beat of a different, and much more melancholy, drummer. When we entered the glare of the single, powerful spotlight that illuminated the entrance to the driveway, Sylvia paused and looked around. For the first time the cars were lit up well enough to see clearly, and she stared at them in evident surprise. “What,” she asked, pointing a delicate hand vaguely at the parked vehicles, “are these beasts?”
“Cars?”
“Automobiles,” Chester explained. “Horseless carriages. Nothing a girl hunting for her unicorn would be expected to know about.”
“Are they common in this part of the world?”
I looked at Chester. “Time travel?” I suggested.
“Love to,” he replied. He mouthed his alto recorder, and lustily blew “Barkus Is Willing” into the night, while I tried to explain to Sylvia how it was with horseless carriages.
“Yoo hoo, Sylvia!” a deep baritone boomed out of the dark.
“Sylvia,” a mellifluous tenor added, “is that you?”
Sylvia clapped her hands together delightedly. “My friends,” she exclaimed. “My comrades. Perhaps they have found Adolphus.” She rose up on the toes of her tiny feet and cupped her hands to her mouth. “Here,” she called. “Over here!”
There was a clopping sound, and three figures appeared in the shadows. “Sylvia,” the baritone called. “We were beginning to think we’d lost you, too.” The figures moved toward us.
I now had a good working definition of the old phrase too much. This was too much. Much too much. Girls of my dreams suddenly appearing and asking me to help find their unicorns I could accept. After all, if Alice hadn’t fallen down that rabbit hole, where would the world be now? But believing in Sylvia’s friends would require practice. The first, in order from left to right, was a tall, slender girl with long, red hair, dressed in an off-white, off-the-shoulder Grecian style gown. I could believe in her. The second, however, was a centaur. From the waist up, he was wearing a lace-trimmed shirt, fluffy silk tie, and an eight button jacket with wide lapels. From the waist down he was a horse. The last was a man, eight feet tall and wide as a church door, but still a man. He had the build appropriate for a giant: I could see the muscles ripple under his net shirt. When he got one step closer, I noticed something else: he had only one eye ---which was centered above his broad nose.
The centaur, I could see as they came under the light, was a deep Olive green. The cyclops was wearing a monocle.
“Anderson,” I yelped. “You promised, You swore faithfully that you’d never do it again. How can I learn to trust you if I can’t trust you?”
Chester had taken the sopranino recorder from his belt and was squinting at the spotlight and playing both machines at once. I refused to be impressed. He stopped playing when I prodded him and squinted at me. “What’s the trouble, son?” he asked in an irritated voice.
I said calmly, “I had your solemn word that there’d be no more chemicals in my orange juice.”
“Not even saltpeter,” he assured me.
“I hate to doubt your word,” I said....
“Sylvia!” the cycloptic baritone boomed.
Chester looked. His sleepy expression vanished. “Those?” he asked prodding the air in front of him with the alto recorder.
“‘Those,” I told him. “You see them too?”
He nodded. “What do you think we’re on?”
The centaur cantered up to us. “Glad to see you’re all right,” he said. “Who are your friends?”
“Chester and Michael,” Sylvia identified. “They’re going to help us find Adolphus. This,” she told us, “is Ronald.”
“That’s the idea,” the centaur said, looking us over. “Mobilize the locals.”
The cyclops and the redhead joined us and were introduced. The cyclops was named Giganto, but he assured us it was just a stage name. “My nom-de-carnival,” he said. “But it will do for fetching and carrying, calling and scribbling. You’d never be able to pronounce my real name. It’s Arcturian, of course.”
Of course? I wondered.
The redhead was named Dorothy, and at close range she was stately and beautiful. She was beautiful at a distance too, but I’m nearsighted, and most girls look blurredly good to me at a distance. Her skin was fair, her hair was long, her features were delicate and proud, and her dress clung like the one Praxiteles sculpted onto his Aphrodite. She extended her hand to each of us in turn. I shook it, and was surprised at her strength. Chester pressed it gallantly to his lips.
“Delightful,” she said. “Tell me, was’t you I heard tootling upon the flageolet?”
Chester bowed, holding his alto before him like a gift offering. “Fair lady,” he said, “was it pleasing to you?” Chester always was partial to redheads.
No one, I reflected bitterly, was going to believe this tomorrow morning. Including me. I wasn’t too sure that I believed it now. Then I thought of the subminiature camera I carried in my pocket in case of fire, flood or natural disaster: A color print would be reassuring to look at in the future. I slid the camera out of my pocket and checked meter. The light multiplier was really going to have to prove itself. There was less light out here than inside the Trembling Womb. I focused as best I could on Giganto.
There was the sound of galloping; the mighty hoof beats of the great centaur Ronald, and the camera was snatched from my hands.
“Now look,” I yelled, but I was yelling at Ronald’s retreating end.
“What’s happening?” Giganto boomed.
Ronald swiveled around, waving the camera. “He was going to use this,” he explained.
I pointed an outraged finger at the horse’s front end “What’d he do that for?”
Chester shrugged. “Bad man black box steal away soul, he suggested.
“Now, now,” Giganto said, rolling his voice off the local mountains. “You know there’s no taking pictures of the performers without a special permit. You’ll get the camera back after the show.”
“That’s right,” Dorothy agreed, shaking a stern finger at us. “It’s nothing against you. It’s policy.”
“What show?” I asked.
“What show?” Chester echoed.
Sylvia tossed her long hair through a figure eight “What show indeed! I’m certainly not going to take part in any show until we find Adolphus.”
The bushes behind us snapped and a white figure, dimly fluorescent in the dark, appeared. Sylvia clapped her hands. “Adolphus!”
The figure got closer and resolved itself into a man and woman clutching hands and stumbling forward together, staring with wide eyes at Ronald.
“My god!” the man declared. “That
