Albertini produced the three diamonds. “Me, a’m their purse.”

  “What a mature sounding lad, if uncouth! What amusing gemstones.”

  Albertini made two jewels disappear and thrust the third at the noble. “Gift, sir, Lord. Yer give us a roof, few nights, huh?”

  “Goodness me.” As if inadvertently the noble’s hand strayed to claim the offering. “Doubtless a space may be found in our stables.”

  “Stables, nuthin’.”

  We were scrutinized.

  “Hmm. A hot barth, liberal application of toilet water, one’s hair dressed properly, a decent gown loaned.. .one might be presentable. Lovely, even! A fair ornament to our frolics. You too, Sir What’s- your-name”

  “Pedino.”

  “Me an’ all!” Albertini juggled the two remaining diamonds.

  “You are the merest child.”

  Albertini puffed himself up. “Me, a’m a dwarf, Lord, sir.”

  The entourage giggled, till Albertini darted a ferocious glare. “Watch it. A take no guff.”

  “I see.a jester. Oh very well.”

  Several hours later, pink from our baths, perfumed, primped, and reapparelled, we attended a soiree in the ballroom.

  Sara was a sensuous dream in a low-cut evening gown, flounced and furbelowed, her hair piled high. I cut a dash in a frock-coat with aggressive lapels and high, padded collar. My high-waisted tight white pantaloons made my legs seem like naked white marble. Albertini writhed uncomfortably in a miniature spangled black satin suit and buckled winkle-pickers borrowed from the nursery.

  Our silver-haired host the Honourable Marcus, was paying exaggerated court to Sara. The ballroom was thronged with elegance but the Hon. Marcus wouldn’t let Sara leave his side, insisting on dance after dance to the music of the string quartet. Sara looked none too delighted at his suggestive endearments. Whenever I tried to cut in, the Hon. Marcus frowned thunderously.

  “Me shoes pinch,” Albertini grumbled. “Me clothes is stranglin’ me. These phoney folk! Posh, smart talk. Two-faced toads.”

  A plump, decolletee lady with black beauty spots on cheek and breast advanced fluttering an ivory fan. She frankly eyed my blatant thighs.

  “The mysterious stranger! How absolutely special.”

  “Let’s get out of here, young Albert.”

  “Where to, boss?”

  “To the happy isle, the final square.” I had our painted pane in an inside pocket; along with Sara’s knife. She had nowhere to store anything, unless squeezed between her breasts or gartered to her thigh, where the blade would have been slow to retrieve.

  I thrust through the crowd, Albertini at my heels. I slapped the Hon. Marcus brusquely on the shoulder, with an “Excuse me!” and caught Sara by the wrist. “Let’s step outside for a breather.”

  “I say, sir!”

  I let Marcus glimpse the knife.

  “In yer tripes?” Albertini poked him by way of demonstration.

  The three of us fled through french windows out on to a lawn. The gibbous moon loomed amidst curious constellations. Music and astonished chatter pursued us.

  “They’ll turn nasty,” warned Sara. “Grooms. Dogs.”

  I held up the glass. “Call.”

  She hesitated. “It’ll mean the end of their world. The end of all these squares.. .the slum, Mendrix’s city.”

  “Is that our fault? We don’t belong, Sara.”

  “Too right,” agreed Albertini. “We have to move on. To the happy isle; maybe beyond to another world. Please call.”

  “Why don’t you?” She didn’t wish to take responsibility.

  “All right.” I held the glass to the moon. “Come to me, Snake! Come to me, ladder!”

  No snake veered down from the heavens. No sparkling ladder sprang up. Voices were calling out behind us. A hound gave tongue.

  “Oh here, I’ll do it.” She gripped the glass and called.

  A snake came, and plucked at our hunters.

  A ladder rose; we climbed.

  A yellow beach curved along a turquoise bay. A far line of froth hinted at a reef. Palm trees drowsed.

  Some bird of paradise-emerald and scarlet-flapped from perch to perch. Albertini heeled off his narrow shoes and squirmed his toes deliciously in the sand. He ripped his suit open.

  “Don’ s’pose Lord Muck’d like this much!”

  “Nor Mendrix,” said Sara. “Quite uncivilized!”

  “Suits me fine.”

