CHAPTER NINE
Ridi, Pagliaccio, e ognun applaudirà!
Tramuta in lazzi lo spasmo ed il pianto
in una smorfia il singhiozzo e 'l dolor, Ah!
Ridi, Pagliaccio!
sul tuo amore infranto!
Ridi del duol, che t'avvelena il cor!
(translation)
Laugh, clown, so the crowd will cheer!
Turn your distress and tears into jest,
Your pain and sobbing into a funny face - Ah!
Laugh, clown!
At your broken love!
Laugh at the grief that poisons your heart!
— Vesti La Giubba
From the opera "Pagliacci" by Ruggiero Leoncavallo
It was almost five-thirty before Robbie emerged. The stage door of the theatre opened, and he gave a bemused look at the people who were waiting for him.
"What's all this?" He barked.
"Robbie, we've been waiting here for almost an hour!" Trixie whined.
Ziggy ran up and hugged the man's leg.
Stephanie cringed sheepishly at Robbie's indignant glare. "We sort of told the others that you were gonna show us something."
Níu smirked. "I do believe the children were missing you."
Insult was added to injury as Sportacus flipped up to join them.
"What, is that it, or are we waiting for the cavalry division, too?" Robbie remarked, resenting the blue elf's cheery smile.
"Sorry…" Stephanie squeaked.
With a big, begrudging sigh, Robbie flung the stage door entirely open and beckoned for the group to follow him. "You're lucky I'm too exhausted to chase all of you tag-alongs off."
They headed along the wide, darkened corridor backstage. The clump of giggly youngsters were brought to a surprise halt as Robbie opened a broom cupboard and started fumbling about inside it.
Upon the wall on her right, Stephanie noticed a collection of framed, yellowed posters hanging in one long, neat row. The one she stood next to boasted a tall, beautiful woman holding up a glass of wine in a theatrical toast. The scrolling title read: 'Verdi's "La Traviata"'.
The long violet curls were unfamiliar, but something about her white skin and lively green eyes was very haunting indeed.
"Alright," Robbie announced. "Single file. And keep your sticky little hands to yourself. That goes double for you, Sportajock."
The children gaped at the heavy door that seemed to have magically appeared in the back of the dingy closet. All traces of daylight vanished as they passed through it, carefully treading down a set of old concrete stairs into an even dingier concrete hallway. Their only light source was an occasional fluroescent wall-sconce. The giggling and chattering died down, and the group followed the villain in awed silence. There were more staircases to descend, deeper and longer than the first. Down they went into the underground.
"This is like a low-budget 'Phantom of the Opera'," Stingy quipped.
"Shut it, pipsqueak," retorted Robbie.
After an entirely disorienting journey, they came to the final corridor, at the end of which was a set of metallic double doors. Without any ceremony, Robbie produced a key, unlocked the doors and swept them open.
"WOAH!!" Someone cried.
The doorway opened up to reveal an enormous room with a ceiling higher than the tallest buildings in town. Grille catwalks and stairways criss-crossed it, leading to other, tantalising-looking doorways. The entire thing seemed to be constructed of metal. Down on the floor of this massive chamber was a mess of machinery, and another catwalk holding both a row of strange glass tubes and a large musical instrument similar to a pipe-organ. In the middle of the space, upon a thick rug of bright orange, there sat a deep, fuzzy recliner of an equally bright orange. This last object looked to be the single wreath of warmth and softness that floated in this nebula of chilly steel.
"What is this place?" Pixel gaped. His boffin senses were saturated, eyes shining brighter than a toddler in a candy shop.
"It's my house," Robbie answered curtly, "and you brats had better behave while you're here."
"I thought you could only enter through the hatch behind that big billboard," Sportacus said.
"That's what you think, Sportagit."
As he shot out this comeback, Robbie hurried over to one of the smaller doors that stood ajar, quickly slamming it shut and locking it fast.
"This place used to be a bomb shelter, back in the olden days," Níu told them. "It was designed to be as accessible as possible, with entrances and exits all over town. However, I think some of them may have been sealed off by now."
"Alright, enough with the history lesson," Robbie snapped, irritably rounding the group up and drawing them over to his workbench. "Let's get this over with."
From a shelf under the messy benchtop, he pulled out a tray of plastic cartons, all full of dirt. Each one had a few tiny green saplings peeking out of the soil.
"I sent a sample of the mutant plant to a university in the city for testing," he began. "Biochemistry has never been my strong suit, but I was able to conduct a few basic experiments of my own. The researchers' results came back to me today, and by putting that together with my own various findings, I think I've figured out the source of that horrid thing."
"Well done, Robbie!" Sportacus cheered, and was silenced by a Look from the tall man.
