Mister Monday: Chapters Twenty-Eight and Twenty-Nine

[pangolin20]

Chapters Twenty-Six and Twenty-Seven | Table of Contents | Final Thoughts/Verdict

Corneille Blanche: A good day, everyone, and welcome back to Mister Monday! Last time, we had some wrap-up as the Will agreed to let Arthur go home and took the Key, he made some appointments, and he received a cure for the plague.

We last left off with Arthur saying he wanted to go home. The Will is still not sure she approves. She asks if “Seven Dials” is still in the Dayroom or has moved elsewhere. Sneezer says he thinks it is still here. We are then shown that Sneezer is now “much cleaner and better groomed”. His gloves are now fixed, his teeth are “no longer curved and yellow” and he no longer has “broken blood vessels” on his nose. Good for him! As for why he looked that way in the first place, I guess that Monday did not let him take care of himself? Or is this supposed to be that he looks good now that he has turned “good”? Either way, I am reasonably sure that Nix’s intention is not coming across.

The Will explains that there are “two main ways” to go to the Secondary Realms from the Lower House. The first is the Dials, if you know how to use them, and the second is the Front Door. Given that those will prove to be the primary methods for any Realm, I find it quite convenient that both the main portal of the Front Door and the Seven Dials are placed here. Arthur does not want to go through the Front Door again, thinking of the void of Monday’s Postern. The Will says he would not have to do that, as he would “go out the Front Door all the way”. It is certain to be watched more carefully by the Morrow Days, though, and it would be good to avoid their interest for as long as they can, so the Seven Dials it is.

Arthur agrees. He turns around to say goodbye, and finds everyone “kneeling in the grass”. He says goodbye and, after some hesitation, bows. Everyone bends their heads while still kneeling. Arthur’s “heart [sinks]” at this, as he does not want to say goodbye like this. Suzy then raises her head, gives him a wink and a smile and rolls her eyes at the company. Nice. Arthur says goodbye, calling her “Monday’s Tierce”. Suzy says goodbye back and tells him to watch out for the Morrow Days. Arthur now says goodbye to everyone, and everyone says goodbye back. Well, that is a much better way to part, I would say.

Arthur waves again, then follows the Will back into the Dayroom. The mud pools have entirely gone and now it looks like “the interior of an old house, or maybe a museum”. Sneezer leads the way up a staircase and down a “very long corridor” to a “very comfortable-looking” library. It is about as large as the one at his school (that is an ex-library, though), but it has “old wooden shelves” and some comfortable-looking chairs. The newer edition changes that to “thickly unholstered leather armchairs”. I… think something went wrong here with both version I have.

Sneezer gets out a “cloth and a brush” and uses them on Arthur, which removes the mud. He says he has put Arthur’s clothes behind a shelf. Arthur thanks him and smiles at the sight of his clothing. He does not want to go back “in a nightshirt without underpants”, after all. So he goes to dress and within a minute, he is dressed. Though his clothing has been “pressed and cleaned” (impressive!), the labels and waistband are still missing and he wonders how he will tell Emily. That is a nice bit of characterisation. (Given all the stuff in the next books… I do not think Emily will ever mind, though.) He also carefully transfers the Nightsweeper to his shirt pocket. The horse whinnies softly, but seems “quite comfortable”.

Arthur comes back and finds Sneezer waiting. He gives Arthur a book from a “small ivory-fronted shelf”, saying it is Arthur’s. (He also calls Arthur “milord” constantly, which I just wanted to note.) Then he pulls on a “bell rope” in a corner, which rings a bell in the distance. After a few seconds, an entire wall rolls away to reveal a “strange seven-sided room”. In the centre of it stand “seven grandfather clocks” that face each other. Their pendulums make a “collective swimmy sort of thrum” which Arthur compares to hearing your heartbeat with your ears blocked. The Seven Dials certainly look nice, then.

Arthur looks at the book and realises it is the Atlas. I see the last we heard of it was in chapter 12, where the Will explained he could only get it back when becoming Master, and the only time he has thought of it in the meantime was in chapter 20, when he complained about not getting information from it. If we had Arthur think about getting information from it or just about missing it, I think this would flow smoother. I do like that it is getting followed up on, of course, but this just feels a bit out of nowhere.

