When our carrots had returned to being crunchy vegetables, and the last vestiges of parrotness had been removed, Havisham and I pulled off our vyrus masks and tossed them in a heap — the dictionary filters were almost worn out.
'What happens now?' I asked.
'It is torched,' replied Tweed, who was close by. 'It is the only way to destroy the vyrus.'
'What about the evidence?' I asked.
'Evidence?' echoed Tweed. 'Evidence of what?'
'Perkins,' I replied. 'We don't know the full details of his death.'
'I think we can safely say he was killed and eaten by the minotaur,' said Tweed pointedly. 'It's too dangerous to go back in, even if we wanted to. I'd rather torch this now than risk spreading the vyrus and having to demolish the whole book and everything in it — do you know how many creatures live in here?'
He lit a flare.
'You'd better stand clear.'
The DanverClones were leaving now, vanishing with a faint pop, back to wherever they had been pulled from. Bradshaw and I withdrew as Tweed threw the flare on the pile of dictionaries. They burst into flames and were soon so hot that we had to withdraw to the gatehouse, the black smoke that billowed into the sky taking with it the remnants of the vyrus — and the evidence of Perkins' murder. Because I was sure it was murder. When we walked into the vault I had noticed that the key was missing from its hook. Someone had let the minotaur out.
18
The minotaur had given Havisham the slip and was last seen heading towards the works of Zane Grey; the semi-bovine wasn't stupid — he knew we'd have trouble finding him amongst a cattle drive. Snell lasted another three hours. He was kept in an isolation tent made of fine plastic sheeting that had been over-printed with pages from the Oxford English Dictionary. We were in the sickbay of the Anti-mispeling Fast Response Group. At the first sign of any deviant mispeling, thousands of these volumes were shipped to the infected book and set up as barrages either side of the chapter. The barrage was then moved in, paragraph by paragraph, until the vyrus was forced into a single sentence, then a word, then smothered completely. Fire was not an option in a published work; they had tried it once in Samuel Pepys' Diary and burnt down half of London.
'Does he have any family?' I asked.
'Snell was a loner detective, Miss Next,' explained the doctor. 'Perkins was his only family.'
'Is it safe to go up to him?'
'Yes — but be prepared for some mispelings.'
I sat by his bed while Havisham stood and spoke quietly with the doctor. Snell lay on his back and was breathing with small shallow gasps, the pulse on his neck racing — it wouldn't be long before the vyrus took him away and he knew it. I leaned closer and held his hand through the sheeting. His complexion was pail, his breething laboured, his skein covered in painful and unsightly green pastilles. As I wotched, his dry slips tried to foam worlds but all he could torque was ninsense.
'Thirsty!' he squeeked. 'Wode — Cone, udder whirled — doughnut Trieste—!'
He grisped my arm with his fungers, made one last stringled cry before feeling bakwards, his life force deported from his pathotic misspelled boddy.
'He was a fine operative,' said Havisham as the doctor pulled the sheep over his head.
'What will happen to the Perkins & Snell series?'
'I'm not sure,' she replied softly. 'Demolished, saved with new Generics — I don't know.'
'What ho!' exclaimed Bradshaw, appearing from nowhere. 'Is he—?'
'I'm afraid so,' replied Havisham.
'Snell was one of the best,' murmured Bradshaw sadly. 'Did he say anything before he died?'
'Nothing coherent.'
'Hmm. The Bellman wanted a report on his death as soon as possible. What do you think?'
He handed Havisham a sheet of paper and she read:
'Minotaur escapes, finds captor, eats captor, captor dies. Horse mispeled in struggle. Colleague dies attempting rescue. Minotaur escapes.'
She turned over the piece of paper but it was blank on the other side.
'That's it?'
'I didn't want it to get boring,' replied Bradshaw, 'and the Bellman wanted it as simple as possible. I think he's got Libris breathing down his neck. The investigation of a Jurisfiction agent so close to the launch of UltraWord™ will make the Council of Genres jittery as hell.'
Miss Havisham handed the report back to Bradshaw.
'Perhaps, Commander, you should lose that report in the pending tray.'
'This sort of stuff happens in fiction all the time,' he replied. 'Do you have any evidence that it was not accidental?'
'The key to the padlock wasn't on its hook,' I murmured.
'Well spotted,' replied Miss Havisham.
'Skulduggery?' Bradshaw hissed excitedly.
'I fervently hope not,' she returned. 'Just delay the findings for a few days — we should see if Miss Next's observational skills hold up to scrutiny.'
'Righty-oh!' replied Bradshaw. 'I'll see what I can do!'
And he vanished. We were left alone in the corridor, the bunk beds of the DanverClones stretching off to the distance in both directions.
'It might be nothing, Miss Havisham, but—'
She put her fingers to her lips. Havisham's eyes, usually resolute and fixed, had, for a brief moment, seemed troubled. I said nothing but inwardly I felt worried. Up until now I had thought Havisham feared nothing.
She looked at her watch.
'Go to the bun shop in Little Dorrit, would you? I'll have a doughnut and a coffee. Put it on my tab and get something for yourself.'
'Thank you. Where shall we meet?'
'Mill on the Floss, page five twenty-three, in twenty minutes.'
'Assignment?'
'Yes,' she replied, deep in thought. 'Some damn meddling fool told Lucy Deane that Stephen and not Philip will be boating with Maggie — she may try to stop them. Twenty minutes, and not the jam doughnuts, the ones with the pink icing, yes?'
Thirty-two minutes later I was inside Mill on the Floss, on the banks of a river next to Miss Havisham, who was observing a couple in a boat. The woman was dark skinned with a jet-black coronet of hair, was lying on a cloak with a parasol above her as a man rowed her gently downriver. He was perhaps five and twenty years old, quite striking, and with short dark hair that stood erect, not unlike a crop of corn. They were talking earnestly to one another. I passed Miss Havisham a cup of coffee and a paper bag full of doughnuts.
'Stephen and Maggie?' I asked, indicating the couple as we walked along the path by the river.
'Yes,' she replied. 'As you know, Lucy and Stephen are a hair's breadth from engagement. Stephen and Maggie's indiscretion in this boat causes Lucy Deane no end of distress. I told you to get the ones with pink icing.'
She had been looking in the bag.
'They'd run out.'
'Ah.'
We kept a wary eye on the couple in the boat as I tried to remember what actually happened in Mill on the Floss.
'They agree to elope, don't they?'
'Agree to — but don't. Stephen is being an idiot and Maggie should know better. Lucy is meant to be shopping in Lindum with her father and Aunt Tulliver but she gave them the slip an hour ago.'
We walked on for a few more minutes. The story seemed to be following the correct path with no intervention of Lucy's we could see. Although we couldn't make out the words, the sound of Maggie and Stephen's voices carried across the water.
Miss Havisham took a bite of her doughnut.
'I noticed the missing key too,' she said after a pause. 'It was pushed under a workbench. It was murder. Murder … by minotaur.'
She shivered.
'Why didn't you tell Bradshaw?' I asked. 'Surely the murder of a Jurisfiction operative warrants an investigation?'
She stared at me hard and then looked at the couple in the boat again.
'You don't understand, do you? The Sword of the Zenobians is code-word-protected.'
'Only Jurisfiction agents can get in and out,' I murmured.
'Whoever killed Perkins and Mathias was Jurisfiction,' she went on. 'And that's what frightens me. A rogue agent.'
We walked on in silence, digesting this fact.
'But why would anyone want to kill Perkins and a talkiag horse?'
'I think Mathias just got in the way.'
'And Perkins?'
'Not just Perkins. Whoever killed him tried to get someone else that day.'
I thought for a moment and a sudden chill came over me.
'My Eject-O-Hat. It failed.'
Miss Havisham produced the Homburg from a carrier bag, slightly squashed from where several Mrs Danvers had trodden on it. The frayed cord looking as though it might have been cut.
'Take this to Professor Plum at JurisTech and have him look at it. I'd like to be sure.'
'But … but why am I a threat?' I asked.
'I don't know,' admitted Miss Havisham. 'You are the most junior member of Jurisflction and arguably the least threatening — you can't even bookjump without moving your lips, for goodness' sake!'
I didn't need reminding but I saw her point.
'So what happens now?' I asked at length.
'We have to assume whoever killed him might try again. You are to be on your guard. Wait— There she is!'
We had walked over a small rise and were slightly ahead of the boat. A young woman was lying on the ground in a most unladylike fashion, pointing a sniper's rifle towards the small skiff that had just come into view. I crept cautiously forward; she was so intent on her task that she didn't notice me until I was close enough to grab her. She was a slight thing and her strugglings, whilst energetic, were soon overcome. I secured her in an armlock as Havisham unloaded the rifle. Maggie and Stephen, unaware of the danger, drifted softly past on their way to Mudport.
'Where did you get this?' asked Havisham, holding up the rifle.
'I don't have to say anything,' replied the angelic-looking girl in a soft voice. 'I was only going to knock a hole in the boat, honestly I was!'
'Sure you were. You can let go, Thursday.'
I relaxed my grip and she stepped back, pulling at her clothes to straighten them after our brief tussle. I checked her for any other weapons but found nothing.
'Why should Maggie force a wedge between our happiness?' she demanded angrily. 'Everything would be so wonderful between my darling Stephen and me — why am I the victim? I, who only wanted to do good and help everyone — especially Maggie!'
