The Cinderella Theorem Page 4

Fifteen minutes later, Mom emerged from her office looking a little tired.

  Tub Man jumped up and said, “Did, uh, you get everything worked out with Tressa?” I think my father was concerned we would never get to magic ourselves away into Smythe’s SFL.

  “Yes,” Mom sighed. “It’s just that…” She sighed again. “It’s just that Tressa has found another way to get her clutches on the prince.” Mom looked away, my father looked at me, and I looked down. I’m no good at consoling authors when the people they made up, and therefore control, do things that the author doesn’t like. Honestly, that’s about as unmathematical as the Easter Bunny.

  My father, however, seemed to be a little better at this consolation. “You’ll get her next time, dear. I’m sure of it. If you can bring down Sir Wend, how can little Tressa stop you?”

  “Matt,” my mother began impatiently. “I did not defeat Sir Wend. Driel did. And I’m not the one trying to stop Tressa. Laurel must do that.”

  “But—”

  “Let’s just go.” She started up the stairs. “Are you packed, Lily?”

  “Yes,” I rolled my eyes, following her and trying very hard not to point out the redundancy of her asking me again if I was packed.

  Before my entire family gets into the bathtub and showers away to a land where Sleeping Beauty’s Wicked Stepmother really does exist, I would like to state the mathematical improbabilities I am about to face.

  (1) Though Einstein and Shrodinger did some work on time gap theories, there is no mathematical evidence to support what we are about to do.

  (2) It is a bathtub, not a door to a world unknown.

  (3) I submit, as further evidence to Point 2, the fact that I have often taken a bath in the bathtub and have not seen any sort of thing likely to be a “secret lever” or “magic doorknob” or anything like that.

  Mathematical improbability or not, we all got into the bathtub. I carried my bag. Mom had no luggage. But, I suppose, she already had everything she needed over there. You know, for her secret trysts and all. His Royal Highness, King Tub Man, pulled the shower curtain closed. It was rather tight. I had to hug the duffle bag to my chest.

  Trying not to focus on the fact I was in the tub (fully clothed!) with my parents, I asked, “I don’t want to sound critical or anything, but, um, how exactly do we get there? Do we just stand here and say, ‘Open, thou door to Smythe,’ or what?”

  King Tub Man chuckled. “No. All we really need are our keys. Do you have yours, Lil?”

  “What?” Generally, I prefer more exact questions. Questions full of exactness tend to result in answers full of equal proportions of exactness. But, in this case, surprise won over exactness. (surprise > exactness)

  “Your key, Lily. Did you bring your key? Your mother and I have ours, but you’ll have to use yours to get in. Everyone has to have their own key.”

  Rationally, I responded: “I don’t have a key. I have a key to the house, and one to the—”

  “Not a key like a key,” Mom interrupted. “This key is the only key that will get you into Smythe’s SFL.”

  “What?” I asked again. “What do you mean, ‘not a key like a key’? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  King Tub Man bumped his leg on the ceramic soap dish. Rubbing his knee, he elaborated, “For instance, Lily, my key is a paperweight made in the shape of a golden egg from the goose that lays the golden eggs.” He pulled a miniature egg out of his pocket.

  “Yes, and mine is the golf tee from the first time your father and I went golfing at Poseidon’s Under Sea Adventures putt-putt course.” And the golf tee was on display for me to see.

  “So what’s yours?” my father asked.

  I just looked at him. “What?”

  Both of my parents sighed, looking exasperated. Speaking slower than was probably necessary, Tub Man said, “You’ve got to choose something to be your key. Once you choose it and use it with the intent to get you to Smythe’s SFL, it will forever be your key.”

  “So I just pick something?”

  “Yes.” Mom inched a little closer to me to get out of the drip from the showerhead. “It should probably be something small, so it can fit into your pocket easily.”

  I logically stuck my hand in my pocket so I could get a feel for how much space I could use. I felt the blue marble from The Box.

  “Here,” I said, pulling it out. “I’ll use this.”