He reached under the benchtop again and pulled out a beaten-up old diary.
"My father was more meticulous about keeping diaries than Pinky is." He sneered a little. "Although none of his entries were about how cute Sportadork's butt is."
Stephanie's jaw dropped, and Trixie sniggered.
Robbie flipped through the pages of the book in his hands. "He wrote volumes about that plant. It seems to be some deviation of Dionaea muscipula, or the Venus flytrap, hence its carnivorous diet. His aim was to create a life-form which could raise itself from the dead. He named it 'Project Anastasia'."
He looked up at this point, to make sure nobody was poking around his machines. All eyes were fixed on him. Perhaps after studying the project so closely for weeks, Robbie had forgotten how astonishing "Project Anastasia" actually was. He himself had almost choked on his coffee when he'd first read about it.
He cleared his throat. "He did not succeed. He was arrested and had his equipment seized before he had the chance. The furthest he had gotten was a plant which could survive in very harsh surroundings. That monster had been growing steadily for fifteen years, eating rodents and insects. It almost made a meal of Murgatroid, who broke free. He only died from the heavy spraying of venom he was covered in."
Stephanie put a hand to her mouth, and Sportacus put a bracing hand on her shoulder. He was a little concerned at the detatched voice Robbie was describing all of this with. This was his own father, crafting monsters. Surely the man would be affected by this on some level. His eyes had not left the pages of the diary.
Over these past weeks, Sportacus had noticed a change, though only very slight, in Robbie's behaviour. Perhaps it had been his sharing of a common goal with the townspeople. He retained his usual bluntness, his disinclinations, but Sportacus swore there was now a slighty softer character to his snarling, leonine voice. The elf prayed that Robbie's current surge of popularity in town might further wear down the sphinx-like defenses he always wore. They had been invited to share his home and his scholarly talents… but that aloof and impatient aura currently surrounding him did not bode well.
"If Anastasia was such an important project, what was she doing in the sunroom?" Asked Stingy.
Eyes still on the diary, Robbie raised a sardonic eyebrow. "If you were a fat, stupid policeman, would you look for a mad scientist's Frankenstein Monster in a pretty little sunroom, or in a creepy basement lab?"
Continuing, Robbie picked up one of the little pot plants. "I have deprived these saplings of sunlight, water and nutrients. This soil is totally infertile. And yet, they've been doing well. These three," he arranged three of the pots together on the right side of the bench, "are seedlings of the flesh-eating plant."
As he put each one down, the children quickly backed away from the innocent-looking things.
"What about those other three?" Sportacus asked.
"Those…?" Robbie growled, baring his teeth.
"Those… are lilacs." A laugh tumbled from his mouth. "Totally harmless."
The kids laughed along with him, grateful for something to alleviate the weight of the information.
Their mirth was cut short by the blunt command: "Now, get out."
"Wait," Stephanie interjected. "What if…"
"I said 'get out', Pinky."
Before he could push his 'guests' out the door, Níu stepped into his path, fixing the villain with a Look of his own.
"Answer her question, Robbie."
Robbie pursed his lips, eyes cast downwards. "Fine."
"Wh… what if that thing dropped seeds? There could be more plants growing on the grounds. And what if your father has been able to keep working on this project from prison?"
He took on an evasive look again, and headed back to his workbench.
"First of all, you needn't worry about more plants, because I shall do this to the garden…"
He took out a jar of chunky salt crystals, and proceeded to sprinkle them over all three of the carnivorous saplings.
"The salt will kill anything green, stopping any other mutant saplings before they have a chance to spread."
Stephanie was a little saddened by this—she pictured that verdant forest in front of the manor becoming a lifeless brown wasteland.
"And second of all, I don't think my father can do much damage now, seeing as he's been dead for years."
He turned away from the others, summoning a solid poker-face, after the briefest glimpse of sorrow passed over his features.
"Oh," Stephanie murmured, her mood thoroughly darkened.
"Is that all? Will you get out of my house, now?"
The girl tried to resist blurting out another question, failing miserably. "Wh… why was your dad sent to prison in the first place? Experiments or not, it doesn't seem like he was doing anything that bad."
Before Robbie could react, Sportacus interrupted with a heartfelt reply.
"Not only was he caught grave-robbing, but he also hurt—"
Sportacus himself was interrupted by the heated, shocked glare Robbie was drilling into him.
A silence froze the three of them.
"Oh, cool! What's this?"
Pixel's bright red hair could be seen sticking out of a large crate of corrugated iron. A small pile of discarded gadgets was already lying at his feet.
"HEY! Get out of that, Poodle!" Robbie stalked up to the tall boy, followed closely by a worried Sportacus.
The child emerged, holding another invention in his hands, and Stephanie gave out a scream.
