How To Get Out Of Gaol In 1919
A Mirror, Mirror Fanfiction
~1995~
Huffily, Jade snatched up her magazine from where it lay on the banana chair. "This is useless!" She still couldn't believe that stupid old codger's brilliant plan to get rid of Jo Tiegan was for her to sit by the pool! What did that even achieve?
This was, she promised herself bitterly, the last time she was doing what the pathetic antique dealer told her to, unless he started coming up with some real results real fast.
At the same moment Jade nonetheless plopped into the chair following this exasperated exclamation, her mother came tottering over on high heels, in her lime-green suit. "I'm off now, lambykins. Shan't be long." She kissed her fingertips and went to press them to her daughter's brow lovingly. "Mmm-oh!" Her eyes landed disapprovingly on the magazine. "Isn't there something more constructive you could be reading? Poetry, a classic novel!"
Jumping up, Jade raced through the sliding glass door after her mother, bellowing she was just coming in now to get Pride and Prejudice – that she found it good for little else but to shade her face or hold the door open when her hands were full, she kept to herself.
She never heard the oddly sad little whirr-whirr-whirr of a remote-control aeroplane being turned round outside. Never would she have guessed in a million years Royce Tiegan – face crestfallen – was crouching in the grass, having planned to drop a load of sticky, gooey coloured mould from one of Tama's old Science projects on her head.
He was already trekking back across the hillside dejectedly when he saw Louisa and Tama. Their faces looked just as downcast as his own. Great. Just what he needed: another catastrophe. Why did something always have to be – or go – wrong?
"What's your problem now?" he groused, uncharacteristically grumpy.
"Oh, nothing much." Tama's expression was sour. "Just Jo's in gaol, that's all!"
Mouth agape, Royce looked to Louisa for confirmation, and she raised her eyebrows and gave him a little nod. She tried, struggle though it was, not to stare too long at the huge toy aeroplane dangling from his hand – there was too much at stake to play right now, however badly she wanted to.
~1919~
"Louisa, without Jo's brother, you'll need my help!" crackled the walkie-talkie. "You have to get me out of here! Over."
Louisa cast an anxious glance over her shoulder to Tama, who'd put on their dead gardener's old clothes with Titus's help. She'd meant to bring Royce back, thinking even if she couldn't get Jo's parents down to the police station to claim her, perhaps... He was her brother. Even if he didn't look a thing like her. Well, it hadn't been much of a plan to begin with, so it might be for the best Jo's mother had taken Royce away and she'd had to coax Tama – who'd never been able to get it to work for him before – through the mirror instead. At least they had something he could wear. The trouble was, they still had no plan.
And now they had to worry about rescuing Nicholas, too.
"Yes, all right, Nicholas," she spoke into the walkie-talkie. "We'll try. Over and out."
"These stink!" said Tama of the clothes he was wearing.
"Nicholas says he wants to help us rescue Jo," Louisa informed him, biting back a smile in spite of herself.
He brightened. "Cool."
She winced. "But that means we have to rescue him first."
"Can't he get out on his own?" A shake of her head told him no, but Tama's face didn't sink at this revelation half as much as Louisa'd anticipated. "I think I know a way to do that, maybe." He mightn't know how to get Jo out of gaol, but Nicholas out of a simple house next door? "We just need the right equipment."
"But this is 1919 – we don't have the wonderful machines you do." She thought longingly of the aeroplane – and all the toy cars – she'd seen lying around Jo's house, still sad she hadn't gotten to play with any. If those were toys, imagine what tools they had!
"Oh, no, don't worry." He gave her a reassuring grin. "What I'm thinking about has been around for centuries."
"What is it?" She bit her bottom lip.
"A bow and arrow – oh, and some string and rope. Trust me, Louisa. If my guess is correct, that's all we'll need."
~1919~
The iron door opened indelicately. Standing beside the blonde-moustached constable, was the frowning wardress.
Bloody cow, thought Jo. She wasn't thrilled to see the constable again, either – she'd found him a bit handsy when Sir Ivor had had him drag her in. The girl beside her in the cell pulled a face at them.
"Righteo. Come along, Missy, and n'that lip of yours – yer father's here for ya."
