Circus - Jace Cameron. Страница 19

“A light bulb,” he finally says. “They have turned it on. They can see everything.”

Chapter 32

Time remaining: 18 hours, 11 minutes

There is hardly anything I can say now, not after Professor Jittery announces he has a light bulb in his head. I mean, I hoped he was at least a little bit sane until that last sentence. But a light bulb? How am I supposed to believe that?

I lean back, waiting for his episode to subside, but it doesn’t. His jittery moves intensify. He is a tall and strong man. I am worried he can unchain himself, although he doesn’t look like he’d hurt me. He is just another Wonderland loon, a product of Alice in Wonderland, the weirdest book in history. But aren’t we all weird-speaking nutcrackers on the edge of our minds?

“I need to cover my head with something. I need to dim the light bulb.” He pulls his head into his outfit, looking like he’s wearing a cloak now.

“Did you turn the light bulb off?” I ask, not knowing how to help a man who thinks he’s been spied on through a light bulb shimmering in his head.

“I just dimmed it, which is fine.” He wipes drool from his mouth. “I buried my secrets in a special part of my brain. When I hide my head under my clothes, they usually can’t find their way around for a while. Then they usually give up and leave me alone when they’re frustrated.”

“You have a special place in your brain where you hide things from others?” I am making conversation until he cools down.

“Come here,” he whispers. “You know there is a left side of the brain and right side, right?”

I nod. Did I learn this in school? If so, what school did I attend?

“The right hemisphere controls the muscles on the left side of the body.” He’s playing professor, and I am his student now. “And vice versa.”

I nod again, a little impatient.

“The left hemisphere is dominant in language, speaking, memory, and in charge of carrying out logic and equations.” I continue listening to him lecturing. Maybe this is getting somewhere. “The right hemisphere is in charge of everything that has to do with arts. It performs some math, but very little. It loves visual imagery.”

“So?”

“The light bulb looks into those two parts of the brain,” he explains. “Do you know in which part I buried my secrets?

“In the right?”

“No.” He smiles broadly. “In the middle.” Now he chuckles like a Mad Hare.

I don’t comment. I push the conversation further. “So we can talk now? They aren’t spying on your brain now, right?”

He nods.

“I need to know how to get to Wonderland.”

Professor Jittery stiffens again. He shakes his head violently and says, “I wish I knew that one. But you can’t get to Wonderland without the Six Impossible—”

“I know. We just talked about that. Then how do I get to Snail Mound?"

“I will tell you, but I have to warn you,” he says, sounding much quieter and saner than before. “To get there you will have to visit one of my gardens. But bad things happen there.”

“It’s okay,” I say. “All I am looking for is to find the rabbit and find a way to defuse the bomb.”

“You’re not listening to me.” He pounds his hands on the table again. I am really fed up with this roller coaster of emotions. “The garden might lead to a dangerous place. A place that ordinary people shouldn’t know about.”

“Does that place have a name?”

He stiffens more, and neglects my question. “Did you ever hear about the Invisible Plague?”

“No.”

“This place in the garden leads you to the Invisible Plague.” He leans forward.

“So that’s it? Some kind of a plague will consume me if I try to catch the rabbit?”

He says nothing, apparently thinking I am a lost cause.

“Now can you please, please, tell me where this door and garden are?”

“Scotland."

“How is the rabbit supposed to be in Scotland?"

"You asked about Snail Mound, and I am telling you where it is."

"Where in Scotland?” I ask, since I have no other option.

“In a place called the Garden of Cosmic Speculation, one of my designs," he says. "I used to live in a house there, and wanted to use it as a portal to Wonderland."

"Did it ever work?"

"It did.” He shrugs. “But...”

“What?”

“It’s some kind of weird version of Wonderland.”

“What do you mean by weird?”

“I can’t really explain it.” He seems to be hiding something. “I mean it somehow only showed certain dark memories of Wonderland. It’s really hard to explain. It messed with my head.”

“Will I find the Snail Mound through these portals?”

“I assume so."

It’s not the greatest answer, but I’m taking what I can get. ”Is that why you fear the place?” I ask. "Because of some bad memories of Wonderland?”

“Yes. And I wonder why you're being sent there," he says. “I designed endless gardens all around the world, in hopes to cross over to Wonderland. Only this one worked. But it doesn’t really work—I know I’m contradicting myself, but I can’t explain it any other way. Let’s say it’s a portal of one of many versions of a possible Wonderland, like a parallel reality. And it messed with my head."

I refrain from saying anything for a moment. Somewhere in the deep end of my mind, I remember having read about parallel worlds, and how scientists assumed there were a million other version of our realities, where we are slightly different people than who we are now.

I think this is the kind of Wonderland the March Hare found. Which I don’t really mind, as long as it will lead me to the rabbit—I have faced madder things than a parallel world.

But why did this version of Wonderland scare him so much? And why was I supposed to go there to find the rabbit?

"Tell me, professor,” I say. “Why was it so important for you to go back? Why can’t you just accept your role in this world as a brilliant landscaper?”

“You don’t understand.” His bulgy eyes are getting moist. “I miss Wonderland. I am like a child who became a scientist, only to learn that all he really wanted was to never grow up in the first place. I wanted to stay in Wonderland. I wanted to find Alice again.”

I don't know why, but it hurts thinking I am not Alice.

“Whoever led you to me, and will lead you to the garden, may not be interested in bombing anyone with this rabbit.” He isn’t the first to tell me this. It’s the Pillar’s theory. "I don't know what his motives may be, but it seems a sinister one to me, because this place you’re going will show you bad things."

“I understand.” I stand up. “Thank you.” I say the words, but can’t leave. I feel sympathy for him. Why is he locked in here, really? Is it this Black Chess organization? Are they really trying to find the secrets in his head? If so, who needs those secrets?

Reluctantly, I pace around the table and approach him personally, worried he might freak. But he doesn’t. I wrap my arms around him, and can feel the warmth and happiness in his body. “Thank you again.” When I raise my head, I see tears in his eyes. Professor Jittery, with all his madness and light bulbs, is the second Wonderlander I’ve met and actually liked—after Fabiola. He isn’t a Wonderland Monster, like the Cheshire. He isn’t mysterious with an agenda, like the Pillar.

Professor Jittery is practically a grown-up kiddo hiding behind the fur of a March Hare. All he wants is to go back to Wonderland and leave this mad world behind.

I wave to him one last time and turn to walk out. I press the red bottom to call the guard.

“One last thing,” Professor Jittery says. I turn around. “The place in the garden you should be warned of.”

“What about it?”

“I can only tell you one thing about it."