Sagaria (40 page)

The doorknob man sucked in his breath. “That bad, is it?”

“Not just that bad,” answered the clown, as if the words were being extracted with a corkscrew, “but worse.”

Again, there was widespread gasping. Sagandran looked around him incredulously. For all the merry-o-meter’s palaver and the exaggerated reaction
of the locals, he didn’t feel as if he were wasting away or chronically anything. He was just his normal self, though he was tired after the adventures of the past few days and, of course, tense from fretting about Grandpa Melwin.

He tried to say something, but the doorknob-nosed man interrupted him.

“The name’s Lamarod, Mayor Lamarod to folk who don’t know me as well as you two young lovers do. Lamarod by name and Lamarod by nature, if you catch my drift, eh? And what, may I ask, are your natures? Names, I mean.”

Lamarod stared at the merry-o-meter as if he’d never seen it before, then stuffed it into one of the pockets of his riotously colored suit. The gadget struggled and squawked briefly, then fell ominously silent.

“Ah, uh, I’m called Sagandran. This is Perima. Our horse is called Snowmane.”

“And you’re true sweethearts, I can see – no, no need to tell me. It’s written all over your faces. Well, probably not the horse’s. Come here to take your girlfriend on a ride through the Tunnel of Love, have you, young man? Well, just so long as your intentions are dishonorable, get my meaning? He he.” The mayor nudged Sagandran knowingly. “Pretty little thing and all. If I were a few centuries younger, I wouldn’t mind, you know, taking her for a trip through the Tunnel of Love myself. Plenty dark and dusky in there. No one can see what’s going on, which is just the way it should be.” He slapped his thighs in glee. The merry-o-meter shrieked one last time.

“Ah,” stammered Sagandran, “it’s … it’s not exactly like that, you see. We’re not precisely together. Well, we’re obviously together, but we’re, ahem, just good friends, you know?”

Perima gave a cough of annoyance.

The mayor wheezed and chortled, his eyes almost vanishing into the fleshy creases of his face. “That’s what you say now, but you just wait ’til you’ve had her out for a boat trip on the Raspberry Lake. You’ll be fighting her off after that. You may not make it out of the Tunnel of Love alive, young feller-me-lad, by the time she’s done with you.” Lamarod went into another bout of guffaws.

“I do think you might be a bit more chivalrous,” muttered Perima darkly to Sagandran.

“What? I’m trying to preserve your reputation.”

“You’re making me sound like I’m repulsive.”

“You know I don’t think you’re—”

“It might be quite fun to go through the Tunnel of Love.”

“Well, if that’s what you’d—”

“It’s what I would have liked, but you’ve gone and spoiled it now.”

Mumbling under his breath that he was beginning to understand Dad’s
point of view, but making sure that he spoke too softly for Perima to make out the words, Sagandran waited until Mayor Lamarod had his hilarity under control again.

“What a face you have on you, lad,” gasped the mayor as a final ripple of laughter made his stomach jiggle.

“We’re searching for some friends of ours,” said Sagandran soberly. “We wondered if they might be here.”

The mayor raised eyebrows like giant centipedes. “Friends? You don’t need to be looking for friends anymore. You’ll find all the friends you could hope for here in Wonderville.” From somewhere, he produced a handkerchief spotted with more colors than a candy store and wiped his eyes. “More than that, as a matter of fact.”

“Yes, but—”

Lamarod interrupted as if Sagandran hadn’t spoken. “Here in Wonderville, the fun never stops. As I like to say, there’s fun in Wonderville twenty-five hours a day! You can eat and drink as much as you want, and it’s all de-yummy-licious. You can do anything you want as long as it brings a smile to your face – did I mention the boat trip on the Raspberry Lake, young lady? Never seen a young lady come back without a smile on her—where was I? Oh, yes, people from all over Sagaria come to live here in Wonderville, where they can be free of all the boring rules and regulations of humdrum everyday life. Left your worries behind you at the gate, have you? Well, if you’ve done that, you’ve done all you need to to be allowed to spend the rest of your days in Wonderville having fun, fun, nothing but fun!”

He turned to a posse of chimpanzees who’d materialized behind him. They were like those at the gate, but they had different colored hair.

“This is …”

“Wonderville!” they chorused.

“Louder. I can’t hear you.”

