“But it can’t be that easy,” I say, contradicting my previous assumption about us being led here to die. Blame it on my insanity, I guess. “I’m confused about this bomb. I really don't know how to stop it.”
“I think you were right.” The Pillar snaps his fingers. “Not about being led here to die, but about the statue being the clue.”
“How so? Tell me. We have so little time.”
“There is something peculiar about the Eros statue,” he says. “I remember someone telling me that if it were to release its arrow, its shaft would bury itself in Shaftesbury Avenue down there.”
“The statue is pointing at a specific destination?” I squeak. “That must be it. The arrow, within this crowd, is a peculiar landmark. It could be like an X marks the spot. Maybe it leads to the rabbit’s whereabouts.”
I am already running for the stairs. The Pillar follows me down.
We reach the street below. It’s already 9:23 a.m., and I dash through the crowd, toward the statue, tolerating all kinds of vulgar insults for my behavior.
The Pillar stands next to me, our backs to the statue. We follow the arrow’s target, and can see it’s exactly pointing at something.
A homeless man...
The man is standing fixed in place, as if someone led him to this precise spot. He looks overly dirty, with tattered clothes. The wandering crowds keep away from him. This must be it. The man stands alone, right in the arrow’s target. He is even staring at the statue.
The Pillar and I approach the man, not knowing what to say. He doesn’t care to lower his eyes at us. He’s fixated on the statue, fidgeting his feet, as if to make sure he’s standing in the accurate spot.
“Do you know where the rabbit is?” I blurt out, as insane as it sounds.
The man lowers his eyes. His gaze is weird. I suddenly realize he looks frightened.
“Answer me, please.” I take a step forward. He says nothing.
“Did the Hatter send you?” the Pillar demands.
The word “Hatter” seems to resonate with the man. Something glitters in his eyes, but he still doesn’t talk. He is scared of something.
The Pillar pulls the man by his collar, about to force him to talk. The man resists. His feet cemented in place. Then I see it. Underneath the man’s tattered clothes, he is wired with dynamite, and it’s probably controlled from afar.
“Look.” I point at the dynamite. The Pillar looks around for whoever is doing this. “Stay put,” I tell the homeless man. “We’ll get help.”
I am about to look for Inspector Dormouse when the Pillar squeezes my hand. “I don't think this is the way to solve it. Let’s see what this awful-smelling man has to say.”
I raise my head and realize that the homeless man has been trying to talk, only he was too scared to raise his voice. The Pillar nears him, trying to listen to the man’s shivering lips. The man begins whispering, still stuttering with fear.
“Louder.” The Pillar can’t make the words out. “You!” he shouts at a few teenagers, listening to their iPods and singing along. The teenagers ignore him, still swinging to the music. The Pillar takes a step forward, pulls their iPods from them, and throws them away. “Walk!” he says, and turns back to the homeless man. The teenagers run away. I haven’t seen this serious side of the Pillar before.
The homeless man raises his voice now, intimidated by the Pillar. “Why did the Mock Turtle call its teacher Tortoise?” the homeless man manages to say.
“What?” I grimace.
“
“Is this is joke?” I say.
“He’s talking about the
“What kind of sick game is this?” I lament, then scratch my memory to solve the puzzle. I am supposed to have the
I look at the Pillar for the solution, and I hate myself for not solving it myself. I want to save this homeless man from exploding any minute now.
“Just give me a minute.” The Pillar raises a finger. “I know the solution to this.”
“There’s no time,” the homeless man stutters. “The Hatter told me a girl named Mary Ann might know the answer.”
The Pillar and I exchange worried looks. Who the heck is Mary Ann?
“Forget about this Mary Ann,” the Pillar tells the man. “We’re going to get it solved and save your sorry life.”
“Please...” the man says, but then he can’t say more.
We’re too late. Something splashes against the man’s chest. At first, I don’t understand what it is. But when the Pillar holds the man tight and helps him fall to the ground, I realize what it is.
The homeless man was shot, probably with a silencer.
Surprisingly, no one even cares about the homeless guy sprawled in red on the ground.
I refuse to believe the man is dead that soon. There must be a way to save him. I pull my phone out to call an ambulance.
“Stop this,” the Pillar says. “I told you, these Wonderland Wars are beyond police and ambulances’ help. We don’t want them to interfere.”
“We were riding along with Inspector Dormouse a few minutes ago. I thought we might work hand in hand to save people’s lives by now.”
“That was just a trick so we could enter the scene of the crime,” the Pillar says. “Why do you even care about a homeless man you don’t know?”
“What did you just say?” I snap back. “What’s wrong with you? One minute you want us to save lives and then you don’t care if a man dies.”
“There are bigger stakes at hand.” The Pillar looks frustrated, his eyes looking around for whoever executed that shot. “This sentimental heart of yours will blow everything.”
The emergency number picks up, and a woman asks me how she can help. I begin telling her a man is shot at Piccadilly Circus and that we need an ambulance.
“This isn’t making any sense,” the Pillar says to himself next to me. “Why shoot a man when he is wired with dynamite?”
The Pillar’s questioning alerts me after I hang up with the woman, who promised me an ambulance will arrive in a few minutes.
“You’re right,” I say. “It doesn’t make sense.”
The Pillar turns and faces me, his eyes looking over my shoulder, wide open. “Unless this is a joke.” He points at someone behind me.
I turn around. The homeless man is on his feet, staring at us.
“Director of the Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum.” He leaned back in his chair, trying to sound authoritative as possible.
“The Queen of England sent us a patient,” Waltraud said. She sounded terrified.
“The Queen of who?” He dropped his spoon.
“England! Your queen, doctor,” Waltraud said. “My queen, too.”
“A patient?” He wasn’t quite comprehending the conversation. “Send him in immediately!”
