In all, I think I saw twenty-eight descendants of mine that afternoon, all of them somber and only one of them yet born. When they had said their good-byes and rippled from sight, other visitors appeared to see her. There was Emperor and Empress Zhark, and Mr. and Mrs. Bradshaw, who were never to age at all. The Cheshire Cat came, too, and several Miss Havishams, as well as a delegation of lobsters from the distant future, a large man smoking a cigar and several other people who rippled in and out in a polite manner. I carried on reading, holding her other hand as the fire of life slowly faded from her tired body. By the time I had started on the final verse of Faerie Queen, her eyes were closed and her breathing was shallow. The last of the guests had gone, and only my father and I were left.

  I finished the verse, and my sentence was complete. Twenty years of gingham and ten boring books. I closed the volume and laid it on the bed next to her. Already her face had drained of color, and her mouth was partly open. I was alerted by a quiet sniffle next to me. I had never seen my father cry before, but even now large tears rolled silently down his cheeks. He thanked me and departed, leaving me alone with the woman in the bed, the nurse discreetly waiting at the door. I felt sad in that I had lost a valued companion, but no great sense of grief. After all, I was still very much alive. I had learned from my own father’s death many years ago that the end of one’s life and dying are two very different things indeed, and took solace in that.

  “Are you okay?” asked Landen when I got back to the car. “You look as though you’ve seen a ghost!”

  “Several,” I replied. “I think I just saw my whole life pass in front of my eyes.”

  “Do I feature?”

  “Quite a lot, Land.”

  “I had my life flash in front of me once,” he said. “Trouble is, I blinked and missed all the good bits.”

  “It will need more than a blink,” I told him, nuzzling his ear. “How’s the little man?”

  “Tired after a lot of pointing.”

  I looked into the backseat. Friday was spark out and snoring.

  Landen started the car and pulled out of the parking space.

  “Who was the old woman, by the way?” he asked as we turned into the main road. “You never did tell me.”

  I thought for a moment. “Someone who knew me really well and turned up when it mattered.”

  “I have someone like that,” said Landen, “and if she’s feeling up to it, I’d like to take her out for dinner. Where do you fancy?”

  I thought of the old woman in the bed, dressed in gingham, hanging on for the last verse, and all the people who had come to see her off. Life, I decided, would be good and, more than that, unusual.

  “If I’m with you,” I told him tenderly, “SmileyBurger is the Ritz.”

  Credits

  My great thanks to Maggy and Stewart Roberts for the illustrations in this book.

  My thanks to Mari Roberts for huge quantities of research on everything from

  the Danes to Hamlet to conflict resolution and the piano gag, and for

  companionship, and love.

  Mr. Shgakespeafe’s quotes and Hamlet kindly supplied by Shakespeare (William), Inc.

  Lorem Ipsum usage suggested by Swaim & Rogan.

  For the purposes of this narrative, it should be noted that Zeffirelli’s excellent version

  of Hamlet starring Mel Gibson and Glenn Close was made in 1987, not 1991 as

  previously thought.

  My grateful thanks to John Sutherland and Cedric Watts for their Puzzles in Literature

  series, which continues to amuse and delight, and to Norrie Epstein for her excellent

  Friendly Shakespeare, which is every bit as the title suggests. Also to the Reduced

  Shakespeare Company for much-needed Bard-related tomfoolery in times of stress.

  Pulp western research by Gillian Taylor, author of Darrow’s Word and many others.

  Visit www.gillian-f-taylor.co.uk.

  My grateful thanks to Landen Parke-Laine for being willing to undertake a guest

  first-person appearance at short notice.

  No penguins were killed or pianos destroyed in order to write this book. The

  penguin meal on page 146 and the piano incident on page 305 were merely fictional

  narrative devices and have no basis in fact.

  My apologies also to Danish people everywhere for the fictional slur undertaken in the

  pages of this book. I am at pains to point out that this was for satirical purposes only,

  and I like Denmark a lot, especially rollmops, bacon, Lego, Bang & Olufsen, the

  Faeroes, Karen Blixen—and, of course, Hamlet, the greatest Dane of all.

  Mandatory toast information, as required by current toast legislation: Bread was

  originated in a Panasonic SD206 breadmaker, sliced with an IKEA bread knife on a

  homemade breadboard and toasted in a Dualit model 3CBGB. Spread was Utterly

  Butterly, and Seville marmalade was homemade.

  The appearances of Zhark in this book and the use of his name and exploits were

  monitored and approved by Zhark Enterprises, Inc., and we gratefully acknowledge

  the Emperor’s help and assistance in the making of this novel.