'It's called "drama",' replied Havisham wearily. 'Are you going to tell us where you got the rifle or not?'
'Not. You can't stop me. Maybe they'll get away but I can be here ready and waiting on the next reading — or even the one after that! Think you have enough Jurisfiction agents to put Maggie under constant protection?'
I'm sorry you feel that way,' replied Miss Havisham, looking her squarely in the eye. 'Is that your final word?'
'It is.'
'Then you are under arrest for attempted fiction infraction, contrary to Ordinance FMB/0608999 of the Narrative Continuity Code. By the power invested in me by the Council of Genres, I sentence you to banishment outside Mill on the Floss. Move.'
Miss Havisham ordered me to cuff Lucy, and once I had, she held on to me as we jumped into the Great Library. Lucy, for an arrested ad-libber, didn't seem too put out.
'You can't imprison me,' she said as we walked along the corridor of the twenty-third floor. 'I reappear in Maggie's dream seven pages from now. If I'm not there you'll be in more trouble than you know what to do with. This could mean your job, Miss Havisham! Back to Satis House — for good.'
'Would it mean that?' I asked, suddenly wondering whether Miss Havisham wasn't exceeding her authority.
'It would mean the same as it did the last time,' replied Havisham, 'absolutely nothing.'
'Last time?' queried Lucy. 'But this is the first time I've tried something like this!'
'No,' replied Miss Havisham, 'no, it most certainly is not.'
Miss Havisham pointed out a book entitled The Curious Experience of the Patterson Family on the Island of Uffa and told me to open it. We were soon inside, on the foreshore of a Scottish island in the late spring.
'What do you mean?' asked Lucy, looking around her as her earlier confidence evaporated to be replaced by growing panic. 'What is this place?'
'It is a prison, Miss Deane.'
'A prison?' she replied. 'A prison for whom?'
'For them,' said Havisham, indicating several identically youthful and fair-complexioned Lucy Deanes, who had broken cover and were staring in our direction. Our Lucy Deane looked at us, then at her identical sisters, then back to us again.
'I'm sorry!' she said, dropping to her knees. 'Give me another chance — please!'
'Take heart from the fact that this doesn't make you a bad person,' said Miss Havisham. 'You just have a repetitive character disorder. You are a serial ad-libber and the 796th Lucy we have had to imprison here. In less civilised times you would have been reduced to text. Good day.'
And we vanished back to the corridors of the Great Library.
'And to think she was the most pleasant person in Floss!' I said, shaking my head sadly.
'You'll find that the most righteous characters are the first ones to go loco down here. The average life of a Lucy Deane is about a thousand readings; self-righteous indignation kicks in after that. No one could believe it when David Copperfield killed his first wife, either. Good day, Chesh.'
The Cheshire Cat had appeared on a high shelf, grinning to us, itself, and anything else in view.
'Well!' said the Cat. 'Next and Havisham! Problems with Lucy Deane?'
'The usual. Can you get the Well to send in the replacement as soon as possible?'
The Cat assured us he would as soon as possible, seemed crestfallen that I hadn't bought him any Moggilicious cat food and vanished again.
'We need to find anything unusual about Perkins' death', said Miss Havisham. 'Will you help?'
'Of course!' I enthused.
Miss Havisham smiled a rare smile.
'You remind me of myself, all those years ago, before that rat Compeyson brought my happiness to an end.'
She moved closer and narrowed her eyes.
'We keep this to ourselves. Knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Start poking around in the workings of Jurisfiction and you may find more than you bargained for — just remember that.'
She fell silent for a few moments.
'But first, we need to get you fully licensed as a Jurisfiction agent — there's a limit to what you can do as an apprentice. Did you finish the multiple choice?'
I nodded.
'Good. Then you can do your practical exam today. I'll go and organise it while you take your Eject-O-Hat to JurisTech.'
She melted into the air about me and I walked off down the Library corridor towards the elevators. I passed Falstaff, who invited me to 'dance around his maypole'. I told him to sod off, of course, and pressed the elevator 'call' button. The doors opened a minute later and I stepped in. But it wasn't empty. With me were Emperor Zhark and Mrs Tiggy-winkle.
'Which floor?' asked Zhark.
'First, please.'
He pressed the button with a long and finely manicured finger and continued his conversation with Mrs Tiggy-winkle.
'… and that was when the rebels destroyed the third of my battle stations,' said the emperor sorrowfully. 'Have you any idea how much these things cost?'
'Tch,' said Mrs Tiggy-winkle, bristling her spines. 'They always find some way of defeating you, don't they?'
Zhark sighed.
'It's like one huge conspiracy,' he muttered. 'Just when I think I have the Galaxy at my mercy, some hopelessly outnumbered young hothead destroys my most insidious Death Machine using some hithero undiscovered weakness. I'm suing the manufacturer after that last debacle.'
He sighed again, sensed he was dominating the conversation and asked:
'So how's the washing business?'
'Pretty good,' said Mrs Tiggy-winkle, 'but the price of starch is something terrible these days.'
'Oh, I know,' replied Zhark, thumbing his high collar, 'look at this. My name alone strikes terror into billions, but can I get my collars done exactly how I want them?'
The elevator stopped at my floor and I stepped out.
I read myself into Sense and Sensibility and avoided the nursery rhyme characters, who were still picketing the front door; I had Humpty's proposals in my back pocket but still hadn't given them to Libris — in truth I had only promised to do my best, but didn't particularly want to run the gauntlet again. I ran up the back stairs, nodded a greeting to Mrs Henry Dashwood and bumped into Tweed in the lobby; he was talking to a lithe and adventurous-looking young man whose forehead was etched with an almost permanent frown. He quickly broke off when I appeared.
'Ah!' said Tweed. 'Thursday. Sorry to hear about Snell; he was a good man.'
'I know — thank you.'
'I've appointed the Gryphon as your new attorney,' he said. 'Is that all right?'
'Sounds fine,' I replied, turning to the youth, who was pulling his hands nervously through his curly hair. 'Hello! I'm Thursday Next.'
'Sorry!' mumbled Harris. 'This is Uriah Hope from David Copperfield; an apprentice I have been asked to train.'
'Pleased to meet you,' replied Hope in a friendly tone. 'Perhaps you and I could discuss apprenticeships together some time?'
'The pleasure's mine, Mr Hope. I'm a big fan of your work in Copperfield.'
I thanked them both and left to find the JurisTech offices along Norland Park's seemingly endless corridors. I stopped at a door at random, knocked and looked in. Behind a desk was one of the many Greek heroes who could be seen wandering around the Library; licensing their stories for remakes made a very reasonable living. He was on the footnoterphone.
'Okay,' he said, 'I'll be down to pick up Eurydice next Friday. Anything I can do for you in return?'
He raised a finger signalling for me to wait.
'Don't look back? That's all? Okay, no problem. See you then. 'Bye.'
He put down the horn and looked at me.
'Thursday Next, isn't it?'
'Yes; do you know where the JurisTech office is?'
'Down the corridor, first on the right.'
'Thanks.'
I made to leave but he called me back, pointing at the footnoterphone.
'I've forgotten already — what was I meant not to do?'
I'm sorry,' I said, 'I wasn't listening.'
I walked down the corridor and opened another door into a room that had nothing in it except a man with a frog growing out of his shiny bald head.
'Goodness!' I said. 'How did that happen?'
'It all started with a pimple on my bum,' said the frog. 'Can I help you?'
I'm looking for Professor Plum.'
'You want JurisTech. This is Old Jokes. Try next door.'
I thanked him and knocked on the next door. I heard a very sing-song 'Come in!' and entered. Although I had expected to see a strange laboratory full of odd inventions, there was nothing of the sort — just a man dressed in a check suit sitting behind a desk, reading some papers. He reminded me of Uncle Mycroft — just a little more perky.
'Ah!' he said, looking up. 'Miss Next. Did you bring the hat with you?'
'Yes,' I replied, 'but how—?'
'Miss Havisham told me,' he said simply.
It seemed there weren't many people who didn't talk to Miss Havisham or who didn't have Miss Havisham talk to them.
I took out the battered Eject-O-Hat and placed it on the table. Plum picked up the broken activation handle, nicked a magnifying glass in front of his eye and stared at the frayed end minutely.[15]
'Oh!' I said. 'I'm getting it again!'
'What?'
'A crossed line on my footnoterphone!'
'I can get a trace if you want — here, put this galvanised bucket on your head.'
'Not for a minute or two,' I told him, 'I want to see how it all turns out.'
'As you wish.'
So as he examined the hat I listened to Sofya and Vera prattle on.
'Well,' he said finally, 'it looks as though it has chafed through. The Mk IV is an old design — I'm surprised to see it still in use.'
'So it was just a failure due to poor maintenance?' I asked, not without some relief.
'A failure that saved a life, yes.'
'What do you mean?' I asked, my relief short lived.
He showed me the hat. Inside an inspection cover were intricate wires and small flashing lights that looked impressive.
'Someone has wired the retextualising inhibitor to the ISBN code rectifiers. If the cord had been pulled, there would have been an overheat in the primary booster coils.'
'Overheat?' I asked. 'My head would have got hot?'
'More than hot. Enough energy would have been released to write about fourteen novels.'
'I'm an apprentice, Plum, tell me in simple terms.'
He looked at me seriously.
'There wouldn't be much left of the hat — or the person wearing it. It happens occasionally on the Mk IVs — it would have been seen as an accident. Good thing there was a broken cord.'
