Fig-Tree And Undelightful Rossetti

A young woman in a green dress and red lipstick stands at the entrance.

Welcome to the Maze, she says. It's like Alice in Wonderland. You must find your way through. You can't come back out this way. And it's best if you try to make friends.

Sweezus and Terence enter the Maze between high green hedges. Should they turn left or right?

Which way? says Sweezus. You choose.

Terence can hear roaring.

He hares off to the right.

Sweezus turns left.

.......

Waah! Terence has run round a corner and bumped into a teapot.

The tea pot is made of green hedge-like material. It shuffles and bows.

Terence ducks round another corner and peers back at the teapot, which is now interacting with a family, pouring tea from its spout into a paper cup held by the mother.

Terence sits down on a box.

Two little girls in summer dresses approach him gingerly.

Are you a character? asks the first one.

Doctor Pangloss, says Terence. Don't be fooled by these shorts. Are YOU a character?

The first little girl seems delighted with his answer. She comes up with one equally delightful.

Yes, I am a character. My name is Fig-Tree Rossetti.

But her less delightful little sister favours the truth above all things.

She ISN'T, says the undelightful sister. And I'M not. Can you show us the way out please?

Undelightful Rossetti is polite as well as truthful.

Terence feels there is safety in numbers. He can hear the terrible roaring getting nearer.

Follow me, guys, says Terence.

Terence marches boldly back past the teapot followed by Fig-Tree and Undelightful Rossetti, in their light summer dresses.

Doctor Pangloss...? says Undelightful Rossetti.

What? answers Doctor Pangloss.

Nuffing, says Undelightful Rossetti.

She is beginning to feel a bit scared.

There is a garden shed at the end of an alley. The wooden door opens. The head of a gardener pops out, then the whole gardener. He beckons to Terence and the little girls who may not be characters,

Terence is bold now. A bold Doctor Pangloss, who thinks that all is for the best in the best of all possible mazes.

Come on! says Terence. Let's go in.

The little girls follow Terence into the garden shed where the gardener is waiting.

The gardener says nothing. He closes the door.

It's dark in the shed. It smells of dead flowers.

Anything could happen.

.......

Ages later, or so it seems to Terence, and Fig-Tree and Undelightful Rossetti, the horrible gardener relents. He lifts the back wall of the shed and points in the direction of the terrible roaring.

The children creep down the alley.

Raoouurr!

Round a corner of the hedge is a barred window behind which a Minotaur rattles and rants in scary Minotaur language.

Fig-Tree Rossetti approaches the Minotaur.

Will you show us how to get out? asks Fig-Tree Rossetti.

Raoouurr!

Undelightful Rossetti now has an idea, a good one. She offers the Minotaur a dead flower.

The Minotaur stops roaring, looks at dead flower, takes it in an actorly fashion, and points out the exit.

The little girls head for the exit.

Terence has found it already.