by Robin Jarvis
The boy shook his head. “No, it isn’t!” he shouted, but he knew it was no use arguing. He had lost her, just like he had lost his sister then his parents. He had to get out of there.
“It is not too late for you, Reggie,” she said as he hurried down the stairs. “The woman Jennifer was fond of you, her nephew. I will entreat the Holy Enchanter. He may be able to help. You cannot remain an aberrant. Join us.”
“Not on your life!” he spat as he raced through the hall and into the kitchen to retrieve his rucksack. “You and the rest of them can stick it.”
“Aberrants will not be tolerated,” she said as she came swishing down the stairs.
Reggie closed his eyes tightly and drew a deep breath. He had to control himself. There wasn’t time to grieve for her. That could happen later, when he was safe, if he could ever be safe. Right now he had to run.
He rushed back into the hallway. The woman he had known as Aunt Jen was standing on the bottom stair, a black-feathered fan in her hand.
“You cannot leave,” she said, tapping it lightly against her gloved palm.
“Watch me,” he growled.
Reggie barged out of the front door then staggered to a halt. With despair and defeat in his eyes, he gazed around and a deathly cold clasped him. The street was filled with people. A crowd of several hundred residents and neighbours had gathered silently in front of the house. They were all dressed as some medieval fairy-tale character and every one of them wore a playing card on their home-made costume. Close by, on the lawn, stood his uncle and his cousins.
Uncle Jason was wearing a smock and apron. Pewter tankards were hooked to his belt. He was supposed to be an innkeeper, but he merely looked ridiculous. His sons, Tim and Ryan, were also dressed up. One was a page, the other a kitchen boy.
Reggie felt his courage disappear. He was trapped.
“Aberrant,” his cousins said.
“Aberrant,” his uncle repeated.
“Aberrant,” spat the voice of Aunt Jen in the doorway behind him.
The word spread through the large crowd until everyone was chanting it like a mantra, their faces twisted and angry.
“We must not suffer an aberrant to live!” Uncle Jason shouted.
“Burn him!” Ryan called out.
“Burn him!” echoed the crowd.
Reggie stared at them in horror. Yes, they would do it. They would burn him alive. The madness had gone that far.
“Lock him in the shed and set light to it!” Uncle Jason cried.
“No,” Aunt Jen commanded. “It must be done properly, as we would burn the Bad Shepherd in Mooncaster. Build a bonfire. Bring wood and fuel.”
The crowd gave a mighty cheer. Many went running to their homes to fetch anything that would burn. The rest came surging towards Reggie and closed in around him. There was nothing he could do, no chance of escape. Strong hands grabbed at him. He was hitched high off the ground and carried to the road.
The beginning of a bonfire was swiftly thrown on the tarmac. Chairs, tables, empty bookcases, shelves ripped from walls, tied towers of newspaper from recycling bins, anything that a flame could bite was brought there in euphoric haste. A man emerged from his house with a chainsaw and immediately set to work, carving the furniture into useful, stackable pieces.
Reggie was paraded around the mounting timber pyramid like a living guy. He saw a pensioner gleefully throw his walking stick into the midst of the growing pyre and watched a woman come laughing from her garage carrying a can of paraffin. She looked up at Reggie and he saw the joyous expectation on her face. Dancing around the woodpile she sloshed the paraffin over it with carefree abandon.
Reggie was held so tight he could not even struggle. He knew there was no way out of this. He tried to shout, to tell them they were insane, that the book had possessed them – that they were about to commit murder. But nobody listened and they sang the stupid songs from those evil pages all the louder. This was it. He was going to be burned to death.
And then, suddenly, a siren cut through the excited babble of voices and, to Reggie’s overwhelming relief, two police cars came roaring down the street, screeching to a stop in front of the bonfire.
“Oh, thank you, thank you!” Reggie yelled.
“Break it up, break it up!” the officers shouted as they slammed the car doors shut.
The crowd grew quiet. One officer moved forward, his hand poised close to the firearm at his hip. Since the beginning of the protests and street violence some months ago, the British police force had been armed.
