The Last Stand: The Deleted Scenes
Three
(From Chapter Fifteen)
Algernon wasted no time with maps on this occasion, instead journeying directly to the humanities building by magic and materialising in a broom cupboard. He peered out from it and cast a furtive look around before removing himself from the little room fully; it would not do to have any inquisitive students or professors asking him precisely what he was doing in the broom cupboard. He extricated his foot from the watering can that it had become lodged in when he had landed and threw it back into the cupboard, not sparing a moment to wonder why such an incongruous item was housed there. He skittered down the corridors, leaping behind pillars whenever he saw someone coming in his direction before realising that the pillars would do nothing to hide his billowing silhouette and that the people who passed him merely saw a strange old man attempting to conceal himself without success. Algernon thought it prudent to press on in case someone saw something suspicious, if wholly unintended in his actions, and he found himself explaining his presence to the police. He picked up the pace of his heavy footsteps until he was positively sprinting down the corridors past the rows of doors, searching in vain for one that showed Gareth's name. Finally he came to a nameplate that read 'Dr G Jones', and he knocked on the door hurriedly, bending double to catch his breath.
The door opened and Algernon burst into his tale of woe before Gareth had even had a chance to say hello. Once he had reached the end, puzzled that Gareth had not made any reaction, Algernon looked up to find that the person he was addressing was most certainly not Gareth.
"You aren't Gareth Jones!" he exploded, pointing an accusatory finger at the woman as if she had been personally responsible for Gareth's removal from the place in which he should rightly be found.
"No," she said, a slightly amused look on her face. "I'm Gillian Jones. Gareth's office is on the floor below."
Poor Algernon… I really do punish him far more than strictly necessary…