On the third time this happened, however, Malingo reappeared with the leathery flaps he had on his face standing proud with excitement. He was wearing a cockeyed grin.
“Lady! Lady!” he said. “You have to come and look at this!”
“What is it?”
“I can’t really describe it. You just have to come!”
His excitement was infectious. Candy put off going to watch the Huffaker Snail Tabernacle Choir and followed through the throng to a tent. It was not one of the huge circus-sized tents, but it was large enough to hold several hundred people. Inside there were about thirty rows of wooden benches, most of them filled by an audience that was roaringly entertained by the play that was being performed onstage.
“Sit! Sit!” Malingo urged her. “You have to see this!”
Candy sat down on the end of a crowded bench. There was no room for Malingo anywhere nearby, so he remained standing.
The setting of the play was a single large room stuffed to over-capacity with books, antique ornaments and fanciful furniture, the arms and legs of which were carved with the scowling heads and tremendous talons of Abaratian monsters. All of this was pure theatrical illusion, of course; most of the room was painted on canvas, and the details of the furniture were painted too. As a result, none of it was very solid. The whole set shook whenever a cast member slammed a door or opened a window. And there was plenty of that. The play was a wild farce, which the actors performed with abandon, yelling and throwing themselves around like clowns in a circus ring.
The audience was laughing so hard that many of the jokes had to be repeated for the benefit of those who didn’t hear them the first time. Glancing along the row in which she was sitting, Candy saw people with tears of laughter pouring down their faces.
“What’s so funny?” Candy said to Malingo.
“You’ll see,” he replied.
She went on watching. There was a shrill exchange going on between a young woman in a bright orange wig and a bizarre individual called Jingo (that much she heard), who was running around the room like a crazy man, hiding under the table one moment and hanging from the swaying scenery the next. To judge by the audience’s response this was about the funniest thing they’d ever seen. But Candy was still lost as to what it was all about. Until—
—a man in a bright yellow suit came onstage, demanding rum.
Candy’s jaw fell open. She looked up at Malingo with an expression of disbelief on her face. He smiled from ear to ear and nodded, as if to say: Yes, that’s right. It’s what you think it is.
“Why are you keeping me here, Jaspar Codswoddle?” the young woman demanded.
“Because it suits me, Qwandy Tootinfruit!”
Candy suddenly laughed so loudly that everybody else around her stopped laughing for a moment. A few puzzled faces were turned in her direction.
“Qwandy Tootinfruit…” she whispered. “It’s a very funny name…”
Meanwhile, onstage: “You’re my prisoner,” Codswoddle was saying to Qwandy. “And you’re going to stay here as long as it suits me.”
At this, the girl ran to the door; but the Codswoddle character threw an elaborate gesture in her direction, and there was a flash and a puff of yellow smoke, and a large grotesque face appeared carved on the door, snarling like a rabid beast.
Jingo hid under the table, blabbering. The audience went wild with appreciation at the stage trickery. Malingo took a moment to lean over and whisper to Candy.
“We’re famous,” he said. “It’s our story, only sillified.”
“Sillified?” she said. It was a new word, but it nicely described the version of the truth that was being played out on the stage. This was a sillification of the truth. What had been a frightening experience for both Candy and Malingo was enacted here as an excuse for pratfalls, word games, face pullings and pie fights.
The audience, of course, didn’t care. What did it matter to them whether this was true or not? A story was a story. All they wanted was to be entertained.
Candy beckoned to Malingo, who squatted down on his haunches beside her.
“Who do you suppose told the playwright about what happened to us?” she whispered to him. “It wasn’t you. It wasn’t me.”
“Oh, there’s plenty of spirits on Ninnyhammer who could have been listening.”
By now the play was heading for its big conclusion , and events onstage were getting more and more spectacular. Tootinfruit had stolen a volume of Codswoddle’s magic, and a battle of wild conjurations ensued, with the stage set becoming a fourth actor in the play. Furniture came to life and stalked around the stage; Codswoddle’s yellow-suited ancestors stepped out of a painting on the wall and tap-danced. And finally Qwandy used a spell to open up a hole in the floor, and the malevolent Codswoddle and all his train of monstrous tricks were snatched away into what Candy assumed was the Abaratian version of hell. Finally, to everybody’s delight, the walls of the house folded up and were dragged away down the same infernal hole, leaving Qwandy and Jingo standing against a backcloth of sparkling stars, free at last. It was all strangely satisfying, even for Candy, who knew that this version was very far from the truth. When the crowd rose to give the bowing actors a standing ovation, she found herself rising to join in the applause.
Then the painted red curtain came down, and the crowd began to disperse, talking excitedly and repeating favorite lines to one another.
“Did you enjoy it?” Malingo asked Candy.
“In a weird way, yes. It’s nice to hear that laughter. It—”
She stopped for a moment.
“What’s wrong?” said Malingo.
“I thought I heard somebody calling out my name.”
“Here? No, I—”
“There! Somebody is calling my name.” She looked over the crowd, puzzled.
“Maybe one of the actors,” Malingo said. Looking back toward the stage. “Perhaps you were recognized?”
“No. It wasn’t one of the actors,” Candy replied.
“Who then?”
“Him.”
She pointed across the rows of benches toward a solitary figure who was standing close to the flap of the tent. The man was instantly recognizable, even though they were just catching glimpses of him through the departing crowd. The colorless skin, the deep-set eyes, the designs on his cheeks. There was no mistaking him.
It was Otto Houlihan, the Criss-Cross Man.
“HOW DID YOU FIND us?” Candy asked. Otto Houlihan smiled that joyless smile of his. “I followed the trail of stinking smatterlings,” he said. “It wasn’t hard to figure out where you’d gone. You’re not all that clever, whatever you might think.”
“But how—”
“—did I know you were making a getaway on a little fishing boat?”
“Kud told him,” Malingo said.
“Good guess, geshrat,” Otto replied. He didn’t look at Malingo. He concentrated his chilly gaze on Candy. “My, but you’ve become so much more famous since last we met.” He glanced toward the stage. “Apparently your life is now the stuff of bad comedy. Imagine that.”
“Why don’t you give up the chase?” Candy replied. “We’re never going