"Pixel, don't touch that!"
"Why? I think he looks kinda cute."
He scratched the chin of the small robot dog, and before anyone could stop him, he'd flipped the switch on its back.
Stephanie and Sportacus tensely backed away, awaiting the hound's wrath. Instead, it looked about the lair with curious, light blue eyes, and drooled placidly. When Pixel scratched it again, it panted happily.
"I had to reprogramme Sugar-Pie," Robbie explained, rather pacified by the others marvelling at his creation. "It was the only way to stop him running amok in my lair."
"Why didn't you just turn him off?" Sportacus asked.
The man's posture slackened. "Yeah, well," he grunted, "I kinda realised that later."
Pixel placed the dog gently on the floor. "Sugar-pie, sit!"
It dumbly tilted its head, wagging its little tail.
"Wow, just like most real dogs."
Suddenly, everybody recoiled as a soaring soprano voice split the air from a pair of large speakers. All eyes fell on a shamefaced Ziggy, whose pudgy fingers were hovering over a panel of brightly-coloured buttons. He had also caused a metal wall-panel to slide back, revealing a towering shelf of music albums.
Stephanie strode up to the wee offender, ready to deliver a stern lecture. Before she could open her mouth, something sitting on the shelf caught her eye, black and white and sparkly.
"Oh wow… you have Madonna on vinyl, Robbie!? I didn't know you liked cool music!"
"Don't touch that, Pinky, it's a first-run pressing!"
She simpered at him. "Can you put in on for me, Robbie? Oh please please please?"
He shifted his eyes toward the elves, giving them an I'm-At-The-End-Of-My-Patience scowl.
"We'll fetch the kids' parents to take them home," Sportacus promised.
"You'd better," said Robbie's scowl.
The villain sat hugging his knees on the steps of the catwalk with his head lowered, yearning for the moment when they would leave. Thanks to his own blasted generosity, his dark sanctuary had been converted into a playground. Why could he not bring himself to shoo them all out? The familiar strains of 'Into the Groove' accompanied Stephanie and Sportacus' spirited dancing, and Robbie felt jilted. The Little Pink Thing had stolen his Madge. (Why couldn't she get her own divas? Next thing you know, she'd be into Dame Joan and Monserrat Caballe, too.)
Ziggy had commandered the recliner, stroking Sugar-Pie's purple pelt, as Pixel phoned his parents on his hands-free cell. "Yeah… just come to the big billboard and Robbie can let you in."
"WHAT!? I didn't say they could come down here!"
Pixel had already hung up. He shrugged at Robbie. "They'll only be in here a few seconds."
"That's a few seconds too many!"
"Come on, lad, I'll come with you to let them in," Níu urged, putting a bracing hand on Robbie's shoulders. The irritated master obviously needed more babysitting than his young guests. The old elf swallowed his remorse, reflecting that this character-building would be good for Robbie.
The tall man obeyed, choking back a defeated sob.
**
This wasn't happening.
At least, that was the mantra stringing through Robbie's head as he desperately clung to his last fibre of calm.
He had originally intended to rush Old Man Nine in and out of his lair in the space of ten minutes. Now, at least twenty people had invaded his inner sanctum with only a few polite insistences.
Having to simultaneously warn people not to touch his things, keep Sportadork's dancing from getting too gymnastic, avoid Trixie's oversexed mother and yell at the whole mob to leave proved too much. He returned to his foetal position on the catwalk steps. At least Sugar-Pie was enjoying the attention, prancing around the guests' feet.
Oh God, could he smell pizza?
"Great party, Mister Rotten," came the voice of some anonymous older sibling.
He idly wondered why Sportacus' crystal wasn't beeping madly.
There was a break in the music. Robbie reflexively looked up, and his gaze met with the blue-eyed boy himself, kneeling before him.
"Why the sad face?" He implored sweetly. "Come on Robbie, get up and dance with us."
The villain steeled himself. "Robbie Rotten doesn't dance."
The nearby children all gave him the same funny look before breaking into dismissive laughter.
"Are you kidding or something?" Trixie scoffed. "You dance with us all the time!"
"Yeah. You danced with us when you were a pirate…"
"…And when you were a ringmaster…"
"…And a scoutmaster…"
"And you danced with me all day when you were a dance instructor," Stephanie twinkled.
Robbie pouted at this reminder of his theatrics.
"Come on, I'll teach you how to do 'Bing Bang'." Small hands tugged on large pale ones.
"You must be joking, Pinky."
"Oh, Mister Rotten!" Beckoned a booming, come-hither voice from across the room. "Come and let me show you my deep-tissue massage technique!"
A terrified smile gripped his features. "I mean— sure thing, Stephanie."