He whistled softly.
'Nifty piece of work, too. Someone who knew what they were doing.'
'That's very interesting,' I said slowly. 'Can you give me a list of people who might have been able to do this sort of work?'
'Take a few days.'
'Worth the wait. I'll call back.'
I met up with Miss Havisham and the Bellman in the Jurisfiction offices. The Bellman nodded a greeting and consulted his ever-present clipboard.
'Looks like a dog day, ladies.'
'Thurber again?'
'No, Mansfield Park. Lady Bertram's pet pug has been run over and needs to be replaced.'
'Again?' replied Havisham. 'That must be the sixth. I wish she'd be more careful.'
'Seventh. You can pick it up from stores.'
He turned his attention to me.
'Miss Havisham says you are ready to take the practical test to bring you up from apprentice to restricted agent.'
'I'm ready,' I replied, thinking I was anything but.
'I'm sure you are,' answered the Bellman thoughtfully, 'but it is a bit soon — if it weren't for the shortage caused by Mrs Nakajima's retirement, I think you would remain as an apprentice for a few more months. Well,' he sighed, 'can't be helped. I've had a look at the duty roster and I think I've found an assignment that should test your mettle. It's an Internal Plot Adjustment order from the Council of Genres.'
Despite my natural feelings of caution, I was also, to my shame, excited by a practical test of my abilities. Dickens? Hardy? Perhaps even Shakespeare.
'Shadow the Sheepdog,' announced the Bellman, 'by Enid Blyton. It needs to have a happy ending.'
'Shadow … the Sheepdog,' I repeated slowly, hoping my disappointment didn't show. 'Okay. What do you want me to do?'
'Simple. As it stands, Shadow is blinded by the barbed wire, so he can't be sold to the American film producer. Up ending because he isn't sold, down ending because he is blinded and useless. All we need to do is to have him miraculously regain his sight the next time he goes to the vet on page …' He consulted his clipboard. '… two thirty-two.'
'And,' I said cautiously, not wanting the Bellman to realise how unprepared I was, 'what plan are we going to use?'
'Swap dogs,' replied the Bellman simply. 'All collies look pretty much the same.'
'What about Vestigial Plot Memory?' asked Havisham. 'Do we have any smoothers?'
'It's all on the job sheet,' returned the Bellman, tearing off a sheet of paper and handing it to me. 'You do know all about smoothers, of course?'
'Of course!' I replied.
'Good. Any more questions?'
I shook my head.
'Excellent!' exclaimed the Bellman. 'Just one more thing. Bradshaw is investigating the Perkins incident. Would you make sure he gets your reports as soon as possible?'
'Of course!'
'Er … good.'
He made a few 'must get on' noises and left.
As soon as he had gone I said to Havisham:
'Do you think I'm ready for this, ma'am?'
'Thursday,' she said in her most serious voice, 'listen to me. Jurisfiction has need of agents who can be trusted to do the right thing.' She looked around the room. 'Sometimes it is difficult to know whom we can trust. Sometimes the sickeningly self-righteous — like you — are the last bastion of defence against those who would mean the BookWorld harm.'
'Meaning?'
'Meaning you can stop asking so many questions and do as you're told — just pass this practical first time. Understand?'
'Yes, Miss Havisham.'
'That's settled, then,' she added. 'Anything else?'
'Yes,' I replied. 'What's a smoother?'
'Do you not read your TravelBook?'
'It's quite long,' I pleaded. 'I've been consulting it whenever possible but have still got no farther than the preface.'
'Well,' she began as we jumped to Wemmick's Stores in the lobby of the Great Library, 'plots have a sort of inbuilt memory. They can spring back to how they originally ran with surprising ease.'
'Like time,' I murmured, thinking about my father.
'If you say so,' returned Miss Havisham. 'So on Internal Plot Adjustment duties we often have to have a smoother — a secondary device that reinforces the primary plot swing. We changed the end of Conrad's Lord Jim, you know. Originally, he runs away. A bit weak. We thought it would be better if Jim delivered himself to Chief Doramin as he had pledged following Brown's massacre.'
'That didn't work?'
'No. The chief kept on forgiving him. We tried everything. Insulting the chief, tweaking his nose — after the forty-third attempt we were getting desperate; Bradshaw was almost pulling his hair out.'
'So what did you do?'
'We retrospectively had the chief's son die in the massacre. It did the trick. The chief had no trouble shooting Jim after that.'
I mused about this for a moment.
'How did Jim take it?' I asked. 'The decision for him to die, I mean?'
'He was the one who asked for the plot adjustment in the first place,' murmured Havisham. 'He thought it was the only honourable thing to do — mind you, the chief's son wasn't exactly over the moon about it.'
'Ah,' I said, pondering that here in the BookWorld the pencil of life occasionally did have a rubber on the other end.
'So you'll send a cheque for a hundred pounds to the farmer, and buy his pigs for double the market rate — that way, he won't need the cash and won't want to resell Shadow to the film producer. Get it? Good afternoon, Mr Wemmick.'
We had arrived at the stores. Wemmick himself was a short man, a native of Great Expectations, aged about forty with a pockmarked face. He greeted us enthusiastically.
'Good afternoon, Miss Havisham, Miss Next — I trust all is well?'
'Quite well, Mr Wemmick. I understand you have a few canines for us?'
'Indeed,' replied the storekeeper, pointing to where two dogs were attached to a hook in the wall by their leads.
'Pug, Lady Bertram's, to be replaced, one. Shadow, sheepdog, sighted, to swap with existing dog, blind, one. Cheque for the farmer, value: one hundred pounds sterling, one. Cash to buy pigs, forty-two pounds, ten shillings and fourpence. Sign here.'
The two dogs panted and wagged their tails. The collie had his eyes bound with a bandage.
'Any questions?'
'Do we have a cover story for this cheque?' I asked.
'Use your imagination. I'm sure you'll think of something.'
'Wait a moment,' I said, alarm bells suddenly ringing, 'aren't you coming with me to supervise?'
'Not at all!' Havisham grinned with a strange look in her eye. 'Assessed work has to be done solo; I'll mark you on your report and the successful — or not — realigned story within the book. This is so simple even you can't mess it up.'
'Couldn't I do Lady Bertram's pug?' I asked, trying to make it sound like something hard and of great consequence.
'Out of the question! Besides, I don't do'children's books any more — not after the incident with Larry the Lamb. But since Shadow is out of print no one will notice if you make a pig's ear of it. Remember that Jurisfiction is an honourable establishment and you should reflect that in your bearing and countenance. Be resolute in your work and fair and just. Destroy grammasites with extreme prejudice — and shun any men with amorous intentions.'
She thought for a moment.
'Or any intentions, come to that. Have you got your TravelBook to enable you to jump back?'
I patted my breast pocket where the slim volume was kept and she was gone, only to return a few moments later to swap dogs and vanish again. I was just about to jump to the second floor when a voice made me turn.
'Hello!' he said. 'All well?'
It was the Cheshire Cat. He was sitting on top of the Boojumorial, grinning fit to burst.
'I'm just about to do my practical.'
'Excellent!' said the Cat. 'Whereabouts?'
'Shadow the Sheepdog.'
'Enid Blyton, 1950, Collins, two fifty-six pages, illustrated,' muttered the Cat, to whom every book in the Library was a revered friend. 'Apart from the D-words in it, for Blyton it's not too bad at all — a product of its time, one might argue. What are you going to do with it?'
'Happier ending,' I explained. 'I have to swap dogs.'
'Ah!' said the Cat, wrinkling his whiskers and grinning some more. 'Just like the job we did on Gipson's Old Yeller last year.'
'Old Yetter?' I repeated incredulously. 'The new ending is the happy one?!'
'You should have read it before we changed it. Sad wasn't the word. Children were going into traumatic shock it was so depressing.'
And he blew his nose so violently he vanished with a faint pop.
I waited for a moment in case he reappeared and, when he didn't, read my way diligently to the second floor of the Library and picked Shadow the Sheepdog off the shelf. I paused. I was nervous and my palms had started to sweat. I scolded myself. How hard could a plot readjustment in an Enid Blyton be? I took a deep breath and, notwithstanding the simplistic nature of the novel, opened the slim volume with an air of serious trepidation — as though it were War and Peace.
19
I read myself into the book, halfway down page 231. Johnny, the farmer's boy who was Shadow's owner and co-protagonist, would be having Shadow's eyes checked in a few days, so a brief reconnaissance of the area seemed like a good idea. If I could persuade rather than order the vet to swap the dogs, then so much the better. I alighted in a town which looked like some sort of forties rural idyll — a mix of Warwickshire and the Dales. All green grass, show-quality cattle, yellow-lichened stone walls, sunshine and healthy-looking, smiling people. Horses pulled carts laden high with hay down the main street and the odd shiny motor-car puttered past. Pies cooled on window sills and children played with hoops and tinplate steam engines. The smell in the breeze was of freshly mown grass, clean linen and cooking. Here was a world of high tea, tasty trifles, zero crime, eternal summers and boundless good health. I suspected living here might be quite enjoyable — for about a week.
I was nodded at by a passer-by.
'Beautiful day!' she said politely.
'Yes,' I replied. 'My—'
'Rain later?' she enquired.
I looked up at the small puffy clouds that stretched away to the horizon.
'I shouldn't have thought so,' I began, 'but can you—'
'Well, be seeing you!' said the woman politely, and was gone.