Arthur says the Will should have it, not he, and he cannot even open it without the Key. The Will says it is his, and he has born the Key for so long that he can access some information. I do hope that would be the information he needs, then… She says he will need something else, too, then reaches into her sleeve and pulls out “a red lacquered container about the same size as a shoe box”. Arthur takes it and tucks it under his arm. He asks what it is. The Will says it is a telephone, in case the Morrow Days “prove less kind than [they] might hope” or if she needs Arthur’s counsel. Arthur protests because he wanted to be left alone for several years. The Will says she will only use it “in the most dire emergency”, and it is only “insurance against perfidious fate”. That will probably be quite soon, as I can hardly imagine the Morrow Days not reacting to Monday’s deposal. Arthur agrees angrily, tucks the box beneath his arm again and paces.

He asks if he can “finally go home” (that is about how I feel, too…). Sneezer, who is moving the hands of the clocks, apologises. He says what he is doing is “rather complicated”, but will be done soon. Arthur stops pacing and checks for the Nightsweeper again. Sneezer then says he is ready and tells Arthur to quickly get in the circle of clocks before they strike. The Will wishes Arthur goodbye. She says he has shown “great fortitude” and, as she expected, he has proven to be a “most excellent choice”. And you were quite lucky that he decided to follow you all the way. Then she gives him what is meant to be a “small push towards the clocks”, but actually sends him nearly flying into them. Sneezer catches him, puts him in the middle of the circle and then jumps out.

The clocks strike and the room becomes hazy. Arthur can still see the Will waving her handkerchief and Sneezer saluting and then a “familiar white glow” appears all around. Arthur says it is like the Improbable Stair. Thank you for that. Either way, Arthur has now left the House, and this whole “goodbye” scene reads like he is not likely to return, either. Yes, that is probably what the people he says goodbye to think… but it is still the first book of a series of seven, so such a definite farewell is quite ridiculous. Further, having Arthur say his last goodbyes to the Will and Sneezer… why should I care? We hardly know Sneezer and the Will sucks quite a bit, so I find it hard to feel much besides wishing that Arthur could go home already.

He just stands there for a while, wondering what will happen next and where and when he will come out. He thinks that he should have told Sneezer just what he wanted, but it does not matter as long as he can use the Nightsweeper. I mean… I do not think that Sneezer would put you in the wrong time, and he could probably aim for your city, at least. The white light pulses and begins to close in on Arthur on three sides. On the fourth side, it extends to become a “kind of narrow corridor”. Arthur hesitates, but as the light keeps closing in, he goes along the corridor.

He walks along it for a while and finally gets worried. He even thinks about calling the Will, and thinks something might have gone wrong with the Seven Dials and Sneezer might be working for the Morrow Days. Still, he fights back his fears and keeps walking. I think this might have been avoided if he had asked for details… Eventually the white light fades and yellow light seeps in. He can vaguely hear things, too: a helicopter and “distant sirens”. He also has some trouble breathing; it is not much, just a “minor catch to his breath”.

Then the white light disappears and Arthur is wholly back on Earth! Well, that was rather disappointing compared to the Improbable Stair or the Front Door. Sunshine floods in and the sound of the quarantined city. Arthur shields his face and notices that he is on a “suburban street”, outside “a house with a newly painted garage door”. That was the house Bob saw when Arthur tried to point out the House in the beginning of the book. So, now that Arthur’s adventure is over, the House his disappeared, too. How convenient. Arthur drops his hand and looks around. The House is obviously gone and he can see the earlier buildings. In the distance, there is a “plume of black smoke” with helicopters around it (certainly the library). He can hear sirens all around. That is not good.

And then Arthur sees a car approaching and he quickly crouches “behind a small shrub”, which gives him “very little camouflage”, but he cannot find anything better. Even it if it is the police, Arthur hopes they will bring him to East Area Hospital and he will still be able to use the Nightsweeper. They probably would, I think. Then Arthur sees it is not the police, but “his brother Eric’s old blue clunker”, driving fast for home. I suppose we just had to meet Eric in person before the book is over; otherwise, this does not make much sense. Arthur stands up and waves to Eric, who brings the car to a stop with screeching and smoking tyres. Eric normally does not do that, but this is “no normal time”, Arthur says. We knew that already.

