“I know. I posed for your mom when she was first drawing her. The old bat, how dare she! I guess just because someone looks like you doesn’t mean she acts like you.”
“It’s the Witch of Wenham who did it,” Rory says. “It’s as if she’s cast a spell on her.”
“Bethilda was ready for it. I’m certain you can’t cast a spell on someone unless they are somehow…” I’m searching for a word.
“Vulnerable?” Granny asks.
“Exactly!” Rory says. “Bethilda always wanted me to be more—you know—feminine. Dress like a princess. Marry a prince. Live in a palace.”
“Makes me boil just to think about it,” another voice says.
“Cassie!” Granny wheels around. “Oh, my dear girl.” They embrace. “So you’re in on this shenanigan too.”
“I sure am, Mrs. Ryder. I learned everything I know from Andrea. I’m not going to let them do this to her…to Rory.”
I think Granny might burst into tears.
“What can I do to help?” she says. “What about this Bethilda?”
“Uh…,” Eli begins hesitantly. “Well, we think she might be very interested in meeting the figure that inspired her character.”
“Yes,” Rory says. “You maybe could sit down and talk to her?”
Granny takes a step back, sizing us up. I can tell she’s not sold on this idea. She takes a deep breath. “You know, kids, I think you’re a tad naïve here. This Bethilda is not going to want to sit down and chat with me. Remember, there’s a witch controlling her. I mean, I’m all for diplomacy, but this isn’t the right situation. We gotta knock some sense into these creatures.”
“Creatures?” we all say.
“Yes, creatures—Bethilda, the Witch of Wenham, and then Jeeves,” Granny says. “Or maybe first Jeeves.”
“Jeeves!” Rory says. “The witch’s servant?”
Granny nods. “I’ve been watching Super-Rory-Us as long as any of you. Jeeves is not a happy camper. Not a happy butler. And no wonder. She treats him like dirt. But he has good qualities. Many qualities that remind me of your father.”
“Dad! Dad a lizard?”
Granny continues, “Technically, Jeeves is a tokay gecko. Shy, not very assertive. Loners, that’s the character of a tokay. Kind of like your dad was until your mom met him.”
“You’re saying Dad is in the show? Or parts of Dad.”
“Yes, and I’m telling you that you have to be clever here. You have to not meet Bethilda or the Witch of Wenham head on. You have to angle in on them.”
“Bethilda and the witch have already done a lot of damage. More than we originally thought,” Eli says.
“What? Eli, you didn’t tell us that,” I say.
“It only happened in the last few hours. That’s why I had to insert that virus and shut things down. I had just started to bury some of the old stuff in the wireframes for the new Rory—a kind of test run. Some code must have dribbled out, just enough so they could throw it away and undo our work.”
“Where did they throw it?” I ask, panicked.
“In the slop pail. I retrieved it but it was definitely a setback.”
I can’t believe it. I am almost staggering. “Then they know our route,” I say.
“That’s the odd thing. They have not discovered the Trash Can Trail. But they somehow got into the wireframe and found some of the old scraps I was putting back together again.”
TD has been very still. But now he says, “I have an idea! You know what we’re forgetting?” He pauses dramatically.
“What?” I ask.
“We have put all this work into changing the figures, the wireframes, but what we haven’t done is think about the script, the dialogue, all that!”
“The script? Too depressing,” Rory says. “I get locked up in a tower. You rescue me. We get married and live unhappily ever after, with me clutching a wand, bored to death in the palace.”
“Well, let’s take a page from that script. Instead of you getting locked up, it’s the Witch of Wenham and Bethilda who get locked up. We drug them or we get Jeeves to do it. Really get them conked out. This will give us enough time to fix what they messed up. And if I do say so myself, I think it’s a brilliant rewrite. The witch is locked up. Drugged. It’s almost Shakespearean, don’t you think?” TD looks at us expectantly. “Not a tragic ending, a happy one. No one gets married.”
“What about Bethilda?” I ask.
