A Long Trip to Teatime Page 7

  ‘Of course there’s no bed. It’s not your job to waste time sleeping but to try and get out of here. You’ll see how it all works when you’ve had your supper – if there is any supper, that is.’

  ‘Well, what do I do between now and supper – if there is any supper, that is?’ (Edgar added Etheredge’s own words in a mocking manner.)

  ‘Do?’ Etheredge chuckled. He did not seem to mind the mockery. ‘Before you get any supper at all you’ve got to do what they call the prelims. Know what those are?’ Edgar didn’t. ‘Well,’ Etheredge said, ‘this here master of mine, Mr B. Beast, used to teach in a school, you know. And useful he was, having two heads like he’s got. When he was drawing or writing on the blackboard he could see what the young rascals was doing. When all the teachers except him was away ill with the affluenza he used to teach two classes at the same time – one in front, one behind. Marvellous I believe he was, one face teaching Spanish geometry and the other Swedish drill. Then he lost his job because there was something in the Education Laws that said that no schoolmaster was allowed to be two-faced. But he still loves a bit of education. So I locks this door on you,’ said Etheredge, pulling a big bunch of keys from his back pocket, ‘double-locking and thribble-locking it, and you gets down to it at that table over there. Then when you’ve done what’s what you gets your supper – if there is any supper.’ He chuckled and went out. Edgar heard the keys turning. The door was a big massive chunk of oak. There was no way of getting away. There was a window, and that was barred. He tried the trap-door, but that was locked too. The television screen, which stood just behind the table and chair, began to flash at him. He sat down.

  READY? That word flashed huge on the screen. Edgar said ‘Yes,’ and the screen seemed to hear him. What it now had flashing on it was the following problem. WHERE WAS MOSES WHEN THE LIGHT WENT OUT? Very easy. Edgar smiled. He knew the answer to that one. He said: ‘In the dark.’ The television screen seemed pleased, for it flashed and flashed like a little firework display. Then a new problem appeared – white letters like fire on a background of blackest night: CHANGE BLACK TO WHITE IN SEVEN MOVES CHANGING ONLY ONE LETTER AT A TIME AND MAKING A DIFFERENT REAL WORD AT EACH MOVE. Edgar said: ‘I can’t do that in my head. I need to write it down.’ The screen flashed: JUST THINK IT THATS ENOUGH. So Edgar thought out the changes and, to his astonishment, these appeared on the screen. It took him rather a long time, but he did it.

  BLACK BLANK BLINK CLINK CHINK CHINE WHINE WHITE.

  Again the television screen seemed pleased, for it gave another little firework display and there was even a noise like band music in the background. But now came a very difficult question: EXPLAIN HOW IT IS THAT PEOPLE CAN BOTH LIE AND NOT LIE AT THE SAME TIME. Edgar did not understand. He thought and thought, but nothing that made any sense came to his brain. The question remained on the screen, fire on blackness, like an accusation. Suddenly, for no reason that he could explain, he caught an image in his mind of King Solomon in the Bible, and he found himself saying: ‘King Solomon said that all men are liars, but King Solomon was a man, therefore he was a liar, therefore he was not telling the truth, therefore all men are not liars, but King Solomon was a man, therefore he was not a liar, therefore he was telling the truth when he said that all men are liars, but King Solomon was a man, therefore he was a liar, therefore he was not telling the truth when he said that . . .’ A great noise, like a mixture of tolling church bells and ship’s sirens, came out of the television screen. Then it said, fire on black:

  SUPPER IS READY.

  And there at the door, in a minute or so, stood Etheredge, jangling his keys. ‘Did all right, young shaver, by the looks of things,’ he said. ‘Me, I was never clever. But that’s only what they calls the prelims. The real hard stuff comes when you’ve had your supper. Pancakes it is, as I said. So come on down to it.’

  Edgar was led down the stairs into the entrance hall, and then into a large dining room where Mrs Echidna and BB were already seated. On the table was a wobbling big pile of steaming pancakes. Edgar was glad to see them, as that banquet in Edenborough had been snatched from him after the first mouthful. And he had still had no tea to drink. Nor was there any tea on this table. To Edgar’s slight surprise the butler Etheredge sat down at the table, instead of standing and pouring wine or whatever butlers are supposed to do, and he was quick to grumble at the quality of the pancakes.