Eric sticks his “handsome blond head” out the window, asking what Arthur is doing here and telling him to get in. Arthur gets in, saying he is going home and asks what Eric is doing here. Eric drives away. He says he was at a “one-on-one master class at the city gym”. Then they heard about a fire at the school, he went to the school, but was turned back and told “to get home within thirty minutes”. After “two o’clock”, all “unauthorised vehicles and pedestrians” will be shot, and there is “total quarantine”.

…That is a very bad plan. If this news spreads, which it will, I do not doubt that quite some people would escape the city while they still can, which would risk spreading the Sleepy Plague further. Also, as was pointed out in chapter 8, shooting people might well spread the disease further, too. Above all, if they want “total quarantine”, they should want people to stay put and threatening to shoot them does not help.

Arthur asks if Emily and the others are okay and what time it is. Eric does not know. Arthur sees he is “in shock” and he has not even asked “how Arthur got out of school”. Well, is that not just what you want? Also, who cares that he does not ask! Eric checks the time and it turns out to be “one thirty-five”, which means they can easily reach home. Then I suppose that Arthur’s adventure only took some twenty minutes at most. Good to know! Arthur puts on his seat belt as Eric nears home. He checks the Nightsweeper and thinks that he cannot use it “for at least ten hours”.

A lot can happen during that time, he thinks. People can die and the Nightsweeper will not resurrect them. In his desire to get home, Arthur had not thought of that; instead, he had thought it was “all over”. But defeating Monday was naturally not the end, and there is still more to do. Yes, it is about this choppy in the book. I do wonder where Arthur is getting this from, as I do not remember him thinking that at all. He rather took the Nightsweeper because Dusk (who he trusts quite a bit) gave it as a cure and because he was quite happy to have a cure at all. I think those factors weighed more heavily than him wanting to go home fast.

Well, Arthur’s breath catches and he reaches for his inhaler, which he cannot find. (I… guess the paramedics took it from him when putting him in the ambulance?) Arthur panics, then calms as he notes that he does not “really need it”. He is not breathing as free as in the House, but his lungs are not “totally tightening up” either. He notes that his breathing feels “strangely lopsided”, as if his left lung gets more air, but he is okay. …And then he just forgets about it. Never mind that he has no explanation for it (it is because of the Hour Hand, by the way) or that this means he can do more than before; it is just forgotten.

Eric stops the car before the front door, they both get out and then rush upstairs. Bob and Michaeli meet them, after rushing down to see who it is. They hug and then go to the studio, which we are told is the “place of family conferences and important events” wherever they live. Bob announces that Emily is all right, but it is a “real outbreak” and they know next to nothing about it. Michaeli says that Emily will “work it out” (because she also needed to speak, presumably) which Eric nods to. Arthur does not, which Bob notices, so he claps Arthur on the shoulder and says they will all be okay.

Arthur agrees, then touches his pocket again and asks himself why he did not ask for something that could immediately stop the plague. I refer to my above explanation. He thinks anything can happen in the next ten hours, and he might even “get the plague himself and fall asleep”. He could, but I doubt that would happen. And there the chapter ends, at a quite awkward place.

If Arthur wants to do something about this, he could easily look in the Atlas for guidance (after all, the Will told him he could view some pages), and, since he can open the Atlas, I do not doubt that he could enchant the Nightsweeper to work now. So, of course, he is not allowed to do any of that, because Nix apparently wants Arthur to make a mistake with hard consequences. There is nothing wrong with that, of course, but if it requires preventing your protagonist from thinking, I think it it time to reconsider.

Until the final thoughts, then!

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Kerlois: So, now it is time for the very last (and shortest) chapter of this book! We are told the ten hours that follow are “the longest of Arthur’s life” (until now, at least). He sits in the studio for a while, listening to Bob playing a tune on the piano over and over. Then he watches the news with Michaeli for a “much shorter time”, as he cannot bear to hear about “the many new cases or the attempts to break quarantine”. So they are actually shooting people who are trying to break quarantine? Why are they not trying to cut the city off from the outside world? That would be considerably more effective at actually containing the outbreak. Also, why is no one doing anything against this? Sure, we heard that this was “controversial”, but at some point, I would expect resistance to occur. Let the authorities try to kill a group of thousands, for example, and see what the reaction will be if they do. This cannot simply stay as a background detail! I think that rant is better suited to Sir Thursday, though.

