The Experience of Being Alive

Chapter Thirty-Six

For thirty-five straight days and nights, Binny and her increasingly-large group of supporters followed a similar pattern. After dinner they would sneak down to the locked room with a copy of Alice in Wonderland and occupy the Mad Hatter’s house typing until the wee hours in the morning when they couldn’t keep their eyes open.

Binny didn’t enjoy the process of writing. In fact, she found it a chore. But she knew everyone was depending on her. So she wrote. And wrote more. The sting of humiliation if she failed was greater than the pain of writing.

Each night a new chapter was produced. And each night they would exit Alice in Wonderland, remove the book from the lectern, carefully put the scroll back where it had been, and lock the room. 

But it became quickly clear on multiple fronts that Binny couldn’t do it alone. At first Arya and Katniss would read the pages as they came off the typewriter providing feedback, noting continuity issues, and pointing out over-exposition or awkward constructions.

Binny would then need to retype the pages with the new edits. It usually took at least two rounds for each chapter to be in good enough shape that Binny thought it was done. But eventually, they would need more than one copy of the book. Binny hadn’t considered that when they’d embarked on their project.

By the end of the first week, Binny had gone to her own book a dozen more times to fetch a dozen additional teal typewriters set up on every flat surface in the Hatter’s cottage. A dozen additional typists were brought in to start reproducing Binny’s pages as she finished them. The clacking sound of the typewriters was so loud, Binny eventually had to move to the attic so she could write in relative peace. 

Periodically Katniss would arrive with tea and crumpets acquired surreptitiously from the tea party that was continuously going on just outside the house. Its attendees never deigned to get up from their seats, but they also never failed to offer an obnoxious salutation to passersby. Binny and the others got used to it.

Binny didn’t get used to the periodic revelation that she would accidentally drop on the group. Chapter 21 in particular threw everyone for a loop.

“You actually met your author?” Arya demanded. “And you told Katniss but not me?”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to hurt your feelings. I promise.” Binny explained.

Arya didn’t stay mad for long. Instead she spent most of that night composing a list of questions she had for her author. Chief among them was, “When are you gonna finish the next book?” followed closely by “Are you gonna kill me too?”

It was late on the thirty-fifth night when something happened. Binny was just putting the finishing touches on the thirty-fifth chapter when someone sounded the signal. A loud whistle. Someone was coming.

Binny shimmied down the ladder from the attic and instructed everyone to stay put. If someone was coming, there was no way they’d be able to get over a dozen people out of the book, out of the room, and to safety without being noticed. For the moment, everyone would have to sit tight.

Binny burst out of the house to see Lancelot running towards her at top speed past the tea party.

“Someone’s coming.” Lancelot panted.

“Is it Two?” Binny asked.

“No. It’s not one of the Keepers. It’s someone I don’t recognize.”

This wasn’t the emergency Binny was expecting. She and Lancelot exited the book, reset the room, and locked the door. They started walking down the stone hallway when they heard the footsteps coming down the circular stairwell. Binny braced herself. Lancelot pulled out a sword, ready to act.