The record had changed. It was a little awkward to 'up, up, do the jump' to The Cure, but the participants managed well enough. After trying to make an escape at the end of the first track, Robbie was dragged back onto the floor by Sportacus, who made sure to adhere to the reluctant host. He gently corrected his charge, ensuring the man didn't lose his balance. By the time 'Love Cats' had screeched its last few bars, Robbie's anxiety had begun to recede. He grew less mindful of the horde occupying his usually peaceful home, allowing himself to enjoy the pulse of the pop music, the giddy whirl of his body in motion, and the kindly hand of the elf bolstering his movements.
A few songs later, he withdrew, his tired body resisting any further exercise.
Níu drew his son away as well. "Teaching a self-proclaimed villain to dance," he said, when the two were apart from the others. "There aren't many children who would have the courage for that. You weren't kidding when you said she was special."
Sportacus sighed. "She's still young, Pabbi. I don't know whether I'm even going to ask her yet."
Níu nodded. "Fair enough. But you said you had a gut feeling. I wouldn't put it past her."
While Robbie pushed his way through the still-yammering throng, looking for a place to sit down, his ears picked up a conversation in the corner of the lair.
"Oh my God, check out the frilly gown this fat chick is wearing."
"Doesn't he have any music that isn't, like, a hundered years old?"
"Oh look, here's some more Madonna."
Two overdressed teenage girls with jet-black hair (at a guess, Trixie's sisters), were tearing through Robbie's prized record collection. With all the ignorance of Huns raiding the library of Alexandria, they were thumbing through the inset booklets, fingering the vinyl and tossing the cardboard covers carelessly to the floor.
"Hey, look at this weird chick. 'La Fata Lillà'. Lame."
"Who has purple hair, anyway?"
"Must be an eighties thing."
"GET YOUR HANDS OFF THAT!"
The girls cowered under their host's fury, one of them too shocked to object as he ripped the album out of her unworthy hands.
"DON'T YOU TOUCH THIS! DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH THIS!"
A number of people had turned to gape at the scene. Níu analysed the situation, and sprung into action. The fuse had finally gone off, but there was still time for damage control.
"I remember Robbie was quite the classical music fan at school," he declared light-heartedly. "I see nothing has changed in that respect."
A few people dared to laugh nervously.
"Robbie, why don't you play us something?"
"What?" His head snapped up as he frantically salvaged his defiled records.
"On your organ up there," Níu insisted. "You were always the highlight of the school recitals." The old elf hoped against hope that arousing Robbie's vanity would be enough to avert disaster.
"That's only because he made me perform at those stupid concerts," the man grumbled under his breath.
"Come on Robbie, play for us!" Stephanie pleaded.
The tension had begun to ease, and he could feel an increasing amount of hopeful smiles being aimed at him. Mechanically, he lifted his head again, exhaled, and slowly ascended the catwalk.
Somehow, without looking, he knew that the only two people applauding were Sportadope and Ziggy.
Robbie sat at his organ. What should he play? 'Toccata and Fugue in D Minor' came to mind with a quiver of cruel delight. This option was withdrawn when he realised anyone wetting their pants would leave puddles on his precious floor.
He remembered an arietta he learnt from Mamma, one of Paisiello's. She had told him it was a song for the coquette, the deceptive flirt. The tune was fluttery, feminine and light, the lyrics plaintive and despairing. Its purpose was to disarm the listening male, to let him think he sees vulnerability, and to ensare him in the tender trap. Even as a child, Robbie had disagreed. Unless performed in Italy, barely anyone listening would understand the words. Audiences outside of Romance Europe fancied it a cheerful little jingle, not despairing in the least. They could not translate the desolation hidden within it.
Robbie cast a smouldering, venomous look at the blue elf before beginning.
"Nel cor più non mi sento (Why feels my heart so dormant?)
Brillar la gioventù; (No fire of youth divine?)
Cagion del mio tormento, (The cause of all my torment)
Amor, sei colpa tu! (My love, the fault is thine!)"
He rode the performance out with a bubbly, effete, almost comical voice, giving up on expressing the arietta's buried sadness. True to form, the ovation was merry, without any real fire. Its blandness made him long for the evenings when, sneaking from Mamma's dressing room to the wings, he'd peer out to the stage and soak in the fanatical hollering, encores and tossed roses of the La Scala crowds.
At least the formalities of a recital gave Robbie an excuse to turn the rabble out afterwards. They filed up the stairs as one compliant flock, all but the rowdiest youths looking forward to their early bedtimes. Pixel took Sugar-Pie with him, and Robbie did not protest. The dog just would have gathered dust otherwise.
He looked around his empty, dishevelled lair, so suddenly returned to its former silence, and collapsed upon his recliner.
**