Thursday Next

  1950–1986

  SpecOps agent & beloved wife

  to someone who doesn’t exist

  Died for no adequately explained reason

  in an abstract place by an abstract foe.

  I raised my gun and the grammasites shuffled slightly, as though deciding amongst themselves who would be sacrificed for them to overpower me. I pointed the gun at whichever one started to move, hoping to postpone the inevitable. The one who seemed to be the leader—he had the brightest-colored waistcoat, I noted—took a step forward and I pointed my gun at him as another grammasite seized the opportunity and made a sudden leap towards me, its sharpened beak heading straight for my chest. I whirled around in time to see its small black eyes twinkle with a thousand well-digested verbs when a hand on my shoulder pulled me roughly backwards into the elevator. The grammasite, carried on by its own momentum, buried its beak into the wood surround. I reached to thump the close button, but my wrist was deftly caught by my as yet unseen savior.

  “We never run from grammasites.”

  It was a scolding tone of voice that I knew only too well. Miss Havisham. Dressed in her rotting wedding dress and veil, she stared at me with despair. I think I was one of the worst apprentices she had ever trained—or that was the way she made me feel, at any rate.

  “We have nothing to fear except fear itself,” she intoned, whipping out her pocket derringer and dispatching two grammasites who made a rush at the elevator’s open door. “I seem to spend my waking hours extricating you from the soup, my girl!”

  The grammasites were slowly advancing on us; they were now at least three hundred strong and others were joining them. We were heavily outnumbered.

  “I’m sorry,” I replied quickly, curtsying just in case as I loosed off another shot, “but don’t you think we should be departing?”

  “I fear only the Questing Beast,” announced Havisham imperiously. “The Questing Beast, Big Martin . . . and semolina.”

  She shot another grammasite with a particularly fruity waistcoat and carried on talking. “If you had troubled to do some homework, you would know that these are Verbisoids and probably the easiest grammasite to vanquish of them all.”

  And almost without pausing for breath, Miss Havisham launched into a croaky and out-of-tune rendition of William Blake’s “Jerusalem.” The grammasites stopped abruptly and stared at one another. By the time I had joined her at the “holy Lamb of God” line, they had begun to back away in fright. We sang louder, Miss Havisham and I, and by “dark Satanic mills” they had started to take flight; by the time we had got to “Bring me my chariot of fire,” they had departed completely.

  “Quick!” said Miss Havisham. “Grab the waistcoats—there’s a bounty on each one.”

  We stripped the waistcoats from the fallen grammasites; it was not a pleasant job—the corpses smelt so strongly of ink that it made me cough. The carcasses would be taken away by a verminator, who would boil down the bodies and distill off any verbs he could. In the Well, nothing is wasted.

  “What were the smaller ones?”

  “I forget,” replied Havisham, gathering up the waistcoats. “Here, you’re going to need this. Study it well if you want to pass your exams.”

  She handed me my TravelBook, the one that Goliath had taken. Within its pages were almost all the tips and equipment I needed for travel within the BookWorld.

  “How did you manage that?”

  Miss Havisham didn’t answer. She was a bit like a strict parent, your worst teacher and a newly appointed South American dictator all rolled into one—which wasn’t to say I didn’t like her or respect her. It was just that I felt I was still nine whenever she spoke to me.

  “Why do grammasites wear stripy socks?” I ventured, tying up the waistcoats with some string that Havisham had given me.

  “Probably because spotted ones are out of fashion,” she replied with a shrug, reloading her pistol. “What’s in the bag?”

  “Oh, some, er, shopping of Snell’s.”

  I tried to change the subject. I didn’t suppose carrying around unlicensed plot devices was something Havisham would approve of—even if they were Snell’s.

  “So why did we, um, sing ‘Jerusalem’ to get rid of them?”

  “As I said, those grammasites were Verbisoids,” she replied without looking up, “and a Verbisoid, in common with many language students, hates and fears irregular verbs—they far prefer consuming regular verbs with the ed word ending. Strong irregulars such as to sing with their internal vowel changes—we will sing—we sang—we have sung—tend to scramble their tiny minds.”