I found an alleyway and tied the sheepdog to a downpipe; it was neither useful nor necessary to lead a dog around town for the next few hours. I walked carefully down the road, past a family butcher's, a tea room and a sweet shop selling nothing but gobstoppers, bull's-eyes, ginger beer, lemonade and liquorice. A few doors farther on I found a newsagent and post office combined. The outside of the small shop was liberally covered with enamel signs advertising Fry's chocolates, Colman's starch, Wyncarnis tonic, Ovaltine and Lyons cakes. A small sign told me I could use the telephone, and a rack of postcards shared the pavement with boxes of fresh veg. There was also a display of newspapers, the headlines reflecting the inter-war politics of the book.
Britain voted favourite empire tenth year running, said one. Foreigners untrustworthy, study shows, said another. A third led with: 'Spiffing' — new buzzword sweeps nation.
I posted the cheque to Johnny's father with a covering letter explaining that it was an old loan repaid. Almost immediately a postman appeared on a bicycle and removed the letter — the only one in the postbox, I noted — with the utmost reverence, taking it into the post office where I could hear cries of wonderment. There weren't many letters in Shadow, I assumed. I stood outside the shop for a moment, watching the townsfolk going about their business. Without warning one of the carthorses decided to drop a huge pile of dung in the middle of the road. In a trice a villager had run across with a bucket and shovel and removed the offending article almost as soon as it had happened. I watched for a while and then set off to find the local auctioneers.
'So let me get this straight,' said the auctioneer, a heavy-set and humourless man with a monocle screwed into his eye, 'you want to buy pigs at treble the going rate? Why?'
'Not anyone's pigs,' I replied wearily, having spent the last half-hour trying to explain what I wanted, 'Johnny's father's pigs.'
'Quite out of the question,' muttered the auctioneer, getting to his feet and walking to the window. He did it a lot, I could tell — there was a worn patch right through the carpet to the floorboards beneath, but only from his chair to the window. There was another worn patch from the door to a side table — the use of which I was yet to understand. Considering his limitations I guessed the auctioneer was no more than a C-9 Generic — it explained the difficulty in persuading him to change anything.
'We do things to a set formula here,' added the auctioneer, 'and we don't very much like change.'
He walked back to his desk, turned to face me and wagged a reproachful finger.
'And believe me, if you try anything a bit rum at the auction I can discount your bid.'
We stared at each other. This wasn't working.
'Tea and cake?' asked the auctioneer, walking to the window again.
'Thank you,' I replied.
'Splendid!' he enthused, rubbing his hands together and returning to his desk. 'They tell me there is nothing quite so refreshing as a cup of tea!'
He flipped the switch on the intercom.
'Miss Pittman, would you bring in some tea, please?'
The door opened instantaneously to reveal his secretary holding a tray of tea things. She was in her late twenties, and pretty in an English rose sort of way; she wore a floral summer dress under a fawn cardigan.
Miss Pittman followed the smoothly worn floorboards and carpet from the door to the side table. She curtsied and laid the tea things next to an identical tray left from an earlier occasion. She threw the old tea tray out of the window and I heard the soft tinkle of broken crockery; I had seen a large pile of broken tea things outside the window when I arrived. The secretary paused, hands pressed tightly together.
'Shall … shall I pour you a cup?' she asked, a flush rising to her cheeks.
'Thank you!' exclaimed Mr Phillips, walking excitedly to the window and back again. 'Milk and—'
'—one sugar.' His secretary smiled shyly. 'Yes, yes … I know.'
'But of course you do!' He smiled back.
Then the next stage of this odd charade took place. The auctioneer and secretary moved to the place where their two worn paths were closest, the very outer limits that their existence allowed them. Miss Pittman held the cup by its rim, placed her toes right on the edge where carpet began and shiny floorboard ended, stretching out as far as she could. Mr Phillips did the same on his side of the divide. The tips of his fingers could just touch the rim of the cup but try as he might he could not reach far enough to grasp it.
'Allow me,' I said, unable to watch the cruel spectacle any longer. I passed the cup from one to the other.
How many cups of tea had gone cold in the past thirty-five years? I wondered. How uncrossable the six foot of carpet that divided them! Whoever Event Managed this book down in the Well was possessed of a cruel sense of humour.
Miss Pittman curtsied politely and departed while the auctioneer watched her go. He sat down at his desk, eyeing the teacup thirstily. He licked his lips and rubbed his fingertips in expectation, then took a sip and savoured the moment lovingly.
'Oh my goodness!' he said deliriously. 'Even better than I thought it would be!'
He took another sip and closed his eyes with the sheer delight of it.
'Where were we?' he asked.
I took a deep breath.
'I want you to buy Johnny's father's pigs with an offer that purports to come from an unknown buyer — and as close to the top of page two hundred and thirty-two as you can.'
'Utterly impossible!' said the auctioneer. 'You are asking me to change the narrative! I will have to see higher authority.'
I passed him my Jurisfiction ID card. It wasn't like me to pull rank, but I was getting desperate.
'I'm on official business sanctioned by the Council of Genres itself through Text Grand Central.' It was how I thought Miss Havisham might do it.
'You forget that we are out of print pending modernisation,' he replied shortly, tossing my ID back across the table. 'You have no mandatory powers here, Apprentice Next. I think Jurisfiction will look very carefully before attempting a change on a book without internal approval. You can tell the Bellman that, from me.'
We stared at each other, a diplomatic impasse having arrived. I had an idea and asked him:
'How long have you been an auctioneer in this book?'
'Thirty-six years.'
'And how many cups of tea have you had in that time?' I asked him.
'Including this one?'
I nodded.
'One.'
I leaned forward.
'I can fix it for you to have as many cups of tea as you want, Mr Phillips.'
He narrowed his eyes.
'Oh yes?' he replied. 'And how would you manage that? As soon as you've got what you want you'll be off and I'll never be able to reach Miss Pittman's proffered cup again!'
I stood up and went to the table on which the tea tray was sitting. It was a small table made of oak and lightly decorated. It had a vase of flowers on it, but nothing else. As Mr Phillips watched I picked up the table and placed it next to the window. The auctioneer looked at me dumbfounded, got up, walked to the window and delicately touched the table and the tea things.
An audacious move,' he said, waving the sugar tongs at me, 'but it won't work. She's a D-7 — she won't be able to change what she does.'
'D-7s never have names, Mr Phillips.'
'I gave her that name,' he said quietly. 'You're wasting your time.'
'Let's see, shall we?' I replied, speaking into the intercom to ask Miss Pittman to bring in more tea.
The door opened as before and a look of shock and surprise crossed the girl's face.
'The table!' she gasped. 'It's—!'
'You can do it, Miss Pittman,' I told her. 'Just place the tea where you always do.'
She moved forward, following the well-worn path, arrived at where the table used to be and then looked at its new position, two strides away. The smooth and unworn carpet was alien and frightening to her; it might as well have been a bottomless chasm. She stopped dead.
'I don't understand—!' she began, her face bewildered as her hands began to shake.
'Tell her to put the tea things down,' I told the auctioneer, who was becoming as distressed as Miss Pittman — perhaps more so. 'TELL HER!'
'Thank you, Miss Pittman,' murmured Mr Phillips, his voice croaking with emotion, 'put the tea things down over here, would you?'
She bit her lip and closed her eyes, raised her foot and held it, quivering, above the edge of the shiny floorboards. Then she moved it forward and rested it on the soft carpet. She opened her eyes, looked down and beamed at us both.
'Well done!' I said. 'Just two more.'
Brimming with confidence, she negotiated the two remaining steps with ease and placed the tray on the table. She and Mr Phillips were closer now than they had ever been before. She put out a hand to touch his lapel, but checked herself quickly.
'Shall … shall I pour you a cup?' she asked.
'Thank you!' exclaimed Mr Phillips. 'Milk and—'
'—one sugar.' She smiled shyly. 'Yes, yes, I know.'
She poured the tea and handed the cup and saucer to him. He took it gratefully.
'Mr Phillips?'
'Yes?'
'Do I have a first name?'
'Of course,' he replied quietly and with great emotion. 'I have had over thirty years to think about it. Your name is Aurora, as befits somebody as beautiful as the dawn.'
She covered her nose and mouth to hide her smile and blushed deeply. Mr Phillips raised a shaking hand to touch her cheek but stopped as he remembered that I was still present. He nodded imperceptibly in my direction and said:
'Thank you, Miss Pittman — perhaps later you might come in for some … dictation.'
'I look forward to it, Mr Phillips!'
And she turned, trod softly on the carpet to the door, looked round once more and went out. When I looked back at Mr Phillips he had sat down, drained by the emotionally charged encounter.
'Do we have a deal?' I asked him. 'Or do I put the table back where it was?'
He looked shocked.
'You wouldn't?'
'I would.'
He considered his position for a moment and then offered me his hand.
'Pigs at treble the going rate?'
'Top of page two thirty-two.'
'What happens now?' I asked.
'It is torched,' replied Tweed, who was close by. 'It is the only way to destroy the vyrus.'
'What about the evidence?' I asked.
'Evidence?' echoed Tweed. 'Evidence of what?'
'Perkins,' I replied. 'We don't know the full details of his death.'
'I think we can safely say he was killed and eaten by the minotaur,' said Tweed pointedly. 'It's too dangerous to go back in, even if we wanted to. I'd rather torch this now than risk spreading the vyrus and having to demolish the whole book and everything in it — do you know how many creatures live in here?'