“Your granny brings her to her senses when the time is right,” TD replies.
“When the time is right—but not before. It will be my pleasure!” Granny says. “But first, let me have a chat with Jeeves.”
“How can we lure him out?” TD says.
“Ryder’s dad always liked a cold beer.”
“How about hard cider?” Rory says. “And maybe some biscuits. That old witch probably never feeds him anything but scraps.”
“Dang it!” Granny slaps her knee. “I should have brought a tuna casserole. He’d love my casseroles.”
—
It takes a while to get Jeeves out of the tower. But he finally slithers up onto a rock beneath the shadows of the promontory where Granny has perched herself. The rest of us lurk some distance off. Jeeves looks around suspiciously.
“All right, Jeeves, I’ll get to the point. And by the way, there’s more where that hard cider came from.” He begins to lap it up. While he’s drinking, Granny says, “I might even manage some tuna casserole if that would interest you.”
“Tuna casserole. My, my!”
“I thought it might please you. That witch doesn’t feed you much beyond scraps, I bet.”
“You said you had a point to make.” He pauses. “I don’t speak ill of my employer.”
“Are you an employee or a slave?”
The vertical slit flashes madly. “Madam!”
“Don’t ‘madam’ me. I know who you are, and you must know who I am.”
“You do bear a certain resemblance.”
“It seems to be just physical,” Granny replies. “But it’s a grief, it is.”
“What is?”
“Bethilda.”
“Ahh, yes. She’s weak.”
“But you’re not, Jeeves. You’re not weak, and you have good values. How much are you willing to let that old witch get away with? You know what’s going on here. It’s not right. None of it is right.” The lizard has stopped drinking. “You know in your heart of hearts.”
“Madam, I am an animated character. I live in a virtual world. I don’t have a heart. I just have to follow the script.”
“No, you have something else,” Granny snaps back. Jeeves seems perplexed.
“Wh-what’s that?”
“You possess that original flicker of the inspiration that brought you into being. Did you know that your character was in many ways inspired by my late daughter’s husband, Ralph?”
From my eavesdropping position behind a large boulder, these last words of Granny’s, “my late daughter,” give me a slight start. It is almost as if my mom is not dead but just tardy. Punctuality was never Mom’s strong suit. Granny continues to talk to the lizard.
“Ralph is a genius in his own right, kindest fellow ever. Artistic, brilliant, and generous. He was nobody’s servant until that witch showed up.” Granny sighs mournfully.
“What witch are you talking about?” Jeeves asks.
“Bernice La Tripp. She has taken advantage of him at his most defenseless. She is making him do things to your world, to Rory, that I know he’ll regret. And the children are trying to save Ecalpon.”
“But it’s not my fault, madam. I didn’t do anything.”
“I know, but that’s no excuse to sit and do nothing now.”
“What are you asking me to do?”
“The witch, with Bethilda’s help, is trying to undo all the good work the children have done. It can’t happen. The movie comes out in just a few days. We have to make sure it comes out the way the original creat
ors intended. Rory is not a princess, but a regular girl and a tough one. She’s a leader, not a follower. What’s she going to do sitting on a throne with a wand and a crown and a husband?”
“Oh dear. I shall do all you say. Your wish is my command.”
Granny makes a face at this. “Drop the butler thing. I don’t need a butler. I need a creature of conviction.”
“You do?” Jeeves is touched. His eyes flick madly with interest. “Pardon me, as a lizard of conviction. I’m your man. I mean lizard. You’re right. We have to do something.”
Granny turns to where we’re hiding and nods for us to come out. I look deep into Jeeves’s yellow eyes with that electric blue flashing vertical slit, and believe it or not, I do see traces of my dad. Poor Dad. He is beleaguered. Confused. But he is the keeper of the flame, and the flame is about to be put out.
“TD, you explain it,” Granny says.
When TD finishes, Jeeves nods slowly. “Just one thing.”
“Yes?” Granny asks.