  “Any irregular verb frightens them off?” I asked with interest.

  “Pretty much; but some irregulars are more easy to demonstrate than others—we could cut, I suppose, or even be, but then the proceedings change into something akin to a desperate game of charades—far easier to just sing and have done with it.”

  “What about if we were to go?” I ventured, thinking practically for once. “There can’t be anything more irregular than go, went, gone, can there?”

  “Because,” replied Miss Havisham, her patience eroding by the second, “they might misconstrue it as walked—note the ed ending?”

  “Not if we ran,” I added, not wanting to let this go. “That’s irregular, too.”

  Miss Havisham stared at me icily. “Of course we could. But ran might be seen in the eyes of a hungry Verbisoid to be either trotted, galloped, raced, rushed, hurried, hastened, sprinted and even departed.”

  “Ah,” I said, realizing that trying to catch Miss Havisham out was about as likely as nailing Banquo’s ghost to a coffee table, “yes, it might, mightn’t it?”

  “Look,” said Miss Havisham, softening slightly, “if running away killed grammasites, there wouldn’t be a single one left. Stick to ‘Jerusalem’ and you won’t go far wrong—just don’t try it with adjectivores or the parataxis; they’d probably join in—and then eat you.”

  She snorted, picked up the bundle of waistcoats and pulled me towards the elevator, which had just reopened. It was clear that the twenty-second subbasement wasn’t a place she liked to be. I couldn’t say I blamed her.

  She relaxed visibly as we rose from the subbasements and into the more ordered nature of the library itself. We weren’t alone in the elevator. With us was a large Painted Jaguar and her son, who had a paddy-paw full of prickles and was complaining bitterly that he had been tricked by a hedgehog and a tortoise, who had both escaped. The Mother Jaguar shook her head sadly and looked at us both with an exasperated air before addressing her son:

  “Son, son,” she said, ever so many times, graciously waving her tail, “what have you been doing that you shouldn’t have?”

  “So,” said Miss Havisham as the elevator moved off, “how are you getting along in that frightful Caversham Heights book?”

  “Well, thank you, Miss Havisham,” I muttered, “the characters in it are worried that their book will be demolished from under their feet.”

  “With good reason I expect. Hundreds of books like Heights are demolished every day. If you stopped to waste any sympathy, you’d go nuts—so don’t. It’s man eat man in the Well. I’d keep yourself to yourself and don’t make too many friends—they have a habit of dying just when you get to like them. It always happens that way. It’s a narrative thing.”

  “Heights isn’t a bad place to live,” I ventured, hoping to elicit a bit of compassion.

  “Doubtless,” she murmured, staring at the floor indicator. “I remember when I was in the Well, when they were building Great Expectations. I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world when they told me I would be working with Charles Dickens. Top of my class at Generic College and, without seeming immodest, something of a beauty. I thought I would make an admirable young Estella—both refined and beautiful, haughty and proud, yet ultimately overcoming the overbearing crabbiness of her cantankerous benefactor to find true love.”

  “So . . . what happened?”

  “I wasn’t tall enough.”

  “Tall enough? For a book? Isn’t that like having the wrong hair color for the wireless?”

  “They gave the part to a little strumpet who was on salvage from a demolished Thackeray. Little cow. It’s no wonder I treat her so rotten—the part should have been mine!”

  She fell into silence.

  “Let me get this straight,” said the Painted Jaguar, who was having a bit of trouble telling the difference between a hedgehog and a tortoise. “If it’s slow and solid, I drop him in the water and then scoop him out of his shell—”

  “Son, son!” said his mother, ever so many times, graciously waving her tail. “Now attend to me and remember what I say. A hedgehog curls himself up into a ball and his prickles stick out every way—”

  “Did you get the Jurisfiction exam papers I sent you?” asked Miss Havisham. “I’ve got your practical booked for the day after tomorrow.”

  “Oh!” I said with quite the wrong tone in my voice.

  “Problems?” she asked, eyeing me suspiciously.

