Alex and the Ironic Gentleman

by Adrienne Kress

  Alex felt very uneasy. Even if she had slept for several hours, and it was indeed time to eat again, why were they sitting down to what seemed like the exact same meal, and having virtually the exact same conversation? There was no reasonable explanation for that.

  As Freddy and Geraldine sat down to join them, Alex noticed the table was missing someone. Leaning over to Angel, Alex asked, “What about Pudding?”

  Angel laughed heartily and shook her head as if Alex had just told the funniest joke she had heard in a long time. “Oh, dear, all you children are the same, aren’t you!” she said. “We won’t have pudding until we finish the main courses, of course. You are just going to have to be patient.”

  Alex shook her head and understood the mistake. “No, no, I meant, shouldn’t we also be waiting for Pudding to start our meal.”

  “What is she going on about?” asked Stuart Nickleman, frantically looking around the table.

  “I haven’t the foggiest,” said Geraldine.

  Alex looked around the table. “You must know who I’m talking about. Pudding, Fifi’s twin sister, Pudding. Her name is Pudding, remember?”

  There was an uncomfortable silence.

  “Wasn’t her name Pudding?”

  The silence continued.

  For a long time.

  Until Fifi burst into a fit of giggles.

  “Oh, my!” She wiped the tears from her eyes. “Can you imagine me with a twin!”

  Her giggling seemed to relax everyone else in the carriage, and they all began to laugh as well.

  “Children and their imaginations!” said Angel, smiling pleasantly at Alex.

  “I don’t think I like their imaginations much,” said Stuart Nickleman, tapping his knife on the table again.

  “Oh, Stuart, they’re perfectly harmless,” said Angel, shaking her head. “Children are perfectly harmless.”

  “No, no, stop it!” said Alex loudly. Everyone stopped and stared at her. “Stop it! You can’t have forgotten who Pudding is! She’s Fifi’s fraternal twin sister! She’s an inch shorter. And has a mole on her shoulder.” She looked at everyone. “Oh, stop looking at me like that,” she said in frustration. “I’m not crazy. Why would I make something like that up?”

  “It’s not even all that interesting.”

  “Exactly, it’s not even all that . . .” and Alex turned around. Standing, looking down at her casually, was Charles in a dark-brown smoking jacket. She stopped talking and stared into his pale blue eyes and bit her lip.

  Charles smiled mildly at her and took his seat, quietly filling his glass with water. Alex’s head was spinning, but she did not dare say anything else. She was beginning to think that maybe she had been mistaken. Though it seemed an awfully strange thing to be mistaken about.

  When Van Brusen returned, the meal was served at the same ridiculous pace as before. Alex didn’t even bother trying to eat. She was simply too confused and uncomfortable to feel hungry.

  All too soon it came time for the dessert, a rich chocolate cake. Once again a full bottle of champagne was placed in the center of the table. It fizzed and bubbled into Alex’s glass, and she eyed it with a sense of dread. Yes, it had made her feel strangely energized. But there was something not quite right about the whole thing.

  Charles stood to make his toast again, and everyone except Alex drained their glasses in one gulp and, once the cake was finished, got up to dance again.

  Alex felt too anxious to dance, but she slowly stood up and followed everyone onto the dance floor.

  Many times when we dream, we are so certain that this time, this particular time, we are not dreaming. “How could this possibly be a dream when I am dreaming about brushing my teeth? What’s the point of dreaming about that?” you think. But then you wake up and feel sheepish because yet again you were wrong. And then you get over it and go about your day. But have you ever had the opposite experience, one where you are awake and are completely certain you are dreaming? You feel all floaty and on the outside of everything, watching what’s going on. And you think that any second now you’ll wake up and that will explain everything. Well, even if you have never felt like that, imagine how it would be, and that is exactly how Alex was feeling at the moment, watching everyone whirl around her.

  “I am certain this is a dream,” Alex was thinking as she took to the floor.