  “Oh, Lily…” Mom got a little teary. “Your father’s favorite marble. Look, Matt.”

  My dad swallowed, and I rolled my eyes.

  “So I just hold this and think about going to Smythe’s SFL?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

  “Uh, no,” my dad said. “You’ve got to stick it–oh, hold on, I’ll just show you and walk you through it. So I’ll portal first. Then, send Lily and you come after her, Ginnie.” The last sentences were directed to my mother, who immediately began nodding her head and moving to the back of the shower, so my dad could move to the front. “Okay,” he continued, when he had made it to the front of the tub. “First, place your key in the water faucet, like so.” The golden egg disappeared. “Make sure you hold on to it. Then, you close your eyes, and think ‘E. G. Smythe’s Salty Fire Land.’ And…”

  But whatever was going to follow “And” was forever lost in the bathroom, because my dad had completely disappeared.

  Poof!

  Into thin air.

  Gone.

  6

  Arrivhall, of Course

  “Well,” I said, stepping out of the tub still holding my bag. “That was…lovely. Just lovely.” I walked out of the bathroom. I admit I was suffering from a mild amount of shock.

  Disappearing fathers = mild amounts of shock

  I headed for my room.

  “Lily,” Mom called. I could hear her fighting with the shower curtain. “Lily, where are you going?”

  “I think I’d rather just spend the weekend here, thanks.” I called back as I sat on my bed, hugging my duffle bag.

  People don’t disappear. It does not happen. There is no mathematical evidence whatsoever that–

  “Lily Elizabeth Sparrow.” Mom stood in my doorway. “Get up and get in that bathtub, right now.”

  “I can’t.”

  “What do you mean, ‘you can’t’?” Mom crossed her arms.

  “There is absolutely no mathematical evidence to suggest that people can—”

  “Get in the bathtub,” Mom interrupted. “This has nothing to do with math. You have got to accept that there are some things in this world that cannot be put into theorems and proofs.” She paused. “You are going to E. G. Smythe’s Salty Fire Land, and you are going right now.” She pointed behind her towards the bathroom. “Now move.”

  Here is a fact about my famous-distracted-author-mother: when she comes out of her distraction she tends to make up for her former distractedness by channeling all that energy into authoritarianism and dictator-type behavior. I think she tries to prove how motherly she can be.

  Apparently, I must have looked sad and pitiful, because she became more normal and less dictatorial. She sat on the bed beside me.

  “Lily,” she said softly. “Look. I know what you’re going through. When I portaled the first time, with your father and Prince Witham, I was so shocked by seeing someone vanish like that, that I nearly didn’t go either.”

  “Who’s Prince Witham?”

  “Snow White’s Prince. Anyway—”

  “Wait. He has a name? Aren’t all the princes just ‘Prince Charming’ or something?”

  “Really, Lily. Of course they have names.” Mom looked at me like I had just said something incredibly socially unacceptable. “As I was saying, after Prince Witham portaled, I told your father there was no way I was going to vanish like that.”

  “So how’d he talk you into it?” Obviously the woman went, I mean, I’m here, for crying out loud. There’s no need for all this suspense. Writers.

  “Well, he just helped me realize t
hat I wanted to go and this was the only way to get there.”

  “Oh,” I said, wondering if she planned to try the same thing with me. The variable she and my kingly father hadn’t counted on was the fact that I didn’t want to go. That considerably damaged their equation.

  “Lily, I know you don’t want to go. You don’t want to accept the possibility of things working outside of your well-crafted world of math. But this is important. You cannot change what you were born to. It is your destiny to go to E. G. Smythe’s Salty Fire Land. It is your destiny to become the next Protector.” She smiled, “It won’t be so bad. You haven’t considered all the possible outcomes of this equation. You might even like some of them.”

  She was talking math to me, trying to trick me into accepting her scheme, but I wasn’t ready to give in. What if I did like this fairy tale land? That’s not normal or mathematical.