  “No, ma’am—I just feel a bit unprepared—I think I might make a pig’s ear of it.”

  “I disagree. I know you’ll make a pig’s ear of it. But wheels within wheels—all I ask is you don’t make a fool of yourself or lose your life. Now that would be awkward.”

  “So,” said the Painted Jaguar, rubbing his head, “if it can roll itself into a ball it must be a tortoise and—”

  “Ahhh!” cried the Mother Jaguar, lashing her tail angrily. “ Completely wrong. Miss Havisham, what am I to do with this boy?”

  “I have no idea,” she replied. “All men are dolts, from where I’m standing.”

  The Painted Jaguar looked crestfallen and stared at the floor.

  “Can I make a suggestion?” I asked.

  “Anything!” replied the Mother Jaguar.

  “If you make a rhyme out of it, he might be able to remember.”

  The Mother Jaguar sighed. “It won’t help. Yesterday he forgot he was a Painted Jaguar. He makes my spots ache, really he does.”

  “How about this?” I said, making up a rhyme on the spot:

  Can’t curl, but can swim—

  Slow-Solid, that’s him!

  Curls up, but can’t swim—

  Stickly-Prickly, that’s him!

  The Mother Jaguar stopped lashing her tail and asked me to write it down. She was still trying to get her son to remember it when the elevator doors opened on the fifth floor and we got out.

  “I thought we were going to the Jurisfiction offices,” I said as we walked along the corridors of the Great Library, the wooden shelves groaning under the weight of the collected imaginative outpourings of nearly two millennia.

  “The next roll call is tomorrow,” Miss Havisham replied, stopping at a shelf and dropping the grammasite’s waistcoats into a heap before picking out a roughly bound manuscript, “and I told Perkins you’d help him feed the Minotaur.”

  “You did?” I asked slightly apprehensively.

  “Of course. Fictionalzoology is a fascinating subject and believe me, it’s an area in which you should know more.”

  She handed me the book, which, I noticed, was handwritten.

  “It’s code-word protected,” announced Havisham. “Mumble sapphire before you read yourself in.” She gathered up the waistcoats again. “I’ll pick you up in about an hour. Perkins will be waiting for you on the other side. Please pay attention and don’t let him talk you into looking after any rabbits. Don’t forget the password—you’ll not get in or out without it.”

  “Sapphire,” I repeated.

  “Very good,” she said, and vanished.

  I placed the book on one of the reading desks and sat down. The marble busts of writers that dotted the library seemed to glare at me, and I was just about to start reading when I noticed, high up on the shelf opposite, an ethereal form that was coalescing, wraithlike, in front of my eyes. At home this might be considered a matter of great pith and moment, but here it was merely the Cheshire Cat making one of his celebrated appearances.

  “Hullo!” he said as soon as his mouth had appeared. “How are you getting along?”

  The Cheshire Cat was the librarian and the first person I had met in the BookWorld. With a penchant for non sequiturs and obtuse comments, it was hard not to like him.

  “I’m not sure,” I replied. “I was attacked by grammasites, threatened by Big Martin’s friends and a Thraal. I’ve got two Generics billeted with me, the characters in Caversham Heights think I can save their book and right now I have to give the Minotaur his breakfast.”

  “Nothing remarkable there. Anything else?”

  “How long have you got?”1

  I tapped my ears.

  “Problems?”

  “I can hear two Russians gossiping, right here inside my head.”

  “Probably a crossed footnoterphone line,” replied the Cat.

  He jumped down, pressed his head against mine and listened intently.

  “Can you hear them?” I asked after a bit.

  “Not at all,” replied the Cat, “but you do have very warm ears. Do you like Chinese food?”

  “Yes, please.” I hadn’t eaten for a while.

  “Me, too,” mused the Cat. “Shame there isn’t any. What’s in the bag?”

  “Something of Snell’s.”

  “Ah. What do you think of this Ultra Word™ lark?”

  “I’m really not sure,” I replied, truthfully enough. “How about you?”

  “How about me what?”

  “What do you think of the new operating system?”