  ‘Made with eggs they are,’ he said, chewing one, ‘whereas as is well known snow is the only stuff to use. Makes them light and airy snow does.’

  ‘The only way to keep him quiet,’ said BB sighing (and BB was now wearing beautiful evening dress; he was also putting pancakes into both faces at the same time, but in a very gentlemanly way, not in a greedy manner at all) ‘is to tell a story. Perhaps, mother, you would oblige.’

  ‘I’ll be the one to do the obliging,’ growled Etheredge. And at once he broke into the following:

  ‘I had a little pancake once

  And it was good and kind to me.

  In intelleck it was a dunce,

  It thought a year had fifteen munce,

  And every quid had sixteen punce,

  And kippers grew beside the sea -

  But, ah, in matters of the heart

  It was as faithful as a hound.

  At each hard word its tears would start,

  It sobbed like it would fall apart,

  And when you slapped it good and smart

  It used to grovel on the ground.

  I’ll tell you how it saved my life.

  It was the last one on the dish

  Served to me by my loving wife.

  I went for it with fork and knife

  But then it roared with rancour rife

  Although it looked delish-

  Ous. ‘Oh, eat me not,’ it yelled,

  ‘For you have ate more than enough.

  Your stomach is completely felled.’

  It did not speak so good. I held

  My peace and listened, half-compelled

  To cease to gulp and gorge and stuff.

  It was the twentieth on the dish

  And I had read that number twenty,

  Whether of flesh or fowl or fish

  Or plates of soup or chunks of shish

  Kebab or anything you wish

  Was to the stomach more than plenty.

  So then I found myself convinced:

  If I had ate it I’d have died.

  My choppers neither ground nor minced

  That little pancake, and I winced

  To think of it, since I’m aginst

  That sort of suicide.

  I kept the pancake as a pet

  For more years than I care to name,

  And he or she’d be with me yet

  Through storm and sun and cold and wet

  If, like a idiot, I’d not let

  A dog get near, and oh he ate

  My pet. Ah, sin, ah, shame.

  My loving wife said: ‘Why not get

  Another one?’ And then I set

  My teeth and growled with grim regret:

  ‘It could not be the same.

  Ah, no. A million quid I’ll bet

  It could not be the same.

  The same. The same.

  It could not be the . . .’

  ‘Enough, I think,’ said Mrs Echidna gently. ‘I observe that you have been able, despite your singing of that sad song, to get through at least eighteen of these pancakes. Enough is enough.’

  At this moment, without knocking, Bolingbroke came in grinning with a yellow envelope in his hand. ‘How’s the weather in here?’ he said ‘Ah, nice and dry, anyways. Here’s what’s just come,’ he said to Etheredge. Etheredge took the yellow envelope and left the room hurriedly, driving Bolingbroke before him with lively kicks, saying:

  ‘I’ll give you weather, coming in here interrupting me at supper and without knocking.’ The door closed. The door opened again, and Etheredge came in again with the yello
w envelope on a tray. He went up to BB and said:

  ‘This appears to be a telegram, my lord. No bad news, I hopes.’

  BB tore open the envelope. His face fell. His other face probably fell too, but Edgar could not see it. ‘Very bad news,’ both faces said. ‘He’s coming.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mrs Echidna, ‘you don’t mean . . .’

  ‘I do mean. I mean very much. Grandfather’s coming. He also says he has quite an appetite, having eaten little in Estotiland. Oh dear.’ Both mother and son looked sadly at Edgar, and even Etheredge allowed his face to drop.

  ‘I’m not staying,’ Edgar said. ‘I’m getting out of here. I’m not going to be eaten.’

  ‘Well,’ said BB, ‘the only way out is by the trap-door. If we let you out by the front door or the back door he’ll catch you. He’s very quick at picking up a scent. He’ll go sniff sniff sniffing for you, then he’ll grab you without a doubt. No, my boy, it’s back to your room for you.’

  ‘Then out through the trap-door?’ asked Edgar eagerly.