  But…I do have that marble in my pocket. As unmathematical as it is to have a dead father reappear in your life and as unmathematical as it is to want to get to know this absentee man, it is something you wish for an awful lot when your father is killed in a train wreck two days before you were born, but really spirits away to a hidden kingdom in your bathtub. I could create a whole series of algebraic equations for the number of times I have wished on a birthday candle or a star for my father to be alive. (However, it is a little unlikely that I’d be running around making up equations about something as unmathematical as wishes.)

  What would a mathematician do? I don’t know. Their biographies lean toward the mathematical. But I can’t imagine Newton, the man who discovered calculus and the laws of motion, would pass up an opportunity to portal into an unknown dimension. And even if he did say, “You know, why don’t we let that young Descartes figure it out?” I don’t think he’d ignore an opportunity to get to know his formerly dead father. Could it be unmathematical to miss a chance to get to know your king-of-another-world father?

  “Lily?”

  “All right. I’ll go,” I said. “But I’m still going to do pure mathematics research or be a codebreaker for the National Security Agency.”

  “Fair enough,” Mom agreed. “I’m still a writer.”

  I picked up my bag, thinking briefly and happily about how Newton’s forces were working as I exerted a force upon the bag and the bag exerted a force upon me. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. That is normal–a beautiful blend of math and science.

  I got into the tub first. Mom followed. “Do you remember what your dad was telling you about what you’re supposed to do?” she asked.

  “Well, up until he disappeared.”

  “Oh right. He was at ‘close your eyes and think E. G. Smythe’s Salty Fire Land.’”

  “Yeah. Then he vanished.”

  “He was probably about to say that you should never think just ‘Smythe’s SFL’ or ‘Salt’ or ‘Fire.’ It will make for a very messy arrival if you do. You’ve got to use the whole name.”

  “Okay.” What did she mean by messy? “Umm, exactly how long does it take to get there? Am I going to be portaling through time and space trying to think the full name of the kingdom for an hour?”

  “Of course not. It’s an instantaneous portal. Well…unless you think the wrong thing.”

  Mom hugged me and said, “Don’t look so worried, Lily! You won’t think the wrong name, so you’ll arrive fine.”

  I tried to shake off the feeling that she had hugged me in case it was the last time she ever saw me; then, I took the blue marble out of my pocket and moved toward the faucet. I put the marble in, took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and thought, E. G. Smythe’s Salty Fire Land.

  I felt absolutely nothing. I was afraid it hadn’t worked, so I opened my eyes to ask Mom what I should do now.

  Apparently, it had worked.

  No sooner had I opened my eyes than my father was hugging me and a large group of people were shouting, “Long live Princess Lily!” (Talk about instantaneous.) Then my mom popped out of nowhere, and there was a lot more cheering and jubilant happiness at seeing the royal family all together again. This state of loud, cheering joy continued for two minutes.

  Then the person who appeared to be in charge of all the cheering ones said, “All right everyone. We can celebrate tomorrow. There’s still lots of work to be done in order to make sure Princess Lily gets a visit she’ll never forget.”

  Like I could forget it if I wanted to.

  As the cheering people began to disperse, an incredibly happy person took my bag away with a “Welcome, Your Highness.” My father nodded his thanks to the in-charge man, and I looked around the room I had portaled into. It was a long, rectangular room or perhaps a large hallway. One side of the hallway (the side I was facing after opening my eyes) was covered in windows–nice, neat, orderly symmetrical rectangles. On the other side of the hall (the side behind me) were paintings. Each painting was directly opposite a window making an effective geometrical study out of the whole hallway.

  “What do you think, Lil?” My dad put his hand on my shoulder. “This is the Arrivhall.”

  Arrivhall. That’s clever. “I like the geometrical shapes,” I offered honestly.

  “Yes,” my father went on, clearly undeterred by my lack of enthusiasm. “And did you notice that there are twenty-three paintings that correspond to the twenty-three windows?” He gestured at the paintings and windows. “See, the portal painting,” (more gesturing) “is in the exact symmetrical middle of the twenty-three paintings. There are eleven on each side of it.”

