Mister Monday: Chapter Eight

[pangolin20]

Chapter Seven (Part II) | Table of Contents | Chapter Nine (Part I)

Corneille Blanche: A good day, everyone, and welcome back to Mister Monday! Last time, the Will told Arthur where to get help. The only obstacle is to get it. This time, I will welcome Kerlois! Please, come in.

(Kerlois comes in)

Kerlois: It is a change from Eragon, though not an unwelcome one, I think. Could you please show us the planning?

Corneille Blanche: Here you go:

Chapter 8	Kerlois
Chapter 9	Vermaanti
Chapter 10	Corneille Blanche
Chapter 11	Corneille Blanche
Chapter 12	Kerlois
Chapter 13	Vermaanti
Chapter 14	Kerlois
Chapter 15	Corneille Blanche
Chapter 16	Kerlois
Chapter 17	Kerlois
Chapter 18	Vermaanti
Chapter 19	Vermaanti
Chapter 20	Kerlois
Chapter 21	Vermaanti
Chapter 22	Kerlois
Chapter 23	Kerlois
Chapter 24	Corneille Blanche
Chapter 25	Kerlois
Chapter 26	Kerlois
Chapter 27	Corneille Blanche
Chapter 28	Vermaanti
Chapter 29	Vermaanti

Kerlois: Well, thank you! Let me begin, then.

Corneille Blanche: Until chapter 10! (leaves)

 

Kerlois: We ended last chapter on Sergeant Hu shouting at Arthur to hurry up. As the chapter begins, we have a note on how Hu’s mask makes his voice sound scarier, which is nice to have. The last student is on the bus by now, and Hu’s full attention is on Arthur. Arthur suddenly comes up with a plan, and “[w]ithout further thought”, he implements it. We are not yet told what the plan is, so I guess we will see.

Arthur begins to say he is one thing or another, and then he pushes the Key through his pocket, so the tip touches his leg. And then he lets go. Well, giving yourself an asthma attack is one way to go about it, and it will give him some time to think, too. And it indeed goes as expected. As soon as he lets go, he cannot breathe as well, like “someone [has] winded him, reducing the capacity of his lungs by fifty percent with a single blow.”

He manages to say that he is asthmatic as he lets himself collapse on the ground. Hu immediately jumps back onto the steps of the bus, “as if he were seeing the new virus in immediate action.” I think the sergeant is a little too nervous. Arthur gets his inhalator out of his other pocket and brings it to his mouth. He also rolls onto his side so that “more of the Key touch[es] his leg”. He hopes that the Key will not fall out of his pocket when he stands.

Hu shouts for a medic, and here I would like to note that he is referred to as “the policeman”. Not that that is a bad thing, but I still wonder why he is not identified further. We already have had a name for him, so why not use that? While he shouts, he goes to pull out a gun. I am not surprised, only disappointed. Arthur again says he has asthma, and shows off his inhalator. He did not expect Hu to be so afraid he might shoot.

The medic who checked Arthur last chapter comes running over, along with another medic, “several policemen, and a pair of soldiers”. The newer edition changes “policemen” to “police officers”.

Thanks for Changing: 9

He says it seemed like they waited for this moment to come into action, and he hopes the soldiers are not as jumpy as Hu, because they both have “some sort of hi-tech submachine gun.” (I love the spelling “hi-tech”, with “h-i” here, by the way.) The medic reaches him first. He helps Arthur takes some puffs, and looks through his bag. Arthur can tell he is cross.

The medic asks Arthur why he did not mention he was an asthmatic. Then he addresses Hu, saying it is okay, Arthur has asthma, and not the New Sleepy Plague, and shooting patients would “just spread bits of infectious material around”, so he does not recommend it. Good to see that Arthur’s life is not a factor in this… Arthur says he is sorry, and the medic tells him to relax. He decides that they would better take him to the hospital. Well, it seems the plan paid off!

“Within a minute”, the medics have injected Arthur with something that helps him breathe considerably easier, though it also makes him sleepy “and he [has] to fight against that.” Then they put him on a stretcher, guide it across the street, and slide it into an ambulance. Within “three minutes” (after he fell, I presume), they are underway, and overtaking the buses as they go to “the designated quarantine hospital.” And now Arthur actually has a chance at escape!

Arthur counts on it being “East Area Hospital”, as that is closest to the school. Ah yes, East Area Hospital… He says it is also closest to the House, and if he has it right, they will drive by on the other side from where he went going home. He counts on the intervention of “Will”, who he supposes is the same Will who appeared during Monday’s visit, and he thinks that if he can get close to the House, the Will will help him get inside.

