Lost in a Good Book

  THURSDAY NEXT – Crimean Reminiscences

  'Honey, I'm home!' I yelled out. There was a scrabbling noise from the kitchen as Pickwick's feet struggled to get a purchase on the tiles in his eagerness to greet me. I had engineered him myself when you could still buy home cloning kits over the counter. He was an early-version 1.2, which explained his lack of wings – they didn't complete the sequence for two more years. He made excited plock-plock noises and bobbed his head in greeting, rummaged in the wastebasket for a gift and eventually brought me a discarded junk-mail flyer for Lorna Doone merchandising. I tickled him under the chin and he ran to the kitchen, stopped, looked at me and bobbed his head some more.

  'Hell-ooo!' yelled Landen from his study. 'Do you like surprises?'

  'When they're nice ones!' I yelled back.

  Pickwick returned to my side, plock-plocked some more and tugged the leg of my jeans. He scuttled off into the kitchen again and waited for me at his basket. Intrigued, I followed. I could see the reason for his excitement. In the middle of the basket, amongst a large heap of shredded paper, was an egg.

  'Pickwick!' I cried excitedly. 'You're a girl!'

  Pickwick bobbed some more and nuzzled me affectionately. After a while she stopped and delicately stepped into her basket, ruffled her feathers, tapped the egg with her beak and then walked round it several times before gently placing herself over it. A hand rested on my shoulder. I touched Landen's fingers and stood up. He kissed me on the neck and I wrapped my arms round his chest.

  'I thought Pickwick was a boy,' he said.

  'So did I.'

  'Is it a sign?'

  'Pickers laying an egg and turning out to be a girl?' I replied. 'What do you mean – you're going to have a baby, Land?'

  'No, silly, you know what I mean.'

  'I do?' I asked, looking up at him with carefully engineered innocence.

  'Well?'

  'Well what?' I stared into his bright, concerned face with what I thought was a blank expression. But I couldn't hold it for long and was soon a bundle of girlish giggles and salty tears. He hugged me tightly and placed his hand gently on my tum.

  'In there? A baby?'

  'Yes. Small pink thing that makes a noise. Seven weeks. Probably appear Julyish.'

  'How are you feeling?'

  'All right,' I told him. 'I felt a bit sick yesterday but that might have had nothing to do with it. I'll work until I start waddling and then take leave. How are you feeling?'

  'Odd,' said Landen, hugging me again. 'Odd … yet elated.' He grinned. 'Who can I tell?'

  'No one quite yet. Probably just as well – your mum would knit herself to death!'

  'And what's wrong with my mother's knitting?' asked Landen, feigning indignation.

  'Nothing.' I giggled. 'But there is a limit to storage space.'

  'At least it's recognisable,' he said. 'That jumper your mum gave me for my birthday; what does she think I am, a squid?'

  I burried my face in his collar and held him close. He rubbed my back gently and we stood together for several minutes without talking.

  'Did you have a good day?' he asked at last.

  'Well,' I began, 'we found Cardenio, I was shot dead by an SO-14 marksman, became a vanishing hitch-hiker, saw Yorrick Kaine, suffered a few too many coincidences and knocked a Neanderthal unconscious.'

  'No puncture this time?'

  'Two, actually – at the same time.'

  'What was Kaine like?'

  'I don't really know. He arrived at Volescamper's as we were leaving – aren't you even curious about the marksman?'

  'Yorrick Kaine is giving a talk tonight about the economical realities of a Welsh free-trade agreement—'

  'Landen,' I said, 'it's my uncle's party tonight. I promised Mum we'd be there.'

  'Yeah, I know.'

  'Are you going to ask me about the incident with SO-14 now?'

  Landen sighed. 'All right. What was it like?'

  'Don't ask.'

  My Uncle Mycroft had announced his retirement. At the age of seventy-seven, and following the events of the Prose Portal and Polly's imprisonment in 'I wandered lonely as a cloud', they had both decided that enough was enough. The Goliath Corporation had been offering Mycroft not one but two blank cheques for him to resume work on a new Prose Portal, but Mycroft had steadfastly refused, maintaining that the Portal could not be replicated even if he had wanted it to be. We took my car up to Mum's house and parked a little way up the road.

