Jeff Noon - Automated Alice

But the parrot only flapped his green-and-yellow wings at Alice and then flew off from the top of the hedge. He vanished into the knotted maze of the garden. Alice tried her very best to run after the beating of his wings, but all around her the stark branches tried to clutch at her pinafore and the autumn leaves under her feet seemed to crackle like dry voices. Here and there amidst the leaves Alice noticed various work tools -- hammers, screwdrivers, chisels, even a pair of compasses -- that were littering each pathway. "Somebody's being very untidy in their work," Alice said to herself whilst running. "My Great Aunt would certainly punish me severely for leaving my pencils and books in such disarray in her radish garden. But never mind such thoughts, I must try to capture Whippoorwill." So Alice kept on twisting and turning along the alleyways of the garden's maze until she found herself even more lost than she had been before.

"Oh dear," sighed Alice to herself, flopping down against the nearest hedge (and nearly cutting her knees on a discarded hacksaw lying in the grass), "I'm ever so tired. Maybe if I took just a little nap, I would then be more refreshed for this adventure."

But just as Alice was dozing off, she heard somebody in a rather croaky voice calling out her name. "Alice?" the croaky voice called. "Is that you hiding there behind the hedgerow?"

This is indeed Alice," replied Alice, sleepily, "but I'm not hiding; I'm only trying to find my parrot."

"You're looking in quite the wrong place," croaked the voice.

"And who are you?" Alice asked, rather impatiently.

"Why, I'm you of course," the voice answered.

"But that's impossible," replied Alice, full of indignation, "because I'm me."

"That leaves only one possibility," said the voice: "I must be you as well."

The funny thing was, the voice from the garden certainly did sound like Alice's voice, if rather croaky, and very confused Alice was upon hearing it: "How can I be in two places at one time?" she pondered. "But then again and after all," she added to herself, "I am in two times at one place, 1860 and 1998, so maybe this isn't all that very strange." Alice then pulled herself together (as best you can in a knot garden) and asked the voice this question: "Where in the knottings are you, croaky voice?"

"I'm right behind you, Alice," the voice replied, croakingly, "at the very centre of the maze, which lies just behind the hedgerow you are resting against. I have your parrot here with me."

"Oh thank you for catching him! But how can I find you?" Alice asked.

"Why, I'm only some few feet away from you, behind this very hedgerow."

"But you know very well, Miss Mysterious Voice, that this is a knot garden; I could be miles and miles away from you along all the twistings and the turnings."

"You could always cut your way through, Alice."

This made Alice pay proper attention; she would never have thought of such an idea on her own. She turned around to peer through the branches but they were too thickly interwoven: Alice could see only sparkles of colour through the gaps. "Haven't you a penknife?" the voice asked.

"I most certainly have not!" cried Alice in exasperation, and then (after a second's further pondering) she added, "But I've got something even betterer, even sharperer!" (In her excitement Alice had forgotten all about her grammar.)

A longer than long time later (because the branches were very thick and the hacksaw was more blunt than sharp) Alice finally managed to cut her way through the hedgerow. It was almost daylight by the time that she had pushed aside the final branches: and there she found herself at last, in the very centre of the maze. The statue of a young girl was standing upon a podium inside a circle of trees and shadows. She looked a lot like Alice, that statue, especially with the early morning's sunlight sheening her face; the statue even wore a (rather stiff-looking, granted) replica of Alice's red pinafore. Alice was quite taken aback by the resemblance. Why, for a whole second, Alice didn't know which girl she truly was! But on the statue's left shoulder Whippoorwill the parrot was perched. And stretched between the statue's outstretched hands was a long and writhing and very angry-looking, purple-and-turquoise-banded snake!

"Oh dear," cried Alice (in a whisper), "I do hope that snake isn't poisonous!"

"Not only is this snake poisonous," replied the statue in the croaky voice that Alice had heard previously, "it is also extremely venomous."

"Is there a difference," Alice asked (not even pausing to think about how a statue could speak), "between poisonous and venomous?"

"Most certainly there is: anything can be poisonous but only a snake can be venomous. Venom is the name of the poisonous fluid secreted from a snake's glands. The origins of the word can be traced back to the goddess Venus, thereby implying that snake venom can be used as a love potion. Perhaps it was this usage that directed Queen Cleopatra of Egypt to use this particular snake as her instrument of suicide. After all, this is an asp that I hold in my hands, also known as the Egyptian cobra."

"Why ever don't you throw the snake away?" asked Alice of the statue.

"How can I?" the statue replied. "I can't even move. After all, I am a statue."

"But you can talk, so you must be a very special statue," said Alice.

"I am a very special statue. My name is Celia."

"But that's my doll's name!" Alice cried (having quite forgotten, once again, until that very moment, that her doll was still missing).

"Yes, that's me," the statue croaked to Alice, "I'm your doll."

"You're Celia?"

"Yes, that's my name."

"But you're much too large to be my doll," exclaimed Alice. Indeed, the statue was exactly the same size as Alice.

"I'm your twin twister," the statue said.

"But I haven't got a twin sister," replied Alice, quite mishearing.

"I didn't say twin sister, I said twin twister. You see, Alice, when you named me Celia, all you did was twist the letters of your own name around into a new spelling. I'm your anagrammed sister."

"Oh goodness!" said Alice, "I didn't realize I'd done that. How clever of me." And then Alice finally worked out Whippoorwill's last riddle; she realized that the statue-doll sounded just like her in the way she spoke, and their names were the same, only misspelt: Celia and Alice.

"The trouble with you, Alice," croaked Celia, "is that you don't realize you've done anything, until it's much, much too late. Whereas I your twin twister, I know exactly what I've done, even before I've done it."

"Who turned you into this garden statue, Celia?"

"Pablo the sculptor."

"And who is this Pablo?"

"Presently I shall tell you. For the moment, however, I'm quite helpless unless you remove this snake from my fingers."

"Who put the snake in your fingers?" asked Alice.

"The Civil Serpents of course. Who else? They don't want us statues moving around freely, that would break all the rules of reality."

"But --"

"Alice, there's no time for further questions. Kindly remove this asp from my grasp."

"However shall I remove that snake," Alice asked herself, "without getting myself poisoned? Or, indeed, venomed? Oh well, I suppose I can only try my very best if I'm ever going to get us all back home in time for my writing lesson. Now, what was it that Great Uncle Mortimer had said about dealing with dangerous creatures? Look them in the eye, that was it: look them in the eye and recite the Lord's Prayer."

So Alice did look the snake in the eye; only, just as she was about to start her rendition of the Lord's Prayer the snake hissed! at her. Alice was sure she could hear certain words in between each hiss. They sounded something like this: "Do you mind, young lady? I'm an Under Assistant of the Civil Serpents!" And so very fearful a noise the snake made that Alice cleanly forgot every single word of the Lord's Prayer.