“I’ll drug the witch,” Jeeves replies. “But I won’t drug Bethilda.”
Rory jumps up. “Whyever not? She’s betrayed us all because she wants to serve a princess.”
The lizard looks at Granny. “Your Granny Ryder had the courtesy to come and tell me about my…my…my creator. I had told her that I was just an animated character, built on a wireframe. That I was hollow inside, that I had no heart. And she told me I have the original flicker of the inspiration that created me. That I have just a little bit of Ryder’s father in me.” He swivels his head toward me. “Oh, I know I am not nearly as handsome, but she saw something in your dad that had stirred Andy Holmsby to make me. Just as there is something in your Granny Ryder that made Bethilda. You and Rory need to honor Bethilda in the same way that your granny honored me. The movie ending will change, won’t it, TD?”
“Definitely, if you can drug the witch.”
“What will happen, TD? Explain it to an old lady,” Granny asks.
“Rory will break out of the tower,” TD says. “There will be no prince to deliver you, Rory. You shall scale down the outer wall. You will save the day, Rory, as you usually do. No wands. No stiletto boots. Just brains and skill and immense courage.”
“You all have courage.” Granny winks at us.
Granny watches as the kids go off into the wireframe files. When she turns around, she sees Bethilda snooping around the slops pail where the kids told her the old woman found some of the pieces they were hiding. Granny sidles up.
“Good day.”
“Oh, gracious me!” Bethilda spins around and nearly drops the bucket of chicken feed.
“Already putting that grain for the chickens in the slops pail? Seems sort of the wrong order to me. Got yourself some Mottled Houdans, I see. Pretty as can be, but as egg layers they’re not worth a plugged nickel.”
“Who are you?”
“You don’t know?”
Bethilda squints at Granny. Granny smiles broadly and points at the gap between her front teeth. “Remember this?”
“Oh dear.” Bethilda starts shaking and sets down the bucket of grain.
“Steady there, old girl,” Granny says. Bethilda shoots her a rather dark look. Granny goes on: “Listen to me, Bethilda. You and I got to talk. Let’s go over yonder by that apple tree in the meadow and have ourselves a nice chat.”
“I don’t chat with strangers.”
“Ye gods, woman, I am not a stranger. You are in denial.”
“I am right here in this barnyard. I have no idea where Denial is.”
Granny taps lightly on her head. “It’s there. Now follow me. And don’t be a crankypants like that witch.”
“I’m not a witch. I don’t wear pants.”
“Then don’t be so literal. Mercy, you are stubborn! Come along.” Granny takes her hand and gives it a gentle tug. The two old ladies walk over to the tree.
“What do you want with me?”
“Bethilda,” Granny says, “I think you do have a glimmer of who I am or might be.”
The servant balls up her apron and looks down at the ground. “Well, you do look maybe a tad familiar.”
“Bethilda, I am to you what that little girl Ryder is to Rory. I am the model that you were based on. Look at us. Same height. Same skinny frame. Our hair is the same, and you used to have that gap in your teeth like mine.”
“Yes, and good riddance to it.”
Granny takes a deep breath. This is more difficult than she thought. How could it have been so much easier with a lizard? she wonders. “Bethilda, I am the inspiration for the character that became you. My daughter Andrea created you not out of nothing but something. And that something is me.”
“But we’re so different. You talk so queerly and all.”
“I have a South Dakota accent. I’m not sure what one would call your accent.” Granny sighs deeply. “Tell me this: Do you approve of the role you’re playing?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“You know perfectly well what I mean. Loyal servant turns traitor to own family. Colludes with the Witch of Wenham. Believe me, I shall certainly tell the town crier in Coddington for the next market day.”
“You can’t!” She is almost crying.
Granny presses her lips together. “I probably won’t.”
“Thank you,” Bethilda whispers.
“Don’t thank me for anything yet, Bethilda. Think about it. You’re selling out your master and mistress and their daughter for a chance to serve a princess.”