  “It looks promising.”

  “For how long?” I asked.

  I was starting to overheat in my clinging frock-coat and skintight pantaloons. Sara was luckier; her skirts made an airy tent for her legs.

  My question was soon answered. The ground heaved ominously. Nuts showered down, fronds flapped. The entire island tilted with a groan, as if trying to turn turtle in the ocean. As the land rose, so the sea ran away from the shore.

  The bay emptied out as we braced ourselves for balance. Sandy shelves were exposed, bedraggled weed, corals, and thousands of flamboyant fish. Big fish flexed and flopped; little ones bounced like fleas.

  The island relapsed. Prior to a second effort to heave itself over? As the land sank the sea started to rush back-in a long, curling wave that looked higher than any tree on shore.

  “Wha’ a damn cheat! Five minutes, tha’s yer lot. Call a snake, Sara! Get us outa ’ere!”

  A ladder obviously couldn’t help us out of this fix. Where could a ladder take us to? We’d won through to the last square of all. The other squares would already be turning topsy-turvy, shedding their inhabitants the way a tree sheds leaves.

  “Hold hands!” Sara brandished the glass in her left hand.

  The roaring wave was almost upon us when the snake arrived. The serpent head swooped down ahead of the wall of water. We were sucked up.

  We rushed through a tunnel of darkness till the snake vomited us out-into crackling blue emptiness.

  The snake immediately withdrew, abandoning us in the middle of nowhere. Nothing was visible in any direction. Nevertheless Sara and I both shouted journey-magic. Our former magic seemed effective. We sped onward.

  But where to? We flew without a goal. I visualized beloved Bellogard. I tried to conjure the city of light. Alas, Bellogard no longer existed, so this was a waste of time.

  “Where to?” Albertini squealed.

  “You tell us!”

  “Me? A’d pay any munny!” To indicate his willingness the boy jerked a hand free.

  “Hold o«!”.and displayed one of our remaining diamonds. As a bribe to the blue.

  “Any munny!”

  “So would I!” cried Sara.

  We appeared to change direction.

  “Go to jail,” said the nondescript man who wore a blue uniform. He clashed bars shut before our bewildered eyes, and turned a large key.

  “Hey! Wha’ ’appened? Where are we?”

  “You’ll have your next turn this evening,” said the man in blue.

  “Wha’ turn?”

  “You know the rules. Either you throw a double or you pay a fine, and you’re back on the streets.” “Double wha’?”

  “Beats me what a kid’s doing in here. But there you are.” With a shrug, our jailer departed.

  Cells on two levels surrounded a tiled, iron-balconied hall which was lit by incandescent wires in glass tubes. This prison at least bore no resemblance to that ghastly dungeon in Chorny. Wasn’t our turnkey surprised that three people had appeared out of nowhere in a vacant cell? Apparently not. He seemed a dullard.

  Fortunately the very next cell was occupied by a gabby fellow. All soon became clear; relatively.

  This whole world was ruled by money and by the acquisition of property, of “real estate”. Life here was a constant round of purchasing houses, buying whole streets, charging rent, mortgaging streets to buy more streets-and to pay the exorbitant rents demanded by owners of other streets. All administration was in the hands of a labyrinthine bank where thousands of clerks worked. Maybe these drudges were the fortunate members of the community since bank employees were exempt-though also debarred from the rewards-in the everlasting battle for financial supremacy. In theory one single smart operator would one day become the “monopolist” who owned the whole world, bank included. That day seemed far distant.

  According to our informant every speculator was legally obliged to use his bank “scrip” to play the game of property once a day. To this end, the bank paid a “salary” to all speculators. But besides buying property a speculator worked at an ordinary job. Otherwise how could manufacturing or food production of any of the other necessities have been possible? We felt a bit perplexed. Did the whole property-owning population move house on a daily basis? How utterly confusing.

  “No, no,” said our neighbour. “Those are legalmagic moves I’m talking about.” He was a tubby, spotty man who perspired a lot. His name was Charley.

  “Legalmagic?” repeated Sara.

  “Yeah, yeah. Didn’t your mummy and daddy tell you anything? You wouldn’t have landed in jail unless you were making moves. Where do you guys come from, the utter sticks? I mean, this stuff about kings and queens and snakes. Really! And your funny, oh-so-rich clothes! Are you trying to set me up?