  “Or maybe the previous dinner was a dream,” she continued in her train of thought as she started doing the Charleston again.

  “Or maybe this is the previous dinner.” But that thought made her brain go kind of loopy and she let it go.

  The dancing continued for what seemed like hours, and just as Alex began to feel she would fall over in exhaustion, Angel appeared onstage as she had done the last time (if there had indeed been a last time) and began to sing.

  This time Alex kept an eye on Charles and watched as he shifted uncomfortably on the spot. He scratched the back of his neck and then looked at his watch. And finally, just as she had been expecting, he looked up at her. This time it was Charles who looked away quickly. Alex shivered. She wasn’t sure what it was about those pale blue eyes, but she didn’t quite trust Charles. Not that there was anything particularly untrustworthy in what he was doing.

  The song finished and everyone left the carriage. Without waiting for Angel, Alex hurried herself back to her compartment. She closed the door quickly behind her and sat on the bed. With all the thoughts swimming in her brain, one suddenly came to the fore. “But what time is it?” it asked politely. And Alex, shaking her head, had to reply, “I don’t know.”

  “All I know,” she said to herself, “is that I am very tired. But that could mean many things. That could mean it is late at night, or it could mean that I’ve danced too much. But I’ll tell you what,” she resolved, “I am not even going to try to nap this time. And then we’ll see what happens.”

  She started to feel a little silly sitting there waiting for something to happen. And it was all she could do to prevent herself from closing her eyes. But she did have good intuition. And her intuition was telling her that . . .

  “Darling! What are you doing! Hurry and change or we’ll be late!” cried Angel as she burst into Alex’s compartment.

  Alex nodded, changed, and followed Angel swiftly back to the dining car past Jimmy C and His Orchestra. He waved as they darted by, causing the cannon player to light the fuse too early and the entire kazoo section to run off screaming.

  “Where’s Stuart Nickleman?” asked Alex the moment she found herself sitting at the table next to Fifi and watching Van Brusen buttering a roll. It wasn’t a real question because she knew exactly what the answer would be.

  “I’m sorry, darling, who?” asked Angel, leaning over toward her.

  “Stuart Nickleman.”

  Suddenly Alex felt something hit her on the head.

  “Did you just throw a roll at me?” she asked Van Brusen.

  “No.” He reached for the breadbasket.

  “Yes, you did!” She held up the half-eaten roll that had just hit her.

  “That’s not mine.”

  “Why did you throw a roll at me?”

  “Because you insist on saying stupid things, on making up stupid stories about stupid people. And I find stupid people unbearable!” he yelled at her, turning a dark shade of purple.

  But Alex didn’t care that he thought she was stupid and unbearable. She knew her experiment had worked. She had not been asleep. No time had passed. She was certain now that something completely wrong was going on, and she was going to have to get to the bottom of it.

  She sat quietly through the manic meal, through the dessert, and through the toast. She danced during the dancing (though she could barely lift her legs), listened thoughtfully to Angel singing, and quietly returned to her compartment.

  And when Angel returned to escort her, Alex went through the whole thing all over again, panicking slightly when she noticed Freddy had now gone missing, too. And as the festiv
ities wore on and on, the panic rose steadily in her chest. Suddenly it seemed as if she might never get to Port Cullis. That this train would never reach its destination. And that this party would never end. And that, worst of all, she herself might disappear.

  As she once again sat waiting for Angel in her room, and feeling rather nauseous at the thought of another dinner, she felt a rush of energy. She stood up, crossed over to the window, and threw open the drapes. She ran her finger over the window. It was rough, painted on the inside. This was a good sign. She looked frantically around the room and spotted the bedside lamp. She pried off the metal shade and took it to the window. She began to scratch. Small flecks of black paint floated into the room. After several moments of frenzied scratching, she had made a small hole about the size of a pea. Alex put down the shade and peeked through the hole. What she saw made any effort in keeping from panicking pointless. She now panicked, and panicked freely.

  THE SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER

  In which Alex meets Giggles.

