Chester Cheshire grinwild's Arc

Chapter 10 of 15

Chester sat at the head of the table and watched the cake catch the light. Three chairs full. The chameleon flicked its tongue from Rapunzel's hair. Harrietta tapped her watch and stared at the empty seats like they owed her money. Chester thought about the next pull. Last time Harrietta had reached into a book and yanked out Alice. What if she had pulled out a wolf instead, or a queen who liked to behead people? A bad guest would not just bore the table. A bad guest would gut it. He slid down from his chair and crossed the cobblestones to the secret hedge garden. The pile waited where he had left it, a leaning stack of unread books with several volumes hovering loose above the top, shedding sparks. He had been planning to pull from this pile blind. He saw now what blind meant. A giant. A witch with an oven. Something with teeth. He carried the pile, armful by armful, to the table's edge. Then he sat on the cobbles and opened the first cover. He did not push his hand through. He only read. He made two columns on a fresh page. On the left he wrote what a guest needed. Likes sweets. Talks back. Survives nonsense. Will not eat the other guests. On the right he wrote what disqualified them. Carries an axe. Owns a cage. Hates cats. He read fast and sorted faster. Hansel's witch went into a locked stack. The wolf went into the locked stack. A piper who stole children went into the locked stack. He dragged the rejected books to a tall purple box with a heavy gold lock on its front and dropped them in. The lock clicked each time. He could feel it lock from across the square. Harrietta came over with her arms crossed. "What. What are you doing. We need guests. Guests, Chester." Her ears twitched. She checked her watch. "I am picking them," Chester said. "Not grabbing them." He held up a thin red book. "This one keeps a knife under his coat." He dropped it in the box. The lock swallowed it. Harrietta opened her mouth, then shut it. She sat down on the cobbles beside him and pointed at a green spine. "That one. That one bites." Chester slid it into the box. She pointed at another. "That one is fine. Loves tea. Hates rules." He set it in the keep pile. They worked through the stack together for the first time since he had pulled her out of her own page. When they finished, Chester opened a large black book with gold edges and began to copy his keep list into it, name by name, trait by trait. He wrote until the page was full. He had a compendium now. He had a short list of safe guests, a locked box of dangerous ones, and a rabbit who, for one quiet hour, had helped him choose.