  What’s the idea?”

  “Please be patient with us, Charley.”

  “Okay, so you know nothing. You just fell from the moon. Right: eyeball the magic box.” Charley indicated a red box bolted to the rear wall of his cell. An identical box was fitted in our own cell. An opaque glass plate occupied the middle part. Below, was an opening large enough to take a person’s hand, with a metal bar to grip. At the top there was a thin slot.

  “What’s ‘bankrupt’?” asked Albertini. “Yer menshoned tha’ word a few times.”

  Charley groaned. “You go broke. Can’t pay your rents or fines or taxes. No luck comes your way. You’ve already mortgaged or sold everything; you’ve no more scrip left. A big penalty hits you. You rupture, boyo. You just burst apart. Explode. Splat, blat. You’re spread all over the street, kaput. Seen it happen myself. Guess it’s a quick way to go. Beats life imprisonment with nothing to occupy yourself. How much scrip you got?”

  I searched my pockets, just in case. “We don’t seem to have any.”

  “No scrip? Zero? Zilch?” Charley jumped clear of the intervening bars, theatrically. “I’m taking cover. Unless your luck’s fantastic at the next spin of the box I’ll be wiping pieces off me.”

  “Maybe we ought to apply for a bank job,” I called.

  “Personally I’d rather explode,” he called back.

  “We go’ this.” Albertini held up a diamond.

  “Hey.” Charley rapidly shed his scruples about us disintegrating all over him.

  Soon enough, scrip changed hands through the bars. A grinning Albertini flourished grey, green, and pink paper bills marked BANK OF MONOPOLIS and valued 10, 20, 50.

  “If yer go’ munny, man, why yer in jail?”

  “On account of I was sent here, half-pint. Why else?”

  “Half-pint!” Two seconds later Albertini was clinging to the bars, chattering with rage. Cautiously Sara and I soothed and unpeeled the boy. We mollified Charley, too, who had ducked and scrambled clear.

  “The magic box?” she reminded Charley.

  Once a day, it transpired, every speculator must stick his hand in one of those boxes and grip the handle. This put him in magic contact with the bank. The glass plate would light up, displaying a pair of random numbers from one to ten. The total would dictate your next “move”. This move might “land” you on vacant property worth buying, or on owned property where you would have to pay rent. You might win a surprise reward: a dividend, a tax rebate, which would pop out of the little slot at the top of the box. That slot was also where you would insert your rent and any other payments. You were just as likely to be fined, or taxed, or sent to jail.

  “When both numbers come up the same, you get a second turn. If you score a subsequent double, that’s fine. Three doubles in a row sends you to jail, right?”

  Besides being an actual building employing a staff of thousands the bank was also a sort of brain using its spiritless clerks as its thoughts and memories. Collectively it was magical, with absolute power. If the bank sent you to jail you were instantly transported behind bars from wherever you happened to be, and be damned to your ordinary workaday existence.

  “Who built the bank?” asked Sara. “Who founded it?”

  Charley scratched his head. “There’s always been a bank. The basis of society is financial, don’t you see? Flow of wealth. Ownership of the means. Economic law of motion. Can’t have life without lucre. Can’t have territory without title-deeds. Economy precedes existence.”

  Rations of black bread and watery lentil soup were wheeled round by blue-clad warders, who were bank employees. When the empty bowls had been collected again, a bell rang.

  Charley hastened to his red box and stuck his hand in.

  “Double seven!” he crowed. “I’m out. What are you guys waiting for?” He vanished from his cell.

  “I guess we follow suit,” said Sara. “What happens,” I asked, “if we don’t use the box?” “Presumably we stay in jail. I can think of merrier places to be. We’d better stick our hands in together. We don’t want to get split up.”

  “A’m fer cheatin’,” said Albertini. “How ’bout we push our magic glass in the top slot? Might gimmick the bank.” “Why not?” agreed Sara. “Let’s do it.”

  I handed the pane back to her. It slid easily into the gap and disappeared. We all squashed together, each pushed a hand into the big aperture, and gripped part of the handle.