  The first thing she noticed was that despite all the time that had seemed to pass, the light in the sky looked very much the same as the light when she had boarded. But the strangest thing was that, just at the moment she was peeking through the hole, the train was passing through a station. A station that looked very, very familiar. And standing on the platform was a very familiar, very old man with a mop. She had the distinct impression he was staring right at her.

  Since the train was passing through the same station from which she had boarded, and since the sun seemed not to have moved, Alex reasoned that time was now meaningless. This of course meant two things. One, since time had always had a purpose before she had been on the train, it was the train that had caused this strange shift in the laws of the universe. And two, that she therefore needed to get off the train immediately.

  Alex tentatively opened her door and peered out down the hall. She half expected Angel to be waiting for her again, but evidently not enough time had passed for yet another meal. Without waiting, Alex quietly slipped out through her door and made her way silently, but as fast as she could, down the corridor in the opposite direction from the one she usually took. She knew if she went the other way Jimmy C would see her, and although he was nice, he wouldn’t let her go by unquestioned.

  So she sped down the hall, unsure of where she was going and what she would do when she got there, passing other compartments with other nameplates. She read them as she went along. “Michael Maguire.” She looked at the one next to it. “Trudy English.” She had never heard of these people. She read name after name: “Joyce Burns, Anthony Brown, Orlando Adams.” Her stomach turned. What had happened to them all? Had they gone missing as well? Most likely, yes, her brain answered quietly. She continued down the never-ending passage, name after name, in a manic state now, rushing along at a surprising pace so that the nameplates had become nothing but bright, brass-colored blurs passing alongside her.

  Suddenly and most unexpectedly, she came to the end of the carriage. Discovering that the carriage was not infinitely long brought Alex back from her panic to cold, harsh reality. She was facing a door through which she could see another door leading into the next carriage.

  A deep dread now flooded her innards and made its way up her spine. She opened the first door and stood briefly between carriages, holding tightly to the doorknob of the other door to maintain her balance. She could feel fresh air on her face for the first time in who knows how long, and it gave her a sense of purpose as she turned the knob and entered the other carriage.

  It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. The carriage was long and relatively empty. In the middle was a large, round wooden table. On it stood a tall, narrow wooden column on which was resting a large bowl that looked a lot like something you would keep your pet goldfish in. Attached to the bowl, by a rubber tube, was a brass pump. The whole thing was lit from somewhere, giving the apparatus a very ominous glow.

  Alex was drawn to the table, mesmerized. The bowl seemed to grow taller as she got closer. Then she jumped into the air. She jumped into the air because a large white bird who was sitting in a cage hanging in the shadows had made a sudden squawk. And the bird had made a sudden squawk because a lithe, reddish brown cat had just made a lunge at it from the dark. The cat clung desperately to the bars of the cage and then came crashing to the floor, hissing as it landed.

  “Are you all right?” asked Alex. She bent down to have a look at it. In the glow from the table she saw it would have been a very pretty cat if it hadn’t been missing tufts of fur here and there. It was lean and had a stripe of black that ran along its spine, ending in a point at its tail. It looked at her incredulously, raised what would be the closest thing to an eyebrow at her, and sauntered off to a dark corner.

  “Very impressive,” said a cool voice from behind her.

  Alex stood up and turned quickly.

  Of all the thoughts that could have come to her—thoughts like, “How irresponsible of me to have walked into this room so brazenly without even considering the ramifications,” or, “I probably should have knocked first,” or even, “I think I’m in a spot of trouble”—of all these possible thoughts that could have occurred to Alex, the one that came into her head was this:

  “Of course.”

  Standing opposite her, and smiling smugly, was Charles. His face seemed even more frightening lit from below.

  “You know, Giggles hates just about everyone. Usually, anyone who dared get as close as you did would probably have found themselves without an eye at least,” he said.

  Alex just continued to stare at him.

  “Okay, okay. Go ahead. Ask what all this is, then,” he said with a smile, indicating the contraption on the table.

