The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [330]
“More or less,” I replied, placing the bag in the broom cupboard. “Is Gran around?”
“I don’t think so.”
obb walked in a little later, reading a textbook entitled Personalities for Beginners.
“Hello, Thursday,” it said. “A hedgehog and a tortoise came round to see you this afternoon.”
“What did they want?”
“They didn’t say.”
“And Gran?”
“In the Outland. She said not to wait up for her. You look very tired; are you okay?”
It was true, I was tired, but I wasn’t sure why. Stress? It’s not every day that you have to fight swarms of grammasites and deal with Havisham’s driving, Yahoos, Thraals, Big Martin’s friends or head-in-a-bag plot devices. Maybe it was just the baby playing silly buggers with my hormones.
“What’s for supper?” I asked, slumping in a chair and closing my eyes.
“I’ve been experimenting with alternative recipes,” said ibb, “so we’re having Apples Benedict.”
“Apples Benedict?”
“Yes; it’s like Eggs Benedict but with—”
“I get the picture. Anything else?”
“Of course. You could try Turnips à l’Orange or Macaroni Custard; for pudding I’ve made Anchovy Trifle and Herring Fool. What will you have?”
“Beans on toast.”
I sighed. It was like being back home at mother’s.
I didn’t dream that night. Landen was absent, but then so, too, was . . . was . . . what’s-her-name. I slept soundly and missed the alarm. I woke up feeling terrible and just lay flat on my back, breathing deeply and trying to push away the clouds of nausea. There was a rap at the door.
“ibb!” I yelled. “Can you get that?”
My head throbbed but there was no answer. I glanced at the clock; it was nearly nine and both of them would be out at St. Tabularasa’s practicing whimsical asides or something. I hauled myself out of bed, steadied myself for a moment, wrapped myself in a dressing gown and went downstairs. No one was there when I opened the door. I was just closing it when a small voice said:
“We’re down here.”
It was a hedgehog and a tortoise. But the hedgehog wasn’t like Mrs. Tiggy-winkle, who was as tall as me; this hedgehog and tortoise were just the size they should have been.
“Thursday Next?” said the hedgehog.
“Yes. What can I do for you?”
“You can stop poking your nose in where it’s not wanted,” said the hedgehog haughtily, “that’s what you can do.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Painted Jaguar?” suggested the tortoise. “Can’t curl, can swim. Ring any bells, smart aleck?”
“Oh! You must be Stickly-Prickly and Slow-Solid.”
“The same. And that little mnemonic you so kindly gave to the Painted Jaguar is going to cause us a few problems—the dopey feline will never forget that in a month of Sundays.”
I sighed. Living in the BookWorld was a great deal more complicated than I had imagined.
“Well, why don’t you learn to swim or something?”
“Who, me?” said Stickly-Prickly. “Don’t be absurd; whoever heard of a hedgehog swimming?”
“And you could learn to curl,” I added to Slow-Solid.
“Curl?” replied the tortoise indignantly. “I don’t think so, thank you very much.”
“Give it a go,” I persisted. “Unlace your backplates a little and try and touch your toes.”
There was a pause. The hedgehog and the tortoise looked at one another and giggled.
“Won’t Painted Jaguar be surprised!” they chortled, thanked me and left.
I closed the door, sat down and looked in the fridge, shrugged and ate a large portion of Apples Benedict before having a long and relaxing shower.
The corridors of the Well were as busy as the day before. Traders bustled with buyers, deals were done, orders taken, bargains struck. Every now and then I saw characters fading in and out as their trade took them from book to book. I looked at the shop-fronts as I walked past, trying to guess how they did what they did. There were holesmiths, grammatacists, pacesetters, mood-mongers, paginators—you name it.1
It was the junkfootnoterphones starting up again. I tried to shut it out but only succeeded in lowering the volume. As I walked along, I noticed a familiar figure amongst the traders and plot speculators. He was dressed in his usual African-explorer