The Bellman spoke again.

  “The last booksplorer who went into The Lost World was shot by Lord Roxton.”

  “Gomez was an amateur,” retorted Tweed. “I can take care of myself.”

  The Bellman thought about this for a moment, weighed up the pros and cons and then sighed.

  “Okay, you’re on. But I want reports every ten pages, understand? Okay. Item four—”

  There was a noise from two younger members of the service who were laughing about something.

  “Hey, listen up, guys. I’m not just talking for my health.”

  They were quiet.

  “Okay. Item four: nonstandard spelling. There have been some odd spellings reported in nineteenth- and twentieth-century texts, so keep your eyes open. It’s probably just texters having a bit of fun, but it just might be the mispeling vyrus coming back to life.”

  There was a groan from the assembled agents.

  “Okay, okay, keep your hair on—I only said ‘might.’ Samuel Johnson’s dictionary cured it after the 1744 outbreak and Lavinia-Webster and the OED keep it all in check, but we have to be careful of any new strains. I know this is boring, but I want every misspelling you come across reported and given to the Cat. He’ll pass it on to Agent Libris at Text Grand Central.”

  He paused for effect and looked at us sternly.

  “We can’t let this get out of hand, people. Okay. Item five: There are thirty-one pilgrims in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales but only twenty-four stories. Mrs. Cavendish, weren’t you keeping an eye on this?”

  “We’ve been watching Canterbury Tales all week,” said a woman dressed in the most fabulously outrageous clothes, “and every time we look away, another story gets boojummed. Someone’s getting in there and erasing the story from within.”

  “Deane? Any idea who’s behind all this?”

  Daphne Farquitt’s romantic lead stood up and consulted a list.

  “I think I can see a pattern beginning to emerge,” he said. “The Merchant’s Wife was the first to go, followed by The Milliner’s Tale, The Pedlar’s Cok, The Cuckold’s Revenge, The Maiden’s Wonderful Arse and, most recently, The Contest of Farts. The Cook’s Tale is already half gone—it looks as though whoever is doing this has a problem with the healthy vulgarity of Chaucerian texts.”

  “In that case,” said the Bellman with a grave expression, “it looks like we have an active cell of Bowdlerizers at work again. The Miller’s Tale will be the next to go. I want twenty-four-hour surveillance, and we should get someone on the inside. Volunteers?”

  “I’ll go,” said Deane. “I’ll take the place of the host—he won’t mind.”

  “Good. Keep me informed of your progress.”

  “I say!” said Akrid Snell, putting up his hand.

  “What is it, Snell?”

  “If you’re going to be the host, Deane, can you get Chaucer to cool it a bit on the Sir Topaz story? He’s issued a writ for libel, and not to put too fine a point on it, I think we could lose our trousers over this one.”

  Deane nodded, and the Bellman returned to his notes.

  “Item six: Now this I regard as kind of serious, guys.”

  He held up an old copy of the Bible.

  “In this 1631 printing, the seventh commandment reads: Thou shalt commit adultery.”

  There was a mixture of shock and stifled giggles from the small gathering.

  “I don’t know who did this, but it’s just not funny. Fooling around with internal Text Operating Systems might have a sort of mischievous appeal to it, but it’s not big and it’s not clever. The occasional bout of high spirits I might overlook, but this isn’t an isolated incident. I’ve also got a 1716 edition that urges the faithful to sin on more, and a Cambridge printing from 1653 which tells us that The unrighteous shall inherit the Kingdom of God. Now listen, I don’t want to be accused of having no sense of humor, but this is something that I will not tolerate. If I find out the joker who has been doing this, it’ll be a month’s enforced holiday inside Ant & Bee.”

  “Marlowe!” said Tweed, making it sound like a cough.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing. Bad cough—sorry.”

  The Bellman stared at Tweed for a moment, laid down the offending Bible and looked at his watch.

  “Okay, that’s it for now. I’ll be doing individual briefings in a few minutes. We thank Mrs. Dashwood for her hospitality, and Perkins—it’s your turn to feed the Minotaur.”

  There was a groan from Perkins. The group started to wander off and talk to one another. The Bellman had to raise his voice to be heard.