He lit a flare.
'You'd better stand clear.'
The DanverClones were leaving now, vanishing with a faint pop, back to wherever they had been pulled from. Bradshaw and I withdrew as Tweed threw the flare on the pile of dictionaries. They burst into flames and were soon so hot that we had to withdraw to the gatehouse, the black smoke that billowed into the sky taking with it the remnants of the vyrus — and the evidence of Perkins' murder. Because I was sure it was murder. When we walked into the vault I had noticed that the key was missing from its hook. Someone had let the minotaur out.
18
Snell Rest in Peece and Lucy Deane
'I didn't notice it straight away but Vernham, Nelly and Lucy all had the same surname: Deane. They weren't related. In the Outland this happens all the time but in fiction it is rare; the problem is aggressively attacked by the Echolocators (q.v.), who insist that no two people in the same book have the same name. I learned years later that Hemingway once wrote a book that was demolished because he insisted that every single one of the eight characters was named Geoff.'
THURSDAY NEXT — TheJurisfiction Chronicles
The minotaur had given Havisham the slip and was last seen heading towards the works of Zane Grey; the semi-bovine wasn't stupid — he knew we'd have trouble finding him amongst a cattle drive. Snell lasted another three hours. He was kept in an isolation tent made of fine plastic sheeting that had been over-printed with pages from the Oxford English Dictionary. We were in the sickbay of the Anti-mispeling Fast Response Group. At the first sign of any deviant mispeling, thousands of these volumes were shipped to the infected book and set up as barrages either side of the chapter. The barrage was then moved in, paragraph by paragraph, until the vyrus was forced into a single sentence, then a word, then smothered completely. Fire was not an option in a published work; they had tried it once in Samuel Pepys' Diary and burnt down half of London.
'Does he have any family?' I asked.
'Snell was a loner detective, Miss Next,' explained the doctor. 'Perkins was his only family.'
'Is it safe to go up to him?'
'Yes — but be prepared for some mispelings.'
I sat by his bed while Havisham stood and spoke quietly with the doctor. Snell lay on his back and was breathing with small shallow gasps, the pulse on his neck racing — it wouldn't be long before the vyrus took him away and he knew it. I leaned closer and held his hand through the sheeting. His complexion was pail, his breething laboured, his skein covered in painful and unsightly green pastilles. As I wotched, his dry slips tried to foam worlds but all he could torque was ninsense.
'Thirsty!' he squeeked. 'Wode — Cone, udder whirled — doughnut Trieste—!'
He grisped my arm with his fungers, made one last stringled cry before feeling bakwards, his life force deported from his pathotic misspelled boddy.
'He was a fine operative,' said Havisham as the doctor pulled the sheep over his head.
'What will happen to the Perkins & Snell series?'
'I'm not sure,' she replied softly. 'Demolished, saved with new Generics — I don't know.'
'What ho!' exclaimed Bradshaw, appearing from nowhere. 'Is he—?'
'I'm afraid so,' replied Havisham.
'Snell was one of the best,' murmured Bradshaw sadly. 'Did he say anything before he died?'
'Nothing coherent.'
'Hmm. The Bellman wanted a report on his death as soon as possible. What do you think?'
He handed Havisham a sheet of paper and she read:
'Minotaur escapes, finds captor, eats captor, captor dies. Horse mispeled in struggle. Colleague dies attempting rescue. Minotaur escapes.'
She turned over the piece of paper but it was blank on the other side.
'That's it?'
'I didn't want it to get boring,' replied Bradshaw, 'and the Bellman wanted it as simple as possible. I think he's got Libris breathing down his neck. The investigation of a Jurisfiction agent so close to the launch of UltraWord™ will make the Council of Genres jittery as hell.'
Miss Havisham handed the report back to Bradshaw.
'Perhaps, Commander, you should lose that report in the pending tray.'
'This sort of stuff happens in fiction all the time,' he replied. 'Do you have any evidence that it was not accidental?'
'The key to the padlock wasn't on its hook,' I murmured.
'Well spotted,' replied Miss Havisham.
'Skulduggery?' Bradshaw hissed excitedly.
'I fervently hope not,' she returned. 'Just delay the findings for a few days — we should see if Miss Next's observational skills hold up to scrutiny.'
'Righty-oh!' replied Bradshaw. 'I'll see what I can do!'
And he vanished. We were left alone in the corridor, the bunk beds of the DanverClones stretching off to the distance in both directions.
'It might be nothing, Miss Havisham, but—'
She put her fingers to her lips. Havisham's eyes, usually resolute and fixed, had, for a brief moment, seemed troubled. I said nothing but inwardly I felt worried. Up until now I had thought Havisham feared nothing.
She looked at her watch.
'Go to the bun shop in Little Dorrit, would you? I'll have a doughnut and a coffee. Put it on my tab and get something for yourself.'
'Thank you. Where shall we meet?'
'Mill on the Floss, page five twenty-three, in twenty minutes.'
'Assignment?'
'Yes,' she replied, deep in thought. 'Some damn meddling fool told Lucy Deane that Stephen and not Philip will be boating with Maggie — she may try to stop them. Twenty minutes, and not the jam doughnuts, the ones with the pink icing, yes?'
Thirty-two minutes later I was inside Mill on the Floss, on the banks of a river next to Miss Havisham, who was observing a couple in a boat. The woman was dark skinned with a jet-black coronet of hair, was lying on a cloak with a parasol above her as a man rowed her gently downriver. He was perhaps five and twenty years old, quite striking, and with short dark hair that stood erect, not unlike a crop of corn. They were talking earnestly to one another. I passed Miss Havisham a cup of coffee and a paper bag full of doughnuts.
'Stephen and Maggie?' I asked, indicating the couple as we walked along the path by the river.
'Yes,' she replied. 'As you know, Lucy and Stephen are a hair's breadth from engagement. Stephen and Maggie's indiscretion in this boat causes Lucy Deane no end of distress. I told you to get the ones with pink icing.'
She had been looking in the bag.
'They'd run out.'
'Ah.'
We kept a wary eye on the couple in the boat as I tried to remember what actually happened in Mill on the Floss.
'They agree to elope, don't they?'
'Agree to — but don't. Stephen is being an idiot and Maggie should know better. Lucy is meant to be shopping in Lindum with her father and Aunt Tulliver but she gave them the slip an hour ago.'
We walked on for a few more minutes. The story seemed to be following the correct path with no intervention of Lucy's we could see. Although we couldn't make out the words, the sound of Maggie and Stephen's voices carried across the water.
Miss Havisham took a bite of her doughnut.
'I noticed the missing key too,' she said after a pause. 'It was pushed under a workbench. It was murder. Murder … by minotaur.'
She shivered.
'Why didn't you tell Bradshaw?' I asked. 'Surely the murder of a Jurisfiction operative warrants an investigation?'
She stared at me hard and then looked at the couple in the boat again.
'You don't understand, do you? The Sword of the Zenobians is code-word-protected.'
'Only Jurisfiction agents can get in and out,' I murmured.
'Whoever killed Perkins and Mathias was Jurisfiction,' she went on. 'And that's what frightens me. A rogue agent.'
We walked on in silence, digesting this fact.
'But why would anyone want to kill Perkins and a talkiag horse?'
'I think Mathias just got in the way.'
'And Perkins?'
'Not just Perkins. Whoever killed him tried to get someone else that day.'
I thought for a moment and a sudden chill came over me.
'My Eject-O-Hat. It failed.'
Miss Havisham produced the Homburg from a carrier bag, slightly squashed from where several Mrs Danvers had trodden on it. The frayed cord looking as though it might have been cut.
'Take this to Professor Plum at JurisTech and have him look at it. I'd like to be sure.'
'But … but why am I a threat?' I asked.
'I don't know,' admitted Miss Havisham. 'You are the most junior member of Jurisflction and arguably the least threatening — you can't even bookjump without moving your lips, for goodness' sake!'
I didn't need reminding but I saw her point.
'So what happens now?' I asked at length.
'We have to assume whoever killed him might try again. You are to be on your guard. Wait— There she is!'
We had walked over a small rise and were slightly ahead of the boat. A young woman was lying on the ground in a most unladylike fashion, pointing a sniper's rifle towards the small skiff that had just come into view. I crept cautiously forward; she was so intent on her task that she didn't notice me until I was close enough to grab her. She was a slight thing and her strugglings, whilst energetic, were soon overcome. I secured her in an armlock as Havisham unloaded the rifle. Maggie and Stephen, unaware of the danger, drifted softly past on their way to Mudport.
'Where did you get this?' asked Havisham, holding up the rifle.
'I don't have to say anything,' replied the angelic-looking girl in a soft voice. 'I was only going to knock a hole in the boat, honestly I was!'
'Sure you were. You can let go, Thursday.'
I relaxed my grip and she stepped back, pulling at her clothes to straighten them after our brief tussle. I checked her for any other weapons but found nothing.
'Why should Maggie force a wedge between our happiness?' she demanded angrily. 'Everything would be so wonderful between my darling Stephen and me — why am I the victim? I, who only wanted to do good and help everyone — especially Maggie!'
'It's called "drama",' replied Havisham wearily. 'Are you going to tell us where you got the rifle or not?'
'Not. You can't stop me. Maybe they'll get away but I can be here ready and waiting on the next reading — or even the one after that! Think you have enough Jurisfiction agents to put Maggie under constant protection?'