  This book was constructed wholly within the Socialist Republic of Wales.

  A Fforde/Hodder/Viking Penguin production.

  First

  Among

  Sequels

  The Danverclone seemed to hang

  in the air for a moment before a large wave

  caught her and she was left behind the

  rapidly moving taxi.

  THURSDAY NEXT

  IN

  First

  Among

  Sequels

  A NOVEL

  Jasper Fforde

  VIKING

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,

  Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, En gland

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  (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

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  Rosebank, Johannesburg 2195, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, En gland

  First published in 2007 by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Copyright © Jasper Fforde, 2007

  All rights reserved

  Illustrations by Bill Mudron and Dylan Meconis

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to Agatha Christie Limited (A Chorion Company) for reference to They Do It with Mirrors © Agatha Christie (A Chorion Company). All rights reserved.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Fforde, Jasper.

  Thursday next in first among sequels / Jasper Fforde.

  p. cm.

  ISBN: 1-101-15867-0

  1. Next, Thursday (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Characters

  and characteristics in literature—Fiction. 3. Women detectives—Great Britain—Fiction.

  4. Books and reading—Fiction. 5. Time travel—Fiction.

  I. Title. II. Title: First among sequels.

  PR6106.F67T475 2007

  823' .914—dc22 2007014615

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrightable materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  For Cressida,

  the bestest sister in the world

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  1. Breakfast

  2. Mum and Polly and Mycroft

  3. Acme Carpets

  4. Jurisfiction

  5. Training Day

  6. The Great Library and Council of Genres

  7. A Probe Inside Pinocchio

  8. Julian Sparkle

  9. Core Containment

  10. The Well of Lost Plots

  11. The Refit

  12. Kids

  14. The ChronoGuard

  15. Home Again

  16. Cheese

  17. Breakfast Again

  18. Aornis Hades

  19. The Goliath Corporation

  20. The Austen Rover

  21. Holmes

  22. Next

  23. The Piano Problem

  24. Policy Directives

  25. The Paragon

  26. Thursday Next

  27. Bound to the Outland

  28. The Discreet Charm of the Outland

  29. Time Out of Joint

  30. Now Is the Winter

  31. Spending the Surplus

  32. The Austen Rover Roving

  33. Somewhere Else Entirely

  34. Rescue/Capture

  35. The Bees, the Bees

  36. Senator Jobsworth

  37. The Great Samuel Pepys Fiasco

  38. The End of Time

  39. A Woman Named Thursday Next

  Author’s Note

  This book has been bundled with Special Features,

  including The Making of… wordamentary, deleted scenes,

  alternative endings and much more.

  To access all these free bonus features, log on to

  www.jasperfforde.com/features.html and follow the

  on-screen instructions.

  The year is 2002. It is fourteen years since Thursday

  almost pegged out at the 1988 Croquet SuperHoop, and

  life is beginning to get back to normal….

  First

  Among

  Sequels

  1.

  Breakfast

  The Swindon that I knew in 2002 had a lot going for it. A busy financial center coupled with excellent infrastructure and surrounded by green and peaceful countryside had made the city about as popular a place as you might find anywhere in the nation. We had our own forty-thousand-seat croquet stadium, the recently finished Cathedral of St. Zvlkx, a concert hall, two local TV networks and the only radio station in En gland dedicated solely to mariachi music. Our central position in southern En gland also made us the hub for high-speed overland travel from the newly appointed Clary-LaMarr Travelport. It was little wonder that we called Swindon “the Jewel on the M4.”

  The dangerously high level of the stupidity surplus was once again the lead story in The Owl that morning. The reason for the crisis was clear: Prime Minister Redmond van de Poste and his ruling Commonsense Party had been discharging their duties with a reckless degree of responsibility that bordered on inspired sagacity. Instead of drifting from one crisis to the next and appeasing the nation with a steady stream of knee-jerk legislation and headline-grabbing but arguably pointless initiatives, they had been resolutely building a raft of considered long-term plans that concentrated on unity, fairness and tolerance. It was a state of affairs deplored by Mr. Alfredo Traficcone, leader of the opposition Prevailing Wind Party, who wanted to lead the nation back onto the safer grounds of uninformed stupidity.

  “How could they let it get this bad?” asked Landen as he walked into the kitchen, having just dispatched our daughters off to school. They walked themselves, naturally; Tuesday was twelve and took great pride in looking after Jenny, who was now ten.