Well, every hour, patients are dying. Until now, they have all been “very old people”, but that does not comfort him, as he still feels responsible. And why should these people being old comfort him? Sure, they might have died soon anyway, but that does not mean their deaths are not sad! Finally, Arthur goes to his room and lies on bed. The “red lacquer box” and the Atlas lie on his desk. So… did he put them here, or did they teleport here, and if it is the latter, why did we not hear anything about that? Please be clear, Nix. Arthur does not even feel like looking at the Atlas. After all, why should he want the opportunity to do something about the plague? Instead, he just keeps the Nightsweeper on his palm. It mostly just stands there, but “every now and then” it walks a bit or nibbles his palm.

Eventually, without wanting to, he falls asleep. One moment he is awake, and the next he is aware of being asleep. He struggles to wake up and panics. What if he has missed midnight and has to wait another day, after all? More people might die and Emily might well die too. So he wakes up “thrashing and crying out”. His chamber is pitch black, except for the glow of his “digital clock”. He looks at it and see that it is “11:56”, so there is still time. Then he panics again, as he finds himself under a quilt, which he assumes Bob has thrown over him. And the Nightsweeper is gone. So Arthur gets up, puts on all the lights and goes to searching. He thinks Bob might have taken it downstairs or Michaeli might have grabbed it…

But then he finds it, standing on top of the lacquer box. It is prancing by now, “eager to be at its work”. Arthur lets out a very long sigh and picks it up. It rears and neighs. He then takes it to the window and lets it go there. The horse jumps into the night, and Arthur sees it grow as it flies up. It keeps growing, until its hooves are larger than the house. It neighs, and that is “like thunder, rattling the windows, shaking the house”. Um… It circles up in the air, then dives down, “great gusts of cold wind jetting from its flared nostrils”.

This wind blows Arthur back on the bed. It is cold, but “a delicious cold, beautifully brisk”. He is wholly woken up by it and he says it is the “breath of pure, excited life, of raw energy, of the simply joy of running as hard as you can”. That is very nice, but what does this have to do with curing the Sleepy Plague? I am not exactly seeing the connection. Arthur goes back to the window to see the Nightsweeper gallop over the city, its breath “blowing the leaves from trees, shaking signs and sweeping up anything loose upon the streets”. Car alarms sound wherever it passes, and beneath it, lights come on “in waves”. The Nightsweeper is waking everyone up.

…This sounds much too dramatic and conspicuous, not to mention quite ill-fitting. Oh, I think I understand! The Nightsweeper is waking everyone up because the plague put everyone to sleep! That is well done.

Then the phone downstairs rings. Arthur, along with Michaeli and Eric run down to the “main living room”. Bob is there, “fully dressed and weary”. He puts the phone down and smiles at the children. “[R]elief evident in every word and gesture”, he says Emily called. They have identified the “genetic structure” now and within days, they will have a vaccine. Even now, it seems the virus is “less fatal” than thought and lots of patients are waking up. I thought the Nightsweeper would fix the plague in the course of a night, not within literal minutes. Arthur smiles with relief. “Finally it was over.”

Indeed it is, and with remarkable ease. Winning from Monday was quite hard, at least, and, as we have just seen, it has left Arthur with a scar, of a kind. The plague, though, might as well never have happened, as there is no mention of the deaths here or in the next books… Come to think of it, why is Arthur’s main thought “it is all over” rather than “my family is still alive!” or “I stopped an outbreak like the earlier one!”? Given his backstory, he really should be more affected by having solved the plague.

Then Arthur hears another telephone. No one reacts to it and Arthur thinks he imagines it. The phone rings “even louder”, though the others do not react. It is “an old-fashioned chattering bell, not an electronic beep” and Arthur has only heard this in the House, so he realises that it has to be the phone in the lacquer box. So… why does this phone sound so loud to Arthur? It is two floors up and in a box; I would hardly expect Bob, Michaeli and Eric to hear it. I guess that Arthur can hear it so clearly because he is the one the phone was given to?

Arthur looks at a clock, and just then the minute hand moves.

It was one minute past twelve.

On Tuesday morning.

Yes, I think we could have surmised that already. So it seems that Grim Tuesday, to no one’s surprise, has seen fit to cause trouble. And with that sequel hook, the book ends. We have actually made it to the end! I will see you again in the final thoughts, then.