“Put the boy down,” he ordered.
There was a moment of hesitation, but the mob could tell he meant business. The men carrying Reggie lowered him to the ground.
“Step away from him,” the officer instructed.
The crowd obeyed, grudgingly, and the boy ran over to the squad cars.
“I can’t believe it!” he cried. “I thought you were all got at. I thought you were all taken over by the book! These nutters were going to burn me!”
The policeman ignored him. “Who’s in charge here?” he called out.
“I am,” Aunt Jen’s voice rang out.
The crowd murmured and parted, forming a path for her to come forward. Fanning herself, the woman sauntered regally through them.
Reggie glared at her and countless accusations blazed as fiercely in his mind as the bonfire would have done. But before he could speak, the officers did something that caused his newfound hope to shrivel and die.
Every police officer removed his cap and dropped to one knee before the Queen of Spades. Reggie knew that somewhere, under their stab-proof vests, they too would be wearing playing cards.
“Majesty,” the policeman said. “I am Sir Gorvain of the Royal House of Diamonds.”
“You are come just in time to join our revel,” the woman greeted him. “This day we burn one who defies the Holy Enchanter, a foul malefactor in league with the Bad Shepherd.”
“Grant me the honour of escorting the fiend to the flames.”
The Queen of Spades slapped her fan shut and pointed over the policeman’s shoulder with it. “First, Sir Knight,” she said crossly, “you shall have to catch him again.”
Everyone turned. Reggie had seized his chance and was racing down the street. The crowd jeered and booed. The boy had discarded his heavy rucksack and was running faster than he had ever done before. He knew the bonfire was blocking the way of the police cars. They wouldn’t be able to chase him. He might just manage to get away. There was still a slender chance!
Two shots were fired, but Reggie only heard the first. A moment later, he was on the ground. At last he had escaped, to a place where the evil of the book could never catch him.
The crowd cheered. Sir Gorvain waved his gun with a flourish and took a bow as they applauded. Then one of them began to sing, another played lute music loudly on a mobile whilst someone else shook a tambourine and a courtly dance commenced. The colourful streamers hanging from the lamp post were taken up and the courtiers skipped around it, laughing. Others took out their copies of the book and began to read aloud in unison. What a glorious April evening it was.
The woman who had been Aunt Jen gazed impassively down the street where the body of the young aberrant lay. Then she snapped her fan open once more and joined the dance.
“AS MANY OF you out there may be aware, something strange is happening across the pond in good old Blighty. You might have seen news reports or read about it on the Internet, but do you really understand, in the name of all that is sane, just what those Brits are up to? I’ve been trying to follow this phenomenon, but frankly it’s clear as chowder to me. Here’s Kate Kryzewski, reporting from London, England, with the Jax Fax.”
The VT rolled and the news anchor leaned back in his chair.
“Damn crazy little ass-end country,” he said, shaking his head dismissively. “Let them keep their crappy books to themselves this time. We don’t want it. Am I right?”
A mak
e-up girl darted in from the side and dabbed at his glistening forehead.
“How’m I looking, Tanya?” he asked, almost purring.
“Just wonderful, Mr Webber,” the professional and pretty Tanya answered.
“You don’t think I need a little tuck and lift round my eyes then, huh? Still holding up well, yeah?”
Tanya wisely refrained from telling him she knew he’d already undergone two procedures for the eye bags and the crows’ feet. It was good work though, probably done here on the East Coast where politicians go for the subtle stuff, not the Californian waxwork-under-a-blowtorch look.
“So you want some sushi after?” he asked, switching on his best bedroom eyes. “I know a great place where I won’t get mobbed and we’ll be left alone – just me, you and the wasabi.”
“That would be a no, sir,” she declined for the sixteenth time that month.
“Always with the no,” he said with a shrug of his Armani-suited shoulders. “A good-looking, successful guy could lose confidence around all those noes. I had enough noes when I was with my wife, until the divorce. Then it changed to yeses. Yes, she wanted my apartment, yes, she wanted my cars, yes, she wanted my alimony checks, yes to all nine pints of my O negative. I was lucky to get out with both my… ahem… ‘wasabi’ still attached.”