  'I never thought of Mycroft retiring,' I said as we walked down the street.

  'Me neither,' Landen agreed. 'What do you suppose he'll do?'

  'Watch Name That Fruit! most likely. He says that soaps and quiz shows are the ideal way to fade out.'

  'He's not far wrong,' added Landen. 'After a few years of 65 Walrus Street, death might become something of a welcome distraction.'

  We heaved open the garden gate and greeted the dodos, who all had a bright pink ribbon tied round their necks for the occasion. I offered them a few marshmallows and they pecked and plocked greedily at the proffered gifts.

  'Hello, Thursday!' said the prematurely grey-haired man who answered the door.

  'Hello, Wilbur,' I said. 'How are you doing?'

  Wilbur and Orville were Mycroft and Polly's only sons and were remarkable for … well, you'll see.

  'I'm very well,' replied Wilbur, smiling benignly. 'Hello, Landen – I read your latest book. It was a big improvement on the last one, I must say.'

  'You're very kind,' replied Landen drily.

  'I was promoted, you know.'

  He paused to allow us to murmur a congratulatory sound before continuing:

  'Consolidated Useful Stuff always promote those within the company who show particular promise, and after ten years in pension fund management ConStuff felt I was ready to branch into something new and dynamic. I'm now Services Director at a subsidiary of theirs named MycroTech Developments.'

  'But my goodness, what a coincidence!' said Landen. 'Isn't that Mycroft's company?'

  'Coincidental,' replied Wilbur stoically, 'as you say. Mr Perkup – the CEO of MycroTech – told me it was solely due to my diligence; I—'

  'Thursday, darling!' interrupted Gloria, Wilbur's wife. Formerly a Volescamper, she had married Wilbur under the misapprehension that a) he would be coming into a fortune and b) he was as intelligent as his father. She had been wrong – in a spectacular fashion – on both counts.

  'Darling, you are looking simply divine – have you lost weight?'

  'I have no idea, Gloria, but … you're looking different.'

  And she was. Habitually dressed up to the nines in expensive clothes, hats, make-up and lashings of what-have-you, tonight she was attired in chinos and a shirt. She was wearing hardly any make-up and her hair, usually perfectly coiffured, was tied up in a ponytail with a black scrunchie.

  'What do you think?' she asked, doing a twirl for us both.

  'What happened to the five-hundred-pound dresses?' asked Landen. 'Bailiffs been in?'

  'No, this is all the rage – and you should know, Thursday. The Female is promoting the Thursday Next look. This is very much "in" at present.'

  'Ridiculous,' I told her 'If Bonzo the Wonder Hound had rescued Jane Eyre, would you all be wearing a studded collar and smelling each other's bottoms?'

  'There is no need to be offensive,' replied Gloria haughtily as she looked me up and down. 'You should be honoured. Mind you, the December issue of The Female thinks that a brown leather flyer's jacket is more in keeping with "the look". Your black leather is a little bit passe, I'm afraid. And those shoes – hell's teeth!'

  'Wait a moment!' I returned. 'How can you tell me that I don't have the Thursday Next look? I am Thursday Next!'

  'Fashions evolve, Thursday – I've heard that next month's fashions will be marine invertebrates. You should enjoy it while you can.'

  'Marine invertebrates?' echoed Landen. 'What happened to that squid-like jumper of your mum
's? We could be sitting on a fortune!'

  'Can neither of you be serious?' asked Gloria disdainfully. 'If you're not in you're out, and where would you be then?'

  'Out, I guess,' I replied. 'Land, what do you think?'

  'Totally out, Thurs.'

  We stared at her, half smiling, and she laughed. Gloria was a good sort once you broke down the barriers. Wilbur, seizing the chance to tell us more about his fascinating new job, carried on as soon as his wife stopped talking.

  'I'm now on twenty K plus car and a good pension package. I could take voluntary retirement at fifty-five and still draw two-thirds of my wage. What is the SpecOps retirement fund like?'

  'Crap, Wilbur – but you know that.'

  A slightly smaller and more follicularly challenged version of Wilbur walked up

  'Hello, Thursday.'

  'Hello, Orville. How's the ear?'