  The box hummed. The glass panel lit with a running message:

  JOINT ACCOUNT OPENED... ACCOUNT NAME: PEDINOALBERTINISARA. SCORE: 5 + 5 = 10. GET OUT OF JAIL FREE; MOVE TO MONOPOLIS CENTRAL STATION

  With no sense of transition we found ourselves in the thronged concourse of a railway station. We were still clutching the handle of an identical magic box; quickly we withdrew our hands.

  Brighter and slicker by far than Vauxhall in Chorny, this station was brilliantly lit from overhead by white-hot wires in glass tubes. No wrought-iron work here; only soaring planes and curves of some smooth, shiny material tinted crocus-yellow and azure. The floor was of the same substance, coloured grey. Engines waiting at the platforms had no chimneys. Engines and carriages alike were streamlined cylinders with flush, curved windows.

  Crowds were hastening to catch those trains, to depart. Most men wore suits, of pin-stripe or corduroy or denim. Women wore frocks, or twin sets, or suits just like the men’s. My own tight, chest-high pantaloons and Sara’s decolletee ball-gown attracted amused comments, but really everyone was in too much of a hurry to linger.

  The box beeped urgently. STATION FOR SALE.. COST: 200.. DO YOU WISH TO BUY?

  “What does it think we are? The Royal Chorny Railway Company?”

  “Lemme buy, Sara! Charley paid couple ’underd”

  “We’ll have nothing left.”

  “Look a’ all these folk! We charge ’em rent. Charley said so. An’ wor’ll have a home.”

  “A home in a station?”

  “A’m seein’ food ‘n’ drink. Seats to sleep on.”

  Albertini fed our BANK OF MONOPOLIS bills into the top slot. In return a stiff glossy square popped out. Albertini frowned and handed this to me.

  TITLE-DEED. Lines of instructions and figures followed this heading; on the backside, dire warnings about mortgages. I read the deed aloud slowly then gave it back to Albertini.

  The glass continued to glow. DOUBLE THROW.. SPIN AGAIN.. 7 + 3 = 10.. MONEY CHEST! BANK PAYS YOU DIVIDEND OF: 200.

  Two crisp red money-bills emerged. Albertini leapt up and down.

  Alas, we weren’t to receive any rent from the thousands of commuters using our station. The true situation was drummed into Albertini by the third traveller he accosted, clinging to their jacket, waving our title-deed, clamouring for cash.

  Rent was only transferred to our account when the bank spun numbers which theoretically landed another speculator on Monopolis Central Station. The speculator wouldn’t turn up in person; the only magical, instant journeys were those to jail, and out of jail again. Since the bank spun numbers randomly there was no guarantee that anyone would land on our property. Yet considering the huge number of speculators the law of averages suggested that we should soon be racking up invisible earnings.

  Another rude awakening was our discovery that bank scrip couldn’t be used to pay for the daily necessities. When we tried to buy some food in the station cafe, the cashier rebuffed our red 100 bill. “Credit cards” were used for all such mundane transactions. Those were oblongs of the stiff, glossy stuff called plastic which kept a magical tally of your consumer spending balanced against your ordinary income. The cashier showed us her own. We had no such cards, nor any source of routine income.

  A skinny, amiable cleaning woman who was waiting for cafe and station to empty out for the night took pity. She said that at nine o’clock the next morning we should present ourselves at the job centre outside the station to register for employment. On our way from there to whatever work was allocated we could call in at any branch of the bank, show our job centre chit, and apply for a credit card.

  “Can’t we ge’ a card wi’ this?” Alternately smirking to propitiate the woman and scowling to deter her from any criminal ambition-a mad medley of facial tics-Albertini let her see our last remaining diamond.

  Her eyes widened. “Oh yes. Oh I should think so. If it’s real, not paste. Take it straight to a bank tomorrow, that’s my advice!”

  “’S real all right. Or tha’ Charley wouldn’t ha’ bin so eager. The bastard swopped junk scrip fer a jool! He swindled us.”

  “We did buy this station with it,” Sara pointed out.

  “He coulda told us ’bout real munny too. Wha’ da they mean by callin’ yer prop’ty ‘real estate’ if yer don’ pay real munny fer it? Ga! S’pose it’s realler than magic plastic munny!”

  “What shall we do till nine o’clock, kind lady?”