Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2007-06-24 01:12 am
ptahrrific) wrote2007-06-24 01:12 am
Fake News: Oliver Through The Looking Glass, Part I
Title: Oliver Through The Looking Glass, Part I: I'm British, You See
Fandom: TDS/TCR, Alice in Wonderland
Genre: Comedy crossover crack
Rating: G
Words: ~3000
Disclaimer: This is a work of parody. Although reference is made to real persons and events, the actions, dialog, and content are products of the artist's imagination only. Themes and content swiped liberally from Through The Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll.
Notes: With original author![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
formerlydf's blessing, I drew a movie poster for her excellent fic Stewart in Wonderland, and then took the plunge and wrote a sequel.
I've tried to make all the characters recognizable, but several are never identified by name, and of course some have been turned into animals. If you're not sure about any of them, just ask. Dave Gorman isn't playing two parts; he has a twin brother in real life.
Chapter I: [You Are Here]
Chapter II: Only Doing My Duty
Chapter III: Queen Oliver
*
*
John Oliver needed a break. He was smart, he was funny, he was a decent actor, but somehow all that plus his dashing good looks had failed to land him anything better than a semi-regular spot on Mock The Week.
"I need a break," he told the looking-glass over his bathroom sink one morning.
His reflection looked sympathetic, but offered no ideas.
"I could move to America," he said out loud, just to hear how it sounded. "The birds there flip for this accent."
No, that wouldn't do. He would surely be typecast as "the Brit"; and even though a typecast job would be better than none, he didn't have enough money to just jet across the pond without a secure job waiting on the other side.
"I could move to Looking-glass Land," he mused, studying the reflection of his bathroom. "To be sure, the bits I can see look just the same, only backwards; but it might be different beyond that bit of hall that you can just see when the door is wide open."
This was a mad idea, of course, but he hadn't any better ones. And then the view in the glass began to blur.
Oliver took off his spectacles and wiped them off, then rubbed his eyes, then replaced the spectacles and looked again. There was no mistaking it: the looking-glass was growing misty, as if it were dissolving. He reached out a hand; sure enough, it went farther forward than it ought to have.
Well, at least the trip would be cheap, unlike a flight to America. Oliver shrugged, climbed up onto his counter, and clambered through the small mist-filled opening where the looking-glass had been.
The room on the other side was just the same as his own bathroom, though of course it was all in reverse, as he was sharply reminded when he very nearly put his foot in the toilet while climbing down on the wrong side. Still, it did not occur to him to go back. He was much too curious about what lay outside.
Oliver's vaguely held plan was to take a lift down from his flat, flag a cab, spend a few quid on some fish and chips, and then perhaps find a queue to stand in for a bit - in short, do as many stereotypically British things as he could think of, to find out how they were different in Looking-glass Land. But there turned out to be no need, for the differences began as soon as he was in the hall. The room into which he had emerged was not part of a flat, but on the ground floor of some very small building, whose windows revealed a garden full of sunshine and flowers. There was no reverse Bedford in sight.
"Curiouser and curiouser," said Oliver to himself, and walked outside.
The garden itself looked very ordinary. Oliver hastened to get beyond it and see what else there was to see, but this proved more difficult than it first seemed, for every path seemed to lead back to the cottage from which he had come. Eventually he fixed his eyes on a little hill and tried to actively move towards it, but just when he was nearly there, the path that he was on gave a great shake (as he described it later) and he found himself on the front walk of the cottage.
Frustrated by all this going in circles, he looked about for some other person; seeing none, he put the house at his back and began walking purposefully forward. When the path forked to either side of a flower-bed, he stepped straight into the flowers.
"Hey!" shouted a voice. "Back off!"
Oliver jumped backwards, swiveling his head wildly. "Who said that?"
"Down here!" came the voice, and Oliver looked at the flowers to see with a start that one large Rose was glaring at him with an angry human face. "Don't think that, because you're new, you can walk all over us!"
"I'm very sorry," said Oliver quickly. "My name is John Oliver," he added, kneeling down to address them face-to-face. "Who are you?"
"We are very important personages," announced a Violet, also turning to face him. "You'll recognize us, I'm sure."
"I'm sorry," said Oliver again. "I'm British, you see..."
"Ohhhh!" chorused the flowers.