Unfortunately, he cannot see out the ambulance, so there is no way of checking where they are headed. He is strapped to the stretcher “so he [can’t] sit up”, and there are no windows except for “the one in the hatch in the back”. And, of course, the windshield, but he cannot look out that one either. So he simply asks the medic where they are going. The medic says they are going to East Area, and he should save his breath. Well, that could have been cut down a little, but it is good to know that they are headed in the right direction.

Arthur smiles, and says that that part is going well, at least. Now, he will only have to “wait five minutes or so”, and then they will be driving “along Parks Way, which [will] border the House.” And then he is sure something will happen.

They drive on, and as the minutes pass, he begins to “get anxious”. He thinks they should have passed Parks Way already, and should be about to “turn into the hospital”. He begins spiraling, thinking that he must have been wrong about “the Will helping out”, or maybe it tried and failed, and perhaps Monday’s minions have started another plan…

And then there is a “sudden noise on the roof of the ambulance” and it slows to a near-stop. So… rain. The driver exclaims “What in the world!”, and we get a note about how it sounds through his mask. The medic climbs past Arthur to look out the windshield, which gives Arthur the opportunity to draw the Key out of his pocket. And as he grips it firmly, his asthma clears up.

The ambulance stops completely, “the drumming sounds of rain now a constant roar on the roof, as if they [are] parked next to the ocean and the waves [are] crashing very close.” This is a quite smart way of stopping the ambulance without harming anyone, I have to say. It is safer than, say, bursting a tire. And it gives an adequate distraction to the driver and the medics, so Arthur can get away without too much trouble. If only the Will stayed this competent…

The medic shouts to the driver that it is a “[l]ocal cloudburst”. A very local one, indeed. The medic leans in the front to speak, so “only his waist and legs” are still in the “back part of the ambulance.” He says they will just wait it out, and Arthur is doing fine.

Now Arthur sees his chance. He takes a deep breath and “touche[s] the Key to the strap by his side.” He says “Release! Undo! Unlatch!”, hoping that it will work. It does, and the sound of the unlatching is lost in the rain. He quickly repeats it with the other strap, then sits up, and does the same with the strap for his legs. Then he jumps off the stretcher, “pull[s] the hatch handle”, pushes the door open, and “half-jump[s], half-[falls] into the heaviest rain he [has] ever experienced.” Well, he is free, at least…

The rain actually hurts, the drops are “as big as his fist”, so big that he fears to drown when they break over his face. That is certainly magical rain! Also, Will, could you maybe tone down the rain where Arthur is? Or do they not have enough control for that? Oh well, I do not even know how the Will can do this in the first place, so I will let it slide.

The rain is so heavy that he cannot see anything. He blindly wades around the back of the ambulance, and “[strikes] out in what he hope[s] [is] the right direction.” The water on the road is already knee-high (!), as the drains are completely overwhelmed. He clutches the Key and pushes on, keeping his chin tucked to his chest as he tries to keep the water out of his face. Water rushes past, “roaring and gurgling”. He “dimly hear[s] a shout from the ambulance.” So the medic has discovered that he is gone? Well, good luck trying to get Arthur back.

Then, the rain stops. He lifts his head and looks around, and he sees that the rain has not stopped altogether. He has simply walked out of it. Just behind him, “it [is] coming down as hard as ever”. But the rain only falls on the road, “and the dark cloud above [isn’t] much bigger than the ambulance.” That is honestly one of the weirdest images this book has given us so far.

Arthur has trouble seeing into “this weird, incredibly localized cloudburst”, but he can see a “blurry shape” coming out of the back of the ambulance, and he realises that the medic is coming after him. Quite brave of him. Arthur tenses to run, but the medic does not come far. The rain becomes even more intense, “so that it [is] no longer individual drops but more like a solid ocean wave being dumped horizontally from the sky.” The Will takes no half measures, it seems!

The medic is “bowled over and swept away”, “bobbing like a cork as he [is] washed down the road.” Arthur thanks that he will fortunately not drown in his suit, as it has its own supply of oxygen. Technically, that means he will not choke, but whatever. And there the medic disappears from the story.

A moment later, the ambulance begins to slide sideways, “accompanied by the great groan of rubber letting go”, and it slowly slides down the road after the medic. Arthur watches them both wash down the street “in the strangest flood that anybody [has] ever seen.” Truly? I think I can think of stranger floods even in this series… Arthur says it will not take them far, but far enough for Arthur to get away. The rain and the cloud are already shrinking.

Arthur turns away from the road and see the marble of the wall and above it, the House. Success! He says that, though he has lost the Atlas, he still remembers the “map/drawing” of the House. Hmm, I am bothered by that slash… Looking through the rest of the series, the slash is never used like this again, so I would say that it should have been replaced by something else.