  “Sorry?” I said, my mind full of other matters, foremost among them the worrying possibility that Pickwick’s plumage might never grow back, and that she would have to spend the rest of her life looking like a supermarket oven-ready chicken.

  “The stupidity surplus,” repeated Landen as he sat down at the kitchen table, “I’m all for responsible government, but storing it up like this is bound to cause problems sooner or later—even by acting sensibly, the government has shown itself to be a bunch of idiots.”

  “There are a lot of idiots in this country,” I replied absently, “and they deserve representation as much as the next man.”

  But he was right. Unlike previous governments that had skillfully managed to eke out our collective stupidity all year round, the current administration had decided to store it all up and then blow it on something unbelievably dopey, arguing that one major balls-up every ten years or so was less damaging than a weekly helping of mild political asininity. The problem was, the surplus had reached absurdly high levels, where it had even surpassed the “monumentally dumb” mark. Only a blunder of staggering proportions would remove the surplus, and the nature of this mind-numbing act of idiocy was a matter of considerable media speculation.

  “It says here,” he said, getting into full rant mode by adjusting his glasses and tapping at the newspaper with his index finger, “that even the government is having to admit that the stupidity surplus is a far, far bigger problem than they had first imagined.”

  I held the striped dodo cozy I was knitting for Pickwick against her pink and blotchy body to check the size, and she puffed herself up to look more alluring, but to no avail. She then made an indignant plocking noise, which was the only sound she ever uttered.

  “Do you think I should knit her a party one as well? Y’know, black, off the shoulder and with sparkly bits in it?”

  “But,” Landen went on in a lather of outrage, “the prime minister has poured scorn on Traficcone’s suggestion to offload our unwanted stupidity to Third World nations, who would be only too happy to have it in exchange for several sacks of cash and a Mercedes or two.”

  “He’s right,” I replied with a sigh. “Idiocy offsets are bullshit; stupidity is our own problem and has to be dealt with on an individual ‘stupidity footprint’ basis—and landfill certainly doesn’t work.”

  I was thinking of the debacle in Cornwall, where twenty thousand tons of half-wittedness was buried in the sixties, only to percolate to the surface two decades later when the residents started to do inexplicably dumb things, such as using an electric mixer in the bath and parting their hair in the center.

  “What if,” Landen continued thoughtfully, “the thirty million or so inhabitants of the British Archipelago were to all simultaneously fall for one of those e-mail ‘tell us all your bank details’ phishing scams or—I don’t know—fall down a manhole or something?”

  “They tried the mass walking-into-lamppost experiment in France to see if they could alleviate la dette idiote,” I pointed out, “but the seriousness under which the plan was undertaken made it de facto sensible, and all that was damaged was the proud Gallic forehead.”

  Landen took a sip of coffee, unfolded the paper and scanned the rest of the front page before remarking absently, “I took up your idea and sent my publisher a few outlines for self-help books last week.”

  “Who do they think you should be helping?”

  “Well…me…and them, I suppose—isn’t that how it’s meant to work? It looks really easy. How about this for a title: Men Are from Earth, Women Are from Earth—Just Deal with It.”

  He looked at me and smiled, and I smiled back. I didn’t love him just because he had a nice knee, was tall and made me laugh, but because we were two parts of one, and neither of us could imagine life without the other. I wish I had a better way to describe it, but I’m not a poet. Privately he was a husband and father to our three mostly wonderful kids, but professionally he was a writer. Unfortunately, despite winning the 1988 Armitage Shanks Fiction Award for Bad Sofa, a string of flops had left the relationship with his publisher a bit strained. So strained, in fact, that he was reduced to penning point-of-sale nonfiction classics such as The Little Book of Cute Pets That You Really Like to Hug and The Darndest Things Kids Say. When he wasn’t working on these, he was looking after our children and attempting to rekindle his career with a seriously good blockbuster—his magnum opus. It wasn’t easy, but it was what he loved, and I loved him, so we lived off my salary, which was about the size of Pickwick’s brain—not that big, and unlikely to become so.

  “This is for you,” said Landen, pushing a small parcel wrapped in pink paper across the table.

  “Sweetheart,” I said, really annoyed and really pleased all at the same time, “I don’t do birthdays.”

  “I know,” he said without looking up, “so you’ll just have to humor me.”

  I unwrapped the package to find a small silver locket and chain. I’m not a jewelry person, but I am a Landen person, so held my hair out of the way while he fastened the clasp, then thanked him and gave him a kiss, which he returned. And then, since he knew all about my abhorrence of birthdays, dropped the matter entirely.