“Still a no, Mr Webber,” Tanya said, ducking out of shot behind the camera.
“Would a little bit of raw fish be so offensive?” he entreated, staring at her departing chest.
“It’s not the fish, you dick,” she muttered under her breath.
Harlon Webber cast around for someone else to engage with, but the crew knew him well enough to only catch his eye when they needed to. Reluctantly he turned his attention to the monitor and watched the pre-filmed item that was going out.
The whole of the United Kingdom had apparently gone nuts. Five months ago a children’s book called Dancing Jax had been published and had sold a staggering sixty-three million copies, at least one for every member of the population. It had completely taken over everyone’s life in that country.
Reporter Kate Kryzewski was speaking over footage of violent clashes in Whitehall between opposing factions. Police officers in riot gear could be seen battling on both sides, most often fighting against one another. A bookshop burned to the cheers of a mob, petrol bombs were hurled against the gates of Downing Street and an army tank rolled through Trafalgar Square, scattering the incensed crowds. In Charing Cross Road water cannon and tear-gas grenades were deployed against a tide of protesters.
“These were the alarming scenes here in London just seven weeks ago,” Kate’s voice-over said. “Similar pitched battles were being waged right across the UK. It seemed that all-out war had broken out, here in the home of fish and chips and the Beatles. The cause? An old children’s book of fairy tales first published in 1936. Unbelievable as it sounds, this nation was bitterly and brutally divided between those who had read it and those who refused to read it. The angry protests have since died down and peace has returned to the British Isles. Why? Because just about everyone has now read this book. So, what is it about Dancing Jax that could have triggered such an extreme reaction? I haven’t read it and won’t until I find out more, so I went on to the streets to do just that…”
The report continued with her interviewing random people around London, against such familiar touristy backdrops as Buckingham Palace and Big Ben. They all praised the book and what it had brought to their lives.
“It is my life,” said a distinguished man in a dark blue suit outside the Houses of Parliament. “You might as well ask what it’s like to breathe. No question about it. I have to have the book with me always because I can’t bear to be away from Mooncaster for very long. In fact, I’ve got five spares dotted about in case of an emergency. It’s market day there and I shouldn’t be messing about playing politics here. I’ve got to get the stall ready and set my wares out…”
“Excuse me, sir,” Kate said, “but you don’t strike me as someone who would be interested in that kind of role play.”
“Role play?” he snorted indignantly. “I don’t have time for games, madam. Only the Jacks and Jills can indulge in idle sport.”
The picture cut to the main entrance of Selfridges on Oxford Street where an overly made-up elderly woman, decked out in countless necklaces and three earrings per ear, was staring aghast at the reporter. “You haven’t read it?” she cried in disbelief. “Oh, you must, dear. Get a copy this very minute. Don’t do anything else – go right now and get it!”
“Why is it so important to you?” Kate asked.
“Important?” the woman repeated in bafflement. “It’s just everything, dear, simply everything. ‘Important’ doesn’t come into it – it gets me back home, out of all this.”
“It makes this bumhole of a place bearable, dunnit?” a black cab driver said to camera as he leaned out of his window.
“And how many times have you read it?” Kate enquired.
“No idea, darlin’, but there’ll never be enough, never. My real life there is sweet as a nut. Look at that bloody bus, thinks he owns the bleedin’ road! Why the hell can’t I bring my longbow with me into these soddin’ dreams, eh? I’d soon have him.”
Back in the studio Harlon Webber threw his hands in the air for attention.
“Why are all those schmucks wearing playing cards?” he asked anyone who would listen. “Is it some kinda cult of Vegas?”
Nobody answered. They, like the rest of the world, were bewildered and intrigued as to what was happening in the UK and were watching the report closely.
“Hey, Johnny,” Harlon called, squinting into the gloom behind the cameras. “Didn’t you say you got a kid sister over there? Weren’t you worried about her a while back?”
