One of Our Thursdays Is Missing - Jasper Fforde [46]
I stopped at the front door to Norland Park and gave my name to the footman, who looked as much like a frog as you can without actually being one. He gazed at me for a long time and opened his eyes so wide I thought for a moment they might fall out, and I readied myself with a pocket handkerchief in case they did. But they didn’t fall out, and after another minute’s thought he relaxed and said, “You do look like her, don’t you?”
I thought of telling him that he looked very much like a frog but thought better of it.
“You’re the first person not to confuse me with her for a while,” I remarked. “How did you know?”
“The real Thursday always ignored me,” he replied, “walked past without a word. But never in a bad way—she always did it respectful like.”
“Do you get ignored a lot?”
“I do, and not just by ordinary citizens. I’ve been ignored by some of the greats, you know.” He then proceeded to list twenty or so major characters who hadn’t acknowledged his existence on a regular basis. He had a particular fondness for David Copperfield, whom he had escorted almost three hundred times “without a glance in my direction.”
“That must be quite upsetting.”
“I’m a footman,” he explained. “We’re trained to be not-there-but-there. Being ignored is the yardstick of a footman’s professional abilities. My father was sixty-seven years in the employ of the first Lord Spongg and wasn’t acknowledged once. He went to his grave a fulfilled man. If you want to be ignored by the movers and shakers of the BookWorld,” concluded the frog-footman proudly, “this is the place to do it.”
“You’ve very fortunate,” I said, humoring him. “Some people don’t get to be ignored at all.”
“Don’t I know it,” he replied, licking the end of his pencil and consulting his clipboard. “Now, reason for visit?”
“I’m to see Mr. Lockheed at Accident Investigation.”
“Correct. This way.”
The entrance hall was large and empty except for a round mahogany table in the middle, upon which stood a vase of flowers. The way to Herring’s office took us past the ballroom, from which Jurisfiction’s agents were given their instructions and posted to all corners of the BookWorld to face adversaries so dangerous that it was truly astonishing that anyone ever survived. I had been in there a few times when I’d been a trainee of the real Thursday, but I hadn’t visited since I failed my training day. I slowed my pace as we passed, for the door was open and I could see Jurisfiction’s elite talking and laughing. I recognized Emperor Zhark and a large hedgepig that could only be Mrs. Tiggy-winkle. The Red Queen was there, too, and several others.
The frog-footman coughed his disapproval, and we made to move on. But at that moment a short man in late middle age and dressed as a big-game hunter stepped out of the open door. He was wearing a pith helmet and a safari suit, and across his body was slung a Sam Brown belt and holster, with the outfit finished off by a pair of brown leather riding boots. Since Thursday’s disappearance, he was probably the third-most-important person in the BookWorld after Senator Jobsworth and Red Herring. His name was Commander Bradshaw, and his expert guidance at Jurisfiction had kept the agency at the top of its game for almost as long as anyone could remember—his exploits ensured that he was hardly ever off the front page of The Word, and his much-updated BookWorld Companion was the definitive work on the BookWorld, both before and after the remaking.
He was deep in conversation with a youngish agent. I felt out of place, so I looked straight ahead and quickened my pace. But he noticed me and without pausing