“WONDERVILLE!”

“Maybe there’s something wrong with my ears, because …”

“WONDERVILLE!”

“Ah, that’s better.” Lamarod swiveled back to face Perima and Sagandran. “We don’t do anything by halves here, you see. Since my stewards here are only halves to begin with, they have to speak doubly loud to me. Mathematics, that is.”

He flicked his handkerchief, and a big turnip watch flew out of it. Catching it nimbly, he twisted it around to look at the time.

“Oh, my. Oh, dearie, dearie me.” His face assumed a look of pompous
solemnity and his voice dropped an octave. “I see I am late for an important meeting.” Then his grin was back. “An important meeting with a merry-go-round, that is.”

He reached above him for the hand stirrup that dangled from the pulley wheel. “Don’t forget to have fun, young lovers. Mind what I said about the Tunnel of Love. One couple went in there strangers and came out with three children, ha ha!”

The pulley chugged and then spun, and in moments, the still-gesticulating figure of Mayor Lamarod was retreating toward the top of the peppermint tower.

“How does he do that?” pondered Sagandran. “I mean, I understand how it brings him downhill, but uphill?”

“’Scuse me,” said one of the stewards, mercifully not at the same volume they’d been using in front of the mayor.

“Er, yes?”

“That’s not uphill.”

“But—”

“It’s downhill. Only downhill in the opposite direction.”

That seemed to make perfect sense to Sagandran – at least, why should he worry if it didn’t?

The chimp who’d addressed him was pink-haired. She was joined by another, who was blue-haired like the guards had been. The rest of the stewards vanished back to wherever they’d come from.

“Let us show you around,” said the first one who’d spoken. “We’ll show you all sorts of funny things. By the way, my name is Chortlette and my blue-haired friend here is called Sniggeroo. You’re really going to enjoy yourself in Wonderville, you are.”

Then why,
thought Sagandran,
does your voice sound so dismal?

Sniggeroo led Snowmane off to stables near the gate; Sagandran felt rather guilty letting the horse be separated from them like that, but he reasoned that Snowmane would probably be happier relaxing with some oats than trailing along obediently behind the two humans.

Sagandran and Perima allowed themselves to be led around the city by the two chimps. Wonderville wasn’t as big as it had seemed from a distance, but it was so packed with diversions that it felt endless. The streets were lined with cafes and ale houses, while shops, which were squashed in between into all sorts of improbable shapes, displayed bizarre goods in their crazily angled windows. Everything was colored in the same violent primary hues; there wasn’t a pastel shade, a gray or a black to be seen anywhere. For a moment, Sagandran
wondered if the blazingly clashing colors were giving him a headache, but then he decided not to worry about it. There was far too much fun on offer for him to occupy his mind with something so dampening as worry …

Sniggeroo was speaking to him. “If you want to buy anything, you use jokes for money.”

“What?” said Perima, turning away from a shop window filled with every conceivable size, shape and color of whoopee cushion.

“If you see something you like, tell the shopkeeper a joke. If the shopkeeper laughs, the thing is yours.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.”

She looked abashed. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t implying that.”

“No one ever is,” said Chortlette glumly.

Something had been puzzling Sagandran and, despite all the distractions, the puzzlement simply wouldn’t go away.

“Who is Mayor Lamarod?”

“You just met him.”

“Yes, yes, I know that. But who is he? Where did he come from? Why did he build a city like Wonderville?”

“You don’t like Wonderville?”

“Well, yes, of course I do. Very much.”

Sagandran thought Snigeroo was going to burst into tears. Chortlette was apparently made of sterner stuff because she answered him.

“So why are you asking so many questions?” The chimp shook her head sadly.

“Because I want to know the answers.”

“That’s a pretty stupid reason to ask questions, don’t you think?”

“I, ah …”

Perima came to his rescue.

“I think he’d like you to tell him the story of how Lamarod came to create Wonderville,” she said reassuringly to Chortlette. “Telling stories is fun, isn’t it?”

“S’pose so.” Sagandran had never seen a chimpanzee pout before.

“Do try it,” Perima cajoled.

“Oh, all right. As long as it’s going to be fun, I reckon I’m allowed to.” Chortlette drew a breath.