I'm sorry you feel that way,' replied Miss Havisham, looking her squarely in the eye. 'Is that your final word?'
'It is.'
'Then you are under arrest for attempted fiction infraction, contrary to Ordinance FMB/0608999 of the Narrative Continuity Code. By the power invested in me by the Council of Genres, I sentence you to banishment outside Mill on the Floss. Move.'
Miss Havisham ordered me to cuff Lucy, and once I had, she held on to me as we jumped into the Great Library. Lucy, for an arrested ad-libber, didn't seem too put out.
'You can't imprison me,' she said as we walked along the corridor of the twenty-third floor. 'I reappear in Maggie's dream seven pages from now. If I'm not there you'll be in more trouble than you know what to do with. This could mean your job, Miss Havisham! Back to Satis House — for good.'
'Would it mean that?' I asked, suddenly wondering whether Miss Havisham wasn't exceeding her authority.
'It would mean the same as it did the last time,' replied Havisham, 'absolutely nothing.'
'Last time?' queried Lucy. 'But this is the first time I've tried something like this!'
'No,' replied Miss Havisham, 'no, it most certainly is not.'
Miss Havisham pointed out a book entitled The Curious Experience of the Patterson Family on the Island of Uffa and told me to open it. We were soon inside, on the foreshore of a Scottish island in the late spring.
'What do you mean?' asked Lucy, looking around her as her earlier confidence evaporated to be replaced by growing panic. 'What is this place?'
'It is a prison, Miss Deane.'
'A prison?' she replied. 'A prison for whom?'
'For them,' said Havisham, indicating several identically youthful and fair-complexioned Lucy Deanes, who had broken cover and were staring in our direction. Our Lucy Deane looked at us, then at her identical sisters, then back to us again.
'I'm sorry!' she said, dropping to her knees. 'Give me another chance — please!'
'Take heart from the fact that this doesn't make you a bad person,' said Miss Havisham. 'You just have a repetitive character disorder. You are a serial ad-libber and the 796th Lucy we have had to imprison here. In less civilised times you would have been reduced to text. Good day.'
And we vanished back to the corridors of the Great Library.
'And to think she was the most pleasant person in Floss!' I said, shaking my head sadly.
'You'll find that the most righteous characters are the first ones to go loco down here. The average life of a Lucy Deane is about a thousand readings; self-righteous indignation kicks in after that. No one could believe it when David Copperfield killed his first wife, either. Good day, Chesh.'
The Cheshire Cat had appeared on a high shelf, grinning to us, itself, and anything else in view.
'Well!' said the Cat. 'Next and Havisham! Problems with Lucy Deane?'
'The usual. Can you get the Well to send in the replacement as soon as possible?'
The Cat assured us he would as soon as possible, seemed crestfallen that I hadn't bought him any Moggilicious cat food and vanished again.
'We need to find anything unusual about Perkins' death', said Miss Havisham. 'Will you help?'
'Of course!' I enthused.
Miss Havisham smiled a rare smile.
'You remind me of myself, all those years ago, before that rat Compeyson brought my happiness to an end.'
She moved closer and narrowed her eyes.
'We keep this to ourselves. Knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Start poking around in the workings of Jurisfiction and you may find more than you bargained for — just remember that.'
She fell silent for a few moments.
'But first, we need to get you fully licensed as a Jurisfiction agent — there's a limit to what you can do as an apprentice. Did you finish the multiple choice?'
I nodded.
'Good. Then you can do your practical exam today. I'll go and organise it while you take your Eject-O-Hat to JurisTech.'
She melted into the air about me and I walked off down the Library corridor towards the elevators. I passed Falstaff, who invited me to 'dance around his maypole'. I told him to sod off, of course, and pressed the elevator 'call' button. The doors opened a minute later and I stepped in. But it wasn't empty. With me were Emperor Zhark and Mrs Tiggy-winkle.
'Which floor?' asked Zhark.
'First, please.'
He pressed the button with a long and finely manicured finger and continued his conversation with Mrs Tiggy-winkle.
'… and that was when the rebels destroyed the third of my battle stations,' said the emperor sorrowfully. 'Have you any idea how much these things cost?'
'Tch,' said Mrs Tiggy-winkle, bristling her spines. 'They always find some way of defeating you, don't they?'
Zhark sighed.
'It's like one huge conspiracy,' he muttered. 'Just when I think I have the Galaxy at my mercy, some hopelessly outnumbered young hothead destroys my most insidious Death Machine using some hithero undiscovered weakness. I'm suing the manufacturer after that last debacle.'
He sighed again, sensed he was dominating the conversation and asked:
'So how's the washing business?'
'Pretty good,' said Mrs Tiggy-winkle, 'but the price of starch is something terrible these days.'
'Oh, I know,' replied Zhark, thumbing his high collar, 'look at this. My name alone strikes terror into billions, but can I get my collars done exactly how I want them?'
The elevator stopped at my floor and I stepped out.
I read myself into Sense and Sensibility and avoided the nursery rhyme characters, who were still picketing the front door; I had Humpty's proposals in my back pocket but still hadn't given them to Libris — in truth I had only promised to do my best, but didn't particularly want to run the gauntlet again. I ran up the back stairs, nodded a greeting to Mrs Henry Dashwood and bumped into Tweed in the lobby; he was talking to a lithe and adventurous-looking young man whose forehead was etched with an almost permanent frown. He quickly broke off when I appeared.
'Ah!' said Tweed. 'Thursday. Sorry to hear about Snell; he was a good man.'
'I know — thank you.'
'I've appointed the Gryphon as your new attorney,' he said. 'Is that all right?'
'Sounds fine,' I replied, turning to the youth, who was pulling his hands nervously through his curly hair. 'Hello! I'm Thursday Next.'
'Sorry!' mumbled Harris. 'This is Uriah Hope from David Copperfield; an apprentice I have been asked to train.'
'Pleased to meet you,' replied Hope in a friendly tone. 'Perhaps you and I could discuss apprenticeships together some time?'
'The pleasure's mine, Mr Hope. I'm a big fan of your work in Copperfield.'
I thanked them both and left to find the JurisTech offices along Norland Park's seemingly endless corridors. I stopped at a door at random, knocked and looked in. Behind a desk was one of the many Greek heroes who could be seen wandering around the Library; licensing their stories for remakes made a very reasonable living. He was on the footnoterphone.
'Okay,' he said, 'I'll be down to pick up Eurydice next Friday. Anything I can do for you in return?'
He raised a finger signalling for me to wait.
'Don't look back? That's all? Okay, no problem. See you then. 'Bye.'
He put down the horn and looked at me.
'Thursday Next, isn't it?'
'Yes; do you know where the JurisTech office is?'
'Down the corridor, first on the right.'
'Thanks.'
I made to leave but he called me back, pointing at the footnoterphone.
'I've forgotten already — what was I meant not to do?'
I'm sorry,' I said, 'I wasn't listening.'
I walked down the corridor and opened another door into a room that had nothing in it except a man with a frog growing out of his shiny bald head.
'Goodness!' I said. 'How did that happen?'
'It all started with a pimple on my bum,' said the frog. 'Can I help you?'
I'm looking for Professor Plum.'
'You want JurisTech. This is Old Jokes. Try next door.'
I thanked him and knocked on the next door. I heard a very sing-song 'Come in!' and entered. Although I had expected to see a strange laboratory full of odd inventions, there was nothing of the sort — just a man dressed in a check suit sitting behind a desk, reading some papers. He reminded me of Uncle Mycroft — just a little more perky.
'Ah!' he said, looking up. 'Miss Next. Did you bring the hat with you?'
'Yes,' I replied, 'but how—?'
'Miss Havisham told me,' he said simply.
It seemed there weren't many people who didn't talk to Miss Havisham or who didn't have Miss Havisham talk to them.
I took out the battered Eject-O-Hat and placed it on the table. Plum picked up the broken activation handle, nicked a magnifying glass in front of his eye and stared at the frayed end minutely.[15]
'Oh!' I said. 'I'm getting it again!'
'What?'
'A crossed line on my footnoterphone!'
'I can get a trace if you want — here, put this galvanised bucket on your head.'
'Not for a minute or two,' I told him, 'I want to see how it all turns out.'
'As you wish.'
So as he examined the hat I listened to Sofya and Vera prattle on.
'Well,' he said finally, 'it looks as though it has chafed through. The Mk IV is an old design — I'm surprised to see it still in use.'
'So it was just a failure due to poor maintenance?' I asked, not without some relief.
'A failure that saved a life, yes.'
'What do you mean?' I asked, my relief short lived.
He showed me the hat. Inside an inspection cover were intricate wires and small flashing lights that looked impressive.
'Someone has wired the retextualising inhibitor to the ISBN code rectifiers. If the cord had been pulled, there would have been an overheat in the primary booster coils.'
'Overheat?' I asked. 'My head would have got hot?'
'More than hot. Enough energy would have been released to write about fourteen novels.'
'I'm an apprentice, Plum, tell me in simple terms.'
He looked at me seriously.
'There wouldn't be much left of the hat — or the person wearing it. It happens occasionally on the Mk IVs — it would have been seen as an accident. Good thing there was a broken cord.'
He whistled softly.
'Nifty piece of work, too. Someone who knew what they were doing.'