  “We go off shift in eight bells, and listen up—!”

  The assembled Jurisfiction staff stopped for a moment.

  “Let’s be careful out there.”

  The Bellman paused, tingled his bell and everyone returned to their tasks. I caught Tweed’s eye; he smiled, made a pistol out of his hand and pointed it at me. I did the same back and he laughed.

  “King Pellinore,” said the Bellman to a disheveled white-haired whiskery gentleman in half-armor, “there has been a sighting of the Questing Beast in the backstory of Middlemarch.”

  King Pellinore’s eyes opened wide; he muttered something that sounded like “What what, hey hey?,” then drew himself up to his full height, picked a helmet from a nearby table and clanked from the room. The Bellman ticked his list, consulted the next entry and turned to us.

  “Next and Havisham,” he said. “Something easy to begin with. Bloophole needs closing. It’s in Great Expectations, Miss Havisham, so you can go straight home afterwards.”

  “Good,” she exclaimed. “What do we have to do?”

  “Page two,” explained the Bellman, consulting his clipboard. “Abel Magwitch escapes—swims, one assumes—from a prison hulk with a ‘great iron’ on his leg. He’d sink like a stone. No Magwitch, no escape, no career in Australia, no cash to give to Pip, no ‘expectations,’ no story. He’s got to have the shackles still on him when he reaches the shore so Pip can fetch a file to release him, so you’re going to have to footle with the backstory. Any questions?”

  “No,” replied Miss Havisham. “Thursday?”

  “Er—no also,” I replied, my head still spinning after the Bellman’s speech. I was just going to walk in Miss Havisham’s shadow for a bit—which was, on reflection, a very good place to be.

  “Good,” said the Bellman, signing a docket and tearing it off. “Take this to Wemmick in stores.”

  He left us and called to Foyle and the Red Queen about a missing person named Cass in Silas Marner.

  “Did you understand any of that?” asked Miss Havisham.

  “Not really.”

  “Good!” smiled Miss Havisham. “Confused is exactly how all cadets to Jurisfiction should enter their first assignment!”

  26.

  Assignment One: Bloophole Filled in Great Expectations

  Bloophole: Term used to describe a narrative hole by the author that renders his/her work seemingly impossible. An unguarded bloophole may not cause damage for millions of readings, but then, quite suddenly and catastrophically, the book may unravel itself in a very dramatic fashion. Hence the Jurisfiction saying “A switch in a line can save a lot of time.”

  TextMarker: An emergency device that outwardly resembles a flare pistol. Designed by the Jurisfiction Design & Technology department, the TextMarker allows a trapped PRO to “mark” the text of the book they are within using a predesignated code of bold, italics, underlining, etc., unique to the agent. Another agent may then jump in at the right page to effect a rescue. Works well as long as the rescuer is looking for the signal.

  UNITARY AUTHORITY OF WARRINGTON CAT,

  The Jurisfiction Guide to the Great Library (glossary)

  MISS HAVISHAM had dispatched me to get some tea and meet her back at her desk, so I walked across to the refreshments.

  “Good evening, Miss Next,” said a well-dressed young man in plus fours and a sports jacket. He had a well-trimmed mustache and a monocle screwed into his eye; he smiled and offered me his hand to shake. “Vernham Deane, resident cad of The Squire of High Potternews, D. Farquitt, 246 pages, softcover £3.99.”

  I shook his hand.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said sadly. “No one thinks much of Daphne Farquitt, but she sells a lot of books and she’s always been pretty good to me—apart from the chapter where I ravish the serving girl at Potternews Hall and then callously have her turned from the house. I didn’t want to, believe me.”

  He looked at me with the same earnestness that Mrs. Dashwood had exhibited when explaining her actions in Sense and Sensibility. It sounded as though a preordained life could be something of a nuisance.

  “I’ve not read the book,” I told him untruthfully, unwilling to get embroiled in Farquitt plot intricacies—I could be stuck here for days.

  “Ah!” he said with some relief, then added: “You have a good teacher in Miss Havisham. Solid and dependable, but a stickler for rules. There are many shortcuts here that the more mature members either frown upon or have no knowledge of; will you permit me to show you around some time?”

