by Robin Jarvis
Marcus blinked nervously. The boy leaned into him and exhaled a dense fume of smoke. Marcus spluttered and backed away, clenching his fists in readiness.
Suddenly the other boy broke into a laugh.
“Just teasin’ ya!” he roared, throwing his words back at him. “Take a joke!”
Marcus glared fiercely for a moment. Then he pushed past to collect his toiletries bag and a towel from his case. In stony silence he stomped downstairs to the shower. On the way he heard Spencer chuckling. He’d remember that.
On the mezzanine the smoker returned to his bed and stretched out on it luxuriously. “Lee Jules Sherlon Charles,” he congratulated himself. “You is the last of your kind.”
It wasn’t too long before the drum was beaten again outside and everyone was summoned from the cabins.
Alasdair emerged feeling hungry and was glad to see serving maids weaving through the crowd, bearing trays of food from the stalls. He grabbed a large slice of ham and chicken pie and a ceramic goblet of ale and made short work of both. At least the food was good here and one thing he did admire about the world of Dancing Jax was the quantity of booze the characters got through. They drank ale in place of tea, coffee or soft drinks and the nobles were always quaffing wine. If that’s what life was really like in the olden days, they must have been perpetually off their faces.
“Is there a vegetarian option?” Jody asked one of the wenches. “That’s just a lump of death wrapped in a murder parcel that is.”
At her side, now washed and in clean, dry clothes, little Christina absorbed her words and shrank away from the proffered tray.
“There is cheese and bread, Mistress,” the serving maid told them helpfully.
“I like cheese,” Christina declared brightly. Her very empty tummy was growling.
“It’ll have been made with the chopped-up insides of a baby cow’s stomach,” Jody informed her.
Christina wrinkled her nose and shook her head with disgust.
“We’ll just have the bread,” Jody said. “Though that’ll be packed full of additives and made with chlorine-bleached flour.”
She took several slices of a rustic-looking loaf and sniffed them. “You wouldn’t believe what they put in this rubbish,” she grumbled. “There’s a list of E-numbers long as your arm, trans-fats, preservatives, traces of pesticide.”
Christina was too busy devouring her second slice to comment.
“Don’t suppose you’ve got a banana?” Jody called after the departing serving maid.
A snigger sounded behind them. Jody turned to see Marcus shaking his head in disbelief at her.
“Don’t you worry,” he laughed. “They’re going to roast a wild tofu for you veggies later.”
Chuckling, he continued on his way. He was carrying two goblets of ale and was on a mission. Jody watched him push to the front. She recognised his type, and marked him down as not worth talking to.
The Ismus had returned with the Jacks and they were sitting in places of honour around a raised stage area. Cameras were snapping away and Jody saw that American TV reporter among the other news crews.
“So much for Julie bloody Andrews,” the girl muttered. “Didn’t take her long to get Von Trapped.”
Charm and her mother had stationed themselves right by the stage. Charm had changed into a short skirt and scraped her hair into a ponytail. They were waiting for the performance to commence, or for a lens to stray in their direction. A large pair of Gucci sunglasses shielded her eyes from the afternoon sun, but she would have worn them whatever the weather.
“This has got to be the glam corner!” Marcus declared, blinking in feigned surprise as he came bowling up to them. “No one told me there was going to be a Mooncaster’s Next Top Model contest going on here today. Would either of you two lovely ladies like a drink? It’s not bubbly, but it’s the best they’re offering; the mead smells like a wino’s emptied himself in it, so we’ll have to make do with this. Now rev up your fun glands, the party starts here!”
Mrs Benedict pursed her lips and viewed him suspiciously as she took one of the goblets.
“I don’t like your manner, young man,” she said. “It’s overly familiar and flippant and we don’t know you.”
“Call me Marcus!”
“Why? What’s your real name?”
“That is my real name. I’m just being friendly. I saw you two beautiful damsels over here, on your lonesome, and thought I have got to go over and say hello.”
He held out the other drink. Charm regarded him and the ale through her shades.
“There’s more’n four hundred calories in a pint of that stuff,” she said.
Marcus looked shocked. “You don’t need to think about things like that!” he cried. “Not a stunner like you.”
“She’s been on some sort of faddy diet ever since she was nine,” her mother informed him. “She won’t allow so much as a Jaffa cake in the house. She’ll be so much happier in the castle – there’s none of that silliness there. You don’t need to count calories when you’re laced into a good strong bodice with a panel of wood tucked down the front.”
“Well, whatever made her beautiful, I’m glad of it,” Marcus said, raising the goblet and drinking a toast to them. “You’re the hottest babes here.”
Mrs Benedict tutted, but she was always ready to praise her daughter.
“She is most fair, isn’t she?” she said proudly. “Two years ago that was the face of Lancashire Pickles. You couldn’t eat an onion in a Bootle chippy without seeing her smile on the jar. ‘Only our vinegar is sour’ the slogan said.”
Marcus smacked his forehead. “I knew you had to be a model!” he exclaimed. “I said so, didn’t I?”
