The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [321]
“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