  “What’s all this, then?” said Alex softly, because, though she sensed she was probably in considerable danger, she was also genuinely curious.

  “I’m glad you asked!” Charles rubbed his hands together. “It’s a vacuum. I didn’t invent it, in case you were feeling impressed.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  Charles placed a loving hand on the glass bowl. “It is terribly complicated to explain. Would you like a demonstration?”

  Alex, who had never heard Charles sound so enthusiastic, nodded her head slowly. Instantly she wished she hadn’t. Charles had removed the big white bird from its cage and placed it into the large glass bowl, covering the top with a lid.

  “No!” she cried. “It’ll suffocate.”

  “I always knew you were clever, but no, it won’t. Not quite yet. Not until I do this,” he said. And he began to turn a handle attached to the brass pump. He turned faster and faster. The look on his face remained etched there, excitement mixed with concentration.

  “Please stop!” Alex was watching the bird flying anxiously around in the glass bowl.

  “You see, what I am doing is creating a vacuum inside the bowl,” Charles explained quickly. “All air, everything, is being sucked out of it. Wait till you see what happens next!”

  But what was to happen next, Alex never found out. Just as Charles had finished talking, he let out a rather girlish scream. Giggles, who seemed to be of the same mind as Alex, had jumped on Charles, much the same way as he had jumped on the birdcage. This time, however, his claws were perfectly suited to dig into the man’s chest, causing Charles to release the lever and spend a few moments frantically fighting the feline. Climbing up onto the table, Alex took off the lid of the bowl and gingerly lifted out the motionless bird. She held it for a few moments and then said quietly, “It’s dead.”

  “Is it?” asked Charles, having finally unhooked himself from Giggles, who now dangled ungracefully by the scruff of his neck. “Drat, and I so wanted to show you what would happen.” He shook his head and then looked down at Giggles. “Well, you heard about curiosity and the cat?” And he took Giggles and shoved him into the glass bowl.

  “Oh please, don’t. I understand now,” said Alex, reaching up
for the bowl.

  “Now, now!” said Charles, pushing her roughly to the side. “You haven’t had the full effect.” Giggles was squirming and hissing, his ears flat to his head and his teeth bared. His tail now resembled a fir tree. “Would you like to try?” Charles indicated the handle.

  “No, of course not! Please let him go!” begged Alex, struggling against Charles’s arm.

  “No.”

  “Please!”

  “This is ridiculous, I’m starving! This is what you invited me to see, is it? What a waste of time.”

  Both Charles and Alex stopped their struggle.

  “Van Brusen, I apologize. I was momentarily distracted,” said Charles, calmly releasing Alex and walking over to where Van Brusen was standing by the door of the carriage. “Of course, this isn’t what I wanted you to see. This is nothing, a model. A game. No, no, what I wanted you to see is far more impressive.” And he guided Van Brusen down the carriage.

  Alex quickly released Giggles, who struggled against her hold briefly, then looked her firmly in the eye, made some sort of decision, and went limp, purring softly in her arms. She carried him over her shoulder and followed Charles and Van Brusen down the carriage, keeping to the shadows, and hoping to make herself almost invisible, as she had done with the Daughters of the Founding Fathers’ Preservation Society. She could have left, but she wanted answers and knew that somehow as a result of whatever was going to happen to Van Brusen, he would probably not be joining them for dinner.

  THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER

  In which Alex learns something interesting about champagne.

  Charles was busy explaining his invention to Van Brusen up ahead of Alex. “It follows the basic idea of a vacuum, but I’ve modified it so that instead of sucking air, well . . . it would be easier to explain to you with a demonstration, really.”

  This made Alex uneasy. She wasn’t really a fan of Charles’s “demonstrations.”

  They passed beyond a thick black curtain that split the carriage in two, and found themselves standing in front of a huge version of the vacuum, consisting of a human-sized glass bowl with a glass roof, and a large brass pump with an equally large handle.