'That's very interesting,' I said slowly. 'Can you give me a list of people who might have been able to do this sort of work?'
'Take a few days.'
'Worth the wait. I'll call back.'
I met up with Miss Havisham and the Bellman in the Jurisfiction offices. The Bellman nodded a greeting and consulted his ever-present clipboard.
'Looks like a dog day, ladies.'
'Thurber again?'
'No, Mansfield Park. Lady Bertram's pet pug has been run over and needs to be replaced.'
'Again?' replied Havisham. 'That must be the sixth. I wish she'd be more careful.'
'Seventh. You can pick it up from stores.'
He turned his attention to me.
'Miss Havisham says you are ready to take the practical test to bring you up from apprentice to restricted agent.'
'I'm ready,' I replied, thinking I was anything but.
'I'm sure you are,' answered the Bellman thoughtfully, 'but it is a bit soon — if it weren't for the shortage caused by Mrs Nakajima's retirement, I think you would remain as an apprentice for a few more months. Well,' he sighed, 'can't be helped. I've had a look at the duty roster and I think I've found an assignment that should test your mettle. It's an Internal Plot Adjustment order from the Council of Genres.'
Despite my natural feelings of caution, I was also, to my shame, excited by a practical test of my abilities. Dickens? Hardy? Perhaps even Shakespeare.
'Shadow the Sheepdog,' announced the Bellman, 'by Enid Blyton. It needs to have a happy ending.'
'Shadow … the Sheepdog,' I repeated slowly, hoping my disappointment didn't show. 'Okay. What do you want me to do?'
'Simple. As it stands, Shadow is blinded by the barbed wire, so he can't be sold to the American film producer. Up ending because he isn't sold, down ending because he is blinded and useless. All we need to do is to have him miraculously regain his sight the next time he goes to the vet on page …' He consulted his clipboard. '… two thirty-two.'
'And,' I said cautiously, not wanting the Bellman to realise how unprepared I was, 'what plan are we going to use?'
'Swap dogs,' replied the Bellman simply. 'All collies look pretty much the same.'
'What about Vestigial Plot Memory?' asked Havisham. 'Do we have any smoothers?'
'It's all on the job sheet,' returned the Bellman, tearing off a sheet of paper and handing it to me. 'You do know all about smoothers, of course?'
'Of course!' I replied.
'Good. Any more questions?'
I shook my head.
'Excellent!' exclaimed the Bellman. 'Just one more thing. Bradshaw is investigating the Perkins incident. Would you make sure he gets your reports as soon as possible?'
'Of course!'
'Er … good.'
He made a few 'must get on' noises and left.
As soon as he had gone I said to Havisham:
'Do you think I'm ready for this, ma'am?'
'Thursday,' she said in her most serious voice, 'listen to me. Jurisfiction has need of agents who can be trusted to do the right thing.' She looked around the room. 'Sometimes it is difficult to know whom we can trust. Sometimes the sickeningly self-righteous — like you — are the last bastion of defence against those who would mean the BookWorld harm.'
'Meaning?'
'Meaning you can stop asking so many questions and do as you're told — just pass this practical first time. Understand?'
'Yes, Miss Havisham.'
'That's settled, then,' she added. 'Anything else?'
'Yes,' I replied. 'What's a smoother?'
'Do you not read your TravelBook?'
'It's quite long,' I pleaded. 'I've been consulting it whenever possible but have still got no farther than the preface.'
'Well,' she began as we jumped to Wemmick's Stores in the lobby of the Great Library, 'plots have a sort of inbuilt memory. They can spring back to how they originally ran with surprising ease.'
'Like time,' I murmured, thinking about my father.
'If you say so,' returned Miss Havisham. 'So on Internal Plot Adjustment duties we often have to have a smoother — a secondary device that reinforces the primary plot swing. We changed the end of Conrad's Lord Jim, you know. Originally, he runs away. A bit weak. We thought it would be better if Jim delivered himself to Chief Doramin as he had pledged following Brown's massacre.'
'That didn't work?'
'No. The chief kept on forgiving him. We tried everything. Insulting the chief, tweaking his nose — after the forty-third attempt we were getting desperate; Bradshaw was almost pulling his hair out.'
'So what did you do?'
'We retrospectively had the chief's son die in the massacre. It did the trick. The chief had no trouble shooting Jim after that.'
I mused about this for a moment.
'How did Jim take it?' I asked. 'The decision for him to die, I mean?'
'He was the one who asked for the plot adjustment in the first place,' murmured Havisham. 'He thought it was the only honourable thing to do — mind you, the chief's son wasn't exactly over the moon about it.'
'Ah,' I said, pondering that here in the BookWorld the pencil of life occasionally did have a rubber on the other end.
'So you'll send a cheque for a hundred pounds to the farmer, and buy his pigs for double the market rate — that way, he won't need the cash and won't want to resell Shadow to the film producer. Get it? Good afternoon, Mr Wemmick.'
We had arrived at the stores. Wemmick himself was a short man, a native of Great Expectations, aged about forty with a pockmarked face. He greeted us enthusiastically.
'Good afternoon, Miss Havisham, Miss Next — I trust all is well?'
'Quite well, Mr Wemmick. I understand you have a few canines for us?'
'Indeed,' replied the storekeeper, pointing to where two dogs were attached to a hook in the wall by their leads.
'Pug, Lady Bertram's, to be replaced, one. Shadow, sheepdog, sighted, to swap with existing dog, blind, one. Cheque for the farmer, value: one hundred pounds sterling, one. Cash to buy pigs, forty-two pounds, ten shillings and fourpence. Sign here.'
The two dogs panted and wagged their tails. The collie had his eyes bound with a bandage.
'Any questions?'
'Do we have a cover story for this cheque?' I asked.
'Use your imagination. I'm sure you'll think of something.'
'Wait a moment,' I said, alarm bells suddenly ringing, 'aren't you coming with me to supervise?'
'Not at all!' Havisham grinned with a strange look in her eye. 'Assessed work has to be done solo; I'll mark you on your report and the successful — or not — realigned story within the book. This is so simple even you can't mess it up.'
'Couldn't I do Lady Bertram's pug?' I asked, trying to make it sound like something hard and of great consequence.
'Out of the question! Besides, I don't do'children's books any more — not after the incident with Larry the Lamb. But since Shadow is out of print no one will notice if you make a pig's ear of it. Remember that Jurisfiction is an honourable establishment and you should reflect that in your bearing and countenance. Be resolute in your work and fair and just. Destroy grammasites with extreme prejudice — and shun any men with amorous intentions.'
She thought for a moment.
'Or any intentions, come to that. Have you got your TravelBook to enable you to jump back?'
I patted my breast pocket where the slim volume was kept and she was gone, only to return a few moments later to swap dogs and vanish again. I was just about to jump to the second floor when a voice made me turn.
'Hello!' he said. 'All well?'
It was the Cheshire Cat. He was sitting on top of the Boojumorial, grinning fit to burst.
'I'm just about to do my practical.'
'Excellent!' said the Cat. 'Whereabouts?'
'Shadow the Sheepdog.'
'Enid Blyton, 1950, Collins, two fifty-six pages, illustrated,' muttered the Cat, to whom every book in the Library was a revered friend. 'Apart from the D-words in it, for Blyton it's not too bad at all — a product of its time, one might argue. What are you going to do with it?'
'Happier ending,' I explained. 'I have to swap dogs.'
'Ah!' said the Cat, wrinkling his whiskers and grinning some more. 'Just like the job we did on Gipson's Old Yeller last year.'
'Old Yetter?' I repeated incredulously. 'The new ending is the happy one?!'
'You should have read it before we changed it. Sad wasn't the word. Children were going into traumatic shock it was so depressing.'
And he blew his nose so violently he vanished with a faint pop.
I waited for a moment in case he reappeared and, when he didn't, read my way diligently to the second floor of the Library and picked Shadow the Sheepdog off the shelf. I paused. I was nervous and my palms had started to sweat. I scolded myself. How hard could a plot readjustment in an Enid Blyton be? I took a deep breath and, notwithstanding the simplistic nature of the novel, opened the slim volume with an air of serious trepidation — as though it were War and Peace.
19
Shadow the Sheepdog
'Shadow the Sheepdog, the story of a supremely loyal and intelligent sheepdog in a rural pre-war countryside, was published by Collins in 1950. A compulsive scribbler from her early teens, Enid Blyton found escape from her own unhappy childhood in the simple tales she wove for children. She has been republished in revised forms to suit modern tastes and has consistently remained popular over five decades. The independently minded children of her stones live in an idealised world of eternal summer holidays, adventure, high tea, ginger beer, cake and grown-ups with so little intelligence that they need everything explained to them — something that is not so very far from the truth.'
MILLON DE FLOSS — Enid Blyton
I read myself into the book, halfway down page 231. Johnny, the farmer's boy who was Shadow's owner and co-protagonist, would be having Shadow's eyes checked in a few days, so a brief reconnaissance of the area seemed like a good idea. If I could persuade rather than order the vet to swap the dogs, then so much the better. I alighted in a town which looked like some sort of forties rural idyll — a mix of Warwickshire and the Dales. All green grass, show-quality cattle, yellow-lichened stone walls, sunshine and healthy-looking, smiling people. Horses pulled carts laden high with hay down the main street and the odd shiny motor-car puttered past. Pies cooled on window sills and children played with hoops and tinplate steam engines. The smell in the breeze was of freshly mown grass, clean linen and cooking. Here was a world of high tea, tasty trifles, zero crime, eternal summers and boundless good health. I suspected living here might be quite enjoyable — for about a week.
