The Phantom Tollbooth

Alec leads the way through the beautiful, late-afternoon forest. Though he can see through objects, he can’t see things right in front of him and continually he crashes into trees. Milo and the Humbug think they’re lost, but Alec points to a small house with a nameplate that reads “THE GIANT” and tells them to knock there.

They do so, and an ordinary-sized man answers. He explains that he’s the world’s smallest giant. Milo asks if they’re lost; the man suggests Milo go around to the other side of the house and ask “THE MIDGET.” Milo does so, and the same man answers, saying he’s the world’s “tallest midget.” The man suggests Milo consult the “fat man,” and, on the side of the house, Milo finds an identical man who claims to be the world’s thinnest fat man. This man, in turn, tells Milo to speak to the “thin man,” and the boy heads to the opposite side of the house, where the same man presents himself as the fattest thin man in the world.

Milo decides that all four people are the man. The man says, “S-S-S-S-S-H-H-H-H-H-H-H” (113), and explains that he’s completely ordinary and no one would ask his advice unless he presented himself as the smallest giant and so forth. To Milo’s question about being lost, the man offers a roundabout, nonsensical answer and then retreats inside and closes the door.

Milo asks Alec if there are many residents in the forest. He says yes, but they live in a city called Reality. He takes them to the edge of a gleaming city with reflective, jewel-like buildings and roads paved in silver. This shiny city is called Illusions. Alec points to where they’re standing: It’s the city of Reality, but there are no roads or buildings, only a busy stream of passersby, cars, and trucks heading determinedly in one direction or another through an invisible metropolis.

Alec explains that people used to enjoy strolling through the city and enjoying its beauty, but they discovered that, if they keep their heads down and hurry, they can get everywhere quicker. They ignored the city until it disappeared. A few people choose instead to live in Illusions, but it doesn’t do them any good. Alec can see through Milo to his purpose; he tells the boy that the city won’t reappear until Milo brings back Rhyme and Reason.

As the sun sets, the group makes its way through the invisible town to an outdoor concert of 1,000 musicians. A gaunt conductor moves his hands and the musicians follow, playing their instruments, but no sounds come out. This concert is to be watched rather than heard. They’re playing the sunset. They do so every evening, and they also play the other times of day. Instead of sounds, they play colors. Alec explains that “there wouldn’t be any color in the world unless they played it” (120).

As the sky darkens, various instruments stop playing until only bass fiddles play the night and bells tinkle the stars. Milo meets the conductor, Chroma, who says the orchestra has been playing the colors of the world since time began. Briefly, he stops the players, and all color vanishes. They start up again, and colors return.

It’s been a busy week involving lightning, fireworks, and parades, and Chroma needs his sleep. He leaves Milo in charge, tells the boy to wake him at 5:23 for sunrise, and departs. The orchestra continues to play the soft colors of night as Milo, Tock, the Humbug, and Alec drift off.

When Tock’s clock reads 5:22, Milo wakes. It’s still dark. Milo decides to try conducting the orchestra for a few minutes. He lifts his hands, and shafts of light begin to appear on the horizon. He waves his arms, and more colors fill the sky and land, but they’re the wrong ones. Soon the sky is bright red, rocks become chartreuse, flowers are black, and Tock is ultramarine. Milo conducts desperately, but the purple sun quickly crosses the sky, sets, and rises again. A week of sunrises goes by.

Exhausted, Milo drops his hands, and the orchestra stops. Once again, it’s dark. Milo shouts for everyone to wake up. Chroma appears, says he feels as if he’s slept for a week, and promises to let Milo conduct one day.

Tock reminds them that they must continue their journey. Alec draws a telescope and hands it to Milo as a gift, saying the scope will enable the boy to see everything just as it is.

The travelers drive through rolling countryside and arrive at a deep valley. Parked alongside the road is a carnival wagon. Milo knocks at its door and jumps back at the sound of dinner plates crashing onto a rock floor. The door opens, and a man with huge ears and wearing a lab coat beckons them in.

Inside, the wagon is a chaos of dusty bottles, jars, boxes, and books. The man, Dr. Kakofonous Dischord, shouts in a raspy voice that he specializes in dissonant sounds. He inspects their tongues and decides they suffer from a lack of noise. He pours a mixture of various sounds from several bottles and stirs it up, and the concoction begins to bubble and steam.

Dr. Dischord says people used to want pleasant sounds, but big cities demand lots of noise, so he’s very busy. He claims that if they take his medicine, they’ll be cured of the need for beautiful sounds. The three visitors politely decline; he shrugs and pours himself a dose.

The doctor places a bottle on the table. From it comes a thundering noise, and out of the bottle emerges a bluish, smoggy thing that stands up, grabs the doctor’s latest concoction, and swallows it in a few gulps. Dr. Dischord introduces the cloudy shape as the “awful DYNNE,” whom he found as an orphan living in a soda bottle and raised without any help. Dynne interrupts, saying, “No nurse is good nurse” (139), and bursts into laughter. The Humbug tries to go along with the pun, saying, “No noise is good noise” (140), but this upsets the Dynne, who sulks.

The doctor insists that noise is more important than words: After all, infants scream for food, cars choke when out of gas, and new days break. The Dynne gathers some empty sacks and says he must make his daily rounds to collect noises for the doctor’s medicines. Milo says they’re heading for Digitopolis; the Dynne shudders, saying they must first pass through the dreaded Valley of Sound.