"Well, you can't help that," added a Marigold sympathetically. "Perhaps if we introduce ourselves, our names will jog your memory. Matt Walsh."
"Rachel Harris," said the Rose.
"Vance DeGeneres," added a Violet.
"Lauren Weedman," chimed in a Lily.
"Beth Littleford," continued a Bluebonnet. "Surely you recognize us now?"
Oliver shook his head. "I'm afraid not."
There was a shocked murmur among the flowers. As they spoke fervently to each other, Oliver waited patiently; but when none of them seemed inclined to look back at him, he spoke up. "Um, excuse me..."
The Violet looked up. "Yes, what is it?"
"Is there anyone in these gardens besides you flowers?" inquired Oliver, hoping he didn't sound too impolite.
"What do you mean, 'you flowers'?" asked the Lily. "You're just as much a flower as we are."
"Not a very pretty one," added the Bluebonnet. "Your petals are all brown - you'd hardly stand out from the dirt."
"There is one other flower that moves around," put in the Rose. "We don't like her much. She has red petals, but she's thorny."
"She's coming down the path now!" cried the Marigold, and the whole flower-bed ducked and went quiet.
Oliver stood up quickly and brushed the dirt from his trousers. Sure enough, up the path towards him was walking a woman. She was tall and unsettlingly slender, with long straight blonde hair and a haughty expression. Unlike the flowers, she had a familiar face, but her outfit was what caught Oliver's attention: it was unmistakably that of the Red Queen from his old chess set.
"You may well stare," said the Red Queen. "It is perfectly acceptable to tear up in the presence of a Queen. But you do not want to embarrass yourself. I shall lend you my handkerchief."
She handed Oliver a square of red lace. He did not, personally, think that he had been tearing up, but he dabbed at his eyes anyway, just to be polite. "So," he quipped, "would this be Queen Ann's Lace?"
The Queen looked at him coldly. Oliver shut up and returned the handkerchief.
"I was trying to get out of this garden," he said, by way of changing the subject. "Do you know how to do it?"
"Well, of course." The Queen grabbed his hand and began walking towards the cottage, so quickly that Oliver had to trot to keep up. Just as they reached the front walk, the path seemed to shake itself again, and then they were climbing the little hill that Oliver had been aiming for in the beginning.
From here Oliver could see that they were overlooking a broad valley. "I declare," he exclaimed, looking down at the terrain, "with all those criss-crossing little streams, it's laid out in big squares - it's just like a gigantic chess-board! In fact - I can see people moving about down there. It's like a great game of chess, being played all over the world! I'd love to join in - as a Knight, or..."
"You could be a White Pawn," suggested the Red Queen. "Nate's too young to play; you might take his place. Start here, in the Second Square - catch the news van and go right across the Third in your first move - and then take the rest one at a time, until you reach the Eighth, and become a Queen."
"A Queen?" repeated Oliver. "I don't know - I mean," he added quickly, for the Red Queen looked very stern, "not that a Queen isn't a fine piece to be. All right. I'll do it."
"In that case," said the Red Queen, "I take my leave. I never talk to a White piece unless I must." And with that, she vanished. Oliver looked about to see which way she had gone, but in vain; it had been farther and faster than any Pawn could travel.
"I suppose that's one of the privileges of being a Queen," he mused, and began to make his way down the hill. This time he continued to make progress, leaving hill and garden and cottage and all behind him, until he reached the first of the little streams. He took a running leap across it.
* * * * * * *
"Dude, are you coming?"
The speaker was a Mouse with curly dark brown hair, who was leaning out of the driver's-side window of a large white news van. Remembering what the Red Queen had said, Oliver asked, "You'll take me across the Third Square, is that it?"
"Yep. But only if you hop in the back, quickly - if I'm late, the Dorsam will make me sleep on the couch."
Oliver went around to the trailer of the van, climbed in, and shut the doors securely behind him before turning to examine the interior. It was crammed full of televisions, computers, microphones, radar dishes, cameras, and all manner of high-tech equipment. He would feel terrible if he should happen to break any of it.
"Up here," called a voice from near the cab. "There's a free seat."
It wasn't the driver, as Oliver found when he had picked his way through the equipment, but a person, resting on a narrow bench attached to the front end of the trailer. He wore a suit with a tie the color of the Red Queen's dress, and had a square face, narrow eyes, and a hairstyle that would not have moved if a concrete block had fallen on it. Oliver sat down beside him as the truck began to move.