Bethilda has tears pouring down her face. “I didn’t mean any harm. I really didn’t. I just wanted to serve in the palace and I wanted only the best for Rory.”
“Rory needs to be full of life and courage and spunk…spunk! No girl needs to be married so young or wear inappropriate dresses. And for you to be in league with that witch—unconscionable!”
“She is a difficult person,” Bethilda says weakly.
“Difficult! She’s a murderess.”
“A murderess?”
“Of course. Trying to kill the true spirit of Rory.”
Bethilda’s eyes seem to clear.
“I can’t believe I did this. I can’t believe I fell under her spell.”
“I don’t believe in spells,” Granny barks. “I only believe in weakness. Spells don’t work on strong people, only weak people. Yet sometimes we are all weak.”
“My weakness was dreaming of royalty, but for Rory. Not really for me.”
Granny pats her hand. “I know, Bethilda. I know.”
“But I didn’t think about what Rory might really want.” She sighs and slumps down. “What can I do?”
“You can go into the wireframe.”
“You mean the In-Between?”
“Yes, go and help them undo the damage the witch has done.”
“But what about the witch?”
“Don’t worry about the witch. Jeeves is taking care of her.”
“Jeeves?”
“Valor can be found in the most unexpected places.”
“Hooray, Granny!” Rory says.
“OMG!” I say when I see the wireframe of Bethilda approaching, Granny beside her.
“Bethilda!” Rory exclaims.
“I’m so sorry, Rory. I’m so ashamed.”
“There’s no time for sorry or shame,” Rory snaps. “Get busy. We’re reassembling all of the old wireframes and stuffing them into the horrid new ones.”
“Yes, Granny explained.”
There are all sorts of character pieces scattered about, including Rory’s bow and arrow, her sword, and old boots. Eli is madly writing code to map out the movements of each character. So, for example, it might look as if the new Rory is about to kiss somebody, but instead she would do a swift wrestling move and trip him. Or when she was previously coded to dance some waltz, she would break into a run or a fantastic leap worthy of any action hero. The old, original-Rory motion plan is being buried beneath the one for th
e new movie. We’re working like crazy. In real time, in the real world, we have time before the premiere.
Granny and I and Constance slip out occasionally to make an appearance in the real world so Dad won’t worry. But he’s hardly around.
—
We finish just hours before the coronation. The odd thing is that while we were working on our secret version, we could hear the people in Starlight Studios working on their version.
And when it’s all done, the first thing I do is take Constance to reVamp, the vintage store, to get outfits for the premiere. Dad gave us his credit card.
I pull out a dress from the rack that has a white lace top with a sweetheart neckline (very 1950s). And the skirt is yellow. “This will look so good on you, Constance.”
“Oh, it’s nice. Are you sure you don’t want it?”
I nod.
Constance goes into the dressing room. When she comes out, I gasp.
“You look like a daffodil in full bloom. Gorgeous.”
“I don’t even have any makeup on,” Constance says.
“You don’t need it,” the saleslady says. “Your friend is right. You are blooming.”
Constance and I look at each other and smile.
“You know what I’d love to go with it?” Constance says. “Doc Marten lace-up boots like the ones you wore to the party, Ryder—only with different flowers.”
“That’s easy,” the saleslady says. “You can get them right around the corner.”
I find a pale green chiffon dress with a lace overlay and a drop waist. Very 1920s flapperish. I also can’t resist a tight-fitting pearl cap. I try it on and look at myself in the mirror.
“Perfect!” Constance says.
—
“Lords and ladies, princes and princesses, and good folk from all the realms of Starlight Land, welcome to the coronation of Starlight Studios’ favorite heroine, Rory. Soon to become Princess Rory, ruler of the kingdom of Ecalpon.”
Banners flutter in the air in front of a replica of TD’s castle. I sit in a special area with Granny and Eli and Constance. Dad’s talking to reporters in the press area, while Joy and Bernice, with half a dozen folks from the studio, are trying to get Bliss on a horse whose coat has been painted to look like Calamity’s.