by Fred Stang
Seeing their injured expressions, PJ relented and offered an explanation. “This is an example of a puzzle that includes unnecessary information, things you do not need for the solution, that are only mentioned to mislead. That part is true. What is not true is the idea that such a puzzle is not completely honest. Like all fair puzzles, it has a fair solution!”
After a short pause, Tollie had a reply. “Yes, I can see that and I can grant you that it does have a solution, though you did mislead us. However, every word you said was true, so I will allow that your challenge was fair.”
“But not as fair as our challenges have been so far,” Mouse groused.
Tollie was surprised. He had never seen a grumpy side to Mouse. But, he figured, not even the inimitable Mr Mouse was completely perfect.
PJ seemed aggrieved. “I introduced a new dimension to your experience of puzzles. There are others, this is not the only direction in which one can take puzzles, to make them just that much more interesting. You will admit that without the element of surprise, puzzles would be in danger of becoming boring?”
“Yes, yes,” Mouse chimed in, in a new tone of appreciation. “If we did not surprise now and then, life itself would become boring. You are right.”
PJ bowed deeply with a flourish. “I like variation in life, as you say. That is why I enjoyed the cigar game puzzle so much. But, this one was different, I will agree with you on that. Forgive me, though, for it was different for a reason.”
Tollie and Mouse both laughed. “I agree, PJ,” said Mouse. “You did surprise me, and I did enjoy it after all.”
Tollie hummed a little, happy that all was revealed and it made sense, and it had the advantage of teaching them a new idea.
He realized, too, that it was time for him and Mouse to leave. They had spent a whole day at the house of the three doctors! Tollie realized that the passage of time was different in the World-Wide Web. He did not feel like more than an hour or so had passed, but in fact, in this world, it had been a full day. His body was used to the passage of real time, so he had not felt the need for sleep. And Mouse probably never slept, having so much to do and so many places to go.
But there it was, a day later and time for them to take their leave of this fascinating house and head on back down the hill. All in this world happened on cue, and sure enough the three doctors, Mr Quirm, Li’l Jumbo, and PJ Nagrom were all there now to say their farewells to their guests. Tollie and Mouse made a graceful exit, thanking all and looking back and waving as they reached the head of the path that was to lead them back down the hill.
Chapter 22
SAME PLACE, SAME TIME
“It is noon now, the same time as we started up the hill yesterday,” Tollie noted to Mouse.
“So it is,” Mouse agreed. “Exactly 24 hours that we spent. At this same time yesterday we were beginning our journey up the hill. Today at the same time we are heading back down. What a coincidence!”
“A whole different day, to the second. I wonder what we will encounter next.”
“We shall see.”
They wound their way down the path, noting afresh the beauty of the landscaping, a product of the imaginations of the three doctors that impressed them yet once more. It seemed different on the way down, though it was yet familiar. It had not changed, but took on a different aspect traversing it in the opposite direction. Impressive indeed!
Part of the effect was due to the many cascading waterfalls, which they now saw from above rather than below. Instead of water flowing toward them, it was now flowing away from them, falling over the edges smoothly, while on the way up, they had seen it falling off the edges and cascading down irregularly into their receiving pools. They wended their way down, taking their time to enjoy the carefully arranged landscaping. In time they arrived at the bench where they had rested on the way up.
“Odd,” said Tollie, noting the time again. “We were at this place at precisely this time yesterday!”
“Not so odd,” Mouse observed. “In fact, it is inevitable.”
“I don’t see how.” Tollie considered Mouse’s calm statement, with all its mystical, even fatalistic overtone. “We would not have walked at exactly the same pace, taken the same pauses, or even walked the same exact path. It is not at all clear to me that it is inevitable that we would arrive at the same point of the journey at the same time as yesterday.”
“We started up at the same time yesterday as we started down today,” Mouse suggested. “At some point on the journey down we would arrive at exactly the same location at exactly the same time as we did on the journey up.”
Tollie considered this skeptically.
“Well, consider it a clue,” Mouse added.
“Your clues have always been good ones, so there must be something I am missing. And, it must have to do with our starting out at the same time.”
“Yes, indeed.” Mouse took a seat on the bench and enjoyed the view below. He had not on the way up as he had then been admiring the house on the top of the hill. He looked so comfortable that Tollie yielded to the temptation and sat down as well, contemplating the island below and the great blue ocean stretching from its beaches. The sun-drenched vista induced in him a pleasant drowsiness, the first time he had felt any tiredness at all. Mouse smiled contentedly and enjoyed the moment. He was a hard-working creature and appreciated the rare chance that had been granted to him here and now to have nothing immediate that needed to be done.