"I'm Joe," said the man, offering his hand. "Red Pawn."
"John Oliver." He shook the hand. "White Pawn."
"Ah! A White piece!" The Red Pawn smiled. "What do you think of the White Queen?"
"I ... haven't actually met her yet," admitted Oliver sheepishly.
"Clearly not," replied Joe, somewhat coldly ("I can't seem to speak to anyone without offending them," thought Oliver to himself), "for the Queen is a 'he'. Do you mean to say that you know nothing at all about the Queen of Wonderland?"
"Wonderland? I thought this was Looking-glass Land."
"It is. It's a part of Wonderland, you know. The White Queen, or the Queen of Hearts, is the ruler; he only came to power recently, but he has begun to make great changes. The Red Queen then challenged him, and the outcome of this game will decide the outcome of the challenge."
Oliver considered this. He had not realized that the game would have serious consequences; what if the White side lost because he did something wrong? On the other hand, while the Red Queen had been quite rude, the White Queen might be far worse for all he knew. "What's the White Queen like?" he asked. "And what sort of changes has he made?"
Joe's face lit up, as though this were exactly what he had hoped to talk about. "Why, all of this," he began, waving a hand around the back of the news van. "He's instituted the sharing of information all around Wonderland. News is broadcast from every area to every other."
"That sounds good," remarked Oliver.
The Red Pawn shook his head. "Ah, but is it? After all, when people hear about the bad things that happen, they become depressed and cynical. The Red Queen believes we should only report bad news about our enemies, and good about our friends. It's good for morale."
Oliver considered this. "So," he said at last, "you being a Red Pawn, you would only tell me the bad things about the White Queen - even if he's a very good Queen."
"Well, yes." Joe sighed. "Which is hard, because he is charming and modest and generous and funny and..."
"Fourth Square!" came a yell from the cab, and with a great jerk the whole van seemed to leap into the air, sending all the equipment crashing backwards. Oliver screwed his eyes shut and gripped the edge of his seat for dear life.
* * * * * * *
When he opened his eyes, he was sitting on the bank of a brook, gripping nothing more than tufts of grass. The van, the driver, and the Red Pawn were nowhere to be seen.
Oliver got to his feet. There was a path beside him, leading away from the little stream; having no better one to follow, he began to walk down it, passing a few trees and then a few more until he was in nothing short of a forest.
He came to a fork in the path, and then another; each fork had a signpost with two arrows, but as they both pointed in the same direction, Oliver took that one. It was the same at the third fork: TO TWEEDLEDAVE'S HOUSE, read one; TO THE HOUSE OF TWEEDLEGORMAN, added the other. "I do believe," said Oliver to himself after the fourth such fork, "that they live in the same house!"
As he said this, he turned a corner and came face to face with two identical men. They wore green suits and had red hair; one wore a beard, the other lamb chops.
"I would estimate," said the bearded one to Oliver, "that there is a probability of six hundred and twenty-three to one against that you are a White Pawn."
"Hello," added the other pleasantly.
"Hello," replied Oliver. "That's right, I'm a White Pawn. My name is John Oliver. What about you?"
"This is Tweedledave," said the one with the chops. "He's a poll smoker."
"And this is Tweedlegorman," said Tweedledave. "He's my twin brother. We are ninety-four point eight percent identical."
"The other six point two percent," explained Tweedlegorman, "is that I'm not good with numbers."
"I think it's five point two percent," offered Oliver.
"Of course it is," said Tweedledave. "He makes that mistake eight times out of ten."
"Do you calculate everything?" asked Oliver, very impressed.
"Eight-seven percent of it. Of the remaining thirteen percent, six point two is not worth it, five point five is too easy, and one point three is too difficult."
"Can I ask you something, then?"
"Certainly," said Tweedlegorman.
"What are the odds of the White side winning this game?"
Tweedledave began speaking very rapidly. "The Red Queen is behind in support by twelve percent, with a two point five percent margin of error. However, her supporters are forty-one percent more likely to say the are 'very likely' to take action in support of her. Furthermore, the Red strategy has been more aggressive, giving them an early favorable position. Nevertheless, I calculate that the White pieces are, on the average, seventy-two percent more likely to make correct decisions; now that they understand the need to be aggressive, this should close the gap. It all comes down to the endgame, in which I estimate a forty-eight percent chance of success."