  BB tore open the envelope. His face fell. His other face probably fell too, but Edgar could not see it. ‘Very bad news,’ both faces said. ‘He’s coming.’

  ‘Not so simple,’ said BB. ‘That trap-door is electronically programmed only to open when you solve the Final Problem. And the Final Problem is going to take some time. It’s very very tough.’

  ‘I’ll solve it,’ said Edgar. ‘I’ll have to solve it.’ And he stuffed a pancake into his mouth and went marching out of the dining-room. All this trouble just to get back to the classroom and then home for tea. Tea? He’s just had supper.

  CHAPTER VII

  Albert Helps

  EDGAR SAT waiting at the little table facing the television screen. It was getting dark outside now, but the only light in the room came from a single swinging blue bulb above and, of course, the glow of the screen itself. (Why swinging, by the way? I wrote that down without thinking, knowing somehow it was right. There must be a draught coming from somewhere. Ah yes – from a broken pane in that window over there. The wind must be rising. Perhaps there will be an expensive thunderstorm. Wait.) Suddenly words began to appear on the screen – slowly, one word at a time:

  EXPLAIN THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY.

  Edgar looked with his heart beating fast with fear. He had heard of this Theory of Relativity, like everybody else, but he had no true idea of what it was all about. His first instinct was to dash out of the room, down the stairs, out of the Castle, away, away, anywhere, hoping that by wishing hard, or by some other miracle, he would find himself back safely and cosily in the boring classroom, listening to an account of the Anglo-Saxon kings. But the door was locked and, to confirm the fact of his imprisonment, a great thick sheet of iron began to descend from the ceiling, covering the door. There was only one way out, and that was through the trap-door over there, and there was only one way to get that trap-door to open, and that was by doing what the television screen was asking him to do:

  EXPLAIN THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY.

  Suddenly he heard a violent squeaking. He looked about him and then on to the floor: the squeaking was coming from a little grey mouse. The mouse nodded at him, raised a paw in greeting, then began to run up his trouser-leg. Smiling sadly, Edgar took the tiny creature on to the palm of his hand and spoke to it.

  ‘We’re both prisoners,’ he said. ‘You a mouse and I a boy, but we’re both locked forever in this room.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense,’ said the mouse, in a small but resonant squeak. ‘I go and come as I please. I have a hole over there, see, and through that hole I can visit the great outside world as often as I wish. My name, by the way, is Albert.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Edgar. ‘My name is – ‘

  ‘No time for that nonsense now,’ squeaked the mouse briskly. ‘We have other fish to fry.’

  ‘Fish?’ said Edgar stupidly.

  ‘You know what I mean. What it says up there. Relativity and so on. Sorry, stupid of me – I mean just Relativity. Good, we’ll begin. First, what’s the speed of light?’

  ‘Look,’ said Edgar. ‘This is ridiculous. You’re only a mouse. What do you know about – ‘

  ‘Oh, don’t waste time.’ The mouse had leapt from Edgar’s hand onto the table, and now it faced him sternly, squeaking in impatience. ‘The speed of light is three hundred thousand kilometres a second. Right?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Edgar said.

  The mouse nodded at him, raised a paw in greeting, then began to run up his trouser-leg. Smiling sadly, Edgar took the tiny creature on to the palm of his hand and spoke to it. ‘We’re both prisoners,’ he said, ‘You a mouse and I a boy, but we’re both locked forever in this room.’

  ‘Suppose nothing. It is so. To save having to use that big mouthful of numbers every time, they call the speed of light c.’

  ‘Sea? See?’

  ‘No no – c, c, c, c, the letter c. Is there anything faster than c? Come on, tell me – quick.’

  Edgar was quite sure that there was nothing faster than the speed of light and he said so.

  ‘Good,’ said the mouse. ‘Now let us suppose that a train is travelling at the speed of light. Just suppose. It couldn’t happen, but suppose, suppose.’

  ‘I’m supposing.’

  ‘And on top of this train a man is running towards the front of the train. Can you see that? As in a film. A man being chased by policemen along the top of the train. This man wants to reach the driver of the train and kill him.’

  ‘Why?’ said Edgar.

