“But I don’t understand. Who would want to—”
“Don’t worry about not understanding. You’re not the only one with that problem. But time is running short. Do you at least know where they’ve taken us?”
Peter made that shrugging gesture again. “I haven’t the foggiest idea.”
I looked around the room. With my eyes now well-adjusted to the dark, I could see that we were in some sort of cell. The floor, ceiling, and walls were all featureless concrete. There were no windows and only one door. The room looked like the creation of an interior designer with all the imagination of a commercial television programmer.
“I guess our location isn’t so important,” I said. “The main thing is, how are we going to get out of here?”
Peter made a different gesture this time. I think this one was supposed to be a nod. “So what’s your plan?”
“What’s my plan?”
“You do have a plan, don’t you? You must have been in situations like this hundreds of times before. I bet you’ve got all sorts of escape tricks hidden up your sleeve.”
“I’m terribly sorry to disappoint you, but I’ve never been in a situation remotely like this before. I was once locked in a public toilet for a couple of days, but I don’t think that’s quite the same. I’m also sorry to say that the only things I have up my sleeves at the moment are a couple of large bruises.”
“You mean you don’t have a plan?”
“No plan. I have no idea how we’re going to get out of here.”
“Then we’re trapped.” Peter rolled away from me and lay, facing the far wall.
I rolled after him. “Just wait a minute. I said I didn’t have a plan. That doesn’t mean we can’t put our heads together and come up with one.”
Peter rolled back to me. “You think I can help you come up with a plan?”
“Why not? You’ve read lots of detective books. You must have a pretty good idea about what an escape plan involves.”
“I’ve got lots of ideas,” said Peter, his enthusiasm renewed. “We could knock down the door with our heads and then roll under the feet of the guard and away. Or we could bite through the concrete floor, discover a hidden underground river beneath this cell, and swim to freedom. Or we could lure the guard into our cell, remove his wooden leg, and use that as a weapon to escape.”
“Those are great plans,” I said.
“You think so?”
“Most definitely. If we should ever find ourselves with a group of children to entertain, I’m sure they’d love to hear them. Unfortunately, I’m not sure they’ll be much use in our current predicament.”
“What do you mean?” Peter sounded just a little hurt.
“What I mean is those plans will work fine as long as the guard happens to have a wooden leg, or there actually is a miraculous underground river underneath this edible concrete floor. But those seem like pretty big assumptions to make. This isn’t some fantasy. This is real life.”
“No it isn’t,” said Peter. “This is Heaven. At least I assume it is. Maybe they’ve taken us . . . down below. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been down there.”
“But I have,” I said.
Given that the rest of his body was virtually immobile, Peter’s face did an excellent job at exhibiting his surprise. “You’ve been down below?”
“Yes, I’ve most definitely been to Hell, and I know exactly what it’s like. In Hell, nothing works. Whatever you try to do, no matter how simple, always turns out wrong.”
“So if we’re in . . . Hell, any escape plan we try is bound to fail.”
“Exactly, which gives me an idea. I think I know a way we can at least discount the possibility that they’ve taken us to Hell.”
“What do we have to do?”
“Pretty much anything. Whatever we try, we know it won’t work in Hell. So if we manage to make it work, then we’ll know for sure we’re not in Hell.”
“Brilliant,” said Peter. “What do you suggest we try?”
“In our current state, I think just standing up should represent enough of a challenge.”
I rolled away from Peter to give myself a little space. Then I attempted to raise my upper body away from the ground, while at the same time flipping my legs underneath. It was a hopelessly complicated maneuvre that should never have had any chance of success, but suddenly there I was, standing up straight in the middle of the cell.
“I think we can safely assume we’re not in Hell,” I said to Peter, who likewise had somehow managed to raise himself to his feet.
“So we must still be in Heaven.” said Peter. “Does that mean any escape plan we make is bound to work?”
I lowered myself to the ground and tried to think through the logic behind Peter’s presumption, but only succeeded in tying my brain into three types of knots simultaneously. Sure, I knew that in Hell things always went wrong, but did that mean that in Heaven they always went right? The idea was alluring, but it had hardly been confirmed by my recent experiences. “I suppose it means that it won’t definitely fail,” I said at last.
“If it won’t definitely fail, that means it might just have a chance of succeeding,” said Peter, coming down to lie beside me.
Peter had a point. A plan with a slim chance of succeeding was better than no plan at all. What did we have to lose by trying? After all, this was Heaven. Maybe things here didn’t always turn out right, but surely the big things, the ones that really mattered, would work out in the end. If I couldn’t believe that, then what could I believe?
“So tell me more about that last plan you mentioned,” I said after a quick assessment of which of Peter’s ideas was least implausible. “The one with the guard and the wooden leg.”
“You really want to hear it?”
“I’m not going anywhere, so I might as well.”
“Well, first of all we have to lure the guard into the cell.”
“How do you propose we do that?”
“I don’t know. Tell him it’s his birthday and we’ve baked a cake?”
“Sounds reasonable to me. What happens next?”
Peter thought for a moment. “We’ll have you lying on the ground just inside the door, so as soon as he comes into the cell, he’ll trip over you. Once he’s on the ground, I’ll sit on him while you unscrew his wooden leg. It’s a right-hand thread, make sure you remember. You use the leg to hit him over the head and knock him out. Then, if you shake the leg, you’ll discover there’s a little knife hidden in a secret compartment inside. All we have to do is cut our ropes and we’ll be free.”
“Perfect,” I said. “You’ve covered every angle.”
“Do you really think it will work?”
“Well, we know it won’t definitely fail, and that’s good enough for me. Are you ready? One, two, three.”
Peter and I began to sing Happy Birthday at the top of our lungs. Almost immediately, there was a response.
“What’s going on in there?” It was a gruff voice from the other side of the door.
“What do you think?” I shouted back. “It’s your birthday.”
“It’s my birthday today?” The voice didn’t sound too certain.
“Of course it is. How could you possibly forget?”
“We’ve baked you a cake,” added Peter.
“What sort of cake?”
“What sort do you like?” I said.
“Double choc-fudge with strawberry fondant, sprinkled with icing sugar, and topped with a single glacé cherry.” I could almost hear the voice salivating as it spoke.
“That’s the one,” I said. “That’s exactly the cake we’ve baked for you. Are you going to come in and try some or do we have to eat it all ourselves?”
There was a pause for a couple of seconds. “I’m not sure if I should.”
“Come on,” said Peter. “You can’t mean to tell us we’ve spent all this time baking for nothing.”
“All right, I’ll have a piece. But only a small one, understand?”