“That’s the trouble with working here,” interposed Sniggeroo. “We’re not supposed to do anything that isn’t fun. It’s all right for the first month or two, but after that,” he stifled a sob, “you begin to ache for the fun of doing something that’s not fun at all.”

“I was trying to tell these people a story,” said Chortlette. “Do you mind?”

“No, of course not. I was just trying to explain how I’d like to, oh, I don’t know, hit my thumb with a hammer or something. Just once.”

“You finished?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. Now, what happened to Lamarod was that—”

“Wouldn’t mind getting my hand caught in a mangle every now and then, either.”

“I thought you said you’d—”

“Yes, yes. Sorry to interrupt your fun with my profoundly important personal problems, I’m sure.”

“Good. When our dearly beloved Mayor Lamarod was little, he was the son of the man, also called Lamarod, who was the mayor of this town before him, and—”

“I did try to drop a brick on my foot once.”

“Will you shut up?”

“But I missed. What a washout.”

“Look, help me tell the story, will you?”

Sniggeroo sniffed ominously, but nodded.

Chortlette watched her fellow steward for a long moment before resuming her story. “You see, there was nothing wrong with Lamarod’s father. He was the nicest of men you could hope to find, except that he had far too much work to do and he took it all far too seriously.”

“Long, long face old man Lamarod always wore.”

“He didn’t have any time to play with his little boy so that they could have fun together.”

“Face like a constipated thunderstorm, he had.”

“The one thing in the world little Lamarod wanted to do more than anything other was to go with his dad to a carnival, an amusement park, a funfair. Every time he asked, his dad said, ‘Yes, sure, we can do that. Only not right now. Maybe next week, when I’m a little bit less busy.’”

“You know what you see when you’ve put too much toilet paper in the lavatory and you’re desperately trying to flush and flush but there’s not enough water left in the tank? The things that slowly come up again? Well, that’s what old man Lamarod’s face looked like all the time, it did.”

Chortlette put her fists on her hips. “I don’t care what old man Lamarod’s face looked like.”

Sniggeroo looked even sulkier than before. “I was just trying to help, is all,” he grumped. “Give the story a bit of atmosphere and color, that sort of thing.
You said I should help.”

“Well, you’re not helping, do you hear?”

“Can’t help but hear, you shouting like that.”

“Men!” said Chortlette to Perima.

“Couldn’t agree with you more,” Perima replied. “One moment they say they’re going to take you through the Tunnel of Love and then, when you’re looking forward to it, they cancel. Just like that.”

“I—–” said Sagandran.

“Who’s talking to you?” demanded Chortlette.

“Um, you are, for one. And—”

“Never heard anything so ridiculous in all my born days,” Chortlette told Perima.

“Me neither.”

“Hasn’t got a lick of sense, this oaf of yours.”

“Not one lick. Not even a licklet.”

“Fatwit.”

“Dumbcluck.”

“Boneskull.”

“And he breaks perfectly good dates he makes.”

Suddenly Sagandran caught on.
They’re having fun.
“Depends on who the date’s with,” he said pointedly.

“Ooh, you!”

“Now, about how Lamarod came to build Wonderville?” he said to Chortlette.

“I’d have finished telling you about it by now if you hadn’t kept interrupting me.”

Sagandran held his tongue. With difficulty. Sniggeroo darted him a sympathetic look.

“So the years went by and the years went by,” continued Chortlette, spitting out the words one by one, “and never once did Lamarod’s dad take Lamarod to the fun fair, no matter how often he promised. By the time Lamarod the younger was a growed-up man, his father still hadn’t taken him to the fun fair. Oh, Lamarod could have got his mommy to do it, but that wouldn’t have been the same. And then one day, one day …”

“Get on with it,” said Sniggeroo impatiently.

“I am getting on with it. One day, the thing they had all … you know, I’ve lost my flow.”

“One day,” Perima prompted.

“Oh, yes. One day the thing they had all been dreading the most came to
pass. Lamarod’s dad just keeled over and dropped dead.”

“They say it was the end-of-year cost-benefit analysis that did it,” said Sniggeroo meaningfully.

“And still –
still,
I tell you – he’d not taken his boy to the fun fair. Not much use taking your son to the fun fair when you’re dead, is it? I mean, some of the other passengers on the rides might complain about having to sit beside you, sort of thing.”