“But of course.”
“Waltraud! Wait!” Tom stood up. “Send the patient to the VIP ward with the best room possible.”
“I thought so.”
“And Waltraud, is it a male or a female?”
Waltraud waited for a while. “It’s hard to tell, doctor.”
“What nonsense is that, Waltraud?”
“I would ask the patient, but I don’t think this patient talks.”
“It’s mute?”
“Mute is someone who once talked—or is supposed to talk.”
“You’re really not making any sense, Waltraud.” Tom sighed, fed up with his employee’s stupidity. “What is the patient’s problem?”
“It refuses to get its head chopped off,” Waltraud said. “The Queen demands the patient to obey her.”
Dr. Tom pushed the button on his desk to check on the surveillance cameras. He spotted Waltraud standing in the hall next to a flamingo in a cage.
Previously, he’d always thought it was only the Pillar and Alice who wanted to make fun of him. Now the Queen of England, too?
He swallowed a handful of his pills, without water, and said, “A royal flamingo.” He hissed to himself. “Waltraud. Tell the Queen I will take care of the situation myself.”
“I will.” Waltraud waved at the camera. “And she left you an invitation, too, doctor.”
“Invitation? From the Queen herself. What’s it about?”
“It says an invitation to ‘The Event’ on the envelope.”
“Bring it to me immediately.”
“The first time it’s only paint, the Hatter told me," the homeless man explains, looking shocked. “The second time the TNT will explode.”
“Then why did you fall back?” I say.
“I was just shocked by the impact of the paint ball on my chest,” he says.
I look up, trying to locate where the shot came from. I am thinking from the roofs, but I am not sure.
“What do you want from us?” I raise my hands and shout upward. Instead of asking what's wrong, people walk away from me. “Show your face, ugly Wonderlander!”
The Pillar raises an eyebrow, as people stare warily at me. “She's got a Certificate of Insanity,” he remarks playfully to the crowd. “She has the right to do that.” He swirls his finger around his ear.
“Do you have a problem with that?” I snarl at the passing crowd. I have no idea what’s gotten into me, but I am getting sick of all these secret Wonderland games.
“Screaming always feels good.” The Pillar acts as if he is my counselor or something. “Breathe in. Breathe out.”
“Get your hands off me,” I snap. Screaming does feel good. Not just because I’ve wanted to scream at anyone for a while, but because it helps me remember the solution to the riddle. “I know the answer to your question now.” I turn back to the homeless man. “In the book, the Mock Turtle says, ‘
“Right answer,” the homeless man says. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” I say, proud of myself. “How come you didn't remember it?” I ask the Pillar.
“Maybe I did.” I can’t tell whether he is joking or not. “Maybe I'm not fond of homeless people. I think they should get a job.” He cocks his head.
“Unbelievable.” I shake my head at the Pillar’s cruelty. I am definitely not fond of him today.
“So we saved a homeless man from being killed in a silly game,” the Pillar says. “How are we going to catch the rabbit?”
Before I contemplate the question, the homeless man answers it: “By answering the second question.”
It takes me a moment to realize what I am looking at. The homeless man simply pulls the dynamite off, sneering at me and the Pillar. It’s not dynamite. It’s a hoax. The homeless man grins, showing his silver tooth, and few other absent ones.
“And why should we answer that?” I say.
“Because of this.” He wraps a bracelet around my wrist. I shriek when I look at it. It's made of steel, and I can’t pull it off. It’s blinking a small red light. “It’s another small bomb.” The man smirks. “It won’t kill you, but it will blow off that cute little arm of yours. Do you happen to know where you got this tattoo, by the way?” He points at the one on my arm.
Angry
“Why wouldn’t I hit him?” I snap. “I have a Certificate of Insanity.”
“If you hit him, you won’t know how to rid yourself of the bracelet.”
“How do we know it’s really a bomb?” I touch it, wanting to pull it away.
“We don’t,” the Pillar says. Then he shoots me a sincere look. “But I can’t risk that.”
“Aw.” The creepy man sneers. “I’ve always loved sentimental moments. Papa and his little girl, the best.”
“He’s not my papa,” I blurt at the man, and shy my eyes away from the Pillar.
The Pillar’s face knots. He seems to have changed his mind about hitting the man. “And I don’t care if she lives or dies.”
I am rather shocked now. I don’t know why. Am I expecting him to stand up for me after saying he couldn’t risk my death? I suppose he just couldn’t, because of whatever reason he has been helping from the beginning. Who are you, Pillar? Sometimes I don’t know which side he is on. “Seriously, I’ve hated homeless people all my life. If you don’t tell us how to free her from the bracelet, I will eat you for dinner. Wait. That’s not quite impressive. I will kill you, cremate you, and then smoke you and get high on your grave.”
The way the Pillar says it forces the man to slightly wince. “Like I said, answer the question.” He does his best to not sound intimidated. “‘
“Wrong answer.” The man grins again. My bracelet vibrates and blinks faster.
How could that be the wrong answer? What have I done?
Chapter 13
“Really?” I retort in disbelief. “Then who was called mad in the book?”
“The March Hare,” the Pillar tells me, but he is staring directly at the homeless man. “You have no idea how an original text can be twisted though the years, only because someone misheard or misremembered the original story.”
“He’s right,” the homeless man says.
“March Hares were known to be called mad in Victorian times,” the Pillar elaborates. “Probably because they went bonkers in the mating seasons.”
While I am shocked by this new fact, I watch the homeless man push a button on some device in his hand. My bracelet stops blinking, and I can pull it off.
Instantly, the Pillar pulls the man by his collar again.
“You don’t want to kill me yet.” The man waves his hands. “Not before the last questions, do you?” He smiles and shows that silver tooth. "Or you will never find the rabbit and stop the bomb."