"I'm actually new in the game," confessed Oliver. "I replaced one of the younger Pawns - Nate was his name. Does that change anything?"
"Of course!" exclaimed Tweedlegorman. "Why didn't you mention that sooner? Yes, if you become a Queen, and can manage not to get captured - you are an unknown quantity, so I've no idea what the odds of this are - but if you can do it, the White side's chances are closer to fifty-three percent."
"Those aren't very good odds," sighed Oliver.
"Cheer up," said Tweedlegorman brightly. "They're better than the other side's!"
"But only if I'm really, really brilliant at this," pointed out Oliver. "I don't know if you two mean to be nonpartisan, but if not, can you tell me, please, what my next move should be?"
The twins looked at each other. "That's so simple, I can answer it," said Tweedlegorman.
They stepped to either side of the path and pointed in tandem down it. "Straight ahead," they chorused.
"Oh. Of course," said Oliver, flushing. "I knew that. Well, thank you very much." He strode forward, nodding to the two men as he passed, and emerged in another minute on the far side of the forest.
The ground here sloped downwards towards the next little brook, and beneath a willow that hung over the bank lay a man, fast asleep. He had thinning, pale hair and large ears, and again Oliver recognized his face as well as his clothing, the latter of which marked him as the Red King.
"Don't wake him up!" called a voice from above. "It'll be the end of you, if you do."
Oliver followed the sound to the branch of a tree, but saw no one there. "Is he really that dangerous?" he called. He looked very peaceful; Oliver wondered what he was dreaming about.
A grin - all by itself in thin air, without a face, much less a body, to call its own - appeared above the branch. "Why, he's dreaming of you, of course!" it exclaimed. "You're only a sort of thing in his dream. And if he wakes up, you'll vanish - poof! - just like that."
"That's ridiculous," replied Oliver. "If I'm a dream, then what are you?" But the grin had vanished.
Oliver looked back at the Red King, took a few steps towards him, then thought better of it. Instead he went down to the brook and jumped across.
* * * * * * *
Fandom: TDS/TCR, Alice in Wonderland
Genre: Comedy crossover crack
Rating: G
Words: ~3000
Disclaimer: This is a work of parody. Although reference is made to real persons and events, the actions, dialog, and content are products of the artist's imagination only. Themes and content swiped liberally from Through The Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll.
Notes: With original author
formerlydf's blessing, I drew a movie poster for her excellent fic Stewart in Wonderland, and then took the plunge and wrote a sequel.I've tried to make all the characters recognizable, but several are never identified by name, and of course some have been turned into animals. If you're not sure about any of them, just ask. Dave Gorman isn't playing two parts; he has a twin brother in real life.
Chapter I: [You Are Here]
Chapter II: Only Doing My Duty
Chapter III: Queen Oliver
*
Oliver Through The Looking-Glass
- I -
I'm British, You See
*
John Oliver needed a break. He was smart, he was funny, he was a decent actor, but somehow all that plus his dashing good looks had failed to land him anything better than a semi-regular spot on Mock The Week.
"I need a break," he told the looking-glass over his bathroom sink one morning.
His reflection looked sympathetic, but offered no ideas.
"I could move to America," he said out loud, just to hear how it sounded. "The birds there flip for this accent."
No, that wouldn't do. He would surely be typecast as "the Brit"; and even though a typecast job would be better than none, he didn't have enough money to just jet across the pond without a secure job waiting on the other side.
"I could move to Looking-glass Land," he mused, studying the reflection of his bathroom. "To be sure, the bits I can see look just the same, only backwards; but it might be different beyond that bit of hall that you can just see when the door is wide open."
This was a mad idea, of course, but he hadn't any better ones. And then the view in the glass began to blur.
Oliver took off his spectacles and wiped them off, then rubbed his eyes, then replaced the spectacles and looked again. There was no mistaking it: the looking-glass was growing misty, as if it were dissolving. He reached out a hand; sure enough, it went farther forward than it ought to have.
Well, at least the trip would be cheap, unlike a flight to America. Oliver shrugged, climbed up onto his counter, and clambered through the small mist-filled opening where the looking-glass had been.
