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By Root 827 0

flew the Hovermatic home from Gray’s Anatomy two hours later, but Sprockett and I said nothing on the trip. I was quiet because I was thinking about Thursday, and what a close call it had been. She had a fractured skull, a broken femur and eight breaks to her left arm and hand. There were multiple lacerations, a loss of blood, fever and a concussion. Henry Gray himself took charge and whisked her into surgery almost the moment I arrived. Within ten minutes the waiting room was full of concerned well-wishers, Bradshaw and Zhark amongst them. I knew she was in good hands, so I’d quietly slipped away as soon as I heard she was out of danger.

I was quiet also because I had averted a war and saved many lives today, and that’s a peculiar feeling that’s difficult to describe. Sprockett was quiet, too—but only because I had inadvertently allowed his spring to run down, and he had shut off all functions except thought, and he was thinking mildly erotic thoughts about bevel gears and how nice it might be to have a flywheel fitted in order to give him a little more oomph in the mornings.

The first thing I saw when I got back to my house was Bowden, dressed up as me.

“This isn’t how it appears,” he said in the same tone of voice he’d used when I found him looking through my underwear drawer the year before. He told me then that he’d “heard a mouse,” but I didn’t believe him.

“How should it appear if you’re dressed up in my clothes?”

“Carmine’s goblin ran off with a goblinette, and she locked herself in the bathroom again. I’m standing in for her. You. I’ve just done a scene with myself. It was most odd.”

“How many readers we got?” I asked.

“Six.”

“You can handle it.”

“Oh!” said Bowden, in the manner of one who is pretending to be disappointed but is actually delighted. “If I must. But who will play me?”

“I will,” came a voice from the door. I turned to find Whitby Jett standing there.

“Whitby?”

“How’s my little Thursday?”

“She’s good. But . . . what about the nuns?”

“A misunderstanding,” he said. “I hadn’t set fire to any of them, as it turned out.”

I stepped forward and touched his chest. I could feel that the guilt had lifted. He’d managed to move the damaging backstory on.

“I’m going to mix some cocktails,” announced Sprockett, and he buzzed from the room.

“Make mine a Sidcup Sling, Sprocky old boy,” said Jett. “Bowden—where are my lines?”

“Here!” said Bowden, passing him a well-thumbed script.

“Whitby?”

“Yes, muffin?”

“Are you busy right now?”

“Only selling useless rubbish for EZ-Read. Why?”

“Nothing.” I smiled, but there was something. Whitby could play Landen beautifully.

He and Bowden both went off to play a scene in the SpecOps Building, leaving me to sit at the kitchen table trying to figure out if I could have found Thursday earlier. If I’d had more experience, probably.

Pickwick stuck her head around the door and looked relieved when she saw me.

“Thank goodness!” she said. “I can’t tell you what a disaster it’s been. They threatened to tape my beak shut if I didn’t join them. Your father was the ringleader—along with Carmine, of course. She’ll come to a sticky end, I can tell you.”

“She’ll be fine,” I said, feeling magnanimous. Carmine had problems, but so did we all. “Make the tea, will you?”

“Isn’t that why we have a butler?”

I stared at her and raised an eyebrow.

“So . . . milk and one sugar, right?”

And she waddled into the kitchen to try to figure out which object was the kettle.

“May I come in?”

It was the character who played my father. He was quite unlike his usual abrasive self and seemed almost painfully eager to be friendly.

“Hello, Thursday,” he said. “Is . . . that chair comfortable?”

“Don’t sweat it,” I said, almost embarrassed to see him like this. “I’m going to make some radical changes to your character. It’s very simple: Do the new scenes or you can have a transfer. Take it or leave it.”

He thought about it for a moment, mumbled something about how he would “look forward to seeing his new lines” and made some excuse before departing.

Pickwick came back in. “The tea is