Jimmy the cameraman was used to the jerk getting his name wrong. It used to bug him, but now it didn’t matter.
“She’s just fine, Mr Webber,” he answered flatly. “It’s all just fine.”
“Kate’s looking trim there, isn’t she? Hey, anyone here nailed her? I don’t normally dig redheads, but I’ve been trying for two years. Maybe I need to wear army fatigues. Yeah, I bet that’s why she goes to all them war places. She must have a thing for jarhead grunts. One of those power broads who has to feel superior the whole damn time.”
No one in the studio answered him.
“Hey, hi!” a young American student said into the lens outside the British Museum. “I’m Brandon from Wisconsin – or that’s who I’m supposed to be when I’m here, right? I’m really a farm guy in the Kingdom of the Dawn Prince and hey, you just watch out for that Bad Shepherd. He’s been sighted over by the marsh and that’s just way too close, man. He’s like real bad news and if he goes anywhere near my goats, I’m going after him with my axe and getting me some shepherd brains. He tore the hearts clean out of Mistress Sarah’s geese last fall, every one…”
“If I could just speak to you as Brandon for a moment,” Kate interjected.
“Sure, that’s cool. That’s why I’m here, right? To be Brandon and rest, so I can be stronger there – awesome.”
“What do your parents make of all this, back home in the US?”
“Yeah, I like Skyped those guys the other day. It’s real weird having a set of folks in this dream place, when my true mom is back in our cottage right now, teasing the wool, or out in the field pulling up the turnips.”
“But your family in Wisconsin, what do they think?”
“Oh, they don’t understand, man. They don’t have a copy of the sacred text so how could they? They’re nice people an’ all. Not their fault. They were like freaking out and stuff.”
“Because of your devotion to Dancing Jax?”
“Just ignorance, dude, that’s all. They’ll know real soon though. I FedExed them a copy yesterday.”
“You sent one of these books to the United States?”
“Sure, I can’t believe it’s not out there already. Wake up, Amer
ica!”
“Thank you, Brandon.”
“Hey, blessed be, man.”
Kate Kryzewski, a no-nonsense breed of reporter who had been to Afghanistan and Iraq, seemed genuinely disturbed by what she was hearing.
She turned to camera and stared at it gravely.
“‘Wake up, America,’” she repeated. “That’s what the young man said and I couldn’t agree more. Every person I have met here in London has been obsessed by this seemingly ordinary and old-fashioned children’s book. When I say obsessed, I use the word quite literally. These people aren’t just ardent fans. I would go so far as to say they’ve been possessed by it, so much so that they have assumed the identity of a character from the story. They aren’t interested in anything that doesn’t relate to it. They read and reread the stories whenever they can and the British government has just passed new legislation for seven fifteen-minute intervals throughout the day when everything will stop so mass readings can take place. Apparently, the reading experience is best shared. Can you imagine this happening in America?”
“Damn freaky, that’s what it is,” Harlon stated, leaning back in his chair and slapping the news desk. “Wackos, the lot of them. That’s what warm beer and bad restaurants do to you. Last time I was there they tried to serve me beans for breakfast. I was like, ‘You frickin’ kidding me? Get that redneck pig slop outta here!’ Dumb, backward, Third World douches.”
“… And in every garden and park,” Kate continued, standing in the Palm House at Kew, “are these strange new cultivars of trees and fruiting shrubs called minchet.” The camera panned past her to zoom in on a row of ugly and twisted bushes that had strangled and killed most of the exotic plants.
“This plant features in the book and just be thankful we don’t have smell-o-vision because these things stink of swamps, halitosis and damp basements all in one. And yet the British have developed such a taste for this fruit that they’ve started to put it in juices, sodas, cosmetics – even candy. You can buy a MacMinchet Burger, a Great Grey Whopper and there are now twelve herbs and spices in the colonel’s secret recipe. No doubt you’re thinking there’s some addictive substance at work here – that’s what I suspected too – but we’ve had it tested and there’s absolutely no trace of anything that could account for this behaviour.”