The room on the other side was just the same as his own bathroom, though of course it was all in reverse, as he was sharply reminded when he very nearly put his foot in the toilet while climbing down on the wrong side. Still, it did not occur to him to go back. He was much too curious about what lay outside.
Oliver's vaguely held plan was to take a lift down from his flat, flag a cab, spend a few quid on some fish and chips, and then perhaps find a queue to stand in for a bit - in short, do as many stereotypically British things as he could think of, to find out how they were different in Looking-glass Land. But there turned out to be no need, for the differences began as soon as he was in the hall. The room into which he had emerged was not part of a flat, but on the ground floor of some very small building, whose windows revealed a garden full of sunshine and flowers. There was no reverse Bedford in sight.
"Curiouser and curiouser," said Oliver to himself, and walked outside.
The garden itself looked very ordinary. Oliver hastened to get beyond it and see what else there was to see, but this proved more difficult than it first seemed, for every path seemed to lead back to the cottage from which he had come. Eventually he fixed his eyes on a little hill and tried to actively move towards it, but just when he was nearly there, the path that he was on gave a great shake (as he described it later) and he found himself on the front walk of the cottage.
Frustrated by all this going in circles, he looked about for some other person; seeing none, he put the house at his back and began walking purposefully forward. When the path forked to either side of a flower-bed, he stepped straight into the flowers.
"Hey!" shouted a voice. "Back off!"
Oliver jumped backwards, swiveling his head wildly. "Who said that?"
"Down here!" came the voice, and Oliver looked at the flowers to see with a start that one large Rose was glaring at him with an angry human face. "Don't think that, because you're new, you can walk all over us!"
"I'm very sorry," said Oliver quickly. "My name is John Oliver," he added, kneeling down to address them face-to-face. "Who are you?"
"We are very important personages," announced a Violet, also turning to face him. "You'll recognize us, I'm sure."
"I'm sorry," said Oliver again. "I'm British, you see..."
"Ohhhh!" chorused the flowers.
"Well, you can't help that," added a Marigold sympathetically. "Perhaps if we introduce ourselves, our names will jog your memory. Matt Walsh."
"Rachel Harris," said the Rose.
"Vance DeGeneres," added a Violet.
"Lauren Weedman," chimed in a Lily.
"Beth Littleford," continued a Bluebonnet. "Surely you recognize us now?"
Oliver shook his head. "I'm afraid not."
There was a shocked murmur among the flowers. As they spoke fervently to each other, Oliver waited patiently; but when none of them seemed inclined to look back at him, he spoke up. "Um, excuse me..."
The Violet looked up. "Yes, what is it?"
"Is there anyone in these gardens besides you flowers?" inquired Oliver, hoping he didn't sound too impolite.
"What do you mean, 'you flowers'?" asked the Lily. "You're just as much a flower as we are."
"Not a very pretty one," added the Bluebonnet. "Your petals are all brown - you'd hardly stand out from the dirt."
"There is one other flower that moves around," put in the Rose. "We don't like her much. She has red petals, but she's thorny."
"She's coming down the path now!" cried the Marigold, and the whole flower-bed ducked and went quiet.
Oliver stood up quickly and brushed the dirt from his trousers. Sure enough, up the path towards him was walking a woman. She was tall and unsettlingly slender, with long straight blonde hair and a haughty expression. Unlike the flowers, she had a familiar face, but her outfit was what caught Oliver's attention: it was unmistakably that of the Red Queen from his old chess set.
"You may well stare," said the Red Queen. "It is perfectly acceptable to tear up in the presence of a Queen. But you do not want to embarrass yourself. I shall lend you my handkerchief."
She handed Oliver a square of red lace. He did not, personally, think that he had been tearing up, but he dabbed at his eyes anyway, just to be polite. "So," he quipped, "would this be Queen Ann's Lace?"
The Queen looked at him coldly. Oliver shut up and returned the handkerchief.
"I was trying to get out of this garden," he said, by way of changing the subject. "Do you know how to do it?"
"Well, of course." The Queen grabbed his hand and began walking towards the cottage, so quickly that Oliver had to trot to keep up. Just as they reached the front walk, the path seemed to shake itself again, and then they were climbing the little hill that Oliver had been aiming for in the beginning.