  I was touched by the courtesy.

  “Thank you, Mr. Deane—I accept.”

  “Vern,” he said. “Call me Vern. Listen, don’t rely too heavily on the ISBN numbers. The Bellman’s a bit of a technophile and although the ISBN Positioning System might seem to have its attractions, I should keep one of Bradshaw’s maps with you as a backup at all times.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind, Vern, thanks.”

  “And don’t worry about old Harris. His bark is a lot worse than his bite. He looks down on me because I’m from a racy potboiler, but listen—I can hold my own against him any day!”

  He poured some tea for us both before continuing.

  “He was trained during the days when cadets were cast into A Pilgrim’s Progress and told to make their own way out. He thinks all us young ’uns are soft as soap. Don’t you, Tweed?”

  He turned to meet my detractor.

  Harris Tweed stood by with an empty coffee cup.

  “What are you blathering about, Deane?” he asked, scowling like thunder.

  “I was telling Miss Next here that you think we’re all a bit soft.”

  Harris took a step closer, glared at Deane and then fixed me with his dark brown eyes. He was about fifty, graying, and had the sort of face that looked as though the skin had been measured upon a skull three sizes smaller before fitment.

  “Has Havisham mentioned the Well of Lost Plots to you?” he asked.

  “The Cat mentioned it. Unpublished books, I think he said.”

  “Not just unpublished. The Well of Lost Plots is where vague ideas ferment into sketchy plans. This is the Notion Nursery. The Word Womb. Go down there and you’ll see plot outlines coalescing on the shelves like so many primordial life forms. The spirits of roughly sketched characters flit about the corridors in search of plot and dialogue before they are woven into the story. If they get lucky, the book finds a publisher and rises into the Great Library above.”

  “And if they’re unlucky?”

  “They stay in the basement. But there’s more. Below the Well of Lost Plots is another basement. Subbasement twenty-seven. No one talks of it much. It’s where deleted characters, poor plot devices, half-baked ideas and corrupt Jurisfiction agents go to spend a painful eternity. Just remember that.”

  I was stunned, so said nothing. Tweed glared at Deane, scowled at me, filled up his coffee cup and left. As soon as he was out of earshot, Vernham turned to me and said: “Old wives’ tales. There’s no such thing as basement twenty-seven.”

  “Sort of like using the Jabberwock to frighten children, yes?”

  “Well, not really,” replied Deane thoughtfully, “because there is a Jabberwock. Frightfully nice fellow—good at fly-fishing and plays the bongos. I’ll introduce you sometime.”

  I heard Miss Havisham calling my name.

  “I’d better go,” I told him.

  Vern looked at his watch.

  “Of course. Goodness, is that the time? Well, hey-ho, see you about!”

  Despite Vern’s assurances about Harris Tweed’s threats I still felt uneasy. Was jumping into a copy of Poe from my side enough of a misdemeanor to attract Tweed’s ire? And how much training would I need before I could even attempt to rescue Jack Schitt? I returned to Miss Havisham deep in thought about Jurisfiction and Landen and bookjumping. I noticed her desk was as far from the Red Queen’s as one could get and laid her tea in front of her.

  “What do you know about subbasement twenty-seven?” I asked her.

  “Old wives’ tales,” replied Havisham, concentrating on the report she was filing. “One of the other PROs trying to frighten you?”

  “Sort of.”

  I looked around while Miss Havisham busied herself. There seemed to be a lot of activity in the room; PROs melted in and out of the air around me with the Bellman moving around, reading instructions from his clipboard. My eyes alighted on a shiny horn that was connected to a polished wood-and-brass device on the desk by a flexible copper tube. It reminded me of a very old form of gramophone—something that Thomas Edison might have come up with.

  Miss Havisham looked up, saw I was trying to read the instructions on the brass plaque and said: “It’s a footnoterphone. We use them to communicate. Book-to-book or external calls, their value is incalculable. Try it out if you wish.”

  I took the horn and looked inside. There was a cork plug pushed into the end attached to a short chain. I looked at Miss Havisham.

