Seeing Redd Read Online Free PDF Page B

For children there were smooth quartz water slides, treasure hunts, and Total ImmEX game-play, where boys and girls could inhabit the persona of Hatter Madigan and perform an impressive repertoire of his acrobatic, blade-spinning maneuvers.
    Think of mother and father …
    But her imagination’s eye, as if independent of her, skipped over Wondertropolis’ holographic billboards, which in Redd’s time had announced nothing but crackdowns on suspected Alyssians and White Imagination practitioners, punishments of avowed dissenters, and incentives for turning in a neighbor or relative as a traitor to government. These same billboards now streamed the latest traffic reports, aired advertisements for White Imagination starter kits and safaris in Outerwilderbeastia. Gone from the streets were the Reddisms that had emanated from overhead speakers. In Redd we trust. The Redd way is the right way. Better Redd than dead . Gone were the speakers themselves. Gone from street corners were the gwormmy-kabob carts and crystal smugglers hawking contraband. Gone were most of the pawn shops and money lenders.
    Think of mother. And father. Mother and father …
    â€œHave I really found you alone,” asked a voice behind her, “without faithful Molly attached at your hip?”
    It was Dodge. He stepped up beside her.
    Alyss smiled. “I made her take the rest of the night off.”
    â€œNice view.”
    She hadn’t noticed. She was standing before a window of telescopic glass that looked out over the lights of the capital city. “Yes, it is.”
    â€œAll I’ve got for a view is the back of the royal kitchen. The treatment of a palace guardsman these days, I tell you.”
    A joke. He only told jokes when he was feeling awkward.
    This is the part where he puts his arm around me, pulls me close, and says that no matter how many Looking Glass Mazes I pass through, no matter how many crowns I wear, I’ll always be his Alyss, the same little girl who used to run through the palace halls with him when we were younger …
    â€œWhat good is my imagination if it can’t bring happiness to every Wonderlander?” she asked, biting her lip to stop herself from adding “myself included.”
    â€œI wouldn’t think I’d have to answer that. We’re here, aren’t we? Redd and The Cat are not.”
    â€œThat’s not what I mean.”
    Redd’s more public works might have been dismantled or renovated into oblivion, but her influence on Wonderland’s culture was still noticeable. Redd had rewarded the worst in them. Their narrow-mindedness, selfishness, and pessimism had flourished at the expense of kindness, generosity, and goodwill toward others—the fundamental principles of White Imagination. General Doppelgänger insisted on retaining peace-keeping contingents throughout the city, and at least once between every rising of the world’s twin suns, a Wonderlander would approach one of these to report a parent or neighbor for treason.
    Arch was right about one thing. Never mind contending with forces outside one’s borders, there will always be enough trouble dealing with disruptive elements from within .
    â€œIt’s just…peace really isn’t so peaceful,” Alyss sighed.
    Whether Dodge was annoyed by her conversation or the plea for sympathy in her tone, she didn’t know; he changed the subject.
    â€œHow’s Molly working out?”
    â€œFine.”
    He twisted his features into a doubtful expression.
    â€œWhat? She’s better than fine. Great, really. We all know how skilled and courageous—”
    â€œIt’s not her skills and courage I’m worried about,” he said. “It’s her maturity.”
    Alyss almost laughed. Here she was, twenty years old, having passed through the Looking Glass Maze and defeated her evil aunt so as to govern the queendom in the name of White Imagination, yet she