From here Oliver could see that they were overlooking a broad valley. "I declare," he exclaimed, looking down at the terrain, "with all those criss-crossing little streams, it's laid out in big squares - it's just like a gigantic chess-board! In fact - I can see people moving about down there. It's like a great game of chess, being played all over the world! I'd love to join in - as a Knight, or..."
"You could be a White Pawn," suggested the Red Queen. "Nate's too young to play; you might take his place. Start here, in the Second Square - catch the news van and go right across the Third in your first move - and then take the rest one at a time, until you reach the Eighth, and become a Queen."
"A Queen?" repeated Oliver. "I don't know - I mean," he added quickly, for the Red Queen looked very stern, "not that a Queen isn't a fine piece to be. All right. I'll do it."
"In that case," said the Red Queen, "I take my leave. I never talk to a White piece unless I must." And with that, she vanished. Oliver looked about to see which way she had gone, but in vain; it had been farther and faster than any Pawn could travel.
"I suppose that's one of the privileges of being a Queen," he mused, and began to make his way down the hill. This time he continued to make progress, leaving hill and garden and cottage and all behind him, until he reached the first of the little streams. He took a running leap across it.
* * * * * * *
"Dude, are you coming?"
The speaker was a Mouse with curly dark brown hair, who was leaning out of the driver's-side window of a large white news van. Remembering what the Red Queen had said, Oliver asked, "You'll take me across the Third Square, is that it?"
"Yep. But only if you hop in the back, quickly - if I'm late, the Dorsam will make me sleep on the couch."
Oliver went around to the trailer of the van, climbed in, and shut the doors securely behind him before turning to examine the interior. It was crammed full of televisions, computers, microphones, radar dishes, cameras, and all manner of high-tech equipment. He would feel terrible if he should happen to break any of it.
"Up here," called a voice from near the cab. "There's a free seat."
It wasn't the driver, as Oliver found when he had picked his way through the equipment, but a person, resting on a narrow bench attached to the front end of the trailer. He wore a suit with a tie the color of the Red Queen's dress, and had a square face, narrow eyes, and a hairstyle that would not have moved if a concrete block had fallen on it. Oliver sat down beside him as the truck began to move.
"I'm Joe," said the man, offering his hand. "Red Pawn."
"John Oliver." He shook the hand. "White Pawn."
"Ah! A White piece!" The Red Pawn smiled. "What do you think of the White Queen?"
"I ... haven't actually met her yet," admitted Oliver sheepishly.
"Clearly not," replied Joe, somewhat coldly ("I can't seem to speak to anyone without offending them," thought Oliver to himself), "for the Queen is a 'he'. Do you mean to say that you know nothing at all about the Queen of Wonderland?"
"Wonderland? I thought this was Looking-glass Land."
"It is. It's a part of Wonderland, you know. The White Queen, or the Queen of Hearts, is the ruler; he only came to power recently, but he has begun to make great changes. The Red Queen then challenged him, and the outcome of this game will decide the outcome of the challenge."
Oliver considered this. He had not realized that the game would have serious consequences; what if the White side lost because he did something wrong? On the other hand, while the Red Queen had been quite rude, the White Queen might be far worse for all he knew. "What's the White Queen like?" he asked. "And what sort of changes has he made?"
Joe's face lit up, as though this were exactly what he had hoped to talk about. "Why, all of this," he began, waving a hand around the back of the news van. "He's instituted the sharing of information all around Wonderland. News is broadcast from every area to every other."
"That sounds good," remarked Oliver.
The Red Pawn shook his head. "Ah, but is it? After all, when people hear about the bad things that happen, they become depressed and cynical. The Red Queen believes we should only report bad news about our enemies, and good about our friends. It's good for morale."
Oliver considered this. "So," he said at last, "you being a Red Pawn, you would only tell me the bad things about the White Queen - even if he's a very good Queen."
"Well, yes." Joe sighed. "Which is hard, because he is charming and modest and generous and funny and..."
"Fourth Square!" came a yell from the cab, and with a great jerk the whole van seemed to leap into the air, sending all the equipment crashing backwards. Oliver screwed his eyes shut and gripped the edge of his seat for dear life.