The three travelers continue their journey through the pleasant valley. They pass a stone gateway and suddenly can’t hear anything. Insects, breezes, car noises, and voices all are silent.

They encounter a crowd of people marching along, pulling a cannon and holding signs that read, “‘DOWN WITH SILENCE’ ‘ALL QUIET IS NO DIET’ ‘IT’S LAUDABLE TO BE AUDIBLE’ ‘MORE SOUND FOR ALL’ And […] ‘HEAR HERE’” (145-46). They sing and cheer but soundlessly.

Milo expresses puzzlement, so they pull out a large chalkboard and write an explanation. The wise and generous Soundkeeper once ruled the Valley of Sound: Each morning, she would set out the sounds for the day and gather them up for storage each evening. Soon, though, the land grew more crowded and busier; new and less pleasant noises appeared, and the people argued, hurried, and stopped listening to the beautiful sounds.

Many thought the trouble began when Rhyme and Reason were banished. Dr. Dischord and Dynne showed up and offered to help, but their cure got rid of everything except noise. The Soundkeeper exiled Dischord and banished all sounds.

The people beg Milo to retrieve a single sound from the Soundkeeper’s fortress, which they’ll put in their cannon and fire at the fortress walls, and then release the other sounds.

Milo goes to the fortress entrance and pushes under the door a note that reads, “Knock, knock.” The door opens, and he’s ushered in. Inside, Milo can hear again; a voice invites him to the parlor. There, he finds the Soundkeeper sitting before a giant radio tuned to a program of no sound. She loves the nuanced varieties of silence: the quiet at dawn, after a storm, in an empty room, and so forth. Thousands of tiny bells cover her: As she moves, they chime and jingle. She loves their sound; they help her find herself when she gets lost.

The Soundkeeper and Milo take an elevator down to an enormous warehouse of all the sounds ever made. Taking his hand, she shows him sounds held in envelopes in storage bins. Milo says “Hello,” and instantly the sound is catalogued under G for greetings and M for Milo.

Milo asks for a sound souvenir, but the Soundkeeper forbids it. She takes him to the workshops where sounds are invented. The shop is empty and rusting with disuse. She explains that sounds are first shaped and then ground into powder for later use. She strikes a bass drum six times, and six woolen shapes, each two feet wide, roll onto the floor. She grinds these up and then tosses some of the powder into the air: “BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM” (155).

Milo claps his hands, and a sheet of paper falls to the floor. He claps several times, and lots of papers float down. The Soundkeeper laughs, and colorful bubbles float in the air and pop. Nearby, looms create the fabric and tapestries of music. Milo tries to sneak a bass drum sound, but she stops him.

They return to the parlor. Milo asks why she doesn’t make more sounds for everyone to enjoy. The Soundkeeper replies, “If they won’t make the sounds that I like, they won’t make any” (158). Milo says, “But—” and holds it in his mouth. The Soundkeeper checks Milo’s pockets for stolen sounds and then sends him on his way.

Milo races down to the crowd, where he spits his stolen sound into the cannon. They fire the weapon at the fortress walls, which tumble open in a great roar of every sound ever made. The sounds hurtle away over a hill, but now everyone can hear and talk again.

The Soundkeeper sits sadly amid the ruins, saying it’ll take a long time to collect those sounds again. She admits, though, that sounds and silence should go together. The Dynne appears, dragging a large sack filled with the sounds that escaped. He says they’re of no use to him—they’re not awful enough—and hands them to the Soundkeeper, who’s overjoyed.

Milo says he’s on his way to rescue Rhyme and Reason. The Soundkeeper hands him a parting gift: a bag of various sounds—“train whistles a long way off, dry leaves burning, busy department stores, crunching toast, creaking bedsprings, and, of course, all kinds of laughter” (164)—that Milo can enjoy when he’s feeling lonely.

Following her directions to Digitopolis, the travelers drive down to the coast and turn left. The shore is beautiful; a lovely island hovers offshore. Humbug, happy, opines that nothing can go wrong; instantly, he sails off through the air and lands on the island. Tock, meanwhile, says that now the group will have plenty of time; he, too, launches up and lands on the island. Milo, looking away, agrees: “It certainly couldn’t be a nicer day” (165). At this, he hurtles through the air and clumps down next to Tock and the Humbug.

They look around: The island is dead and rocky and not at all like what they gazed at from the shore. A man appears, and Humbug asks where they are. The man instead asks who he is. He says he’s as tall as can be and as short as can be—at this, he grows very tall and shrinks down to pebble size. He adds that he’s as strong as can be, and lifts a boulder, and as weak as can be, and struggles to hold up his hat. He’s also as fast and slow as can be and proves it. The trio confer and tell the man he must be “Canby.” The man is delighted to learn this but also extremely sad.

He tells them they’re on the Island of Conclusions: “Every time you decide something without having a good reason, you jump to Conclusions whether you like it or not” (168). The island always looks better from a distance. Several other people arrive suddenly; Milo notices that crowds of people line the shore.

Humbug wants to jump back, but Canby says the only way off the island is with a long swim across the Sea of Knowledge. He adds that, despite swimming in such an ocean, most people manage to stay dry. Reluctantly, Milo’s group begins the swim through icy waters. Hours later, they crawl onto the mainland: Milo and Tock are drenched, but Humbug is completely dry.