  I looked at the center painting. I shouldn’t have been surprised. With everything else that had happened to me in the last twenty-four hours, why wouldn’t the center painting be a portrait of my mom, my dad, and me? And why wouldn’t I look like I did in my spring photo last year in eighth grade? It gave off the appearance that we were a happy family: a happy family that had never been severed by the laws of fictional people in a separate dimension.

  “Your mother brought your school pictures over every year so we could update the painting. It’s good for the populace to know what their princess looks like.”

  “Great,” I said, thrilled to know that the fairy tale world did, indeed, have a way to know what I looked like my entire life. Not everyone is as lucky as me. “What are the other paintings of?”

  “Different Smythian citizens and scenes from their stories. We rotate them around every month so that no one feels left out. After all, there are only twenty-two spaces, and how many countless fairy tales, myths, and legends?” My parents both chuckled at this, like they knew about the countless aspect of it. However, as Princess and Protector of this land I can’t even name twenty-two of its citizens.

  Wait.

  My family is 3 + those 7 little people with the food last night = 10, but since of the 7, I can only actually name Lubcker and Peridiom, I guess that just = 5. 5 total people. And wouldn’t that King Median guy, with the magic touch ice cream, be here too? 6, then.

  Well. Six does not equal zero. That’s something.

  “Isn’t it amazing, Ginnie?” My dad held my mom’s hand. They both looked extremely happy, like some sort of bizarre fairy tale greeting card. “All three of us. Here. Together.”

  “It’s wonderful,” my mom agreed.

  I was starting to get a little grossed out by all this strange, parental affection. After all, the man’s been dead for fifteen years. I did not want to see him kiss my mother. That would be beyond unmathematical and abnormal. So, I turned to look at the other twenty-two rectangle paintings.

  I didn’t recognize any of them. If I had to actually apply for the job of future Protector, there’s no way I could get it, unless nepotism came into the equation. It’s highly ironic that I was born to be something so unmathematical and un-what I am. I am convinced that this would not have happened to any of Newton’s children. (If he had children, of course.)

  Luckily, the paintings were labeled. I walked to one end of the Arrivhall to st
art looking more closely and mathematically at the pictures. (The happy couple stayed in the center gazing deeply at each other. Ick.)

  The first picture was titled The Bremen Town Musicians. In this painting, a donkey stood outside the window of a house. On top of the donkey was a dog, on top of the dog was a cat, and on top of the cat was a rooster. Why are they called the Bremen Town Musicians? In an equation about music, I would say that:

  One can be a musician if and only if one can sing or play some form of an instrument.

  Mathematically and logically speaking, the Bremen Town Musicians weren’t musicians. They were just animals, and why were they stacked up like that?

  “Oh, Lily,” my dad called, “push the display button.” Not exactly knowing what he was talking about, I looked down at the title of the painting. A little yellow button was next to a speaker. I pushed it, and the hall filled with noise. A donkey braying. A dog barking. A cat meowing. A rooster crowing. But all at once. It sounded horrible.

  “Do you get it, Lily?” Mom asked, as she and my father walked over.

  “No.” How was I supposed to get it? I get things like unbalanced equations. I get things like Cartesian planes and mixed ratios. I do not get worlds in bathtubs and strange animal paintings.

  “You know…it’s the story of the Bremen Town Musicians,” Mom went on. “The recording was done as a joke by the Musicians. Of course, they don’t really sound as bad as they supposedly do in the fairy tale.”

  “Oh.” I think I’m going to become very good at pretending to understand what’s going on in my world(s).

  “Yes,” my dad agreed. “They usually play Thursday nights at Once Upon a Tine, but they’ll also be playing at your ball tomorrow night, Lil. You’ll be able to hear for yourself the difference between the fairy tale and real life.”

  Two things:

  (1) Once Upon a Tine? What?

  (2) Ball? Did he say ball?

  “What?”

  “I mean that while everyone in your world believes the Bremen Town Musicians sound like a bunch of animals making noise, the truth is, after that first failure they got some lessons and are really having a stunning career. Wouldn’t you say so, Ginnie?”