“We started up yesterday at noon,” Tollie mused out loud, proceeding in relaxed fashion. There was no hurry here. “We started down today at noon. After a certain amount of time we arrived today at this same location where we were at exactly this same time yesterday…”
He left it hanging, thinking about something that would not crystallize in his mind. But there was something there. Something about going up and then going down, the departures at the same time, their crossing paths with each other at this precise place…
He had it in a flash. Mouse could see it,, and said, “Good, you have thought it through as far as you could and then you had a sudden insight. Those are the most fun solutions.”
“Of course, Mr Mouse,” Tollie agreed, pleased with the result of his ponderings. “Suppose we made the trip in one day, only I started at the top, going down, and you started at the bottom, going up. Sooner or later we would cross paths, where we would be at the same point at the same moment in time. Since we took the same path, we would have to cross each other in only one place.”
“That’s right,” Mouse confirmed. “What we did is the same thing, except we started up at noon one day and down at noon the next day. We would have to cross our previous path at the same point at the same time, just as if we made the trip separately on the same day and actually physically passed each other.”
“How simple it is!” Tollie marveled that he had not at once seen it. It is inevitable, as you said.
“But I have had occasion many times to observe just this phenomenon,” Mouse explained, “for I spend much of my time taking trips one way and then back again to the point of origin, very often through the very same series of locations each way. It occurred to me that if I had started back at the same time the next day as I had started out, I would be at the same location at the same time on the way back. Though I could not predict which location, there would have to be such a location. I would have to ‘pass myself,’ so to speak, as we have just now done.”
They lapsed into silence, captivated once again by the surrounding beauty. This did not last long, though, for an otherworldly voice presently made itself heard. The voice reverberated through their world, clearly heard by them and yet not emanating from anything that they could encounter in the World-Wide Web. How Tollie knew this he could not say, though it was a fact that the voice was calling to him.
It was a familiar voice, as it well should have been. He had heard it all his life.
CHAPTER 23
FAREWELL, MOUSE
“Tol
lie… Oooh, Tollie…”
It was his mother’s voice, but he could not see her at once.
“Time for bed, Tollie.”
“That’s mom calling me,” he told Mouse. “I have to go, it’s bedtime.”
“You will be back many times, Tollie,” Mouse answered. “And we will explore many different things. It will be very exciting. I had a great time with you, it was an interesting excursion for me in my world. We went about pretty much where things took us, which was satisfying. Often I am directed here and there, whether or not I want to go. But that is my job. You gave me a good go of it.”
“Thank you, Mr Mouse. I had a wondrous time myself.”
Tollie was inspired to break into their World-Wide Web song and dance.
“We are, living in a dream,
living in a dream, dream,
streaming dream…”
Mouse joined him, dancing and singing hand in hand before taking leave of each other.
“Happy, happy are the mice.
happy are the nice, nice,
nice, nice mice…”
All the varied characters they had encountered in their travels showed up to bid Tollie a good night and many happy returns, and they joined in the dance, each singing their own song and doing their own dance, yet forming a great interconnected circle just the same.
Tollie made up a new little song for his farewell to Mouse.
“Once, yes, once upon a time,
‘twas a wondrous, wondrous,
wondrous time…”
He had to leave it at that, as a deep whooshing sound transported him through a swirling maze of zips, zings and zwiggles, flashing lights and gossamer wires, depositing him squarely in his bedroom in front of his brand-new shining computer…
Mouse’s faint voice followed him! “Tollie…
“How many letters are in the answer to this riddle?”
It was Mouse’s farewell to him, Tollie realized. “What riddle?” he asked. But there was no answer. He was no longer in Mouse’s world.
He realized that Mouse had left him a challenge to take with him. Could he solve it without Mouse there to give him a hint?
He would think about it tomorrow. It was not usual or characteristic of him, but now he was truly ready for bedtime – he who always pleaded to stay up just a little later. He looked at the clock and saw that he had already been allowed a late night!
Laying down, he mulled over just how many letters were in the answer to this riddle. And fell asleep. Tomorrow he would solve Mouse’s farewell offering…
It was a wonderful birthday!