“You’ll forgive me for not applauding.”
Looking up, she found the source of the voice quickly.
Captain Hook.Vile,she corrected herself. The pirate king was sitting at a harpsichord, managing to play deftly with one hand and a hook. It meant his left hand had to do more work, but if she hadn’t known he was missing a hand, she wouldn’t have been able to guess by the sound of it.
“What—what just happened?”
“Scene change.” He smirked. “I’m always fascinated by who can feel it happening and who can’t. You’ll get used to it. But for a little while, I’m afraid it will be a bit disorienting.”
Scene change. Right. She put the goblet back down on the piece of furniture. It was an elaborately carved wooden dresser. She was once again Mr. Smee, which was a little embarrassing but mostly weird. When she caught a reflection of herself in a mirror mounted to the wall, tarnished and wobbly as the reflection was in the antique style glass, she was glad to see her own face looking back at her. She wasn’t staring at some old, podgy guy.
They were on Captain Hook’s ship, that much was very clear. They were in Hook’s quarters, judging by how roomy and decadent everything was. But like the version of the man himself, this adaptation of Hook’s home looked more suited to a nightmare than achildren’s story. The movement under her feet had been the slight swaying of the boat with the waves.
“I will admit you do make the most attractive Mr. Smee I believe any adaptation has ever given me.” Hook chuckled as he kept playing, the music slow and set in a minor key, which was perfectly fitting.
“Am I talking to Captain Hook or Vile?”
“Yes.” When he glanced at her, looking up from the black and white keys briefly, one of his eyes flashed that strange, inhuman, and glowing purple. A brief wicked smile, and he went back to focusing on the instrument. “I thought perhaps you’d have questions. Concerns. Complaints for management. Things of that nature. You seem to be theinquisitive twin.Best you get them out now before we are in the thick of things, Mr. Smee. Can’t have you pondering the physics of the universe while there are Lost Boys attempting to murder us both.”
“Is my sister safe?”
“With Peter Pan?” He huffed a laugh. He trilled two notes with his metal hook. “That boy wouldn’t know what to do with the Madame of Port Royale if she spread her legs and offered him a free night’s stay. And if you’re asking about my twin, well—far be it from him to ever do anythinguntoward.No, I assure you, she is quite safe with him. He is, after all, the perfect gentleman.”
“And I’m safe with you, because…we’re on the same side?” Sasha combed her hands through her blonde hair, scratching at her scalp as she tried to think things through. “I’m yoursidekick.”
“Or henchman. Depends on where and when we go.” He looked off thoughtfully for a moment. “Sometimes, I am truly alone. Other times, I am merely a concept—a force of nature, or a human emotion. We’ll have to get creative if you decide to take us through stories like those.”
“Give me an example?”
“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”Hook laughed, a quiet and sadistic noise. “Though watching that kind of mayhem is alwaysgood for a lark. You want gruesome and problematic? Nothing quite like child mutilation to wake you up in the morning.”
“Mr. Slugworth is the villain in that story, though.”
“No, he isn’t.” Hook rolled his eyes as he continued to play through the melancholy piece. “And you call yourself alibrarian.Slugworth might be a reason why Wonka has pathos and resorts to slave labor to run his factory, but he is hardly the real villain.”
She went to argue about the slave labor, but then she remembered about an edit that turned the Oompa Loompas from “African Pygmies" into the strange orange-and-green monstrosities more well known from the film. She winced. “Well, we are in Peter Pan, right now. We’ll have to deal with the, um, locals, at some point, won’t we?”
“Classic literature is rife with landmines of such a nature. We’ll have to deal with such things as we come across them. I’ll leave that up to your creative liberties to reinterpret. That's hardly my area of expertise.” He lifted up his hook to shake it at her. “And don’t change the subject when you’re about to lose a debate. Bad form.”
He really was both Hook and Vile at the same time. “All right. Well, if Mr. Slugworth isn’t the villain of the story, who do you argue is?” She walked up to the edge of the harpsichord to watch him as he played.
He moved on to a second piece, no less melancholy than the first. “To find the true antagonist of any story, you have to find the underlying theme. What is the theme ofCharlie and the Chocolate Factory?I argue it is a ham-fisted lesson about the dangers of greed and excess.”
Pausing, she shrugged. “All right. So the real villain is ‘greed.’ And I’ll argue that Mr. Slugworth is the person in that story that’s meant to represent that.”
“But he never takes the stage. We only ever hear of him suffering in the wings—and even then, only in the novel. In the film, he’s some kind of, what, pathetic double actor?” With an incredulous snort, he slammed his hand down on the keys, hitting a discordant chord. “Plot hole!”
That made her laugh. “Not a fan of the film?”
“I enjoy it greatly! But that makes no sense.” He resumed playing. “Plot holes are like headaches to something like me. They are simply something we endure.” He paused. “But we won’t be visiting Wonka, I’m afraid.”
“Not that I’m arguing, but why not?”
Hook paused, the music hanging in the air for a moment. “The matter is a bit complex. Let’s simply blame it on the snozzberries.?*”
Sasha blinked. “What was that?”
“What was what?”
