the floor by the table.

  Alex bent over and picked it up and smiled. On the cover was printed Treasure Island. She opened it carefully. What she felt next was a mixture of pride and disappointment. The book indeed had been used to hide something, as its center had been hollowed out, so she was right in thinking that Steele had hidden something behind the secret door. Unfortunately, however, the hollow was just that—hollow. In other words, empty. Alex sighed. She had hit a dead end. And she had been so sure.

  Not wanting to waste any more time, Alex turned on her heel and climbed back up the stairs. She put her ear to the door. It sounded quiet, but of course she couldn’t be positive no one was there, as Grace had read in virtual silence aside from the odd clicking sound from her dentures. Alex hadn’t been down there all that long, and the probability was that the longer she waited, the more likely Grace would return from having tea. So she risked it and opened the door. The room was still empty. Smiling, she quickly stepped through the door, darted across the room, and climbed back over the rope. And just in the nick of time, too, because Grace reappeared from around the corner and looked at her.

  “You still here?” she asked.

  “I guess I can move on now,” said Alex happily. She left the room and headed downstairs.

  Alex decided she might as well go home. It had been a long morning, and she hadn’t had any breakfast yet. Besides, she was keen to help her uncle display the latest doorknobs that had arrived the day before. She was at the door, passing Poppy, when she heard something very strange. It was the sound of her own name. Her own name wasn’t that strange, really. In fact, there were three Alexes in her sixth-grade class alone, two boys and herself. But hearing it in the manor house on the hill, spoken by a Daughter of the Founding Fathers’ Preservation Society, when she hadn’t told it to her in the first place, was distinctly odd.

  “Alex!” called out Grace. Alex turned to see the little old lady stumbling down the stairs toward her.

  “Yes?” answered Alex politely, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion.

  “I thought so,” said Grace with a wide toothy smile as she approached her. She grabbed Alex by the arm. The grip was not strong but it was firm. And it didn’t much matter anyway as Alex wasn’t struggling, too confused to do anything. “I believe you forgot this,” said Grace as she held out Alex’s blue toothbrush holder, her name printed clearly in black ink.

  “Thank you,” said Alex taking it back from Grace, but already it was dawning on her what had happened.

  Poppy exchanged a knowing look with Grace and then approached Alex, looking her firmly in the eye. “Now aren’t you a naughty child?” she said relishing every word. “I thought I had made it perfectly clear that you were not allowed past the red rope.”

  THE EIGHTH CHAPTER

  In which Alex suffe
rs a number of Strange and Unusual punishments.

  You know those doors in public places that read, “Staff Only” or “Restricted, Authorized Personnel Only”? Well, I’ve always imagined that behind those doors are Joys Beyond Your Wildest Imaginings. Like maybe a table full of cakes and a butler to serve them to you, and silk pajamas to change into, and your favorite movie playing on a large video screen. Now Alex didn’t have exactly the same fantasy as I do, but she had always been just as curious about what was behind those doors. So despite feeling slightly anxious as to what was going to happen to her, Alex couldn’t help being kind of excited at the prospect of seeing what was on the other side of the door she and Poppy were facing.

  She needn’t have been.

  Alex was ushered into an average-sized room. The floor was covered by an orange-and-green abstract design carpet. On the walls were plastered yellowing posters of the Steele Estate and the surrounding tourist attractions. And forming a circle were half a dozen cushy chairs, of varying sizes and shapes, and all of varying nauseating colors. Like pink and aubergine. In the corner stood a table with a kettle and used mugs, and splashes of brown in dusty puddles.

  Poppy sat Alex down in a large green, yellow, and lilac chair that smelled of cat.

  “So what do you have to say for yourself?” she wheezed, leaning down over Alex so that her skin fell forward, hanging off her face.

  “Well . . .”

  “I’ll tell you what I think, shall I? I think you thought you would get away with it. I think you thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny to break the rules? Wouldn’t it be exciting?’ Well, is it? Do you find this exciting?”

  Alex looked at Poppy’s watery eyes. She noticed there was still sleep in the corners that had accumulated, a sort of brownish gray.

  Once more she started, “I . . .”

  “What a little adventure, eh? Well, you got caught, ducky. And now you have to be punished.” And Poppy stood up, looking around the room. Grace was giggling to herself behind her. She walked over to the kettle and poured a cup of water, filling it up to the brim. “Come here, small person.” Alex stood and crossed the room. “I would like you to hold this mug above your head until I come back.”