h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Chapter 10

[The story so far: The glories of Blemnox, Viola’s ancestral estate, take a back seat to what she is discovering about her grandmother, a self-styled “Gonzo Granny” who doesn't fear much of anything. But is this a sign of great wisdom and talent, or of suicidal foolhardiness? Viola wonders as she watches Grandma walk a tightrope, then sees where the old woman used to tame lions. Viola’s apprehensions grow when Grandma boards the supersonic plane Viola’s father invented and flies off to fetch Viola’s son Jasper.]

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It was mid-afternoon at Blemnox, and Blake realized that he hadn’t seen Viola since lunch. Then he saw her, standing a couple hundred feet to the north of Blemnox, looking up. “You seem concerned about the roof,” he said as he approached her. ”Are there some loose shingles?”

“I found some old lithographs in the basement,” Viola said, holding them up, “and I’ve been comparing them with the exteriors of Blemnox. I think I know what the architects intended to convey with the building.” Taking Blake to the south lawn, she showed how much the building resembled Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s homestead. Then she showed how much the east façade resembled the White House in Washington, D.C. “When you came out just now, I was looking for similarities with Peace Field, the house that John Adams built in Quincy,Massachusetts. I think this north side resembles it a bit.”

“So, Blemnox was built by people who couldn’t make up their mind what they wanted their building to look like?” Blake said with an amused smile on his face. “They settled on copies of famous buildings for different sides of it?”

“Copies would be too generous a term,” Viola said. “They weren’t up to the task of real copies, but their ambitions were honorable enough. It’s not a bad-looking building as long as you don’t look at it from any of the corners.”

The western side presented a problem. It resembled none of the lithographs. “This must have been the original part of the building,” Viola said happily. She thought many of her ancestors had been crazy, but she couldn’t help feeling a bit of pride that, when they tried to create something on an epic scale, they mostly did all right.

“It’s not as good as the others,” Blake remarked.

“If it’s good, it’s not original, and if it’s original it’s not good,” Viola conceded. “Still, the workmanship stood up to the elements for at least 150 years. They must have had good carpenters and masons.” She backed up to take another look, and found herself brushing up against a tall hedge. Turning around, she saw a series of hedges that formed a labyrinth. And twenty feet into the labyrinth she could see a scarf that looked like one her mother used to wear…..

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Deb

You'll be a-mazed at the next chapter.

[Amy P]