Jeff Noon - Automated Alice

"Of course not! What a silly name that would be!"

"So what is your real name?"

"You want to know my nom de real, Alice? Now that would be telling. But what are you doing here in Manchester, Alice, and in 1998 of all ages?"

"I fell through a grandfather clock's workings," Alice replied. "And I need to get home in time for my two o'clock writing lesson."

"Maybe you should look up your history in the Central Library."

"But why should my history be in the library?" Alice demanded.

"Because you're famous in this age, Alice. The history of your life is contained in a book called Reality and Realicey ."

"Whatever does realicey mean?"

"Realicey is a special kind of reality: the world of the imagination, and it's so much more powerful than everyday existence! Witness your ability to discourse with me, Alice, all these many years after your real life! Maybe I should write my third book about you. I would call it Through the Clock's Workings and What Alice Found There. "

"But that's a silly title, Mister O'Clock! Because I've found hardly anything at all in my travels through the clock. I still have another five jigsaw pieces to find, and my parrot called Whippoorwill, and my doll called Celia, who's a kind of Automated Alice."

"Automated Alice... erm... that gives me a new idea... I will write a trequel!"

Alice wasn't sure how anybody could write with treacle; wouldn't the words come out all sticky? "If you really are such a clever writer, Mister O'Clock," she asked, "could you please tell me what an ellipsis is?"

"An ellipsis is the three dots that a writer uses to imply an omittance of words, a certain lingering doubt at the end of an unfinished sentence..."

"Oh thank you! I have found at least one of my lost objects!" And then Alice found another lost object, because a feather came floating down from the Square's air into her fingers. "This is a Whippoorwill feather!" Alice squealed.

"Whippoorwill?" said Zenith. "What a wonderful nom de plume. In my trequel, I will turn this feather into a tickling ticket for you."

"Why should I need a tickling ticket?" asked Alice.

"That's the only help I can give you, Alice; do you hear me? Or else the Coincidence Bureau will surely arrest me. Oh but I've just realized; perhaps I'm already writing the book called Automated Alice, and we two are merely characters within it?"

Alice wanted to ask what he meant, but just then, the Town Hall clock reached the twelfth of its slowed-down ding-dongs, and the writer's hand came down to stroke once again at Alice's pinafored shoulder. It was noon. It was that very softest of touches, the breath of friendship, amidst strangers... and then he was gone...

How very sad Alice was to have lost hold of Mister O'Clock's normality, amid the pressing concerns of the six-of-this and half-a-dozen-of-the-other crowd, this ever-changing throng that was pushing into her tender flesh from all sides. Pushing and pushing. In fact, pushing and pushing and pushing ! Alice felt like she was being squashed flat by strangeness! But at least she knew what an ellipsis was, or at least she thought that she did. "If I can only find my way back home before two o'clock, 1860," she announced out loud to nobody in particular, "I could then finish my homework! But I must still find Whippoorwill and Celia, before I can go home. Wherever can they have got to?" Alice looked all around the Square of Prince Albert, until her eyes were filled with tears. "Oh dear!" she spluttered. "I'm crying so much that the whole Square seems to be filling up with water!"

Indeed, Albert Square was filling up with water, but it was only the tears of Heaven raining down once again. Alice felt rather sheepish when she realized that it was only the rain filling up the Square, and not her tears alone. (Have you ever seen a sheep in the rain? Well, that's exactly how Alice felt.) The crowd of animals, animates, animen, aniwomen and anioldiron was rushing out of the Square to escape the downpour, leaving Alice quite alone once again.

But not quite alone! Because, yes! There was Whippoorwill! He was fluttering above the Square, and making rather a bad job of the fluttering, because all the rain water had drenched his wings. Alice quickly reached up to try to catch him; in fact, Alice didn't even need to try -- the parrot was so bogged down with moisture, Alice captured him quite easily.

"Whippoorwill!" she scolded. "Look at the state you're in! Whatever will Great Aunt Ermintrude say when I get you home? You will come home with me now, won't you?"

To which the parrot made no reply at all except to look at her with a sideways eye and squawk out another riddle. "Who is it, Alice, that lives between an octopus's area and Ceylon's favourite stethoscope?"

"Well..." commenced Alice, "I almost know where the country called Ceylon is; I've seen it on a map of the world in the schoolroom. I seem to remember that it is famous for growing tea-leaves, but I didn't know that the country had a favourite stethoscope. I didn't know that Ceylon had any stethoscopes at all, let alone a favourite one! And as to how much area an octopus covers; well, I suppose it all depends on how many of his eight legs he might have stretched out, or coiled. But really, Whippoorwill, what could possibly live between two such strange things?"

"Quickly, Alice!"

"Really, I can't make my mind up!"

"Can't make your mind up!" squawked Whippoorwill. "Try making your mind down!"

I can make my mind up, sometimes at least," replied Alice, "but how can I possibly make my mind down ? That doesn't seem right at all!"

"You must become more left than right, Alice," shrieked the parrot. "You must become more down than up! You must find the person that lives between an octopus's area and Ceylon's favourite stethoscope." And upon those wet and slippery words Whippoorwill managed to slip away from Alice's hands!

"Whippoorwill!" called out Alice. "Come back here, immediately!" But off he flew once again, vanishing into the skies of Manchester. "Oh, this is too, too much!" sulked Alice. "Why is Whippoorwill being so very naughty today? But oh my goodness! Whatever's making that dreadful noise? Surely it can't be Whippoorwill? Not even the naughtiest parrot in the world could make such a flapping din?"

Alice had indeed heard a very flapping din, accompanied by a huge blast of wind which caused the rain to blow hither and thither. Alice was in danger of losing Whippoorwill's stray feather in this hithering and thithering, so she quickly stuffed it back into her pinafore pocket. Something must have passed between the Earth and the Sun just then, because a thick shadow was drifting over Albert Square. Alice looked upwards; a gigantic, steam-driven iron bird was hovering above the world, blotting out the Sun and making terrible noises and gusts with its expansive wings (which were not like ordinary wings, because they didn't flap up and down, rather they flapped round and round and round in a blurred circle of metallic feathers). Alice was sure she could see a large cannon fixed on the front of the bird, and perched on its back -- why, it was Mrs Minus and Inspector Jack Russell!

Jack Russell shouted down to Alice, "Give yourself up! Give yourself up!"

Alice would have none of it; she would rather give herself down! She started to run, only to feel a pair of powerful hands clasp around her waist! Alice could not move at all, no matter how hard she struggled! "Get your horrible police-fingers off me!" she shrieked.

"Alice, it's only you," croaked a voice behind her.

"Get off me, myself!" Alice shouted to herself.

"Alice, it's me!" replied the voice, releasing the grip. "In other words, it's you! Twin Twisters, remember?"