I was nodded at by a passer-by.
'Beautiful day!' she said politely.
'Yes,' I replied. 'My—'
'Rain later?' she enquired.
I looked up at the small puffy clouds that stretched away to the horizon.
'I shouldn't have thought so,' I began, 'but can you—'
'Well, be seeing you!' said the woman politely, and was gone.
I found an alleyway and tied the sheepdog to a downpipe; it was neither useful nor necessary to lead a dog around town for the next few hours. I walked carefully down the road, past a family butcher's, a tea room and a sweet shop selling nothing but gobstoppers, bull's-eyes, ginger beer, lemonade and liquorice. A few doors farther on I found a newsagent and post office combined. The outside of the small shop was liberally covered with enamel signs advertising Fry's chocolates, Colman's starch, Wyncarnis tonic, Ovaltine and Lyons cakes. A small sign told me I could use the telephone, and a rack of postcards shared the pavement with boxes of fresh veg. There was also a display of newspapers, the headlines reflecting the inter-war politics of the book.
Britain voted favourite empire tenth year running, said one. Foreigners untrustworthy, study shows, said another. A third led with: 'Spiffing' — new buzzword sweeps nation.
I posted the cheque to Johnny's father with a covering letter explaining that it was an old loan repaid. Almost immediately a postman appeared on a bicycle and removed the letter — the only one in the postbox, I noted — with the utmost reverence, taking it into the post office where I could hear cries of wonderment. There weren't many letters in Shadow, I assumed. I stood outside the shop for a moment, watching the townsfolk going about their business. Without warning one of the carthorses decided to drop a huge pile of dung in the middle of the road. In a trice a villager had run across with a bucket and shovel and removed the offending article almost as soon as it had happened. I watched for a while and then set off to find the local auctioneers.
'So let me get this straight,' said the auctioneer, a heavy-set and humourless man with a monocle screwed into his eye, 'you want to buy pigs at treble the going rate? Why?'
'Not anyone's pigs,' I replied wearily, having spent the last half-hour trying to explain what I wanted, 'Johnny's father's pigs.'
'Quite out of the question,' muttered the auctioneer, getting to his feet and walking to the window. He did it a lot, I could tell — there was a worn patch right through the carpet to the floorboards beneath, but only from his chair to the window. There was another worn patch from the door to a side table — the use of which I was yet to understand. Considering his limitations I guessed the auctioneer was no more than a C-9 Generic — it explained the difficulty in persuading him to change anything.
'We do things to a set formula here,' added the auctioneer, 'and we don't very much like change.'
He walked back to his desk, turned to face me and wagged a reproachful finger.
'And believe me, if you try anything a bit rum at the auction I can discount your bid.'
We stared at each other. This wasn't working.
'Tea and cake?' asked the auctioneer, walking to the window again.
'Thank you,' I replied.
'Splendid!' he enthused, rubbing his hands together and returning to his desk. 'They tell me there is nothing quite so refreshing as a cup of tea!'
He flipped the switch on the intercom.
'Miss Pittman, would you bring in some tea, please?'
The door opened instantaneously to reveal his secretary holding a tray of tea things. She was in her late twenties, and pretty in an English rose sort of way; she wore a floral summer dress under a fawn cardigan.
Miss Pittman followed the smoothly worn floorboards and carpet from the door to the side table. She curtsied and laid the tea things next to an identical tray left from an earlier occasion. She threw the old tea tray out of the window and I heard the soft tinkle of broken crockery; I had seen a large pile of broken tea things outside the window when I arrived. The secretary paused, hands pressed tightly together.
'Shall … shall I pour you a cup?' she asked, a flush rising to her cheeks.
'Thank you!' exclaimed Mr Phillips, walking excitedly to the window and back again. 'Milk and—'
'—one sugar.' His secretary smiled shyly. 'Yes, yes … I know.'
'But of course you do!' He smiled back.
Then the next stage of this odd charade took place. The auctioneer and secretary moved to the place where their two worn paths were closest, the very outer limits that their existence allowed them. Miss Pittman held the cup by its rim, placed her toes right on the edge where carpet began and shiny floorboard ended, stretching out as far as she could. Mr Phillips did the same on his side of the divide. The tips of his fingers could just touch the rim of the cup but try as he might he could not reach far enough to grasp it.
'Allow me,' I said, unable to watch the cruel spectacle any longer. I passed the cup from one to the other.
How many cups of tea had gone cold in the past thirty-five years? I wondered. How uncrossable the six foot of carpet that divided them! Whoever Event Managed this book down in the Well was possessed of a cruel sense of humour.
Miss Pittman curtsied politely and departed while the auctioneer watched her go. He sat down at his desk, eyeing the teacup thirstily. He licked his lips and rubbed his fingertips in expectation, then took a sip and savoured the moment lovingly.
'Oh my goodness!' he said deliriously. 'Even better than I thought it would be!'
He took another sip and closed his eyes with the sheer delight of it.
'Where were we?' he asked.
I took a deep breath.
'I want you to buy Johnny's father's pigs with an offer that purports to come from an unknown buyer — and as close to the top of page two hundred and thirty-two as you can.'
'Utterly impossible!' said the auctioneer. 'You are asking me to change the narrative! I will have to see higher authority.'
I passed him my Jurisfiction ID card. It wasn't like me to pull rank, but I was getting desperate.
'I'm on official business sanctioned by the Council of Genres itself through Text Grand Central.' It was how I thought Miss Havisham might do it.
'You forget that we are out of print pending modernisation,' he replied shortly, tossing my ID back across the table. 'You have no mandatory powers here, Apprentice Next. I think Jurisfiction will look very carefully before attempting a change on a book without internal approval. You can tell the Bellman that, from me.'
We stared at each other, a diplomatic impasse having arrived. I had an idea and asked him:
'How long have you been an auctioneer in this book?'
'Thirty-six years.'
'And how many cups of tea have you had in that time?' I asked him.
'Including this one?'
I nodded.
'One.'
I leaned forward.
'I can fix it for you to have as many cups of tea as you want, Mr Phillips.'
He narrowed his eyes.
'Oh yes?' he replied. 'And how would you manage that? As soon as you've got what you want you'll be off and I'll never be able to reach Miss Pittman's proffered cup again!'
I stood up and went to the table on which the tea tray was sitting. It was a small table made of oak and lightly decorated. It had a vase of flowers on it, but nothing else. As Mr Phillips watched I picked up the table and placed it next to the window. The auctioneer looked at me dumbfounded, got up, walked to the window and delicately touched the table and the tea things.
An audacious move,' he said, waving the sugar tongs at me, 'but it won't work. She's a D-7 — she won't be able to change what she does.'
'D-7s never have names, Mr Phillips.'
'I gave her that name,' he said quietly. 'You're wasting your time.'
'Let's see, shall we?' I replied, speaking into the intercom to ask Miss Pittman to bring in more tea.
The door opened as before and a look of shock and surprise crossed the girl's face.
'The table!' she gasped. 'It's—!'
'You can do it, Miss Pittman,' I told her. 'Just place the tea where you always do.'
She moved forward, following the well-worn path, arrived at where the table used to be and then looked at its new position, two strides away. The smooth and unworn carpet was alien and frightening to her; it might as well have been a bottomless chasm. She stopped dead.
'I don't understand—!' she began, her face bewildered as her hands began to shake.
'Tell her to put the tea things down,' I told the auctioneer, who was becoming as distressed as Miss Pittman — perhaps more so. 'TELL HER!'
'Thank you, Miss Pittman,' murmured Mr Phillips, his voice croaking with emotion, 'put the tea things down over here, would you?'
She bit her lip and closed her eyes, raised her foot and held it, quivering, above the edge of the shiny floorboards. Then she moved it forward and rested it on the soft carpet. She opened her eyes, looked down and beamed at us both.
'Well done!' I said. 'Just two more.'
Brimming with confidence, she negotiated the two remaining steps with ease and placed the tray on the table. She and Mr Phillips were closer now than they had ever been before. She put out a hand to touch his lapel, but checked herself quickly.
'Shall … shall I pour you a cup?' she asked.
'Thank you!' exclaimed Mr Phillips. 'Milk and—'
'—one sugar.' She smiled shyly. 'Yes, yes, I know.'
She poured the tea and handed the cup and saucer to him. He took it gratefully.
'Mr Phillips?'
'Yes?'
'Do I have a first name?'
'Of course,' he replied quietly and with great emotion. 'I have had over thirty years to think about it. Your name is Aurora, as befits somebody as beautiful as the dawn.'
She covered her nose and mouth to hide her smile and blushed deeply. Mr Phillips raised a shaking hand to touch her cheek but stopped as he remembered that I was still present. He nodded imperceptibly in my direction and said:
'Thank you, Miss Pittman — perhaps later you might come in for some … dictation.'
'I look forward to it, Mr Phillips!'
And she turned, trod softly on the carpet to the door, looked round once more and went out. When I looked back at Mr Phillips he had sat down, drained by the emotionally charged encounter.
'Do we have a deal?' I asked him. 'Or do I put the table back where it was?'
He looked shocked.
'You wouldn't?'
'I would.'
He considered his position for a moment and then offered me his hand.
'Pigs at treble the going rate?'
'Top of page two thirty-two.'