  “Just give the title of the book, page, character, and if you really want to be specific, line and word.”

  “As simple as that?”

  “As simple as that.”

  I pulled out the plug and heard a voice say: “Operator services. Can I help you?”

  “Oh! yes—er, book-to-book, please.” I thought of a novel I had been reading recently and chose a page and line at random. “It Was a Dark and Stormy Night, page 156, line four.”

  “Trying to connect you. Thank you for using FNP Communications.”

  There were a few clicking noises and I heard a man’s voice saying: “. . . and our hearts, though stout and brave, still like muffled . . .”

  The operator came back on the line.

  “I’m sorry, we had a crossed line. You are through now, caller. Thank you for using FNP Communications.”

  Now all I could hear was the low murmur of conversation above the sound of engines of a ship. At a loss to know what to say I just gabbled: “Antonio?”

  There was the sound of a confused voice, and I hurriedly replaced the plug.

  “You’ll get the hang of it,” said Havisham kindly, putting her report down. “Paperwork! My goodness. Come along, we’ve got to visit Wemmick in the stores. I like him, so you’ll like him. I won’t expect you to do much on this first assignment—just stay close to me and observe. Finished your tea? We’re off!”

  I hadn’t, of course, but Miss Havisham grabbed my elbow and before I knew it we were back in the huge entrance lobby near the Boojumorial. Our footsteps rang out on the polished floor as we crossed to one side of the vestibule, where a small counter not more than six feet wide was set into the deep red marble wall. A battered notice told us to take a number and we would be called.

  “Rank must have its privileges!” cried Miss Havisham gaily as she walked to the front of the queue. A few of the Jurisfiction agents looked up, but most were too busy swotting up on their passnotes, cramming for their impending destinations.

  Harris Tweed was in front of us, kitting up for his trip into The Lost World. On the counter before him there was a complete safari suit, knapsack, binoculars and revolver.

  “—and one Rigby .416 sporting rifle, plus sixty rounds of ammunition.”

  The storekeeper laid a mahogany rifle box on the counter and shook his head sadly.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer an M-16? A charging stegosaurus can take some stopping, I’ll be bound.”

  “An M-16 would be sure to raise suspicions, Mr. Wemmick. Besides, I’m a bit of a traditionalist at heart.”

  Mr. Wemmick sighed, shook his head and handed the clipboard to Tweed for him to sign. Harris grunted his thanks to Mr. Wemmick, signed the top copy, had the docket stamped and returned to him before he gathered up his possessions, nodded respectfully at Miss Havisham, ignored me and then murmured, “. . . long, dark, wood-paneled corridor lined with bookshelves . . .” before vanishing.

  “Good day, Miss Havisham!” said Mr. Wemmick politely as soon as we stepped up. “And how are we this day?”

  “In health, I think, Mr. Wemmick. Is Mr. Jaggers quite well?”

  “Quite well to my way of thinking, I should say, Miss Havisham, quite well.”

  “This is Miss Next, Mr. Wemmick. She has joined us recently.”

  “Delighted!” remarked Mr. Wemmick, who looked every bit the way he was described in Great Expectations. That is to say, he was short, had a slightly pockmarked face, and had been that way for about forty years.

  “Where are you two bound?”

  “Home!” said Miss Havisham, laying the docket on the counter.

  Mr. Wemmick picked up the piece of paper and looked at it for a moment before disappearing into the storeroom and rummaging noisily.

  “The stores are indispensable for our purposes, Thursday. Wemmick quite literally writes his own inventory. It all has to be signed for and returned, of course, but there is very little that he doesn’t have. Isn’t that so, Mr. Wemmick?”

  “Exactly so!” came a voice from behind a large pile of Turkish costumes and a realistic rubber bison.

  “By the way, can you swim?” asked Miss Havisham.

  “Yes.”

  Mr. Wemmick returned with a small pile of items.

  “Life vests—life preserving, for the purpose of—two. Rope— in case of trouble—one. Life belt—to assist Magwitch buoyancy— one. Cash—for incidental expenses—ten shillings and fourpence. Cloak—for disguising said agents Next and Havisham, heavy-duty, black—two. Packed supper—two. Sign here.”