  “When it comes in, I shall give it my fullest attention,” he said ambiguously, adding, “It’s a laugh, isn’t it?”

  “What is?”

  “That noise you make at the back of your throat when you hear something funny. Let me know if you need anything. Bye.”

  And he slowly faded out, from the tip of his tail to the tip of his nose. His grin, as usual, stayed for some time after the rest of him had gone.

  I turned back to the book, murmured, “Sapphire,” and read the first paragraph aloud.

  7.

  Feeding the Minotaur

  Name and Operator’s Number: Perkins, David “Pinky.” AGD136-323

  Address: c/o Perkins & Snell Detective Series

  Induction Date: September 1957

  Notes: Perkins joined the service and has shown exemplary conduct throughout his service career. After signing up for a twenty-year tour of duty, he extended that to another tour in 1977. After five years heading the mispeling Protection Squad, he was transferred to grammasite inspection and eradication and in 1981 took over leadership of the grammasite research facility.

  ENTRY FROM JURISFICTION SERVICE RECORD

  (ABRIDGED)

  I FOUND MYSELF IN a large meadow next to a babbling brook. Willows and larches hung over the crystal clear waters while mature oaks punctuated the land. It was warm and dry and quite delightful—like a perfect summer’s day in England, in fact, and I suddenly felt quite homesick.

  “I used to look at the view a lot,” said a voice close at hand. “Don’t seem to have the time, these days.”

  I turned to see a tall and laconic man leaning against a silver birch, holding a copy of the Jurisfiction trade paper, Movable Type. I recognized him although we had never been introduced. It was Perkins, who partnered Snell at Jurisfiction, much as they did in the Perkins & Snell series of detective novels.

  “Hello,” he said, proffering a hand and smiling broadly, “put it there. Perkins is the name. Akrid tells me you sorted Hopkins out good and proper.”

  “Thank you. Akrid’s very kind, but it isn’t over yet.”

  He cast an arm towards the horizon. “What do you think?”

  I looked at the view. High, snowcapped mountains rose in the distance above a green and verdant plain. At the foot of the hills were forests, and a large river wended its way through the valley.

  “Beautiful.”

  “We bought it from the fantasy division of the Well of Lost Plots. It’s a complete world in itself, written for a sword-and-sorcery novel entitled The Sword of the Zenobians. Beyond the mountains are icy wastes, deep fjords and relics of long-forgotten civilizations, castles, that sort of stuff. It was auctioned off when the book was abandoned. There were no characters or events written in, which was a shame—considering the work he did on the world itself, this might have been a bestseller. Still, the Outland’s loss is our gain. We use it to keep grammasites and other weird beasts who for one reason or another can’t live safely within their own books.”

  “Sanctuary?”

  “Yes—and also for study and containment—hence the password.”

  “There seem to be an awful lot of rabbits,” I observed, looking around.

  “Ah, yes,” replied Perkins, crossing a stone-arched bridge that spanned the small stream, “we never did get the lid on reproduction within Watership Down—if left to their own devices, the book would be so full of dandelion-munching lagomorphs that every other word would be rabbit within a year. Still, Lennie enjoys it here when he has some time off.”

  We walked up a path towards a ruined castle. Grass covered the mounds of masonry that had collapsed from the curtain wall, and the wood of the drawbridge had rotted and fallen into a moat now dry and full of brambles. Above us, what appeared to be ravens circled the highest of the remaining towers.

  “Not birds,” said Perkins, handing me a pair of binoculars. “Have a look.”

  I peered up at the circling creatures who were soaring on large wings of stretched skin. “Parenthiums?”

  “Very good. I have six breeding pairs here—purely for research, I hasten to add. Most books can easily support forty or so with no ill effects—it’s just when the numbers get out of hand that we have to take action. A swarm of grammasites can be pretty devastating.”

  “I know, I was almost—”

  “Watch out!”

  He pushed me aside as a lump of excrement splattered on the ground near where I had been standing. I looked up at the battlements and saw a man-beast covered in coarse, dark hair who glared down at us and made a strangled cry in the back of his throat.