  'Just the same. What was that you were saying about retiring at fifty-five, Will?'

  In all the excitement of pension plans I was forgotten. Charlotte, who was Orville's wife, also had the 'Thursday Next' look, she and Gloria fell eagerly into untaxing conversation about whether leather shoes in 'the look' should be worn above or below the ankle, and whether a small amount of eyeliner was acceptable. As usual, Charlotte tended to agree with Gloria, in fact, she tended to agree with everybody about everything. She was as hospitable as the day was long, but it was important not to get caught in an elevator with her – she could agree you to death.

  We left them to their conversation and I walked in through the living room door, deftly catching the wrist of my elder brother Joffy, who had been hoping to give me a resounding slap on the back of my head as was his thirty-five-year-old custom. I had seen him lurking and was prepared. I twisted his arm into a half nelson and had his face pressed against the door before he knew what had happened.

  'Hello, Joff,' I said. 'Slowing up in your old age?'

  I let him go. He laughed energetically, straightened his jaw and dog-collar and hugged me tightly while proffering a hand for Landen to shake. Landen, after checking for the almost mandatory hand buzzer, shook it heartily.

  'How's Mr and Mrs Doofus, then?'

  'We're fine, Joff. You?'

  'Not that good, Thurs. The Church of the Global Standard Deity has undergone a split.'

  'No!' I said with as much surprise and concern in my voice as I could muster.

  'I'm afraid so. The new Global Standard Clockwise Deity have broken away due to unresolvable differences over the direction in which the collection plate is passed round.'

  'Another split? That's the third this week!'

  'Fourth,' replied Joffy dourly, 'and it's only Tuesday. The standardised pro-Baptist conjoined Methodanan–Luthenan sisters of something-or-other split into two subgroups yesterday. Soon,' he added grimly, 'there won't be enough ministers to man the splits. As it is I have to attend two dozen different breakaway church groups every week. I often forget which one I'm at, and as you can imagine, preaching to the Idolatry Friends of St Zvlkx the Consumer the sermon that I should have been reading to the Church of the Misrepresented Promise of Eternal Life can be highly embarrassing. Mum's in the kitchen. Do you think Dad will turn up?'

  I didn't know and told him so. He looked crestfallen for a moment and then said:

  'Will you come and do a professional mingle at my Les arts modernes de Swindon show next week?'

  'Why me?'

  'Because you're vaguely famous and you're my sister. Yes?'

  'Okay.'

  He tugged my ear affectionately and we walked into the kitchen.

  'Hello, Mum!'

  My mother was bustling around some chicken vol-au-vents. By some bizarre twist of fate they had turned out not at all burned and actually quite tasty – it had thrown her into a bit of a panic. Most of her cooking ended up as the culinary equivalent of the Tunguska event.

  'Hello, Thursday, hello, Landen. Can you pass me that bowl, please?'

  Landen passed it over, trying to guess the contents.

  'Hello, Mrs Next,' he said.

  'Call me Wednesday, Landen – you're family now, you know.' She smiled and giggled to herself.

  'Dad said to say hello,' I put in quickly before Mum cooed herself into a frenzy. 'I saw him today.'

  My mother stopped her random method of cooking and recalled for a moment, I imagine, fond embraces with her eradicated husband. It must have been quite a shock, waking up one morning and finding your husband never existed. Then, quite out of the blue, she yelled:

  'DH-82, down!'

  Her anger was directed at a small Tasmainan tiger that had been nosing the remains of some chicken on the table edge.

  'Bad boy!' she added in a scolding tone. The Tasmainan tiger looked crestfallen, sat on its blanket by the Aga and stared down at its paws.

  'Rescue Thylacine,' explained my mother. 'Used to be a lab animal. He smoked forty a day until his escape. It's costing me a fortune in nicotine patches. Isn't it, DH-82?'

  The small re-engineered native of Tasmania looked up and shook his head. Despite being vaguely dog-shaped this species was more closely related to a kangaroo than to a Labrador. You always expected one to wag its tail, bark or fetch a stick, but they never did. The closest behavioural similarities were a propensity to steal food and an almost fanatical devotion to tail-chasing.