Well, Arthur knows exactly where Monday’s Postern will be, and once he is through it, he will only have to walk to the point marked “front door” in “one of the hall-like buildings that occupie[s] the central mass of the House.” Not that we saw those earlier, but I guess they are indeed there. (Also, how does he know this? I assume he read this in the Atlas, but it would have been nice to see.) Then to go through the Front Door and… Well, Arthur has no idea what he will do then. But he does know that he cannot turn back. He has to find a cure for the Sleepy Plague, and find out “why he [has] been given the Key and the Atlas.” And all the answers are in the House, so it is there he will go.

He walks up to the wall, touches the stone, and, while he keeps one hand to the wall, walks southward to where Monday’s Postern ought to be. So now we also have confirmation that the House is an actual, physical thing, and not just an illusion! Within ten minutes, he has reached “the southwestern corner of the House’s border.” He has noted another magical effect: when he touches the wall, he cannot see or hear “any traffic on Parks Way”, or see anyone in the houses or yards across the street. “It was as if the street and the houses were a painted backdrop, waiting for the cast to come on that evening.”

Well, that is unsettling, and it also explains well why Bob and Emily could not see the House: it does not exist on their “plane of existence”, so to say. I do wonder if time passes the same way in this state as it would usually…

If Arthur moves away from the wall and stops touching it, he can see cars going by and people going into their homes. He can hear “dogs barking and children crying”, and most of all, “distant sirens and the constant clatter of helicopters”. He says it is clear that the quarantine has been extended past the school. All the more reason to get in quick, then. He mostly keeps touching the wall, as he figures that if he cannot perceive anyone, they will not be able to perceive him, either.

Well, from the corner, it is only “a few hundred yards” along the south wall to Monday’s Postern. As he nears the place where he thinks it will be, he walks away from the wall. He cannot see any “means of entry”, though, only the marble wall. He walks closer, but he still cannot see anything, so he raises the Key “and touche[s] it to the wall.”

This immediately has an effect: the marble glows brightly and the “dark veins in the stone” begin moving. “Ten or twelve paces away”, an “open, shadowed doorway” appears. Well, there we have Monday’s Postern!

Arthur does not “like the look of it”, but he goes toward it, keeping the Key on the wall. While he does so, the marble becomes quiet where he leaves and quickens where he goes. There is a change between editions here, as the old one uses “quieted” and the new one uses “quietened”.

When he reaches the doorway, he sees it is “so black” that he cannot tell if it is open or shut. He says that is “[s]omehow absorb[s] the light”, so it is like “looking into the deepest shadow.” And that shadow can be “an image upon the wall”, or “a deep, dark entrance to somewhere else.” Of course, it might also be that there is nothing behind the doorway to reflect anything… Also, I am quite sure that this does not end up in the House that Arthur sees. It is a portal in the wall, so there ought to be either another, connecting portal, in which case Arthur should see some reflections from inside the House or daylight coming in via other routes. Or, if it only leads into the wall, he ought to be able to see the opposite wall. And I cannot think of any good reason why the inside of the House would be painted entirely black.

So Monday’s Postern does not lead to the inside of the House Arthur can see now, and there is no way to find out where it does lead without going in. Well, Arthur “[feels] himself shiver” as he nears the doorway, “[a] convulsive shiver that he [is] unable to stop.” Entirely reasonable, I would say. He says that he does have to go in to get to the Front Door. But first, he needs to see if the portal is open.

He slowly reaches out with the Key. There is no resistance, and he can still see the Key shine, “though its light [does] not illuminate the doorway.” He feels “a faintly electric sensation” on his arm and wrist, but it does not hurt. He leans in until his arm has disappeared up to the elbow. He still cannot feel anything in the doorway. Then Arthur pulls out his hand and inspects it. Both the Key and his arm have not been affected by the doorway in any way whatsoever.

Still, Arthur hesitates. He is scared, because he cannot see what lies beyond the doorway, and he has also lost his backpack with salt in the ambulance. But then, he does have the Key, and he cannot help “feeling excited”, too. The House and all its mysteries and answers lie beyond, and Monday’s Postern is the only way in, so he has to go through.

He takes “a very deep breath”, which he can now do with the Key, and enjoys the feel of his lungs “expanding to their maximum capacity”. Oh, I love this bit. Then, “holding the Key in front of himself like a sword fighter about to duel”, he steps completely into the doorway. End chapter.

Well, that was a nice chapter! We are well underway toward the point where this book ramps up, and what we got was certainly worth it (the “local cloudburst” was quite clever). And now Arthur has entered the House! What he will find there is a matter for next chapter, with Vermaanti, though. Until chapter 12!