The girl’s mother nodded. “Oh, yes, she’s a true professional. Been doing it since she was ten, haven’t you, child? This was going to be a big year for her. We had The Plan all worked out, didn’t we? Still, what a prize she’ll be when she finally awakens to the real world.”
“Maybe we’ll know each other there!” Marcus suggested hopefully. “That would rock, knowing you here and there as well. So what is your name, beautiful?”
“Charm,” she answered in a voice of lead.
“It couldn’t be anything else!” he said with a grin. “I’m charmed to meet you.”
The girl said nothing and those sunglasses made it impossible for him to read her expression. He tried one of his trademark winks. They had a pretty good success rate. The girl turned back to the stage and he thought he caught what sounded like a bored sigh.
It was time for the performance to begin. First there was a display of courtly dancing, in which the Jacks and Jills took part. Then there was a re-enactment of an episode from the book, when the Jill of Hearts was kidnapped by a Punchinello Guard, who carried her off to a cave under one of the thirteen hills. The short, hideous creature was realised by a dwarf actor wearing an ingenious costume with built-up shoulders and a large, false head jutting from his chest. The head was suitably repulsive, with swivelling eyes and, when it menaced the captured girl, the younger children in the audience covered their own. But the Jack of Clubs came to the rescue just in time. He sliced his sword straight through the creature’s neck and the head went rolling across the stage.
“Oh, them fings is well vile,” Charm said to her mother. “I fink I’d scream if I saw ’em.”
“When you see them,” Mrs Benedict corrected. “But don’t you worry, child. The Punchinellos are usually kept in strict order by their captain, Captain Swazzle, who reports to the Ismus direct. It’s the fiends that go creeping outside the White Castle and in the woods and fields that are to be feared, but you’ll never have to worry about the likes of them, being of such obvious high-born quality.”
“I dunno… I still wouldn’t like to see them every day. Snow White always used to freak me out. When she woke up an’ all them tiny old bald blokes were pervin’ at her. That was well dodgy, know what I mean?”
Marcus remained
silent. He heard Mrs Benedict speaking about Mooncaster as though it was a real place, in exactly the same way everyone else he knew spoke about it. He could not understand how or why anyone could believe such infantile rubbish. When this madness had first started, he had wondered if it was a massive con and they didn’t actually believe in it at all, but why they would pretend to do so was an even bigger mystery. What were they getting out of it?
In his darkest moments, and there had been many of those in recent months, when he felt utterly alone and filled with despair, he had questioned his own reason. But his ego was indefatigable and pulled him through every time. He almost wanted this weekend to successfully change him into a believer, just to see what the fuss was about, but he really couldn’t see it happening. How could it? It was only a stupid book.
Elsewhere in the crowd, Christina turned to Jody and whispered in a frightened voice that she hadn’t liked ‘Mr Big Nose’ and was glad he’d been ‘deheaded’.
Jody put her arm round her. “There’s no such things as Punchinellos,” she assured the seven-year-old. “They’re only monsters in a story; they don’t exist.”
“But the Jacks and Jills are in the book too,” Christina said. “They’re real.”
“Just kids playing dress-up. There aren’t any witches or fairy godmothers, no Mauger beast at the gate, no werewolf and no castle.”
“My mummy and daddy say there are,” the little girl uttered unhappily.
Jody glanced over to where Christina’s parents were standing. Mr and Mrs Carter had forgotten about their young daughter and were transfixed by what was happening on the stage. Jody looked away in disgust. She didn’t even wonder where her own mother and father had got to.
“People are the only real monsters,” she said.
It was time for the reading. A distinguished actor, who had appeared in countless movies and voiced umpteen CGI characters, stepped on to the stage to appreciative applause. The serving maids made sure every child had a copy of Dancing Jax and the recital commenced. The actor’s voice rang out, with that dry, clipped, resonant gravitas only the best Shakespearean thespians possessed.
“Dora, poor Dora the blacksmith’s daughter, was a lumpen girl, built like bricks and mortar. When she was ten, she was as tall as her father, at sixteen even he could not have fought her. She could wrestle the burliest farmhand and punch out a horse’s molar. The villagers of Mooncot were justly proud of her prowess, but none of them would court her. Dora, plain Dora despaired how nature had wrought her, so one bright morn she set forth – with ham and cheese and a flagon of well-drawn water. Every young maid knew of magick Malinda, so off she went and sought her. A pretty face and voice of silver was all that she was after. But Dora, dim Dora lost her way, forgetting what her father taught her. ‘Don’t go down the dingling track, where the toadstools grow much taller!’ Down the dingling track she tramped and heard strange voices call her – to Nimbelsewskin’s forest house where soon began the slaughter.”
Through force of habit, Jody followed the words on the pages. She had learned very early on that rejects who showed willing were persecuted far less than those who rebelled. Marcus was doing the same. He pretended to read along with the rest, but all the while his eyes were flicking left and right.
The face of every adult was transfigured with rapture as they found their way back into the Realm of the Dawn Prince and resumed their vivid lives there. Soon they were rocking back and forth, their eyes rolling up into their heads. Only the children who arrived that day remained motionless – they and the Ismus.
The Holy Enchanter gazed out over the sea of bobbing heads. His questioning stare fixed upon each and every one of those youngsters. Which of them? he asked himself. Which of them?