  'I miss your dad a lot, you know,' said my mother wistfully. 'How—'

  There was a loud explosion, the lights flickered and something shot past the kitchen window.

  'What was that?' said my mother.

  'I think,' replied Landen soberly, 'it was Aunt Polly.'

  We found her in the vegetable patch dressed in a deflating rubber suit that was meant to break her fall but obviously hadn't – she was holding a handkerchief to a bloodied nose.

  'My goodness!' exclaimed my mother. 'Are you okay?'

  'Never been better!' she replied, looking at a stake in the ground and then yelling. 'Seventy-five yards!'

  'Righty-on!' said a distant voice from the other end of the garden. We turned to see my Uncle Mycroft, who was consulting a clipboard next to a smoking Volkswagen convertible.

  'Car seat ejection devices in case of road accidents,' explained Polly, 'with a self-inflating rubber suit to cushion the fall. Pull on a toggle and bang – out you go. Prototype, of course.'

  'Of course.'

  We helped her to her feet and she trotted off, seemingly none the worse for her expenence.

  'Mycroft still inventing, then?' I said as we walked back inside to discover that DH-82 had eaten all the vol-au-vents, the main course and the trifle for pudding.

  'DH!' Mum said crossly to the guilty-looking and very bloated Tas tiger, 'that was very bad! What am I going to feed everybody on now?'

  'How about Thylacine cutlets?' suggested Landen.

  I elbowed him in the ribs and Mum pretended not to hear.

  Landen rolled up his sleeves and searched through the kitchen for something to rustle up. All of the cupboards were full of tinned pears.

  'Have you anything apart from canned fruit, Mrs … I mean, Wednesday?'

  Mum stopped trying to chastise DH-82, who, soporific through gluttony, had settled down for a long nap.

  'No,' she admitted. 'The man in the shop said there would be a shortage so I bought his entire stock.'

  I walked down to Mycroft's laboratory, knocked and, when there was no reply, entered. All his machines had been dismantled and now lay about the room, tagged and carefully stacked. Mycroft himself, having obviously finished testing the ejection system, was now tweaking a small bronze object. He seemed somewhat startled when I spoke his name but relaxed as soon as he saw it was me.

  'Hello, love!' he said kindly. 'I'm off on retirement in one hour and nine minutes. You looked good on the telly last night.'

  'Thank you. What are you up to, Uncle?'

  He handed me a large book.

  'Enhanced indexing. In a Nextian dictionary, g
odliness can be next to cleanliness – or anything else for that matter.'

  I opened the book to look up 'trout' and found it on the first page I came to.

  'Saves time, eh?'

  'Yes; but—'

  Mycroft had moved on.

  'Over here is a Lego filter for vacuum cleaners. Did you know that over a million pounds' worth of Lego is hoovered up every year, and a total often thousand man-hours are wasted sorting through the dust bags?'

  'I didn't know that, no.'

  'This device will sort any sucked-up bits of Lego into colours or shapes, according to how you set this knob here.'

  'Very impressive.'

  'This is just hobby stuff. Come and look at some real innovation.'

  He beckoned me across to a blackboard, its surface covered with a jumbled mass of complicated algebraic functions.

  'This is Polly's hobby, really. It's a new form of mathematical theory that makes Euclid's work seem like little more than long division. We have called it Nextian geometry. I won't bother you with the details but watch this.'

  Mycroft rolled up his shirtsleeves and placed a large ball of dough on the workbench and rolled it out into a flat ovoid.

  'Scone dough,' he explained. 'I've left out the raisins for purposes of clarity. Using conventional geometry a round scone cutter always leaves waste behind, agreed?'

  'Agreed.'

  'Not with Nextian geometry! You see this pastry cutter? Circular, wouldn't you say?'

  'Perfectly circular, yes.'

  'Well,' carried on Mycroft in an excited voice, 'it isn't. It appears circular but actually it's a square. A Nextian square. Watch.'

  And so saying he deftly cut the dough into twelve perfectly circular shapes with no waste. I frowned and stared at the small pile of discs, not quite believing what I had just seen.

  'How—?'

  'Clever, isn't it?' He chuckled. 'But quite, quite simple, really. A baked-bean tin is circular, wouldn't you say?'

  I nodded.