* * * * * * *
When he opened his eyes, he was sitting on the bank of a brook, gripping nothing more than tufts of grass. The van, the driver, and the Red Pawn were nowhere to be seen.
Oliver got to his feet. There was a path beside him, leading away from the little stream; having no better one to follow, he began to walk down it, passing a few trees and then a few more until he was in nothing short of a forest.
He came to a fork in the path, and then another; each fork had a signpost with two arrows, but as they both pointed in the same direction, Oliver took that one. It was the same at the third fork: TO TWEEDLEDAVE'S HOUSE, read one; TO THE HOUSE OF TWEEDLEGORMAN, added the other. "I do believe," said Oliver to himself after the fourth such fork, "that they live in the same house!"
As he said this, he turned a corner and came face to face with two identical men. They wore green suits and had red hair; one wore a beard, the other lamb chops.
"I would estimate," said the bearded one to Oliver, "that there is a probability of six hundred and twenty-three to one against that you are a White Pawn."
"Hello," added the other pleasantly.
"Hello," replied Oliver. "That's right, I'm a White Pawn. My name is John Oliver. What about you?"
"This is Tweedledave," said the one with the chops. "He's a poll smoker."
"And this is Tweedlegorman," said Tweedledave. "He's my twin brother. We are ninety-four point eight percent identical."
"The other six point two percent," explained Tweedlegorman, "is that I'm not good with numbers."
"I think it's five point two percent," offered Oliver.
"Of course it is," said Tweedledave. "He makes that mistake eight times out of ten."
"Do you calculate everything?" asked Oliver, very impressed.
"Eight-seven percent of it. Of the remaining thirteen percent, six point two is not worth it, five point five is too easy, and one point three is too difficult."
"Can I ask you something, then?"
"Certainly," said Tweedlegorman.
"What are the odds of the White side winning this game?"
Tweedledave began speaking very rapidly. "The Red Queen is behind in support by twelve percent, with a two point five percent margin of error. However, her supporters are forty-one percent more likely to say the are 'very likely' to take action in support of her. Furthermore, the Red strategy has been more aggressive, giving them an early favorable position. Nevertheless, I calculate that the White pieces are, on the average, seventy-two percent more likely to make correct decisions; now that they understand the need to be aggressive, this should close the gap. It all comes down to the endgame, in which I estimate a forty-eight percent chance of success."
"I'm actually new in the game," confessed Oliver. "I replaced one of the younger Pawns - Nate was his name. Does that change anything?"
"Of course!" exclaimed Tweedlegorman. "Why didn't you mention that sooner? Yes, if you become a Queen, and can manage not to get captured - you are an unknown quantity, so I've no idea what the odds of this are - but if you can do it, the White side's chances are closer to fifty-three percent."
"Those aren't very good odds," sighed Oliver.
"Cheer up," said Tweedlegorman brightly. "They're better than the other side's!"
"But only if I'm really, really brilliant at this," pointed out Oliver. "I don't know if you two mean to be nonpartisan, but if not, can you tell me, please, what my next move should be?"
The twins looked at each other. "That's so simple, I can answer it," said Tweedlegorman.
They stepped to either side of the path and pointed in tandem down it. "Straight ahead," they chorused.
"Oh. Of course," said Oliver, flushing. "I knew that. Well, thank you very much." He strode forward, nodding to the two men as he passed, and emerged in another minute on the far side of the forest.
The ground here sloped downwards towards the next little brook, and beneath a willow that hung over the bank lay a man, fast asleep. He had thinning, pale hair and large ears, and again Oliver recognized his face as well as his clothing, the latter of which marked him as the Red King.
"Don't wake him up!" called a voice from above. "It'll be the end of you, if you do."
Oliver followed the sound to the branch of a tree, but saw no one there. "Is he really that dangerous?" he called. He looked very peaceful; Oliver wondered what he was dreaming about.
A grin - all by itself in thin air, without a face, much less a body, to call its own - appeared above the branch. "Why, he's dreaming of you, of course!" it exclaimed. "You're only a sort of thing in his dream. And if he wakes up, you'll vanish - poof! - just like that."
"That's ridiculous," replied Oliver. "If I'm a dream, then what are you?" But the grin had vanished.
Oliver looked back at the Red King, took a few steps towards him, then thought better of it. Instead he went down to the brook and jumped across.
* * * * * * *