He saw Charm concentrating, desperately wishing for the power of the book to swallow her up. She even tried nodding her head, but only succeeded in catapulting her sunglasses on to the stage. She let out a squeal of frustration. The Ismus looked further back, to where Lee Charles was moving his head from side to side, in time to the music blaring in his eardrums. He hadn’t been paying the slightest attention to anything and wasn’t even holding a copy of the book. Then the Ismus regarded Spencer. He was fidgeting nervously while trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.
A twelve-year-old boy next to him caused the Ismus to narrow his eyes. There was something unusual and furtive in the way Jim Parker was gently patting his shirt, as if he was hiding something beneath it. Nearby, Tommy Williams was still peering around like a baby bird. He and the other small boys had been put in the same cabin as Alasdair and they were now gathered about him. The Ismus considered the Scottish lad and discovered he was staring straight back. Such deep hatred blazed in those young eyes. Could he be the one?
When the reading ended, the crowd uttered wretched groans and gasped miserable breaths as they were torn from the blissful existence in Mooncaster and found themselves back here.
It was time for the parents to depart in the coaches. The Ismus thanked them for bringing their children on this journey. He was confident the next time they met they would have found their rightful places in the world of Dancing Jax.
Kate Kryzewski and Sam filmed the farewells eagerly. In spite of the neglect and unhappy home life, many of the smaller children cried when they saw their parents board the vehicles without them. Rupesh Karim tried to jump on after his father and had to be dragged clear. Jody disappeared into her cabin long before her parents thought to look for her.
There was only one sad parting.
“Now don’t you worry,” Mrs Benedict told her daughter. “When this weekend’s over, you’ll be a real-life princess – I know it.”
Charm tilted her head back and fanned her eyes to stop the tears.
“I wish you wasn’t going, Ma,” she said. “I’m gonna miss you so much.”
“S’only two days,” her mother consoled her. “I’ll be here first thing Monday morning to pick you up and take you back home. Don’t you fret none.”
“You promise?”
“I vow it, if you’re not too grand for me by then. And don’t you forget, when you finally wake up in the castle, come find Widow Tallowax in the wash house and spare her a silver penny or two so she can buy ointment for her poor chapped hands.”
“It’ll be the first thing I do!” Charm swore. “I’ll buy you everyfink the Queen of Hearts has got.”
Her mother smiled and stroked the girl’s face tenderly.
“You’re a good child,” she said softly. “Your real mum will be so proud. Blessed be.”
Charm wanted to tell her how much she loved her, but the lump in her throat made further speech impossible. Instead she threw her arms round her mother’s neck and sobbed.
“Don’t you worry,” Marcus declared, imposing on this intimate moment. “I’ll take care of her.”
Neither took any notice of him. Mrs Benedict stepped on to the coach and Charm mouthed the words she hadn’t been able to say. Her mother found a seat and waved.
When the coaches pulled away and drove up the long forest road, Charm covered her eyes with the sunglasses once more.
“If you want a great big cry,” Marcus invited, holding out his arms, “my shoulders are damp-proofed and I give good hug.”
Charm flicked her ponytail back and walked briskly away.
“You’re a cucumber, you are,” she said over her shoulder.
Marcus wasn’t sure what she meant, but he called after her, “In every way except the colour, gorgeous!”
“I hate cucumber,” she clarified. “It’s wet and borin’, pointless, tastes rubbish, keeps repeatin’ an’ you can’t get rid.”
Marcus was too busy ogling her bottom in that short skirt to be offended or discouraged. It was only early evening Friday – still plenty of time.
Jody had emerged to watch the coaches leave. Leaning against the cabin wall, she saw them turn off at the junction and disappear behind the trees in the distance.
“On
my own now then,” she murmured. “No change there.”
A small hand slipped into hers. “No, you’re not,” Christina said. “You’ve got me.”
The unexpected human contact and the simple, loving statement took her totally by surprise. Jody looked down at the seven-year-old, but the grateful smile froze on her lips. What was she doing? She wanted to tell her they would be like sisters this weekend and that she would protect her. But what about afterwards? What if Christina did get snatched away by the power of that book like everyone else in her life? She couldn’t endure the pain of losing another person she cherished. She couldn’t put either of them through that.
Jody shook her hand free. “Go make friends with kids your own age,” she said coldly. “I don’t want you hanging round me all the time. I’m not here to nanny nobody.”
Christina flinched as if she had been slapped. Then she ran around the cabin, out of sight.
“You’re a spiteful mare, you are,” Charm said as she walked past to go inside. “That’s just cruel.”
Jody didn’t answer, but she despised Charm more than ever for being right.
Over by the stage, the Ismus surveyed the remaining crowd. The entertainers and stallholders were milling around, enthusing about their other existence, while the younger children were either crying or staring in crushed silence at the empty forest road.
“Now the weekend can really begin,” Jangler’s enthusiastic voice broke into the Ismus’s solemn contemplation. “Won’t be long before dusk and then, in the night…”
The Holy Enchanter considered the old man gravely. He came to a decision.
“Walk with me,” he said brusquely.