  ‘Oh, don’t waste time,’ the mouse squeaked, dancing up and down. ‘Because the engine-driver was the man who committed the crime that this running man is being chased by the police for. Along the top of the train. Right?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Edgar.

  ‘Now, this man is running at a speed of a thousand kilometres a second.’

  ‘Impossible,’ Edgar said.

  ‘Impossible? When the train itself is moving at three hundred thousand kilometres a second? Use your brains, sir. Anyway, the point is that the speed of the man from the viewpoint of somebody watching the trains go by is – what? Come on, come on, come on.’ And the little creature danced urgently up and down.

  ‘The man’s speed,’ Edgar said, ‘is the speed of the train plus the speed he’s running – three hundred and one thousand kilometres a second.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the mouse. ‘So you see, then – there’s something moving faster than light. But you said there’s nothing that moves faster than light.’

  ‘So I was wrong,’ Edgar said.

  ‘No, not at all wrong,’ said the mouse, who, since he gave his name as Albert, we shall now call Albert. ‘Goodness,’ said Albert. ‘How the wind is rising. There’s going to be a very costly thunderstorm before long. The point is,’ continued Albert, ‘it’s a question of observers. It’s not a question of the speed of light not being the fastest thing there is. It’s a matter of who’s looking – the observer that is. Everything’s relative to him or to her, and that’s why the whole caboodle is called Relativity.’

  ‘The whole what?’ said Edgar.

  ‘Caboodle. Cafoffle. Eikon Basilike. Fadladeen. The whole thing so to squeak, I mean speak.’

  ‘I see,’ said Edgar, not seeing at all. And then there was a flare of lightning outside. ‘The storm’s beginning,’ he said. Thunder followed, because the speed of sound is pretty slow compared with the speed of light (nothing faster than light, when all’s said and done). And then the television screen flashed a message:

  HURRY HURRY HURRY HE IS ON HIS WAY.

  ‘Oh, no, no, no,’ cried Edgar.

  ‘The old man, eh?’ said Albert, nodding at the screen. ‘Well, we shall have you out of this room in an eleatic palatunate, or even sooner. The law of the speed of light has to be the same for everybody, so what we have to start doing is to bend space and time. So you get a rod that’s one metre long, and how long is it?’

&nb
sp; ‘One metre, of course,’ Edgar said. The rain was coming down heavily now.

  ‘No, no, no, no,’ danced Albert. ‘It would be one metre if it were not in a moving system. If it’s in a moving system it’s – ah, it’s the square root of I minus the square of the velocity of the moving system divided by the square of the speed of light. Think that quickly and see it on the screen.’

  Edgar did his best, and there it was, silver on black, flashing away, though the lightning interfered with it a good deal:

  ‘And,’ said Albert, ‘believe it or not, but if you get a clock in a moving system, the distance between the ticks is not one second, but just a bit more.’ The thunder crashed and the rain swilled down. And then there came a knock at the door, and a gentle voice could be heard calling:

  ‘Edgar? Edgar? Are you there, Edgar?’ Edgar was too terrified to reply. He just gulped and gulped. ‘I know you’re there,’ said the voice. ‘And now I’m coming for you. With one blow of my fist I’m going to smash down the door, and then you and I are going to be together. Nice and cosy, you and I.’ And then the gentle voice became a great roar that drowned the thunder, and Edgar heard a fist smashing through wood.

  ‘Oh, it’s mad, mad, mad,’ he cried.

  ‘Quick,’ squeaked Albert. ‘You’d better start saying what the Theory of Relativity is all about. Now.’

  ‘The Theory of Relativity,’ began Edgar, ‘says that, says that, says that – ‘

  ‘I’ll be with you in a matter of seconds, Edgar,’ said the voice outside the door. ‘I can’t come in, of course, being much too big, but I’ll put my arm in and I’ll feel around for you with my fingers, and then I’ll have you, and it’s all going to be nice and cosy.’

  He looked back to see a hand pushing in from the broken entrance and twisted metal of the wall-door. The hand was feeling about, a very hairy hand with broken finger-nails. The hand was beginning to fill the whole room.

  Lightning seemed to strike something somewhere, for Edgar heard a crash of toppling bricks and stone. Then spoke the thunder: ‘Daaaaa!’