Jo gaped at the wardress, who seemed decidedly unhappy anyone had come within the allotted timeframe – she looked like she would have enjoyed shipping her off to some farm or institution for the destitute on the South Island.
"Dad?" rasped Jo, when she could. How could he have come for her? Blinking, she stumbled after them down the musty, clanking and echoy corridor, and back into the interview room at the front, stopping short at the sight of – indeed – a man with his back to her.
It wasn't Andrew. That much Jo knew immediately. He seemed familiar, though. For a strange instant, she actually thought it was the old man – the one who had given her the mirror at the antique shop. But this was 1919, he wouldn't be old here, if he were alive. She thought – in a fleeting flash – of Royce saying an old guy had called him on the phone and told him to go through because he knew Jo and Louisa needed help.
Was it possible...?
Then he turned and – recognition dawning – all cohesive thoughts beyond baffled wonder and the suppression of laughter (no small feat) fled.
It was Nicholas.
He was wearing an unseasonable greatcoat with the wide kind of shoulders that always make a person look broader and deeper chested than they really are, and he was certainly tall enough to pass for an adult. On top of that, he'd – with what Jo assumed must be make-up – drawn in a dark moustache on his upper lip and a comically dainty mole on the left side of his chin. She wondered if he'd done these himself – or if Louisa and Ani had had to help him.
Imagining Louisa gripping one side of his face and keeping him still to draw in the lines of the false moustache made it impossible for Jo not to smile. She bit back the grin. Oh, she'd just known Louisa would find a way to get her out!
Height notwithstanding, the overall effect of Nick's disguise shouldn't have been the least convincing, no more believable than the old gag with two little kids sitting on each other's shoulders under a big jacket trying to get into a movie they weren't old enough to see, but the way the brim of the white hat he wore shadowed the moustache and mole in this mote-filled light, did make them look like they might just be real...
"N–" Jo began to splutter before catching herself, casting an anxious side-eye at the wardress. "I mean, Dad..." She mouthed, "The hell?" when she was turned so only Nick could see her face.
"Josephine, I am appalled."
The accent nearly made Jo double over. It was an affected – deeply affected – attempt at sounding Australian that was more reminiscent of garbed Irish. Maybe someone with that voice could have passed for a pom – assuming the speaker was from the same part of London as Dick Van Dyke.
It was too much, whatever else it was.
Nicholas, sensing the danger – the step gone that wee-bit too far – lurched forward and grabbed her arm to disguise her inevitable laugh as a cry of protest. He tried to make it look like he was hurting her without actually hurting her.
"What will your mama say?" He gave her a quick shake nowhere near as rough as it appeared. "I will tell you what. She, too, shall be appalled."
The wardress must have thought Jo was trembling. She was a bit. She was both dying of amusement and terrified they'd get caught – couldn't see how any moron would possibly fall for this.
Also, the 'mama' part had come out sounding distinctly Russian.
"How many times must I tell you not to engage in petty housebreaking?" He said it as if he were reprimanding her for not brushing her teeth. Casting a look at the constable, he huffed, "Believes herself to be the Artful Dodger, this one does."
The wardress didn't get the reference. "Who?"
Nick shook his head. "Never mind. Thank you for keeping my daughter safe and warm until I could fetch her." He placed some money on the desk. "For your time, good woman."
As they turned to go, his hand still on her arm, Jo noticed for the first time Nicholas had a wedding band on. She wondered where Louisa had managed to knock that off from.
~1919~
The wardress pursed her lips at their backs, but she didn't stop them, though she did glance confusedly out the door at Nicholas – who had been yanking his 'daughter' about this way and that by the elbow and telling her off – as he suddenly turned extremely gentle and began assisting his errant charge up onto a waiting white horse.
His voice was different, more foreign, as he said, "Hold on tight, Jo." Climbing on behind her, he wrapped his arms about her waist and made a clicking noise for the horse to giddyup. Jo – droopy with relief – sagged back against him.
"Strange sort of dad that one's got," the wardress muttered, shaking her head. "Perhaps I'll give Sir Ivor a ring once I'm back at my desk – let 'im know someone came for the washed-up little beggar after all."